Solstice

'Thanks,' he said, and meant it.

'And one more thing. If people liked me here, I probably wouldn't be doing my job. Bear that in mind. You think we should get back to work now?'

Lieberman shrugged, got up, and followed Bevan into the big barn. The control room was only half-manned. Maybe the rest were up on the mountain. To his astonishment Annie Sinclair was seated at a terminal next to Irwin Schulz, who was almost beaming at her through his thick glasses.

'Annie?' Lieberman asked. 'Are they running the new Barbie CD-ROM on these things now or something?'

Her eyes flashed at him, wide open, astonished. Offended. 'I hate Barbie. How can you even say that?'

He threw up his hands. 'I believe you, I believe you. But what is this? Where's your mom? And why are you making out like a geek? Do you want to turn into Irwin or something?'

'Annie's no slouch at Unix,' Schulz said, his eyes not leaving the screen. 'Don't knock it. You never know when it might come in useful. More than a Barbie CD-ROM anyway.'

'So,' the girl asked, 'if I want to make it to super-user I need to have another password, one way or another?'

'Yeah. But that's enough for now.'

'Okay.' In a flash of keystrokes, she logged off the system, turned to them, and said very seriously, 'Mom's in the briefing room, Michael, waiting for you. I'm going to have some breakfast now, if you don't mind.'

He watched the little figure go out the door into the sunlight and shook his head. 'So what's wrong with the Barbie CD-ROM? Will someone tell me?'

'Context,' Schulz muttered. 'That's all. Annie has picked up a lot. She knows enough to log on, find files, even get onto the network. And you want her to talk Barbie?'

'Great, another geek in the making.'

'Bull. It's not that hard. Most kids can use a PC these days. What's the big deal?'

'I don't know. All I know is there is one.'

'Luddite,' Schulz said, half-laughing. Lieberman followed him into the briefing room, noting the presence of Bennett, Mo, and a couple of silent-looking types he guessed were pals of Bevan's.

'Michael,' Bennett said, smiling, 'we're so glad you changed your mind.'

'Yeah.'

Mo just looked at him. He didn't like the expression on her face. She seemed scared. He sat down and watched Bevan go to the whiteboard and scrawl the single word Security on it.

'We all know what's happened in Lone Wolf and Kyoto over the last twelve hours,' Bevan said. 'And you don't need a crystal ball to guess that the dome here is next on the list for these people. I want you to know that we will stop them. And I want you to understand what these security measures mean for you and the people on your teams. The Sundog people know each other. You haven't met Captain Suarez, who is our liaison officer from the Spanish military…'

One of the seated soldiers nodded at them. He was young, about thirty, Lieberman guessed, thin, with a slender dark moustache on a nice-looking tanned face.

'And John Capstick here is US military liaison for the duration.'

The other one smiled. Blond crewcut, bright sparkling eyes, a physique out of a football team. 'Lady,' Capstick said, smiling at Mo, 'gentlemen.'

'Between them,' Bevan continued, 'our two friends have upward of sixty armed men, mainly on the peak, which is where we perceive the principal threat to be. We have emergency orders which will allow all officers to arrest anyone they find in the restricted area, and shoot if they don't cooperate. And we have an air exclusion zone covering the entire western mountain line of the island. These crazies will not get through.'

'You bet,' Capstick said, grinning.

Lieberman felt faint at the man's optimism: He really did think this was one cushy number. 'So now we know how Charley won't try to wipe us out. Is someone going to tell me a few ways she will?'

'Michael,' Schulz said softly, 'we have to take these precautions. I know it's unlikely, but you have to see why we can't ignore them.'

'Sure. But you know she won't come at us like this. Why the hell would she need to when she's got your neat little magnifying glass in her hand?'

'True,' Bennett said. 'But we're taking precautions against that too.'

'She didn't use Sundog to take out Kyoto,' Bevan said. 'There's a lesson for us there.'

'Yeah. The lesson being that was then and this is now. Maybe she thought there wasn't enough solar activity to let her damage Kyoto when she wanted to hit it. But take a look at the latest projections. Pretty soon everyone will understand this is a global event. There's a whacking great beauty spot about to appear on the face of the sun. When she has that in her grasp, who knows what she can do?'

'Whatever it is,' Bennett said, 'it's predictable. We may not know what the precise mix of radiation will be, but we can protect against it. When this meeting is over we'll start to put a lead covering over the roof of the control block. That should make it safe for us.'

'Should?'

'Michael,' Schulz said, 'we don't say this is perfect, we're saying it's as good as we're going to get.'

'Right. So all we need is for me to figure some way to disarm Sundog, without even touching the damn thing. Or get the system back on-line and keep our computers running through this storm that Charley's helping along the way. That's all. These soldiers here — you're just putting those guys out there to fry.'

'We know the risks,' Capstick said.

'You do? Wow, well, that's more than I do. And what about you, Bennett? You're just about the world authority on this stuff. Do you know what these poor suckers are risking by standing out there under the sun like that? A lot more than some missile up the ass is my guess.'

'Michael…' It was Mo this time.

'Hear me out. I don't know if I can work some magic with the Shuttle. I do know we have to cover the basics. Mo, a systems analyst of all people should know what we need to do in this situation. We need to secure what we have. We need to know that something that gets knocked out can be replaced or revived one minute later. How the hell do you communicate with the control centre up there and the dome anyway?'

'Microwave,' Bevan said. 'And don't worry, we're putting in a landline.'

'It's a start. Now tell me. If she hit your network right now, how long would it take you to get the thing back up?'

Mo shrugged. 'Ninety minutes. Two hours.'

'Can you cut that? I mean, I'm no geek, but can't you just unhook one of those workstations, make it into some emergency system, and then leave it by the network with the cable unplugged so that it stays free of anything she sends our way?'

'Yes.' She nodded. 'It's not the normal way-'

'Let's do it,' Schulz said, grinning. 'That's a great suggestion. And I want that on the peak too. Ellis will sort out the transportation.'

Lieberman blinked. 'Excuse me? We have something in the air out there that brought down Air Force One and you people are thinking of flying civilians around in one of those damn jumped-up dragonflies? Are you insane?'

'We can't do it all from here,' Schulz said. 'We have people up there already but no one with high-level system administration knowledge. It's okay. If it's a problem I'll go.'

'No way,' Bevan said firmly. 'You're needed here. This won't be a problem. It's just fifteen minutes up there, fifteen back. You'll be okay.'

'So why aren't you doing it, then?' Lieberman asked.

'Dumb question. Because I don't know how. And because I'm needed here too.'

Mo Sinclair stared at the notepad in front of her. She was really scared, he thought, and this was about more than just personal risk. She was scared for them all. And all because he had to open his big mouth. 'It's all right,' she said. 'I'll do it.'

'Lieberman,' Bevan said. 'You weren't happy with the visuals on the workstations here. You didn't think they were that good.'