Dark of the Woods

XIII

Davis stood by the request keyboard of the fortress computer and punched out every subject heading he could conceive of that might concern the existence of the other three fortresses. Spools of tape slid into the delivery slot in alarming number, and he dropped them swiftly into a sack he had brought for the purpose. When he could not think of anything which might contain critical data about the other hideouts, he started punching out headings dealing with the Artifical Wombs, hoping to have time to deny all of that to the Alliance as well.

“Here,” Leah said, entering the room and dumping a pile of spools into the sack. Those are the ones I got you this evening. They were still on the study desk.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Food?”

“All packed.”

“Water?”

He punched out another topic; more spools slid into the tray.

“Got it,” she confirmed.

“Two heat blankets?”

“Yes, and electric torches. And, though Fortress Two might very well have weapons, we'll need some while we're getting from here to there. I packed four guns.”

“Damn!” he snapped, pounding a fist into the keyboard.

“What is it?”

“I don't see how we're going to have time to get all the pertinent data out of the library. And even if we do, we'll not be able to take it all with us. And it's burn-proof film. I could cut it up — and they'd put it back together.”

“What about acid?” she asked. “There should be a great many kinds in the labs, don't you think? One of them ought to destroy the stuff.”

He gave her a mock kiss. “Great!” He fished in the sack, handed her some spools. “You go down and find something that works. I'll stay here and push for as many topics as I can come up with and join you when I think I've got everything.”

She took the spools and raced through the door, into the elevator across the hall and down to the lower reaches.

For some reason, as Davis stood there punching out subjects, he felt like the legendary little Dutch boy at the wall of the dike, trying to plug up the leak with a finger. Instead of water spilling out across his shoes, there were data films, dozens of them. At last, when he could not conjure up another title on any pertinent subject, he filled the sack with the spools. He was well enough acquainted with the library to know there were a few thousand other topics covered, but he had no more time to worry about those.

When he reached the first lab floor and got off, Leah, almost collided with him. “What is it?” he asked.

“The acid idea is out. Unless you've boned up on your chemical formulas recently.”

“Huh?”

They don't have stuff sitting around in bottles. It looks like each lab table has a dispenser that connects to a central chemical depository. It looks like you dial out the formula for what you want. But I don't know any formulas.”

“Try something random.”

“I did. Four times. Nothing happened.”

His thoughts were flitting through his mind too fast for him to fully comprehend any one of them. And before he could manage to slow them down to a reasonable speed, the warning lights and sirens went on all over the complex. Someone had breached the observation niche's false rock door. The Alliance men were now in the fortress,

“Quick!” he shouted. “Before they stop the lifts!” He pulled her backwards, into the bubble car, and punched for the basement. The lift dropped so suddenly their stomachs flipped over, and a moment later the doors opened on the last level of the installation.

“There's the sled,” she said, pointing to the grav-plated snow vehicle sitting along the far wall. It was light, with a large, flat surface to sit on, no comfortable seat, only belts to hold the passengers on the hard metal it was constructed from. It had been meant for short distance travel in stormy weather, not for 86-mile rides. But it was going to have to do.

There were two rucksacks strapped on the luggage rail, lights and guns strapped to the hand rail on the other side to give balance. It looked sturdy enough, as if it could take a good bit of knocking around, and it was no doubt fast. But he didn't relish getting on it and opening up its drive motor to see what it could do.

They slipped into the heavy coats, buttoned them up, pulled the hoods in place, and worked thick gloves on. Davis felt a strange itching in the small of his back from having his wings covered. It seemed unnatural, and he wished he could shed the coat. But this was going to be a long haul. It might be 86 miles to Fortress Two as the Demosian flew. But they were going to have to stay out of the sky, and they were sure to find a ground route was a hell of a great deal longer.

The lift closed its doors and went up, speeding to bring the men of the Alliance down on them.

“Here are the controls,” Leah said, quickly identifying each of the pedals and each of the knobs on the semicircular steering wheel. “This is for opening the concealed door to let us out. This is for closing it once we've gone through.”

“Get on,” he said.

They sat on the flat surface of the sled, strapped themselves down. Leah grabbed him around the waist, laid her face against his shoulder so she could see just a little of what was ahead. “Go,” she said.

The door in the rock wall slid open.

He lifted the sled, shot it forward, through the raised stone, and into the snowy world outside. He pressed to close it the instant they had gone through, and then they were separated, forever, from the complex, alone in the dark and the wind.

Above, near the peak, Alliance copters chopped the air apart, lowering men to the observation deck where the stronghold had been breached. He wondered if they knew that the two winged people they saw were the same they had certified dead several weeks earlier — back in the times when only one of them could fly. According to Leah, who had monitored the news out of the port city, both of their pictures had been flashed on every communications media on the planet, complete with an in-depth report on what happens to good citizens who give in to evil and perverted lusts and break the law of the Alliance and the Supremacy of Man party. And though his own features did not even remotely resemble those the television audience had glimpsed, she looked the same. And no one, he was certain, could ever forget her face having seen it only once. They probably knew, well enough, that the girl was Leah. And if they didn't suspect his identity, they'd know for sure when they found the Artificial Wombs and deduced their purpose.

He concentrated on steering the light, fast craft along the top of the snow. Its grav field was so strong that the thing could support itself on the crust without stirring a breath of air in passage. The only noise it made in the Demosian night was a soft, contented purring, like a cat who had been on prowl and has found what it's been looking for.

There were no hardships this time, and no moments when either of them thought they had seen their last breath of air drawn — except once, when a bull moose with spiderweb antlers (which were really antennae) loped across their path, directly in front of them. They had missed it by inches, and it had charged after them, its gossamer antlers rippling and swaying above its head; but it had been no match for the sled.

They reached the second fortress in five hours, never driving faster than fifty nor slower than thirty, weaving in and out of trees, hugging the sides of valleys and bucking crazily up over the ruggedest drifts they had ever seen. It was well before dawn that they found the mountain which housed their sanctuary and achieved the door in its base that led to a sled berth like the one they had departed from earlier in the night. It was structured much the same as the first stronghold, though it was far larger. When they had looked at only a small bit of it, they agreed that a full reconnaissance could wait until morning.

“One thing,” he said, wearily, as they tumbled into bed.

“What's that?” she asked, sounding even sleepier than he.

“We can't stay here more than another day or two.”

She sat up. “Why not?”

“Because, love, even though I tried to pull every trace of the other three fortresses from the library of the first, there is bound to be a reference hidden in one of the thousands of other spools of data. And you can be damn sure they're going to go over that library with a microscope — especially when they discover we've seen fit to deplete it of large sections of knowledge. They'll know, at once, that there is another place like the first, and they'll waste nothing to find it. It won't take them long at all. They can even use Fortress One's computer to scan Fortress One's library and save themselves a few thousand man hours.”

“But what can we do?”

“Only one thing,” he said. He yawned and rolled over.

“Wait just a damn minute!” she exploded, dragging him onto his back again. “What's the one thing?”

“It'll take a long time to explain. And it's going to require a very emotional and important decision on your part. Wait until you feel better, wait until you're rested.”

“Now,” she persisted.

He shrugged, sat up, scratched his head. “Now, eh? Well, you might not like this. You may even hate me for suggesting it. It's not going to be pretty, and we can't kid ourselves that it will be an easy thing to do. You still want to hear, now?”

“Go on,” she said.

He did…