“Yes, and in the meantime we’ve got this situation where the only alternatives seem to be either to find our own private army, or be run off like poachers.”
Kieran pursed his lips and responded with one of his enigmatic smiles. “Oh, I wouldn’t jump to conclusions too hastily, Rudi,” he said. “There are always other ways. Why else do you think we’ve all been so busy?”
Harry, who had been watching the communications panel in the driver’s compartment, appeared in the doorway. “It looks like they’re here,” he announced. “Two blips on radar coming in from the northeast. An outgoing message from the Mule to Asgard confirms their backup is on approach now.”
* * *
The force consisted of a “Venning” troop carrier with rated capacity of twenty men plus equipment, mounting support artillery in the form of a multiple munitions delivery turret behind the cockpit and underslung automatic cannon, accompanied by a command/scout flyer carrying missiles and laser pods. They landed where Kieran had predicted, between the two camps but closer to the Mule. Deployment was brisk and businesslike. A detachment in armored combat gear emerged from the troop carrier to cordon off the archeologists’ cabin and vehicles and secure the perimeter around the Mule, while another went down to clear and post guards in the Hole workings. While this was going on, officers from the command flyer entered the Mule to report to Banks and confer, as Kieran and the others were able to follow via the bugs planted there. There were no great surprises. Shortly afterward, Banks came through on local band inside the Juggernaut to issue his ultimatum: the team had four hours to complete its wrapping up and depart. If they were not gone from the shelf by that time, they would be forcibly removed.
Hamil and Walter went across to the Mule to plead their case again and demand that they be permitted to talk directly with the top management at Asgard who were responsible for the Tharsis project. It was a token protest, probably expected, urged by Kieran for appearance’s sake. And, as expected, it was refused. Banks was delegated full authority, and his decision stood. They now had three and a half hours.
Chas and his crew deflated the three-room cabin and packed it into its trailer, stowed the remaining items, and a little before the deadline, a procession consisting of the Juggernaut and two trailers with their hauling vehicles alternated forward and back on the sloping road sections to descend the mesa side below the shelf. They drove away across the valley floor and halted at a spot between two and three miles away, outside the boundary that Zorken had demarcated.
Back at the Troy site, Gottfried had been left to provide mobile eyes and sensors from a vantage point high on the slopes above, not far below the Citadel rock. The tap on the Mule’s communications line brought Banks’s report back to Asgard that the operation had been carried out successfully, on time, and without trouble. The ensuing message traffic expressed satisfaction and revived plans for a more comprehensive survey of the minerals potential under the plateau—which had been the original objective of Banks’s mission. It also brought Banks’s boss, Thornton Velte, responding to the Keziah Turle stunt, since Gilder himself was preoccupied with preparations for his daughter Marissa’s wedding, guests for which were assembling at the Oasis hotel before being transported up from Lowell as Asgard approached. While Velte dismissed it all as nonsense, Turle’s apparently authentic background had impressed Gilder. But there had been no thought of reconsidering—not that Kieran had expected any at this point. Gilder was still focused fully on business. He hadn’t made any connection with the Higher Powers which in another compartment of his mind he believed governed the workings of the universe.
“So we’ll just have to help him make the connection,” Kieran said when Harry replayed the latest snippets relayed from the Mule. He told Dennis to go ahead and transmit a set of the codes supplied by Pierre, which would activate groups of the protein synthesizers now present in the bodies of the Mule’s occupants. Some of the selected cell types were dermal, while others lay in the digestive tract.