Single Combat (32 page)

Ethridge's eyes flickered around him as he dropped to the catwalk—perhaps looking for an escape route just in case. His hands were not as high as Quantrill would have liked, but no matter. They both knew whose draw was quickest. Quantrill stuck the H & K into his sodden trousers. "Don't forget Control; use sign talk," he said to Ethridge who nodded, hands trembling.

"You're commander Niles?"

Nod.

"Who's Fairbanks?"

Manually: "
Cross
."

"Good; they bagged his ass. Any other teams?"

"
Not that I know of. Can't be sure. They psyched me up like a berserker
—"

"Later; we've gotta find a safe hole for you. Those customs dudes on the level?"

Elaborate shrug. Then, wincing: "
Control trying to raise me
."

"Don't answer. Take off those white pants, they make too good a target if those guys come down here after you. I'm going up. Keep that chiller; if I come barreling back down, for God's sake don't snuff me." Quantrill eased past the gymnast, squeezed his arm in passing. "You and I together can make Control regret Sanger," he added, trotting toward the stairs.

He emerged slowly into the light calling, "I'm Conrad! Take it easy! Send me one man, unarmed, to the stairwell; you can understand my caution."

He could hear men talking; a rattle of their equipment. He winced, reached inside his shirt, felt a lump between skin and pectoral muscle. The little explosive slug popped into his hand like a pea from a pod, still a live round. A half-meter of Corpus Christi Bay had made all the difference.

The man who slid into view kept his hands out and, beaming, explained that no customs men were anywhere near the pier. The men in borrowed uniforms were rebels; a welcoming party of picked men.

Even when he spotted two men carrying the body of Cross, Quantrill was not absolutely certain of his welcome. He refused to move into the open until the blocky prewar Mercedes rolled onto the pier. Flanked by towering bodyguards made taller by stetson hats, the old man who stepped from the rear seat carried an odd-looking piece of headgear. He was an unforgettable figure to anyone old enough to recall earlier Presidential elections. The paunch, the rolling gait of an old man with bad hips the compressed features on a big bald head with its halo of gray hair: Ex-Governor James Street of Texas.

Quantrill grinned, placed his automatic on the pier, strode to meet the Indy leader.

"Here, put this on first," said Street in introduction, taking the helmet from under his arm. He turned it over and a cascade of metal mesh fell out. It would form a cape reaching half-way to the wearer's waist.

Quantrill accepted the thing, shook the proffered hand. "I'm Ted Quantrill, Governor. What's this thing for?"

"We know who you are, boy," the old man said in a friendly growl. "We've had unimpeachable reports that you're still wearin' a gawddam bomb in your head, and reports just as insistent that it's gone. If it isn't, put on the gawddam helmet, it's somethin' they call a Faraday cage with its own signal generator. If that tells you a lot, then
you
explain it to
me
. But the gawddam Feds can't blow a man up when he's wearin'—where the hell are you goin'?"

But Quantrill was already sprinting back to the stairwell. "I've got a friend down here who needs this," he shouted, and started down the stairwell talking as he went.

Moments later he returned with a very cautious Kent Ethridge who made an arresting picture in helmet, briefs, socks, and a silvery metal drape that covered his upper body. Ethridge still refused to speak aloud, full of mistrust for the helmet; but his hands spoke often to Quantrill in rover dialogue.

Quantrill made the introductions. "You'll excuse Ethridge, Governor. He doesn't have much faith in that helmet, and I don't blame him. What he wants is a nice deep cave as long as that critic's in his head."

Along the pier men were running, changing clothes, speeding off in cars and on hovercycles. One of the stetsoned giants leaned over to murmur into the Governor's ear. "You're right, Tom," Street nodded, and turned to Quantrill with a squint-eyed grin. "This little switcheroo took some doing, and the real customs folks want to get back on the job before the gawddam media come flockin' down here. You boys ride up front," he added, and moved in the painful flatfooted gait of a tired old warrior toward his chariot.

It was not a genuine death-dealing icy wind, the kind that could sweep down from blue-black October skies to justify the local label, 'blue norther', but it made Sandy Grange glad she'd rebuilt this half-submerged old soddy instead of moving into an ordinary cabin. Gusts slapped at her big window near the fireplace and Childe gave a delicious shiver in response to the moaning at the eaves. "Tell me a scary," she wheedled, twirling the great Ember.

"Not now, hon," said Sandy, playing with the holo channel selector. "And quit diddling with that awful thing. Remember last week?"

Last week Childe had been idly toying with the amulet, watching its smoky gleam reflect the firelight, when it began to issue a terrible odor of long-forgotten eggs. It had taken Sandy awhile to track the stench to its source, but only ten seconds to throw the amulet outside. And there, on the grassy verge of a South Texas soddy, the only functioning synthesizer on Earth had spent the night, its glitter challenging the stars.

Now, Sandy window-shopped between two channels. The FBN channel offered its usual sitcoms. The Mexican channel was for all practical purposes an American channel with expatriate yanquis like sultry Ynga Lindermann whose talk show reached well into Streamlined America. Secretly, Sandy enjoyed the Lindermann show because at times her guests said and did things that went far beyond the legal limits. But after all, it was only a Mex station. Nobody
had to
watch.

But tonight Sandy chose FBN's electronic pabulum because it promised a special cameo appearance by a personal friend, the Reverend Ora McCarty. Apparently the Federalists did not yet suspect that McCarty might have rebel connections. So, for the best of reasons, Sandy missed Lindermann's talk with an old guest star, Governor Jim Street. And a new guest, Ted Quantrill.

Boren Mills would have missed it as well but for a priority call from Salter. Since his return from the utter ruin in the San Rafael Desert, Mills could usually be found either in his office or his adjoining spacious apartment, trying to buttress his tottering empire. The Israelis were dragging their heels on the ECM deal, and Young's complaints of outlaw media became daily more threatening. The two teams of innocent S & R regulars had found no trace of Eve Simpson's amulet at the Schreiner place, and while the desert lab had yielded many small fragments of synthesizers, Mills entertained little hope that a working specimen could ever be reconstructed from them. Other members of IEE's directorship were asking pointed questions about the failure of the (nonexistent) sea-water extraction facility near Eureka, and now Young had reneged on the licensing of the LOS site near Wild Country.

Unless Mills could offer some outrageous inducements, the IEE board might begin realigning companies like Latter-Day Shale. And Mills could find no inducements to sway some of those staunch upright Mormons. It was clear that Blanton Young's vision of Zion no longer coincided with theirs. If LDS voters found common cause with Catholics and Masonics, Mills would be wise to have his bags packed and his IEE stocks converted to faceted jewels. As his private phone buzzed, Mills was estimating that he might have six months to unload.

Lon Salter's holo image was that of a frightened man. "Mills, I'm watching XEPN, the Mex station. Can you receive it?"

"We own FBN, Salter. I can get an Ellfive station if I like."

"How nice for you, Your Arrogance. Turn on XEPN and pray that Young doesn't see a replay." Salter broke the connection.

Frowning, Mills snapped on the holo; coded the illegal Mex station that catered so brazenly to the rebel Indys. He slouched in his chair, not particularly surprised to see the two-shot of Ynga Lindermann and homely old Jim Street. But his frown deepened as the audio gained strength.

"… knew about the explosive implants in those Army Intelligence agents during the war," Street's gravelly voice insisted. "But we could never prove those same agents were still in the field. Well, they are, under President Young's direct orders, and their primary job is still assassination."

Lindermann was playing straight-woman. "They certainly keep a low profile, Governor."

"Hell they do, they wear the same uniforms as all the regular members of Search & Rescue." Audible gasps from an unseen audience. Street pressed on: "But they have extra equipment. Body bags. Silenced weapons. That mastoid-implant radio I mentioned. Whenever you see a lone S & R member, you may be looking at someone like him."

As the old man nodded to his right, the holo camera zoomed back. Boren Mills sat bolt-upright, a chill beginning at his widow's peak and centipeding down his spine. Ted Quantrill sat beside Street, clearly uncomfortable in a full dress uniform of S & R. No matter that the uniform must have been faked for this broadcast; the psychological impact was enormous; charismatic.

The old man said, "Of course some of them want out, but you can imagine what it's like to know your skull can be blown open anytime Young's people—they're called 'Control'—get the slightest suspicion that you could be an embarrassment to them. Young Quantrill had an incredible piece of luck, never mind the gory details, but somebody got that damnable thing out of his head before it exploded. And the instant he was free, he came hot-footin' it to us." A sly smile: "As all free Americans will, sooner or later."

Lindermann glanced into the camera. "A shameless political plug," she said archly, as though she were not a crucial cog in the Indy media machine. "I understand that he was pursued. Ted, how did you escape?"

Closeup of the uneasy young man in the sleek S & R uniform. "Well,—they caught me," he said, clearing his throat, trying to ignore the camera. "I guess their mistake was in training us so well."

Street, off-camera for an instant: "They caught each other, Ynga. And it cost Young three of his best men, including two instructors. They got good Christian burials—better'n they deserved. The instructors didn't have those critic things in their heads but the young fella did. Chased Quantrill into a storm sewer and—well, I saw the body myself. Sure made a believer out of me. Poor fella was an olympic-caliber gymnast before the war; Kent Ethridge, his name was. Damn' shame he threw in with the wrong folks."

"He didn't have a choice!" Quantrill's objection knifed through the old man's words. "None of us did." He seemed ready to subside.

Lindermann, sensing the young man's readiness to unburden himself, prompted him with, "Would it be too painful to say how all that affected you, Ted?"

Quantrill leaned forward, hands on his knees, then looked directly into the camera. He had been sweating, but not now. Now he was willing to stare the holo camera down.

In his eyes was a look that saw beyond anguish, the scarlet pain burned out, leaving only a dull and apparently permanent rage in the impassive, too-youthful face. "Okay, then." he leaned nearer into the camera. "You know about our mastoid critics. You know we're kept for killing—and they'd monitor our thoughts if they could. But nobody's told you what it does to us. I'm going to tell you now."

A long pause, the green gaze unwavering, muscles twitching at the corners of his mouth as he framed his words. "Think of the people you love the most; your brothers, sons and daughters, a wife or lover. You've trained and grown together for years, saved one another from dying, held—", and here he paused, throat working convulsively, "—held each other for comfort, knowing you must never—
ever
—say 'I love you'. Not even in a whisper. Because if you did they'd kill you."

"But you find ways to show it. And then realize you don't dare. There's always that fear in your guts that the training has been
too
good; that maybe loving is a sign of weakness; that if you show weakness you'll be rejected, maybe killed, by the one you need most.

"And the day comes when they force your own sweetheart to kill you, and instead she defies the entire system and gets you out of it all, knowing you don't completely trust her, knowing they may blow her away at any moment.

"And they do, the sons of bitches." Softly, softly: "They blow a piece of her head away and she dies, with no assurance that all of her love and trust and longing meant a God-damned thing to anyone else, including you. Including you," he repeated, nodding into a ghastly self-accusation.

The studio was so quiet it seemed one could hear the slow blink of those eyes, dry and green and entirely without pity. "And when someone offers you a chance to tell about it on holovision, you know you won't find words, there are no words, to truly explain how the bastards have hollowed out your soul and filled it with hate. But you know they monitor rebel 'casts." The nostrils flared infinitesimally. "They've made a death list naming a thousand innocent people, LDS and gentile alike." The barest suggestion of something like a leer. "They also know how well you can carry your assignments out. Who are they? Men like Lon Salter of S & R; Boren Mills of IEE; and their chief executive,
your
chief executive—President Blanton Young.

"Should they be surprised to hear that I have a little list of my own?" He was silent for two beats, his unwavering stare a promise of annihilation. "Be seeing you," he warned.

Old Jim Street's face was flushed and Ynga Lindermann appeared genuinely shaken. Quickly she put in, "Mr. Quantrill's opinions are his own, of course. We'll continue with our next guest after these brief messages…"

Mills realized that the phone was clamoring for attention. Salter? Young? Shit, who cared? He was slumped down, as far as he could get as if trying to disappear into his cushions and no goddam phone was going to pry him out. Mills began to wonder if there was any cushion anywhere deep enough to hide him from that green-eyed maniac. He did not have six months to unload. If he was very, very cunning, he might have six days.