Correll shrugged. “Hard to say, friend. We don’t really get much in the way of chem storms out here. This is only the third I can remember in as many years.”
“Fireblast,” Ryan cursed softly to himself. “You’ve got to admire the timing of it.”
Correll nodded, his lips set grimly. “There’s no way they’ll rendezvous if this continues,” he said in an artificially even tone, trying to keep his temper. “It’d be suicide to try and move through that.”
They remained silent for a moment, watching the images on the screen. The storm was awesome in its fury, with the rolling clouds crashing together, sparking off flashes of lightning colored by the residues of chemicals carried within the acid rain that beat strange patterns into the soil, fashioned by the conflicting drifts of wind that beat into each other, causing eddies and whorls of dust and mud to whirl around the sparse vegetation, which was being ripped from its fragile rooting. Any animals or reptiles that wished to risk the storm were soon chilled, the majority opting to take whatever cover they could find. The unearthly, orange-gray sulfurous light that spread and suffused across the land cast an unearthly pallor on the landscape, making it seem even more alien and unfriendly than it had ever seemed before.
“If it abates before the sunrise, then we’ve got a chance of things going ahead,” Ryan mused. “I can’t see the rendezvous not taking place unless it’s as absolutely impassable as this.”
Correll shook his head slowly. “Jourgensen and Hutter both have a mutual need. They’ve taken long enough to get this far with each other. They’re not likely to blow it out their asses unless necessary. For a start, they need to communicate with each other to arrange a mutual point and time, and that won’t be easy…especially as they won’t know whether or not the other has sent their convoy out.”
Ryan mused on this for a moment. Things were starting to get complicated. Should they risk a move?
“How about us?” he asked, turning to face Correll, tearing his eye away from the terrifying spectacle that was taking place outside the redoubt.
“What—should we stay or go?” Correll posed.
“No, I mean what about your spies? Is there any way that they could let us know about changes of plan?”
“No reason why not if it’s a rearrangement,” Correll said tightly. “Thing is, they can’t let us know in this bastard chem storm. This is when I wish we already had the secrets of the old tech.”
“I don’t know,” Ryan said quietly, stroking his chin as he scanned his memory. “I can’t think of anything I’ve ever come across that could penetrate successfully through the rad interference you get with such a storm. You’ve got spies in both villes?”
Correll nodded. “One in each. And up to now they’ve been able to keep us informed with some old radio equipment that we worked out how to use—well, Danny did. That boy’s useful to us, despite the fact that I reckon he’d buckle in a firefight. But these old handhelds are only so effective. The signal gets too broken up too easily, even with the usual rad shit that’s in the atmosphere, let alone with some bastard storm like this.”
Ryan nodded. “If it abates before morning, they’ll get in touch as soon as they can to let us know if it’s still on, won’t they?”
Correll smiled mirthlessly. “They know they have to— let us down at this point, and they might as well kiss their asses goodbye about ever linking up again. Same reason our man in Charity didn’t help the recce party. No way could he afford to blow his cover, not at this point, If they got into trouble and got themselves chilled, well, that was their problem, right?”
Ryan nodded almost imperceptibly. “Had to be,” he replied; but he did wonder if Correll’s hardline discipline didn’t run the risk of engendering rebellion. As long as it held for the next day, then they would be okay. On reflection, it did seem that, despite his tendency to harsh judgment, he had little to fear from his people, all as driven in their own manner as their leader.