What of the others? Cade wanted to know. Had Hudro or anyone heard from Vrel, Luodine, and Nyarl since the attack at Segora? No. It had all been too sudden and confusing. Cade borrowed a phone and tried calling Vrel’s Terran number. It rang somewhere, but nobody answered. Was there any news of Tevlak? No, nothing.
Cade listened dully to a summary of events elsewhere. The sensation was that in what had been the U.S., the mountain states—Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico—along with Texas and those toward the Pacific, had formally denounced the Washington regime as illegal and seceded as the Federation of Western America, its capital Sacramento, with the former governor of California, William Jeye, as president. Already there were reports of clashes with federal and security forces in the region who refused to come over or be disarmed, and military overflights being shot down after ignoring warnings to turn back. The South, essentially, had declared neutrality and been occupied at key strategic points within hours by Hyadean-assisted Eastern forces.
Hounded in the jungle, wary of using communications, the guerrillas hadn’t pieced together the full story. Hudro thought the recording they had made at Tevlak’s house could have been a factor. He confirmed that Vrel had received it and sent it on. But Cade no longer cared; or maybe a defense mechanism in his mind was protecting it from something that it wasn’t yet ready to deal with. He had already been coming to terms with the realization that his life was going to change in some fundamental ways from what it had been. Now, the alternative that he had glimpsed had been snatched away before he’d even begun to understand fully what it meant.
“You’re sure nobody else could have made it out of the crash?” he asked Rocco.
“What was left of the helicopter went up in flames while we were dragging you away. If anybody did, the Globs have them now. So we’ll never know.”
Cade had gashes in the side and back of his head, and a mild depressed fracture that had been treated during the two days he was unconscious, and which with luck would now heal; also, a strained neck and a collection of body cuts and bruises. Events passed for him as a series of incoherent impressions, like disconnected fragments of a movie that was no longer of interest. Whether this was due to his condition or the drugs that the medic who checked him periodically and changed the bandages on his head gave him to dull the pain, Cade didn’t know.
The truck was bumping past people who look strained and exhausted, trudging along the roadside leading pack animals, pushing loaded carts and bicycles, or carrying bundles on their backs. A woman sat looking blankly, her belongings strewn around her, heedless of her crying child. The man propped against the tree beside her didn’t move. . . .
It was night. Houses were in flames, with explosions sounding distantly. There were cries and wailing all around. People crowded around the truck, pleading to ride. The truck had already picked up as many as it could. There was no more room. . . .
The noise came of aircraft flying low overhead. The figures under the netting strung between the parked truck and the trees fingered their weapons nervously. An Indian woman tried to quiet her restless baby, as if the pilots might hear. . . .
They had pulled off the trail. Gunfire was sounding somewhere ahead. Two men came back from another truck to report that the Globs were holding the bridge over a river. They had to go back and try another way. . . .
Never had Cade seen such human misery and suffering. What was it all for? Who benefited?
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF of the Hyadean military forces on Earth was called Gazaghin. Normally, he was based in his headquarters near the General Embassy in Xuchimbo. When he stopped by Casper Toddrel’s Washington club to meet for lunch the day after Toddrel’s return from Brazil, however, it was from the liaison office that the Hyadeans had established in the Pentagon just across the river. He had flown up on an emergency visit to discuss strategy and coordination with the Eastern regime’s forces following the secession of the FWA two days previously.