They Also Serve: A Jump Universe Novel Part 26

"I don't know." Dumont asked the base. Suddenly the gridlines on their display shifted. "About one mile in."

Still, they covered the distance at a walk, Ned following the signs. At the trail, the horseprints led west. "Tracks are deep. They're riding hard."

Dumont eyed the trail to the east, toward Refuge, Richland. It showed no signs of travel. He worked his reader. "They had more than an inch of rain here after the Colonel's little talk. What would that do to a trail?"

"Wipe it out entirely," Ned answered. "Especially if they were riding slow, like I would at night."

"d.a.m.n! Chief, have one of the sky eyes cruise east on this trail. See what you get."

"Will do," came from the commlink.

"Now we go west, I suppose," Du said to Ned.

"It's the only trail I have to follow."

"Annie's that way," Jeff blurted out.

"How long will the trail last?" Dumont asked.

"Not long, if I was riding it," Ned answered curtly.

An hour later they called the Colonel to tell him the one trail they had had broken up, and they had no idea which way the box had gone. "What's your best guess, Du?" the Colonel asked.

Du handed his commlink off. "This is Ned. If I had the vanishing box, I'd have gone east. Either the folks at the house lied to the second party, or they believed that the first group went west. That's guessing. What I know is that we've lost them, all of them. Best we wait around and see what happens next. I can talk to some folks, have them talk to others. Until somebody sees something, I think we're just chasing ghosts."

"Sounds like it. Du, Mary's coming back north this evening. She's got things started in New Haven. You want a ride?"

Du glanced at Jeff, who was having a hard time staying in his skin. "We can't just leave Annie out here with people like that! We've got to keep trying!" Jeff insisted.

"Colonel," Du said, "I know you're short manpower, but this is where the action is on the vanishing box. Some pretty nasty people want it; we need it. I want to stay down here."

"Take care," the Colonel said. "Those nasties won't be ignorant about you for long."

"Kind of hope they come looking for us, sir." Du turned to Ned as he tapped off. "Okay, tracker. Let's find the s.h.i.ts that did that house. I think it's time Vicky Sterling learns there's some things her money can't buy."

"She hurts Annie, Du, I swear, I'll hold her down while you cut her heart out." Jeff said the words without thinking, meaning them without reflection.

"I'll try to save you from that, Jeff."

Ray had experienced the calm before a storm. South, miners were making metal, and people acted like they might listen. In the center, Refuge and Richland were quiet. North side was terribly quiet, not a peep. All he could do was wait, worry, and miss Rita.

So Ray got busy, working with Tico and the new recruits. Since riot control was all he could expect from them, they were equipped with ceramic shields, helmets, and clubs of a resilient local wood. Uniforms were armbands; they marched, wheeled, did column rights and lefts, and changed fronts by the flanks. It was a drill as ancient as the Greek hoplite, but it was the best Ray had to fight primal human screams and a super computer. He took a turn with each platoon of one hundred, drilling them, letting them see him, hear his voice. That was what command was; not paperwork, but eye contact.

It felt d.a.m.n good to have his legs underneath him, moving at the proper cadence and step. Almost made up for the hour spent arguing production priorities with Mary as soon as she got back. He fell into bed ready for the innocent sleep of a baby.

And found himself facing the Dean. "Sociology, isn't it?"

"Close enough," the dapper image in khaki and tweeds agreed.

"What're you folks up to?" Ray asked.

"I might ask you the same."

"You'll have to explain the question better," Ray said, still feeling good from the afternoon's workout.

"Why do you want the displacer, the *vanishing box'?"

"Because I don't trust it in anyone else's hands. There's something about someone on a hill twenty klicks away making my base vanish that tends to upsets me."

"Then I think you'll understand when I say that your having it upsets me."

"I don't understand."

"Come, now. You heard my complaint when you removed portions of our net from the rocks up North. You've figured out that we build ourselves into this world. The surface is our weakness. We need sunlight for power. You burn off our solar cells and we are helpless, just waiting for you to leach the rest of our metal out, like you did the Gardener. No. Colonel, you are a killer, and I don't trust you."

Ray went over the statement slowly. He couldn't really blame the Dean. Given a choice, he wouldn't want the d.a.m.n thing on the same planet with him. Too much power. Way too much. But something else niggled at the corner of Ray's mind.

"You seem a lot more comfortable talking about yourself. There were quite a few *I's' in that last statement."

"And you are a savvy type who deflects conversations from where you don't want them to go. The vanishing box, Colonel."

"I'm trying to get my hands on it. What deep hole do you know that I can throw it down as soon as I've got it?"

"I don't trust you to have it that long."

"Has anyone told you that you have a problem with trust?"

"No, nor is anyone likely to. You are about the only one I am talking to these days."

"Then the *I' does mean something?"

"Yes. We are fractured, divided. Some are at war with others of us. I never expected to see anything like this."

"Are you at war?"

"No. I am just an expert on group dynamics. I can do nothing to destroy net nodes, hijack energy lines, silence static, or garble communication packets."

"Sounds like things have gotten bad."

"Bad and worse. Many are retreating to the mainland. It is better to be elsewhere when the President and Provost fight."

"You haven't gone, though."

The image across from Ray fidgeted in, his chair. "No, I haven't, yet. I keep hoping that something can be worked out. That somehow we can find a way to persuade you that you really do want us for your teachers. I'm an idealist, I fear."

"Do you have to be our teachers?"

"That's all we know to be," the Dean spat.

"I have a woman working for me. She's been a teacher most of her life. Now she's having a ball helping us decide where to investigate nature. Have you ever considered doing research? Studying why people do what they do?"

"We know all that."

"So you say. Sure you haven't been studying the same data so long you've forgotten what the real thing looks like?"

"It doesn't matter, you won't work with us. You are just as afraid of us and our power as we are of you and yours."

"That's where trust comes in. Look, I'm working with the guy who almost blew my planet out of existence last year. It doesn't mean he no longer has that power. It does mean we're having more fun working together than against each other."

"But we're not human."

"A year ago, I wasn't giving Green Earthy Symps credit for much humanity. All I wanted was to kill 'em. h.e.l.l, man, the woman that broke my back was pushing pills at me to help me get well before your treatments or medicines or whatever did the job for her. We humans change. Why can't you?"

"You have no use for us even if we did."

"You're kidding. You have all the knowledge of the Three, the ones who built the jump points. We stumbled through one and got out into the galaxy hardly three hundred years ago. We don't understand jumps, we just use them. If I came back to Wardhaven with the likes of you, ready to help us rediscover all the stuff of the Three, there'd be one h.e.l.l of a parade."

"You'd want us for..."

"Consultants, guides, fellow pilgrims on the way. Equals in the search, not superiors telling us not to touch. And yes, as teachers for our young, also."

"Because you do not trust us, you are willing to shatter the planet we share. If you could trust us, you would be willing to take us out among the stars you walk." The Dean spoke the words with slowly dawning eagerness.

"That's the way we do things. We can let fear drive us to kill, or we can trust. With trust, we can build on each other's strengths. Back home, we build things. The strongest building material is made up of many components, working together."

"That was what the Three said. Together they were greater than the sum of their individual parts."

"When you're just one big mind, there is a certain strength. Now you're many," Ray said. "You can hunt for the power of the many, or wipe yourselves out, trying to return to oneness."

"Once again, after our talks, I must think on your words."

"One more thing," Ray said. "Where is the thing that can scramble the molecules of my cells? That is the power you have that I fear the most. What line of thought controls it? Where is it? I could throw the vanishing box into a very deep hole if you tore that puppy apart. Rebuild it once we've gotten some trust built up. But right now it scares me and mine."

The Dean retreated deep into his chair. "That is something I will have to think upon long and hard, talk to others. I see your point. I see what you are offering us."

"It's been good talking to you," Ray said.

"Quite surprisingly, I, too, have found it good."

THIRTEEN.

RAY FOUND HE rather enjoyed the quiet time. As a string of peaceful days turned into a week, Matt bounced in and out of the system at increasing accelerations and longer intervals. By the time the weeks were long enough to grow into a month, Second Chance had unwound itself into two-gee accelerations and was spending four and five days turning around from each jump.

Mary was having herself a ball, hiking mineral production from the new southern mines, running a base and most of a planet's economy. As people went back to work in New Haven, the bosses of Refuge's factories came, hat in hand, asking to be included in the distribution. That was a real kick for Mary, and left her wondering aloud to Ray if Santa Maria wouldn't be a great place to settle down.

Doc Isaacs had to be dragged out of his lab for meals. He wouldn't tell Ray anything specific, but he hinted with a broad grin that he might be getting a handle on this place. Even though the vanishing box was still missing, on the average, things were not too bad; one might even call them normal.

Then Ray heard the padre praying, and normal went to h.e.l.l.

Ray went into town to ask the padre's help with the search down South. Jeff was about to come through the commlink at Ray, demanding they do something about Annie. The padre was finishing morning Ma.s.s as Ray slipped into the church, but no one was in a hurry to leave. On their knees, they prayed to saints with every name Ray knew, and a few he'd never heard of. After each name came the same request: "Pray for sun." Ray listened, then waited as people filed out. Every face looked worried.

"What was that all about?" he asked the priest when his people had scattered to their work.

The padre looked up, eyeing the cloudy sky. "We need a week of sun and warmth to bring the crop in."

"I thought farmers were all the time praying for rain."

"Shows what you know. Without water, the crops don't grow. Without sun, they don't grow either. We need all in their proper balance. We've had too much rain and clouds this month."

"The Weather Proctor," Ray breathed.

"You think this is no accident?" the priest said.

"Maybe. Probably not. Will you be in the rectory?"

"Yes."

"Leave me for a few minutes." As the priest's footsteps faded, Ray returned to his pew, leaned back, slowed his breathing. Relaxed, though that Was the last thing he felt like.

"Well, h.e.l.lo," the Dean said cheerfully. "Interesting place to find you."

"You'll find humans most everywhere," he answered. "What's with the weather?"

"The weather?"

"Yeah, isn't it awfully cloudy? Doesn't that affect your solar cells?"

"Yes. It's just part of the goings-on. By the way, your idea of a second career is attractive to many of us. Not the ones fighting, but a lot of us on the periphery."

"I'm glad to hear that, but I've got a problem. We eat food. Our food needs sunlight. We aren't getting enough of it this late summer to bring in our crops. If we don't get some good, solid sunshine, we may all be very hungry."

"Don't you have some kind of storage system?"

"Yes, but not enough. What can you do about it?"

"I'll put in a word with the Weather Proctor. I'm not sure whose side he's on. He seems to be running his own show."

"Please talk to him and get back to me quick."

"I'll try. You know, I like this place. Quiet, soothing. Ought to spend more time here."