Empire

they would move slowly through forest, going miles around Lake Chinnereth, then moving up to the ridge between the lakes and again going down to look at Genesseret and go far enough around it to inspect all its shores.

And then back again to the cache and, if they found nothing, then pack it all up and come home again.

There was an island in the middle of Lake Chinnereth, which must once have been the rounded top of a low hill. There Cole could see the only human structure beyond the dam itself that was visible here. It was a cabin that might once have been a ranger way station or, conceivably, somebody’s small summer cabin. It looked like it had probably been made from local timber, laid down like Lincoln logs. It was impossible to tell whether it pre-dated the dam or was thirty years old. It certainly wasn’t much older than that, and might not be abandoned—there was still glass in the windows.

Down near the waterline, there was a small dock with a short swimmer’s ladder. And not a floating dock—it made no allowance for changing water levels. It’s as if the builder expected the lake always to be full.

The dock had to have been built after the dam, or there would have been no point. But the cabin didn’t look like it could hold a serious number of mechs, even in the basement. And even if it could contain such things, how could they be loaded onto barges from that tiny dock?

Even stopping frequently to listen and observe, they made good time through the woods; they took turns walking point and tail, and now and then they could talk in low voices to each other and pass observations and orders up and down the spread-out line. Each man controlled his own eating as he walked—there was no need to stop for meals.

When they reached the end of the east fork of Lake Chinnereth, Cole split Load and Arty off to go out to the point of the peninsula between the lakes and observe what they could. If they hadn’t heard from Cole to the contrary, they were then to go back around to rejoin Drew and Babe at the cache.

So now there were only four of them proceeding overland to the west fork of Chinnereth and then up the ridge between the lakes. There were a few signs of hikers, but none of the litter was new and the few campsites were covered with layers of pine needles. Again, no way to tell if there had been hikers through here since the lake was formed.

Cole sent Mingo and Benny around to the west side of Genesseret to reconnoiter the eastern shoreline. They didn’t need to go all the way to the dam. As soon as they had observed and photographed the whole eastern shore, they should come back around and, again, if Cole had not told them otherwise, round both lakes and return to the cache.

Only Cat was with Cole now, moving together near but not on the crest of the ridge between lakes. Occasionally they would cross over the ridge and move down the other side, since they were observing the far shores of both lakes now.

They were near the peak of the ridge now, approaching the observation tower. Now they moved even more stealthily, moving slowly and methodically toward the tower from two different directions. There was no sign of any kind of wiring, though that hardly proved that there was no wiring. Nor was there any sign of cameras—but, again, that might simply mean that the cameras were very small and well concealed.

In the southwest, clouds were building. A summer thunderstorm? That would be potentially disastrous— lightning could do worse things than an EMP gun. Even fog would be irritating, forcing them to wait till it cleared to complete the mission.

Cole crept back away from the cleared area around the tower; he knew Cat was doing the same. They would move slowly around to two other vantage points and inspect the other two sides of the tower.

It was in the midst of this maneuver that Cole’s receiver vibrated. He immediately began backing farther away from the tower. He pressed the go-ahead button.

“Mingo here,” said Mingo. He was talking softly, but articulating very clearly. “Come down to the area twenty feet above the clear-cut zone. Right where you are, just go down. No structures, no sign of tunneling, but something you need to see.”

Cole pressed the go-ahead button again, requesting more information without having to speak aloud.

“If you don’t see it, then we’re crazy,” said Mingo. “I’m not going to predispose you.”

Cole pressed the code for Cat, knowing he had heard. Cole whispered, “Down to Genesseret.”

It took only fifteen minutes to move, relatively noiselessly, to the zone twenty feet or so above the clear-cut zone. Whatever they were supposed to see, Cole couldn’t see it.

And then he could. The ground was suddenly wet underfoot.

Cat noticed it, too. He moved toward Cole and when they were near enough, said in a low voice, “Somebody ran the sprinklers this morning.”

The ground was sodden, as if it had been heavily watered. From about fifteen feet above the waterline, the pine needles no longer carpeted the forest floor in a natural way. They had been carried downward as if by receding water, hanging up on tufts of grass, roots, rocks, any obstruction, the way floating pine needles would when the water drained away.

Cole switched on his transceiver and coded for Mingo. “Is this about even with the top of the dam?”

“From what we can see,” said Mingo, “it could go ten feet higher. But the line is absolute. Everything below it soaked, everything above it as dry as normal. Benny has me for ten that this lake has been fifteen feet higher within the last twenty-four hours. Which is impossible and/or weird.”

“You bet against him, though.”

“Somebody had to,” said Mingo. “It’s how he pays for food.”

“Anything else on our side?” asked Cole.

“Nothing.”

“And we’ve seen nothing on yours. Anything near the dam?”

“Just the old road 20, where it dives down under the water. The new road’s on our side, but it’s already overgrown with grass and saplings. Nobody’s using it.”

Cole sat and thought for a while. This obvious change in the water level was weird, but it was hard to see what the point of it would be. Why would they have released so much water, so rapidly? The lake was small, as reservoirs go, but it was still millions of gallons of water. By now Mingo had probably figured out approximately how much. He asked.

“If it was all released in a single flow, it would be enough to cause flooding downstream,” said Mingo. “The valley floor is populated. The neighbors would complain. Cole, this water was here, no more than a day ago. It went somewhere.”

Mingo was a civil engineer and it was his business to be able to make guesses that were worth something.

“Any sign of it draining right now?” asked Cole.

“No,” said Mingo. “In fact, it’s at the usual waterline right now. Where the vegetation changes. The high level seems to be the rare condition.”

“Heavy rainstorms here lately?”

“No,” said Benny. “Dryish summer for this area.”

“Rain heavy enough to raise the water level this high, you would have seen it on the news. ‘Washington State washed out to sea,’ that would have been the story.”

“Somehow they’re raising and lowering the water level of the lake by massive amounts,” said Cole, “and I can’t think of a single reason why.”

“I’m still trying to think of how,” said Mingo.

“Anybody get close enough to the shoreline on Chinnereth to see if it does the same?” asked Cole.

“Drew here. We reconnoitered the shoreline while we were waiting. Nothing like what you describe. The shoreline was the first wet area. No flooding higher up.”

“Load here. Ditto. If the water level rose fifteen feet on Chinnereth, it would flood that cabin.”

Cole sat and thought for a long moment.

“Maybe they dumped a huge amount of rubble in here,” said Mingo. “That would raise the level. But that wouldn’t explain why it went back down.”

“No roads where they could dump the rubble,” said Benny.

“While we’re complaining about what they don’t have here,” said Load. “I don’t remember seeing any power lines running away from this dam.”

“No, there were power lines,” said Benny.