He broke off, frowned, then groaned. “Not the Indians. Please don’t tell me Kane made enemies of the Indians.”
“No,” replied Brigid with a smile. “But Indians were involved.”
As they walked along the corridor made of softly gleaming alloy, beneath curved support ribs of metal, Brigid related all that had happened to them since they arrived in the pass at midmorning.
Lakesh listened without interruption, tugging at his long nose in bemusement. As Brigid concluded her report, he said, “I didn’t envision blocking ingress to the redoubt in such a manner, but that’s not a new experience. Nothing I conceive ever seems to match its eventual reality.”
“Kane is accustomed to improvising,” Grant said a bit defensively.
“You called it something else a few hours ago,” Brigid remarked. “Anyway, it’s the end result that is important.”
Lakesh nodded. “Except in this instance, the end result may hem us up here without a viable escape route.”
“We’ll just have to improvise another,” announced Kane, walking out of the vehicle depot. Everyone caught his sarcastic emphasis on “improvise.”
Lakesh gazed at him sourly. “Other than parachuting off the peak, what do you propose, friend Kane?”
Kane’s eyes went thoughtful. “That’s really not a bad concept.”
Domi shifted uncomfortably, working her right shoulder as best she could within the confines of the brace.
Grant asked, “You all right?”
“Hurts a little,” she admitted. “Tight.”
“DeFore should take a look at it,” said Brigid sympathetically.
Suddenly Bry’s voice cut down the corridor from behind them. “Sir! There’s something I think you should see.”
The slight, round-shouldered man sounded agitated, which was not particularly unusual. He always sounded as if he were on the verge of nervous collapse. He poked his head out of the doorway of the control complex, running a thin-fingered hand through his copper-colored curls.
“What is it?” asked Lakesh, deliberately affecting a calm, almost bored cadence in counterpoint to Bry’s stressed tone.
“We’ve got activity on the mat-trans network,” Bry called. “Redoubt Papa, of all places.”
The designation meant nothing to Kane, Domi or Grant, but Brigid’s and Lakesh’s eyes widened in surprise. Lakesh pushed his way past Kane, moving swiftly. “Let’s see it.”
The central control complex was the nerve center of the installation. A long room with high, vaulted ceil-ings, the walls were lined by consoles of dials, switches and readout screens. A double row of computer stations formed an aisle. Circuits clicked, drive units hummed, indicator lights flashed. A Mercator-projection map of the world spanned the width of the far wall. Pinpoints of light flickered in almost every continent, and thin, glowing lines networked across the countries, like a web spun by a rad-mad spider. The map not only delineated the geophysical alterations caused by the nuke-caust, but it also displayed the locations of all functioning gateway units the world over.
One light glowed with an intense, unremitting yellow glare. Bry pointed at it, his words tumbling out in a staccato rhythm. “See? We’ve got an autosequence-initiator read showing a destination target lock, but not one indicating a departure point. It just flashed on a few minutes ago.”
Lakesh squinted at the map. “That can’t be possible.”
“Perhaps,” ventured Brigid, “an intruder broke into the redoubt and activated the unit accidentally, without actually transporting themselves anywhere.”
“No,” declared Bry firmly. “It’s a definite transit line, a positive materialization. Someone transported themselves there, but the modulation frequencies can’t be traced.” He added blandly, “Just like our own unit.”
Kane turned toward Lakesh. “Looks like some genius has rigged a gateway the same way you did.”
Lakesh stiffened as if offended. “There’s only one person alive who knows enough about the quantum interphase mat-trans inducers to do that. Me.”
“You’re sure it’s not a sensor glitch, transmitting an incorrect signal?” Brigid asked.
A bit crossly, Bry gestured to a computer console. “That was my first suspicion, so I ran a level-two diagnostic on the sensor feed. No, it’s a true read, a real signature. The unit in Redoubt Papa was activated.”
Kane shook his head in exasperation. A little cloud of dust floated out and up from his hair. “What’s so damn important about Redoubt Papa?”
Sinking into a chair before a station, Lakesh replied, “It was the only Totality Concept-linked installation in the vicinity of Washington, D.C.”