Charlie nodded. “Yes, that’s about it, Lan,” he admitted.
“Okay, then, let’s hear it. There are just too many hazards and unknowns out there. Zeigler’s too far gone now to stop at anything. If the Aztec hasn’t been taken over already, it will have been by the time I get there.” Keene listed the alternatives in a weary voice. “What’s the line, Charlie?”
“As a matter of fact, I wasn’t thinking anything like that at all,” Charlie said. “What I was thinking was that Kronians found this world intimidating even before any of this happened. Four hands are better than two for things like bolting generator sets to trucks. And that anyone getting hurt on their own out there is going to be in real trouble.” He tugged at his tuft of a beard and met Keene’s eyes squarely. “The only thing I’d try and talk you out of is this crazy idea of doing it alone. I’m coming too.”
* * *
Keene’s position of running the primary power system for the base made him responsible for overseeing backup arrangements too, so there was no difficulty in acquiring a generator set. He had Shayle collect one from the stores in a GP runabout, along with an assortment of tools, and then ferry it out to the construction area, ostensibly for a standby installation to be located there. She then came back with a returning work crew in a site bus. Keene and Charlie took the rest of their gear and supplies out at intervals through the remainder of the day. It really was as straightforward as that.
Shortly before midnight, a transformer located in the rear part of the base experienced a mysterious short circuit to the accompaniment of spectacular arcs, clouds of white smoke, and considerable noise. The diversion had been requested by Naarmegen, but there was no reason for Keene and Charlie not to take advantage of it too. While guards ran around hurrying the on-duty technicians from the power house, and searchlights that normally wove desultory patterns around the pad area were turned rearward to illuminate the scene, the two escapees slipped away from the main complex and followed a roundabout route along the side of the pad area. Keene had arranged for Shayle to leave the runabout at a remote spot on the outskirts of the construction workings, which was also well away from the storage sheds for unloaded shuttle freight, where Naarmegen’s Scout was concealed. There was no point in taking a larger than necessary risk of getting involved if the other group encountered trouble. Another reason why Keene had chosen to stay apart and not reveal his own intentions was the possibility that Naarmegen’s approaches in recruiting for the larger group, despite his best attempts to exercise discretion, might have been picked up by informers.
They lay low, watching for a while, but the surroundings remained quiet and undisturbed. Keene concluded that his fears had been groundless. By this time, a pump was running over in the base complex to clean up the foam from the transformer fire—and also to cover any sound from across the pad area of the Scout starting up and leaving. It was also as good a time as any for Keene and Charlie to be on their way too, they decided. They emerged from cover to climb into the cab, Keene taking the driver’s seat.
He had equipped himself with night-vision goggles to help navigate through the darkness, since they wouldn’t be able to use the runabout’s headlamps until they were well clear of the base. However, there had been no time to put them to any practical test, and as things turned out their value proved limited. They operated by intensifying the images produced by low-level sources like starlight, but in the near total blackness below the post-Athena clouds there was precious little of anything to intensify.
As soon as they left the cleared area of the base, Keene found himself running into rocks and sliding down slopes of soft-formed sediments. He knew straightaway that this was going to be a very different affair from traveling overland in a Scout, which with its balloon-tire wheels and swiveling axles could traverse just about anything. After a particularly violent lurch off a clump of boulders that felt for a moment as if the runabout was turning over, they resorted to the expedient of Charlie shining a flashlight ahead through the windshield, waved in response to Keene’s hasty directions. But at best it could reveal only incoherent glimpses of what lay in a few tens of feet immediately in front, keeping their progress down to a crawl. Already, Keene was finding himself forced to revise his estimates of how they could expect to fare tomorrow.