The Devil's Eye (17 page)

"Where are we going?" asked Alex again. "Special place," said Krestoff. "You'll like it." "Is it a detention center?" I asked. "I'd think of it more as a vacation spot." Her tone was dismissive. We traveled over a wide stretch of ocean and then inland. Alex looked at me and shook his head.
Sorry I got you into this.

It got dark quickly. After a while there was nothing to see except moving lights in the sky and on the ground, and occasional clusters of illuminated buildings. After about an hour we passed over a city. "What's it about?" I asked him, not bothering to keep my voice down. "Later," he said. After a while, the occasional lights revealed that we were into a mountain range. We were gaining altitude, and snow showed up on the ground. The wind picked up, and the skimmer bucked and swayed. "Almost there," said the pilot.

The descent was, well, exciting. We got tossed around pretty good, and the pilot said that he thought we should give it up and come back later. "Land the goddam thing," said Krestoff. "Look, Maria, don't give me trouble." "Can you take us down?" "Yes. If you insist." "Then please do it."

I looked at Alex. Alex cleared his throat and took a deep breath. In the hands of idiots. Krestoff caught his reaction. "Don't worry, Mr. Benedict. Squeej will manage."
Squeej?
What kind of name was that for a pilot? But I thought it prudent not to provide another distraction. The wind blew us all over the sky. But we kept going down. By then it was dark, black, stygian the way no other place above ground ever is. Our navigation lamps threw beams all around us, but the only thing I could make out was snow. Closer to the mountain peaks, O Lord. I hoped Squeej knew what he was doing, and I wished he might have been more inclined to stand up to Maria. Bong said nothing.

Then, with no warning, we banged down. "On the ground," said Squeej, as if it might have been possible not to notice.

Krestoff and Bong dragged heavy jackets out of stowage and pulled them on. "How about us?" said Alex. "You won't need them." That sounded ominous. The pilot came back into the cabin, opened the hatch, and the wind grabbed it and almost yanked it out of his hand. Cold air invaded the cabin. "Okay, you two," said Krestoff. "Let's move."

They herded us outside into minus-zero temperatures and a snow cover. I was chattering already. And I thought: They were going to kill us, after all. Just leave us to the storm. Bong opened the cargo compartment and took out our bags. Krestoff turned on a flashlight, pointed it at the luggage, and looked at Alex. "Get them," she said. We did. Then we waited while she got her bearings. She flashed the light around until it hit the corner of a building. "This way." I thought briefly about trying to jump them. There'd never be a better chance. But Bong stayed off to one side, and Krestoff, with the lamp in one hand and the scrambler in the other, kept behind us. The door in the skimmer closed, and the pilot, who was no dummy, stayed inside. Ahead, lights appeared in the storm. A postlight. And windows. It was a two-story house. With a deck. We climbed the steps, and Krestoff waved me off to one side. "Mr. Benedict, stand in front, please. This will be your home for the immediate future, so it needs to get to know you." "I'm cold," I said. "Can't we do this later?" She ignored me. "Let's get it done, please." Alex gave the sensors a look, then stepped aside, and I took his place. When I'd finished, the front door opened. We hurried in and dropped our bags on a carpeted floor. I'm not sure what I expected. But there was nobody home. The temperatures were just a notch higher than outside. Krestoff looked around. Given some heat, it might have been a comfortable little place. The furniture was by no means lush, but it looked okay: a sofa, three chairs, and some tables, one with a chess set. Dark drapes, frozen at the moment, but they'd thaw. A fireplace with a stack of logs. Pictures of mountain views and seascapes on the walls. Bookshelves with four or five books, and some plastic flowers in a vase. A staircase rose to the second floor. "It'll warm up in a little while," said Krestoff. I started over to get a fire going, but she waved me away. "When we're out of here, there'll be plenty of time to do that. You've a working AI. Her name is Kellie." She checked the time. Apparently late for an appointment. "Say hello, Kellie." A female voice responded:
"I am at your service, Alexander."
"You've enough supplies to last two weeks. Someone will be back before then to refurbish things. You have a refrigerator, and there's a storage compartment in back. "There's also a utility shed on the west side of the building. "You can't communicate with anyone except us. If you want to talk to us, tell Kellie to put you through. If you try to manipulate the AI, or break into the comm system, it will shut down. Self-destruct, actually.

And maybe take you with it. I'm not sure about that detail. So it's probably best to stay away from it." Another smile. "Do we have any jackets here?" asked Alex. "No. You've no need for them. You won't be going anywhere. There are blankets. The temperature tonight is forty below. The wind is thirty, out of the south, so you'll want to stay inside. You're a long way from anybody who can help you." I could feel warm air coming through the vents. "You have a complete range of HV reception. You can watch anything you want. You can't interact, of course. Sorry about that." "Where are we?" asked Alex. "You're on the Valeria Reservation. It's government property. No one will bother you here. But you are at a substantial altitude. Be careful if you go outside. "You're probably wondering whether we have the place wired. We see no need to intrude on your privacy. You'll probably not want to believe that, but-" She shrugged. "Do you have any questions?" "Yes," said Alex. "What happens now?" "Someone will be here shortly to see you. Beyond that, I have no information." I was still cold. "Where are the blankets?" "Upstairs in the master bedroom." She graced me with a lascivious smile. Knew exactly what I wanted. "There's a closet." She glanced over at her partner. "Are we forgetting anything, Corel?" "I think that covers it." His pronunciation was perfect. The guy looked like a thug, but I decided he was smarter than he looked. "When can we expect our visitor?" asked Alex. Krestoff did a casual shrug. "Don't know." She and Bong exchanged looks. And left. Kellie closed the door behind them. I went over to the window and watched them climb back into the skimmer. Moments later the vehicle rose into the falling snow and was quickly swallowed by the storm. "What's it about?" I asked Alex. "Hold on a second. Let's get warm first." He went upstairs and, moments later, came down with an armful of blankets. I threw some logs and a starter into the fireplace and pushed the button. A jet ignited the starter and, moments later, the logs began to burn. We dragged two chairs close in. Alex handed me a blanket. They were cold, but that wouldn't last long. I pulled mine over my shoulders and sank onto one of the chairs. It was hard as rock. "So," I said, as we started to get comfortable, "what's it about?" "They think we found out what Vicki Greene knew." "Did we?" "No." "Maybe we should tell them we don't know." "It wouldn't matter, Chase. We now know beyond a doubt she found out
something
. It's beyond simple inference at this stage." "You think they're going to kill us?" "If they wanted to do that, they'd have done it already." He adjusted his blanket. "I don't think the heating unit's working. Anyhow, they can't have us turning up dead. Or even disappearing." "Too much publicity?" "Right. The last thing they want is to attract attention." "So what's the secret?" "I'm not sure yet." "Ummm. I hate to mention this, Alex-" "Yeah?" "But if they can't kill us, and they can't have us disappear-" "You're probably right, Chase."

"They're going to do a lineal block." "That would be my guess." "It's what happened to Vicki." Alex stared into the fire, and his eyes hardened.

I fell asleep in the chair while the storm howled at the windows. There were two bedrooms upstairs, but I was happy near the fire. Occasionally I heard Alex moving around the room. Toward dawn, the storm stopped, or at least it lost its energy. Alex had apparently drawn the curtains. I padded across the floor and peeked out through them. The snow, illuminated by the light from the window, stretched away into a gray haze. I thought about Vicki, who'd gone through something like this, too. Except that she'd been alone with whatever it was she'd found out. And Jennifer Kelton, thirty years ago, apparently driven to tears by the same secret.

It doesn't matter anymore, she'd said about the religious ceremony at her daughter's wedding.

Alex was breathing softly in his chair. The fire was dying, so I got up and tossed in another log. The supply was getting low. We'd probably have to cut more. That would be fun.

I woke again to the smell of bacon. Alex was in the kitchen. I got up, kept the blanket wrapped around me, and wandered in. He was seated at the table watching a newscast. "What's happening?" I asked. "Actually, something
has
happened." "They didn't come back, did they?" "No. Nothing that pedestrian." He got up and headed for the living room. I followed. He looked up at the shelf, with the half dozen or so books lying on their sides. "They're all cheap novels," he said. "Okay." "Except that one." He pointed at the coffee table, where a large book lay open. I looked at him. "Not just
any
book," he added. We sat down on the sofa, and he opened it to the title page. It was Churchill's
Their Finest Hour
." "Alex," I said, "at the moment I think we have bigger problems." "This is one of the volumes of his
History of the Second World War
. It's priceless." "Good. If we get out of here, we can make a killing." "Chase, the
History
is supposed to be lost. Except for a few fragments. Now we have an entire volume. Not only that, it's the Keifer translation. And let me show you something else." I was thinking how his breakfast was getting cold, but I knew better than to bring up trivia when he was

on a roll. "Look at this." He opened it to the inside cover. It was stamped. ADMINISTRATOR'S LIBRARY. "The bureaucrats owned it and they didn't even know what it was worth." "Maybe Kilgore himself had it." "I'd hate to think he's that dumb."

The rest of the morning's news was routine. A tax revolt in a place called Champika, and a triple murder in Marinopolis. There'd been an accident at one of the shelters they were building against the Mute invasion. Two dead. Along with the bacon, he was eating eggs and home fries. I leered at it, and he smiled. "Sorry," he said. "This was the last of it. But they have a grain dish. Something like oatmeal. You could try that. Looks good." "You're kidding," I said. "Well, yes. Actually, the larder's full." I decided cinnamon toast, orange juice, eggs, and coffee were just what I wanted, and passed the order to Kellie. I can't really say I enjoyed it all that much, though. It's hard to concentrate on food when you keep waiting for the skimmer to land and bring somebody who's going to insert mental blocks of some sort. It was hard to believe such a thing could really work. That they could induce an inhibition so strong that it would prevent me from acting on whatever I wanted to act on. But I didn't want to give them a shot at it. The cliff edge ran right by the window. I got up, went over, and stood on my toes to get a better look down. I couldn't see much other than a tree that was growing almost horizontally out of the cliff edge. "It's a long drop," said Alex. "We need to go out and look around." "Too cold. We have no coats." "We could wrap up in blankets." "You'd need boots, too." He scooped up some of the bacon, put it in his mouth, and took a bite out of a roll. "There's no place to go anyway. We're on a plateau." "No way to get off?" "Can't be sure, but it's a safe assumption." "If we wait for it to get warm-" "It won't help if we go out and freeze." He finished with the roll and indulged himself with more eggs. "I don't suppose you could rig a transmitter of some sort?" "From the HV? No. I doubt
anybody
could do it. Certainly not me." "I didn't think so." "How long do you figure we've got? Before they come back?" "Don't know. Not long. I think they'll want to get it done as quickly as they can."

Jackets were packed in our luggage, but they weren't worth much in those temperatures. Still, I put mine on and went outside. The air had a knife-edge to it. The plateau was small. If I'd been dressed for it, and the snow wasn't up to my ankles, I could have walked across it in five minutes. Without getting too close, I looked over the edge. There were a few patches of forest down there, a lot of ridges and gullies. And a river. A large mountain lay to the south. (At least I thought it was the south.) And immediately below us, I could see something moving, an animal of some kind. And that was it. No human habitation was visible anywhere. Alex came up behind me. "Careful," he said. Something with wings showed up and took an interest in us. I found a dead branch and picked it up. Just in case.

I decided I'd go out every day and look over the edge. It didn't take long. The following afternoon, I

saw five people in the valley. It looked like a hunting party. They were directly below me. I called out and waved, but they never turned around. Another one, trailing the rest, emerged from a patch of forest. I wasn't sure, but I thought he looked up and saw me. I waved again. Yelled. He kept going. They passed below where I was standing, so I found a dead branch and threw it over the side. I tossed it well away from them, so there'd be no danger. It landed silently in the trees, but it must have caught their attention. They stopped, and I followed up with a rock. Which was all I could find on short notice. It landed in much the same place, while I jumped up and down and waved and yelled. One of them raised his weapon, and I realized he was going to take a shot at me. I ducked. They use disrupters for hunting on Salud Afar. So I had no way to know whether he'd actually fired or not. But it was clear they weren't friendly, and as they walked away, I was tempted to lob a few more stones down on them.