It was also possible, Duncan thought, that this man could be an organic pretending to be an outlaw so that he could catch the real outlaw.
“I’m William St.-George Duncan. Wanted very much by the government. I’m a danger to you because they’re looking for me.”
The man was striding toward the bag under the tree. He turned his head and said, “I’m Father Cobham Wang Cabtab. Padre Cob, for short, though there’s nothing short about me.”
Returning with the bag in one hand and a giant sandwich in the other, Padre Cob spoke with his mouth full. “What’s your day?”
“Tuesday.”
“And you escaped…?”
“From the Takahashi Institution in Manhattan.”
The giant’s bristling black eyebrows rose. “A famous first. I’m interested in how you did it, but I’ll hear that later. Come with me, Citizen Duncan. Or may I call you William?”
“Bill will do.”
“Too common. How about Dunc.”
“Fine.”
Padre Cob lunged toward the north, and Duncan followed him. When the man stopped to drink deeply from the canteen, Duncan caught up with him.
“Where we going?”
“You’ll find out when you get there. Stay by my side. I don’t like to talk with my neck screwed around like an owl.”
For all he knows, I could have a transmitter planted under my skin, Duncan thought. But then, for all I know, he could, too.
As they followed a curving path around bushes, Duncan said, “What’s your day?”
“Thursday originally. Now it’s Thursday to Thursday. As God and Nature want it.”
“Human beings are part of nature. Anything they do is natural. It’s impossible for anything in nature to do anything unnatural.”
“Well put,” Padre Cob rumbled. “No argument. So, I’ll say that daykeeping is bad for humans. How’s that grab you?”
“Right around the testicles of my mind,” Duncan said.
Padre Cob chuckled, or made a sound that might have been a chuckle. He stopped and held a hand up. Duncan halted. By the priest’s attitude, Duncan could tell that he was also to be silent. He could hear only numerous bird cries, the loudest of which were from crows or ravens. Perhaps these were disturbed by the same thing that had caught Padre Cob’s attention.
Presently, something dark-reddish appeared briefly between two trees in the distance. Straining, Duncan heard a crashing. It sounded like a big and heavy body moving carelessly through the bush.
“OK,” the giant said, softly. “It’s a bear. If it comes this way, get out of its sight.”
“It’ll attack?”
“Not while I’m with you. But I don’t want it to see us. Some bears have been fitted not only with transmitters by the rangers but with tiny TV cameras. What the bears see, the rangers see. They see us, the ganks’ll be here pronto.”
The sound lessened and died. “Maybe its camera saw us, maybe it didn’t,” Padre Cob muttered. “Maybe it didn’t have a camera. We’ll proceed as if it didn’t. As if. The bread and butter of human beings. We live by it.”
Duncan did not ask him what he meant by that. Facts, not philosophy, were the meat, at that moment, anyway, of the present. Bread and butter were for leisure times.
“May I ask where we’re going?” Duncan said. “And when we’ll get there?”
“You may ask, but you’ll get no answer.”
Padre Cob softened his words with a big smile.
“I realize you’re taking a chance with me,” Duncan said. “But…”
“As if and but. Two of the eternal verities, humanly speaking. Is there any other way to speak—unless you’re a dolphin?”
Not waiting for a reply, which Duncan did not intend to give, the man lurched forward. For a while, the undergrowth was so thick that Duncan had to walk behind the padre, who bent the vegetation under him. Though he looked as impervious as an ancient wartank, he did bleed from the thorns. And, as if knowing what his companion was thinking, he said, “There are paths we could take, but in this area we’re better off not taking them. Now and then, here and there, trees along the paths conceal cameras. We know where those recently installed are, but—the eternal but—they keep adding them.”
Duncan noted the “we” but said nothing.
At about four o’clock, Padre Cob stopped before a dead oak. He reached into a hole about six feet up the trunk and brought out a bag. “A cache.” The bag held three canteens, a box that he said held medical supplies, and a bag full of cans of irradiated bread, milk, cheese, vegetables, and fruit.
“I could eat all of this and still want more,” Padre Cob said. “But you and I’ll take only half of it. Others may need it sometime.”
Duncan marveled at how Padre Cob could find the cache in this, to him, bewildering trackless woods. He did not ask him whether he had found it by memory or by some sign. Duncan doubted that Cob was willing to reveal all his secrets.
When they had eaten and drunk and reluctantly put the remaining half back into the tree, Padre Cob, after a bearlike belch, spoke.
“We’ll push on until dark, then we’ll sleep. Up at dawn and onward. Excelsior!”
Duncan groaned softly and said, “Do we walk all day tomorrow, too?”
“We certainly don’t ride,” the giant said, and he laughed deeply but not loudly.
Then he reached out and grabbed Duncan’s wrist. He said, very softly, “Don’t move or make a sound.”
That warning did not keep Duncan from rolling his eyes upward. Something dark was moving slowly over the treetops. Though he could see only parts of it, he knew that it was an organic craft. Presently, as the patches moved out of sight, Duncan sighed relief. But Padre Cob, leaning over, whispered in his ear.
“They might be coming back. If they’ve detected something suspicious, they’ll go on. But they’ll be back, this time, near the ground. They’ll find a place where the plane won’t be blocked by the branches, slip through them, and come back close to the surface. They’ll have the odor-sniffers on then.”
Duncan nodded. Though it was cool in this place, he was sweating. His stomach gurgled. The food there, which had been digesting quite peacefully, was now shot with acid, and gas was forming.
“Sometimes,” Padre Cob said, “they come back like a rocket, break through the branches, try to catch us by surprise.”
Minutes passed. Everything seemed serene. The birds called or sang. The sound of running water came faintly from the creek. Duncan breathed easier; his heart was beating at a normal pace.
Padre Cob rose. “It might or not be all clear. We’re going on anyway. If they should make a crash-attack, don’t run away. Charge them!”
Duncan rose. “Charge them with what?”
“Bare hands, my son.”
“Are you crazy?”
“More than some and less than others. Just do what I do. You up to it?”
“I hope so,” Duncan said. “If I were in the city, I’d know what to do. Out here…”
“If they’re close, there’s no use running. You might get a little distance away, but their sniffers will pick up your odor, and the mud is so soft they’ll see your footprints. Just do what I do. Follow the leader. Be my ape. You got it?”
Duncan nodded.
Padre Cob smiled and said, “I doubt they’ve detected anything. But, just in case, be prepared.”
They walked on slowly, moving around bushes, stopping now and then to listen. And then Duncan heard the explosions, branches bending and breaking. Though he wanted to dive for cover—where?—he did not. He looked at Padre Cob, who was looking upward and to Duncan’s right. Then he saw the needlelike vessel, painted in green-and-brown camouflage bands, heading through the branches for the south. Where he and the padre had been, not where they were. He glimpsed the two men sitting, one behind the other, in open cockpits. They wore light-green uniforms and helmets. Then they were gone.
“They’ll be back!” the giant said.
> He began running along the trail they had taken. Duncan sped after him, though he thought that Padre Cob was not acting rationally. After running, crashing noisily through the bushes, for about a minute, the giant stopped. Duncan almost ran into him.
“Behind that tree!”
Padre Cob jerked a thumb at a cottonwood to his right. He wheeled and ran to an oak about twenty feet from the tree behind which Duncan had hidden. The giant, seeing Duncan’s head, mouthed silently, “Do as I do!” He tapped his chest with an enormous finger.
The organic craft had gone to the place where their detectors had first zeroed in on Duncan and Cabtab. Or so Duncan assumed. Now, it was moving above the trail taken by the outlaws. Its keel was just a foot above the ground. As soon as Duncan saw the needle nose appear, he withdrew his head. The big tree trunk would, he hoped, shield his body heat. The sniffers might pick up his odor by the tree, but they might not be able to distinguish that from the traces on the trail.
If this craft was like some others he had seen, it would be armed with large proton-accelerator guns. The two men would be carrying stun-sticks and small proton-accelerators. Moreover, they had probably radioed in for backup.
The nose of the vessel, moving at about five miles an hour, thrust into his line of vision. He moved back around the tree. A bellow startled him. He jumped, then ran out from his concealment. Cabtab had shouted, which meant that he was attacking. The bellow, designed to freeze the two organics, was also Cab-tab’s signal to Duncan.
By the time that Duncan reached the craft, Padre Cob was on the back of the craft and his arm was around the pilot’s neck.
Duncan leaped up just as the man seated in front of the pilot turned. His hand was pulling out a proton pistol. It fell when Duncan slammed his fist against the man’s jaw.
The fight was over. The pilot, his face blue, was slumped unconscious. The other man was lying against the side of the cockpit, his head lolling. Then the vessel slammed into a tree trunk.
4
Cabtab did not let go of the pilot, but Duncan shot out of the cockpit backward and hit the soft earth heavily. His breath knocked out, he gasped for a few seconds, then rose unsteadily. By then, the padre had unbelted the pilot, dropped him onto the earth, and was now doing something with the controls. The craft, its nose only slightly dented, was drifting backward. Duncan stumbled after it. Before he could get to it, it stopped.
Cabtab seemed to be enjoying himself. He was grinning, but he spoke somewhat harshly to Duncan. “Get that man’s weapon!”
Duncan turned, chagrined because of his oversight, and rolled the pilot over. The man’s face was still blue, but he was breathing. Despite the pain of his left hand, Duncan removed the gun from the holster and shoved it inside his belt. He searched through the pockets of the man’s jumpsuit and found two charge-holders. These he put in his pockets.
Padre Cob had now taken the other organic from the plane and laid him out below it. “Hell of a punch you pack,” he said. “I think you broke his jaw.”
“I almost broke my hand, too,” Duncan said.
“Action and reaction. Exchange of energy. Always some loss of energy during the procedure. Where does all the lost energy go? Into some kind of elephant’s graveyard?”
Duncan ignored that. He said, “What’s the situation? I mean, what do we do now?”
“I’ve turned off all transmitting equipment,” Cabtab said. “I’ve also erased all the recordings. But it’s safe to bet that these two didn’t radio in that they were going to try to take us by surprise. We might’ve had a receiver and listened in on them. But the transmitter has been on continuously so that HQ can know its location at all times. I’ve turned that off. That means that other craft’ll be on the way to find out what happened. Too bad we had to do this. No other way out, though.”
Duncan gestured at the two bodies. “You’re not going to kill them?”
“You want me to?”
“No.”
“Good! I’m against all killing, all violence except as a last desperate means of self-defense. Although I must admit that I feel great just now! Exhilarated! The old ape is enjoying himself; he’s been caged up too long.”
Duncan said, “It did feel good. Striking back… I mean.”
By then the pilot’s face had almost regained a normal pinkish hue. He groaned, and his arm lifted.
“Get in,” Cabtab said. “We’re going to put some miles between here and there.”
Duncan climbed up by means of a folding step into the front cockpit. “Belt up,” the padre said. Duncan, however, was already pulling the retainer across his chest. “You know how to fly one of these?” Cabtab said.
“Yes, I do. But I don’t remember being instructed.”
“Here we go.”
The craft lifted to six feet above the ground and then eased forward. Presently, it was going at about twenty miles an hour. Cabtab steered it around the trees, coming closer than Duncan liked but never touching them. After about twenty minutes, the craft slowed and sank close to the earth. The two got out. Cabtab, standing by the vessel, set the controls. Duncan, watching him, realized a second before each setting just what Cabtab was going to do. Somewhere, sometime, he had learned all about this kind of organic machine.
Cabtab said, “There! Go, little bird, and decoy the hawks!”
The craft lifted, pivoted, and headed back. Its sensors sent it around tree trunks, forcing a winding course. It was soon out of sight.
Cabtab said, “We’ve got about three miles of footing it. Follow me.”
He went to the left. The sound of running water became louder. When they came to the creek, which ran over piles of rocks for some distance, making a shallow rapids, they were still under the cover of the branches. These extended halfway out over the water, on both sides. There was a gap in the middle over the creek, which they avoided by walking close to the right bank. Ankle deep in the water sometimes, other times knee deep and, once, waist deep, they waded northward.
“They might pick up our traces where we got out of the plane,” Cabtab said. “But they won’t know if we went up the creek or down. By the time they pick up our trail, if they do, we should, I hope, be long gone.”
“If they catch us before then,” Duncan said, “what’s your policy? You shoot at them or give up?”
“What do we plan to do?” Cabtab called back. He said, “Oops!” as a foot slipped on a rock. He went down on his knees.
“Shoot,” Duncan said.
The giant, wet all over, got to his feet. “Shoot it is. I escaped once and so did you. Once, I think, is about all you can expect. God, Allah, Jahweh, Buddha, Thor, et alia have blessed us a single time re escaping. But if we’re stupid enough to get caught again, they will no longer smile upon us.”
They did not speak until they came to a small tributary on the right. Cabtab turned up this and walked for a half-mile. Most of the way was covered by interlocking branches. When it was not, they hugged the most heavily screened bank. After sloshing for a mile and a half, Cabtab stopped. He pointed at the bank, which rose to about three feet above the water. Here the creek swirled as if it were going into a hole under the surface. This, Cabtab explained, was exactly what was happening.
“There’s a pipe four feet in diameter below the bank. It catches a lot of silt and mud, and we have to clean it out every few days. But it’s open now. You’ll have to hold your breath for about thirty seconds. You first, Gaston.”
Evidently, Cabtab did not trust him not to make a break for it. That was all right. Duncan, in Cabtab’s place, would not have trusted him either.
He got down on all fours, the water up to his neck, and launched himself downward. His fingertips felt the inside of the cold pipe. He pushed himself forward and dogpaddled, entirely submerged. His head kept bumping into the hard pipe, which, it seemed to him, must slant downward. Suddenly, he was half-out of the cold water and in an airy but dark chamber. He stood up slowly, his hand above him so that he would not
bump his head. He could only straighten up partly until he had walked forward for about ten feet. The pipe sloped upward for three feet, then leveled out. He still could not stand completely upright. Behind him, Cabtab gasped, and his voice boomed and echoed. “Keep going. I’ll be right behind you.”
Now the smooth damp floor slanted downward, and suddenly his upraised hand had lost the ceiling. Footsteps sloshed and heavy breathing came behind him. “Keep moving,” Cabtab said. A finger touched Duncan’s back and pushed. He walked, not briskly, until light bloomed around. He was in a room ten feet long and eight feet high, its walls, floor, and ceiling of seamless material. The light came from the material, making the shadowless illumination he was used to in the city. Ahead was a door only five feet high and three feet wide. It had neither doorknob nor handle.
“Stop!” Cabtab said. Duncan obeyed. The padre passed him, halted before the door, and muttered something Duncan could not understand. Doubtless he was not supposed to.
The door moved sideways, disappearing into the recess of the wall.
Cabtab turned, smiling, his back bent, and said, “The materials are rather recent, but they were placed in an old area. This used to be the hideout of guerrillas during the last days of the conquest of the United States. We had to do a lot of digging and a lot of stealing to get the materials.”
He went through the door, ducking, and Duncan went after him. The hallway ran straight for twenty feet and then curved to the left. Its floor angled gently downward. After sixty more feet, they were in front of another door. This was taller than the first. Cabtab still had to stoop, though Duncan could straighten up, the ceiling two inches above his head.
“These were not made for us moderns,” Cabtab said. “Our ancestors were mighty warriors but little fellows.”
“Why haven’t the ganks detected these hollows with magnetometers?” Duncan said.
“Oh, they have, they have,” Cabtab said cheerfully. “But this whole area is honeycombed with these underground dwellings and forts. The organics know they’re the legacy of the armies and the guerrillas of the old days. They’ve dug into some for archaeological purposes. Most of them, though, are under two thousand years of accumulated dirt and forest growth. Many are partially filled in where the ceilings collapsed. We’ve done some redigging and rebuilding here and there, now and then. By we, I mean not just us, the moderns. There have been many generations of outlaws here.”