The Il Ronnian saw the case and held out his hand. "Fine. Give it to me. I will see that he gets it."
Rola-4 took a step backward. "No! I mean thank you, but no. I have strict instructions to deliver the information into his hands."
This was not strictly true, but Rola-4 was determined to get inside, and doubted that anyone would question it.
The soldier made a jerky motion with his tail. "Stay where you are. I will check."
The Il Ronnian stepped into the shack.
So Rola-4 stood there, rain pouring down around her, feeling the mud ooze up through her toes. It felt comforting, like harvest time, when the crops came in and winter began.
The trooper emerged. His boots made sucking noises in the mud. He motioned her forward. "Stand in front of me."
Rola-4 did as she was told.
"Spread your legs and hold your arms straight out."
Rola-4 gritted her teeth as the alien touched her. Neder-33. She must remember Neder-33 and suffer through anything that would return him to her arms.
Satisfied that she was not armed, or loaded with explosives, the sentry gave a grunt of approval. He pointed toward the gate.
"You may enter. Go straight to the command post. Sixteenth Sept Commander Beed will see you there."
Rola-4 nodded her understanding and walked up the slight incline toward the main gate. Sixteenth Sept Commander Beed. So that was his name. He had never said and she had never thought to ask. Why? It was so stupid. What if she had needed to know? A human would have asked. A light would have asked. The Lords had given them a tremendous advantage. It wasn't fair.
Two soldiers guarded the main gate. They swung it open at her approach. Rola-4 waited for them to stop her but nothing happened. She walked on through.
Now she could see the prisoners more clearly. A vast mob of shuffling constructs, heads hung low, waiting for whatever fate held in store for them. Rola-4 thought of the resistance fighters and smiled grimly.
Just a little bit longer, she thought to herself. Things are about to change.
The brave thought melted away as she approached the command post. The resistance would win in the long run. She felt sure of that. But this was now and Sixteenth Sept Commander Beed held the power of life and death over Rola-4 and her son.
The sentry was expecting her and gestured toward the door. Rola-4 pulled it open and stepped inside.
The command post was just as before. A muddy floor but otherwise clean. Beed sat behind his makeshift desk. He was talking on a comset. Another alien was present as well. He was seated in one of the two guest chairs and was inspecting his right hoof. He barely looked up as Rola-4 entered.
The second guest chair was barely visible under a pile of body armor, helmets, and other military gear. Rola-4 was tired but knew better than to move the equipment and sit down.
Beed continued to ignore her as he finished his conversation, tapped something into a portable computer, and arranged the things on his desk. Finally, when everything was just so, he looked up.
"So, you came back."
"I have the information you requested."
Beed looked skeptical. "That is excellent if true. So where is the machine called 'God'?"
Rola-4 offered him the plastic envelope. Water dripped onto the surface of his desk.
Beed accepted the package but made no attempt to open it. "What is this? And where did you get it?"
Rola-4 had been expecting the questions and had rehearsed her answers. "They were waiting for me when I left here."
"For you?" Beed interrupted.
"For anyone who could provide them with information about the conditions here."
"Go on."
"So I told them what it was like and asked if I could help with the resistance."
"And?"
"And they took me to some sort of headquarters. They blindfolded me for the last part of the trip but the location was underground."
Beed made a steeple with his fingers. "Why do you say that?"
Rola-4 shrugged. "Because there were no windows and people talked about conditions on the surface."
The Il Ronnian made a gesture with his tail. "Continue."
"They put me to work cleaning offices and corridors. That is where I got the photographs."
"You stole them?"
"Yes, but they were copies, and will not be missed."
"Let us see what you have."
Beed lifted the envelope, found the seal, and pried it open. The photos made a swishing sound as they left the package. The Il Ronnian frowned, did some sorting, and lined them up on the surface of his desk. He looked up. His face was angry.
"This is garbage! Pictures taken from our own satellites. And worthless besides. Look! Do you see photos of one particular place? No, these shots cover hundreds of square units!"
Rola-4 steeled herself against the alien's anger. Beed was seconds away from throwing her out, from ruining the plan, from cutting her off from her son.
"What you say is true⦠but that is the secret. The resistance leaders discussed it as I mopped the floor. The streets, the buildings, even the statues are part of God. He is enormous and covers thousands of square miles."
Beed started to say something, frowned, and took a second look at the pictures. He sorted through them. Understanding started to dawn on his face.
"By all that is holy I think you are right! That explains why we could not find it! The blasted machine is everywhere!"
Rola-4 felt a tremendous sense of relief. Beed understood, her mission was accomplished, and Neder-33 would be freed.
"Could I please have my son back now?"
Beed reached for his comset. "Of course not. You are much too valuable to shuffle around in the rain. I will send you back and learn even more!"
The Il Ronnian fed the photos into a slot at the bottom of his comset and spoke into the handset at the same time. The alien had deactivated his translator so the construct couldn't understand what he said.
Rola-4 felt hopelessness settle over her like a blanket. The alien had lied. And he would continue to lie. He would never allow her to hold Neder-33 in her arms again.
Time seemed to slow. The construct moved sideways. She saw the chair heaped with armor and other gear. She grabbed the one thing she instinctively understood. A shovel-shaped entrenching tool. It caught on something. She sensed movement as the second Il Ronnian turned her way. The shovel came loose. The soldier opened his mouth and started to stand. Rola-4 swung with all her might. Blood sprayed as the edge of the tool caught the alien's unprotected throat. He clutched the wound, made a gurgling sound, and died.
Beed dropped the handset and scrabbled for his side arm. Had he been a little bit faster, or favored a less cumbersome holster, he might have made it. As it was the shovel hit him in the forehead just as the barrel cleared plastic. The second, third, and fourth blows were completely unnecessary.
Beed collapsed onto the top of his desk, slid backward, and slumped to the floor. A barely heard voice squawked from the receiver. Rola-4 replaced the handset. Silence filled the room. The construct had something in her hand. She looked down. It was a shovel. There was blood all over it. She laid it on the desk.
Now what?
The thought brought no answer.
Lando followed Wexel-15's broad back up the corridor. Della was right behind.
What light there was had a greenish quality and came from the walls themselves. Dust swirled through the air and made it hard to breathe. The floor was scratched and grooved where heavy equipment had been dragged the length of the hall. Equipment designed for mining, only this mine went from the bottom up, and would terminate on the surface.
The corridor emptied into a small chamber. Some scaffolding occupied the center of it. A pair of massive heavies stood atop the structure passing boxes of ammunition up through a hole in the ceiling. Something came loose and a small avalanche of rubble came tumbling down. Dust exploded into the air and Lando covered his eyes.
"How much longer?" Wexel-15's voice was strong and commanding.
"Not long," one of the heavies answered. "Ten laks at the most."
Wexel-15 gave a wave of acknowledgment. He turned to the humans. "Wait here while I check on the troops."
Lando nodded and took a look around. The walls were decorated with mosaic tile work that made his head swim. Wait a minute⦠he'd been here before!
The smuggler sidestepped some heavies and worked his way around the scaffolding. Sure enough, there was the door. A peek inside confirmed his suspicion. The room was dirty, and packed floor to ceiling with equipment and supplies, but the oval shape gave it away. This was the same room where he'd met with Dru-21, Dos-4, Zera-12, and Pak-7âthe lights, who in their own way had shaped the future by opting for a policy of cooperation rather than domination.
Little had he known as he met with the lights that Il Ronnian Fire Base One was just overhead.
The aliens had landed, leveled a building called the Hall of Life, and built their base on top of the rubble. A more careful investigation might have revealed one of three different paths down into the hill's interior. But God had ordered work crews to seal the passageways off immediately after the first Il Ronnians had landed. Later, when the aliens destroyed the building, the entrances had been buried under tons of rubble,
making them almost impossible to find.
Lando left the room to join Della in the antechamber. She was busy removing a layer of dust from her custom-made assault weapon. Chunks of masonry clattered to the floor as the heavies continued to pass supplies up through the hole. He kissed her ear.
Her voice was soldier-hard. "What did you do that for?"
"You're cute when you play with guns."
Her expression softened. "And you are weird. Very weird."
"Weird enough to marry when this is over?"
Her eyes found his. They searched for something and found it. "Yes, weird enough to marry you when this is over."
Lando nodded solemnly. "It's a deal then. Shake?"
Della laughed. "Shake." Her hand was small and firm in his.
"Good. Then be sure to survive."
"You too."
"I'm surprised that your father didn't have a saying for a moment like this."
Lando thought it over. The truth was that he'd been using his father's sayings less and less of late. What did that mean? Increasing independence? Old age? He smiled.
"As a matter of fact my father
did
have a saying for situations like this one. He said 'when you find something worth keeping grab it and never let go.'"
Della laughed. "You made that up."
Lando smiled. "Yeah, I guess I did. It's good advice though⦠so I think I'll follow it."
The smuggler was interrupted as a heavy said something unintelligible and a pile of debris crashed around his feet. Wexel-15 appeared.
"Are we ready?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right then. Get out of the way. We have a war to win."
The lighting in Ceeq's cabin was subdued by Il Ronnian standards. Teex held one of the photos under an overhead spot. Ceeq and Half Sand Sept Commander Heek were huddled together looking at the rest.
"Amazing, absolutely amazing," Ceeq said smugly. "The machine was all around you, literally under your tail, and you missed it."
"True," Teex said pointedly, "but these are
your
satellite photos, are they not? Hijacked without your knowledge? And analyzed by some rather primitive geeks?"
"And that is enough of that," Heek said sternly. The light came down across his forehead and made dark pools under his eyes. He looked like one of the old-time Ilwiks, as stern as the desert, and as hard as rock.
"There is more than enough blame to go around. While we have a common interest in minimizing the magnitude of this failure to our superiors⦠we must be honest with ourselves. To do otherwise would be to compound the errors already made. We have consistently underestimated the opposition, failed to interpret incoming data correctly, and have been slow to respond. We must act, and act now."
Teex and Ceeq looked at each other in surprise. This was a different Heek from the one who fell asleep during meetings. The crisis had removed ten cycles from his age.
"So, what would you suggest?" Ceeq asked meekly.
"First and foremost a change in tactics," Heek responded. "Now that we know the machine called God is built into the very infrastructure of the cities we must allow the repairs to proceed."
"But that's exactly what they want us to do," Teex objected. "It is logical to suppose that our attacks have damaged the machine's capabilities and the geeks are trying to restore them. The resistance will be strengthened if they manage to do so."
"True," Heek answered calmly, "but so what? The time has come to send for reinforcements. The computer, plus its unique design, provide more than adequate justification. Imagine! As the repairs are completed, the reinforcements arrive, and we take control of a fully operational machine. What could be better?"
The plan sounded good, but something was wrong, and Teex couldn't quite figure out what it was. He took one last shot.
"So, what do you suggest? Withdraw and wait for the reinforcements?"
"Of course not," Heek answered caustically. "We will continue to harass them. The human represents an opportunity. I suggest that we take advantage of it."
"Some sort of hostage deal?" Ceeq asked brightly. "Surrender or the human dies?"
"Exactly," Heek answered. "The geeks may or may not care about his safety⦠but we can assume that the humans do."
"An excellent plan," Ceeq said ingratiatingly. "I will dispatch a ship along with a request for reinforcements. Teex can handle the hostage situation."
Teex resented Ceeq's attempt to give him orders but decided to hold his tongue.
Heek signaled agreement with his tail.
Teex cleared his throat. "There is another matter as well. As we heard from intelligence officer Deez, the photos and the voice transmission that accompanied them came from Holding Area Two. Why was the transmission cut off? And why have all attempts to contact Holding Area Two met with failure?"