The Devil's Eye Page 18

  We had a brief debate over who was going to go say hello to the pilot. Alex, of course, thought it was his responsibility as the guy in the operation. But I had a better chance of getting away with impersonating Krestoff than he did playing Bong. The last thing we wanted was for the pilot to see who was knocking at the door of the skimmer and take off.

  I picked up the smaller black box that they’d brought. It might provide a distraction. Any distraction would be good. I closed it, gave Alex a moment to exit by the back, then I opened the door and stepped out into the night.

  It was good to be in a real jacket.

  The house was illuminated behind me, but there was no easy help for that. The skimmer’s lights were out, save for a convenience lamp at the hatch and the faint glow of the pilot’s reading light.

  I walked toward the skimmer. He saw me and looked my way. I raised one hand to say hello, but otherwise I kept walking, gazing down at the black box as if something had gone wrong with it. The less time he had to think about things, the better.

  The hatch opened as I reached it. I put the box inside, on the deck, and took out the gun. His eyes went wide when he saw it. “You’re not Maria,” he said.

  “Just sit,” I said. “What’s the AI’s name?”

  “Doc. Hey, you’re not going to use that on me?”

  “My name’s Chase. Tell Doc to add me to the log.” He hesitated, and I pointed the weapon at his head. “Do it.”

  “Doc,” he said, “this is Chase. Take direction from her.”

  “Yes, Karfa. Hello, Chase.”

  “Hello, Doc.” I turned back to the pilot. “Okay, Karfa, please get out of the vehicle. Step down slowly. Give me your link. Don’t make any unexpected moves.”

  “Okay.” He released his harness and got up. As he did I backed off a couple of paces. Alex came up from behind. He was carrying something wrapped in plastene.

  Karfa was a young guy. Not much more than a kid. Not the same pilot who’d brought us out there. He shivered in the cold, and he looked stunned. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the scrambler. “What did you do with Maria and Shelby?”

  “Shelby’s the tech?”

  “No. The agent. Shelby Corel.”

  Shelby? Bong’s given name was Shelby? “Go find out for yourself,” I said. “You can get in the back door. We left it open.”

  I signaled for him to get started. He climbed down and headed for the rear of the house. “Be careful,” I told him. “Don’t go walking around back there.” Alex got into the aircraft. I followed him and closed the hatch. As we lifted off, I saw Karfa disappear through the rear doorway.

  “Congratulations,” said Alex.

  “Thanks.” I was feeling pretty good. “Doc, take us to the nearest spaceport.”

  “Very good, Chase,” said the AI. “Rendel is about an hour away.”

  Alex nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Good. We should be able to get clear before anybody notices Krestoff’s missing.”

  “What do you have?” I said, looking at the package.

  “This? It’s the Churchill.”

  “I should have realized.”

  “Absolutely correct,” said Alex. “You should.”

  Fortunately, Miranda was in the sky that night. Over Rimway it would have been scarcely visible. But in the wide-open spaces above Salud Afar, the planet glittered and sparkled. When we settled on course for Rendel I couldn’t help noticing that Miranda could have performed the function of a guide. It lay almost dead ahead.

  In the cabin, I have to admit we were gloating. Well, actually, I did most of the gloating. I’d laid out Krestoff’s muscle with one swing, and Alex was talking with Samuels. Yes, they told us, they’d have the Belle-Marie ready to go when we got there.

  So we sat and talked and felt good about ourselves. “First thing we’re going to do,” said Alex, “is go out to the asteroid.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “You’ll see.”

  I hated it when he got like that. “It’s really Wexler, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Sure. You saw the way she reacted.”

  I was sitting with my head resting on the back of the seat, thinking how glad I’d be to get on board the Belle-Marie, where I’d be safely out of the reach of the CSS and of Mikel Wexler, hero of the Revolution. While I was sitting wrapped up in my happy thoughts, I noticed that Miranda had vanished from the sky.

  That didn’t alarm me, because it probably meant only that there were some clouds ahead. One of the complications that ensues from a starless sky is that you can never tell whether it’s a clear night or not. Unless they were accompanied by lightning, storms after dark had a tendency to sneak up on you.

  It had been about a half hour since we’d left the plateau. Below us there were only occasional lights, a cluster of streetlamps, now and then a ground vehicle.

  I don’t know why I twisted around in my seat, but I did. And I saw Miranda. Behind us.

  We were headed back the way we’d come.

  I caught Alex’s eye, let him know something was wrong, and put my finger to my lips. I wasn’t familiar with the vehicle we were riding, but these things all have an AI shutoff.

  “It’s to your left,” said Doc. “Open the green panel.”

  That shook me. But he was right. I opened it and there was the disconnect. “How’d you know?”

  “It’s all in the body language, Chase. How did you know?”

  “Miranda.”

  “Oh. Well, there was nothing I could do about that.”

  I touched the toggle. “I’m going to shut you down, Doc.”

  “It won’t work.”

  I tried it, pulled it into the position marked DISCONNECT AI.

  “Chase, this is what is known as a special situation.”

  “You’re taking us back?” asked Alex.

  “Of course. I suggest you sit back and allow this special situation to run its course. It will be best for everyone.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The notion that earth and sea are solid is an illusion. It is a trick played upon us by our monkey brains. In reality it’s not like that at all. This sofa here, for example, is mostly empty space. Ninety-nine percent empty space. So I say to you now and forever, we are fortunate that we do not know the real world. Were we to confront the world as it actually is, we would have nowhere to sit.

  —Nightwalk

  “We’ve got the guns,” I said.

  Alex was looking out the window, trying to see what the ground looked like. “No. We don’t know that we have them all. Anyhow, once we land on the plateau, we’ll be stuck there again.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Can we disable it?”

  “I’ve already tried.”

  “I mean the skimmer.”

  “You want me to crash it?”

  “I’m open to a better idea.”

  There was storage space behind the backseat. I opened it, but it was empty. “Have to use the scrambler,” I said.

  “That is not a good idea,” said Doc.

  “Then turn control over to me.”

  “I’m not able to do that.”

  I took out the weapon, went digging through the cockpit until I found the hardware that housed Doc. I checked to be sure the scrambler was on paralysis mode, aimed it at the hardware, and pulled the trigger.

  “Doc?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “I’m not surprised.” I found a lightning icon that provided a setting to shut off the aircraft’s power. “What do you think?” I asked.

  Alex looked down at the ground. “Leave it on.”

  “Unless you want to go back, or jump, it’s all we have.”

  “We’d lose antigrav, too, right?”

  “We’ve got wings. We might be able to glide in.”

  He thought about it for a long minute.

  “Doc,” I said, “can you take us lower?”

  “Negative, Chase. My instructions will not allow me to do that.”<
br />
  “I assume these instructions take effect if you are hijacked?”

  “That is correct.”

  “You can’t pretend otherwise, I guess?”

  “No. I would do it if I could.”

  “Okay,” said Alex. “Kill the power.”

  “Doc,” I said, “if I shut down the power, will I still be able to control the flaps and rudder?”

  “I can arrange that.”

  “Do it. Let me know when it’s done.”

  “It’s done, Chase.”

  “Okay.” I pushed a finger against the pad below the lightning icon. “Doc, are you sure you can’t help us?”

  “Chase, I would if I could.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’d really prefer you not do this.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Before you act, be aware that we are in rugged country. Chances of survival are not good even if you don’t die in the crash.”

  “I know, Doc. Thanks.” I pressed. The lights in the cabin flicked off. Doc’s lamps went out. The engine died. And I had my weight back. We began slicing down.

  Antigrav generators are usually equipped with an auxiliary power source. I tried to restart it. Unfortunately, somebody hadn’t maintained it. I got a few burps out of it, enough to slow our descent. Then it died again.

  The real problem wasn’t even the lack of power so much as the fact I couldn’t see the ground. Couldn’t see anything. We could have been about to touch down, or about to fly into a mountain. We could have been in somebody’s basement.

  I wrestled with the yoke, fought the wind, started doing profanities, looked for lights somewhere. Anywhere. Where was Callistra now that I needed her?

  The problem with antigrav vehicles is that they don’t carry enough wing and tail to allow you to glide properly if the engines fail. I had wings, but they weren’t very good at keeping us aloft.

  “Chase—” said Alex.

  “Doing the best I can.”

  “I see lights.”

  “Where?”

  “Over to the left.”

  They were not moving. Houses, probably. I started to turn. Started breathing again. They were important because they let me know more or less where the ground was.

  We swung to port in a long, slow curve. My angle on the lights was changing, of course. They were rising as we went down. Then they vanished.

  Alex grunted. “What happened?”

  “Mountain.” I pushed the yoke right and held my breath until they reappeared.

  Coming fast.

  I wanted to bank toward them, to keep them in sight, but I was afraid of the mountain. Had no idea where the damned thing was. So I kept straight on. They passed off the port side, and I was headed back into the night. “I’d guess we’ll be down in about two minutes,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  It was a long, quiet run, with only the sound of the wind against the wings. Then we blasted into something. I was thrown hard against my harness. There was a rush of fresh air. Then darkness took me.

  When I came out of it, I was hanging upside down.

  “You okay, Chase?” Alex’s voice startled me. I’d felt alone. “Chase?”

  “I’m here,” I said. “You?”

  “I’m here, too. Nice landing.”

  “That’s right.” I’d forgotten. “We’re down.”

  I heard him struggling to release his harness.

  “Are you all right, Alex?”

  Lights were approaching. A truck, kicking up a cloud of snow, was visible through a wall of trees.

  “I think so.”

  “Okay. Stay put for a minute. Help’s on the way.”

  The front of the aircraft was gone. A cold wind was blowing snow and debris in on top of us. Alex released himself and climbed down as the truck stopped. I heard a door slam. And voices.

  The truck lights revealed broad, flat ground beyond the trees. “Not bad,” said Alex. “Looks as if you hit the only patch of forest in the neighborhood.”

  I was hurting in a few places, but nothing seemed to be broken, so I released my harness and lowered myself to the ground. Our rescuers were bundled up in jackets. There were two of them, and they both wore hats pulled down over their ears. A man and a woman. The man called out: “You people okay in there?”

  I guess I was staggering around. Alex was on the ground. They got me out to the truck. Then they went back in for Alex. It took a while. When they finally came out they were holding him up. “He’s all right,” said the woman. “But we wanted to be sure before we moved him.”

  Their names were Shiala and Orman Inkama. Orman was the operational director for the otherwise-automated energy-distribution site whose lights had shown us where the ground was.

  They took us back to their quarters, which were located in a flat gray building perched beside a field of collectors. They applied medications to cuts and bruises and told us how lucky we were. Orman wanted to take us to Barikaida, where there was a medical facility. But it was a long ride, and since neither of us was seriously damaged, we settled for showers and robes.

  We had no clothes, of course. We explained how we were sightseeing in the area, and Orman said he’d drive back to the scene of the crash to try to recover our bags. But there’d been no easy way to bring our gear from the plateau. “We didn’t have anything with us,” Alex explained. “But if you could take us into Barikaida tomorrow, that would help.”

  So we slept in the robes, me in the guest room, Alex on the sofa. In the morning, everything I owned hurt.

  Shiala cooked a big breakfast, commenting on how few visitors they got in that part of the country. Then they gave us some clothes. Orman’s were a bit big for Alex, but I fit reasonably well into a blouse and slacks. Shiala’s shoes were too big, though, and Krestoff’s boots were a mess. Nevertheless I had to stay with them.

  Orman took us out to the pad, and we all climbed into his skimmer. There was a party atmosphere running by then. Orman explained how many times he’d had rough landings himself. “Though nothing like what you folks did last night.” Shiala laughed and insisted it was true, that Orman was the worst pilot in the world. He didn’t trust AIs, though the truth was he just loved to fly himself.

  “By the way,” he said, “we reported the crash for you.”

  Uh-oh.

  “Thanks,” said Alex.

  “They said they’ll be out this afternoon to take a look and do the paperwork.”

  We lifted into the air while Alex and I pretended that nothing had changed. We laughed and joked, and I wondered how long it would take the authorities to figure out who had been in the crash.

  We crossed a river with a waterfall. The Turbulence. The land was broken at that point into a vast cleft, and the river fell almost a kilometer into lower country. “It is,” said Orman, “the highest known waterfall. Anywhere.”

  Well, Alex and I both knew of a few bigger ones, but we kept our peace. They were surprised that tourists, as we claimed to be, knew nothing of the Turbulence. (The name applied both to the river and to the waterfall.)

  “Well,” I said, “we were just drifting through. We’re from Rimway.”

  And that seemed to settle it. They both said “Oh,” as if Rimway tourists came through all the time and they routinely knew nothing about the place they were visiting.

  They dropped us off at a clothing store. We all went inside, and Alex reminded me to switch over to the corporate account we’d opened when we first came to Salud Afar. “That was farsighted,” I told him.

  “We didn’t know what we were getting into,” he said. He had a hard time not looking pleased with himself.

  But we developed a quick problem: We couldn’t get clear of our benefactors. Shiala wanted to follow me around and help me shop. “We shouldn’t take too long,” she said, “if we’re going to get back before Wash comes.”

  “Wash is the guy doing the investigation of the crash?”

  “Yes, Sara,” she said. (We’d given t
hem false names.) “He’s very good.”

  Alex, left alone by Orman, found out that trains left regularly. “Another due out in two hours,” he whispered to me when he was able to get me alone.

  Meanwhile, I’d gotten some clothes and two pairs of shoes.

  “Lose her,” said Alex.

  “How?”

  “Go to the washroom or something.”

  “That won’t work. Take my word for it.”

  “What do you suggest?” Shiala was standing a counter away, looking at hats.

  “Tell them the truth.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Alex, if we take off, they’ll think we’re in trouble and call the police. They’ll have us before we can get to the train station.”

  So we took them to lunch. While we ate, we told them what had happened. We didn’t tell them everything. Just that we had uncovered some corruption in high places. We told them about the plateau and why we had crashed. We told them we needed for them to say nothing until we got clear. Would they be willing to trust us? And do that for us?

  They listened. Surprisingly, Shiala was the more resistant. “They’re wanted by the law,” she told Orman. “We could get into a lot of trouble.”

  “All you have to do,” said Alex, “is explain that you didn’t know. That we came into town, and we separated to do some shopping, and you didn’t see us again.”

  “I just don’t know,” Shiala said.

  Orman took a long look at both of us. “Sure we’ll help,” he said. “You folks get as far away from here as you can. Shiala and I will stay in town for the rest of the day. Make it harder for them to find us.”

  We took time to go to Korvik’s CommCenter, where we bought new links and opened accounts under bogus names. Then we said good-bye to Shiala and Orman and caught a train headed north. Away from Rendel. By then, Krestoff and her people would have been rescued, and there was a good chance that Wexler would expect us to try to make the flight to the Lantner world. That would mean they’d be looking for us at the spaceports. And they’d probably have people alerted at Samuels as well.