"Yeah, I sort of figured that," Jensen said, pushing himself off the ground.
"Here." Toby offered a hand.
Jensen gripped it, and together they got him upright. "Thanks," he said, pausing while the stabbing pain in his side settled back down to a dull ache. "Did you want to eat something before we go?"
"I can eat along the way." Toby hesitated. "And if it would make you feel better about me, I can give you my gun."
"No, that's okay," Jensen said, waving away the offer. "Ribs or no ribs, if I can't take care of a single old codger with a gun, I probably deserve to get shot."
"You have no idea how comforting a thought that is, too," Toby said dryly.
"I try," Jensen said. Besides, if Toby was a Security plant, he would certainly have a backup weapon tucked away somewhere. "Which way?"
"Through there," Toby said, pointing toward a gap between two stands of trees. "Give me a hand, will you, until my leg unstiffens a little?"
"Colonel?"
Bailey started awake, rolling over on the cot he'd had set up in his office. Ramirez was standing in the doorway, a sheaf of papers in his hand. "Yes, what is it?" he asked, wincing as he stretched aching muscles.
"I have something here you should see," Ramirez said, coming in as Bailey sat up. "One of the pylon teams picked this up late yesterday afternoon."
Frowning, Bailey took the papers. On top was a print of an infrared-sensor photo with a small shack in the center. The legend at the bottom of the print gave the coordinates, plus the fact that it had gone through a three-stage computer scrubbing. "What am I supposed to see?" he asked.
"There appear to be two human images present," Ramirez said, pointing to two blurs in the shack. "One sitting near the window, the other lying down further back. Problem is, the cabin's owned by a hermit who allegedly lives alone."
The hairs on the back of Bailey's neck began to tingle as he peeled off the top sheet and looked at the next page down, a topo map of the region with the cabin marked with a circle. It was just above a place called Shelter Valley, a few klicks northwest of Aegis Mountain. "Didn't anyone have the brains to wonder about this?"
"Actually, sir, two of the Security men accompanying the techs did go up to take a look," Ramirez said stiffly, and Bailey belatedly remembered that those tech teams had come from Ramirez's office. "When they got there, the hermit was alone."
"Did they get any other readings?" Bailey asked, shuffling through the papers. There didn't seem to be any more prints. "Anyone have any idea where the other one might have gone?"
"Unfortunately, no," Ramirez said sourly. "The sensor data wasn't nearly clear enough for them to take any action or even send up any red flags. You can see yourself that it took three scrubbings to get it even this clear."
Bailey looked back at the first page, frowning as he spotted the time stamp. "This came through at midnight?" he snarled, jabbing a finger at the number. "Why the hell are we talking about it now?"
"I tried to talk to Battle Architect Daasaa as soon as it came through," Ramirez said, his voice under tight control. "But he wouldn't authorize me to release any of the spotters or men assigned to Athena guard duty."
"Then why didn't you bring it to me?" Bailey snarled. "Maybe I could have done something."
"Yes, sir, I thought you might," Ramirez countered. "The trouble was, you'd left the building without telling anyone where you were going. And despite what you told the garage sergeant, we weren't able to reach you by comm."
Bailey squeezed the papers tightly between his fingers, silently cursing himself. Of course they hadn't been able to contact him—he'd turned off his comm so that the background chatter wouldn't distract him from his private interrogation at the hospital and had forgotten to turn it back on. "Get a team out there now," he ordered, glancing at the rim of the sun pushing its way above the eastern horizon. "I want the cabin searched—thoroughly—and everyone in town questioned. On second thought, make it two teams.
And run me up everything we have on that hermit."
"I already did that, sir," Ramirez said, indicating the papers in Bailey's hand. "But I can't send any teams without Daasaa's authorization."
"Oh, can't you?" Bailey growled, getting to his feet. It was their missing blackcollar, all right—it had to be. If he slipped through their fingers because of miscommunication or flat-out bureaucratic bumbling, heads were going to roll. Very possibly literally. "Fine. Let's go find him."
The colors of the sky to the east were fading into blue, though the sun hadn't yet appeared over the mountains, when they reached the hidden air vent. "Here we are," Jensen said, pointing to the grating at the vent's mouth as they crossed the small clearing in front of it.
"Amazing," Foxleigh said, shaking his head in wonderment. Even knowing there was something out here to find, he hadn't spotted the grating until they were practically on top of it. "You know, I actually saw the kids who were working on this, though I couldn't tell what they were doing. It wasn't until your group showed up last year that I put the pieces together."
"I'm glad Security wasn't paying you visits then," Jensen said, starting to unfasten the twisted wires that held the grating in place. "Give me a hand here, will you?"
It took them several minutes to get the grating free. After that, it took four pulls by both of them to get it off. "You were right," Jensen admitted, puffing like a distance runner. "I couldn't have done that alone."
"We're going to want to close it up behind us, aren't we?" Foxleigh asked as he peered carefully inside.
Beyond the grating, a metallic tunnel stretched back about twelve meters, then seemed to turn downward.
"Absolutely," Jensen said. "Let's turn it on edge and bring it inside, see if we can wedge it into position."
Five minutes later, they had it back in position and wired again in place. "Well, that was fun," Foxleigh commented. "Any trick to the rest of it?"
"All sorts of them," Jensen assured him, pointing down the tunnel. "We start with a hundred-meter climb down a ladder, with a sonic at the bottom that'll be trying to poke holes in your balance the whole way."
"Lovely," Foxleigh said, wincing. Like he didn't have enough trouble with balance even on his better days. "You didn't think to turn it off before you left?"
"We didn't want to turn it off," Jensen said. "Anyone authorized to be in here would know about it and be mentally prepared to fight against the effects. The only others who might come in here we didn't much care about."
Foxleigh shivered. Once upon a time, he reminded himself soberly, he'd considered coming out here on his own to check the place out. It was just as well he hadn't. "Okay, consider me mentally prepared," he said. "Let's get to it."
They were at the downward curve, and Jensen was fiddling with a rope ladder that had been left behind, when Foxleigh thought he heard the distant sound of approaching patrol boats. But it could have been his imagination.
"So they're gone," Bailey said flatly.
"Yes, sir," Ramirez said, his own voice stiff and formal. Clearly, he had no intention of taking the blame for this. "They found two ropes hanging down into a ravine from pulleys fastened beneath a trick box where Toby had mounted his toilet seat."
"Where he'd what?" Bailey lifted a hand before Ramirez could answer. "Never mind—I don't want to know. Did you track along this ravine to see where it goes?"
"It doesn't seem to actually go anywhere," Ramirez said. "The stream that Toby tapped into for his water supply joins it a little ways along, and then it just meanders its way southwest. There may be places where you can get out, though, which the team couldn't see from the air. If you'd like, I could send a couple of men to follow it on foot for a ways."