Moon Flower (36 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

So it had been a setup as far back as the training week in Redwood City. When Jeff just happened to be behind Shearer in the checkout line in the cafeteria at lunch that day, it hadn’t been accidental. All through the voyage he had been insinuating himself further. And they had just happened to end up as roommates in Revo base. It was clear now why, at times, Jeff had come across as just a little too inquisitive. But Shearer still had a lot of outstanding questions that Jeff would be in a position to throw some light on. And if Jeff wanted to make some amends for deceiving them, he would never be more disposed toward being cooperative than right now. Despite his journey and arrival late the previous evening, Jeff was up and about early the next morning. Jerri had left with Nick on a horse ride as they had agreed after yesterday’s lesson. Shearer took the opportunity to steer Jeff aside and suggest an walk outside. It would be more private, he said, which in the circumstances hardly needed explaining.

They came out of a side door into the cobbled yard separating the stable from the house. Xorin still hadn’t appeared, and Jeff wanted to check on their horses. “That must have been a long ride from Revo,” Shearer remarked. “Was it something you did back home?”

“It was one of the things they put you through. CEP, it was called. Comprehensive Environmental Preparedness.”

“Uh-huh.”

They moved clear of an angle of the building, and Jeff stopped to take in the vista of forested hills with peaks in the distance. “Mornings on Cyrene are a whole new experience,” he said. “It’s a feeling of being connected to everything alive in the universe — as if the universe itself is coming alive.”

“I know.” Shearer nodded. “The Cyreneans call it the cosmic consciousness. I’d read about it but never knew what it meant. It’s something you have to feel. They take it as being self-evident.” Jeff knew by now about the moon flower and certain other Cyrenean plants.

“It makes you feel as if the whole life you lived back on Earth was being only half awake,” Jeff said.

“That seems to be how just about everyone who comes here ends up feeling. It just takes longer with some people than with others.”

“So how was it with you — out of curiosity?”

Shearer had to think back. “I’m not really sure.... It kind of crept up on me during the journey from Revo. There wasn’t anything like the sudden flash that you seem to have had. In fact, I’d guess that you’re probably ahead of me.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’d say so.”

They reached the stable, and Jeff went on in. Shearer decided to wait outside and enjoy more of the morning sun. They still hadn’t broached any of the issues that he wanted to discuss. He wanted to know more about the kind of information that was finding its way back to Callen, how many more Terrans he might send to work undercover in the city. How long could they realistically expect to remain undisturbed at Linzava? It had taken Jeff a matter of a day or two to find the trail that led here. Admittedly, he’d had Shearer to follow. But with the amount of stories and gossip that had to be circulating in and around the city, and with Callen in a position to employ multiple sets of eyes and ears, it could be only a matter of time. Maybe they needed to consider moving the whole operation elsewhere, much farther from Revo — possibly overseas, even.

Shearer had risen far earlier that morning than he had intended. He wasn’t sure why. He had awakened to a feeling of restlessness, a vague foreboding of something about to happen that he was unable to relate to anything definite or that anyone else had said anything about. Nim seemed to have felt something too, and according to Jerri had woken her up in an agitated state. When Shearer walked out with her and Nick to get the horses ready for their ride, Nim had run round and around, circling toward the gate in a wide arc and then back again, barking, as if trying to draw them away from the house. To avoid waking up the whole place, Jerri and Nick had left right away, instead of coming back inside for a mug of
pikoe
first, as they had intended.

Now everything was still again. The hum and clatter from the workshops hadn’t yet started. The trees above Linzava were a mixture of greens and gold, and the crags beyond, granite gray, catching the first rays of the primary sun as the first-dawn twilight turned to day. There were still moments when he wondered if they would really be doing the Cyreneans a favor by speeding them along the kind of path that Wade had mapped out — although the signs were all that they would have gotten there soon enough on their own in any case. Did technological advancement necessarily imply intellect at war with nature? Shearer didn’t think so. A species that could produce Beethoven, Leonardo, Shakespeare, and Archimedes was not meant to exist in huts and spend a life of stoop labor in fields. The splendor of the Amazon forests and the Colorado Plateau could coexist with starships. But somewhere along the way on Earth, too many had lost sight of what it meant to be human, and it was they who dictated how the nuts game was played. Shearer believed with Wade that the Cyreneans would get it right. But sometimes he asked himself if it might be just wishful thinking. Or could it be some subtle emanation from a distant future being focused and infused into his mind? He smiled thinly to himself. If there was any way of telling, he had yet to find it.

The sound of barking came through the trees from the direction of the road. Evidently Nim still hadn’t calmed down. If anything, he seemed more frenzied than when Jerri and Nick left. Shearer moved forward to where he could see the gate past the carriage they had arrived in, which was standing outside the stable. Then Jeff’s voice came from the entrance as he emerged and began walking over.

“The nags are okay, Marc. So what was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Let’s make it later. I think they’re back.”

The thudding of hoofs approaching at a trot became discernible, and then the two riders appeared. Moments later, Nim shot through the gate and past them into paddock, where he turned and started barking again, as if trying to drive them back out. The horses were shying and trying to pull away, clearly not used to this.

“What’s gotten into him?” Jeff asked in a mystified voice.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him like this.” Shearer advanced a few steps farther and called out, extending his arms wide in a “come” signal. “Nim! Here! What’s the big problem with you today, then, huh?”

Nim half turned, hesitated, looked back at Jerri and Nick, and then came running toward Shearer, barking loudly again. A groom came out from the stable behind Jeff to investigate the noise. Others were appearing around the corner from the front of the house.

“He’s gone crazy,” Jeff murmured, moving up to stand beside Shearer.

Then Nim veered to the side suddenly and raced to a pile of building oddments left outside a shed by a wall running behind where the carriage was standing. He rummaged underneath some boards leaning against a drum and dragged something out, juggling it into the air with his snout and a paw. It landed and tried to right itself, but before it could escape Nim was on it again, snarling and growling. Shearer ran over to investigate, expecting to find an animal of some kind. Instead, it was one of the strangest objects that he had ever seen. About the size of a human hand, it had a body of angular planes and protuberances that was clearly artificial, and multiply jointed, spiderlike legs that thrashed and flailed in the air as it tried to break free, while Nim used paws and jaws alternately to keep it pinned on its back. It looked like a modular robot assembly, but on a smaller scale than any that Shearer had seen before.

“What do you make of —” he started to ask as Jeff joined him, but cut off when he saw the look on Jeff’s face. “What is it?”

Jeff glanced around, picked up a large stone from several stacked by the boards, and raised it with both arms. “Call him off, Marc!” Shearer seized Nim’s collar and drew him back, barking and straining, and Jeff demolished the device as it righted itself and started to move away again.

“
Jeff, what is it
?” Shearer demanded again. But Jeff was looking upward apprehensively, turning his head one way and then the other to scan the skyline.

“Find Wade!” he snapped. “Get him out of here!”

“Jeff, would you mind just —”

“There isn’t time. I’ll grab some horses. We’ve all got to get away. Uberg too if you can find him. And Elena.”

Jerri and Nick had drawn up, still mounted. Nim was pulling against Shearer’s grip, barking frenziedly. “What’s going?” NIck demanded.

“You’ve got to get out!” Jeff told them. “Now! Do it! Back along the road as far as you can get. We’ll be right after you.”

“Jeff, mate, what —”

“
Just go, Nick! Listen to the goddam dog
!... Jerri, drag him if you have to. There isn’t time to argue.”

Whatever was happening, Jeff knew a lot more about it than Shearer did just at that moment, which was nothing. “Do what he says,” he shouted to them. “I’m going for the others.”

For a moment or two they backed their horses away undecidedly; then Shearer released Nim, who flew at them, darting from side to side to herd the horses toward the gate as if they were sheep. Jeff ran behind waving his arms. “
Just go
!
Go
!” They turned and spurred the horses into a gallop back out onto the roadway with Nim following. Shearer was already on his way back toward the side door into the house. He heard the first whisperings of approaching aircraft just as he reached it.

By the time he had made his way through to the front entrance hall, consternation was breaking out. The sounds of engines were now distinct, seemingly coming from all directions outside. More people were following those who had gone out to investigate the barking and shouting. Wade appeared in shirtsleeves, coming down the main staircase. Elena was close behind. As Shearer hastened across to them, a military assault lander with Milicorp golden-lightning-flash insignias dropped into view in the front court outside the open doorway. Armed figures were leaping from the doors before it touched the ground. Seconds later, another came down farther back behind it in the paddock.

“What’s happening?” Wade asked Shearer, seeming bewildered. Elena could only shake her head.

“We have to go. No time,” Shearer told them curtly. Wade nodded numbly. “Where’s Uberg?” Shearer asked.

“I haven’t seen him this morning.”

Jeff had arrived via the same door as Shearer. “There’s nothing we can do,” he told them, and beckoned frantically. “Come on! They’ll be in here in seconds.”

“Not that way,” Wade said, recovering himself and waving toward a passage. “That yard’s open to the front. Go through the kitchen.” An amplified voice boomed from the front of the house:

“ATTENTION. YOU ARE SURROUNDED. KEEP CALM AND MOVE OUTSIDE PEACEFULLY. NOBODY NEED GET HURT.” Then it began repeating in Yocalan.

With Wade leading, they came out of the house on the far side of the laboratory extension, where the trail led through the trees past the workshops and up the slopes at the rear where foundations for a new construction were being laid. As the path steepened over rocks, Shearer dropped back to give Elena a hand. Wade paused to catch his breath and waved Jeff to the front. “Keep following it on up,” he gasped. “The path crosses a stream at some rocks. From there on the forest gets thicker. Bear to the right past the rocks.” Jeff nodded and pressed on.

“What about Jerri and Nick?” Wade queried.

“They got away on the other side — down toward the valley.”

Wade nodded, and they carried on.

As they came over a hump above the excavation site, they saw that Jeff had stopped to wait at the stream in front of a pool fed by cataracts running down a narrow fissure. Shelves of rock provided a way across. The forest beyond was dark and heavy with undergrowth. Jeff motioned the others on past him. “I’ll follow you guys,” he told them. “We could get separated in yards in there.”

Wade went ahead; Shearer and Elena followed. Tangles of vines snagged their feet, and springy branches swished at their hair and faces, but the denser covering brought feelings of security. Shearer glanced back to check that Jeff was still with them... but he wasn’t. “Wait,” he called ahead. Wade stopped. Shearer began cautiously retracing their path.

Jeff was still at the rocks. He was standing with his back to them and seemed to be looking back down the trail. Shearer worked his way closer. “Jeff,” he called in a low voice. Still Jeff didn’t move. Movements behind him told Shearer that Wade and Elena had come back to see what was happening. Without turning his head, Jeff moved an arm out behind him and part-lifted it away from his body, fingers open and extended, conveying in a way that couldn’t be mistaken,
Easy
!
Move very, very slowly
.

Parting the leaves carefully, Shearer edged his way forward. A black shiny ovoid, about the size and roughly the shape of a football was hovering in the air five feet or so in front of Jeff’s head. Sunlight glinted off its lenses and sensor housings. They were known as “roaches” — interdiction and reconnaissance drones. They could deliver anything from a high voltage jolt that would knock a man senseless to an explosive shell capable of blowing a head off. Or they could simply terrorize. Fugitives had been known to collapse and die from exhaustion when being relentlessly pursued by them.

“What is —” Shearer heard Wade say, moving up to crouch close behind him, and then a quick catching of breath. “Oh, God.”

They saw Jeff move a step to the side, no doubt on command. A monotone voice issued from the drone. “
You people in the trees. Be informed that your companion is in target lock-on, termination mode. You move, he fries. Your call
.”

For several agonized seconds nobody moved. Shearer and Wade looked at each other with helpless expressions. “We can’t,” Elena’s voice breathe from the rear.

“It’s over,” Wade said.

Raising his hands high, he straightened up slowly.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR