Teal nods. Her eyes are dry, weeping done.
“You did not intend to bring others with you, including us.”
“No. But t’ey woulda died out t’ere,” she says, eyes like headlamps in the shadow.
Gamecock turns first to Captain Coyle, whose expression is neutral with a touch of grim, then to de Groot, and observes his reaction. I watch Rafe, who cringes in anticipation. He knows de Groot just can’t keep still and shut up.
“We live!” de Groot shouts. “We feed our people! We trek and settle and build, flee battles, soldate, but even so, lose families and land! And now, because of your war, the laager is gone!” He stares around as if his look could pierce us all. “We have waited years. When the water is down, the pipe is no longer flooded, we mine and build and make crops. Here there is much metal—but down below, vents, vluchtige—pockets of methane, ammonia—stikstof—nitrogen!”
“And sulfide,” I explain under my breath to the colonel. “They seeded oxyphores in the pits.”
Gamecock frowns. Biology is not his strength. Skipping over that, I add the important point: “Enough water still flows to power the old generators. And they have a printer. Quite a few barrels of slurry—metal, ceramic, medical, and nutrient.”
“How many?” Gamecock asks.
“Hard to know, sir. Lots. They finished most of the installation before the hobo—before the water rose and they left.”
“Drifter. Pipe. Hobo,” Gamecock says, trying to absorb the words.
“Why not just pump out the water and sell it?” Tak asks.
“Water iss everywhere,” Rafe says. “We got water.”
“That gives suurstof, oxygen, hydrogen,” de Groot says. “But very little stikstof, not so much metaal, not like this, just ready to dig and melt. This pipe means huise, kos, food—life! But what is that now? Nutteloos! No use!”
His agony is honest. His eyes fill with tears. Everyone is still, quiet. The other Voors seem embarrassed. Rafe flexes his arms, tugging at his twisty-ties. Hard times indeed.
“I never wanted t’at,” Teal says.
“You led them straight here!” Rafe says, not shouting, but with deep resentment.
“So did you,” Captain Coyle reminds him.
“Not our choosing,” Rafe says.
The tension is rising. Gamecock feels it. We all feel it. Teal can feel it most acutely. We’re all that stands between her and de Groot’s vengeance. These guys would love to resume their little gnome works without our interference.
“There’s no point assigning blame,” Gamecock says. “Save that for later. How many Voors left your buses, your wagons?”
“Trekboers. Many,” Rafe says.
De Groot clamps his jaw. “They go where home was.”
Too many to fit in one wagon. Coyle asks, “Can they walk that far?”
“They die,” de Groot says. “When hope it is gone, we go on trek, like our ancestors. Dutch go hard on them, they walk from Cape Town to the Big Karoo and the Little Karoo. Our way.”
“King Solomon’s Mines,” I say.
“That is right,” Rafe says sadly. “Ophir. Right here we are. We are no danger. Set us free!”
Gamecock lowers his eyebrows a notch. Coyle shakes her head.
Vee-Def and Kazak have gone back to the northern garage at Gamecock’s murmured instructions and now rejoin us. They confer with Coyle and Gamecock, away from Voor ears, and after a minute, Gamecock motions for me and Tak to come aside with them. Tak repeats his report. “We’ve got a good line of sight to the northwest. Lots of activity—there’s a big cloud out there. Venn saw it earlier, just after we dropped. Well, now it’s bigger and closer. There are tunnels and hidey-holes all through this place. We really need a map or a native guide.”
I tell them about the southern watchtower and the control panel. Gamecock sends DJ to check it out.
“I’m not sure any of the Voors have been here in years,” Gamecock says.
“Teal might know more, but she’s terrified,” I say.
“They keep calling this a ‘pipe,’” Kazak says, drawing closer. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Volcanic pipe, like where diamonds are mined,” Tak says.
“I saw something on a display up in the watchtower,” I say. “A cavern or room, bright, shiny, crystals all over.”
“Diamonds—here?” Gamecock asks, incredulous.
“Don’t know that, sir, or where it is, even if it’s in this formation.”
“The big fellow did grab on to calling this place Solomon’s mine,” Coyle says. She points to me. “Master Sergeant Venn seems to have a relationship with the ranch wife. She showed you around, didn’t she?”
“She’s just scared,” I say.
“Assume nothing,” Coyle says.
Gamecock is studying me. I don’t like that.
“I don’t think she trusts any of us,” I say.
“She’s got to be lonely,” Gamecock says. “She came here with nobody, to get away—but then she picks us up. None of the settlements like us…” Something continues not to convince or impress him. I have to agree—there are major gaps in every one of these stories.
Tak and I regard each other with owlish resignation. The dust and activity out there is almost certainly Antag, and they’re either heading our direction deliberately, out to get us in particular, or we’re on the path to wherever they are going. Given the nature of this place, if the Antags have tracked all these buggies from orbit, homing in on the Drifter like dung beetles to a pile, they’re going to be curious.
Likely the Drifter has distinct gravimetry and until now the Antags have ignored it, as we have, because there’s been too much else to do. But if they’re in complete charge, laying down a heavy, long-term hand, they may feel the freedom to send out targeted recon.
“I want to know as much as we can know about this place, as soon as possible,” he says. “There could be a hell of a lot more at stake than just us and them. Keep letting Teal think we’re on her side. We may be on her side, of course. Captain Coyle, you go with them—chaperone. Take the big one, Rafe, just to let the Voors feel they’re not being left out.”
“What about the old guy?” Coyle asks. “He’s the boss. And he’s real trigger.” She means a natural killer, remorseless and cold. “He might know more than the others. And the others won’t do anything without his say.”
“Isolate him,” Tak suggests. “Defuse him.”
“Take him away, the rest will get anxious,” Gamecock says. “I’ll bet he’s told his son most of what he knows. Rafe’s the one you want to get separate.” He presses his hands together, then splits them apart. “I’m pretty sure we’re all going to be together in the shit soon enough. If we can keep them in line… Get them to fight with us… Maybe we’ll die another day. But right now, we need to do our best to uplink and get instructions,” the colonel concludes with a sour look.
DJ returns. “I’ve scoped out the watchtower rooms,” he says. “Beetling brows over the ports.” He salutes a caveman ridge above his nose. “No line of sight to zenith. Maybe to the horizon, but that’s the long way.”
“Even if we had working lasers,” Gamecock says.
“We have helm lasers,” Tak says. “On a clear night, we could get a horizontal link—for a few seconds at least.”
“How? You couldn’t hold steady enough.”