to the hidden entrance into the underground.
But then he'd seen the cattle around the haystacks; the gloriously untouchable reserve stacks that were (it had been presumed) going to remain untouched for another two years, simply because that's how bureaucrats thought. The haystacks shielded the porthole into Annextun, which is where he needed to go, if he was to consult Lt. Ott.
The herder's presence near the stacks made it more likely that he'd be seen working his way to the porthole. It also meant the herder, if she reported seeing him anywhere near the hay, would most likely be treated as an accomplice. In a sane world, she wouldn't be. But the world under Greenley the Third was not a sane one. If he'd been an average pilot, Harvey wouldn't have cared. The herder was, after all, easily replaceable. If one Advanced Intermountain Human Collie failed to perform well enough to please her masters, all that the bureaucrats in the Department of Cattle Production needed to do was to order up a new one, and toss the disappointing one away. But Harvey wasn't that sort of man. Although he could feign indifference to the fate of individuals if duty required it, he didn't feel indifferent. Even his wretched co-pilot's fate nagged at him, and that was a man out to get him killed.
"She seems to be authorized to have moved the cattle to the uncustomary jurisdiction," the co-pilot reported, with his usual care to hedge.
"It is only to be expected, Comrade Pilot," Harvey replied, in the gloriously neutral tone for which he was known above ground.
He landed the copter neatly on the Idaho side, near the hut, not having received orders to land anywhere else, and not wanting to bring attention to himself or the porthole by asking permission to land anywhere other than the traditional spot.
The herder, who knew the schedule as well as they did, wasn't in evidence. Odd that.
He and Gills, the co-pilot, were in charge of offloading the supplies anyway, since mere citizens weren't to touch a copter, or even look inside of one. Still, the citizen was supposed to stand at a respectful distance, showing proper gratitude without overdoing it (excess gratitude for receiving necessities implied that you'd figured out that government didn't always come through, which was not an attitude to be tolerated).
They hadn't unloaded but a few armloads of supplies when Gills fell over as if dead, a dart sticking out of his neck. Harvey whipped out his handgun as he spun. He faced half a dozen masked men. The tallest of them had a distinctive, slightly lopsided outline, and had his hands in the air.
"Kindly don't shoot, Pilot Harvey," the tall man said. "Unless you've gone double agent on us, in which case we'll need to kill you."
"Same to you, Lieutenant," Harvey replied. "And please tell me how I'm supposed to report this to my increasingly-suspicious Greenley-ites. Quite frankly, I haven't come up with a good plan yet."
"Not to worry about that. We're pulling you in. But if you could fly us over to right beside the haystacks, on the side away from the birdwatcher, it would make life rather easier for all of us. Can you carry all of us, or do I need to send some men over at a jog?"
"Get in, gentlemen. Unless we want to unload first?"
"We'll unload over there," Ott said.
This prompted suppressed chuckles among the troops, but Harvey got the impression that Ott was through with games, and in more of a hurry than he wanted to admit. So he crawled into the pilot's seat as the troops loaded themselves and Gills' limp body into the back. He flew where directed, set down where directed, got out and stood where directed. Ott's men hauled Gills to the porthole and handed him down to unseen colleagues. Five men climbed out of the hole, toolboxes in hand. Soon every man in the vicinity except Harvey and Lt. Ott were happily, hurriedly, engaged in dismantling the copter, and sending pieces down the hole. The few pieces that were too big to get through the hatch were cut by lasers or metal shears, to make them small enough to go down.
"Most pilots would have panicked when they saw their bird being chopped to bits," Ott said, conversationally, to Harvey, without taking his eyes off the dismantling.
"Who says I'm not?" Harvey said back.
"I hope you don't mind being yanked in," Ott said.
"Not a bit of it, given recent turns of events," Harvey said.
"Speaking of which, let's get you out of sight, and somewhere we can chat," Ott said, steering his friend and subordinate to the porthole, and following him into the underground.
Three minutes later, there was no trace of man or machine near the haystacks, except in the tunnels, which had taken on that festive mood that sometimes settles on an outpost after a successful mission behind enemy lines.
-
"Which of you was designated head pilot this run?" Ott asked Harvey, after they'd reached his office.
"Me."
"Good. That helps. I might need you to order your co-pilot to switch his allegiance to Stanley."
"Poor Stanley. Tell him the man has treachery boiling in his blood right now."
"We had that figured out already, thanks to the number of reports of suspicious behavior he's been filing. His name is Gills? I've got that right?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right. Stanley might need to consult with you on Gills, but it's likely you won't be seeing him again until we're convinced he's had a genuine change of heart."
"Good luck."
"Oh, ye of little faith. By the way, Leo is going to take a very long run, more or less along the route you usually head after leaving here, flipping the helicopter's tracking device on and off in a way that suggests overall electrical trouble, and then he's going to crash you into the river off away from any Subterran portholes."
"So I am Nobly Demised, am I?"
"You will be in a few hours, as will Gills, as far as Topside is concerned. It's even odds whether you'll be given posthumous medals for dying in the line of duty, or held up from here to the end of history as demons who failed to keep valuable government property intact. Meaning the helicopter, of course."
"Of course – although, us pilot cogs are sometimes held to be more valuable than other biological cogs, you know."
"Welcome home, Harvey. I've got to get on some other things right now. You're assigned to Billet 32. I'll talk to you later."
Harvey dutifully took himself off in search of Billet 32. It turned out to be a suite in one of the newer sections of tunnel. Light coming through one-way fibers in the roof was dim but decent, and could be supplemented with electric lights in plain but handsome fixtures. The air was surprisingly fresh, although tinged with the familiar tang of tunnels built near a river. He had clean running water and his own bathroom, his own kitchen and dining room, his own bedroom. The very privacy of his surroundings struck him dumb. He'd lost track of how long he'd been topside, assigned to bunkhouses, watched every minute. He hadn't quite realized how well he'd adapted to it, or how much he'd forgotten.
The paint was fresh. The rooms were clean. There was art on the walls and there was a houseplant on a plant stand, underneath a grow light. Harvey saw a note on the plant stand, addressed to him. He broke the seal and read, "I promise to feed you more than this, Lord willing we don't lose all our provisions, but in case you're wondering, it's a newfangled lettuce much favored by my sister, who thought you would like it, and it doesn't taste all that bad – for lettuce – and you have permission to eat outer leaves at will. Shouldn't hurt it a bit. If you haven't gotten that far, some of your private stuff from your previous burrow is in the bottom dresser drawer in the bedroom. We're on bug out alert around here, or we might have shipped in the whole passel of it. But we need to keep our packs light, just so you know. Welcome Home, Warren. P.S. There's a Code B on this note."
Harvey burned the note, that being what Warren Ott meant by Code B amongst childhood friends.
He braced himself before going to the dresser. In the upper drawers, he found two sets of Subterran uniforms in his size, a pair of pajamas (they were, he noted with appreciation, designed to look enough like a uniform that a man wouldn't feel ridiculous being rousted ou
t of bed in them), some toiletries, and other basic supplies. In the bottom drawer was a package wrapped in a pillowcase and tied with braided parachute cord. He untied the package and unwrapped the pillowcase. Inside was an expertly framed portrait of his wife and children. Maggie was radiant, the children were squirmy. Katya was three, Colson was two. The photograph had been taken nine days before the three of them had been murdered. The habitual callousness he'd used to survive topside held sway until, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the wooden cross mounted on the bedroom wall. It hit him then, really hit him, that he was back among people who understood the messy depths of other-centered love. Harvey wept.
Julia woke with the odd feeling that she'd slept for hours, instead of the short nap she'd intended, nestled inside her cozy haystack nook. Perhaps she shouldn't have made the bed so comfortable? She'd put loose hay on top of the bristly bales, and a blanket on top of that. It was warm and soft, and smelled better than her hut. Speaking of smells, what was that strange, light, chemical smell? She crawled out to see if she could find its source. It disappeared when she got outside.
Her fogged mind registered that it was nearly dark. The fog exploded into panic. She'd missed the supply helicopter! She ran, stumbling, to her hut. There were a few supplies stacked outside of it: salt and mineral blocks for the cattle, water