The Rackham Files (18 page)

"You can ask the huntress. She's reasonable."

"That is what we cannot do," Ybarra said. "They acknowledge that the female came here mentally unbalanced."

Scotty King broke in, waving his hand as if disposing of a familiar mosquito: "Spoiled young base commander's wife; serious family argument. She takes their kid, steals a jeep, rushes off into cannibal country. Kid wanders off; distraught mother searches. Soap opera stuff, Harve. The point is, they admit she was nuts."

"With her baby dead from cannibal incompetence," I added, spinning out the analogy. "Who
wouldn't
be half crazy? By the way, what base do they command?"

King looked at Ybarra, who answered. "Lunar farside; the Soviets believe their site is just beyond the libration limit in the Cordillera chain. The hunting people are exceedingly tough organisms and could probably use lunar mass to hide a fast final approach before soft-landing there."

"You don't have to tell me how tough they are," I said, "or that we reacted like savages—me included."

"It is absolutely vital," Ybarra said quietly, "that we show the hunting people some sign that we attempted a friendly interchange. If we cannot, our behavior is uniformly bad in their view. Some recording of your sign talk is vital," he said again.

"Find the microvid. Or bring me face to face with the huntress, since she didn't lift off after all." I brightened momentarily, trying to be clever. "The vital signs are hers, after all."

Silence. Stolid glances, as Dana withdrew her hand.

"You may as well tell him," Ybarra husked.

"I wouldn't," Dana warned. She knew me pretty well.

Scotty King: "It took a half-hour to find you after your mayday, Harve; and two hours more to pump the water down to airlock level. The female had turned on some equipment but she never tried to lift off. There were no vital signs when we reached her."

Dana Martin cut through the bullshit. "She's dead, Rackham. We don't know exactly why, but we learned that much before their second ship came barreling in."

I made fists, somehow pleased at the fresh stabbing twinge through my left shoulder. "So I killed her. No wonder you're afraid of a global housecleaning."

King: "Not much doubt they could do it."

"And they might exercise that option," Ybarra added, "without a recording to verify your story."

Dana Martin sought my gaze and my hand. "Now you see our position, and yours," she said, all the stops out on her Wurlitzer of charm.

I pulled my hand away. "Better than you do," I growled. "You people have taped this little debriefing. And the flexible display the huntress used seemed to have videotape capability, or it couldn't have developed an animation of me on the spot. She was taping, too, out there on the rockpile."

King, staccato: "Where is her recording?"

"Ask the hunting people." My voice began to rise despite my better judgment. "But don't ask anything more from
me
, goddamn you! Take your effing debrief tape and run it for the hunting people. Or don't. Just get out and leave me alone."

Scott King cleared his throat and came to attention. "We are prepared, of course, to offer you a very, very attractive retainer on behalf of the State Department—"

"So you can pull more strings, hide more dynamite, slip me another weapon? Get laid, Scotty! I've had a gutful of your bloody mismanagement. My briefings were totally inadequate; your motives were short-sighted; the whole operation was half-assed, venal and corrupt."

Dana abandoned the cutesypie role; now she only looked small and cold and hard. "How about your own motives and venality?"

"Why d'you think I'm shouting," I shouted.

King became stiffly proper. "Let me get this straight for the record. You won't lift a hand for the human race because you're afraid to face the hunting people again."

"Don't you understand
any
thing, asshole? I'm not afraid: I'm
ashamed
! That grief-stricken predator showed more respect for life processes than all of us put together. In the most basic, vital way—the huntress was my friend. You might say yes when your friend says no, but once you've agreed to defer a selfish act you've committed a friendly one."

Ybarra had his mouth ready. "Don't interrupt," I barked. "The first agreement we made was to hold back, to confer; to wait. I know a cheetah named Spot who wouldn't waste a second thought on me if he thought I'd had anything to do with killing one of his kits. He'd just put me through Johnny Rubeck's machine. And I wouldn't blame him."

Ybarra's face revealed nothing, but King's was flushed. "You're inhuman," he said.

"Jesus, I hope so," I said, and jerked my thumb toward the door.

Well, I've had a few hours to think about it, mostly alone. What hurts a lot more than my collarbone is the suspicion that the huntress waited for me to clear out before she would move her ship. Okay, so she'd wasted some lives in her single-minded desperation to recover her child. In their ignorance those killed had been asking for it. Me? I was begging for it! It was no fur off her nose if I died too, and she was lapsing into a coma because I'd shot her full of drugs that may have poisoned her, and other humans had used her own baby's tissues to fashion weapons against her. And there she sat, for no better reason than an uncommon decency, waiting. And it killed her.

It's bad enough to get killed by enmity; it's worse to get it through friendship. In my friend's place, I know what I'd have done, and I don't like thinking about that either. When you're weak, waiting is smart. When you're strong, it's compassion. Compassion can kill you.

As soon as I get out of here I'm going into my smithy in the shadow of Mount Diablo and pound plowshares for a few weeks, and talk to Spot, and mull it over.

If
I get out of here. Nobody seems very anxious to stick to the hospital routines; they're all watching the newscasts, essentially doing what I'm doing.

What the hunting people are doing.

Waiting.

Today, Harve would have a cell phone, a GPS unit, and night vision goggles. The nuclear club has no Soviets as such; they're Russians again. And the club members include India, Pakistan, and others too depressing to mention.

That new bridge from Orangevale to the Interstate? It was only a good idea when I wrote about it, but it's in place as of this writing. No predictions: in California, you never know what next week's temblor will bring.

Harve's Porsche is still a pipe dream because, as car freaks get dumber, even Porsches get heavier. We may not see real improvements until fuel gets truly pricey or—a worse scenario but more likely—laws penalize grossly overpowered cars.

About that alien base on the lunar farside: if it's there, we should find evidence of it before this edition goes to press. Before the Lunar Prospector finally impacts the moon it will be making passes for six months only 25km above the moon. Our SR-71 recon aircraft fly that high above earth, and on a good day they can read a license plate. That's not what the LP is for, but anything like an outpost for spacecraft will tip its hand to the LP's sensors unless it is buried very deep and gives no anomalous readings that we can interpret.

I found her thirty miles north of Oakland at Sears Point—the international raceway, to be exact, where headstrong car freaks of all sexes liked to hang out before the war. She looked smaller than eighteen. Also older. I had no trouble recognizing her from mug shots and, from the bail bondsman, glossies from her days as a teen model. But the glossies were before she'd gone pro in the worst sense, the sense that brought me into it. My name's Harve Rackham; I was a bounty hunter.

My first problem was isolating her from the quiet machos who ran Sears Point on autumn weekdays, teaching chauffeurs evasive driving and making a show of unconcern to the pit popsies—or whatever they called wistful jailbait in those days. I hadn't kept up on pit jargon since my weight climbed into the two-fifty range and I let my competition license lapse. You can't give away sixty pounds to other drivers when you drive the little cars. My Lotus Cellular wasn't tiny, but it weighed next to nothing; just the thing to drive when some bail jumper tried to sideswipe you, because the air-cushion fans could literally jump you over the big bad Buicks. And the plastic chassis cells in an off-road Lotus would absorb a handgun slug as—but I was talking about the girl. Like most sportscar nuts, she could be hypnotized by certain phrases: my Ferrari, my Lotus, my classic DeLorean; but you had to be ready to put up or shut up.

The girl had a very direct way about her, and in five minutes while I watched she was left standing at the Armco pit barrier twice by guys who didn't need whatever she was offering. She was making it easy for me.

Instead of sidling up to her—ever see anybody six foot two
sidle
? Ridiculous . . . I waved her back, adopting a proprietary air. "These are private practice sessions, miss. And you're in a bad spot; if one of these four-door Bimmers kisses the Armco barrier it'll be spitting hunks of mag all down the pit apron." It wasn't likely, but it sounded good.

Her voice was a surprise, as sunny blonde as her Mediterranean features were dark. "I wasn't thinking," she said, "thanks. Uh—d'you know if any of those big limos," she paused, drowned out as a long BMW limousine howled around the last turn and then accelerated up the straight with a muted
thrummm
, "will be going home today or tomorrow?"

"A couple," I said, just as if I had the foggiest idea. "Why?"

I could see
what's it to you
in her sultry, too-experienced young face, but she erased it after a moment's thought. "I've never copped a ride in fifty thousand bucks' worth of limo," she said with a shrug.

By God, but she had cute ideas! Chauffeurs trained in the limos they drove from Denver or L. A., and the evasive training took a week. So an enterprising wench on the run might cop a ride out of the Bay Area without showing her lush tush at bus depots or freeway on-ramps, where some plainclothesman might recognize her. And she could pay off in the oldest coin of all.

A big Jag sedan sailed past, its Pirellis squalling. Its plate prefixes told me it was from L.A.; in my business you memorized that kind of trivia for the times when it might not be trivial. "He'll be heading for Pasadena," I said into the ensuing quiet—it might even be true—"and I expect I'll beat him there by two hours in my Cellular."

Quick, suspicious: "You're taking a Lotus to Pasadena?"

"Nope. To Palm Springs," I lied, and sighed a rich man's self-indulgent sigh. "A limo's okay, but they always put me to sleep." I pulled my Frisbee-size pocket watch out, though I already knew the time. A wrist chrono hangs up on clothing sometimes, and my ancient eighteen-jewel Hamilton was rugged as hell. It also carried the same false hint of money as a Rolex. I flipped the Hamilton's protective cover up, studied the dial, sighed again, put the thing away. "Enjoy your trip," I said and turned away.

For an instant I thought she had spurned the bait. Then, "I don't believe it," she said to my back.

I turned my head. "Shall I hover and wave?"

She hurried to catch up. "You just don't look like a man who drives superlight cars," she said brightly. "A Lotus Cellular? Can it really outrun the Porsches?"

"Outjump, yes. Outrun? No," I said truthfully. Now we approached the glass-walled anterooms where staff members made their low-key pitches to interested execs.

She was so intent on peering through the glass to spot my car in the parking lot, she didn't notice much else. Two young men stood in the anteroom in much-laundered driving coveralls labeled "Mitch" and "Jerry." I'd never seen either of them before. "See you next time, Jer," I rumbled on my way out, for the girl's benefit. Every little scam helps.

When she saw my car, her suspicion fled. I slid the half-door aside, shoehorned my gut in with me. She ran her hand along the sand-tinted door sill opposite. "Feels rubbery," she said.