“Normally, yes. But like I said, control is being concentrated at surface OpCom. We’re locked out of it.” Heeland thought over the possibilities. “Do you think they’re being brought in to beef up Zeigler’s strength at Serengeti?” he suggested. “His numbers are pretty thin.”
“If it were just the troops that left with Jorff, then maybe,” Keene replied. “But why Rakki and his general staff too? I’ve got a hunch something bigger could be going on somewhere else.”
“Like what?
“Have you forgotten Pieter Naarmegen and those people in the Scout out there?”
Heeland punched the console in suppressed fury. “But why?” It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have put it past Zeigler. He just didn’t see a reason.
“I don’t know, Kerry. But everything has gotten crazy. Who knows what might be going on? Can we get through to someone at Serengeti to find out it they show up there or not? You can patch me through. Let me worry about if I’m traced.” Even if Keene had a working compad with him, it wouldn’t have the range to connect directly.
“We’d still be identified too,” Heeland said. “The incoming message ID would be from here.”
“There’s got to be a way,” Keene insisted.
Heeland thought frantically. If this was his chance to help do something positive, he wasn’t about to let it slip away. “The runabout that you abandoned. Were the comms still working in it?”
“I don’t know. It did have local functions. I copied some files out of it just before we left. What did you have in mind?”
Heeland answered slowly, still checking through the sequence in his mind. “If I can relay you to the runabout, I might be able to set it to auto-repeat from there. That way the incoming signal at Serengeti would just identify the runabout. I assume it’s out in the wilds someplace. If they locate it, you don’t care?”
“I already said, let me worry about things like that, Kerry.”
“It might work. Can you remember the runabout’s number or its net ID code?”
“The vehicle number was SU27. I don’t know about the ID. We never used it.”
“Let me try that.”
Keene thought for a moment longer. “Those high-altitude airmobile platforms that you showed me—that transport and launch probes. Are they still controlled from up there, in the Varuna?” he asked.
“Yes. They’re primarily for directing planet-wide reconnaissance. Why?”
“Do you have one of them in this area right now?”
“There’s one about fifty miles southeast of the base.” There was usually a probe on-station in the general vicinity of Serengeti, monitoring weather and geological developments. “It’s recently deployed, still with three probes on board.”
“Can you move it closer this way?” Keene asked. “As a precaution. Having some high-level eyes up there might be useful.”
“Will do.” Heeland composed a command to move the center of the airmobile’s flight pattern to a new location and sent it off. Then he called up the register of ground vehicles at Serengeti. Site Runabout SU27 was listed as out of service. It responded when he interrogated its ID code.
* * *
Sariena was in the labs, reading a report on the plots of meteorites and debris orbiting Earth, when the call from Keene came through on her compad. At least, that was her official task. More surreptitiously, she had become something of a clearing house for information fed back from many eyes and ears around the base. A spirit of resistance was establishing itself that would be ready to erupt when the opportunity presented itself.
She had learned from past experience never to be too surprised at anything that developed once Keene was involved. “You made it? You’re at Joburg?” she said without preliminaries.
“Just—last night.”
“Why so long?”
“Predictably, we had problems.”
“Yes, you look like it. Be careful, Lan. If you don’t already know, Jorff is there. He’s equipping Rakki’s Tribesmen with firearms and training them.”
Surprise showed on Keene’s face. “How did you know?”
“Shayle has an inside source,” Sariena said simply.
Although obviously curious to know more, Keene merely nodded. The details could wait until later. “They left here this morning—Jorff, two of Zeigler’s troops, Leisha, Rakki, and the whole squad,” he said. “One thought is that they might be coming to Serengeti.”