Death Wave (18 page)

“How did he get out of Barcelona?”

Halleck thought about that for several silent moments. At last she leveled an index finger at Nordquist and said, “You go to Selene. See Stavenger, face-to-face. Even if he hasn't taken Kell under his wing, there's always the possibility that he'd be tempted to do so. Him and his independent nation of Selene! You make him understand that Kell is a fugitive, and I want him in custody.”

Nordquist picked the scanner off her lap and got to her feet. “I'm on my way,” she said, her expression stern.

As the Valkyrie swept out of her office, Halleck mused, If she can locate Kell, I'll make her director of security.

*   *   *

The World Council's communications complex was a mere five-minute ride from the Council's headquarters through the deep tunnel system that connected the two buildings.

In his office at the underground complex, Oswald Frankenheimer stared at the wall-screen image of Aditi's brain.

Castiglione, sitting to one side of Frankenheimer's desk, asked, “Well?”

Without taking his eyes from the intricate tracings of neurons, Frankenheimer said, almost in a whisper, “I could get a Nobel out of this.”

“Nobel Prize?” Castiglione's expression was more amused than interested.

“If I can disentangle the communicator in her brain from the other cells, isolate and identify which cells she uses to communicate with her people on New Earth…” His voice sank too low for Castiglione to hear.

“You'd open her skull?”

Frankenheimer pulled his attention from the wall screen. “Open her skull? Are you insane? She's not some experimental animal, for god's sake! She's much too valuable for that.”

“Then how…?”

With the patience he would show when explaining fundamentals to a teenaged student, Frankenheimer said, “We get her to communicate with New Earth while she's in the neutrino scanner. Then we can see which neurons are activated, which cells are part of the communications device and which are not.”

“Ah,” said Castiglione. “I see.”

“And we go on from there, mapping the cells that are activated.”

“This will tell you how the device works?”

“Not entirely. But it'll be a start.”

Castiglione pondered that for all of five seconds. “I understand that our own communications techies will be receiving tutorials from New Earth.”

“Yes, the first one is scheduled for later today.”

“If they learn how to build such devices, you won't have to probe Aditi's brain.”

Frankenheimer shook his head so violently his hair flew askew. “No! You don't understand!”

“Understand what? If they willingly tell us how—”

“I want to understand this technology from first principles,” Frankenheimer insisted. “It's one thing to make copies on a monkey-see, monkey-do basis. But we need to
understand
how this technology works, understand it so that we can build such devices for ourselves, without help from New Earth.”

“But the end result is the same, isn't it?”

“No it's not! If we learn how to create such technology for ourselves, we don't need New Earth's experts handing us the technology like superior beings handing a gift to benighted children. We'll know just as much as they know. We'll be independent of them, not dependent.”

“Oh. So that's it.”

But Castiglione was thinking, And you, Dr. Frankenstein, go on to win the Nobel Prize—using Aditi as your experimental animal.

 

GILDA NORDQUIST

She had been raised in Stockholm—“the Venice of the North.” Her father was the chief engineer in the state-owned firm responsible for building the intricate system of dams and breakwaters that saved the city from the rising sea levels of the greenhouse warming.

Her mother had died of cancer when Gilda was barely five, but her father had his wife's body frozen in the hope that her disease could one day be cured and she would be returned to him.

She had always excelled in her studies, and received her degree in international law when she was merely twenty. She accepted the World Council's invitation to join their security agency. That's when she started learning how to break the law.

Tall, blond, good-looking in an outdoorsy, athletic way, Gilda Nordquist became an expert at spying on Earth's citizens, and using undercover agents to provoke susceptible people into becoming criminals.

Neither she nor the men and women she worked with considered what they were doing to be illegal. Extra-legal, at worst, they told themselves.

“The world is filled with potential criminals,” said her mentor, a narrow-eyed Korean who successfully bedded Nordquist during her first year in Barcelona. “Our task is to identify them, control them, and
use
them to help keep order and harmony in society.”

Thus Nordquist became a recruiter of criminals. “Better to have them working for us than against us,” the Korean told her, time and again, until she believed it fully.

She would scan police reports and court hearings, seeking petty thieves and swindlers whom she—and the psychotechnicians and police detectives who worked with her—could turn into informers and recruiters.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands of serious criminals were apprehended by the simple expedient of luring them into committing crimes and then swooping them into prison. The general public saw their police departments triumphing over the forces of anarchy and danger. The bewildered criminals, pawns in a global scheme they seldom comprehended, disappeared into prisons and cryonic freezers.

Nordquist was convinced that she was helping to maintain law and order. Crimes were committed, of course, but the criminals were put away before they could strike twice. The world order was protected, even strengthened.

It wasn't long, however, before a woman of Nordquist's intelligence and ambition began to seek better things for herself. She started to climb through the World Council's security bureaucracy. By the time she was named deputy director, and she had set her sights on the directorship, her opportunity came to her—from the stars.

 

CHICAGO

Looking decidedly unhappy, Thornberry said to Jordan, “Halleck will be sending a team to search this place, she will. And my house up on the lake shore, too, I'll wager.”

“I should get out of here before they arrive,” Jordan said.

With a heavy sigh, Thornberry agreed, “That you should. I'm sorry. I'll do my best to get this straightened out.”

“I appreciate it, Mitch. But for the moment, I've got to find a hideaway.”

“Paul's in North Dakota, on his people's reservation.”

Jordan nodded. “That might be a good place.”

“Kind of obvious, though.”

With a shrug, Jordan said, “I don't know anyone else. All my friends from before our mission to New Earth haven't seen me for nearly two hundred years. I can't just suddenly pop in on them.”

Jabbing a finger at the phone console on his desk, Thornberry commanded, “I'll call Paul Longyear. His personal phone.”

Jordan felt nervous. How long will it take for Halleck to get a security team here? This is the United States, of course. They'll have to get a court order before they can start searching the place. But that won't stop them from putting a security cordon around the building that would pick me up as I tried to leave.

“Paul's not answering his phone,” Thornberry grumbled.

Jordan got to his feet. “I'd better be leaving.”

“Do you have a phone?”

“Yes, but I'm sure Halleck's people could trace it easily.”

Thornberry pushed his chair back and got up, too. “Come on up to the roof, then. I'll arrange a private jumpjet to fly you to Paul's reservation and I'll give you a new phone, so you can talk with the man—whenever he deigns to answer his damned phone.”

*   *   *

It wasn't until the jumpjet was nearly at Bismarck that Paul Longyear finally returned Jordan's call.

The biologist's lean, dark-eyed face broke into a rare smile once he saw Jordan on his phone's screen.

“Jordan! Good to see you.”

Jordan couldn't help smiling back at him. But he said, “Paul, I'm in a bit of a jam. I need your help.”

“What's wrong?”

As Jordan swiftly outlined his situation, Longyear's expression grew more and more somber.

“Separated you from Aditi?” he said at last. “They can't do that!”

“They've done it. Halleck is using the fear of alien contact to pursue her own interests.”

Longyear said tightly, “I'll pick you up at the Bismarck airport.”

“Good. Thanks.”

The jumpjet arrived at the airport before Longyear did. Jordan spent an anxious hour sitting in the terminal building's lobby, watching the main entrance, expecting a team of security agents to burst in at any moment.

As he tensely waited he kept asking himself, How can I reach Aditi? How is she? Where are they holding her? How can I get to her?

The lobby was quiet, uncrowded; only a few travelers were coming through it. Jordan paid no attention to the elderly, oversized Native American who entered the terminal, then stood just inside the main entrance, scanning the area with his hooded eyes. The man wore a nondescript plaid shirt, baggy work pants, scuffed boots, and a broad-brimmed black hat tilted back on his head. His face was copper-red, his expression stony.

After sweeping the lobby visually, the man walked straight toward Jordan, who rose to his feet uncertainly as the burly Native American approached.

He's certainly not dressed like a security man, Jordan thought. But still …

“Jordan Kell?” the elderly man asked, in a low rumble.

“Yes.”

“I'm Paul Longyear's uncle. He's waiting for you outside, in the pickup.”

Jordan puffed out a relieved breath and started walking alongside the man. He was massive: not fat, just large, solid, straining the clothes he wore. Jordan got the image of a retired athlete.

“I didn't catch your name,” Jordan said.

The man almost smiled. “I didn't give it. It's George Twelvetoes.”

“Twelvetoes.”

“All the men in my family are born with six toes on each foot.”

“That's unusual,” said Jordan.

“Not in my family.”

Twelvetoes led Jordan out into the airport's parking lot. It was a warm and sunny day, dry with a soft breeze blowing. Off in a far corner of the lot a battered old pickup truck was baking in the sunshine. As they approached it, Jordan recognized Paul Longyear sitting in its cab.

Longyear stepped down onto the blacktop and extended his hand to Jordan. “Good to see you, Jordan,” he said with a warm smile.

“It's good of you to come all this way to pick me up,” said Jordan.

The three men climbed into the truck: Twelvetoes behind the wheel, Longyear in the middle. The electric motor made hardly any noise at all as they drove off the parking lot and followed the signs to the highway.

Jordan went through his litany again as Longyear nodded solemnly, listening. Twelvetoes said nothing and kept his eyes on the road.

“So what do you intend to do, Jordan?” Longyear asked as they accelerated onto the interstate.

“I need to get to the news media,” said Jordan. “I need to tell the people about the death wave and the other civilizations that we've got to save.”

For several moments Longyear said nothing. He glanced at his uncle, who still stared straight ahead, then turned back to Jordan.

“That's about what we expected,” Longyear said. Before Jordan could reply, he went on, “Uncle George and I talked about the problem on our way to the airport to pick you up. We think you ought to stay with us on the reservation for the time being.”

Jordan shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, but I need to get in contact with the major news media.”

With a wry smile, Longyear said, “We don't live in teepees anymore, Jordan. We have our own holographic broadcasting station. They can make contact with the media networks for you.”

“They can?”

Twelvetoes, without taking his eyes from the road, deadpanned, “Red man make heap big medicine. BIG smoke signals!”

All three men broke into laughter.

*   *   *

In Barcelona, Gilda Nordquist dropped in to the satellite surveillance center of the communications complex.

The surveillance center always reminded her of what it must be like inside the head of a giant insect. Dozens of display screens lined the walls, making the place look like colossal multifaceted eyes.

“I only have a minute,” she told the pouchy-faced operator on duty there. “I'm on my way to Selene.”

“Flying to the Moon,” the operator said.
“Quelle romantique.”

“You don't know the half of it,” Nordquist said, smiling coldly.

“So what can I do for you, boss lady?”

“There's a big Indian reservation in North Dakota.”

“Native American,” the operator said. “The Yanks haven't called them Indians for centuries. And there are several reservations in the state of North Dakota.”

Ignoring the correction, Nordquist said, “Find the one that Dr. Paul Longyear has squirreled himself in. Scan the area between it and the nearest major airport. Plus the reservation itself, of course.”

“What am I supposed to be looking for?”

“Jordan Kell. His vitals are on file.”

“He's the star traveler, isn't he?”

“That's right.”

“And he's on an Indian reservation?”

Nordquist resisted the urge to throw the correction back at the operator. Instead she said, “Search also for Paul Longyear. He was also on the star mission and his vitals are on file, as well.”

“Aren't everybody's?”