The Legend That Was Earth (46 page)

"Then how can I be sure you are who you say you are?" Nebula Two asked.

The question had been expected. "Does it really matter?" Krossig replied. "If we're sending you reports that the Chrysean authorities would suppress if they could, you can do nothing but help your own cause by rebroadcasting them. Would impostors who were working for the Chryseans do that?"

Nebula Two frowned as he considered the unexpected logic, but evidently couldn't fault it. He killed the audio and disappeared from view, presumably to consult with others.

"It isn't the time to count fishes," Susan said, attempting a Hyadean saying. It was the right sentiment but the wrong phrase. Krossig smiled tolerantly.

"How long it will take Xuchimbo to track down this equipment and silence it?" Freem muttered.

"I was wondering the same thing," Krossig said moodily. A movement caught his eye on the Terran screen connected to Los Angeles. He moved back to it. Yassem had reappeared. "We're through," he said before she had a chance to ask. "There's an authenticating problem, as we thought. I told them our answer. They're debating it now...." He paused, seeing that the news wasn't having the effect he had anticipated. Yassem was looking dazed. Then Krossig realized she was in tears. "What is it?" he asked.

"They've just wiped out Edwards," she said, her voice choking. "Ten minutes after Hudro and the others arrived there." Krossig stared, horrified.

"Oh, no," Susan groaned behind him.

Nebula Two returned on the Hyadean display. "Very well," he said. "Send us what you have." Krossig nodded mutely to Ominzek.

"Gravcom Sys, Supervisor. Proceed with transfer of prepared file as previously specified," Ominzek instructed.

"
Executing.
"

* * *

Phones and terminals were beeping throughout the offices and work spaces in the vaults beneath the Corry Building. People tumbled in and out of doorways and scurried along the corridors. Everyone wanted details; city services everywhere were requesting updates and instructions. All that was known for sure was that Edwards Air Force Base had gone up in a fireball seen from Barstow to Bakersfield. There were no clear accounts of the extent of the damage, and anything could happen next.

Yassem was weeping freely, still looking at the image of Krossig in Cairns. Her tears were of relief. An adjacent screen showed Nyarl and Hudro, cramped together in the cabin of the Terran aircraft, now heading east. They had come through minutes after the news from Sacramento about Edwards. "You've got Roland to thank for it," Nyarl was saying. "If it hadn't been for him, we would never have gotten out in time."

"People seem to have a habit of surviving whenever he's around," Hudro commented, still seemingly having difficulty believing it himself.

"Marie always told me he lived a charmed life," Yassem said.

* * *

While the C22-E was setting course toward Arizona, it was early morning in New York State. It had been a night of panic in the city and continuous hysteria from the news. Drisson and Laura had moved for a couple of days to a lodge that he had rented some weeks previously away from town, up in the Catskills—as a precaution. Laura, wearing the short housecoat that she had slipped on, came back in from the kitchen, carrying two coffee cups. Drisson was sitting propped against the end of the bed. He accepted one and tasted the contents, all the time watching her contemplatively.

"Why the long, silent look?" she asked. "Don't tell me you're not satisfied. I'd never live it down."

"Oh, I'd say that's close to the last thing you have to worry about," he complimented.

"So what's such deep thought about at this time of the morning?"

Drisson took a moment to compose himself into a more serious vein. "Things are a bit more complicated than I thought. Everybody's building walls. Somebody like me can't go near Toddrel without being logged and taped. If we end up having to do this, it'll need to be from the inside. That means you being point."

"You mean the one who actually does it? I thought you were supposed to take care of that. I was only an inside source. Information and access, remember?"

Drisson sighed in a way that conveyed both an apology and weariness from considering alternatives. "I know. But like I said, things have changed. Believe me, I've been through all the angles. There isn't any other way." Laura said nothing but didn't look happy about it. He set his cup down and reached out to grip her shoulder reassuringly. "If it comes to it, it'll be worth it. Trust me. Then... it's whatever you want. Choose a life. This outfit doesn't just deal in insurance, you know. With me you get the whole package." He eyed her for a moment. His voice took on a coaxing tone. "Don't let me down on this, Laura. We've both got too much at stake. He's dangerous. You'd need it for yourself in any case, with or without me.... What do you say, eh? Are you made of what I thought?"

"I'll need to think about it."

Drisson got up and went into the bathroom as if that already decided the issue. His voice came back through the open door. "What makes it different with you is that you can get close and be invisible. I can't. I figured the way would be to make it look like a hooker or something—we all know about Casper's kinky predilections. Totally anonymous. Nothing anyone would want to be bothered putting any time into—especially at times like this, with everything else that's going on." The sound came of the shower being turned on. Drisson's voice rose to carry above it. "So it just gets written off. We collect our retirement. Then it's away from the war to some sunny place in the world. Get the big picture, baby?"

"Oh yes." Laura murmured. "I get the picture."

DAWN GREETED THE C22-E, winging low over the mesas and canyons of Arizona. Cade pulled his blanket around his shoulders as he lay in the reclined seat, trying to force some sleep in the few hours that the flight would last. But he was apprehensive. The most recent news to be passed on by Yassem was of Asian missiles launched against Globalist satellites, along with orbiting Hyadean ships and other targets. Little seemed to have penetrated the Hyadean defenses, but it brought things to a new dimension of direct conflict between the AANS and the Hyadeans. Surely, there had already been clear warning of what further escalation could be expected to bring. Yet news of the setbacks was being withheld, and the Federation-AANS leaders still seemed committed to exhorting maximum effort for a swift victory, even though, as far as Cade could see, the gamble had already failed.

Marie was in the seat next to him—whether asleep or not, he couldn't tell. Copilot Koyne was flying the plane while Powell rested farther back, along with Hudro and Davis. Nyarl and Gerofsky were at consoles, editing and adding commentaries to items coming in from various sources and tagging them for transmission back to LA. The sequences included armor and supply columns moving forward to consolidate the Federation's positions between the Red River and the Mississippi, air cargo lifters delivering tanks to forward jump-off areas, and dramatic shots of the air attacks delivered during the night.

The current plan was to land and refuel near Russellville, Arkansas, in the southern Ozarks, at one of the secondary fields that the Federation's air strength was being dispersed to. There, they were to meet headquarters staff of an engineer brigade that Major Gerofsky had contacted via the military network, who would fill them in on the situation and look into further options for them to explore. In getting a connection to LA when the entire communications system was inundated, and finding contacts among the military commands in the area they were heading to, Gerofsky's contribution was already invaluable. Nyarl seemed possessed by fierce determination to carry through the task that Luodine had begun, which precluded rest and all other considerations.

As for the crew, in the little time he'd had to form any impression at all, Cade saw Powell as capable, easygoing, and sufficiently amenable to the unorthodox for an undertaking like this. Davis was taciturn, methodical, and, Cade guessed, solidly competent. Although Koyne hadn't said anything openly, Cade detected rancor at why they should be working with aliens when aliens were wiping out warships and bases, and a lot of people along with them. Cade had explained that Hudro and Nyarl were here to inform their home world of what was going on, not entertain it, and a lot of their colleagues had died, too, as a result of pursuing the same goal. Koyne seemed to accept it intellectually, but beneath, the resentment was still there. Cade hoped he would be able to just stick to his job and not let feelings become a problem.

Marie stirred, sighed drowsily, and pulled closer to his shoulder. He opened an eye momentarily. "Hi."

"Mmm...."

"I thought you were asleep."

"Not really." A pause. "How do you sleep when you think the world might be about to be blown up?" A short silence passed while Marie blinked, yawned, then laid her head back, looking at him. Up front, Koyne was talking into his mike, identifying the flight in response to an interrogation from somewhere. Finally, Marie said, "Roland..."

"Hmm?"

"In case this whole thing doesn't... Well, if it all comes to the worst. I just want you to know that it could have worked again with us. There's a different side to you that I never saw until recent times."

"Maybe it didn't exist until recent times."

"It was always there. People are what they always were. It just sometimes takes new situations to bring other sides of them out."

It was meant as a genuine compliment. But Cade couldn't get lyrical at a time like this. "Well, you've sure got yourself a new situation," he said dryly.

Did Hyadeans really have a different side to them too, the way Cade thought, and Vrel, Luodine, Hudro, and others had said? If so, could it be brought out in time? Marie had told him why Luodine had believed things would happen quickly on Chryse. Cade hoped Luodine was right. From what he could tell, everything hinged on it now.

* * *

By the time they cleared the Rockies, they were getting reports of the Union opening interdiction attacks on supply routes through Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina, and Winnipeg in answer to Canada's coming out openly for the AANS. The reason for the sudden activity in the northern theater quickly became clear. In keeping with the policy of going all-out for a quick win, the Federation was opening a second offensive, thrusting eastward between Chicago and Indianapolis, presumably to cut off the Michigan peninsula. Maybe taken by surprise, somebody in the Union command authorized the use of pocket nukes against armored spearheads that had broken through south of Indianapolis to secure a flank along the Ohio River. Sacramento ordered retaliation in kind, and a panic reaction set in on both sides to take out the other's launch sites before they could fire first, which spread rapidly. The Hyadeans in Washington decided that they weren't prepared to sit there, waiting to be nuked by squabbling Terrans, and before the C22-E reached Russellville, they were intervening everywhere.

* * *

Powell was back in the skipper's seat. Everyone was awake. The airwaves were swamped with confusion on all bands as the plane descended above scrubby flats scarred by a winding creek bed, with dry hills rising on one side. There had been no response on the tower or emergency frequencies. Powell was making a visual approach based on map reading and using landmarks given by the on-board database. Ten miles out, they flew over the remains of a ground-attack intruder bearing Union markings, formerly USAF, still burning. Black smoke rose into the sky where the airfield lay ahead.

Little of it was left. The airfield buildings and hangars were blown to pieces, the fuel storage area at one end ablaze, and the two major runways cratered and strewn with wrecked aircraft. Passing low, they could see figures moving about among scattered vehicles, many overturned or burning, more strung along the road serving the base. Some of the figures waved frantically, but it was impossible to make out what was meant. It didn't much matter, since landing was out of the question. Koyne managed to raise somebody local on radio, but what they were saying was incoherent. Nyarl got some telephoto shots.

They turned eastward to follow the Arkansas river downstream toward Little Rock. Koyne scanned frequencies for an alternative landing ground, finally making contact with the ground controller at a small airport for private planes that a Marine Corps unit had taken over in the mountainous country to the north. "C22 Six, Five Zero. We read you, Control, and are on our way in. What's the gas situation there? We're running on less than a quarter full."

"
I'll be watching for you. Every situation's a mess here. Right now we have stocks, but everyone and his brother is showing up. You may have to fight it out at the trough.
"

"Roger."

They were stacked in a pattern waiting to come in, which took them out over the flatter country around Conway and Greenbrier. Twisting plumes of smoke from downed planes and recently hit targets hung over the landscape like gigantic mutant trees. There was a lot of military activity below, with tanks and other vehicles deploying, artillery and missile positions being dug among the overlooking hills. The whole pattern of movement seemed to have reversed. In place of the confident pushes forward that had been reported all day, everything spoke of a sudden falling back on the defensive. Things were going wrong.

They had to make a slow circuit at the last moment while a crippled fighter limped in on one engine. Then, finally, they landed amid a confusion of aircraft loading and taking off, trucks and service vehicles jostling for space, and Marines digging in on the facing hillside. While Powell and Davis went to investigate the fuel situation, Cade, Gerofsky, and Hudro sought out a harassed adjutant officer who seemed to be the nearest there was to anyone knowing what was going on. It didn't amount to a lot. Orders were to get operable combat aircraft out to reserve strips farther back and clear the field for evacuation flights. Nobody was going anywhere across the Mississippi. The big buildup had been shattered by a storm of counterattacks unleashed from the other side, and what was left of it was in retreat all the way from St. Louis to the Gulf, apparently to try and form a line along the edge of the Ozark Plateau. Frantic efforts were being made to issue Nuclear, Biological and Chemical contamination suits, but preparations for such eventualities had been inadequate.