Kevin Anderson - Ill Wind

He hesitated, then dropped his voice. “I hope to God that everyone’s all right up at the launcher site.”

Heather continued to stare at the flames, but she spoke in a low, deep voice. “What about your microwave antennas? If they provide so much electricity, why can’t you fry people?”

Spencer had to pull himself out of Heather’s wide eyes before he answered. He glanced at Todd, but the oil man gave a tired smile, as if amused at Spencer’s preoccupation. “Uh, it takes too much power to harm anyone with microwaves—the atmosphere would break down long before the power levels got high enough to harm human beings.” He continued to think it through. “Relatively low powers can do nasty things to metals or electronics, but after the petroplague there’s not much of that stuff in use anymore.”

Heather said, “The general’s rifles are made of metal.”

Spencer opened his mouth to respond, but stopped as her words sank in. “You’ve got a point. I’ve been thinking about using microwaves to attack the wrong target!

“We’re beaming energy from space at relatively low power levels, about a hundred times less than the sunlight that strikes the Earth—that won’t hurt anyone if they stand in it all day long. Remember the cellular telephone scare? Cellular phones were monsters compared to this.”

He spoke faster as he started to get excited. “But Bayclock’s troops are carrying all kinds of metal. Guns, knives, bayonets—and that stuff heats up like crazy when exposed even to the microwave power levels we’re beaming down right now!”

Todd grinned. “It would give them one hell of a hot foot!”

Spencer chewed on his lip. “If we can boost the energy by a factor of four and irradiate his troops for twenty minutes, things might get hot enough even to set off explosives. At the very least the troops might drop their weapons and head for the hills!”

Todd looked down at his big hands and flexed them. “So what do we do?”

Spencer thought for a moment. As far as he could tell, it was sometime after midnight by now. He hadn’t heard the sentry warn of Bayclock’s approach, and that would give them at least an hour warning. Perhaps Gilbert’s pre-emptive railgun strike had set Bayclock back, or maybe the general had sent his vengeful troops up to take over the launcher facility instead.

Spencer said, “The Seven Dwarfs come overhead every day at noon, over eleven hours from now. If we can hold Bayclock off until then, I might be able to reprogram the solar satellites to irradiate his troops. It won’t be as destructive as the railgun, but it might be enough to keep them at bay.”

“Seven Dwarfs?” said Todd. “What are you talking about?” He looked to Heather. “What Dwarfs?”

“You’ve got computers here?” Heather sounded incredulous.

Spencer shrugged, looking at her and ignoring Todd’s question. “Mostly what we’ve scavenged from the workstations, a few big analog circuit boards that run on the batteries recharged every day at noon when the satellites fly over.”

Todd frowned. “I don’t know squat about satellites or computers… or dwarfs for that matter.”

Heather looked suddenly awake. “I’d like to stay here and help, if that’s what you need.”

“Sounds better than rolling over and playing dead,” said Todd. “If the soldiers are so riled up they can’t get here by noon, a blast of your microwaves might just push them over the edge to retreat.” He stood up, ready for action. “Count me in.”

Spencer squinted in the direction of the EM launcher. They would have to send Bobby Carron up in the balloon again early in the morning to get a birds-eye view of the battlefield before they planned their detailed strategy—if Bobby was all right.

Todd repeated himself. “Is there anything I could do? I can ride and I can shoot.”

“Help keep a lookout for a sneak attack. When Rita returns, we’ll decide how best to keep tabs on Bayclock’s troops.”

Heather brushed dirt from her jeans. “Just point me to the bathroom and some wash water, then I’ll be ready to work.” She wrinkled her nose and scratched. “I don’t suppose you have anything to treat a sunburn?”

Spencer stopped, stunned. Sun-burned nose ? He managed to shake his head. No matter how bad things looked, he had a feeling that the sun was going to shine extra bright tomorrow morning.

“Halt! Who the hell are you?” a woman’s voice growled.

Todd Severyn stood his ground, but he could see little in the dark. “Yeah, who the hell are you ?”

He heard the sound of a rifle brought to bear. “You’ve got five seconds, cowboy, or you’ll be dancing without any toes. Identify yourself!”

His arms waved in the air. “I’m Todd Severyn—I’m waiting for Rita to show up. Spencer Lockwood sent me.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth? Bayclock could have sent a point squad.”

Why do I always meet women who’d rather wrestle rattlesnakes than bake cookies ? “Are you going to ask me who won the World Series in 1964, for Chis’sakes!” He tried to remember the right words even if he didn’t understand them. “I’m supposed to say something about a plan to zap Bayclock with the Seven Dwarfs.”

He saw the rifle being lowered, then heard a chuckle. The woman spat tobacco to one side. “Okay, Tex, you can tell Spencer that Rita’s back. Let’s get moving.”

Todd sourly brought down his hands, wishing that someone would recognize his Wyoming accent and not call him Tex.

Spencer sat next to Heather in the enclosed trailer as dawn broke, working on three crude workstations at once. Even with the nonvolatile memory and low-energy cathode-ray tubes, the battery drain was substantial, and they could only refine their simulations for another hour or so without running down the batteries.

Soft battery light reflected off of Heather’s face. She had tied her damp hair back after scrubbing up, and Spencer could see a pinkish cast of sunburn on her nose and cheeks.

Juan Romero’s circuit board took up most of the table, and naked wires lay in labyrinthine paths. Heather pushed knife-switch buttons down laboriously, inputting code from Spencer—one letter at a time. She stared at the phosphors on the glass screen of the canted cathode-ray tube. “Okay, I’ve keyed in the equation you gave me. You’ll have to take over from here.”

“Thanks.” He slid into the seat next to her as he waited for the code to compile. Inside the trailer, the heat pouring from the primitive circuit board felt stifling, and he prayed he could stave off a meltdown for a little while longer.

Just having Heather present to type in the long-winded perturbations to the orbital equations freed him to calculate the necessary solid-viewing angles by hand with pencil and paper. If everything worked, they might be able to nudge the Seven Dwarfs to redirect their microwave transmissions away from the antenna farm and onto Bayclock’s encampment. Temporarily increasing the power output by a factor of four was trivial compared to this, requiring much less code.

“Spencer?” Rita’s voice came from the trailer entrance. She sounded weary. He turned and saw Todd standing with her just outside the door.

“Rita! How did the raid go?”

“The grenades worked well enough. Got some dozing soldiers to wet their beds, but once they realize we didn’t cause much damage, they’ll just be pissed off instead. The cowboy here tells me you need another scouting party.” She looked at Heather. “Oh, hello.”

Heather brushed back a strand of hair. “Hi.”

Todd worked his way into the trailer. Rita pulled out a chair by the workstation and ran a hand through her hair. Her long legs pushed up against the table. “The telegraph’s up. Romero made his way back from the launcher—he apparently ran all the way here, while the others tried to put out the fire and barricade themselves in the facility.”