Later that evening, over dinner, Nyassa-lee said to Haithness, "The woman's advanced age still gives me concern."
"She's not that old," the taller woman said, spooning down something artificial but nourishing. "With care, she has another twenty years of good health to look forward to."
"I know, but she hasn't the reserves of a woman of fifty anymore, either. It's just as well we haven't told her how complex tomorrow's operation is or explained that her mind will be permanently altered."
Haithness nodded agreement. "There's hardly any need to upset her any more than she already is. Your excessive concern for her welfare surprises me."
Nyassa-lee picked at her food and did not comment, but Haithness refused to let the matter drop.
"How many of our friends have perished at the hands of the government? How many have been mindwiped? It's true that if this old woman dies, we lose an important element in the experiment, but not necessarily a final one. We've all agreed that implanting her is the best way to proceed."
"I'm not arguing that," Nyassa-lee said, "only reminding you that we should be prepared for failure."
Brora leaned back in his chair and sighed. He was not hungry; he was too excited by the prospects raised by the operation.
"We will not fail, Nyassa-lee. This is the best chance we've had in years to gain control over a really promising Subject. We won't fail." He looked over at Haithness. "I checked the implants before dinner."
"Again?"
"Nothing else to do. I couldn't stand just Waiting around. The circuitry is complete, cryogenic enervation constant. I anticipate no trouble in making the synaptic connections." He glanced toward Nyassa-lee. "The woman's age notwithstanding.
"As to the part of the old woman that will unavoidably be lost due to the operation"-he shrugged-"I've studied the matter in depth and see no way around it. Not that there seems a great deal worth preserving. She's an ignorant primitive. If anything, the implants and resulting excisions will result in an improved being."
"Her strongest virtues appear to be cantankerousness and obstinacy," Haithness agreed, "coupled to an appalling ignorance of life outside her immediate community."
'Typical speciman," Brora said. "Ironic that such a low example should be the key not only to our greatest success but our eventual vindication."
Nyassa-lee pushed away her food. Her colleague's con- versation was upsetting to her. "What time tomorrow?"
"Reasonably early, I should think," Haithness murmured. "It will be the best time for the old woman, and better for us not to linger over philosophy and speculation."
Brora was startled at the latter implication. "Surely you don't expect the boy to show up?"
"You'd best stop thinking of him as a boy."
"He barely qualifies as a young adult."
"Barely is sufficient. Though he's demonstrated nothing in the way of unexpected talent so far, his persistent pursuit of his adopted mother is indication enough to me that he possesses a sharp mind in addition to Talent." She smiled thinly at Nyassa-lee. "You see, my dear, though I do not share your proclivity to panic in this case, I do respect and value your opinion."
"So you are expecting him?"
"No, I'm not," Haithness insisted, "but it would be awkward if by some miracle he were to show up here prior to the operation's successful completion. Once that is accomplished, we'll naturally want to make contact with him through his mother. When he finds her unharmed and seemingly untouched, he will relax into our control."
"But what if he does show up prior to our returning the old woman to Drallar?"
"Don't worry," Haithness said. "I have the standard story prepared, and our personnel here have been well coached in the pertinent details."
"You think he'd accept that tale?" Nyassa-lee asked. "That hoary old business of us being an altruistic society of physicians dedicated to helping the old and enfeebled against the indifference of government medical facilities?"
"It's true that we've utilized the story in various guises before, but it will be new to the subject," Haithness reminded her colleague. "Besides, as Brora says, he barely qualifies as an adult, and his background does not suggest sophistication. I think he'll believe us, especially when we restore his mother to him. That should be enough to satisfy him. The operation will, of course, be rendered cosmetically undetectable."
"I do better work on a full night's sleep." Brora abruptly pushed back from the table. "Especially prior to a hard day's work."
They all rose and started toward their quarters, Brora contemplating the operation near at hand, Haithness the chances for success, and only Nyassa-lee the last look in Mother Mastiff's eyes.
Chapter Twelve
They had to be close to their destination because their quarry had been motionless for more than an hour. That's when the pain hit Flinx; sharp, hot, and unexpected as al- ways. He winced and shut his eyes tight while Pip stirred nervously on its master's shoulder.
Alarmed, Lauren turned hurriedly to her young companion. "What is it? What's wrong, Flinx?"
"Close. We're very close."
"I can tell that by looking at the tracker," she said.
"It's her, it's Mother Mastiff."
"She's hurt?" Already Lauren was dropping the skimmer into the woods. The minidrag writhed on Flinx's shoulder, hunting for an unseen enemy.
"She's-she's not hurting," Flinx mumbled. "She's- there's worry in her, and fear. Someone's planning to do something terrible to her. She fears for me, too, I think. But I can't understand-I don't know what or wh-"
He blinked. Pip ceased his convulsions. "It's gone. Damn it, it's gone." He kicked at the console in frustration. "Gone and I can't make it come back."
"I thought-"
He interrupted her; his expression was one of resignation. "I have no control over the Talent. No control at all. These feelings hit me when I least expect them, and never, it seems, when I want them to. Sometimes I can't even locate the source. But this time it was Mother Mastiff. I'm sure of it."
"How can you tell that?" Lauren banked the skimmer to port, dodging a massive emergent.
"Because I know how her mind feels."
Lauren threw him an uncertain look, then decided there was no point in trying to comprehend something beyond her ken.
The skimmer slowed to a crawl and quickly settled down among the concealing trees on a comparatively dry knoll. After cutting the power, Lauren moved to the rear of the cabin and began assembling packs and equipment. The night was deep around them, and the sounds of nocturnal forest dwellers began to seep into the skimmer.
"We have to hurry," Flinx said anxiously. He was al- ready unsnapping the door latches. "They're going to hurt her soon!"
"Hold it!" Lauren said sharply. "You don't know what's going to happen to her. More important, you don't know when."
"Soon!" he insisted. The door popped open and slid back into the transparent outer wall. He stared out into the forest in the direction he knew they must take even though he hadn't checked their location on the tracking screen.
"I promise that well get to her as fast as is feasible," Lauren assured him as she slipped the sling of the dart rifle over her shoulder, "but we won't do her or ourselves any good at all if we go charging blindly in on those people, whoever they are. Remember, they carried paralysis weapons on their vehicles. They may have more lethal weapons here. They're not going to sit idly by while you march in and demand the return of the woman they've gone to a helluva lot of trouble to haul across a continent. We'll get her back, Flinx, just as quickly as we can, but recklessness won't help us. Surely you know that. You're a city boy."
He winced at the "boy," but otherwise had to agree with her. With considerable effort he kept himself from dashing blindly into the black forest. Instead, he forced himself to the back of the skimmer and checked out the contents of the backpack she had assembled for him. "Don't I get a gun, too?"
"A fishing lodge isn't an armory, you know." She patted the rifle bu
tt. "This is about all we keep around in the way of a portable weapon. Besides, I seem to recall you putting away an opponent bigger than yourself using only your own equipment."
Flinx glanced self-consciously down at his right boot. His prowess with a knife was not something he was particularly proud of, and he didn't like talking about it. "A stiletto's not much good over distance, and we may not have darkness for an ally."
"Have you ever handled a real hand weapon?" she asked him. "A needier? Beam thrower, projectile gun?"
"No, but I've seen them used, and I know how they work. It's not too hard to figure out that you point the business end at the person you're mad at and pull the trigger or depress the firing stud."
"Sometimes it's not quite that simple, Flinx." She tightened the belly strap of her backpack. "In any case, you'll have to make do with just your blade because there isn't anything else. And I'm not going to give you the dart rifle. I'm much more comfortable with it than you'd be. If you're worried about my determination to use it, you should know me better than that by now. I don't feel like being nice to these people. Kidnappers and wervil killers."
She checked their course on the tracker, entered it into her little compass, and led him from the cabin. The ground was comparatively dry, soft and springy underfoot.
As they marched behind twin search beams, Flinx once more found himself considering his companion. They had a number of important things in common besides independence. Love of animals, for example. Lauren's hair masked the side of her face from him but he felt he could see it, anyway.
Pip stirred on its master's shoulder as it sensed strange emotions welling up inside Flinx, emotions that were new to the minidrag and left it feeling not truly upset but decidedly ill at ease. It tried to slip farther beneath the protective jacket.
By the time they reached their destination, it was very near midnight. They hunkered down in a thick copse and stared between the trees. Flinx itched to continue, knowing that Mother Mastiff lay in uneasy sleep somewhere in the complex of buildings not far below. The common sense that had served him so well since infancy did more to hold him back than logic or reason.
To all appearances, the cluster of dimly lit structures resembled nothing so much as another hunting or fishing lodge, though much larger than the one that Lauren man- aged. In the center were the main lodge buildings, to the left the sleeping quarters for less wealthy guests, to the right the maintenance and storage sheds. Lauren studied the layout through the thumb-sized daynight binoculars. Her experienced eye detected something far more significant than the complex's deceptive layout.
"Those aren't logs," she told Flinx. "They're resinated plastics. Very nicely camouflaged, but there's no more wood in them than in my head. Same thing goes for the masonry and rockwork in the foundations."
"How can you tell?" he asked curiously.
She handed him the tiny viewing device. Flinx put it to his eyes, and it immediately adjusted itself to his different vision, changing light and sharpening focus.
"Look at the corner joints and the lines along the ground and ceilings," she told him. "They're much too regular, too precise. That's usually the result when some- one tries to copy nature. The hand of the computer, or just man himself, always shows itself. The protrusions on the logs, the smooth concavities on the 'rocks'-there are too many obvious replications from one to the next.
"Oh, they'd fool anyone not attuned to such stuff, and certainly anyone flying over in an aircraft or skimmer. But the materials in those buildings are fake, which tells us that they were put here recently. Anyone building a lodge for long-term use in the lake country always uses native materials."
Closest to their position on the little hillside was a pair of long, narrow structures. One was dark; the other had several lights showing. Phosphorescent walkways drew narrow glowing lines between buildings.
To the right of the longhouses stood a hexagonal building, some three stories tall, made of plastic rock surmount- ed with more plastic paneling. Beyond it sprawled a large two-story structure whose purpose Flinx could easily divine from the tall doors fronting it and the single mudder parked outside: a hangar for servicing and protecting vehicles.
Nearby squatted a low edifice crowned with a coiffure of thin silvery cables. The power station wasn't large enough to conceal a fusion system. Probably a fuel cell complex, Flinx decided.
More puzzling was the absence of any kind of fence or other barrier. That was carrying verisimilitude a little too far, he thought. In the absence of any such wall, Flinx's attention, like Lauren's, was drawn to the peculiar central tower, the one structure that clearly had no place in a resort complex.
She examined it closely through the binoculars. "Lights on in there, too," she murmured. "Could be meant to pass as some kind of observation tower, or even a restaurant." "Seems awfully small at the top for an eating room," he commented.
Searchlights probed the darkness between the buildings as the rest of the internal lights winked out. Another hour's wait in the damp, chilly bushes confirmed Lauren's suspicions about the mysterious tower. "There are six conical objects spaced around the roof," she told Flinx, pointing with a gloved hand. "At first, I thought they were searchlights, but not one of them has shown a light. What the devil could they be?"
Flinx had spotted them, too. "I think I recognize them now. Those are sparksound projectors."
She looked at him in surprise. "What's that? And how can you be sure that's what they are?"
He favored her with a wan smile. "I've had to avoid them before this. Each cone projects a wide, flat beam of high-intensity sound. Immobile objects don't register on the sensors, so it can be used to blanket a large area that includes buildings." He studied the tower intently.
"Just guessing from the angles at which the projectors are set. I'd say that their effective range stops about fifty meters out from the longhouses."
"Thats not good," she muttered, trying to make out the invisible barrier though she knew that was impossible.
"It's worse than you think," he told her, "because the computer which monitors the beams is usually programed automatically to disregard anything that doesn't conform to human proportions. The interruption of the sonic field by anything even faintly human will generate a graphic display on a viewscreen. Any guard watching the screen will be able to tell what's entered the protected area and decide on that basis whether or not to sound further alarm." He added apologetically, "Rich people are very fond of this system."
"When we didn't see a regular fence, I was afraid of something like this. Isn't there any way to circumvent it, Flinx? You said you've avoided such things in the past."
He nodded. "I've avoided them because there's no way to break the system. Not from the outside, anyway. I sup- pose we might be able to tunnel beneath it."
"How deep into the ground would the sound penetrate?"
"That's a problem," he replied. "Depends entirely on the power being fed to the projectors and the frequencies being generated. Maybe only a meter, or maybe a dozen. We could tunnel inside the camp and strike it without knowing we'd done so until we came up into a circle of guns. Even if we made it, we'd have another problem, be- cause the beams probably cover the entire camp. We'd al- most have to come up inside one of the buildings."
"It doesn't matter," she murmured, "because we don't have any tunneling equipment handy. I'm going to hazard a guess that if they have the surface monitored so intently, the sky in the immediate vicinity will be even more carefully covered."
"I'd bet on that, too." Flinx gestured toward the tower. "Of course, we could just run the skimmer in on them. There aren't that many buildings. Maybe we could find Mother Mastiff and get her out before they could react."
Lauren continued to study the complex. "There's nothing more expensive than a temporary facility fixed up to look permanent. I'd guess this setup supports between thirty and a hundred people. They're not going to make this kind of effort to detect intruders without being da
mn ready to repel them as well. Remember, there are only two of us."
"Three," Flinx corrected her. A pleased hiss sounded from the vicinity of his shoulder.
"Surprise is worth a lot," Lauren went on. "Maybe ten, but no more that. We won't do your mother any good as corpses. Keep in mind that no one else knows we're here. If we go down, so do her chances."
"I know the odds aren't good," he said irritably, "but we've got to do something."
"And do something we will. You remember that partially deforested section we flew over earlier today?"
Flinx thought a moment, then nodded.
"That was a trail line."
"Trail line for what?"
"For equalization," she told him. "For evening out the odds. For a better weapon than this." She patted the sling of the dart rifle. "Better even than that snake riding your shoulder. I don't share your confidence in it."
"You haven't seen Pip in action," he reminded her. "What kind of weapon are you talking about?"
She stood and brushed bark and dirt from her coveralls. "You'll see," she assured him, ."but we have to be damn careful." She gazed toward the camp below. "I wish I could think of a better way, but I can't. They're sure to have guards posted in addition to monitoring the detection system you described. We don't even know which building your mother is in. If we're going to risk everything on one blind charge, it ought to be one hell of a charge.
"The weapon I have in mind is a volatile one. It can cut both ways, but I'd rather chance a danger I'm familiar with. Lets get back to the skimmer."
She pivoted and headed back through the forest. Flinx rose to join her, forcing himself away from the lights of the camp, which gleamed like so many reptilian eyes in the night, until the trees swallowed them up.
They were halfway back to the little grove where they had parked the skimmer when the sensation swept through him. As usual, it came as a complete surprise, but this time it was very different from his recent receptions. For one thing, no feeling of pain was attached to it, and for another, it did not come from the direction of the camp. It arose from an entirely new source. Oddly, it carried overtones of distress with it, though distress of a con- fusing kind.