“Gravcom Sys, Supervisor. Proceed with transfer of prepared file as previously specified,” Ominzek instructed.
“Executing.”
* * *
Phones and terminals were beeping throughout the offices and work spaces in the vaults beneath the Corry Building. People tumbled in and out of doorways and scurried along the corridors. Everyone wanted details; city services everywhere were requesting updates and instructions. All that was known for sure was that Edwards Air Force Base had gone up in a fireball seen from Barstow to Bakersfield. There were no clear accounts of the extent of the damage, and anything could happen next.
Yassem was weeping freely, still looking at the image of Krossig in Cairns. Her tears were of relief. An adjacent screen showed Nyarl and Hudro, cramped together in the cabin of the Terran aircraft, now heading east. They had come through minutes after the news from Sacramento about Edwards. “You’ve got Roland to thank for it,” Nyarl was saying. “If it hadn’t been for him, we would never have gotten out in time.”
“People seem to have a habit of surviving whenever he’s around,” Hudro commented, still seemingly having difficulty believing it himself.
“Marie always told me he lived a charmed life,” Yassem said.
* * *
While the C22-E was setting course toward Arizona, it was early morning in New York State. It had been a night of panic in the city and continuous hysteria from the news. Drisson and Laura had moved for a couple of days to a lodge that he had rented some weeks previously away from town, up in the Catskills—as a precaution. Laura, wearing the short housecoat that she had slipped on, came back in from the kitchen, carrying two coffee cups. Drisson was sitting propped against the end of the bed. He accepted one and tasted the contents, all the time watching her contemplatively.
“Why the long, silent look?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you’re not satisfied. I’d never live it down.”
“Oh, I’d say that’s close to the last thing you have to worry about,” he complimented.
“So what’s such deep thought about at this time of the morning?”
Drisson took a moment to compose himself into a more serious vein. “Things are a bit more complicated than I thought. Everybody’s building walls. Somebody like me can’t go near Toddrel without being logged and taped. If we end up having to do this, it’ll need to be from the inside. That means you being point.”
“You mean the one who actually does it? I thought you were supposed to take care of that. I was only an inside source. Information and access, remember?”
Drisson sighed in a way that conveyed both an apology and weariness from considering alternatives. “I know. But like I said, things have changed. Believe me, I’ve been through all the angles. There isn’t any other way.” Laura said nothing but didn’t look happy about it. He set his cup down and reached out to grip her shoulder reassuringly. “If it comes to it, it’ll be worth it. Trust me. Then . . . it’s whatever you want. Choose a life. This outfit doesn’t just deal in insurance, you know. With me you get the whole package.” He eyed her for a moment. His voice took on a coaxing tone. “Don’t let me down on this, Laura. We’ve both got too much at stake. He’s dangerous. You’d need it for yourself in any case, with or without me. . . . What do you say, eh? Are you made of what I thought?”
“I’ll need to think about it.”
Drisson got up and went into the bathroom as if that already decided the issue. His voice came back through the open door. “What makes it different with you is that you can get close and be invisible. I can’t. I figured the way would be to make it look like a hooker or something—we all know about Casper’s kinky predilections. Totally anonymous. Nothing anyone would want to be bothered putting any time into—especially at times like this, with everything else that’s going on.” The sound came of the shower being turned on. Drisson’s voice rose to carry above it. “So it just gets written off. We collect our retirement. Then it’s away from the war to some sunny place in the world. Get the big picture, baby?”