“Why should anybody suspect a connection?” Sven asked. He slapped at a hovering insect. “Damn, that was a mosquito. There never used to be mosquitos here.”
“It’s warmer than it used to be, I think.”
“Yes. But as I was saying, nobody will connect them with the floods. Lawrence is dead, and you heard what Fletcher said. He thinks the ice cap was melted by some sort of atomic foul-up. It’s what most people will think. There’s nothing to worry about. The sea people are safe for the next fifty years.”
They passed the wreckage of the plane. It was still burning fiercely, and the air was full of ugly smells. Beyond it, their way led downhill. They could see the two-lane highway ahead.
They had almost reached the road when they heard the sound of a ’copter in the sky. They both looked up. The pilot leaned out and waved at them.
He came lower. “Hi!” he yelled through a megaphone. “Are you refugees?”
“Yes!” Sven shouted back through cupped hands.
“Good! I’ll come down for you.”
He set the ’copter down beside the road. “Get in,” he told them. “I was making a last search of the hills, to be sure we hadn’t missed anybody. I’ll take you to the camp.”
The ’copter had had the letters “U.S.N.” on the underside; Sven looked at the pilot thoughtfully. But he was sure he had never seen him before, and Madelaine, from her silence, didn’t know him either. (Dr. Lawrence would have recognized him, I think, but Lawrence was dead.) Sven and Madelaine got in. The ’copter rose up and then began to fly above the road. “How come I missed you before?” the pilot asked. “I thought I had everybody.”
“We were at sea in a small boat during the flood,” Sven replied. “We didn’t know anything was wrong until we tried to land.”
“At sea? You must have been through some terrible weather. It’s a wonder you’re alive. By the way, what did you say your names were?”
There seemed to be no reason for concealment. “My name is Erickson,” Sven answered, “and she’s Madelaine Paxton. It’s good of you to take us in. It would have been a long walk.”
“Think nothing of it,” the pilot answered. His tone was remote and preoccupied. After a moment the ’copter, which had been following the road, changed course and began to fly due east.
“Where are we going?” Sven asked after a moment. He was not so much suspicious as merely inquiring. “I heard the camp was at O’Brien.”
“That one’s—full,” the pilot said. “I’m taking you to another one.” He sent the ’copter higher. The speed increased.
Sven felt a thrill of alarm. He glanced at Madelaine and saw that her eyes had narrowed and her lips were tight. Still, he wanted to be sure. “What’s the name of this other camp?” he asked.
“Uhn, it’s at Agness.”
At Agness? But Agness, if Sven remembered his Oregon geography, was almost straight north. Why should the ’copter be flying east?
Madelaine nudged him. Carefully, turning her head slowly so the pilot would not notice the movement, she put her lips against Sven’s ear. “We must make him land the plane,” she breathed.
Sven gave a tiny nod. They would have to use Udra, new style, to get motor control of the pilot, and it wasn’t going to be easy. One of the drawbacks of Udra has always been that it is difficult to get into the Udra-state when one is excited or upset. But it had to be done. He and Maddy couldn’t risk having the pilot take them to some unknown destination, to be confronted with unknown inquisitors.
Madelaine’s mind was already reaching out to him. They could help each other get into Udra. The first thing to do was be calm and open his mind to hers.
This time, rather oddly, their minds merged before either of them was well into the Udra-state. It was a shock to both of them, I think, because always before in their closer psychic contacts with each other, a dolphin intelligence had been present. The dolphin mind, with all its strangeness, had acted as a mediator. But this immediate Split-to-Split contact had the advantage that there were no depths in each other that frightened them. It made possible a closer unity.
The pilot coughed. “Why are you so quiet back there?” he asked, half turning round.
Sven couldn’t have answered if his life had depended on it. His mind was bent on one thing only, focused on a single point: getting the pilot’s motor activity under his and Madelaine’s control.
“What—” the pilot said, and stopped. A look of amazement spread over his face as he found himself unable to spe ak. Madelaine and Sven had taken command of his conscious bodily acts.
So far, so good. The next thing was to get him to land the ’copter. Neither Sven nor the girl knew, of course, what motions the pilot should make to land; but he did. The command went out.
Slowly and reluctantly the pilot’s hands moved on the controls. The ’copter began to descend.
It was not a good landing, but it was a landing. The pilot shut the motor off. He sat motionless for an instant. Then, stiffly, he rose from his seat and jumped to the ground.
It was hard for the two to keep control of the pilot and yet be able to move freely themselves. To engage in bodily activity while one is in the Udra-state is self-contradictory. So it took Sven and Madelaine almost ten minutes to get out of the ’copter and walk to where the pilot stood.
The pilot’s hands kept twitching. Sven did not dare to relax his psychic grip on him. But there was a gun in the holster on the pilot’s hip. Slowly, with many hesitations and much watchfulness, Sven drew the gun from its place and covered the pilot with it.
“All right,” he said. “Put up your hands.”
The man’s arms went up. “What are you—” he said.
“Shut up,” Sven told him. “Now, Maddy, search him. Find his papers and look at them. I want to know who he is. Be careful, don’t put yourself in the way of the gun.”
The girl obeyed. In the breast pocket of the pilot’s whipcord jacket she found a wallet, a notebook, a pen, and a flat leather folder.
“His name is Nicholl Trott,” she said, looking in the wallet. “He’s thirty-four years old, and he lives in San Francisco. It’s an interstate driver’s license.”
“Look in the leather folder,” Sven said, still covering the pilot with the gun.
“Oh. These are his credentials, Sven. They identify him as a naval intelligence agent.”
“So that’s it,” Sven said. “No wonder he recognized our names.”
The pilot found his tongue. “Why do you assume I’m hostile to you?” he asked. “Yes, I recognized your names. Yes, I was taking you to Agness. But—”
“But what?” Sven asked.
“You wouldn’t have been hurt. Or your dolphin friends, for that matter.” Trott’s hands were still raised. “I’m one of the Splits, as you call them, who remember what you talked about so much when they had you under the influence of the truth serum.”
“What do you know about that?” Sven asked. “You weren’t there when they were questioning me.”
“No, but I’ve studied the case. Don’t you see, Erickson? I’m sympathetic to you. I—remember the covenant.”
It is painful to feel one’s self always surrounded by enemies. Even Splits, with their chronic hostility toward each other, find hostility ultimately painful. Trott’s story was not absolutely unbelievable; but Sven tended to believe him because he wanted to believe.
“I helped you get away,” Trott went on. “Why do you think there weren’t any guards where the dolphin was waiting for you?”
“But if—”
“Watch out!” Madelaine yelled. “He’s got another gun!”