by Ben Bova
He crawled forward a short distance, then sat cross-legged on the earthen floor of the chamber once the passageway had widened enough to sit upright. Opening the bag in his lap, he rummaged among its contents as his father, on all fours, crawled up to his side and sat next to him in the cramped passageway.
"Here, take this," he said, handing him a flashlight. He pulled another lamp from the bag and clicked it on, pointing it down the crawlway. "It opens up just around there. Follow me."
They crawled another four or five meters and the passageway opened into a fair-sized room. From where they sat the floor sloped gradually to a long, flat wall on the opposite side. Eric played the flashlight over their surroundings, the narrow beam showing that the room was quite large, its exact boundaries disappearing into the darkness of an even larger cavern to their left. Along the lowest portion of the far wall a tiny rivulet of water trickled musically along the floor, vanishing into a small opening on the right side of the room. Eric took his flashlight and pressed it into the soft earth floor at his feet, allowing the beam of light to reflect off the gray-brown limestone of the ceiling. He extended his hand for his father's light and did the same with it, brightening the underground room considerably. Satisfied that they were secure for the moment, he went into the larger room and returned almost immediately with a small molded box.
"It's still here," he said, sitting back down next to his father. He opened the lid and pulled out a sealed plastic bag containing several stubby candles. There was a narrow ledge in the rock wall at their backs, and Eric dug a handful of the candles out of the bag and placed them, one at a time, on the shelflike ledge. The ledge had been used for this purpose before, and long, frozen rivulets of wax in several different colors and consistencies ran down the face of the wall.
"I'm sorry," he began, his voice echoing hollowly against the rock walls. He removed the pin laser from his coat and lit one of the candles, then replaced the laser in his coat and used the burning candle to light the others. "But I just wanted to get us out of there as quickly as I could."
Javas nodded in the reflected beam of the flashlight, the vapor of his breath floating visibly through the beam in the chilly dampness of the cave, and pulled a galley sandwich from his jacket pocket for each of them before clicking both flashlights off to conserve their charge. "That's fine; I trust your judgment. What did you find inside?"
"They were dead." Eric bit hungrily into the sandwich and washed it down with a long swallow from the flask of water he carried in his jacket, then passed it over. "Both of the guardsmen, and one of the landing techs. The tech must have been unsecured, trying to do something when we were embedded up in the shield, and was probably killed when we hit the ground, like Glenney." He took another bite of the sandwich, chewing slowly.
"And the guards?"
"Still strapped into their seats," he said, swallowing hard. "Their throats were cut."
His father considered the information. "Then the blood on the ground was theirs—"
"No," Eric interrupted, "I don't think so. The other landing tech, the tall one with the beard who caught me by the arm when I stumbled on the ramp, he must have been fairly badly hurt in the crash, too. The medical kit was opened, and there was a lot of blood smeared on it and its contents. Or what was left of them anyway—he used what he needed, then pretty much vandalized the rest. I managed to put together a basic first-aid kit with what was left, though." He indicated the zippered case at his father's side. "I found a few flashlights, some tie-downs and a couple other things we might be able to use."
"And the guards' weapons?"
"Thumb-keyed; useless. Whatever he tried to hit us with back in the clearing must have been hidden on board."
"Pistol of some kind, then, judging from his accuracy, or lack of it. I suppose it's too much to hope that there's a crash kit in that bag?"
Eric shook his head.
"I didn't think so. Either he took it with him or he heaved it over the edge of the outcropping to keep us from getting it. Come to think of it, if he was as badly hurt as you suspect, then he probably couldn't have carried it very far."
Eric reached for the flask of water and said nothing for a moment as he took a long, slow drink. He went to the tiny stream and refilled the flask, then capped it and put it in the bag.
"I'm not so sure he'd have to go that far." He leaned forward and swept the earthen floor smooth in front of him. There were numerous sticks and bits of natural debris near the stream and, using one as a stylus, he drew a rough map of the area.
"We're here," he said, scratching a mark on the floor of the cave. He then drew a straight line, extending it up from the mark. "The grounds are due north about a kilometer—"
"A kilometer!"
Eric nodded soberly, drawing a circle to indicate the main grounds of Woodsgate. "I know. When I recognized the outcropping that stopped the wreck from rolling farther down the hill, I could hardly believe it either. We're lucky to be alive." He continued sketching in the dirt. "The House and grounds are situated at the center of this ridge, here. There are hundreds of kilometers of trails crisscrossing this part of the countryside, but a section of the main trail follows the lower portion of the ridge, completely circling the east, south and west sides of Woodsgate. If we hike straight up to the House, we'll cross it right here." He drew a rough line halfway between the circle and where they were, extending it as he spoke. "The main trail continues to skirt the ridge the House is located on… then crosses the access road leading to Woodsgate here… and then on into the backwoods on the other side… and finally leads east into Somerville."
His father bent over the crude map. "I think I understand what you're getting at. No matter where we would have come down, there was a seventy-five percent chance we'd be within a short distance of the main trail."
"Exactly," Eric agreed. "And my guess is that whoever our friend is working for, they watched the whole thing and are probably on their way out here now, picking him up along the way to lead them to us."
"Then they're probably the only ones who saw us go down. One of the observation satellites in LEO will spot the wreckage sooner or later, I suppose, but the chances of us having been spotted when we went down are fairly remote."
Eric nodded in agreement. "And since your integrator is being blocked, the signal from the shuttle's emergency locator is probably being jammed as well."
"If it's even still working," his father added. "That landing tech was pretty thorough."
"Then our best bet is to keep moving, stall for time. Eventually someone will try to raise the House on a routine matter and find it's been cut off and investigate. If we can stay ahead of them until then, we should make it out of this."
His father sighed heavily, then dropped the sandwich wrappers into the opened bag and rose to his feet, careful to avoid bumping his head on the sloping rock ceiling. He rubbed at the stiffness in his arm and surveyed the cave, the light from the row of candles on the wall ledge casting long, unsteady shadows into the larger cavern. "I used to go exploring caves like these with my brothers. There are several of them up above, actually on the House grounds."
"I know. I've been in them."
"And in many others, as well, it seems." He looked down at Eric, smiling. "I never approved of your excursions outside the shielding any more than Master McLaren, but I'm forced to admit I'm grateful for your knowledge of the backwoods."
Eric got up, brushing the seat of his pants with his hands. "I'm not the only one in our family to know these woods."
He reached down and retrieved a flashlight from the dirt floor and shined a large circle onto the far wall of the big room to the left. In the center of the circle of light, someone had used a candle flame to smoke several words onto the angled wall. They walked closer to get a better look, and his father stopped cold when he saw what had been written there.
" 'Nicholas,' " Javas read aloud, " 'August 15th, 2409.' " He turned back with a wistful look in his eyes that Eric h
ad never seen before. "My father."
They took no chances as they climbed, making their way slowly and carefully through the woods to avoid being detected. Hours passed and the sun hung low in the sky by the time they reached the edge of the shielding near the top of the hill. The House shielding, hazily visible, ended at the edge of the flat portion of the grounds, but the second shield was considerably wider at its base than the one on the inside and extended several dozen meters over the edge of the hill, making it impossible for them to see what was happening at the House itself.
Gazing upward through the trees, it was easy to see where the edge of the invisible outer shield was. When it had been activated, several trees had been bisected, neatly clipping branches and treetops wherever they had come into contact with it. Looking skyward, he could even see several smaller pieces of the wrecked shuttle still embedded in the upper portion, seemingly suspended in empty air. Eric squinted at the closest portion of the shield in front of him and pressed against it with the palms of both hands. The gas-permeable field felt spongy, yet firm, beneath his fingers. He carefully studied where the shielding met the ground, looking first one direction then the other into the backwoods, and kicked experimentally at the dirt at its base.
"I think we may be in luck," Eric said.
His father had been perched atop a nearby boulder, keeping a watchful eye for any signs of pursuit, but quickly jumped down. "Oh?"
"I think I might be able to get us inside."
The Emperor stared at him in disbelief. "Son, McLaren reported more times than I care to remember about how you breached the shielding and sneaked out of the grounds. But, without access to a terminal, how can we…"
Eric laughed and clambered down the hillside to stand next to him. "I have a confession," he said. "I never breached the shielding." He laughed again, shaking his head. "I've never kept a secret this long. The first time Master caught me outside was not long after the time I'd reprogrammed a number of the House systems. When he caught me, he assumed I'd somehow managed to program an opening, much the same way we do for arriving and departing shuttles."
Javas hefted the nylon bag, transferring it from one shoulder to the other. "And you didn't."
"No, sir," he replied, remembering. "Oh, I probably could have figured out how to do it, but the shield gate controls are part of House security, and I never dared touch that programming. No, I found a much simpler way. You know the caves on the east side of the garden? There's a small opening near the end of one of them. I enlarged it and pushed the passageway until it made a connection to another cave that exists in a sinkhole well outside the grounds." He pulled the water flask from his pocket and took a quick swallow, then passed it to his father and sat on a nearby log as he continued, smiling broadly.
"I came and went as I pleased, all the while Master McLaren pulled his hair and tried to figure out how I'd reworked the security. He had it reprogrammed several times, even going so far as to call the Security Chief down from Luna one time to—"
Eric halted abruptly, remembering Glenney's face, his jaw and neck smashed as he lay on the floor of the wrecked shuttle. His smile vanished, the memory of a childhood joke on his elders suddenly not quite so funny to him anymore. His father said nothing, neither to chastise him nor to ease the painful thought, and handed the water back. "Anyway," he went on humorlessly, stashing the flask in his pocket, "the connection passes far enough underground that we should be able to get in underneath the shielding; as long as the sinkhole is on the outside of it, that is."
"It's worth a try," his father admitted. "I don't see where we have much choice just now."
They had to drop down from the ridge to make much headway on the rocky terrain and headed around the shielding in a northeasterly direction, being careful to maintain a discreet distance from the trail.
It was dusk when they neared the main access road to the estate. The road was entirely in the open, visible not only from the House but from the opposite direction as well. His father thought it best, and Eric agreed, that they should wait until it was completely dark before attempting to cross the road. They found a sheltered spot and divided the last of the sandwiches from the bag, speculating on what had happened and who might be responsible. Eric had learned a great deal from the files and reports to which Glenney had begrudgingly given him access during the transit from the Moon, and agreed with his father that House Valtane was probably behind this.
"It seems logical," his father was saying. "She was always outside the grasp of even the Emperor, legally speaking. Glenney had suggested on more than one occasion that we go outside the law, but I always refused." The sky had long since grown black, and he cocked his head at the cry of a night bird somewhere in the trees. "I should have listened to him."
They continued talking into the night, but were abruptly interrupted at midnight by a brilliant flash that lit the sky to the east as a magnificent fireball burst into dozens of orange streamers that gradually faded as they fell. A delayed boom-BOOM-boom reached their ears, then again as it echoed off the far side of the river valley to the south. They watched the sky above the trees and saw it before it burst this time, as a thin trail of sparks arced upward and exploded at the zenith of its flight. This one exploded three times, each report evenly spaced, each one emitting streamers of different-colored sparks. The sounds, again delayed, drifted across the valley.
"Julyfest," his father said. "I'd forgotten what day this was."
"I was never permitted to attend the fireworks," Eric said softly. "McLaren said it was too dangerous for a Prince to be among an 'uncontrolled environment of ruffians,' as he put it."
His father snorted in the dark. "Yes, Montlaven never permitted me to go either," he said, "and if memory serves, he used pretty much the same words. But it was a magnificent view from the balcony, wasn't it?"
They watched the fireworks, speaking only occasionally. At one point a strong breeze from the east brought the scent of sulfur and black powder, and Eric remembered the odor and felt, just briefly, as if he were a small part of the celebration. Once, on a July night several years earlier, with the last of the fireworks long gone, he had refused to leave the balcony until the thin smoke of the explosions drifted over the estate. The wind had not been right that night, and after the Master had tucked him into bed and retired, he'd sneaked back onto the balcony to wait for the smoke that never came. He remembered that when the Moon rose that night he could see the smoke hanging over the river valley like a fog and wished, neither for the first nor the last time, that he wasn't a prisoner of his family name.
Eric settled back, the odor of fireworks mingled with the backwoods scent of a Kentucky summer still lingering in his nostrils, and fell into a surprisingly restful sleep.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A hand shook him steadily, and he woke with a start.
"Shhhhh." His father knelt over him, helping him to a sitting position as he shook his head to clear it. He felt damp from sleeping on the ground, and every joint and muscle was cramped and stiff from the cold. He kept silent, and listened carefully in the direction his father pointed, noting that he already had slung the bag over his shoulder. Although the sky was only now beginning to turn gray to the east, the backwoods were already alive with the sounds of morning birds and he had to pay close attention to whatever it was that had caught his father's ear.
The main trail ran below them, far enough to remain hidden, yet close enough to hear a horse negotiating that part of the trail that wound around the ridge before ascending to the level of the access road some two hundred meters farther down. They still couldn't see it, but it was plain that the animal had stopped, pawing the ground impatiently, and the beam of a powerful flashlight swept through the trees, followed by another a few meters behind the first—a second horse and rider. Eric crouched lower in the scrub next to his father, certain that the flashlight beams couldn't penetrate their hiding place, and let out a barely audible sigh of relief.
"Listen,"
his father whispered urgently, extending his arm again. "There; farther down the trail."
He heard it then. "Dogs. Several of them." He remembered the horse ridden by the traitor Brendan and wondered for a moment if the dogs of House Valtane had been as expertly bio-bred as the horses, then quickly concluded that they probably were. "Let's get moving," he said, indicating the wide, open area of the roadway above them. "I think we can make it to the other side before the two horsemen make it up here."
Javas nodded, and without further discussion the two of them made their way as quickly and as quietly as they could to the top of the ridge. They paused at the edge of the bushes, scanning the road in each direction. For security purposes the brush was kept neatly manicured for a distance of twenty to thirty meters on each side of the road, making a fairly wide area where they'd be exposed.
Eric watched the Woodsgate grounds at the end of the road and saw that every light on the estate grounds blazed brightly, and that additional floodlights had been erected on the landing pad and above the main gate, giving them a good picture of what was happening. Dozens of members of the Imperial guard, beefed up by Glenney before the three of them had even left the Moon, patrolled the perimeter. Eric looked closely and realized that a number of the guards appeared to be in the space between the two shields. Apparently a temporary gate had been opened in the House shielding to allow the men to enter the space. He couldn't tell for certain, but judging from all the electronic equipment at their feet and the hand-held metering devices they passed over the inner surface of the second shield, they were still working at trying to breach it. So close, he thought, the sight confirming what they'd suspected about the shielding, and not able to do a thing.
The entire area was illuminated by several small searchlights that played out over the road and into the surrounding wooded area. Eric was grateful for the additional light that helped them to verify that the road was deserted in both directions, but they would have to take care not to get caught inadvertently in one of the searchlights.
