For this night they found sophisticated shelter in the remnants of a villa, set back from the point. In its heyday it must have been superb, with terracing running down to the sea and spectacular gardens. Now a fissured corner of the ground floor was all that remained free from the thrusting and disruptive vegetation. Here a much weathered block had fallen across the remains of a wall and there was room to make a deep litter of mixed herbage and a communal bed at the end of a triangular culvert.
Waking in gray light, Gaul Kalmar reflected that there was a certain ironic twist in his situation. Any man could count himself fortunate to find either the dark brown or auburn head on his pillow. Finding both was inhibiting for a man of simple tastes.
Both were still sleeping, a tribute to a sense of security. Looking at them, he could subscribe to the view “the sleeping and the dead are but as pictures.” Pictures with not much to choose between them for perfect form in its own type. Hands were different. Goda, on his right, had her arms crossed and her left hand was deployed firmly but decoratively over the front of her right shoulder. A squarish hand with strong fingers, plump at the base and tapering to oval nails. Jane was lying face down with her left arm thrown forward and the hand flat, relaxed against the fabric of the groundsheet. This was a narrower hand with long slender fingers and more oblong nails.
The chemistry of human relationships was difficult to think through. Both were about as nubile as they come, but one, even sleeping, moved him in an emotional way and one did not.
Careful not to disturb them, he eased out and made for the entrance. An instinct of caution, revitalized from some deep level by the return to nature, made him move slowly at the entrance. The view out was, in any case, restricted. Such as it was, it appeared the same: two or three meters of mixed rubble and coarse grass, then the trees at first branch level, masking the fall of ground to the beach. He was half-way out when he heard sounds of movement, below and to the right.
It would not do to have anyone calling out for him or going into a spasm of early morning chat, so he reversed and rejoined the sleepers. He made a pleasure of the chore of waking Jane and, when her eyes opened, effectively stopped anything she had in mind to say. Like himself, she was the type who was instantly fully awake and needed no elaborate preparation for the day. He transferred his lips to her ear to say, “Waken Goda. Very quietly. Visitors.” Then he dug out the P7 and crawled back.
Dawn chorus from the dense woodland was at a crescendo and he had to concentrate to pick up the particular noise from below. It had moved across their front and was fractionally left of him. One thing was certain, only the most accidental bad luck would find them out. It would take a search party hundreds strong to make any thorough probe through the coastal strip. Probably somebody had talked to a computer and got a sampling check plan. Groups dropped here and there would clear selected areas.
None of them would be more naturally at home in the outside world than Kalmar. Moving lightly for such a big man, he went along the inside of the fragmentary wall until it opened onto the rubble-strewn loggia. He was now behind the patrol and began to follow up.
Level with the corner, he had a first glimpse of someone ahead. It was enough to identify the uniform of a Carthaginian civil guard. The man must be the left marker of the line—if it was a line—because anyone farther in would have come across the villa.
He dropped farther down and went forward again. Sure enough he came up behind a second, then a third. This last was so far down that any other man, at the same spacing, would have to be in the sea. Three then. That figured. A car might carry a dozen men at a pinch and dropping them in threes during the night would give maximum cover. The question arose whether they were now behind all the patrols or in between and at what point. There would also be a picking-up detail, so a car would be remaining in the area.
He found the two girls packed and ready to move. Goda said, “Well, we shouldn’t follow up too closely. Time for breakfast.”
“What do we have?”
“The evening baked meats will coldly furnish forth the breakfast table.”
Jane said, “It’s a great thing to have a well-read cook. I’ve been thinking. There isn’t really much of a problem. They wouldn’t have the patrols cover the same ground. Suppose they were dropped at twenty-kilometer intervals. Each group would be scheduled to go forward for twenty kilometers or whatever the interval was and then wait to be picked up. So twelve men in sets of three could cover eighty kilometers in the time it would have taken to go one quarter of that if they’d stuck together—if you follow me.”
“That’s true enough. The pickup craft just starts collecting at the second dropping point. They could certainly cover some ground with a system like that.”
Goda said, “So we’re all right. We just move along behind this patrol and take care not to overtake. Even a policeman won’t look where he has already been.”
Gaul was thoughtful. “It sounds all right. But I don’t like it. Another thing, if they do much of it they might catch up with the tender. Lee might have put into the coast somewhere along here to see if we managed to get out.”
“They didn’t wait long at the city.” Jane had harbored the thought for some time.
“They had every reason to think we had been caught. Also, if they were in the harbor, they would not know the limits of the antihostility screen. So they had to get out. And once away there was no point in hanging about to be a target for the first Strikecraft that appeared.”
“Would you have waited for me?”
“That’s not a fair question.”
“Would you?”
“Nobody would be justified in risking a whole group for one.”
“Would you?”
“Don’t you know the answer to that?”
He had stopped fixing the improvised pack and held it dangling from one hand as he looked at her. It went on so long that Goda began to fidget. In the end Jane turned away and did not press her question.
By midday they were moving confidently again with a feeling of security in a working system. Occasionally they came across evidence of the patrol ahead, which was clear even to an urban eye.
Goda said, “They must have meal breaks, and now would be the time for one. We could stumble uninvited into some picnic on the grass.”
They took an hour, deliberately hanging back, though they wanted to get on in the late spring sunshine. When Gaul finally decided to move forward, it was a relief to them all. At 1700 hours, they came cautiously from the trees to the shore of a wide creek. “Where are they then?” Goda was looking at a clear run of virgin sand, twenty meters wide on either side of the half kilometer of smooth water.
Jane said slowly, “What do you think, Gaul? Have we gone past them in the last hour? There were definite signs way back.”
“Could be. This is a very clear demarcation. Anybody looking at a map would make it one of the division points in a search scheme. The only thing is that I don’t see any sign that a party was landed to go on from here.”
“It would be the other side for the party going on. The pickup will be this side.”
Goda put in, “They’d fly over the sea edge and land just on the sand, partly because of having a clear run in the semidark and partly so as not to alert the quarry.”
“Good reasoning.”
“I do it all the time.”
Jane Welland thought the admiration had gone on long enough. “Well, it adds up to the fact that they haven’t crossed and probably don’t intend to. They have a time line to hit on arrival here and they’re taking it easy, because they’re ahead of schedule. Every way you look at it comes out that they’re behind us, and it isn’t a comfortable feeling.”
Gaul said, “There’s another two and a half hours of good light, if it is as you brilliant analysts have decided.” Something in their expressions made him add, “… and it seems very reasonable. The pickup will be any time from about 1800 hours on. I believe we should get across this cr
eek and get from under.”
“Swimming?” Goda sounded as though she liked the idea.
“How do we cross the sand?” It was not simply that Jane Welland thought Goda was safer inside an overall; there was a genuine problem.
Gaul was already uncoiling a rope. The tallest tree edging the sand had branches which gave an overhang that halved the distance to the sea. Using a double rope, they could swing out and drop straight into the water, then pull the rope free.
He said, “We’re in business. Gather some brushwood. We’ll float the packs and the clothing across. There isn’t any time to waste.”
A mat of dry kindling, strapped together like a fowler’s hide, took the packs. Clothing followed in a tight wad with a spare overall as a first defense. Jane said sensibly, “You first, Goda,” and even helped her to gain momentum for the swing out. It was a spectacular performance. Touch had given Gaul a fair idea of Goda’s many-sided excellence. The aerial ballet confirmed it all, as she flashed into the sunlight and then turned to signal all’s well from waist-deep water. Jane joined her, a marine Venus, demoting Goda to Nereid, and they both set off in a powerful crawl towards the point. It was a very pleasing sight; but leisure to enjoy it was not for now, so he picked up the bundle and made his own swing.
In twenty minutes they had rounded the point and were making into the shore, out of sight from the bank they had left. Swimming behind the bundle and pushing it in turn, they enjoyed the swim. Early training in Carthage made a fetish of swimming as an exercise and every school had elaborate facilities; but they had never experienced anything like the astringent sea, with its patterns of changing light and the bed of sand and rock.
Goda was by far the best swimmer of the three and dived down like a lithe pale fish, with her hair streaming back, to grab specimens from the sea floor. Then she put in a totally unfair exhibition of backstroke with a machine-like efficiency that only partly excused it.
Confirmation of their reading of the situation came as they found the sandy bottom, ten meters out, and began to wade in. Slightly ahead and smoothing back her hair in a wet copper sheath, Jane Welland saw it first. It had been invisible from water level; but nearer in and standing up, it was clear that the small dune ahead was an incomplete screen for a long gray shuttle. The top half meter of its roof made a line broken by the tops of the ports. This had been the last drop and it was waiting to begin the chore of picking up the empties.
Whoever was in it was not keeping a seaward watch. For that matter, on a manpower economy issue it would not have much of a resident staff. But one look would be enough and even a classical scholar would not be charmed for long.
In a racing appreciation Kalmar estimated that the chances of going on were greater than the chances of getting back. He signaled down and the two girls glided soundlessly forward. He shoved the raft in towards land and came in after it. When he finally dragged it ashore, the shuttle was invisible from the nearer angle.
He had never felt more vulnerable, but there was no time to bother about clothing. The P7 was at the top of the bundle, so he dug it out and checked the setting. It was at Q, no doubt for QUIETUS and he scrambled up the soft sand holding it in his teeth.
Before his head leveled with the top, he dropped flat and snaked forward. Then he was looking into the cabin of the Strikecraft.
It was about the same size as the hospital tender and obviously of the same mechanical vintage. Disposition of seating was different. There was no stretcher bay and the whole floor space was taken up by seven dual bench seats. His mind was checking off every fact and making conclusions. On previous assumptions there could be two in charge.
As the assessment was made, it was checked. The port on the far side of the shuttle slid open and he had the foreshortened view of a thick-set, bald-headed man climbing in, and the fragmentary view of another figure behind him.
Once the shuttle lifted, they would be in full view and there would be no chance at all. He knew what he had to do and knew that there was no time for even a slight hesitation. He went up the last of the dune in a burst of activity that developed every last horsepower out of his human motor and in a continuing movement leaped for the roof of the shuttle.
Years of city life had not fitted the gendarmerie for the quest they were on. Even a more varied experience might not have helped Keegan and Frane in their moment of truth. To their fevered imagination it appeared that some fantastic mutation had dropped out of the very sky.
Nude, sanded, unshaven, and rapidly falling into a berserker phase, Kalmar dropped feet first onto Frane, the second man, and carried him down into the sand. Even before they reached floor level, he had chopped down twice with the barrel of the P7 and was able to come up on the rebound to follow Keegan inside.
There was a certain shrewdness in that head of skin. He had reasoned that it was better to close the door and let Frane talk to the stranger. He had got it two thirds across when it was whipped back out of his hands, and he was sharing the cabin with a creature which seemed to leave no room for anything else. In point of fact, he did not share it for long. He took the split second he had, before Kalmar had got his bearings, and was out through the open door in a very agile dive. He clawed his way up the side of the next dune, which masked the site from the shore of the creek and made a classic “exit pursued by a bear.”
Inside, Kalmar checked the racks and found two sets of equipment. It certainly appeared that there was no other crew. He swung to the top of the shuttle and looked down to the beach. Jane and Goda were nearer than he thought, coming up the dune, back in the anonymity of overall suits. He said, “You’ll be glad to know we don’t have to walk. We can take this shuttle and look for the tender.” He threw the P7 to Jane. “There’s a worried, bald man about. Just keep a look out for him while I have a wash.”
Goda said, “I’ll come with you and scrub your back.”
Jane said, “I think you’d better stay and help me.” The P7 was aimed casually but steadily in the general area of Goda’s heart. She saw the point.
“Certainly, Jane, anything you say. Of course.”
Eight
Sheltered by the banks of the inlet, Lee Wayne reckoned that, with a watch on deck for anything moving out at sea, they could afford to use light in the cabin. He was anxious to take a look at the state of the power pack, without having much optimism about its future use.
When the deck panels were stripped away, he saw that his fears were well grounded. A lubrication fault had developed in key bearings. They were fused into a new art lump. Power storage units were intact, however, and half an hour’s concentrated effort cut them free for use as an energy source.
Wanda, feeling fully recovered, spent some of the time in a morale-boosting exercise. She took some trouble to arrange her face, as if for a ceremonial. She put a jade filigree ring in her spectacular hair and changed into a tight, black cheong sam, on the grounds that her jolly tar’s outfit was all wet. Then she went and stood by the prone engineer and tapped his taut transom with her foot.
Slowly his head and shoulders drew back from the pit. He took a worm’s-eye view of the splendid figure.
“What is it, then?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No. I just thought I’d ask you how you were getting on.”
“Oh. All right. I’m doing fine when I get a minute to get on.” He was edging back inside when he appeared to be struck with a new thought. “Well, I could do with a hand to lift this out. Just hang on and I’ll pass you a loop.”
Shultz was still outside with Tania, but Swarbrick was inside, tinkering with the structure of the sleeping bay. She called to him, “Pete, can you come here,” but it was not said as a question and when he arrived she was looking so furious that he stopped short at a safe distance. “This human mole is going to pass out a loop. Perhaps you’d be good enough to twist it round his neck.”
Then she pushed past him and began slamming things round in the i
mprovised galley. Basically prudent though, she broke off to slip out of her number ones and pull on a dry zipper suit.
Lee Wayne, bent double with the clumsy weight of the storage gear, backed aft into her working space and looked at her in amazement.
“What’s going on, Wanda? Are you playing some kind of identification game? You won’t deceive me. I’d recognize you in anything. That last one was a honey, though. Anyway we can go to town on a cooker with this. Not tonight I think, but tomorrow, definitely tomorrow. Just for now, come for a walk on this beach. I have things for your shell ear alone.”
With an anchor watch on, they had the most comfortable night so far. Lee and Wanda, taking the last stint, let the others sleep and watched the dawn come up from Carthage. Thoroughly reconciled, she said, “You are clever, Lee. Seriously, I think any success we have will be due to you.”
“It was Gaul’s idea, you know. He’s the better wagon master.”
“Gaul’s all right, but you I love.”
“That just as well, because should you so much as flash those beautiful eyes in any other direction, they would carry a literally fatal charm.”
“Really?”
“Nearly really.”
“You’re too honest. You should have stuck to ‘really.’”
She came round from the other side of the mast and watchkeeping regulations were temporarily suspended.
By late afternoon the heavier items of the tender’s defunct power pack had been stripped out and dumped. The hull had been checked for leaks and all outlets sealed. They could set sail any time at all. Swarbrick said belatedly, “One thing we didn’t consider. Ballast might be a problem. There’s a lot of top hamper; she might turn over in a good breeze.”
“Now you tell me.”
Shultz put in, “That’s all right, Lee. You had to get it out to make a good seal on the hull. Ballast, where we want it, might improve the trim. She was never meant to have a square sail.”
They were eating on the beach with an eye seaward and an eye to the dunes. After the initial excitement of escape, the realities of the situation were becoming plainer. There were no regrets, but there was no escaping from the feeling of vulnerability. Any armed Strikecraft could wipe them out. Their only safety was in hiding. The question, which no one had yet formulated, was how far would the security division go in its efforts to get them back? At what point could they live outside the barricades?
Eight Against Utopia Page 12
