by Timothy Zahn
Whatever was happening, contrary to orders or not, it was being done on purpose.
So what could anyone want with a living, fully conscious Cobra?
Interrogation was out. Physical torture above a certain level would trigger a power supply self-destruct; so would the use of certain drugs. Hold him for ransom or trade? Ridiculous. Trofts didn't seem to think along those lines, and even if they'd learned humans did, it wouldn't work. They would need Jonny's cooperation to prove to his friends he was still alive, and he'd blow his self-destruct himself rather than give them that lever. Let him escape and follow him back to his underground contacts? Equally ridiculous. There were dozens of secure, monofilament line phones set up around the city from which he could check in with Borg Weissmann without ever going near an underground member. The Trofts had tried that unsuccessfully with other captured rebels; trying to follow an evasion-trained Cobra would be an exercise in futility. No, giving him even half a chance to escape would gain them nothing but a path of destruction through their building.
A path of destruction. A path of Cobra destruction....
Heart beating faster, Jonny turned his attention back to the walls and ceiling.
This time, because he was looking for them, he spotted the places where cameras and other sensors could be located. There appeared to be a lot of them.
Carefully, he laid his head back on the table, feeling cold all over. So that's what this was all about-an attempt to get lab-quality information on Cobra equipment and weaponry in actual use. Which meant that, whatever lay outside that steel door, odds were he'd have an even chance of getting through it alive.
For a long moment temptation tugged at him. If he could escape, surely it would be worth letting the Trofts have their data. Most of what they would get must already be known, and even watching his battle reflexes in action would be of only limited use to them. Only a handful of the most intricate patterns were rigidly programmed; the rest had been kept general enough to cover highly varying situations. The Trofts might afterwards be able to predict another
Cobra's escape path from this same cell, but that was about it.
But the whole debate was ultimately nothing more than a mental exercise... because Jonny knew full well the proposed trade-off was illusory. Somewhere along the Trofts' gauntlet-somewhere near the end-there would be an attack that would kill him.
There's no such thing as a foolproof deathtrap. Cee-three Bai had emphasized that point back on Asgard, hammered at it until Jonny had come to believe it.
But it was always assumed that the victim had at least some idea of what he was up against. Jonny had no idea how the killing attack would come; had no feeling for the layout of this building; had no idea even where on Adirondack he was.
His duty was therefore unfortunately clear. Closing his eyes, he focused his attention on the neural alarm that would signal an attempt to put him back to sleep. If and when that happened he would be forced to break his bonds, trading minimal information for consciousness. Until then... he would simply have to wait.
And hope. Irrational though that might be.
They sat and listened, and when Deutsch finished he could tell they were unconvinced.
Ama Nunki put it into words first. "Too big a risk," she said with a slow shake of her head, "for so small a chance of success."
There was a general shifting in chairs by the other underground and Cobra leaders, but no immediate votes of agreement. That meant there was still a chance.... "Look," Deutsch said, striving to keep his voice reasonable. "I know it sounds crazy, but I tell you it was Jonny I saw being taken aboard that aircraft, and it did head south. You know as well as I do that there's no reason for them to have taken him anywhere but their hospital if they just wanted to dissect him. They must have something else in mind, something that requires he be kept alive-and if he's alive he can be rescued."
"But he's got to be found first," Jakob Dane explained patiently. "Your estimate of where the aircraft landed notwithstanding, the assumption that figuratively beating the bushes will turn up some sign of him is at best a hopeful fiction."
"Why?" Deutsch countered. "Any place the Trofts would be likely to stash him would have to be reasonably big, reasonably attack-resistant, and reasonably unoccupied. All right, all right-I know that part of the city has a lot of buildings like that. But we've got it narrowed down."
"And what if we do find the place?" Kennet MacDonald, a Cobra from Cranach's
East Sector, spoke up. "Throw all our forces against it in a raid that could easily end in disaster? All they have to do if they lose is kill Moreau and let his self-destruct take out the whole building, rescuers and all."
"In fact, that could very well be what they want us to do," Ama said.
"If they wanted to set up a giant deathtrap, they would've left him right there in the Wolker Plant, where we wouldn't have had to work to track him down,"
Deutsch argued, fighting hard against the feeling that the battle was slipping through his fingers. He glanced fiercely at Halloran, but the other remained silent. Didn't he care that Jonny could be saved if they'd just make the effort?
"I have to agree with Kennet," Pazar Oberton, an underground leader from
MacDonald's sector, said. "We've never asked you to rescue one of our people, and I don't think we should all go rushing south trying to rescue one of yours."
"This isn't a corporation ledger we're running here-it's a war," Deutsch snapped. "And in case you've forgotten, we Cobras are the best chance you've got of winning that war and getting these damned invaders off your planet."
"Off our planet?" Dane murmured. "Have you officially emigrated, then?"
Dane would never know how close he came to dying in that instant. Deutsch's teeth clamped tightly together as endless months of heartbreak and frustration threatened to burst out in one massive explosion of laser fire that would have cut the insensitive fool in half. None of them understood-none of them even tried to understand-how it felt to watch his own countrymen's failures and stupidities cause the deaths of men he'd come to consider his brothers... how it felt to be defending people who often didn't seem willing to put forth the same effort to free their world... now it felt to share their blame, because ultimately he too was one of them....
Slowly, the haze cleared, and he saw the fists clenched before him on the table.
"Borg?" he said, looking at Weissmann. "You lead this rabble. What do you say?"
An uncomfortable rustle went around the table, but Weissmann's gaze held
Deutsch's steadily. "I know you feel especially responsible since you were the one who suggested the Wolker Plant in the first place," he said quietly, "but you are talking very poor odds."
"Warfare is a history of poor odds," Deutsch countered. He sent his gaze around the room. "I don't have to ask your permission, you know. I could order you to help me rescue Jonny."
Halloran stirred. "Imel, we technically have no authority to-"
"I'm not talking technicalities," Deutsch interrupted, his voice quiet but with an edge to it. "I'm talking the realities of power."
For a long moment the room was deathly still. "Are you threatening us?"
Weissmann asked at last.
Deutsch opened his mouth, the words damn right I am on his lips... but before he could speak, a long-forgotten scene floated up from his memory. Rolon Viljo's face as Commander Mendro ordered him removed from the team and the Cobras... and
Deutsch's own verdict on Viljo's crime. Misuse of our equipment would pit us against the civilian population of Adirondack. "No," he told Weissmann, the word taking incredible strength of will to say. "No, of course not. I just-never mind." He sent one last glance around the room and then stood up. "You can all do as you damn well please. I'm going to go and find Jonny."
The room was still silent as he crossed to the door and left. Briefly, as he started down the stairs, he wondered what they would make of his outburst. But it didn't matter very much. And in a
short time, most likely, it wouldn't matter at all.
Stepping outside into the night, senses alert for Troft patrols, he headed south.
"I do believe," Jakob Dane said as the sound of Deutsch's footsteps faded away,
"that Adirondack's Self-Appointed Conscience is overdue for some leave time."
"Shut up, Jakob," Halloran advised, making sure to put some steel in his voice.
He'd long ago recognized that each of the underground members had to deal with the presence of the Cobras in his own way, but Dane's approach-treating them with a faintly supercilious air-was a dangerous bit of overcompensation. He doubted the other had noticed it, but as Deutsch's hands had curled into fists a few minutes ago there had been the briefest pause with thumb resting against ring finger nail... the position for firing fingertip lasers at full power. "In case you didn't bother to notice," he added, "just about everything Imel said was right."
"Including the efficacy of a rescue mission?" Dane snorted.
Halloran turned to Weissmann. "I notice, Borg, that you haven't given your decision on assigning underground personnel to help locate Jonny. Before you do, let me just point out that there's exactly one Troft installation we know exists that we haven't got even a rough locale for."
"You mean the Ghost Focus?" Ama frowned. "That's crazy. Jonny's a ticking bomb-they'd be stupid to put him anywhere that sensitive."
"Depends on what they're planning for him," MacDonald rumbled thoughtfully. "As long as he's alive they're safe enough. Besides, our self-destructs aren't all that powerful. Any place hardened against, say, tacnuke grenades wouldn't have any trouble with us."
"On top of that," Halloran added, "it's clear from their slow response to Imel and me that they weren't particularly expecting a raid on Wolker tonight.
Jonny's booby trap may have been sitting there for months, and it's as reasonable as anything else to assume they weren't really prepared with another place to put him that we didn't already know about. If the Ghost Focus is like their other tactical bases, they'll have it carved into parallel, independently-hardened warrens. They wouldn't be risking more than the one Jonny was actually in."
"I've never heard that about tactical bases," Ama said, her eyes hard on
Halloran.
He shrugged. "There are a lot of things you've never heard," he told her bluntly. "You ever volunteer to penetrate a Troft installation with us and maybe we'll tell you what we know about those hellholes. Until then, you'll have to take our word for it." He had the satisfaction of seeing her mouth tighten; to people like Ama the only real power was knowledge. Turning to Weissmann, he cocked an eyebrow. "Well, Borg?"
Weissmann pressed his fingertips tightly against his lips, staring at and through Halloran. "All right," he said with a sigh. "I'll authorize some of our people for search duty and see if I can borrow a few from other sectors. But it'll be passive work only, and won't begin until after sunup. I don't want anyone getting caught violating curfew-and no one's going into combat."
"Fair enough." It was about as much as Halloran could have expected. "Kennet?"
MacDonald steepled his fingers. "I won't risk my team randomly tearing up the south side of Cranach," he said quietly. "But if you can show me a probable location, we'll help you hit it. Whatever the Trofts want with Jonny, I suspect it's behavior we ought to discourage."
"Agreed. And thank you." Halloran gestured to Ama. "Well, don't just sit there.
Pull out the high-resolution maps and let's get to work."
Jonny waited until his thirst was unbearable before finally breaking free of his restraints and going to the spigot in the cell's corner. Without a full analysis kit it was impossible to make sure the water provided was uncontaminated and un-drugged, but it didn't especially worry him. The Trofts had had ample opportunity already to pump chemicals into his system, and exotic bacteria were the least of his worries.
He drank his fill, and then-as long as he was up anyway-gave himself a walking tour of his ceil. On the whole it was a dull trip, but it did give him the chance to examine the walls more closely for remote monitors. The room was, as he'd earlier surmised, loaded with them.
The cell door, up close, proved an intriguing piece of machinery. There were signs at one edge that both an electronic and a tumbler-type combination lock were being used, complementary possibilities to the temptingly exposed hinges he'd already noticed. The Trofts, it appeared, were offering him subtle as well as brute-force escape options. Each of which would give them useful data on his equipment, unfortunately.
Returning to the table, he moved aside the remnants of the monitor/shackles and lay down again. His internal clock circuit, which he hadn't had time to shut off or reset during his capture, provided him with at least the knowledge of how time was passing in the outside world. He'd been unconscious for three hours; since his awakening another five had passed. That meant it was almost ten o'clock in the morning out there. The people of Cranach were out at work in their damaged city, the children-including Danice Tolan-were at school, and the underground...
The underground had already accepted and mourned his death and gone on with their business. His death, and possibly Cally's and Imel's as well.
For a long, painful minute Jonny wondered what had happened to his teammates.
Had his warning been in time for them to escape? Or had the Trofts been waiting with a giant trap ready to grab all of them? Perhaps they were in similar rooms right now, wondering identical thoughts as they decided whether or not to make their own escapes. They might even be next door to his cell; in which case a burst of antiarmor fire would open a communication hole and let them plan joint action-
He shook his head to clear it of such unlikely thoughts. No help would be coming for him, and he might as well face that fact. If Imel and Cally were alive they would have more sense than to try something as stupid as a rescue, even if they knew where to find him. And if they were dead... odds were he'd be joining them soon, anyway.
Unbidden, Danice Tolan's face floated into view. It looked like, barring a miracle, she was finally going to lose a close friend to the war.
He hoped she'd be able to handle it.
The human had been in the cell now for nearly seven vfohra, and except for a casual breaking of its loose restraints two vfohra ago had made no attempt to use its implanted weaponry against its imprisonment. Resettling his wing-like radiator membranes against the backs of his arms, the City Commander gazed at the bank of vision screens and wondered what he should do.
His ET biologist approached from the left, puffing up his throat bladder in a gesture of subservience. "Speak," the CCom invited.
"The last readings have been thoroughly re-checked," the other said, his voice vaguely flutey in the local atmosphere's unusually high nitrogen content. "The human shows no biochemical evidence of trauma or any of their versions of dream-walking."
The CCom flapped his arm membranes once in acknowledgment. So it was as he'd already guessed: the prisoner had deliberately chosen not to attempt escape. A ridiculous decision, even for an alien... unless it had somehow discerned what it was they had planned for it.
From the CCom's point of view, the alien couldn't have picked a worse time to show its race's stubborn streak. The standing order that these koubrah-soldiers were to be killed instantly could be gotten around easily enough, but all the time and effort already invested would be lost unless the creature provided an active demonstration of its capabilities for the hidden sensors.
Which meant the CCom was once more going to have to perform that most distasteful of duties. Seating his arm membranes firmly, he reached deep into his paraconscious mind, touching the mass of hard-won psychological data that had been placed there aboard the demesne-lord's master ship... and with great effort he tried to think like a human.
The effort left a taste like copper oxide in his mouth, but by the time the CCom emerged sputtering from his dream-walk he had a plan. "SolLi!" he called to the
Soldier Liaison seated at the security board. "One patrol, fully equipped, in
Tunnel One immediately."
The SolLi puffed his throat bladder in acknowledgment and bent over his communicator. Spreading out his arm membrances-the dream-walk had left him uncomfortably warm-the CCom watched the dormant human and considered the best way to do this.
It was an hour past noon in the outside world, and Jonny was once more reviewing everything he'd ever been taught about prison escapes, when an abrupt creak of metal from the door sent him rolling off the table. Crouching at the edge of the slab, fingertip lasers aimed, he watched tensely as the door opened a meter and someone leaped into his cell.
