S. Stirling - Shadows of Falling Night

“Yeah, it’s subtle thinking ,” Eric said admiringly. “Outside the box, and how! Don’t confuse that with subtle execution . I’d like the guy, if I weren’t on the other side. Sorta.”

Adrian nodded: “If you just beach your ship and hack a great hole in the side, then it all becomes much simpler. Use the segment of hull as a ramp, then a skid as you drag it up with a truck…”

It was an hour after sunrise, and the weather was about like Pensacola at this time of year-humid and mild, above-freezing chilly at night, in the fifties right now and not likely to go much higher, windbreaker weather. The low coast was intensely green; as they got closer she could see dense pine forest, the mouth of a small river and what looked like a run-down orchard of some sort of fruit tree, small with round-trimmed tops. The undergrowth was waist-high at least, and a few of the trees were dead. There was open ground beyond, glimpsed through the vegetation, and then-

She gripped a stay and shaded her eyes with her right hand against the morning sun. Very far away to the north and northeast were the blue-and-white line of a range of snowcapped mountains, the peaks seeming to float in the sky; they reminded her of the Colorado Rockies, and must be immense to be visible at this distance. The sight was quite lovely, the white of the snow very faintly tinged with pink deepening to red as she watched.

It was all very pretty, and empty, and unutterably discouraging, a feeling like being very tired and having a lump in your stomach at the same time. She’d been hoping that they could catch Harvey at sea; the ocean was very big, but didn’t have many hiding places on the surface. That shore, that land , looked very big and very easy to hide in, and they were running out of time.

An image haunted her, of a human shadow cast forever on a concrete wall by the burst of nuclear fire that had vaporized its maker. When she’d seen it in a collection of photographs she’d been mainly interested in the aesthetics, the stark black-and-white formal composition. Now…

“The Caucasus,” Adrian said. A wry twist of the lips: “And the ancient homeland of my species, or close enough.”

“Where next?” Eric said.

“That is also clever. Harvey had a truck waiting here, but we do not because we were following him and didn’t know exactly where he would land. We can track it to the nearest road, and presumably they will be heading for Tbilisi…but walking after them is not really practical.”

“You can’t hex out the direction?”

Adrian nodded at Peter. “You did your work well. No, the bomb is a hole in the world. More than that; it is an invisible hole in the world. As is anyone standing within a few feet of it, particularly if they are touching the casing.”

Peter shrugged, smiled and blushed. “Hey, once I sussed out the principle, the applications sort of leapt out. Professor Duquesne did as much of the work as I did, or more.”

“So we need to get ashore, organize transport, and try and catch them before they get to the city,” Eric said.

He was apparently doggedly indifferent to discouragement. So was Cheba, who appeared on deck with the last load of the carefully selected gear and baggage she’d packed.

Okay, they can do it, I can do it. Never say die, until you die.

“Good man,” Adrian said softly, then nodded. “Let us be about it. I am focusing on Harvey himself as much as I can, but I am getting only a vague southeastward heading even when he is away from the device…he shields very well. Or he would have died long ago, fighting powerful adepts. Fortunately we know roughly where he is going.”

“Yeah, I want to get off the beach as fast as we can,” Eric said. “Let’s not be more obvious than we have to be, we’re sort of exposed. What about this ship? Want me to open the scuttling cocks?”

Ellen winced. The Tulip was a handsome enough product of human hands and minds that casually destroying it offended something deep in her; also there was an irrational reluctance to casually dispose of something that had served them well, even if it was only an inanimate tool. Also-

“Not much point,” she said. “The masts would be above water even if we did, and the other ship, Harvey’s, is right there and the only way we could get rid of it would be to burn it, which would be very conspicuous. And think of the time. I suppose eventually the police or whatever will figure something out, but by then it won’t matter one way or another. This is all going to be resolved in the next couple of days.”

So if there’s a world left by then, we’ll worry about it then.

“Yeah, not worth the trouble,” Eric conceded. “And you’re right, I don’t want to attract attention. The locals might get antsy at a bunch of mysterious armed Americans-”

Cheba gave a small snort, but continued stacking the gear.

“Hey, you wanted that green card bad, chica , so get used to it-Americans wandering around. Better to avoid them if we can. This isn’t Expendables Twelve .”

“And the people we rented the Tulip from can get it back if we just leave it here,” Peter said. “The ownership documents are still there in the cabin.”

Cheba grinned without looking up from her work. “Yes. Of course the officials and police here will send a boat worth lots and lots of money back to some foreigners…how do these what, Georgians, feel about Turks, jefe ?”

“They hate them,” Adrian said succinctly. “Not as much as Armenians do, that would be impossible, but fairly emphatically.”

“Yes, back to some foreigners they hate if they find it with nobody on board, with no permission, and they would never just throw the papers into the water. Those people we got it from knew they would never see it again, that is why the jefe paid so much.”

Peter winced. “You’re such a cynic, Cheba.”

“What is this place you lived in once where people act like that? I would like to live there too, except that there is no such place,” she replied.

Eric chuckled. “Translated: what planet do you come from, professor, and how many moons does it have? So, boss, we bug out right now?”

Adrian nodded as he stood with his hands in the pockets of his light waxed-cotton jacket, staring at something none of the rest of them could see. His children crouched at his feet, watching him with their heads cocked on their sides and identical frowns on their faces. They looked as if they were trying to follow something interesting but more complex than they could really grasp.

The Tulip ’s equipment included a big yellow plastic cylinder that held an inflatable boat, and the rest of them unlashed it and pushed it over the side, anchoring it with a line secured to a ringbolt. Lettering on its side specified the contents.

“Woof,” Ellen said, dusting her hands. “That’s heavy!”

“Needs to be,” Eric said. “I recognize the type, it’s pretty much a CRRC. You want to do the honors?”

He handed her a line hooked to a little lever arrangement on the casing. She gave it a firm yank, and the ends blew off the tube and a seam along the top cracked open, all with hissing brack sounds, like an aerosol can in a fire. The boat within unfolded like a flower in stop-motion photographs, and in a few seconds it was a black rectangle about twelve feet long by six wide, bluntly pointed at one end. Peter went down the rope ladder and balanced expertly.

Eric looked slightly surprised, but handed down the outboard motor with the shrouded propeller as the other man reached up.

“Whitewater rafting,” Peter said by way of explanation, as he secured it to a plate at the stern. “The SEALs use these things; you ever try out for that?”