“Agamemnon?!”
A sharp whinny pierced the night, followed by raucous braying from three long-ears.
Laurel was already running, her words trailing out behind. “You bring the kids. Radio whoever, take the mules, and bring the kids to the OLaM strip.”
“But I don’t know the way!”
“Leave at daylight. Follow the marked trail. Take every turning west or north. Give the mules their heads. It’s the closest water. They’ll find it.” Laurel’s voice was growing fainter in the distance.
“But wait! What will you do? What will you tell Collie?”
Laurel stopped, and spun in her tracks. “That the revelation is nigh! That behind me follows a Host of Angels!”
The ghastly light winked out. They saw nothing. They heard low rumbling nickers, followed by snorting and snuffling and stamping. Then hoof beats, as a black shape departed the valley in the blackness. Then Laurel’s silvery voice, sliding away down the hillside: “I’ll be there by dawn!”
Enheduanna made a murmur, and two ghosts slipped away to follow, fluttering wings marking their passage into the night.
Asach bent to one knee, already unzipping hood from cloak.
15
Final Accounting
If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.
—Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, New York Times, 1983
For the sin they do, by two and two, they must pay for one by one.
—Rudyard Kipling, Tomlinson
Bonneville, New Utah
There was pandemonium at the Bonneville Lynx port when Lillith Van Zandt arrived. She marveled. News of the sand mine massacre had spread like wildfire. It was a secret operation, conducted by secret contractors, in a secret location, on the other side of some barren mountains across a barren wasteland on a world no civilized person had ever heard of, yet ITA hangers-on were already hopping into port like fleas from a drowning rat, while the rest of Bonneville slept on.
Almost the rest. The warehouse district abutting the SunFreight spur was ablaze with light, and the source of the “leak” became obvious. Sergeants were barking and waving their arms about in a midnight dance of getting armored vehicles onto flatcars. Access to OLaM’s leased bays was tightly restricted, but the Klieg-lit movement from the concealment hangers was visible throughout the yards. They were odd-looking lumps assembled from local components and materials, including Plate recycled from older, derelict equipment.
She found the Friedlander commander, and spoke only one word. “Well?”
He shrugged. “Your contract specifies cost control. There was no apparent threat. There’s nothing out there. Wasn’t. We sent out a platoon for Phase I weaponization testing with light security, but held the heavier stuff here pending full-scale fire-and-maneuver. We’re shipping out to re-secure the location in two hours. Obviously, we’re not too happy with this outcome either.”
“Re-secure.” Her tone bespoke icebergs. “Against whom, exactly?”
“Not sure. Bandits. They were already there, whoever they were, which I guess means Himmists. Not really like them, but—” he shrugged again. “There’s no-one else out there. We’d have known if anybody had moved from here. Not to worry. They’ve got nothing that can stand up to this.” He waved a hand at the long line of flatcars.
“And restoring operations?”
He shrugged yet again. The quirk was beginning to irritate her. “Whatever they are, not our contract. I guess you’d need to talk to Trippe about that. It’s his operation, as I understand it.”
She smiled thinly. “Yes, it is.” Mentally, she was weighing the cost of the survivor benefits clause against her growing annoyance and wondering whether, in this case, it was worth it. “And ensuring that they are secured is yours. I can’t say that I particularly approve of your cost-control measures. They have become very expensive.”
He shrugged for what she decided was the last time. “Usual cost of doing business, on an outworld. One way or another. With all due respect, ma’am, our contract calls for us to secure our own operations, which is the weapons testing. It doesn’t include point security for yours. So from here on, you’re effectively getting an added bonus. At least until testing is over.”
“Indeed. I’m sure that you appreciate the risks better than I would.” She turned away from the commander, called Clegg forward, and spoke to him, almost inaudibly. He nodded once, curtly, and faded into background again. “I will have a full damage assessment report—when?”
“Two days, at the earliest. They’re finishing switch reprogramming now. We’ll rail to the end of the line at the old OLaM hopper field, offload, and move out overland from there. We’ll hook south around that mountain and either flush them out or tag them in the hills. We’ll move the assessment team in as soon as the location is secure. Trippe has the plan.”
But he was talking to himself. Lillith Van Zandt was already leaving, followed by Clegg and his men.
OLaM Station, The Barrens, New Utah
Agamemnon stood spread-eagled, head hanging, chest heaving, sweat steaming from every pore, air blasting through his nostrils with the force of bellows. A stock tank stood within five paces, and his belly ached with longing. But, throwing herself from his back before he’d even staggered to a lurching halt, Laurel had shouted “Stand!” So he stood, heaving and gasping, a Good Boy, doing as he was told. They’d left at dusk; now it was dawn. He’d covered a hundred rough miles and left the Runners collapsed at the trail side.
Red-gold morning crawled toward them across the plains as the rising sun crested the mountain behind them. They rested in deep shadow, the deafening whum-whum-whum of the windmill field above them. The fusion glow of the SunRail collectors were lighting up the path back to Bonneville.
The airfield appeared deserted. The dusty junction of two roads to nowhere anchored the desolate shells of mud-brick and stone houses that had once served various functions for workers at the abandoned mines. An empty flinger gantry presided: a wingless heron on an empty beach. Only dust-devils played on the flat cross of the taxiways, two level strips in the level flats that stretched from the foothills into infinity. But Agamemnon threw up his head and stared into the far distance, so Laurel guessed that a train was coming.
Agamemnon’s breathing eased. She felt inside his jaw: his pulse was still fast, but slowing. She walked with him the few paces, and let him sip some water a bit at a time. The easy way would be to ride down to the operations shed and call from there. It had everything, including an ‘optic line. But she didn’t want to get trapped on the airfield, and she didn’t know what was coming, or how soon. There was no regular service here, and it was the wrong time for a pilgrim charter. If Agamemnon could already hear it, that did not leave much time.
She climbed back on. He swiveled his ears, not sure where they were going, because neither was Laurel. Then she decided, and feeling the twitch of nerve fibers that presaged actual body language, he abandoned the trail and plunged straight down the hillside, slithering and sliding and sending little avalanches of stone bouncing along ahead of their progress. Agamemnon jumped the last chunk of slope and broke into full stride, carving his own wind through the morning chill as he sprinted for the operations hut across the taxiway.