05-A Gift From Earth (15 page)

Matt heard a pop like a balloon exploding, and he ran.

He rounded a door jamb as he heard the second pop. A man stood behind a polished table dialing a handphone. He was beginning to fall as Matt saw him: a brawny middle—aged crew wearing nothing but a few drops of water and an expression of ultimate terror. He was looking straight at Laney. One hand pawed at a blood spot on his ribs. His terror seemed to fade as he fell, but Matt remembered it. Being hunted was bad in itself, but being hunted naked must be far worse. Naked had always been synonymous with "unprotected."

"Try the upstairs," said Laney. She was reloading the gun. "We'll have to find where they changed. If you find a pair of pants, search the pockets for keys. Hurry; we can't stay here long."

He came down a few minutes later with a bunch of keys dangling from his finger. "They were in the bedroom," he said.

"Good. Throw'em away."

"Was that a funny?"

"I found these." She too had a key ring. "Think it through. Those clothes upstairs must belong to the owner of the house. If we take his car, Implementation can trace it back here. It may not matter; I can't think of any way they could trace us from here back to Parlette's. But if we take a visitors car, they can't trace us anywhere. So these are the ones we want. You can ditch yours."

They went back to the pool area for Parlette's car. Laney opened the dash and fiddled inside. "I don't dare send it back," she muttered. "Harry'll have to use the other one. Ah .... So I'll just send it ten miles up and tell it to head south forever. Okay, Matt, let's go."

They found a key to fit one of the cars on the roof. Matt flew, east and north, directly toward the Hospital.

The fog had not been abnormally thick on the ground, but at this height it was the edge of Creation. Matt flew for an hour before he saw a faint yellow blur to the left.

"The Hospital." Laney agreed. They turned.

A faint yellow blur on the left... and white lights forming and clarifying all around them.

Matt dropped the car instantly.

They came down hard on water. As the car bobbed to the surface, they dived out opposite doors. Matt came up gasping with the cold. The fans washed spray over him, and he turned his face to avoid it. Ducks quacked in panic.

The white lights were dropping toward them. Matt called, "Where are we?"

"Parlette Park, I think."

Matt stood up in the water, waist deep, holding his gun high. The car skidded across the duck pond, hesitated at the edge, and then continued on until it nudged into a hedge. The fog was turning yellowish gray as car lights dropped toward the pond.

A thought struck him. "Laney. Got your gun?"

"Yah."

"Test it."

He heard it puff. "Good," he said, and pitched his own gun away. He heard it splash.

Car lights were settling all around them. Matt swam toward the sound of Laney's shot until he bumped into her. He took her arm and whispered, "Stay close." They waded toward shore. He could feel her shivering. The water was cold, but when they stood up, the wind was colder.

"What happened to your gun?"

"I threw it away. My whole purpose in life is being scared, isn't it? Well, I can't get scared with a gun in my hand."

They stumbled onto the grass. White lights surrounded them at ground level, faintly blurred by the lifting mist. Others hovered overhead, spotlights casting a universal glow over the park. In that light men showed as running black silhouettes. A car settled on the water behind them, gently as a leaf.

"Put me through to the Head," said Major Chin. He rested at ease in the back seat of his car. The car sat a foot above the water on a small duck pond in Parlette Park, supported on its ground—effect air cushion. In such a position it was nearly invulnerable to attack.

"Sir? We've caught a stolen car .... Yes, sir, it must have been stolen; it landed the moment we flew over to investigate. Went down like a falling elevator .... It was flying straight toward the Hospital. I imagine we're about two miles southwest of you. They must have abandoned the car immediately after landing it on a duck pond .... Yes, sir, very professional. The car ran into a hedge and just stayed there, trying to butt its way through on autopilot... License number B—R—G—Y .... No, sir, nobody in it, but we've surrounded the area. They won't get through... No, sir, nobody's seen them yet. They may be in the trees. But we'll smoke them out."

A puzzled expression chased itself across his smooth round face. "Yes, sir," he said, and signed off. He thought about directing the search by beltphone, but he had no further orders to give. All around him were the lights of police cars. The search pattern was fixed. When someone found something, he'd call.

But what had the Head meant by that last remark? "Don't be surprised if you don't find anyone."

His eyes narrowed. The car a decoy, on autopilot? But what would that accomplish?

Another car flying in above him. This empty car to hold his attention while the other got through.

He used the beltphone. "Carson, you there? Lift your car out of there. Up to a thousand feet. Turn on your lights and hover and see what you can pick up on infrared. Stay there until we call off the search."

It was some time before he found out how badly he'd missed the mark.

__________

"Calling Major Chin," said Doheny, hovering one hundred feet above Parlette Park. Controlled excitement tinged his voice with the thrill of the chase.

"Sir? I've got an infrared spot just leaving the pond .... Could be two people; this fog is messing up my imagine ... Western shore. They're out now, moving toward where all the men are milling around .... You don't? They're there; I swear it... Okay, okay, but if they aren't there, then something's wrong with my infrascope — sir .... Yes, sir."

Annoyed but obedient, Doheny settled back and watched the dim red spot merge with the bigger spot that was a car motor. That tears it, he thought; that makes them police, whether they're real or not.

He saw the larger infrared source move away, leaving behind a second source smaller than a car but comfortably bigger than one man.. That jerked him alert, and he moved to the window to check. It was there, all right, and —

He lost interest and returned to the infrascope. The cloverleaf—shaped source was still there, not moving, the right color to be four unconscious men. A man—sized source separated itself from the milling mass around the abandoned car, moving toward the cloverleaf source. Seconds later there was pandemonium.

Gasping, wheezing, running for their lives, they pelted out of Parlette Park and into a wide, well—lighted village walk. Matt gripped Laney's wrist as they ran, so that she couldn't "forget about him" and wander off on her own. As they reached the walk, Laney pulled back on his arm.

"Okay. We can ... relax now."

"How far... to the Hospital?"

" 'Bout... two miles."

Ahead of them the white lights of Implementation cars faded behind a lighted dome of fog as they chased an empty car on autopilot. A yellow glow touched the fading far end of the walk — the lights of the Hospital.

The walk was a rectangular pattern of red brick, luxuriously wide, with great spreading chestnut trees planted down the middle in a pleasantly uneven row. Street lights along the sides illuminated old and individualistic houses. The chestnuts swayed and sang shrilly in the wind. The wind blew the still—thinning fog into curls and streamers; it cut steel—cold through wet clothes and wet skin to reach meat and marrow.

"We've got to get some clothes," said Matt.

"We'll meet someone. We're bound to. It's only nine."

"How could those crew stand it? Swimming!"

"The water was hot. Probably they had a sauna bath waiting somewhere. I wish we did."

"We should have taken that car."

"Your power wouldn't have hidden us. At night they couldn't see your face in a car window. They'd have seen a stolen car, and they'd have bathed it in sonics, which is just what they must be doing now."

"And why did you insist on stripping that policeman? And having got the damn suit, why did you throw it away?"

"For the Mist Demons'
sake
, Matt! Will you
trust
me?"

"Sorry. We could either of us use that coat."

"It's worth it. Now they'll be looking for one man in an Implementation uniform. Hey! In front of me, quick!"

A square of light had appeared several houses down. Matt stepped in front of her and stooped, hands on knees, so she could use his shoulder as a gun rest.

It had worked on four police in Parlette Park. It worked now. A crew couple appeared in the light. They turned and waved to their hosts, turned again and moved down the steps, hunching slightly against the wind. The closing door cut the light from them and left them as dim moving shadows. As they touched the brick, they crossed the flat trajectories of two hunting slivers.

Matt and Laney stripped them and left them propped against a garden hedge for the sun to find.

"Thank the Mist Demons," said Matt. He was still shivering inside the dry clothes.

Laney was already thinking ahead. "We'll stick with the houses as far as we can. These houses give off a lot of infrared. They'll screen us. Even if a car does spot us, he'll have to drop and question us to be sure we're not crew."

"Good. What happens when we run out of houses?"

Laney didn't answer for a long time. Matt didn't press her. Finally she said, "Matt, there's something I'd better tell you."

Again he didn't press her.

"As soon as we get through the Wall ... if we get through the wall ... I'm going to the vivarium. You don't have to come along, but I've got to go."

"Won't that be the first thing they expect?"

"Probably."

"Then we'd better not. Let's hunt down Polly first. We ought to keep the noise down as long as possible. Once your Sons of Earth come charging out, assuming we get that far, those doors will drop right away. In fact, if we — " At this point he glanced over at her and stopped.

Laney was looking straight ahead. Her face was hard and masklike. So was her voice, deliberately hard.

"That's why I'm telling you now. I'm going to the vivarium. That’s why I'm here." She seemed about to break off ; then she went on in a rush. "That's why I'm here, because the Sons of Earth are in there and I'm one of them. Not because you need me, but because they need me. I need you to get me in. Otherwise I'd be trying it alone."

"I see," said Matt. He was about to go on, but — no, he couldn't say that. He'd leave himself wide open to be slapped down, and in this, mood Laney would do it. Instead he said, "What about Polly's big secret?"

"Millard Parlette knows it too. He seemed eager to talk. If he isn't, Lydia will get it out of him anyway."

"So you don't need Polly anymore."

"That's right. And if you've got the idea I'm here for love of you, you can forget that too. I'm not trying to be boorish, Matt, or cruel either. I just want you to know where you stand. Otherwise you'll be counting on me to make intelligent decisions.

"You're transportation, Matt. We need each other to get in. Once we're inside I'll go straight to the vivarium, and you can do, whatever you have to to stay alive."

For some time they walked in silence, arm in arm, a crew couple strolling home along a distance too short to use a car. Other crew appeared from time to time. Mostly they walked quickly, bent against the wind, and they ignored Matt and Laney and each other in their hurry to get out of the cold. Once a good dozen men and women, varying from merely high to falling—down drunk, poured into the street ahead of them, marched four houses down, and began banging on the door. Matt and Laney watched as the door opened and the partygoers poured in. And suddenly Matt felt intensely lonely. He gripped Laney's arm a little tighter, and they went on.

The brick walk swung away to the left, and they followed it around. Now there were no houses on the right. Just trees, high and thick, screening the Hospital from view. The barren defense perimeter must be just the other side.

"Now what?"

"We follow it," said Laney. "I think we ought to go in along the trapped forest."

She waited for him to ask why, but he didn't. She told him anyway. "The Sons of Earth have been planning an attack on the Hospital for decades. We've been waiting for the right time, and it never came. One of the things we planned was to go in along the edge of the trapped woods. The woods themselves are so full of clever widgets that the guards on that side probably never notice it."

"You hope."

"You bet."

"What do you know about the Hospital defenses?"

"Well, you ran into most of them last night". A good thing you had the sense to stay out of the trapped woods, There are two electric—eye rings. You saw the wall; guns and spotlights all over it. Castro probably put extra men on it tonight, and we can bet he closed off the access road. Usually they leave it open, but it's easy enough to close the electric—eye ring and shut off power to the gate."

"And inside the wall?"

"Guards. Matt, we've been assuming that all these men will be badly trained. The Hospital's never been under direct attack. We're outnumbered — "

"Yes, we are, aren't we?"

"But we'll be dealing with guards who don't really believe there's anything to guard against."

"What about traps? We can't fight machinery."

"Practically none in the Hospital — at least, not usually. There are things Castro could set up in an emergency. In the slowboats there could be anything; we just don't know. But we won't be going near the slowboats. Then there are those damn vibrating doors."

Matt nodded, a swift vicious jerk of his chin.

"Those doors surprised us all. We should have been warned."

"By who?"

"Never you mind. Stop a second... Right. This is the place. We go through here."

"Laney.

"Yah? There are pressure wires in the dirt. Step on the roots only as we go through."

"What happened Friday night?"

She turned back to look at his face, trying to read what he meant. She said, "I happened to think you needed me."