“You don’t know?” Lanie asked incredulously, freeing herself from his embrace and taking a couple of steps back. “Your buddy Crane didn’t tell you he hired me last night?”
Now it was Newcombe’s turn to be incredulous. “Hired you?”
“Yes! Hired me! And ordered me to get my butt down here right away.”
His gut clenching with fear for Lanie and with rage at Crane for putting her in danger, he snapped, “Your transport still on the island?”
“How should I know?” She frowned. “More to the point, what the hell’s wrong with you suddenly?”
He darted to the foot of his cot and snatched up his Chinese peasant pants. “What’s wrong with me?” He stepped into the pants and yanked the drawstring tight around his waist, then located his work shirt. “What’s wrong with me?” he repeated, louder, while thrusting his arm through a khaki sleeve. “Nothing’s wrong with me.” He pointed at the holos. “That’s what’s wrong. This island’s about to crack up … fracture into little pieces!”
“Hardly a secret, friend. Everybody, everywhere is talking about it.” She grinned. “You trying to tell me you don’t want me?” She’d scarcely had time to blink, when she was in his arms again, being kissed hard and fast.
“That should answer your question. I want you anywhere I can get you, Lanie—except here.” He pulled her goggles over her eyes and rested his hands lightly on her shoulders. “We’re going to get you away from this damned island fast!” He turned back to the end of the camp table, rummaging in the clutter there for his goggles.
“I guess you didn’t hear what I said.” She caught the hat he’d found on the table and tossed to her. “As of last night I work at this godforsaken place, just like you do. I’m part of the team doing field work until it’s time to go back to the Foundation where I will work right alongside you, lover boy.” She shook her head. “I don’t get it. Crane told me you recommended me for the imager’s job.”
“A couple of weeks ago he asked if I knew any good synnoetic imagers. Of course I mentioned you, but he never said a word to me about hiring you, much less bringing you here. If I’d known that he—”
“Stop right there. I’m a professional and an adult, Dan, in case you’ve forgotten. We’re talking about my decisions, my work, my life—”
He rounded on her. “You don’t have the slightest idea what you’ve got yourself into by coming to Sado. Crane calls this operation Mobile One. Everyone else calls it Deathville. Our leader’s nutty as a fruitcake, if you didn’t guess, and he’s surrounded himself with other nuts… crackpots, university rejects, oddballs and screwballs.”
“Some would say they’re creative, and eclectic, and brilliant. Misunderstood, maybe, but talented and smart—like Crane himself.”
He snorted, turning back to the camp table. “Yeah, sure.” He found his goggles and put them on, then marched over to take her hat from her hands and jam it on her head. He grabbed her by the hand and ducked with her through the flap. They emerged into the still, wet air of the tent city with its ubiquitous cold mud, or Crane’s Crud as it was termed by insiders.
Excitement jangled in the very air of the camp, packed with disaster aid workers, grad students, newsies in steadicam helmets, visiting dignitaries, and local hires. All were wrapped like mummies against the sunshine. Newcombe’s Africk heritage provided him with enough melanin to protect against the deadly u/v rays of the sun, about the only advantage a black man had in this world as far as he could tell.
A cart carrying coffee and rice cakes wheeled by, splashing mud. Newcombe stopped the operator and took a cup, adding a big spoonful of dorph. He drank greedily, the hard edge of his anger at Crane blunting immediately. He sighed, glad to have his spiking, dangerous emotions even out. Now he could think, try to understand why Crane had chosen to bring Lanie to Sado. Maybe, in his own way, Crane was trying to improve Newcombe’s attitudes and morale, which had eroded seriously this past year they’d worked together. It was the relentless carnival atmosphere Crane created at his Foundation in the mountains just beyond LA and in these field situations that most disturbed Newcombe, but he could hardly expect the Big Man to understand that. Leave it to Crane also not to understand human nature and believe he was doing a good thing for Newcombe by bringing his lover to the most dangerous spot on planet Earth.
“It’s so … so colorful,” Lanie said. “Vibrant really. The primary blues and the reds of the tents…” She looked at the cerulean sky, adding, “And the colors of all those hot air balloons and helos up there.”
“That how you got here, by helo?” he asked, pushing through a cadre of Red Cross volunteers to stare at the source of the clanking that had annoyed him earlier—grad students pounding interlocking titanium poles deep into the ground.
“A news helo,” she amended, her voice as edgy now as Newcombe’s. The camp dogs began to bay fearfully, and she raised her voice to be heard over them. “Crane has people coming from all over, because of the ‘five signs.’ What are they?”
He scarcely heard her question. His attention was fixed on the students who were starting to insert long brushlike antennae into the poles sunk into the ground. “This your stuff?”
“Yes. The brushes are electronic cilia to measure the most minute electromagnetic vibrations in the smallest of particles. Crane wants to understand how the decomposed matter of dirt feels and how water feels and how rocks feel.”
“Yeah … I’ve heard it all before,” Newcombe said, turning to face her, anonymous now beneath hat and goggles. “Look, Lanie, I told you Crane’s a nutjob. He’s got these crazy notions about becoming part of the planet’s ‘life experience,’ whatever the hell that is.” He swept his arm to take in the long line of poles leading up to the computer control shack mounted on fat, spring-loaded beams. “This is all just so much nonsense.”
“ ‘Nonsense’ like this is what makes up my career, doctor,” she said, cold. “The Crane Foundation finances your dreams. It can finance mine, too.”
“My dreams are realistic!”
“And you can go straight to hell.” She turned and walked away.
“All right … all right,” he said, sloshing through the mud to catch up with her. He spun her around by the arm. “I apologize. Can I start over?”
“Maybe,” she said, with the barest hint of a smile playing on her lips. “You didn’t answer my question. What are the five signs that have everyone so worked up?”
“I’ll show you,” he said, “and then I’m getting you out of here.”
Lanie didn’t bother to protest. She was staying, and that was that. Just then a small electric truck pulled silently into the confusion near the computer center, tires spraying mud. A cage full of chickens was on its flatbed. Burt Hill, one of Crane’s staff, according to the badge he wore high on the shoulder of his garish shirt, stuck his heavily bearded face through the window space. “Hey, Doc Dan!” he called. “Get a load of this.” He forked his thumb at the flatbed.
People immediately crowded around, cams rolling, the tension palpable. Newcombe pushed his way through to Burt, who’d climbed out of the truck, sunblock shining off his cheeks, the only part of him not covered by hair or clothing. The chickens were throwing themselves at the cage, trying desperately to escape. Wings flapped and feathers flew amidst fierce cackling.
“The animals know, don’t they?” Lanie said, standing at Newcombe’s side.
“Yeah, they know.” He looked back at Burt. “I need your vehicle.”