“It’s not going to be landing at Angra today, though,” he said.
“Oh?”
“They’ve closed the place. The nearest you can get off is at Carlsbad.”
“How come?”
He shrugged.
“Some sort of testing, I believe.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“That gate over there,” he said, gesturing. “In about forty minutes.”
While I waited, I decided to have a cup of coffee from a machine across the way. When I got there and began fishing around, however, I discovered that I did not have the proper change. Suddenly, the machine clicked and hummed. A cup descended onto the gridwork and began to fill. Black, the way I liked it.
I smelled violets, and then heard Ann’s voice, as if she were standing beside me.
“Fortify yourself,” she said. “I’m buying.”
The violets had faded and the sense of her presence had vanished before the cup was completely filled. I didn’t know what to make of that one. But, “Thanks,” I said, as I raised the plastic hatch and took the steaming cup back to the waiting area. It couldn’t be larceny, I decided later, since it’s a bigger crime to take anyone’s money for that bad a cup of coffee.
I studied the other people who were gradually populating the waiting area. The possibility had only just occurred to me that someone I had known back in my Angra days might be on the flight. Barbeau had kept his little group of specialists pretty much apart from the regular run of employees; but still, we were all acquainted with some of them. Most of my associates, though, had been in data processing and none of them seemed to be about. It was not difficult to tell who the Angra people were, though. One had but to listen for a few moments. They were the ones bitching about having to get off in Carlsbad and wait around, eating and drinking and loafing at company expense, poor devils.
We finally boarded, and I sequestered myself behind a magazine. The automatic takeoff was uneventful, as was the first half hour or so of the flight. Then, suddenly, Ann was talking to me and I closed my eyes and saw her, standing beneath a highly polished-looking tree with a mirrorlike finish, clusters of metal flowers about her, gleaming with machine oil, riveted to the surface on which she stood. And she stood there as if at attention, eyes straight ahead, arms down at her sides, heels together.
“It’s, it’s, it’s,” she said. “It knows you.”
“What does?” I said mentally.
“It which is. It gardened me here. It would care.”
“But what is it?”
“It’s… It knows you.”
“But I don’t know it.”
“Yes you do.”
Tell me about it.”
“…Going again,” I heard her say. “Back again, stronger…”
And then she was gone.
Carlsbad finally came into view. I had the impression of an oasis on a small brown river, set in the midst of a hot, lunar-looking landscape. As we flew nearer, I noted a lot of new construction around the edges of the town, a good indication that it was growing fast
Then we began to descend for a landing at a little field perhaps twenty kilometers out of town. Again, some of my fellow passengers began to complain. I could have taken over the autopilot and forced the shuttle to land us at Angra’s own field. I’d a feeling they would be a lot more disturbed at what happened to them if I were to do that.
It gave me an idea, though, that train of thought. It was no difficult trick to slip into the flight computer as we were landing and to activate a temporarily proscribed program which was already there.
The shuttle took off quickly after we had disembarked, once the field about it was cleared. It was on its way to Angra’s own field. I wondered whether they really believed I was stupid enough to approach them in that manner. It should prove mildly diverting, at any rate. I wondered how afraid of me they might have become. I kept my mind open for impressions, following the progress of the empty vehicle.
Later, as the bus bore us into town, I felt the sudden destruction of the shuttle during its descent pattern. I couldn’t tell what they’d hit it with—lasers, solar mirrors—but it went fast.
Nervous, I’d say.
Good.
I decided not to keep them in suspense too much longer. The Yellow Pages and a street guide told me everything I needed. I walked to a shop where they rented me a simple bicycle, and then I headed out of town to the southeast. Moving off.
Chapter 15
he afternoon burned about me. I should have bought a hat, I realized, to protect my head from that sunglare. And the pedalling got to be hard work before very long.
I followed the signs, and when I got to within a few kilometers of the facility I passed off to the side into the first patch of shade I came to, beside a high yellow and orange section of embankment at the bottom of a dip in the road. I waited there until I stopped perspiring and my breathing returned to normal. Then I waited a little longer.
It was unfortunate that I had never visited this particular installation during my time at Angra. I had no idea as to its layout. I only knew that it covered a pretty large area. I began wondering how many people were in there now. Not too many, I guessed. When you’ve got a baited deathtrap ready, you like to keep the number of its operators to a minimum. It was awkward to accumulate witnesses. On the other hand, this made it likely that everyone on the premises was very dangerous. Shee-it, as Willy Boy was wont to observe.
I walked the bike up the slope and mounted again when I reached the top.
In the distance, I saw the place, and a high metal fence separated it from the rest of the world, like a border around a private country. There was a small security shed outside the gate toward which I was headed, but I could detect no signs of activity in or about it. There seemed to be nothing behind the fence that resembled a weapon aimed in my direction either. In fact, there was no activity at all behind the fence. The place looked deserted.
I reached out as I rode toward it. I seemed to detect a little computer activity far off, but it was too distant to mean anything to me.
There was scant cover beside the road, but I marked it all as I passed. A useless exercise, as it turned out. Nothing threatened my approach. I kept right on until I came up beside the shed, where I leaned the bicycle. I looked inside. No one home.
The gate even stood obligingly ajar, opened just enough for a man on foot to slide through the space without touching anything.
A couple of dozen meters inside, an unpretentious administration building stood, one-story, fairly new-looking, the face of efficiency. It was fronted by a small lawn, a few trees and bushes. There was also a pair of fountains, flanking the walk—demonstrating a small but conspicuous waste of energy. I heard Angra’s message to the world in their soft plattering: Energy is not going to be a problem ever again. Plenty of the stuff here. If you’re buying, we’re selling.
I didn’t trust that gate. It was just too damned obvious a situation. I coiled forward, feeling for anything trap-like in the vicinity.
I traced the electric sensors that held a killing voltage ready to apply across the gap whenever a human body might pass through—and the relay that at the same time would swing the gate a few inches shut, making deadly contact
So much for the obvious. Traps within traps, wheels within wheels… All right. Some other way then.
Back in the security shed I had seen some one-person flyers—awkward, difficult little things with rotors like helicopters, and flywheels like the new motorcycles for power and some semblance of stability. I went back and regarded them. I probed, but I could detect no booby-traps. I’d be damned if I’d try flying one in, though. One of Barbeau’s hobbies had been skeet shooting.