Starfire

30

The Southern Hemisphere, as predicted, took the brunt of the particle storm. But Star Vjansander alone had warned of the extent of the damage, amplified by the extreme stability of the particle bundles.

Reports from smart sensors scattered over land and sea, and from survey teams returning to the surface from their underground hideouts in Australia and Antarctica, gave a first estimate of conditions south of the equator. Ninety-nine percent of the incident flux had burned its way right through the atmosphere and tunneled deep below the surface, still moving at close to a tenth of light speed. It was preceded by a blue flood of Cerenkov radiation. Ground and water impacts caused the violent disintegration of ten percent of the bundles, but the rest remained intact and hit the surface as intensely charged nodules. These became electrically neutral in a few hours, exploding violently to individual atoms as ambient electrons dissipated their positive charge.

The effects on plant and animal life were immediate and devastating. Each bundle was minute, but it contained the energy of a bullet from a supervelocity rifle. The high positive charge greatly increased the interaction cross section with living tissue. The result of a single impact was a clean cylindrical hole four to six millimeters across, seared at the edges and surrounded by extended tissue damage like a radiation burn.

The arriving bundles peppered the surface with a mean separation distance of four meters. Survival of individuals became a matter of luck and statistics. Most populations of pelagic fish were little affected, protected by many meters of water depth. One pod of humpback whales had apparently dived at the right time and remained intact; another, only a few kilometers away, had suffered twenty percent losses. On the Antarctic ice cap, a survey team found a close-packed colony of emperor penguins quietly nursing their eggs in the polar winter; but one bird in forty was dead or badly wounded. Diving skuas fought over and dismembered the dying.

Humans, warned and well prepared, had done rather well. The only casualties were the result of ignorance or folly. The highest percentage of losses came among the nine hundred and seventy thrill seekers who had headed south to Tierra del Fuego for the “big blip party.” The fourteen aircraft that took them there would no longer fly. Five hundred and ten survivors were waiting to be picked up and brought home, considerably chastened.

They were the exceptions. The general mood of the country and the world was upbeat. Even the southern countries, hardest hit, shared the euphoria. We survived this one, we’ll survive the big storm as well.

Not everyone, however, was pleased that the planet had got off so lightly. Gordy Rolfe’s best plans for Argos Group activities had been based on casualty counts in the tens to hundreds of millions, or at the very least a few million. Opportunities were always greatest in times of chaos.

He had followed the progress of the particle storm, moment by moment, from an observation post in a shallow shelter only a hundred meters from the northern edge of his Virginia estate. Of course, Argos Group equipment and staff were in place all around the globe, and they had reported to Gordy in real time. He rubbed his hands in satisfaction as the lands of southern Africa and Australia suffered their deadly sleet from heaven, more destructive than expected. He smiled when the Sun above his hideaway darkened in the sky and the broadcast from Washington was interrupted. But he frowned when Celine Tanaka returned, to announce that U.S. damage seemed to be minimal and the country would soon return to normal.

The best news was the rumor, reported to come from Washington but strongly denied there, that the particle storm due in three weeks would be vastly more fierce, energetic, and dangerous than anyone had expected. If a man couldn’t get mileage from that, he didn’t deserve to be in business.

Gordy, cheered by the thought, decided that nothing much more was going to happen today. It was late afternoon, and although it would soon be dawn on the other side of the world it was also the Southern Hemisphere’s winter. Any reports could wait a few hours, until the short Antarctic day was over.

The sky was probably back to normal, too, but it might be worth taking a look at it. Gordy rode the one-man lift to the surface and looked around him. It seemed a disappointingly normal August evening, the Sun big and red and all set to dip below the horizon. He sauntered back toward the old schoolhouse. If nothing else, he could look forward to a pleasant evening deep within his private sanctum.

The elevator taking him down the thousand-foot drop creaked and groaned more than usual. It was probably time for some rolfe maintenance. Gordy’s mind was on that as he left the elevator and ascended the tight spiral staircase of gray metal. If there was anything odd about the stairs or the locked hatch at the top, he certainly didn’t notice. His home seemed just as he had left it, the door leading through to the green jungle habitat locked tight.

He started toward the study and workshop, the nerve center of the Argos Group underground headquarters, and suddenly halted. When he left, three rolfes had sat on the workbench in various stages of dismemberment. Now a fourth was beside them, an ugly truncated shape lacking head or legs.

By the time he turned it was too late. He glimpsed a moving shape, took one breath of sweet-smelling vapor, and then he saw nothing.

When he awoke he had no sense of lost time or unconsciousness, but he was lolling in a chair specially built to match the contours of his deformed back and shoulders. Six feet away, sitting on the workbench and watching him closely, was Seth Parsigian.

Seth nodded at him. “You weren’t here, squire, so I made myself at home. Are you comfortable?”

“I would be more so if I were not tied up like this.” Gordy gave an experimental tug at the tape that held him. It was far too strong to break. If he had a knife, he could cut it easily, but the useful tools were over at the workbench, where Seth was sitting. “Come on, Seth. This is ridiculous. Free me.”

“You don’t bother to ask why you’re tied up. You’re not cussing at me Gordy-style. I like that. Shows you got an efficient mind, know what’s goin’ on.” Seth reached out and picked up the headless rolfe. “I though you might want to have this back.”

“Why? Why would I want that one?” Rolfe was making a quick but covert survey of the room. The door to the jungle habitat was partway open. Everything else seemed normal. While Seth followed his look he again tested the tape that held him. There was a little give to it.

“I wouldn’t bother doin’ that while I’m here,” Seth said. He ignored Gordy’s question about the rolfe. “I don’t mind you tryin’ to get loose. I’d do the same. But if you look like you’re winnin’, I’ll just have to tie you up again.”

“I’m not trying to get loose. And I would like that rolfe back, but not for a while. It’s one of the new models, isn’t it, on lease to Sky City? It should be up there.”

“Yeah. So should I. But actually, I’m not sure this one’s gonna work anymore.” Seth turned the rolfe over, revealing the gaping body cavity. “I pretty much had to turn its brain to mush to get at the hidden instruction set. But I found it. Why’d you try to kill me, Gordy? Wasn’t I doin’ the job you wanted me to?”

“You were. Plus a few things I didn’t ask for.”

“You mean findin’ out about the Sky City game?” Seth grinned. “Ah, that was nothin’. You know me, I’m naturally nosy. Part of the reason you hired me. An’ that’s a lousy reason to try to kill me. Wouldn’t it have been easier to buy me?”

“Of course it would.” Rolfe sat up straighter in the chair. “Seth, you ought to know me better than that. If I’d wanted to dispose of you, there are more certain ways. I didn’t expect that rolfe to kill you.”

“Sure as hell looked that way to me. What did you expect?”

“Exactly what happened. That you would disable it.”

“Yeah? Hm. S’pose it disabled me?”

“Then you wouldn’t be the man I thought you were — the man you said you were when I hired you. Think of it as a little test, Seth. One that you passed with flying colors.”

“That right? A test, eh?” Seth casually tossed the rolfe to one side, and it fell to the hard floor with a clang and clatter of metal. “Test for what?”

“For a more senior place in the Argos Group. I want you as my right-hand man.” Rolfe leaned forward, as far as the tapes on his forearms and ankles would permit. His eyes burned with energy. “You may wonder why I would propose such a change at this particular time. I will tell you. A few days ago I had a great disappointment. Someone for whom I had planned a great future in this organization turned out to be less than I had hoped.”

“Don’t be coy. Maddy Wheatstone up an’ quit on you. Right?”

“That is correct. She was a woman in whom I had invested much of my time and the group’s resources, a woman who was being groomed for the top. Without warning or reason, she resigned.”

“Oh, she had a reason. Sort of. She got swoony about her assignment.”

“John Hyslop. I know that. But then I should blame myself even more, for a major error of judgment. Only a few weeks ago I was boasting of Maddy’s dedication to the Argos Group and of her inner strength. I ought not to have done that. Such talk is hubris, an invitation to the gods to prove me wrong. And they did.”

“Seems you oughta have been knockin’ her off, not me.”

“To what end? She has proved to be a weak reed. And I did not intend you to die.”

“You said that before. But you programmed one of the new rolfes on the way to Sky City with a deadly bit of code, tuned just for me.”

“Expecting, exactly as proved to be the case, that you would be able to look after yourself.”

“Even so. Pretty hostile act toward an employee. Am I bein’ dumb, or is it unreasonable to expect me to thank you for the chance at promotion?”

Rolfe shrugged, as much as he could with his constraints. “Are you looking for an apology? I will not offer one. You are here. You are unharmed. We are talking of future opportunities. You have no cause for complaint.”

“Yeah. But you know, Gordy, you always talk formal when you’re thinkin’ hard. An’ you’re bein’ formal now. So I better be thinkin’, too. Can you gimme a minute?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Guess not.” Seth eased himself off the workbench and wandered around the chamber, examining communications equipment and controls. He spent a long time at the door to the habitat, apparently studying its design. Finally he wandered back.

“Seems like it ought to be tit for tat. You say you weren’t tryin’ to kill me. You were just playing a little game, testin’ me out to see if I’m as smart as I’m s’posed to be. All right. But what about you ? Are you as smart as you’re supposed to be? If not, then I’m the one bein’ cheated. If I had to pass a little test, you oughta do the same.”

“Obviously I cannot be expected to agree with you. At the same time, I cannot deny the validity of your logic.”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself. So here’s what we do.” Seth pointed to the wall and the green jungle beyond. “I took a look out there earlier, and it’s full of nasties. Mebbe they’re all your sweethearts, but for me it’s like Grandma: What big teeth you got.”

“You are referring to the minisaurs.”

“If that’s what you call ’em. They didn’t look much mini to me. They were quiet durin’ the day, so I assume they’re night feeders. I don’t know how strong they are, but I’d guess plenty. If that door was open a few hours from now, an’ they felt peckish, a man would have lotsa trouble keepin’ ’em out.”

“The door to the jungle habitat is always locked at night.”

“That don’t surprise me none. But tonight it won’t be. I’m gonna smash the mechanical lock, an’ fix the electronic one so it don’t work, either. That door will stay open. Then I’m gonna bollix your communications equipment so you can’t call for help from outside. I’m gonna take away anything that looks like it might be a weapon. An’ I guess I’ll take away the rolfes, too, even though they look busted. Then I’ll leave by the hatch in the middle there, an’ lock it from below so you can’t get out that way.” Seth came to Rolfe’s side and examined the tapes. “Tight, but not too tight. My bet is you’ll be free an hour after I’m gone. Then you can look for another way out, or find a way to stop the nasties gettin’ at you while you work on the hatch, or anythin’ else you feel like. How you spend your time is up to you. Think of this as your own little test — a lot easier than the one you gave me.”

“You can’t do this, Seth. It would take days to open the hatch from this side when it’s locked below. I designed it that way. You would be leaving me to certain death.”

“Would I? There’s food here, there’s water, there’s tools. You’re a smart man, a genius with electronic equipment.” Seth returned to perch on the workbench and scrutinize Gordy Rolfe. He shook his head. “But I’m missin’ somethin’. You’re not sweatin’, an’ you’re not screamin’.”

“I refuse to scream and shout. I am not a coward.”

“I believe that. I guess I didn’t expect you would. But you should be thinkin’ an’ arguin’ an’ tryin’ to talk me out of it, an’ you’re not doin’ that, either. You got some hidden card, haven’t you?”

“How could I have a hidden card? You’ve blocked the exits, you say you’ll destroy my communications equipment, you’ll leave me without weapons. Seth, you can’t do this. You’ve seen the minisaurs. Any one of them can tear a human apart — and they hunt in teams.”

“Save your breath, Gordy. I still say you got somethin’ up your sleeve, though I can’t guess what. But I’m not gonna complain. I had somethin’ goin’ for me that you didn’t know about when your tin buddy come in to clobber me. So I figure we’ll be even-steven.”

Seth again stood up. “No more chitchat. I got work to do, an’ I don’t want to be here all night. Neither do you. While I’m busy, think how you’ll get outa that tape.”

He picked up two of the rolfes and tossed them toward the open hatch. They clattered away down the spiral staircase. “I’ll wrap you a teeny bit more before I leave, so by the time you’re free I’ll be long gone. When you get outa here — assuming you do — call me. We can talk about my great future in the Argos Group.”

First Gordy tried his teeth. Two minutes of chewing and tugging told him that would not work. The tape had a tough fiber substrate, and it called for something much sharper than human incisors.

His padded chair was not on casters, but by jerking backward and forward he could make the legs slide an inch or two each time along the smooth floor.

The workbench would be useless. Seth’s definition of a weapon was a liberal one, and every saw, chisel, screwdriver, and knife edge had vanished down the spiral stair. Gordy humped his way slowly toward the kitchen. By the time he reached it, the overhead lights were dimming in concert with approaching dusk, far above the habitat. In an increasing gloom Gordy painfully turned the chair so that he could reach sideways with his right hand and pull open a kitchen drawer. No knives were left there, but he saw a vegetable scraper.

The scraper was at the back of the drawer, too far away for him to reach it. He pulled the drawer out as far as he could, then pushed it sharply in again. When he eased the drawer open, the scraper had jerked a couple of inches closer to the front.

Four more openings and rapid closings, and he had it. The scraper was an open-ended metal box, with metal corrugations of different roughness on each of the four sides. Gordy turned it by the handle on one end, very slowly and carefully. He had to work one-handed, and if he dropped it, there was no way to pick it up.

The side of roughest texture was the most promising. It was covered with a grid of sharp-sided holes, each about a centimeter across. The edges of the holes would cut into the binding tape — if only he could find a way to apply them. He measured distances by eye. If he held the scraper in his right hand, it would not reach across far enough to work on the tape that bound his left forearm to the chair.

That left few options. Gordy leaned down and took the handle of the scraper in his mouth. By moving his head he could pass its sharp edges over the tape on his right hand, but he could not get enough downward force to do useful cutting. He pushed the scraper down between his bound forearm and the kitchen counter, and used the limited sideways movement available to his arm to create the pressure he needed. When he raised his head, the sharp edges of the scraper cut into the tape. They also cut his arm. It was a painful quarter hour, pausing often to rest his jaw and neck, before the first strands broke. By that time drops of blood were dripping to the kitchen floor. It was also darker — too dim to see anything beyond the wall leading to the habitat.

Fifteen more minutes, and he had enough freedom of movement to reach a tape end with his fingers. Right hand, then left hand. With both hands loose, his legs took no more than another minute.

Too many things to do, and all at once. He scuttled across the dark chamber to the open door leading to the habitat. He pushed it closed. He couldn’t lock it, but he could make a barricade. Workbench, chairs, bed, kitchen drawers, small refrigerator, useless communications terminal, old bicycle — they all went against the door. It would take substantial force to move them.

He hurried to the middle of the chamber and gave the floor hatch one quick shake. His comment to Seth, that it would take days to open when it was locked from the other side, was completely accurate. Seth had left no loophole there. The hatch, by careful design, would not move a millimeter.

Gordy ran back across the chamber. He had piled every loose object in the room in front of the habitat door, with one exception. Now he knelt down by the ancient radio, the one that he joked had been used by Noah for ship-to-shore communication. He took hold of the set, with its carved walnut cabinet, black Bakelite knobs, and speaker cover of woven brown fabric. A hard tug, and the entire front face came free. Nestled inside, hidden among the antique tubes and condensers, was a box of dull gray plastic about four inches long.

He carefully lifted the set out and pressed an indented black circle on its side. A row of tiny red lights began to glow on one end. At the same moment a noise came from the door leading to the habitat. Something was pushing against the other side. Pushing gently, tentatively. Gordy heard a snuffle, the sniff of large nostrils testing the air.

His hands were no longer bleeding, but in his hurry he had not bothered to wash them or bind them. There must be drops of blood scattered in many places across the chamber floor.

Gordy retreated to the far side of the room, clutching the gray plastic box to his thin chest. It was time — past time — to play his hidden hole card.

Nick Lopez had chosen to remain in New Rio during the blip storm, but he had taken the sensible precaution of observing it from a suite of rooms two thousand feet belowground. Unlike Gordy Rolfe, however, he had no real taste for subterranean life. As soon as it was safe to do so he headed back to the surface and went to the headquarters building of the World Protection Federation.

Today, that name seemed a mockery. The tall pyramid of glass and white limestone had not been able to protect even itself. It stood, apparently intact, in another of this year’s endless series of driving rainstorms, but as Nick approached he saw millions of small black pock-marks marring the clear lines of walls and roof.

He went inside and felt water dripping onto his head. He looked up. The particle bundles had slanted in from the south and east, creating holes all through the solid stone walls. He looked down. Apparently the good news was that the particle clusters had still possessed ample energy to penetrate the floor. Instead of pooling there, the rainwater was quietly making its way down to lower levels.

How many levels? Nick didn’t know, but suddenly two thousand feet no longer felt like such a safe depth. He walked across the wet floor, through the great open plaza with its now-riddled marble mosaics, and on past the inner atrium to the escalators. Those were working — an impressively rapid repair job. Uniformed men and women appeared from nowhere, watching for his reaction. He nodded approvingly to everyone he passed, adding a personal comment to most of them. “I said we’d see it through, Miguel, and we did.” “Nice work, Flora, I see you kept things going while I was gone.” “Don’t worry about the water, Josie” — this to a woman ineffectively dabbing at the floor with a sodden mop — “it will dry out as soon as the rain stops.”

His private office was a disaster. No, a mess. Save disaster for when you really need it. Wet floor, wet walls, wet desktop. Someone had tried to dry the chair seats, but water was still dripping in from above. Nick sat down. His pants seat would dry out, too, as soon as the rain stopped. He called for a readout of waiting messages and mentally assigned them as they appeared to his three standard categories: ignore, assign, answer.

There was one surprise: Celine Tanaka was on her way here, to this building. She had flown low-orbital from Washington, on her way to Tierra del Fuego. Nick noted who was down there: the remnants of fourteen planeloads of American lunatics who had flown in for the particle storm. He automatically thought media opportunity. Celine would be shown talking with the survivors, and she would make some points relevant to her own agenda. Politics was alive and well.

But why was she stopping here, in New Rio? This was far off the great-circle route from Washington to Tierra del Fuego. If it was a question of suitable facilities, a low-orbital landing-and-takeoff facility existed at Punta Arenas, spitting distance across the strait from Celine’s destination.

The red handset on his desk began to blink. Nick glared at it. The dedicated private line. Its buzz was loud and insistent. Damn Gordy Rolfe, he always thought his business was more important than anyone else’s. Nick called down to make sure that Celine would be brought to him the moment she arrived, then picked up the set. Infuriatingly, at the very moment he placed it to his ear the connection went dead.

He could try to call back — but now his main line was active. “Yes?”

“President Tanaka is on the way up to see you.”

“Good. Bring her right in.” He had no idea what she wanted, but he liked Celine. She was one of the world’s few rational people.

Whereas Gordy Rolfe definitely wasn’t. Gordy Rolfe was an arrogant, obsessive little shit. Gordy could wait.

The habitat lighting mimicked surface conditions, a thousand feet above. Now it was night. Gordy could turn on artificial lights anytime he chose, but for the moment he held that in reserve. Sudden brightness might scare away nocturnal hunters, but it was a big might for minisaurs who had caught a whiff of blood. Just as likely, it would attract interest.

Waiting on a call that no one answered was agony, and after thirty seconds Gordy gave up. He would try Nick later, but meanwhile time was too precious to waste. He recalled, with no satisfaction at all, that he was the one who had insisted that neither man have recording devices attached to the private line. To receive Gordy’s call, Nick Lopez had to be in his office. He was, most of the time. But where the devil was he now?

Gordy replaced his hard shoes with soft-soled slippers. He crept across the floor in just enough light to follow the outlines of large objects. It was minutes since he had last heard the snuffling at the barricaded door. That had accompanied a scraping sound, the noise of a pile of furniture and kitchen fixtures shifting on the smooth floor. The minisaur had an advantage. The floor of the chamber was smooth, while anything on the other side had the purchase offered by the soft ground of the habitat.

He waited to make sure that the animal had gone away before he ventured close to the door. What he saw wasn’t too bad. In the room’s unnatural silence, the improvised barricade had sounded like it was collapsing or being pushed clear out of the way. In fact it had moved no more than an inch.

He eased everything back into position. As he was wedging a tilted chair against the handle of the refrigerator door he was struck by another thought. Could he hide inside the refrigerator?

But if he would fit in there, how long could he stay before he suffocated? And how would he know when it was safe to come out?

Not a good choice: death by suffocation, or death as a minisaur’s dinner. But not a choice that he needed to make. He fully expected to be rescued.

All the same, Gordy opened the door of the refrigerator and confirmed that, small as he was, he could not fit inside. He went back to wedging the chair in place. As he did so, he heard new movement beyond the wall. He could smell a musky body odor, mingled with the stench of bad meat.

He sat down, braced himself with his back against the refrigerator, and took out the gray handset. He told himself that he had plenty of time. The minisaurs had learned to be cautious when dealing with humans. They would not attack until they were sure of the situation. Even so, Gordy felt a huge impatience as he waited for the row of red lights to indicate a call going through to its distant destination.

“And what can I do to help you?”

It was so like Celine’s own technique for cutting through visitors’ small talk that she couldn’t help smiling at Nick Lopez.

“I’m not here for favors, Nick. Actually, I’m going to do you one — a doubtful one, and when you hear about it you may decide it isn’t a favor at all.”

The change in the world between the Washington takeoff and the New Rio landing was striking. The first particle wave had arrived, swelled to a peak, and as swiftly subsided to its steady background level. After the gridded sky and beautiful aurora, Washington had become calm and sunny. Here, just a couple of hours later, torrential rain gurgled away from the surface through endless thousands of little black pits that riddled the landscape. Roads, metal covers, the sides of buildings, concrete sidewalks, bare soil — nothing was exempt. The dark pockmarks were everywhere. The room she sat in had a leaky ceiling and a leaky floor, water streaming in and out through openings not much bigger than pinholes. The only unchanged element was Nick Lopez himself. Tall and broad, with water dripping steadily onto his gray pompadour and down his cheeks, he sat on a wet chair as relaxed as if today’s particle storm had never happened.

He listened carefully to Celine’s words and said, “A favor? Then you’re ahead of the pack already. I’m not used to favors. Everybody else who comes to the WPF wants something from me.”

“I want something, too. I want you to keep a secret.”

“That’s a big something. Remember the standard political assumption: anything you say, anywhere and to anybody, is likely to become public knowledge.”

“I know. I can’t ask you to keep what I tell you totally to yourself, because you may need to act. But I’d like you to use extreme caution in deciding who is told.”

Celine summarized her morning conversation with Wilmer Oldfield and Star Vjansander. At the end of it, Lopez was not smiling.

“You believe them?” he said. “Of course you do, or you wouldn’t be here. But they may be wrong. They even told you they may be wrong. But I agree with you, this has to be handled very carefully. Who else knows? Or rather, who else do you know knows?”

“Wilmer. Star. John Hyslop and Maddy Wheatstone, up on Sky City. Me. And now you. Of course, it will spread.”

“Of course it will. There’s no such thing as a secret. What plans have you made?”

“None. What plans can you make to deal with the end of the world?”

“If this homeostasis thing is right, nothing.” Nick flicked water droplets away from his bushy eyebrows. “Hiding a mile deep or ten miles deep won’t do a bit of good if the planet has no oxygen, or if temperatures go up a hundred degrees. I think we stay with the original party line: We’re in for a storm bigger than anything we expected, but Earth will come through it and finally return to normal. We plan for that.”

“That’s exactly what I decided. But I wanted another expert opinion.”

“With something like this, there are no experts.”

“I take that as approval. There’s one other thing I want to mention. It won’t affect anything now, but it could make a difference in the long run — if there is a long run. I’ve had a disturbing warning about the Argos Group activities on Sky City.”

Celine described her conversation with Maddy Wheatstone. Nick listened closely, his face expressionless.

“Does she have proof?” he said when Celine finished.

“Apparently not. Nor do I. This hasn’t exactly been my top priority.”

“So what do you propose to do?”

“For the moment, nothing. Unless you disagree?”

“No. I don’t disagree. It can wait.” Nick glanced in annoyance at the red handset on the near corner of his desk. It had begun to buzz, loudly and insistently. “Damn that thing.”

“Answer it, Nick, if you have to. I’m the one who’s intruding.”

He hesitated. “It’s a private line. Would you . . . ?”

“Of course. I’ll wait outside. Take your time.”

Nick waited until she was gone and the door was closed before he picked up the handset. “Yes?”

“Where the hell have you been?” The voice at the other end was rasping and breathless.

“Working. I don’t know how it is with you, Gordy, but we’ve had a particle storm and a major crisis down here.”

“Yeah, yeah. The hell with that. Listen. I need help.”

“Tonight?”

“Right this minute. I’m down in my underground headquarters, and I can’t get out.”

“How did that happen?”

“It’s not relevant. I don’t have time for chitchat. The point is, the hatch is locked on the other side and the door to the habitat is open.”

“Can’t you go out that way?”

“Are you crazy? Listen to the ’saurs.”

Gordy stopped speaking. In the silence that followed at the other end of the line, Nick picked up guttural grunts and snorting.

“I hear them. What do you want me to do? I’m down in New Rio.”

“I know. But you have people in Washington. How long does it take to get here from there by high-speed airdrop?”

“Half an hour. Maybe less. But you have people in Washington. Why don’t you call your own people directly?”

“Can’t. My communications are out and this is the only working line. Listen, soon as we finish talking, you get hold of one of your people. Send him here. Tell him how to get in through the schoolhouse. He comes down in the elevator, opens the hatch from below, and lets me out. You got that?”

“Yes. But it will take me a while to contact somebody, and they’ll have to find a plane. That could be another hour.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. The ’saurs are cautious. They’re scared of coming into this chamber; I taught them that the hard way. I figure I can hold out five, maybe six hours. But don’t rely on it. Get somebody out here at once.”

“I’ll do it. Sit tight, Gordy.”

“At once, I said. Don’t fuck up. I’ll call you in half an hour to make sure everything’s set.”

“Right.” Nick waited for the line to go dead, then slowly replaced the handset. He sat silent for half a minute, beads of water trickling unheeded down his forehead. At last he roused himself, stood up, and went to open the door.

Celine was waiting outside, leaning against the wall. “More problems?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Maybe one problem less. That was Gordy Rolfe on the line.”

“Offering any help that he can give, I assume?”

He smiled at Celine’s tone. “I see you know our Gordy. You’re right, he wasn’t offering help.”

“Where is he?”

“At his northern headquarters — the underground one in Virginia.”

“That place. I haven’t forgiven you for talking me into going there.”

“It’s not that bad. And you were there before, when it was the stronghold of the Legion of Argos.”

“It’s worse now.” Celine grimaced. “Horrible. I told you what he did when I went to see him, that fight to the death between a carnosaur and a group of rats. I feel sure he arranged it just for me.”

“I don’t think so.” Nick led them back into the office and waited for Celine to sit down. “It’s part of this general fixation Gordy has about dinosaurs and mammals.”

“The superiority of mammals.” Celine noticed that water was no longer dripping onto her head. She looked up. The ceiling was covered with suspended droplets, but few were falling. Outside, the rain must finally have ended. Flights would be resuming. “I know Gordy Rolfe’s theory. He told me mammals always win. They beat dinosaurs.”

“Get it right. Small mammals win, not big ones.” Nick grinned at her. “I’m pretty big, so of course he made a special point of putting it that way to me.”

“What did Gordy want this time? Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask. It was a private call.”

“That’s all right. It was nothing new. He wanted to yak on about his experiments on the survival of small mammals. Seems he’s conducting one at this very moment.”

“It sounds revolting. I’m sorry I asked.”

“And I’m sorry he interrupted us.” Nick stood up. “Look, I know you’re in a hurry, but you and I need to discuss how we’ll handle the next three weeks. There are going to be leaks — there always are — and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few days from now everybody knows. Would you have any objection to my flying down to Tierra del Fuego with you, so we can talk?”

“No objection at all. I’d welcome your company. But don’t you have things that need doing here?”

“It’s a whole new ballgame now.” Nick was staring at the red handset, but he seemed to be listening to something far away.

Finally Celine repeated, “Don’t you? Don’t you have things that need doing?”

He was with her again. He shook his head. “Sorry. I was just remembering something. The last time I spoke with Gordy he was furious with me.”

“He’s probably over it by now.”

“Yes. If not now, soon.” Lopez reached out a hand to Celine. “Come on. I’m ready. Let’s get out of here before we have another nuisance call.”