Gibbon's Decline and Fall (70 page)

“It's coming fine.”

Carolyn went back to the car where all but Lolly were walking out the kinks. “Someone's at the farm. In the house, with Stace and Hal. Jagger, I imagine.” The words hurt her throat.

“Stace said so?” Faye demanded.

“I offered to stop on the way and get her some hairpins like mine.”

“So?”

“Mine are my grandmother's. Tortoiseshell. She knows what they are. She's quite critical of my using them, but she said fine, get her some.”

“Is that all?” asked Ophy.

“That and saying Luce's bionics project was coming along fine. He doesn't have a bionics project.”

“My God,” breathed Jessamine.

“Bettiann, can you call your husband and have him send the plane to the airport here in Santa Fe—”

“It's already there, Carolyn.”

“Then all of you get on it, including Lolly.”

“Not me,” said Faye. “My maquette is in the back of my van, and I've got a deadline.”

“Not me,” said Ophy, staring at Faye. “Unfinished business.”

Carolyn cried frantically, “If you won't go home, you must stay away from the farm! It's important that you not be where you can be got at, don't you understand? It's important we limit the number of people who might be taken as hostages.”

“Us?” Agnes laughed without humor. “Hostages? For what?”

“So they can find out what we know! We'll have to agree on a story, but the fewer people who tell it, the less likely we are to get tripped up.”

Bettiann said, “We're not going to leave you alone, Carolyn.”

“It's all right,” said Carolyn.

“It's not all right,” said Faye. “It's dangerous. We need to do something to guarantee they don't hurt you or take you away from there!”

“I'd been thinking about that,” she said. “I've got an old friend I thought I'd call.”

“Carolyn. An old friend. One person?”

“He … he knows other people.”

“William could—”

“We don't have time for William to do anything! I don't want anyone else to know anything about this, can't you all understand that? We don't want other people brought into it. It isn't just me and Stace and Luce and Hal and you. It's the
world! It's hundreds of thousands of young women sleeping their lives away in pods and all other women dead, gone, vanished! It's whatever Sophy managed to do to prevent that.”

“You're sure she's prevented it?” Aggie asked almost angrily. “You're positive?”

“Of course I'm sure! Aren't you, Aggie? In your heart, don't you know that she has done something wonderful and miraculous? Nothing must interfere with whatever she's done, can't you see? He mustn't find out!”

They stared, white-faced, Aggie still angry, her eyes slitted.

“You don't still think she's a devil or something, do you?” Ophy asked. “Aggie, you don't.”

“No,” said Aggie grudgingly. “But I don't think she's an angel, either.”

“Nobody ever said—”

“All right,” cried Carolyn. “Now isn't the time.”

Bettiann said, “All right, Carolyn. I just don't think you ought to have to carry this alone.”

She said tiredly, “I won't carry it alone. Faye will carry her part, and so will Ophy and the rest of you. Even Aggie will snap out of it here in a little while and figure out that she's going to carry a part, no matter what Sophy was. We saw the place ourselves. We saw what Webster plans. Whatever Sophy was or wasn't, we know what he is!”

She went back to the phone to make a call, which turned into several calls. Bettiann and Faye took the opportunity to make a quick trip across the street to a convenient car-rental agency.

“She can go it alone all she likes,” Faye muttered, “but I'm not going to leave it that way! There'll be a car waiting for us at the Eldorado Hotel in Santa Fe.”

When Carolyn returned from the phone, they piled back into the car.

“Listen,” she said. “We've got to have a story we can agree on.”

“Story?” asked Aggie. “You mean a lie.”

“I prefer to call it a cover story, Aggie. You don't have to tell it, of course. You can choose to remain silent. Or you can sic Webster on Sova's people. The rest of us may not be either that resolute or that … ungrateful.”

“What story?” Ophy asked, putting her hand on Carolyn's shoulder.

Carolyn chewed her lip. “Okay. If someone asks. We didn't find Sophy. We did find an old man who knew her family, and he told us she died.”

“What about the … 
you know?
” asked Jessamine.

“There was no
you know
. Aggie misinterpreted what she saw in San Francisco. Sophy was really just … miming her comment on the whole business of genetic engineering. When you took that vial back to the lab, Jessamine, it was still sealed.”

Jessamine demanded, “So what took us overnight? We were gone overnight.”

“Damn.”

Faye nodded. “We obviously don't want to tell Jagger or whomever about Tess and her people. So where were we?”

Carolyn scowled. “Right. Ah. The old man offered to take us to Sophy's grave. It wasn't far. So we hiked there and had a kind of vigil in her memory. Aggie said a prayer. We talked about our memories of her.”

The rest nodded. Aggie asked, “What if he wants you to tell him where it is?”

Carolyn shook her head. “I don't know. The old man took us right around sundown. We just followed him up into the hills. We walked for over an hour. He showed us the grave. There was a boulder there, unshaped stone, with her name carved on it, spelled out. The stone was gray with lichens on it. We picked some wildflowers to put on her grave—let's see … some yellow ones—and by then it was too dark to come back, so we spent the night, then he led us back to the car early this morning.”

They glanced at one another, then agreed.

“Let's get on the way,” said Carolyn. “The timing should work out about right.”

“Timing?”

“My helpers need some time to make arrangements and then get to the farm. They'll have to go from across town.”

The others said nothing, merely stared at one another grimly. Lolly raised her head from her nest of coats and peered around herself, rather blearily. Carolyn realized for the first time that Lolly was a loose cannon. They couldn't depend on her. On the other hand, she hadn't really seen anything.…

“Are you feeling all right?” Ophy asked her.

“Sure,” the girl said in a distant voice. “Sure. Why not?”

The road north was heavy in evening traffic. Carolyn
pounded on the steering wheel and cursed silently. Why did people who worked in Santa Fe live in Albuquerque, and people who worked in Albuquerque live in Santa Fe? So many people making so many excruciating journeys. Clogging the arteries. Being … people!

“Where shall I drop you off?” she asked when they entered Santa Fe.

“The Eldorado,” Faye replied with a significant glance at her coconspirators.

Carolyn dropped them at the Eldorado, with less fuss than she had expected. Even Lolly went off with them, without a backward glance. As for Carolyn herself, she couldn't remember ever being so tired or so frightened. What if the people she had called couldn't do what they thought they could?

What if she herself couldn't do what she thought she could? She imagined blood and torture, carnage and death. She saw Stace dying, Hal dying. She bit her tongue and was silent.

She checked the time and saw it was a little earlier than planned. She stopped at a fast-food place for a quick cup of coffee, something warm to thaw the frozen pit of her stomach, not noticing the other car that pulled in and then just sat there. All Carolyn was aware of was that her stomach hurt, that she was frantic.

“You're a coward,” she told herself. “A poor, pathetic, cowardly old woman.” A ewe sheep. Fatalistic as nature itself. Scared to death, but live or die, this lamb is mine!

Twenty minutes later she turned off the highway into the narrower road leading past her house. She thumbed the button that controlled the right-hand window.

“There's a truck,” she murmured to herself. “Right where it's supposed to be.”

It was a blocky, wide vehicle, with cardboard taped across the front door, hiding its designation. She had to pull around it, and as she did so, something came plopping through the window into the front seat: a two-way radio, already turned on.

The radio said, “We're in place.”

She wasn't sure whose voice it was. “Thank you.”

The gate was closed across the driveway. She leaned from the car window to use the key, fumbling with the lock with her left hand. The gate rolled to the side.…

Something buffeted her face, like a sudden gust of wind. There was a smell of sage and flowers, and an echo in the car, as though it had become a much larger vehicle.

“Sophy?” she whispered. Her eyes slid sideways. Nothing. Nothing there. Outside the car the trees bent in a flurry of leaves. It had been the wind, only the wind. She left the car window open, took a deep breath, and let the car trundle slowly down the drive, trying to look in all directions at once.

The dogs were in the pen—all the dogs, including Leonegro. She cleared her throat. “The dogs are in the pen,” she said aloud to whoever was listening on the radio. “The dog dishes are in there. That means they were fed this morning, but Hal never picked up the dishes. He usually picks them up around nine, nine-thirty, when he lets the dogs out. Or Carlos does. There's no car in front of the old house. If Fidel and Arturo were home, their car would be there. They leave around eight in the morning. I called Hal around eight-thirty. I'd say whoever's here came soon after that and has been here since.”

There was no reply from the radio. She didn't expect one. If the plan had been put into action, there were people waiting outside the back of Fidel and Arturo's house. Of course, Fidel and Arturo could be dead and their car disposed of. In which case the whole plan was down the toilet. Assume it wasn't. Assume Fidel and Arturo had gone this morning. Assume the plan would work.

She let the car slide to a stop in front of the house and shoved the radio under the seat. She got out and stretched, leaving the car door open. The dogs barked from the pen, then quieted when she went over and spoke to them at length, rumpling each one. A dusty old car came down the drive; the driver leaned out to wave at her. “Hi, Fidel,” she croaked from a dry throat. She had to do better than that. She swallowed, moistened her mouth, said loudly, “
Buenas tardes
, Arturo.”

It wasn't Fidel, of course. Or Arturo. Still, they drove to the house Fidel and Arturo occupied, parked, and got out of the car. They would go in the front; their cohorts would come in the back. If there was anyone in there …

Her head came up at the sound of crunching gravel. Another car came down the drive, this one driven by Faye. All of them were in it, six of them, even Lolly. All of them, coming like lambs to the slaughter. They pulled to a stop and got out,
stretching. They chatted, they laughed, all but Aggie, who regarded Carolyn from deep-set, fatalistic eyes. So the DFC had rigged a sideshow of its own, trusting that Carolyn couldn't make a fuss. Not now. Not here. And Aggie had come along because she hadn't known what else to do. Or because she thought she was already damned and it didn't matter what she did.

Carolyn felt eyes watching her from the house. She felt stares from the kitchen window, but she took no notice as she went to Aggie and hugged her, pulling her close. “Thank you, love,” she breathed before turning to the others.

“You damned idiots,” she muttered at them. “You stupid, silly …! Follow my lead, will you? And don't say anything unless I say it first.”

She dropped her house keys at the base of the wall, went to the door, tried it, made a fuss, went through her purse, slow item by slow item.

At the old house the two men who had just arrived, each carrying a plump grocery sack, were letting themselves in the front door. She waited for a sound, a shot, a yell, counting to herself. A minute went by. Nothing. Which could mean there had been no one in the house but might mean a good many other things as well.

She went back to the kitchen door to hammer on it and shout, “Stace! Hal! I've lost my house keys somewhere. Let me in.”

Footsteps inside. Not Stace's. Luce's.

He opened the door and stood aside. “Carolyn. You're later than we expected. Did you lose your keys?” His voice was tense, his eyes unfocused, as though he did not really see her.

“Looks like it. Probably left them at the gas station. I need a glass of water. I'm absolutely overdosed on coffee.…”

If he moved too quickly, he'd twang from the tension, she thought, watching him go almost on tiptoe. Stace was somewhere else. Probably being held accountable for his behavior.

He said in a falsely bright voice, “Well, it's the whole club. Did you find your friend Sophy?”

“No, we didn't,” said Bettiann, all too smoothly. “Come on in, ladies, don't lollygag. You want some water, Aggie? Ophy? We didn't find her, Luce. We found an old fellow who knows the family. He told us Sophy died a couple of years ago.”

“Oh. That's too bad.”

Carolyn said, “None of us even knew she was sick. We all spent the trip back grieving over her and kicking ourselves. She should have come to us. Maybe we couldn't have done anything, but at least she didn't need to be alone!”

“Very interesting,” said a voice.

Carolyn turned toward the doorway. “Who …,” she gasped, truly surprised. She'd gotten so firmly into her role that she'd actually forgotten for the moment. It was Jagger. Of course. She had known it would be. And someone else with him, the rumpled man who had been speaking to Jagger in the courtroom. And they had guns. Of course they did. Men like this always had guns. She had never noticed before how theropsian was Jagger's smile, how feral his eyes were as they fixed on her, ignoring the others as though they did not exist.