“Listen, man,” Raven argued, “your master is dead, and you are in the enemy’s lands, lands that you know naught of, and where I am all that you have to guide you. Your lord, the General Hart, sent you hither to aid me-me, and none other. Then is’t not madness and folly to deny that command is fallen to me, that Colonel Carson is no more?”
“Mr. Raven,” the lieutenant explained wearily, “you are not in the chain of command. I am. I was the colonel’s second-in-command, and with him gone, I am in command. You are a civilian, and as long as you are, you can’t possibly assume command. That doesn’t mean we can’t cooperate.”
“Permission to speak, Lieutenant?” one of the men called.
Startled, Raven and the lieutenant turned.
The man who had spoken-Pel didn’t know any of the soldiers’ names yet-was leaning comfortably against a tree; now he straightened, and pointed to Prossie. “We’ve got a mu… I mean, a telepath with us, Lieutenant,” he said. “Why not ask her? Check with Base?”
“Aw, come on,” someone called. “She’s the one who started this and got the colonel killed!”
“No, that was the guy over there in the funny clothes,” another voice protested.
“I don’t mean she killed him,” the first replied, “but she was the one who said things were screwed up!”
“So maybe they were screwed up!”
The lieutenant looked over his men, chewing his lip as he did so, then turned to look consideringly at Prossie.
“All right, Thorpe,” he said. “You call home and tell us what we’re supposed to do.”
“’Tis a waste…” Raven began.
The lieutenant thrust out a warning hand.
Susan Nguyen cleared her throat warningly.
Raven fell silent, and two score eyes focused on the telepath.
* * * *
When Colonel Carson fell, Prossie had not waited for orders; she had immediately relayed the news to Carrie and told her to tell someone in authority.
Carrie had done so-she had left her cubicle and gone running for the Office of Interdimensional Affairs. Her orders were to report anything received from other universes to the Under-Secretary, and that included messages from Prossie, as well as contacts with the handful of psychics on Earth, or with Shadow’s creatures.
The Under-Secretary was not in.
“It’s urgent,” Carrie told the receptionist.
“I’m sure it is,” the receptionist replied. “Have a seat, and the Under-Secretary will be back momentarily.”
Carrie hesitated, and glanced toward the door-she made it look as if she were seeing if there were any sign of the Under-Secretary’s approach, but in fact she was turning away so as not to stare while she read the receptionist’s mind in hopes of finding out just where the Under-Secretary was.
The receptionist was not thinking about Under-Secretary John Bascombe; she was thinking about an idealized, muscular, blond and handsome male figure. This was the man she felt she deserved to have married, and she was convinced that she had not found him because telepaths, with their sneaking and spying, had stolen him away. There were hundreds of the dirty mutants out there, far more than anyone knew, but they kept themselves secret, only a few admitted what they were in order to get into the government where they could spy on everything better, and steal all the good men away from deserving ordinary women.
It took Carrie several seconds to dig down past this depressingly familiar paranoid fantasy and locate recent memories.
“Why don’t you sit down?” the receptionist asked, mentally adding, “Mutant bitch.”
Carrie realized she had been staring foolishly out the door of the office. The receptionist, despite her belief in a conspiracy of evil, lawless telepaths, didn’t yet realize that her thoughts had been illicitly spied on, but the idea might occur to her at any second.
“No, that’s all right,” Carrie said. “I’ll try again later.” She turned and headed back out into the corridor.
The Under-Secretary had been taking a long lunch, and was lingering over his final cup of tea; Carrie hurried to the cafeteria, to catch him before he left.
He looked up in surprise as she entered.
“Telepath,” he said, “what are you doing here? This room’s off-limits for you!”
“Yes, sir,” Carrie said, “but I think this is an emergency.”
He put down his cup.
“Colonel Carson has been killed, sir,” Carrie told him, coming to attention.
“By Shadow?”
“No, sir. By one of the wizards in his own party.”
Bascombe let out a long, deep sigh. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, get out of here, anyway-no telepaths are allowed in here. I’ll be out in a moment.”
“Yes, sir.” Carrie turned and trotted out to the hall.
She waited, and a moment later the Under-Secretary emerged, walking quickly. “Come along,” he ordered.
She followed, but to her surprise he did not return to his own office; instead he led her down to Level Six, to General Hart’s office.
Five minutes later the three of them, Hart and Bascombe and Carrie, were seated in Hart’s office with the door closed.
“Now,” Hart said, “tell us all about it.”
* * * *
“They’re still arguing,” Prossie told the others.
“Who is?” Lieutenant Dibbs demanded.
“General Hart and the Under-Secretary for Interdimensional Affairs,” Prossie replied.
“Just what are they arguing about?” Amy asked.
That was not easy for Prossie to answer. Carrie was relaying not just the two men’s words, but some of their thoughts, as well. While the spoken debate purported to be a discussion of the best way to ensure the survival of the rest of the expeditionary force, the actual subject, as both men knew, was the fact that General Hart had deliberately tried to screw up the Under-Secretary’s project and had been caught at it. Both Hart and Bascombe knew, however, that Bascombe could not come out and say that openly-if the mission failed he would take at least part of the blame, and trying to shift it to Hart would just make him look worse.
He could, however, take Hart down with him, in a variety of ways, since Hart’s sabotage had shown up so quickly. If the party had been wiped out by Shadow’s forces, both men would have been able to get out cleanly-under-estimating the enemy was a mistake, but an understandable and forgivable one, relatively minor, nothing at all like deliberately sending people to be killed.
So each man was now looking for a way out that would leave him blameless. Branding Raven as a dangerous lunatic or treacherous foreign outlaw was one possibility-in that case, Lieutenant Dibbs should be put in command and Raven arrested or killed. Denouncing Carson posthumously as a renegade was also a possibility, but if he had surviving family or friends that might be risky. And in either case, what should the survivors do next? Should they continue their mission and attempt to penetrate Shadow’s stronghold, or should they abandon the enterprise, take shelter, and wait for rescue?
That latter possibility assumed that rescue was possible. General Hart was not at all clear on how travel between universes worked; the Under-Secretary had a better grasp of the subject, but did not care to enlighten a man who was, when all was said and done, his political adversary. And even knowing what he did, the Under-Secretary was thinking in terms of re shy;opening the space warp and lowering a line; the possibility of using wizards’ magic had not yet occurred to him.
“Whether to continue the mission,” Prossie said.
* * * *
Amy was seated cross-legged on dry, dead leaves, forearms resting on her knees, watching as Raven and the Imperials argued, and feeling sweat moisten the back of her T-shirt; it wasn’t really very hot, and she hadn’t been doing anything very active, but the thicker air seemed to make perspiration come more easily. She felt a vague discomfort in the general vicinity of her stomach, as well, and wasn’t sure whether or not that could be attributed to the climate and atmosphere.