They Also Serve: A Jump Universe Novel Part 28

"Can't help that," Ray said. "I want a wooden fence four to six feet high above the dirt wall. Something to protect our guards from thrown rocks."

"I can get some woodcutters on that," the priest offered.

"Good, you and the mayor, supervise if you will." The priest's only answer was a nod. Mary drove on, circling the perimeter. All of it was marked, with digging rapidly expanding from several points.

Ray went with Mary to check on the kids that evening. Doc Isaacs frowned at Ray's sudden interest but still showed them off like a proud father. Their headaches were gone. They looked like healthy, dirty urchins despite the clouds. Ray got drafted into reading them their bedtime story, read two, and then did his best to slip away. Doc blocked the hallway outside the room.

"What are you up to?" Jerry demanded.

"I don't know," Ray sighed. "I really don't know."

"You're not going to use these kids to fight that thing."

"I don't know," Ray defended himself. "They weren't hurt when the Gardener died."

"You are going to." Isaacs accused Ray like a wrathful G.o.d.

"Maybe. If it looks like it will do some good. If you got a better idea on how to fight a million-year-old machine, I'm all ears." Isaacs said nothing. "Right now, the d.a.m.n computer won't even talk to me." And it didn't that night, either.

It was only as Ray came awake the next morning that he found himself surrounded by a dozen computer images. Three or four of them wore partial body armor, shabby and worn. Two carried a.s.sault rifles, though none too sure how. One looked ridiculous in hockey shoulder pads, knee protectors, and a cooking pot perched on his head. He carried a baseball bat but had pliers and a screwdriver in his breast pocket. That one left Ray really wondering what his mind was trying to tell him.

"As you can see," the Dean said, a battle vest thrown over his tweeds, "the war has started, and we are losing."

"Why didn't you call me?" Ray asked. "I've had some recent experience losing wars."

"What we want," the one in the cooking pot cut in, "is some suggestions on how we kick their a.s.ses."

"I've won a few, too," Ray drawled. "What's going on?"

"The President and the Provost are mainly fighting themselves. The Provost wants to exterminate you. The President only to-I guess you would say-enslave you. We"-the image indicated the others with an open palm-"would like to join you."

"a.s.suming you're worth joining," grumbled Pothead.

Ray eyed them for a moment, then asked, "Where is their center of gravity, their axis of attack?"

"Their what?" Pothead countered.

"What do you know of military strategy, tactics, and logistics? What's your combat training?" All the computer images looked uncomfortably at the floor. Ray glanced down at himself; he was in his pajamas. He adjusted his dress to full battle kit. The room wavered and came back as the inside of his battle van. The images glanced around their new surroundings; two s.h.i.+fted from battle dress to civilian clothes.

"Ray, we know nothing of war. It's a word in the lexicon of the Three, but one marked obsolete. They taught us nothing about it because they wanted us to teach nothing of it to their young."

"An admirable ideal," Ray said, "but you still don't know why the Three vanished."

"No. As you pointed out, and continue to, we do not know everything." The Dean glanced at his a.s.sociates. They nodded, looking for all the world like a dozen kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar, only to discover there were no cookies.

Ray conjured up his battle board. He used a wide view, showing not only the southern continent but also the northern. "Where are the President and Provost concentrated?"

The Dean frowned, glanced at the board, and rubbed the back of his neck. "It's not that easy. We all started moving south together. We're kind of all over the place together."

"And being pushed around everywhere," Pothead threw in.

"Concentration of force is basic," Ray advised.

"Right, and now you're gonna teach us," Pothead spat.

"I've got too d.a.m.n much experience of war. What have you got? You want to learn, you come to the expert or you don't learn. What's it gonna be?" The twelve looked at each other. Ray wondered how fast they communicated among themselves. Then he reminded himself they were none too experienced with being individuals.

"What do we need to do?" the Dean finally asked.

"Concentrate your forces is a start. The question is: Where? Where are the President and Provost strongest?"

A pink hue covered the center of North Continent and stretched south to form a large lobe in Convenanters' territory. "That's the President. Provost is a bit west of there." A blue tinge marked the map from north to south. In the south it formed a large lobe along the border of Covenant/Richland.

"And you are?" Ray offered. The twelve looked shyly at each other. "Unaware of where each other are," he finished.

The Dean made golden a small section of the board in Covenanters' territory on the southeastern edge of the pink. "I've been evicted from my network to the north," he whispered.

"You, too!" Pothead exclaimed. "Me, too." A string of brown lines spun and twisted around South Continent. "I get around, though. Even into your net." He grinned at Ray. "Yeah, that was me. Your guards didn't come close to twitching to me."

"Why'd you turn off our weather alarms?"

"Weather Proctor dared me to. Said I couldn't understand a net as primitive as yours. I showed him."

"You were on the Weather Proctor's side?" Ray encouraged him to gab on. Did he really want this ally?

"n.o.body's on WP's side, except WP. He cut his own deal with the Pres and Prov. Pres wants you down a few notches. Proc want's you out of here. Either way, WP wins. That one is sly."

"But you're not with him anymore," Ray said.

"Nope. WP s.n.a.t.c.hed my net up North while I was working you guys. Booted me right out. Is that any way to treat a friend?"

"Not the way I would, anyway. I take it all of you are bereft of attachments to North Continent." They nodded. "May I suggest you concentrate around this base? I'm ma.s.sing my human strength here. We can protect your physical selves as well. It will keep you out of the line of fire when we open up on them."

"You can't touch them," Pothead sneered.

"I drained the Gardener. That was an accident. Next time won't be. Dean, you noticed when we took samples up north. If we took enough, could we disrupt the P and P?"

The Dean rubbed his chin. "You'd have to take a lot."

"The vanis.h.i.+ng box could take a lot in a hurry."

Heads jerked, several took a step away from Ray. That got their attention. "Who do you trust?" Ray tapped the pink and blue on his map. "They've booted you out of the North. Think they'll save anything down here for you? I promise to take you to the stars with me. First we got to survive. And they've got to...what? Be taken down a peg or ten? Be destroyed? You tell me. You can't win a war if you don't know your objectives."

The images of the twelve got thin. For a second, Ray feared he'd lost them. "You go away now, will there be anything left of you to talk to me by tonight? You're losing. Give up and die, or join me and fight. What will it be?"

The Dean thickened up. "I don't want to die. I like the idea of going to the stars with the humans. I say fight."

"But can we trust him?" Pothead whined.

"You trusted the Weather Proctor. What did it get you?" the Dean asked.

"Nothing. But at least he was my own kind."

"Your own kind are killing you," Ray pointed out. He held out his right hand, palm up. The Dean stepped forward, put his hand on top of Ray's. A sheepish grin crossed the Dean's face. "This is the way you do it, isn't it?"

"Close enough," Ray answered hard. His gut was in knots. He'd called time on their dithering; either they all joined him, or it was over. Another stepped forward. Then another. The pile of hands grew. If they'd been real humans, Ray wasn't sure the thirteen of them could have made the circle, piled the hands on. Pothead was the last in.

"Yes!" Ray shouted. The others tried to follow suit. It was a bit weak, but it was a yes.

"Now what?" Pothead asked.

"Any way you could help me find the vanis.h.i.+ng box?"

"Not with anything you got," Pothead answered surely.

"We collected chunks of you up north. Could any of them help?"

"No," Pothead shot back. Then, "Maybe. For a while after you've used a displacer, it has harmonies. If you picked up a harmonator as well as a couple of projectors, I might be able to knock something together. No. They'd be too small. You'd have to get too close."

"I got a blimp that can move those rocks," Ray said. "You find the right ones and we'll have them in the air in an hour."

"I'll have to get back in your net."

"You're our ally. It's open to you. To all of you if you need a place to retreat." Ray hoped he hadn't just screwed humanity. Trust was a two-way street.

"We will work with you," the Dean said. "We'll start moving this way. Net Dancer"-the Dean nodded at the one wearing a pot-"will work with you to find the vanis.h.i.+ng box. The rest of us will do what we can to resist the President and the Provost."

"Anything you do to the Weather Proctor will be appreciated."

"WP has gone back North," Pothead/Net Dancer noted.

Ray came awake, grabbed his commlink, and punched for Lek. "Old boy, that gremlin that was in our net is gonna be back any time now. Only this time, he's on our side."

"You sure?"

"We'll know soon. He's supposed to help you go over Harry's samples and see if there's a harmonator-whatever that is-and a couple of projectors. That might help us find the vanis.h.i.+ng box, a.s.suming we can get a blimp up in this weather." Out Ray's window, the clouds were scudding past, headed south. Hurricane number one must not be too far away.

"I'll get right on it, sir."

Ray sat back on his bunk. He'd just sworn alliance with a dozen of the strangest critters ever to cross a human's path. Had he done right? Was the enemy of my enemy really my friend? Humanity had survived by that creed for a long time-and paid no small price. Ray considered the string of hurricanes pointed at his base, weighed the odds, and found them acceptable. Matt could still rock this place if all else failed. Nice thoughts for a loyal ally. He wondered what the AI's were thinking. Probably not far from his own. Trust took time to build. Time they didn't have. Experience they were about to get too much of.

The barefoot girl ordering a pail of beer was the first lead they had in a month. Jeff wanted to run after her the second she said her grandma knew where the box was. Ned and Du followed more cautiously. The girl stopped outside a small stone house. Ned hurried ahead to open the door for her; she disappeared inside. Ned and Jeff followed her into an unlit room. Dumont stood in the doorway for a long minute, eyes searching the street, then ducked inside and closed the door.

"Your man's a nervous one," a voice said from a dark corner.

"He's alive. Others of his ken are not," Ned answered.

"Fill me gla.s.s, baby duck, then run along home. That's a good one," the voice told the girl who struggled to pour beer from her large pail. Ned took over. Dumont opened the door for her as she left hurrying, as much as her load would permit.

"What do you know of Annie?" was what Jeff wanted to blurt out. He squatted down, waiting for Ned to do his magic. Today, Ned seemed in no hurry. "Do you think it will rain?" he asked.

"Da ya think it will ever stop raining?" the voice replied.

"Ya'll need a high mountain. And strong friends," Ned said.

"Like yours?"

"They're not a bad bunch at your back, not bad at all."

"I hear tell the starfolk are building a wall around their base. And they're letting those who build it stay inside. You'd need a lot of people to build a wall around all that. How do you get a job like that?" the shadow woman asked.

"You'd need to be a starman's friend."

The woman edged out of the darkness into the light of the single window. Old, her hair was white, most teeth gone. "I can't dig, but I do know something you want to know." Ned said nothing. "I know where the girl is that the other two seek. The six that came South a month ago, my son takes them food. High up in the hills, at the rock castle. From the chatter of old women around town, I'm not the only one who knows. And if many know, someone is likely to talk to the others who want to know."

"Who else asks?" Jeff demanded.

"You're the young Sterling boy, aren't you," the old woman reached for Jeff's face. Cold, calloused hands turned his head from side to side. "Why should you be asking?"

"Annie's my..." Jeff choked.

The woman cackled. "So the Sterling boy has lost his girl to his sister's toughs. That's a funny one. Why don't you run home and ask your big sis for her? Wouldn't she be glad to give her back to you?" Jeff's face burned, but he said nothing. Still chuckling, the woman held out a paper to Dumont. "Write to your people to let me and mine in the base."

Du pointed his wrist unit at the woman. "I'll do you one better. Duty section, Dumont here. This woman's doing us a good turn. If she shows up at the gate, let her in." Dumont got an acknowledgment, then added, "If you don't hear from me, a.s.sume her good deed was a trap and act accordingly."

"That wasn't a nice thing to do," the crone whined, but she turned to Jeff and shoved the paper under his nose. "You say something nice to your sister about me, too. You can never tell where I might need friends."

Jeff scribbled, "Help her, she helped me, Jeff" on the paper and shoved it back. Still cackling, the woman slipped out a back door Jeff hadn't known was there.

"Team, home on my signal. Bring the horses. We're out of here," Dumont snapped into his commlink in the curt way of talking the starmen had among themselves.

Ned rubbed his chin. "Think she told the others?"

"The more the merrier," Dumont sighed. "Let's move it, folks. Guns up. I wouldn't put it past her to have sold us to Vicky." So saying, Du slammed the front door open, waited a moment, then crossed the threshold at a run. He stopped only when he was across the street, his back to the stone fence, head and rifle high, sweeping the roofs.

"All clear," Du called without a trace of the embarra.s.sment Jeff would have felt if he'd admitted to such a fear, let it make him act like that, only to find it meant nothing. What would make a man like that? Jeff wasn't sure he wanted to know. Then he remembered where he was headed and who was racing him there. There was no one better than Dumont to go there with.

The mule rolled up the alley, a dozen horses capered behind it. They piled in with the rest; it was a close fit. "Head east out of town, then take the south fork. We're going back country. And boys and girls, heads up. We ain't alone on this trip, and there's no second prize."

Then Du called the Colonel. "I got a handle on the vanis.h.i.+ng box," they both said at once, then laughed. The Colonel explained a blimp would be heading their way with some kind of gadget aboard that might locate the box. Du told him what the woman had said. Their review of the rock castle formation showed several large mounds of boulders covering thirty hectares. "Lots of places to hide," the Colonel concluded.

"If your gadget ID's the hideout, I'd be much obliged."

"We'll try. You say there are two other teams on this."

"At least."

"I'll get a spy eye going south to give you a hand. Du, we got bad weather coming with north winds. Once they get up to sixty, seventy knots, there's not a thing on Santa Maria but the shuttle that can work its way upwind."