volunteers to cart him along, just to get him out and doing something, but, well, of course that would be insane given present conditions topside," Joel said.
"Poor choice of words there, old sport," Trevin said, under his breath, in an aside to his friend and colleague (and, in this case, co-conspirator).
"What was that, Lexington?" Ott asked.
"He thought my choice of words was counterproductive, sir," Joel said. "Getting back to your question, I'm not sure who else might know. I didn't tell anyone else, and I don't think Lexington did…" He looked at Trevin, who shook his head. "…but there's been a lot of talk lately around here about how poorly we've done, overall, in assimilating topsiders after we capture them; and a lot of theorizing on how much of that is from people up there being warped almost past fixing, and how much is because maybe we're not all that smart about how we go about it. Not being able to fix the first part of the equation, people are having a grand time coming up with ideas on how to change the second part. So, there's every chance this idea's been introduced into the conversation."
"For that matter, sir, our idea incorporates some of the most popular propositions floating around these days," Trevin added.
"You do understand that we cannot afford to lose this guy?" Ott said. "I mean, you're not just risking your lives, but the lives of pretty much every Subterran in the region?"
"Yes, sir. We promise to shoot him if we have to. I don't think it will come to that, but we're not going to let him escape, if the idea gets into his cracked skull," Trevin said.
"Talk about a poor use of words," Joel said to him, sideways, under his breath.
"Give me a minute to think," Ott said.
To their credit, his visitors sank politely back in their chairs, sent their eyes elsewhere to give him relative privacy in which to think, and looked prepared to wait an hour, if it took that. Ott nearly laughed.
He turned the proposal over in his head a few times. It was risky. It was crazy.
He thought about calling in Charbonneau to get his input, or going over to talk to Harvey Davis. Charbonneau knew the countryside in question better than anybody. Davis had the most experience dealing with topsiders. But, in the end, it would still come down to how much he trusted the two men in his office. That, and how far he was willing to go out on a limb, now that he was more or less on his own, thanks to the new communications policies.
"All right. Go ahead. Just don't make me regret it," he said.
"Thank you, sir," the visitors said politely. They rose to their feet. He excused them. They walked with professional calm out the door, and otherwise gave every impression of being dignified, grown men, solemnly going about their duties. However, they misjudged his hearing. They hadn't quite made it out of earshot before they let loose with whoops. Ott suspected they were doing victory leaps and pumping their fists in the air. He smiled, shook his head, and started mentally working on how he'd explain this little experiment to his superiors if they caught wind of it before he knew whether it was a winner, a disaster, or a wash.
Joel and Trevin tried to contain themselves as they entered Billet 32, but didn't do a good job of it. They agreed to give it up. What was the point of not being excited, anyway?
"Hey, Renzo. Get your boots on. We talked the lieutenant into letting you go with us on an expedition!" Joel exclaimed.
Seeing Renzo react like he thought this was an underhanded way of announcing that he was about to be taken out for execution, Trevin said, "No, wait. Don't go jumping to wrong conclusions. Here's the deal. We have a lot of experience taking people from the world you know, and slowly getting them introduced to our world. We even have some success getting some people comfortable, after a while. My ancestors, for example. And Harvey's. And half of Nurse Chan's." He turned to the nurse. "I think I have that right. About half of your ancestors were antiserfs who were never under the government's yoke, and about half were serfs who got rescued, right?"
"Close enough," she said.
"So, anyway," Joel said, "We've had some success, but not a lot, and some of us have been thinking that that's because we're being stupid about how we go about it. Usually, we keep newcomers locked up, either in a cell or in a holding suite, with guards or minders of some sort, until they show signs of realizing that they really and truly are not in the society they left, and need to adjust. And then we slowly introduce them to the new ways. Eventually, either they adapt or they don't. Our thought is that it would be better to let foundlings see actual community life much sooner: all of it, not just sweet little bits we think will tilt their views in our favor. That way, when we're asking them to choose us over what they left, they actually have data that lets them make a reasonable choice."
"And we finally got permission to try it," Trevin said.
"And you're the poor person who gets to have us rookies try to show him around, and we figured that you might as well see what we do for a living, and right now that entails making a hazardous trip to a community down the valley, to talk some fear of righteousness into a scumbag," Joel said.
"Correction. We are going to find and confront a man who has been acting like a scumbag, and either we're going to talk some sense into him, or we're going to arrest him. We don't get to do this very often, but it can be rather satisfying, if you're of the law enforcement mentality," Trevin said.
"Of course, you won't be doing the talking, or arresting, or anything like that. But you'll get to take a trek in fresh air and sunshine, and meet some wonderful people, and see how we deal with difficult people, which is rather different from what you're used to," Joel said.
"Yeah. We don't take their name away, or withhold food and water, or kick them unconscious. None of that. Ever," Trevin said.
"That's not to say that we haven't had to shoot a person or two. And we had to promise the lieutenant that we'd shoot you if you tried to escape, so please don't try to escape, all right?" Joel said.
"Even then, we'd probably shoot to disable, not to kill, so don't go thinking you can commit suicide through us, all right? Come on. Daylight's burning, and we've got a long trip ahead of us. Boots, man. Boots!" Trevin said.
"Would you guys stop dancing around like little kids around a Christmas tree?" Nurse Chan begged.
Harvey laughed. "Oh, Renzo, I'm jealous. If I was better at getting around, I'd go along for the fun of it, if they'd let me," he said. "Go on. Have fun. And don't make them sorry that they're taking a chance on you."
That last bit seemed to worry Renzo.
"You'll be all right. Just do what they tell you. You can trust them," Harvey added.
Renzo, not seeing any way out of it, put his boots on, shouldered the pack they gave him, and headed out with his bizarrely joyful guards.
Lt. Ott hiked down the tunnel to where Leo Talent was overseeing the helicopter refurbishing project.
"Hey, Leo, how's it coming?" he asked.
"Isn't she beautiful?" Leo said, stepping back from the reassembled copter, and sweeping his hand to invite the boss to critique both the craft and the new paint job.
"She is beautiful, indeed," Ott said.
"The roof's ready, too," Leo said.
Ott looked up, and saw faint light coming through retractable camouflage cloth, where once there had been dirt and rock.
"Of course, we could use a bit more room in this room, to give her more air to rise with, but we're working on that," Leo said.
The men charged with making the large hole in the ground into a larger hole in the ground bent double to their work, all too willing to show off in front of the boss. Ott nodded his appreciation for their fine work ethic, and turned back to Leo.
Leo, who'd been talking and gesturing at theater-worthy level so that his crew could be in on the conversation, moved closer and spoke softly. "How's Gills doing? I hear he's trying to be agreeable?"
"Count him out as a pilot. I'm convinced he's being agreeable in hopes of getting in a good position to sabotage us. If he gets loose and gets close to this cr
aft, shoot him."
"Yes, sir. How's Pilot Harvey doing?"
"Much better. He's even got fair use of his legs, and the doc is predicting a near total recovery in the long haul, but he's not strong enough to fly yet."
"Any chance he could fly if we had hand controls that took over for the foot controls?"
"I don't know. But is that even possible?"
"Possible, and done," Leo said, with a big grin. He showed his modifications to the boss.
Ott fought with himself, wanting to praise the work, but upset that Leo had done it in secret. It was nerve wracking enough to be in charge of helping set up a secret air force, without wondering how many of your craft were what you assumed they were.
Leo decided to move on to the next subject. "Any other helicopter pilots around here these days, sir?" he asked.
"No. And it's increasingly likely that the ones we had topside got assassinated, along with the meteorologists we had up there."
"Any better luck with fixed wing pilots, sir?"
"Nampatun had two at last report. Boisetun had three, along with one helicopter pilot. Weisertun has one, if you're willing to count a 72-year-old man with poor eyesight and bad arthritis."
"If you'd have told me a year ago that we'd have more aircraft than pilots, I never would have believed it."
"Well, let's just keep getting the aircraft ready, shall we? We've got men studying to be pilots. Some day we might figure