V03 - The Pursuit of Diana

by Allen L. Wold

  "Looks like I got here just in time," Ham said calmly.

  "Ten minutes sooner would have been better," Mike said, then turned to see a dozen or more motorcycles roar up. The bikes were chopped, sported Nazi symbols and skulls, and were driven by men whose meanness made Ham look like a kindly uncle. The choppers screeched to a halt just feet from the three, and their leadei; a particularly ugly man with a fape scarred by fire, casually stepped off his bike, kicked the stand down, and came over to join them.

  "That was fun," he said with an incongruously boyish grin.

  "I'm glad you enjoyed it," Ham said. To Mike and Julie, he said, "If you were wondering why nobody came in from the back or sides, it was because Gorf and his club here were protecting your flanks."

  "They didn't pay any attention to us," Gcrf said, "until it was too late. I didn't even have to use my gun." He patted the machine pistol strapped to his thigh. "Just ran them down." Mike looked over at Gorf's chopper and saw that the heavy front fender was dented and bloody.

  "You sure can come up with some surprises," he said to Ham. Around them the Fixer's forces were gathering. Those among them who Mike knew greeted the rebels and fifth columnists whom they'd rescued with unfeigned enthusiasm.

  "That was Chris's idea," Ham said. "He used to ride with this club a few years back."

  "You'd better get your asses in gear," Gorf said. "Those soldiers haven't gone that far away, and in a straight-on fight I think they could take us."

  "All right," Ham shouted, turning to address the people milling around. "Let's get a move on." Trucks drove up, and the rebels started getting in.

  "Where are we going?" Mike asked.

  "We've got a new place," Ham said, "an abandoned mine up in the hills south of L.A." He stepped back to let Barbara, still carrying Elizabeth, go past to one of the trucks. "Robin's there now," he said, "along with Robert and the others. We should pull ourselves together. We've still got a lot of work to do."

  "You'd better believe it," Julie said. "Diana has escaped." Quickly she explained what had happened.

  "It gets dirtier all the time," Ham said.

  "That's the way we like it," Gorf said. "You got any more parties like this in mind, you just let me know."

  "I'll do that," Ham told him. The gang leader nodded, then went back to his chopper and with the rest of his club following, drove off.

  "All right," Ham yelled again, even as the first of the trucks started off. "Let's get this show on the road."

  The trucks, cars, and vans pulled into the open space in front of the main mine building high in the hills south and east of Los Angeles. Thanks to the Visitor communicators, which Grace Delaney and Barry Stine had succeeded in figuring out, Robert Maxwell and the others there had been able to stay in communication with Ham Tyler, and knew beforehand of their friends' approach.

  The reunion was joyful. Robin Maxwell insisted on coming out to meet the rebels with her father, and when she saw Elizabeth, there was no holding her. The half-breed child, who had always been rather cool to her mother seemed genuinely pleased to see her this time.

  "She's a very special person," Mike Donovan told Robin and Robert. "It's Elizabeth who disarmed the doomsday bomb before it could go off."

  "But how could she possibly do that?" Robin asked, holding her daughter tight.

  "We don't really know," Juliet Parrish said. "She just put her hands on the controls, and then it was like she was lit up all over with tiny Christmas tree lights. And after a moment, the bomb just shut off."

  "Barbara and I had tried to override the program with a special computer," Mike said, "but nothing we did worked. If it hadn't been for Elizabeth, the whole world would have been destroyed."

  "Oh, Elizabeth," Robin said, hugging the child, "I think you're wonderful."

  "She works miracles on all levels," Caleb Taylor told her. "She doesn't need just any old doomsday bomb, she can also open prison doors." He told the young mother about the half-breed girl's role in their escape from the sanitarium.

  Robin, as she listened to the story, looked at her chiid in amazement. "Where did she get such powers?" she asked.

  "We don't know," Barbara said. "There's nothing like her abilities among our people, though we, as you, have dreamed and speculated about such things for ages."

  "It's something we'll have to explore later," Mike said. "We don't need to worry about it now. But we're awfully giad she was with us when she was needed."

  "You're not going to experiment on her," Robin asked apprehensively.

  "No," her father reassured her, patting her shoulder, "we're not going to do that. But where's Diana?"

  "She's escaped," Julie said, "again."

  "She's somewhere on Earth," Mike expanded, "in the hands of government officials who offered her freedom in exchange for her knowledge."

  "You can't be serious," Robert exclaimed.

  "I am, but it's more complicated than that. Right now we have to plan what to do next. You'll hear the whole story when I explain it to everybody else."

  "Well, let's get on with it, then," Robert said.

  Chapter 10

  For the first time since the final invasion on the Los Angeles Mother Ship, all the rebels were together again. Someone had even found out where Arthur Dupres, Mike's stepfather, had taken Sean, and had brought both of them up to the mine.

  Mike went to see them in the small room they were sharing. Sean was still rather subdued and withdrawn, and though he tried to pretend to be happy to see his father, the confusion induced by his conversion made his enthusiasm anything but convincing.

  "You'll have to give him time," Arthur said a little later when he was alone with his stepson. "He doesn't really comprehend yet what's happened to him."

  "If Julie could pull through it," Mike said, "then I guess Sean can too. I felt like a heel, tricking the boy that way so he would give Steven and Mother false information. Sean's always trusted me before."

  "He will again. You'll just have to be patient."

  "More likely what's going to happen is that I'll be too busy to be impatient. But speaking of Mother, do you know how she is?"

  Arthur's face grew pained and he turned away. "She's dead, Mike."

  Mike stood for a long moment. He had stopped liking his mother long ago, but he still loved her.

  "How did it happen?" he asked at last.

  "Steven shot her. I don't know the details, but I do know that Ham Tyler made a special point of personally seeing that Steven died. Poured a whole packet of toxin down his throat."

  "Ham may have an odd sense of right and wrong," Mike said softly, "but in this case, I think I agree with him."

  The rebel force was larger than ever, what with the fifth columnists and the people from other groups which the Fixer had called on for help. Altogether, over seventy-five people gathered in the mine's dining hall to hold a council of war.

  Juliet Parrish stood at the head table, looking out over the crowd. She'd tried to get Mike or Ham or even Martin to take over leadership of the group, but they'd all refused, saying she was the person the rebels believed in, she was the one who should make the decisions.

  "Attention, everybody," Julie said. "We've got a lot of things to discuss. First, what happened to the suspended people we brought down to the processing plant?"

  "Those who were revived were set free," Claire Bryant said. "The others are still in their coffins, as far as we know. The people who took over the plant were no more successful than we were in figuring out how the equipment worked."

  "How long before they start dying," Julie asked.

  "How long has it been?" Phyllis, the fifth columnist, asked. Somebody told her. "They should be all right for a couple more days," Phyllis said. "Then they'll start dying."

  "Have any more suspendees been brought down?" Julie queried.

  "No," Grace Delaney said. "1 don't understand it. No attempt was made to learn how to use the shuttles. All three are still at the plant."

&nb
sp; "So then," Mike said, "nobody has gone up to the Mother Ship since we came down."

  "That's right," Grace told him. "Like I said, it makes no sense."

  "It does," Julie said, "if you understand that the people who are giving orders have all been converted. Without supervision, they've lost almost all initiative. Worse, they can't choose between doing what's best for Earth or what's best for the Visitors."

  " That seems consistant with what we've been hearing on the news," Paul Overbloom said. "Nobody can make up their minds. Our politicians keep contradicting themselves and each other."

  "Exactly," Juliet said. "Now what's the chance of our getting one of these shuttles?"

  "They're all guarded," Fred Linker said, "but I think we could take one if we wanted to badly enough."

  "We may," Julie told him. "Any word from our allies on the Mother Ship?"

  "We've been trying to establish communications," Barry Stine said, "but we've had little success. Every time we get a clear signal, somebody overrides it."

  "It's got to be the turncoats," Elias offered. He explained briefly to those who had not been in the Mother Ship about the liaitors among the fifth columnists. "At least," he concluded, "if what you're telling us is any indication, they haven't yet taken over the ship."

  "I don't think so," Barry said. "But I don't think anybody up there is going to be of any help to us."

  "If the turncoats did take over," Julie asked, turning to Martin, "what's the worst they could do?"

  "Use the ship's weapons to destroy a large part of Los Angeles," Martin answered. "I don't think that's a real possibility, though. What's more likely is that somebody who doesn't know what he's doing will try to take the ship away again. If that were to happen, considering the repairs that still need to be done, then there's a strong possibility that the gravity generators would give out and the ship would just fall on Los Angeles."

  "That would flatten most of the city," someone said.

  "Worse than that," Martin corrected, "the power generators would all discharge at once. It wouldn't blow the world apart, but it would sure turn all of southern California into a mighty big lake."

  "It seems as if the thing to do," Julie said, "is to go back up to the Mother Ship and disarm the turncoats."

  "I think you're right," Robert Maxwell agreed. "And there are still nearly ten thousand suspended human beings up there."

  "Not to mention those of our people whom we've tested and know we can trust," the fifth columnist, Ralph, said.

  "Sounds good," Ham said sarcastically. "And then when we have all our friends down here, then what will we do? Let the police arrest them? Let the National Guard put them in sanitariums? Let some converted general bring out the whole army?"

  "But we're going to be bringing down humans," Maggie said. "Helpless victims. And as far as I know, the few Visitors here are the only people who know how to remove them from suspended animation and bring them back to life. Could anybody stop us from doing that?"

  "They did before," the Visitor named George said. "Your Colonel Fletcher didn't even let us finish with the ones we brought on the first trip."

  "He didn't know what he was doing," Sancho Gomez, said. "If we could let them know what we were intending to do beforehand, they might at least let us bring these people out of suspended animation."

  "That's a point," Julie said. "At least it will buy us some time."

  "It may take more time than they're willing to allow," Martin objected. "Even if our technicians train you sufficiently so you can help with the unprocessing, it will be a slow business. Your politicians and generals might not have that much patience."

  "This is really bizarre," Elias Taylor said, "using our own people as hostages against our own government."

  "It is that," Mike Donovan agreed, "but if it will work, we'll have to do it. We need all the time we can get so we can learn about how to deconvert those politicians and generals and get them back on our side."

  "And that's our real problem," Juliet said. "Right now we don't know how many Visitor survivors have been able to make contact with convertees and gain control of them. We don't even know how many convertees there are. And nothing we do will be of any lasting benefit if the government remains m the hands of people whose minds are confused at best, and controlled by our enemies at worst."

  "We're talking about several different and very distinct things here," Ham Tyler said. "Those people who have been converted are not going to just come right out and tell us so. We're going to have to do some pretty heavy undercover work to learn all the names."

  "Well," Mike said, "that's your job."

  "No, it's not," Ham said. "I'm not in that kind of intelligence."

  "But you know people who are."

  "Ye-e-s."

  "Okay, then you're it. You're better qualified than any of the rest of us. You know people."

  "Ye-e-s," Ham said again. He glared around the room. "It's going to take some time," he said, "and it won't do any good if Diana is still out there pulling her tricks. With the contacts she's made, she'll be able to undermine all our plans."

  "And that's the crux of the situation," Mike agreed. "Whoever it was that got Colonel Fletcher to release her into their custody, they're not pikers. She's gotten into the real power structure here. Either they'll be strong enough to manipulate her to their ends 01; which is more likely, she will gain control of them."

  "There's still the toxin to consider," Barbara said. "Some of our people have been feeling slightly unwell lately, all with the same symptoms—difficulty in breathing, racing pulse. I haven't felt it myself, and I was one of the first to get the antitoxin, of which we're going to need a lot more very soon. Maybe if we just wait, Diana's dose will wear off, and the problem will take care of itself."

  "We can't take the chance," Julie said. "If we, with our limited resources and equipment, could make the antitoxin, surely any well-equipped hospital could do the same. And besides, some of you have a natural immunity, and—" She had to pause while a number of the fifth columnists absorbed this news. "I'll tell you about that later. There are also respirators. Not convenient, but effective if used properly. And there's no guarantee that Diana couldn't come up with the antitoxin herself. After all, she's your most intelligent and well-trained scientist—and a life scientist at that."

  "No matter how we look at it," Elias said, "it all comes back to the same thing. Diana is the key to this whole business."

  "We've had her in our hands before," Caleb Taylor said gently, "and it didn't do us any good."

  "I know, Pop, but without her we've got nothing because she can always screw up anything we can do. Especially now. I don't know who those guys were who took her away yesterday, but you can bet your bottom that whoever they were, they offered her a position of power. Now we've got to find ourselves a similar position of power"

  "There's another side to this," Mike Donovan said. "Diana may not have power, but she can influence people. We have to counter that. And the only way to do that, as far as I can see, is to inform people of the danger, spread the news as far and as loudly as we can."

  "I think you're right," Julie said. "After all, more than ninety-five percent of the people out there don't know what's going on, have never known since the Visitors took over our news services."

  "That's it," Mike said. "And how did they do that?"

  "They overrode our TV and radio signals," Grace Delaney said. "They broadcast their version of everything, even when national and local stations didn't cooperate."

  "That's right," Mike said. "And they did that from up on their ship. Which also, so I'm told, has pretty powerful military weapons as well."

  "So we go back up there one more time," Maggie Blodgett said.

  "Exactly."

  "Not me," Ham protested. "There are too many things for me to do down here. You said so yourself."

  "Oh, no," Mike told him. "This time, everybody goes up. You, me, Robin, Elizabeth, the children, everybody."
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  "But why?" Robin asked.

  "Because that's the one place where nobody on Earth can touch us. And that's the one place from which we can control the communications of this country, if not of the whole world."

  "But there are turncoats up there," William protested.

  "We'll take care of them," Mike said. "But we've got to get up there first."

  "And there are three of the largest shuttles just waiting for us at the suspension plant," Caleb said.

  Overhead lights shone down on the paved area behind the plant where so many people had been put into suspended animation. The three shuttles stood fully illuminated. They looked as though they hadn't been moved. Three or four National Guardsmen, their rifles hanging from their shoulders, patrolled the area with a casual, bored manner.

  From their hiding places in the tire dump, the rebels watched the area. Everybody was here now, even the children.

  "I don't like it," Ham Tyler said to Mike, Julie, Elias, and Martin. "It's just too quiet. With all the action that's gone on here during the last few days, you'd think they'd have more men on guard."

  "Whoever is giving the orders has probably been converted," Juliet Parrish said.

  "Or else they suspect we're coming," Elias Taylor offered, "and have set a trap for us."

  "I suppose that's possible," Mike Donovan said, "but they can't know how many of us there are. We're going to have to try for it anyway."

  "Might as well get it over with," Ham agreed. He looked over at another stack of tractor tires where Chris Faber was conferring with several rebels. After a moment Chris looked back at his colleague and nodded. The other rebels moved off.

  "That's it," the Fixer said. He passed the silent message on to other rebels who could see his signal and who in turn sent it on to still others. People started moving, spreading out as they neared the fence. Ham kept his eye on Chris, who had remained at his post, and after what seemed like an awfully long time Chris, who had been watching someone else out of sight, gave Ham another hand sign.

  "All right," Ham said. He drew and cocked his weapon,