“Exactly, which makes you a very different person indeed.”
But Nicole went on as though she hadn’t heard him. “The Major didn’t know which buttons to push. When I wouldn’t push them, he demanded that I show him so he could. I couldn’t do that either.”
“Who did show him?” he asked gently.
She looked up, startled as his question broke into her thoughts. “What?”
“Who did show him which buttons to push?”
She turned her head away, shaking it quickly.
“It was Travis, wasn’t it.”
A long silence stretched out between them before he spoke. “I rest my case.”
When her head came around slowly to meet his gaze, he added, “You make a lousy Guardian, but a remarkable woman.”
Suddenly she was angry—at him, at his perceptiveness, at his accurate guess about Travis, at the tears abruptly threatening to spill over. “Okay, Dr. Lloyd,” she said. “Now it’s my turn.”
Startled by her sudden bitterness, he nodded. “Have at it.”
“Who are you to sit in pious judgment on others?”
“I—”
“You puff yourself up with pride, telling yourself that your crusade is for the good of man, that you’re the great deliverer, the gallant rescuer of a society plunged into the dark ages of slavery. Hogwash! Your motives are as self-serving and self-centered as the Major’s.”
He rocked back slightly. “There’s no need to coddle me, doctor. Give it to me straight.”
She leaped up, her eyes blazing. “Don’t be cute, Eric! I listened to your little speech. I’m not as clever as you, but now it’s my turn.”
“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. Go ahead, I’m listening. Why do you feel that I’m self-serving and self-centered?”
“Because you cloak your true motives in noble and altruistic clothing every bit as much as the Major does. A desire to save mankind is not what’s really driving you.”
“What is?”
“Revenge. The Major killed your father, destroyed your village, and carried your family here and implanted them.”
He broke in dryly. “How could I have gotten so angry over nothing.”
“I know that!” she cried. “I know you have reason to be bitter, but then admit it. Admit that that is what’s making you do all this. You want to get even. With the Major. With Travis. That’s why you kidnapped me and not just any Guardian, isn’t it.
He shook his head, but there was no stopping the torrent of her words. “You’re the destroyer, not a builder. You say the Major’s system is grossly evil. But what do you offer in place of it?”
“Freedom.”
“No! That’s not sufficient. In Shalev we have freedom. The implantation seems so drastic and terrible to you because it’s new and painful. But most people never even know it’s there or think about it. They live normal, productive lives. In a way, you could even say that implantation enhances their freedom.”
“Come on, Nicole,” Eric said, angry now too. “Get your head out of the Major’s propaganda booklet. Shalev is a festering sore. We’ve already got a dozen people who are willing to risk their lives to join us. That’s how much they prefer our brand of freedom over yours. Okay, I’ll grant you that the Major’s desires, though misguided, are sparked by noble sentiments. But what happens when he’s gone?”
“What do you mean?”
“The system he has devised has an incredible potential for evil. Suppose you get a man who sees other possibilities in the wrist computers and the implantations? Suppose he threatens a woman with the Punishment Mode if she doesn’t grant him sexual favors?”
“I—I never thought of that.”
“A really inventive mind could bring about the most effective tyranny in the history of the world.”
Nicole’s anger gave way abruptly to an earnest pleading. “Eric, I was born an orphan because six animals, with long hair and beards, were running around ‘free.’ So you’ve got to offer us something better than simply freedom, Eric. Much better.”
“No one can fault the Major for his dream of a society where men have learned to control themselves, but he overlooked the most important element of that dream. Even infinite power cannot make men be good. You can make them act in good ways, but to really be good, an individual must choose good things freely. It’s man’s most basic and sacred stewardship—to serve as the guardian of his own behavior.”
His eyes were in deep pools of shadow, but Nicole could almost feel them burning into her flesh as he stared at her and continued. “And it’s man’s blackest and most fundamental evil to try and overthrow that stewardship. You cannot—no matter how highminded your motives—you can never make a man good. Not with guns, not with the rack, and not with a silicon chip planted in the back of his neck.”
Shaken by his intensity, Nicole met his gaze for almost a full minute. Then finally, her voice barely a murmur, she asked, “Is implantation so horrible?”
His chin came up sharply, but he saw that she was not challenging him, but was accepting what he had said. It was her way of saying she understood. His hand came up slowly to rub at the back of his neck. “Before coming here, I might have asked that question myself,” he said. “But never again, Nicole. Never again.”
Chapter 22
For unknown millennia, the south fork of the Flathead River had been relentlessly chewing its way deeper and deeper into the floor of the canyon. Rushing and turbulent in spring, subdued and depleted in late summer, ice-encrusted in winter, the river had for countless generations sent its waters into the massive Columbia River system and eventually on into the Pacific Ocean. Then one day, the newest—and puniest—intruder into the forest had dropped a massive concrete plug into the ravine, wedged it tightly against the shoulders of both hillsides, and cut the water’s relentless flow. Now the river had to pay toll for passage by turning the huge generators buried deep in the concrete bowels of the dam.
It was a massive cork for such a narrow river. As high as a fiftystory building and nearly half a mile across the top of the curving arch, the Hungry Horse Dam had finally let the river pass, but not before it had stolen three and a half million acre-feet of water and formed a ten-mile-long lake of incredibly deep blue waters.
Normally the sight brought a quick intake of breath from all who saw it, but today Eric Lloyd had no eyes for the view. He, Cliff, and Nicole were hidden in the trees a few yards from the west end of the dam, and Eric stared out across the concrete road way where, in a moment, he would step out to meet Travis. He turned and gave Nicole and Cliff one last look. “I guess I’m ready.”
Cliff sighed. “You know what we’re up against as well as I do, so watch yourself.”
Eric nodded. The Major had been pouring men into the area steadily for the past thirty-six hours. In addition to the fifteen or twenty he was openly displaying around the Visitors Center across the dam, he had sent two truckloads a couple of miles up the reservoir to wait for his signal. An equal number had been left down canyon below the dam. A dozen more had been seen going into the powerhouse at the base of the dam. The last group worried Eric the most. The powerhouse was six hundred feet below the area where the exchange would take place, but an elevator connected it with a small concrete blockhouse at the center of the dam. Though it supposedly hadn’t been used for years, there was no question but what it would be used today.
Eric patted the heavy padlock in his back pocket. He and his companions had a surprise or two of their own for the group in the elevator shaft. Eric took a deep breath. In terms of manpower, the odds were about twenty to one, but surprise and high explosives would be the equalizing factors.
Cliff lifted his walkie-talkie. “Chet? Are you two all set up there?”
Rod Loopes and Chet Abernathy sat across the dam on the east mountainside, hidden in the trees about a hundred and fifty yards above the Visitors Center. They had rifles, a stun gun, binoculars, and a walkie-talkie. That was surprise number two
for the Major. Chet Abernathy answered almost instantly. “Affirmative. We’re standing by.”
“Dick?” Cliff asked into the radio.
“Roger, I’m ready too. Good luck, Eric.” Andreason was on the ridge directly behind them, also with binoculars and a rifle and a clear view of the top of the dam. Surprise number three. In addition, a small radio transmitting device was linked to a detonator planted in thirty pounds of high explosives hidden in an outcropping of rock above the road. Surprise number four. No truckloads of men would be coming up from below the dam.
As soon as Eric called for Nicole to be sent out to join him, Cliff would head south along the lake to where he had planted explosive charges at the base of a huge pine tree. Surprise number five. It wouldn’t be as effective as the rock outcropping, but it was the best they could find, and it would slow the Guardians down enough for Eric and his family to get back off the dam and to the horses.
The only question was, how many surprises did the Major and Travis have planned? Eric shook off that thought and squared his shoulders. “Okay, then, I guess this is it.”
Cliff touched his arm. “I don’t think the Major will call for his dogs until he’s sure Nicole is safe, so that should give us a few minutes to get in place, but watch yourself. And bring them home.”
He gave Cliff a thumbs-up sign and moved out onto the dam.
He had gone only twenty yards toward the center of the dam when a burst of static at his waist broke his stride. He unclipped the walkie-talkie and pressed the button. “Yes?”
It was Chet Abernathy’s voice. “Someone is just starting out onto the dam—tall, dark-haired, wearing a Guardian uniform. He’s not armed, as far as we can tell.”
“Is he alone?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, that’s Travis. Have they brought my family out yet?”
“No, not yet. They’re still inside the Visitors Center.”
“Okay, cover him. I’ll leave the transmit button switched on so all of you can hear what is going on.”
The engineers who designed Hungry Horse Dam had shaped it into a sweeping concave curve so it could better withstand the almost unbelievable weight pushing at its back. The roadway that spanned the half-mile long crest had been lined with concrete retaining walls chest high, and so, for a minute or two, as Eric walked steadily toward the center of the dam, all he could see of Travis was his head and shoulders. Only as they got to within the last hundred yards of each other did he come fully into view.
Eric slowed his pace slightly and then halted next to the concrete blockhouse that housed the central elevator shaft. He took the padlock out of his back pocket, keeping it behind him, and tested to make sure it was open.
“Hello, Eric.” Travis stopped about twenty feet away.
Eric nodded. “Travis.” Then he turned and stared at the door of the blockhouse. It was just as Cliff had said. “Well, well,” he drawled, “would you look at that carelessness.” Moving quickly enough to make Travis jump, he reached the door in three steps, slammed shut the metal hasp on the doorway, and clicked the heavy-duty padlock over it. “Someone could get hurt, leaving a doorway unlocked like that.”
He grinned at the sudden flash of anger that swept across Travis’s face. But as quickly as the anger had come, it fled, and Travis’s face became a carefully controlled mask of composure. “Where’s Nicole?”
“Safe. Where’s my family?”
“Here. Shall we begin?”
“I’d say it’s time.”
“You start Nicole out here, and I’ll send for your family.”
Eric shook his head. “Uh uh. For some reason, we have this nagging suspicion that you and the Major are not playing this completely straight, so you get my family out here first, where I can make sure everything is all right; then I’ll bring out Nicole.”
Travis shrugged, then turned around, lifted his arm, and waved it back and forth slowly.
From the center of the dam to the Visitors Center measured nearly four hundred yards, so it was difficult to tell for sure, but Eric thought he could see the heads and shoulders of two women. He unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt. “Dick, can you see them?”
Eric knew the radioman behind him was studying the figures through the binoculars. Then the radio crackled. “Roger. It’s a long way from this side of the dam, but I see six people—two women, two children, and two Guardians.”
“My, aren’t we organized,” Travis mocked. “Radios, men on the hillside, guns. This is better than TV.”
“Travis, tell your men to stay where they are. My family is to come out alone.”
“They will.”
Almost immediately Andreason’s voice spoke again. “They’re starting out onto the dam. The guards have stopped.”
Travis and Eric fell silent as they watched the steady progress of the small party coming toward them, but Eric was aware of a prickling sense of uneasiness. Travis was still too confident. Eric’s locking of the elevator shaft had set him back, but only temporarily. The battle was not over yet by any means.
When Eric’s family came around the gentle curve of the roadway and into full sight, Becky exploded into a run, her short legs pumping like pistons, her ponytail bouncing wildly. “Ricky! Ricky!” she screamed with delight.
Travis turned quickly and intercepted her in midstride, swinging her up off the ground. “Hey, Tiger!” he said, “just hang on a minute.”
“Put me down! “ she wailed, pummeling Travis with her fists. He swung her back down and gave her a gentle shove into the arms of her mother. “Mrs. Lloyd, stop right there until I say.”
“Mother,” Eric called. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “We are now. Are you okay?”
“Never been better. Have they removed your implantations?”
“Yes.” It was almost a sob, and Stephanie put her arm around her mother’s waist.
“For all of you?” Eric persisted. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, Eric,” Stephanie answered. “They let Mother and me watch them do it.” She held up her left arm. “And they took off our wrist computers too. We’re all free.”
“Now are you satisfied?” Travis sneered.
“Not quite. Mom, Steph, come over here behind me.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Travis snapped, raising his arm to block their progress. “They stay right here until I see that Nicole is okay.”
Eric shrugged and lifted the walkie-talkie. “Okay, Cliff. Send Nicole.”
As Travis had done with Becky, Eric had to intercept Nicole as she almost broke into a run when she saw Travis. “Just stay behind me, Nicole,” he said, not taking his eyes from Travis.
“Nicole, are you all right?”
She started to answer but the words caught in her throat, and she finally nodded. Before Travis could answer, a loud thump rattled the steel doorway of the blockhouse, and Eric heard a muffled cry of surprise.
Eric smiled briefly. “Sorry to spoil their little welcoming party.”
“Sergeant Decker,” Travis shouted, “the door’s locked. Just stand easy for a while.”
Eric half turned around to face Nicole. “I’m sorry for the last few days. I really mean that.”
She stared at him for a moment, her eyes as green as the depths of the sea. “I appreciate your treating me with respect.”
“I hope you can find peace within yourself.” He turned back to Travis. “Okay, start my family over, and Nicole is all yours.”
Becky lurched forward, but Travis’s arm was like a steel bar holding her back. “Just like that, huh?” he said softly. “Then we all walk away and everyone is happy?”
Nicole too had started around Eric, but he yanked her back against him, suddenly wary. “Yes. Just like that.” His eyes were riveted on Travis’s face, and he felt his muscles tensing rapidly.
“Sorry, Eric,” Travis said, “but it can’t go down that way. If it was simply your family for Nicole, the Major might have bought it. But
when you started removing the implantations on other people, that set it in concrete. No way can the Major let it go now. We’ve got a hundred men closing in on you right now. There’s no way to get out of here.”
Eric jerked Nicole around to shield him as his hand whipped down to his boot and pulled out the hunting knife hidden there. “Did you hear that, Dick?” he shouted, ignoring Nicole’s sharp gasp of surprise.
“I sure did,” came the answer from the walkie-talkie. Almost instantly the blast of the explosive rocked the air, spinning everyone on the top of the dam around to look northward. A huge cloud of dust and smoke billowed upward about a quarter mile away.
“So much for those truckloads,” Eric said. He looked past Travis to his family. “Mother, you and the girls start walking slowly toward me.”
Travis didn’t turn around, but the menace in his voice was like the quiet rustle of a cobra lifting its head to strike. “Mrs. Lloyd, for your sake and that of your children, don’t move. A dozen rifles are trained on your backs at this moment.” His eyes narrowed as he glanced at the knife. “You’re a fool, Eric. We know you won’t hurt Nicole. Now that you’ve brought her back to us, she’s home free. You know that and so do we. You can’t get away from here.”
In an instant, the point of the knife was touching Nicole’s throat, and she gave a sharp cry of fear. “I think,” Eric said, so softly that his voice was almost lost in the gentle breeze blowing across the top of the dam, “I think you’re about ninety-five percent sure of that. But what if you are five percent wrong?”
Travis hesitated a moment then said patiently, as though to an errant child, “Oh, Eric, Eric, what will you do? Cut her throat? Come on.”
“Let my family come over here, Travis, or you’ll see exactly what I’m willing to do.”
Again for one split second, Eric saw the hesitation in Travis’s eyes; then it was gone. “Give it up, Eric. You’ve lost the game.”
In an instant, it was clear why Travis hadn’t given up. Behind him, a low, throbbing noise was rising rapidly, and then suddenly it exploded into a deafening roar as a helicopter swept over the ridge behind Eric and swooped down toward them. As Eric’s head swung around to look up, Travis quickly stepped behind the corner of the elevator tower. His hand darted out, and when he straightened up, he held a deer rifle pointed at Eric and Nicole. “You’re playing against the Major now, Eric. Amateur night is over. Give it up. Let her go.”
Gerald N. Lund 4-In-1 Fiction eBook Bundle Page 43
