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CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was nighttime over Earth's western hemisphere when the interstellar ship slid ghostlike into its parking orbit. America's east coast lay under clear skies, and they could make out the well-remembered shoreline by the lights of cities.

Must be something in the air system I'm allergic to, Roark thought, blinking his eyes.

"There is the shuttle," said Svyatog, pointing. Sure enough, the craft occluded a wedge-shaped segment of the star-field as it approached its rendezvous. "On the basis of our observations of Rivera's routine, the time will be right later tonight to put our plan into effect—if you feel ready. If not, we can stay safely here in orbit until the next such opportunity arises."

The two humans shook their heads in unison. "No," Katy said. "We've had the trip to plan this out, and we're as ready as we're going to be. And we don't need to rest up." Once again, the ship had gradually shifted to the destination planet's diurnal period so they could adjust.

"Besides," Roark added, "we've got no time to waste. We don't know what Havelock's going to try next, or when he's going to try it. In fact, we're lucky it isn't already too late."

"Very well. We'll proceed to the Enclave as soon as the shuttle has docked."

 

Ada Rivera cursed as she almost stumbled. Fall was ending, and the carpet of dead leaves made the tree roots hard to see even in daylight. At night—even a cold clear night like this—the wooded fringe of the Enclave was downright hazardous. She steadied herself and continued on toward the accustomed hummock behind whose shelter she would use her flashlight to send a Morse-code signal to the observer waiting in the darkened woods beyond. It was typical of the communications techniques they used: so low-tech as to be undetectable. She only wished she could use the flashlight to illuminate her path, but to do so would risk observation.

She had almost reached the hummock when a figure stepped out from behind a tree into the moonlight and stood facing her.

Trained reflexes overrode startlement, and she fell into fighting stance. At first she didn't recognize the man, what with the darkness and the goggles he wore. But then he spoke.

"Good evening, Captain Rivera."

"Roark!" She started to gather herself for an attack. He raised his right hand. The sight of the weapon it held froze her.

"Don't, Captain. You're not as fast as this. Nobody is."

Rivera relaxed one muscle at a time, and spoke through a throat tightened by loathing. "Laser pistol. Lokaron make. Like those." She pointed at Roark's goggles, which she was certain were the kind of light-gathering opticals she'd been wishing she had, only far more compact than any human-made starlight scope. "Just the sort of stuff they'd issue to a loyal slave . . . or domestic animal." She sneered in the moonlight. "Go fetch, doggie!"

Roark didn't let himself be provoked. "I don't want to hurt you, Captain. But I have to insist that you come along quietly."

"So you can turn me over to your Lokaron owners, you mean? Why don't you just kill me now and get it over with?"

"Use your brain, Captain. The Lokaron have known about you for a while. They could have picked you up any time they wanted."

Rivera opened her mouth, then closed it before words could form. For a heartbeat, she was silent. Then she shook her head angrily, as though shaking off the thoughtful frown she'd worn and with it any doubts that had crept in. "To hell with that, you cocksucker—or whatever it is you do with the Lokaron! Why should I listen to anything from a goddamned traitor?"

"He's no traitor, Ada," came a quiet female voice from behind her. "Any more than I am."

Heedless of Roark's laser pistol, Rivera turned around. "Katy," she whispered. "So you are alive! I could hardly believe it when Havelock me. And I didn't want to believe it when he ordered me to send Pappas and Cantrell to do the two of you. I told myself he was wrong, that they'd really just be getting Roark. . . . " She blinked, then drew herself up and glared. "Why am I even talking to you? You're as much a Lokaron-loving Judas as Roark, or you wouldn't still be alive this long after you stopped reporting. Now go ahead and kill me. Surely, Katy, you at least have enough humanity left in you to give a fellow human a decent death, instead of delivering me to the Lokaron."

"We're not going to kill you, Ada . . . and we're not going to take you to the Lokaron. We're going that way." Katy pointed in the direction Rivera had been heading.

"That's right," Roark put in, gesturing with his free hand toward the darkened landscape outside the Enclave. "To a little place out there beyond the ridgeline. No Lokaron. Just us. All you're going to be required to do is hear us out. Afterwards, you'll be free to go."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. Oh, of course you'll continue to be under Lokaron observation—you wouldn't believe me if I claimed otherwise. But you'll be no worse off than you are now."

Rivera's glare was back. "This is some kind of trick. But I don't suppose I have any choice." Shoulders slumped, walking in a dispirited shuffle, she started in the indicated direction.

Suddenly, with the lightning speed of which she was capable, she whipped out her flashlight and shone it full in Roark's face. At the same instant, she formed her free hand into a lethal weapon and sprang forward . . . only to halt in mid-lunge as she saw that Roark was only smiling, and that the laser pistol was still trained unwaveringly on her.

"Nice try, Captain. But these goggles have an automatic antiglare feature. You can't blind me that way, like you could if I was wearing U.S. Army passive night-viewing equipment. And now that we've gotten that out of the way, give me the flashlight and let's go."

"And while we're walking," Katy added, "you might use the time to contemplate the fact that you're still alive after that stunt—and what that fact implies about our intentions."

They proceeded. Rivera no longer made any effort to look defeated.

 

The abandoned farmhouse was far from the nearest human habitation. And if sheer isolation didn't assure security, a field generator did; any wandering kids or hunters who approached it found themselves experiencing a combination of headache and cramps that made them lose all interest in further exploration.

Outwardly, its weatherbeaten dilapidation had been left unaltered. Inside, it wasn't much more prepossessing . . . until one came to the inner chamber that Svyatog had had prepared before he'd departed for Harath-Asor, against this very contingency. The deserted rooms and corridors led around it in an endless loop, unless one knew the right closet door to use, and how to open the wall behind it.

In the light of its ceiling's illumination, that chamber was bare save for some chairs and a flat-topped device anyone familiar with the Enclave recognized at once as a small holo-projection display. It was also heated to a humanly comfortable temperature, to the relief of all of them—although Rivera carefully avoided showing it.

"Aren't you going to tie me to the chair or something?" she asked after Roark motioned her to sit down.

"We will if we have to," Katy said, removing her goggles. "But we'd rather not."

"Things like that tend to inhibit communication," Roark deadpanned. He continued to hold the laser pistol steady.

Rivera crossed her legs, folded her arms, and looked from one of them to the other. "All right. So communicate with me. Why have you brought me here?"

Katy sat down on a chair facing her—outside Roark's line of fire—and began. "You're here because it was the only way we could get you to listen to us. And it's of vital importance that we convince you of a couple of things. The first is that we're not traitors, either to the United States or to the human race."

"That one," Rivera stated, clipping off each syllable, "will take some doing."

"Probably not as much as the second one." Katy drew a deep breath. "It concerns the Eaglemen—yes, Ben knows that I used to be one, and that you still are. We're also aware of Havelock's secret life as leader of the organization."

Their captive was all wide-eyed innocence. "What are you talking about? That's crazy."

"Cut the crap, Rivera," Roark growled wearily. "You're not Katy's cell leader anymore, concealing the identity of the big cheese. And even if we hadn't already known it, you spilled the beans earlier tonight, while you were still in shock over seeing her. You named Havelock as the one who'd told you she was still alive in the Enclave. She was always the Eaglemen's special source of information in there, not the Company's." Rivera's eyes narrowed to dark slits, and her mouth tightened into a thin line. "Now, this is going to take all night if you waste our time with a lot of bullshit. So just accept the fact that we know the truth, and don't worry about `withholding confirmation' or any of the rest of that goddamned spook game-playing."

Rivera's armor cracked open a trifle, to reveal curiosity. "That last is an odd remark, coming from somebody in your line of business."

"Yeah, well, I suppose you could say I have a better right than most to be sick to death of it. And a slime mold like Havelock makes it even more sickening than it has to be."

Rivera's eyes narrowed even more, but not enough to hide the flame in them, and her features grew even more tightly controlled. Katy, observing her closely, smiled. "Why so indignant, Ada, if Havelock's just an operative of the government you want to overthrow? Why should you mind hearing Ben bad-mouthing him?"

"All right!" Rivera flared. "Since you seem to know everything—yes! He's our leader, as well as a high-ranking Company officer. And that silly cow Kinsella wonders why she's never been able to infiltrate us! He's deflected all her attempts, so neatly that she never knew they were being deflected. In the meantime, thanks to him, we've infiltrated the Company! And we know everything the Company knows!" She sat back and grinned at them. "There, I've confirmed it for you, whether you needed confirmation or not—for all the good it may do you and your Lokaron bosses! Which must not be much, or you would have used it already."

"We already told you, Ada, we don't need confirmation."

"Then what is the purpose of all this?"

"To make you aware that you're being duped." Rivera tried to speak, but Katy overrode her. "Havelock's using the Eaglemen the same way he's used the Company. Kinsella doesn't know he's one of you, but you don't know who his real masters are." She paused to draw a breath, but Rivera seemed too taken aback to fill the brief silence with anything more than an intense glare. "First of all, you need to understand that the Lokaron are divided into multiple sovereignties . . . nations, if you like—"

"We've had some inkling of that," Rivera acknowledged stiffly. "So what? They're all Lokaron."

"Maybe so, but if you think that means they're all alike, you're as wrong as some alien would be who said that you and an Iranian Shiite Muslim and a stone-age animist from the upper Amazon were `all humans' and let it go at that. They're at least that different from each other—and they have different agendas. And some of those agendas are more in our interest than others."

"Horseshit!'" spat Rivera. "They're aliens! None of their `agendas' can possibly mean anything good for us."

Katy leaned forward until she was, Roark thought, imprudently close to the Special Forces captain. "Let me ask you something, Ada. Do you seriously doubt that the Lokaron could have seared Earth clean of human civilization anytime they'd felt like it?"

"Of course they could have! But all they're interested in is profit. Havelock has explained it to us: they want a market to exploit, not a conquered wasteland."

"Yes, that's how most of them think—in particular, Gev-Harath, the dominant nation. They're the ones I work for."

"So!" Rivera bared her teeth. "You admit you work for them."

"Yes . . . and so does Havelock!" Katy hurried on, forestalling a reply that Rivera looked too stunned to make anyway. "But he and I don't work for the same Lokaron. His bosses belong to Gev-Rogov, the green ones. They don't think the way Gev-Harath does—the way you've been comfortably assuming all the Lokaron think. They do want a conquered wasteland!"

"You're out of your goddamned mind, you bitch!" Sheer fury had burned away Rivera's shock. "Havelock is human, for Christ's sake! Why would he want to work for aliens like these, uh, Gev-Rogov—"

"Actually, the plural is `Rogovon,' " Katy corrected automatically.

"I don't give a flying fuck about the plural! The point is, if they're such monsters—"

"No, I wouldn't call them monsters. In fact, they're probably more like us humans than any of the other Lokaron. Think about that—and remember, from history, how humans have usually treated other cultures that were backward and helpless." Katy paused, and the fire subsided in Rivera's eyes as her look turned inward. Roark wondered if she was thinking of Cortez.

Katy smiled slightly and nodded. "So you see, there are worse things than money-grubbing, price-gouging merchants like the ones I work for. Especially when those merchants' interests coincide with ours. Gev-Harath is worried about the Rogovon too, and wants a counterweight to them. That means helping us modernize ourselves so we'll no longer be backward and helpless."

Something inside Rivera seemed to attempt a rally. "But Havelock wouldn't betray us! He's proven that he's committed to our cause. He's given us too much help—inarguable help!"

"Oh yes, I'm sure he's helped you whenever it's served his purposes. He's done as much for the Company. But he'll sell you out just as fast as he sold the Company out, and would sell the Rogovon out if he could find a buyer. In fact, he's already sold you out."

"Prove it! And while you're at it, explain to me what his motive is. According to you, Gev-Rogov has got it in for the whole human race. What's in it for him?"

"As a matter of fact, we can prove it." Katy took a remote out of her pocket and turned toward the holo stage. "We ourselves had no absolute proof before, although it was the only explanation that made sense. You see, Havelock has been keeping in touch with his Rogovon bosses via technology that's undetectable using anything humans have got. But once they knew what they were looking for, the Harathon security types were able to intercept his latest communication. It uses direct neural interfacing." Katy and Roark watched Rivera's expression harden at the mention of the forbidden technology. "But by means I won't explain—partly because there's no time, but mostly because I don't understand them myself—the Harathon were able to reproduce the shared virtual-reality environment they were using in holographic format, with the audio in English as Havelock was `hearing' it."

Rivera sniffed. "Anything that can be produced can be faked."

"No doubt. Maybe they could even generate a bogus Lokaron that could fool another Lokaron. But do you really think they could do a human—a member of a race alien to them—that would fool another human? A human who knows the depicted individual personally, as you know Havelock? Watch him, and ask yourself if he's generated by an alien-programmed computer. And ask yourself something else: how did he obtain the information necessary to get your hit men into the private areas of that tower where Ben and I were living?"

Katy turned from the suddenly silent Rivera and fiddled with the remote. The recording had been made just before Svyatog had left Earth. He'd brought it to Harath-Asor, and the return trip had given them time to go over it. So they were no longer shocked when a miniature Henry Havelock appeared, seated across a table from a green-skinned Lokar.

"What have you to report?" demanded the Lokar without preamble.

"Nothing conclusive, lord." Rivera stiffened visibly at the way Havelock addressed the nonhuman. "The failure of our attempt to eliminate the two rogue agents—"

"Our attempt?"

"My attempt, lord," Havelock corrected himself. "At any rate, there is no indication that Gev-Rogov has been compromised in any way. The failure resulted from no new knowledge on Gev-Harath's part; it was due simply to—"

"—Typical human incompetence," the Lokar finished for him. Havelock was obsequiously silent. "I begin to wonder if you are the right choice to administer the Rogovon-occupied sector of Earth after all."

This time, Rivera's stiffening was convulsive, and a nonverbal sound at the low threshold of audibility rose from her throat.

The Havelock-image's head rose slightly. "Permit me to remind you, lord, that there will be no such `sector' unless the political preconditions for the occupation are created. And for that, you need the resources I command. Only through me can you use the United States government and the Eaglemen as tools for building a Lokaron consensus behind a military solution."

Roark glanced at Rivera, who looked as though she was going to spring at the holo stage. But most of his attention was on the Rogovon figure. By now, he knew enough about Lokaron body language to recognize iron self-control. The translated voice's tone confirmed it.

"Very well. For now, I will permit you to continue with your plan—which, by the way, may now be free of the complicating factor Roark and Doyle represented, despite your failure."

The human holo image lifted one interrogative eyebrow in a way that would have removed anyone's last doubt that this was indeed Henry Havelock. "Lord?"

"We have been unable to pinpoint their location since the day after the attack on them. But our observers noted some suspicious activity in connection with a Hov-Korth shuttle launch. We believe it is possible, if not probable, that Svyatog has moved them off-planet."

Havelock frowned. "What could be the purpose of such a move? It would secure their safety, but also render them useless."

"Except as sources of background intelligence," the Lokar demurred. "At any rate—"

Katy jabbed with the remote, and the scene vanished. "There's more. But I think we've heard enough. Don't you?"

Rivera gave no indication of having heard her. She sat in a motionless silence that the other two left undisturbed—crowing would have been counterproductive even if they'd felt inclined to indulge in it, which they didn't. When she spoke, her words were as unexpected as the flat tone in which she said them: "So our people in the Caymans . . . ?"

"Oh, so those were Eaglemen?" Roark nodded, not really surprised. "Yes. I was there. It was Havelock who killed them."

Rivera nodded in turn. Finally, she looked up and met their eyes. They met hers, and saw . . . murder.

Henry, old fellow, thought Roark, you don't know it yet, but you're walking dead. And as for me, I think I'm going to make it a point to never get Ada Rivera seriously pissed at me. 

"All right," Rivera said, forcing each expressionless word past the barrier behind which she sheltered the dull hurt of betrayal. "So tell me why this Gev-Harath you're working for is any better."

"I already have, Ada. One thing I haven't mentioned, though: like you, they want the EFP regime overthrown."

"Why? Why should aliens give a shit about us primitives and our funny little governmental arrangements?"

"They don't see us that way! At least the far-sighted ones don't—like Svyatog'Korth, the one who counts. They want us to join them among the stars, as a trading partner and as an ally against Gev-Rogov. And they understand that in order to do that we have to free ourselves from the secular theocracy that's been holding us back in the name of slogans that were discredited before you and I were born! Svyatog will help. But we have to do it ourselves—which is what we've always dreamed of doing anyway."

Roark understood the import of Katy's we. He held his peace and watched these two women who'd once shared a communion of revolutionary commitment from which he was forever excluded, however reliable an ally he might prove to be.

"So that's why you took me tonight," Rivera said, nodding. "You want the help of the Eaglemen." She smiled a sad little smile. "So it's come to this. We're finally being offered a chance to fulfill our dream of restoring the Constitution . . . on behalf of aliens."

"No, Ada! We'll be doing it for ourselves, for our country. Our destiny is to take our place among the stars—and Gev-Harath wants to see us do it. That makes them our allies, but not our masters."

There was a long silence which Roark didn't dare break. Then Rivera nodded again. When she spoke, her tone was brisk and matter-of-fact. "Yes. And we need allies—all the allies we can get. The Eaglemen can't do it alone. We need the support of everybody in the U.S. government who's dissatisfied with the status quo."

"They may not all agree on what should replace it," Roark cautioned.

"Of course not," Rivera snapped, annoyed at him for stating the obvious. "But there'll be plenty of time to argue about that later. For now, we can't be choosy." She made a sound that was not a laugh. "Hell, if we're going to get in bed with Lokaron, who are we to turn up our noses at human allies whose motivations may not be exactly the same as ours?"

Roark kept to himself his relief that Rivera was seeing it that way. "Right. We're thinking of one in particular: Kinsella."

"Kinsella?" Rivera's scowl was back. Roark understood. It was a little like asking a chicken to seek the aid of Colonel Sanders.

"Yes, yes, I know," Katy said hastily. "She's not exactly a heroine to the Eaglemen. But her ambitions make her a natural enemy of the present power structure—one with connections in the Central Committee. If we can prove to her that Havelock has been betraying her, she's likely to react—"

"—The way I have tonight," Rivera finished for her. "All right. Let's prove it to her."

"That's the problem." Roark was glum. "How are we even going to make contact with her, much less put our case to her?"

"Why not get her attention the same way you got mine?"

"Huh? You mean . . . ? But . . . how?"

"I think you'll be surprised at what the Eaglemen can do once we put our minds to it. I'll have to get in touch with Major Kovac, my cell leader, to set it up." The unhesitating way Rivera named that cell leader convinced Roark of her sincerity as nothing else had. "I'll have to make him aware of the facts, of course. But after I do . . . " She gave them a level regard, then held out her hand. "Are we agreed?"

Roark took the proffered hand. "I'll say this for you . . . Ada. When you decide to commit to something, you don't do it by halves." Katy placed her own hand over theirs and squeezed.

The three-way handclasp lasted a while, as each of them reflected on what they were setting in motion this night.

Roark finally broke the spell. "Let's drink to it." He reached into his jacket and brought forth a flask. "Appleton's rum—the best."

"I might have known!" sighed Katy.

 

 

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