The brick wall was as high as our waists now; Floyd put one hand on it and vaulted over, bent and looked.
“Maybe, but not too clear. Could have been here once but it is so overgrown with grass that it is hard to tell. Can I come back now?”
“Yes-because it’s about time for a decision.” I pointed ahead to the slowly heightening wall. “The Fundamentaloids said they came to the city to trade. So they must have come this way, possibly made this track that we are following.”
Madonette nodded agreement-and didn’t like it. “And they were all men, I remember that all too clearly. Unclean indeed! No women allowed. Or if the women did come this way they would have to have walked over on the other side of the wall. What do you want us to do, Jim?”
“What do we want to do? As I said-it’s time for a decision. Do we all stick together and ignore the obvious instructions? That’s the first question that we have to answer.”
“Do that and I’ll bet that eventually we get into some kind of trouble,” she said. “A lot of serious work went into this wall. So if we don’t read the message something not too nice is guaranteed to happen. It always does on this world. The choice is mine. I’ll cross over and trot down the other side-”
“No,” I broke in. “As we go along the wall gets higher and we’ll be separated, out of contact. That won’t do.”
“Well I’m not staying here-and I can’t go back. So we need contact, what you just said. Kindly clack your jaw-a-phone and get onto Tremearne. Tell him to get some radios down here that we can use to keep in touch. If we are going to complete this assignment the right way, we will have to know what is going on on both sides of the wall. And I’m the only one who can find out what happens-here.”
She picked up her pack and planted her bottom on the wall, swung her legs up and over and smiled at us from the other side. I didn’t like it.
“It’s not a matter of liking or not liking it,” she said reading my doubts from my expression. “It is just the only way that we can get the job done. Get the radios. Don’t forget that Tremearne will always be listening in and can send the marines if any of us gets into trouble. Call him.”
“I will. But let us make sure they are the right kind of radios before we put in the order. Line of sight is going to be out with the wall standing in the way and blocking the signal. Plus-who knows hour thick the thing is going to be? It could soak up all the radio frequencies and that would be the end of that. Anyone know of a kind of radio that shoots a signal through rocks?”
I was speaking my thoughts aloud, half in jest. So was more than a little surprised when a voice behind me said, “Yes.”
I spun about and glared at Steengo who was buffing his fingernails on his shirt, then admiring his image in their shining surfaces.
“You said that?” I accused. He nodded sagely. “Why?”
“Why is a good question. The answer is that although I stand before you, an aging amateur musician drawn from retirement to risk his life for the public good, it should not be forgotten that I worked for many a decade in the cause of that same public good. League communications. Where I helped develop a neat little device referred to as MIPSC.”
“Mipsic?” I echoed inanely.
“Close enough, my good friend Jim. MIPSC is the acronym of Miniaturized Personal Satellite Communicator. I suggest that you clamp your jaw and order up a brace of them. Although four would be better-that way we could all keep in touch at all times. And remind Tremearne to put a commsatellite into orbit as well. Geostationary over the city of Paradise.”
“MIPSCs are not only highly secret but incredibly expensive,”
Tremearne said when I contacted him.
“Just like this little task force. Can you do it?”