The dark woman who was Kilby and a controlled devil’s swarm of microlife looked over at him and asked in Kilby’s voice, “Halder, do you think we should still go on trying to find the others now?”
“Of course. Why stop?”
Kilby hesitated, said, “It took you three months to find me. Four months later, we located Rane Rellis . . . and Santin, at almost the same time. Since then we’ve drawn one blank after another. A year and a half gone, and a year and a half left.”
She paused, and Halder said nothing, knowing she was fighting to keep her voice steady. After a few seconds, Kilby went on. “Almost twelve hundred still to find, scattered over a thousand worlds. Most of them probably in hiding, as we were. And with the Federation on our trail . . . even if we get away this time, what chance is there now of contacting the whole group before time runs out?”
Halder said patiently, “It’s not an impossibility. We’ve been forced to spend most of the past year and a half gathering information, studying the intricate functioning of this gigantic civilization—so many things that our mentors on Kalechi either weren’t aware of or chose not to tell us. And we haven’t done too badly, Kilby. We’re prepared now to conduct the search for the group in a methodical manner. Nineteen hours in space, and we’ll be on another world, under cover again, with new identities. Why shouldn’t we continue with the plan until . . . ”
Kilby interrupted without change of expression. “Until we hear some day that billions of human beings are dying on the Federation’s worlds?”
Halder kept his eyes fixed on the traffic pattern ahead. “It won’t come to that,” he said.
“Won’t it? How can you be sure?” Kilby asked tonelessly.
“Well,” Halder asked, “what else can we do? You aren’t suggesting that we give ourselves up—”
“I’ve thought of it.”
“And be picked apart mentally and physically in the Federation’s laboratories?” Halder shook his head. “In their eyes we’d be Kalechi’s creatures . . . monsters. Even if we turn ourselves in, they’ll think it’s some trick, that we’d realized we’d get caught anyway. We couldn’t expect much mercy. No, if everything fails we’ll see to it that the Federation gets adequate warning. But not, if we can avoid it, at the expense of our own lives.” He glanced over at her, his eyes troubled. “We’ve been over this before, Kilby.”
“I know.” Kilby bit her lip. “You’re right, I suppose.”
Halder let the cab glide out of the traffic lane, swung it around towards the top of a tall building three miles to their left. “We’ll be at the club in a couple of minutes,” he said. “If you’re too disturbed, it would be better if you stayed in the car. I’ll pick up our flight-hiking outfits and we can take the cab on to the city limits before we dismiss it.”
Kilby shook her head. “We agreed we shouldn’t change any details of the escape plan unless it was absolutely necessary. I’ll straighten out. I’ve just let this situation shake me too much.”
They set the aircab to traffic-safe random cruise control before getting out of it at their club. It lifted quietly into the air again as soon as the door had closed, was out of sight beyond the building before they reached the club entrance. The driver’s records had indicated that his shift would end in three hours. Until that time he would not be missed. More hours would pass after the cab was located before the man returned to consciousness. What he had to say then would make no difference.
In one of the club rooms, rented to a Mr. and Mrs. Anley, they changed to shorts and flight-hiking equipment, then took a tube to the outskirts of Draise where vehicleless flight became possible. Forest parks interspersed with small residential centers stretched away to the east. They set their flight harnesses to Draise’s power broadcast system, moved up fifty feet and floated off into the woods, energizing drive and direction units with the measured stroking motion which made flight-hiking one of the most relaxing and enjoyable of sports. And one—so Halder had theorized—which would be considered an improbable occupation for a couple attempting to escape from the Federation’s man-hunting systems.
For an hour and a half, they held a steady course eastwards, following the contours of the rolling forested ground, rarely emerging into the open. Other groups of vehicleless fliers passed occasionally; as members of a sporting fraternity, they exchanged waves and shouted greetings. At last, a long, wild valley opened ahead, showing no trace of human habitation; at its far end began open land, dotted with small tobacco farms where automatic cultivators moved unhurriedly about. Kilby, glancing back over her shoulder at Halder for a moment, swung around towards one of the farms, gliding down close to the ground, Halder twenty feet behind her. They settled down beside a hedge at the foot of a slope covered with tobacco plants. A small gate in the hedge immediately swung open.
“All clear here, folks!” a voice curiously similar to Halder’s addressed them from the gate speaker.
Rane Rellis, a lanky, red-headed man with a wide-boned face, was striding down the slope towards them as they moved through the gate. “We got your alert,” he said; “but as it happens, we’d already realized that something had gone wrong.”
Kilby gave him a startled glance. “Somebody has been checking on you, too?”
“Not that . . . at least as far as we know. Come on up to the shed. Santin’s already inside the mountain.” As they started along the narrow path between the rows of plants, Rellis went on, “The first responses to our inquiries came in today. One of them looked very promising. Santin flew her car to Draise immediately to inform you about it. She scanned your home as usual before calling, discovered three strange men waiting inside.”
“When was this?” Halder interrupted.
“A few minutes after one o’clock. Santin checked at once at your place of work and Kilby’s, learned you both were absent, deduced you were still at large and probably on your way here. She called to tell me about it. Your alert signal sounded almost before she’d finished talking.”
Halder glanced at Kilby. “We seem to have escaped arrest by something like five minutes,” he remarked dryly. “Were you able to bring the records with you, Rane?”
“Yes, everything. If we get clear of Orado, we can pick up almost where we left off.” Rane Rellis swung the door of the cultivator shed open and followed them in, closing and locking the door behind him. They crossed quickly through the small building to an open wall portal at the far end. Beyond the portal a large, brightly lit room was visible, comfortably furnished, windowless. Between that room and the shed the portal spanned a distance of seven miles, a vital point in the organization of their escape route. If they were traced this far, the trail would end—temporarily, at least—at the ranch.
They stepped over into the room, and Rane Rellis pulled down a switch. Behind them the portal entry vanished. Back in the deserted ranch building, its mechanisms were bursting into flames, would burn fiercely for a few seconds and fuse to dead slag.
Rane said tightly, “I feel a little better now . . . just a little! The Fed agents are good, but I haven’t yet heard of detection devices that could drive through five hundred yards of solid rock to spot us inside a mountain.” He paused as a tall girl with black hair, dark-brown eyes, came in from an adjoining room. Santin Rellis was the only one of the four who was not employing a biological disguise at the moment, In spite of the differences in their appearance, she might have been taken for Kilby’s sister.
Halder told them what had occurred in Draise, concluded, “I’d believed that suspicion was more likely to center first on one of you. Particularly, of course, on Santin, working openly in Orado’s Identification Center.”
Santin grinned. “And, less openly, copying out identity-patterns!” she added. Her face sobered quickly again. “There’s no indication of what did attract attention to you?”
Halder shook his head. “I can only think it’s the microbiological work I’ve been doing. That, of course, would suggest that they already have an inkling of Kalechi’s three-year plan to destroy the Federation.”
Rane added, “And that at least one of the group already has been captured!”
“Probably.”
There was silence for a moment. Santin said evenly, “That isn’t a pleasant thought. Halder, everything we’ve learned recently at the Identification Center indicates that Rane’s theory is correct . . . every one of the twelve hundred members of the Kalechi group probably can be analyzed down to the same three basic identity-patterns, reshuffled in endless variation. The Federation wouldn’t have to capture many of us before discovering the fact. It will then start doing exactly what we’re trying to do—use it to identify the rest of the group.”