“What kind of help, Lily?” Crawley sounded wary. “We have no boats to cross the river and, even if we did, they’d never make it in the face of catapults and horse-archers and God knows how many boatloads of pirates from those damned islands where Bermuda used to be. The bridge we’d expected to use has had a goddamned wall built right across it. I ordered it overrun, but these goddamned cowards lost so many men on the first assault that the second and third waves flatly refused to attack.
“They’re dying like flies and deserting in droves and I know it’s just a matter of time before they murder Zastros and call the whole thing off, if they can patch together some kind of deal with that goddamned mutant bastard. So I want out, now! Send a copter for me or send me help, one of the two.”
“Hmmm,” replied Crawley. “Hang on, Lily. Ill have to check the map with someone who knows more about transportation than I do.”
A third male voice addressed her. “Doctor, this is O’Hare, transportation. Can you read me the coordinates off your transceiver? Those dials are located . . .”
“Goddamn it, I know where they’re located!” she snarled into the mike. “Do you think I’m stupid?” “N … no, ma’am,” he stuttered.
“If you goddamned bastards’ don’t stop calling me ma’am . . .” Her infuriated voice had risen to almost a shout and she broke off short. The last thing she wanted in here right now was a guard. “The coordinates are: thirty-five degrees and twenty-eight minutes latitude, seventy-nine degrees and two minutes longitude.”
After a moment O’Hare said; “Well, ma’ … uh, Dr. Landor, you’re not on the little Pee Dee, you’re on the Lumber River.”
“Well, ma’ … uh, Mr. O’Hare,” she scathingly mimicked him, “what the hell difference does it make?” Crawley’s voice cut in gravely. “Quite a bit, actually, Lily. You see, where you are now is beyond the range of any of our copters. We can neither get help to you nor pick you up, I’m afraid.”
“Goddamn your ass, Bud Crawley! What kind of crap are you trying to feed me?” Lillian spluttered furiously. “I happen to know that the big copters have a range of five hundred miles. I’m not that far from the Center, and don’t try to tell me I am, you son-of-a-bitch, you! The distance dial on this goddamned transceiver reads: 742.5 kilometers.”
“Actually, 742.531,” Crawley announced dryly. “Roughly 461.5 miles, Lily. And, yes, the maximum range of the large copters is five hundred miles, but that is a round-trip figure. Yes, we could get one up to you, but it couldn’t get back. Don’t you see?”
“Well, what the hell, Crawley, let them come up and blow that damned wall off the bridge and scatter the mutant’s army. Then they can march with me.”
Crawley sighed. “Lily, Lily, you know as well as do I what the board would say to that. We cannot—have not the facilities to—replace copters and there are no refueling points that far north.”
Lillian was almost shouting again. “Why can’t the five-thumbed bastards bring their extra goddamned fuel with them. I can remember that planes used to do it.”
She could hear O’Hare’s voice in the background as Crawley briefly conferred with him. Then, “I’m most sorry, Lily, but that idea is just not practical. You see, the extra weight of the fuel would decrease the overall range. I’m afraid you’re just caught in quite a vicious circle, old girl.”
“Don’t ‘old girl’ me, you damned Limey fairy!” she hissed. “Just tell me how you’re going to get me out of this frigging mess your goddamned masculine stupidity got me into!”
His voice cooled noticeably. “I’m looking at the map now, Dr. Landor. Lieutenant O’Hare assures me that, if you can get even as far west and south as thirty-degrees no minutes latitude, eighty-two degrees thirty minutes longitude, we shall have no difficulty succoring you.”
“Even if I can find a way to get out of this camp and down to wherever that is, how in the hell am I going to know it? Grid lines aren’t painted on the goddamned grass, you know; and how the hell am I going to let you know I got there, you pigs?”