Robert Silverberg - The Alien Years

The Checkpoint Number Two password is requested. Rasheed obliges, giving implant access.

Streams of digits provided by Andy flash from Rasheed to whatever kind of thing is guarding the door at this checkpoint.

Password accepted.

Once again, crimson circle goes forward.

Sixty seconds elapse. No further news from Rasheed. But he’s still moving. Eighty seconds. One hundred. Andy stares and waits. Blue shadows surround his master screen. The faint hum of the equipment starts to turn into a tune, something out of grand opera, Mozart, Wagner, Verdi.

No news from Rasheed. No news. No news. De-dum, de-dum, de-dum, de-dah.

Andy wonders how long it actually takes for Rasheed’s coded messages to travel up to him across the 150 miles that separate him from Los Angeles. Speed of light: fast, but not instantaneous. He divides 186,000 miles per second by 150 miles, which is easy enough to do, somewhere about 1200, but when he tries to convert that result into the appropriate fraction of a second that is the actual lag his mental arithmetic fails him. He must be doing this all wrong, he decides. Maybe he should have divided 150 by 186,000. Usually he’s better at stuff like this. Difficult to concentrate. Where the hell is Rasheed? Has someone caught on to the fact that this big-eyed and elongated young human has no business being where he is?

Impulse from Rasheed arrives. Thank God.

Checkpoint Number Three.

Okay. This is a major decision point, and only Rasheed can make the decision. Perhaps he’s far enough inside the Objective Zone now so that he can plant the bomb right where he is. Or perhaps he needs to go through one more checkpoint. Andy can’t tell Rasheed what to do; Andy has no way of seeing what’s actually there, no idea of the distances involved, and Rasheed can’t describe anything except by audio, which now is too dangerous to use. Rasheed will have to use his own judgment about whether to continue on through Checkpoint Three. But these password protocols come without guarantees. Two have worked, but will the third? If Rasheed tries it and it bounces, they will grab him with their nasty elastic tongues and stuff him into a gunnysack and haul him away for interrogation, and God help us all.

Andy has one fallback, if that happens. He can detonate the bomb while it’s still in Rasheed’s backpack, which would not be very nice for Rasheed, but which might just get Prime as well, even as Rasheed is being spirited off for questioning. Rasheed is aware of this option. Rasheed is supposed to send the appropriate signal to Andy if it should become necessary to make use of it.

But that is very much a last resort.

Andy waits. Breathes. Counts heartbeats. Tries to divide 150 by 186,000 in his head.

Rasheed is offering the password for Checkpoint Number Three. He has decided, evidently, that he is not yet sufficiently close to Prime’s personal place to plant the bomb.

Andy realizes that he has stopped breathing. No heartbeat to speak of, either. He is suspended between one second and the next. Through Andy’s mind race, over and over, the combinations that will trigger the fallback detonation. A mere quick twitch of his fingers will set them up. All Rasheed needs to do is send him the one despairing signal that means he has been caught, and—

Crimson circle starting to go forward again.

Rasheed has passed through Checkpoint Number Three.

Andy resumes regular breathing patterns. Time begins moving along once more.

But Rasheed isn’t telling him anything as the moments go by. The only information Andy has is that crimson circle gliding across his screen—the symbol for Rasheed, coming to him by telemetry. Tick. Tick. Ninety seconds. Nothing happening.

Now what? An unsuspected fourth checkpoint? Some formidably efficient security device that has instantaneously and fatally taken Rasheed out of the picture, before he could even sound a distress signal? Or—surprise!—Rasheed has discovered that Prime has gone on vacation in Puerta Vallarta?

Signal coming through now from Rasheed.

Andy, his senses phenomenally oversharpened by all this, experiences an interval of about six years between each incoming digit.

Is Rasheed telling him that he has been caught? That he has lost his way? That this is the wrong building altogether?

No.

Rasheed is saying that he has reached the Objective.

That he has taken the bomb from his backpack and is sticking it to the wall of wherever-he-is, neatly affixing it in some nice snug insignificant place. That he has done his job and is coming out.

The whole thing unwinds in reverse, now. Rasheed is heading back toward Checkpoint Three. Yes. There he goes, right through it. All is well.

Checkpoint Two. Crimson circle moving nicely.

Checkpoint One. Will they collar him here? “We’re very sorry, young man, we simply can’t permit you to plant bombs within this area.” Zap!

No zap. He’s made it. He’s outside Checkpoint One. Outside the sanctuary entirely. Leaving the Objective Zone quickly, not running, of course, oh, no, not cool calm Rasheed, just moving along through the streets with his usual long-legged stride.

Andy is dealing with four people at once, now, shooting a welter of coded messages to them. At Andy’s command Cheryl has left her parking spot and is coming forward to collect Rasheed as he moves eastward toward her. She will try to get out the Alhambra gate, the same one through which she entered. Charlie is parked outside that gate and will take Rasheed from her, assuming she can get through. Frank, at the Glendale gate, and Mark, at Burbank, are the fallback drivers if for some reason the Alhambra gate has been closed to vehicular traffic; if that is the case one or the other of them will enter the city, if they can, and rendezvous with Cheryl at a point to be determined by Andy, if it can be managed, and take Rasheed from her and spirit him back out through some gate or other, whichever one they can. If. If. If. If.

Andy wants to ask all sorts of questions, now, but he doesn’t dare use the audio line. Too easy to intercept that; this all has to be done by coded impulse, cryptic blips coursing along the electronic highway between the ranch and the city. Sparks seem to fly on the screen as the colors dance. Andy leans forward until his nose is practically touching the screen. His fingers caress its cool plastic surface as though he has abruptly decided to conduct the rest of this operation in Braille.

Crimson circle is now a halo around the midsection of the deep-purple line. Cheryl has picked up Rasheed. Heading for Alhambra gate.

The moment has arrived when the greatest of this series of gambles must be played out. Detonation has to wait until Rasheed is safely through the gate. They will surely close all the gates the moment the bomb blows. Rasheed needs to be outside the wall first: there’s no choice about that. But what if Andy waits too long to give the detonation signal, and Prime’s attendants notice the bomb? It is inconspicuous but definitely not invisible. If the Alhambra gate is shut down and he has to futz around with arranging a second rendezvous, bringing Rasheed out through Burbank or Glendale, and meanwhile they find the bomb and are able to defuse it—

If. If. If. If.

But Alhambra is open. Crimson halo passes to green line. Rasheed is safely outside the wall, and he is in Charlie’s car now. Using five hands and at least ninety fingers, Andy sends simultaneous signals to all parties concerned.

Frank—Mark—head homeward right away.

Charlie—get your ass up toward the 210 Freeway and cruise toward Sylmar, where you will rendezvous with Cheryl and give Rasheed back to her.

And you, Cheryl—shadow Charlie on the freeway, just in case he runs into a roadblock, in which case you can grab Rasheed and dart off in the other direction with him.