retarded drizzle fell upon the four of them. Wili shifted his slicker against the trickle that was most persistent.
Without the night glasses the world was absolutely black. But his other senses had things to tell him about this camouflaged path that was taking them inland, past the watchers the Authority had strung around the farm. His nose told him they were far beyond the groves of banana trees that marked the eastern edge of the farm. On top of the smell of wet wood and roping, he thought he smelled lilacs, and that meant they must be about halfway to Highway 101. He wondered if Kaladze intended to accompany him that far.
Over the creaking of the cart's wheels, he could hear Miguel Rosas up ahead, leading the horses.
Wili's lips twisted, a voiceless snarl. No one had believed him. Here he was, a virtual prisoner of the people who should be his allies, and the whole lot of them were being led through the dark by the Jonque traitor! Wili slipped the heavy glasses back on and glared at the mauve blob that was the back of Rosas' head. Funny how Jonque skin was the same color as his own in the never-never world of the night glasses.
Where would their little trip end? He knew that Kaladze and son thought they were simply going to the end of the tunnel, to let Wili return to Naismith in the mountains. And the fools thought that Rosas would let them get away with it. For twenty minutes he had been almost twitchy, expecting a flash of real light ahead of them, sharp commands backed up by men in Authority green with rifles and stunners, the La Jolla betrayal all over again. But the minutes stretched on and on with nothing but the rain and the creaking of the cart's high wheels. The tunnel bent around the hills, occasionally descending underground, occasionally passing across timbers built over washouts. Considering how much it rained around Vandenberg, it must have taken a tremendous effort to keep this pathway functioning yet concealed. Too bad the old man was throwing it all away, thought Wili.
'Looks like we're near the end, sir.' Rosas' whisper came back softly — ominously? — over the quiet drone of the rain. Wili rose to his knees to look over the Kaladzes' shoulders: The Jonque was pushing against a door, a door of webbed branches and leaves which nevertheless swung smoothly and silently. Brilliant light glowed through the opening. Wili almost bolted off the cart before his glasses adjusted and he realized that they were still undiscovered.
Wili slipped his glasses off for a second and saw that the night was still as dark as the back of his hand. He almost smiled; to the glasses, there were shades of absolute black. In the tunnel, the glasses had only their body heat to see by. Outside, even under a thick cloud deck, even in the middle of a rainy night, there must be enough ordinary light for them. This gear was far better than the night scope on Jeremy's rifle.
Rosas led the extra horse into the light. 'Come ahead.' Sergei Nikolayevich slapped the reins, and the cart squeezed slowly through the opening.
Rosas stood in a strange, shadowless landscape, but now the colors in his slicker and face didn't glow, and Wili could see, his features clearly. The bulky glasses made his face unreadable. Wili shinnied down and walked to the center of the open space. All around them the trees hung close. Clouds glowed through occasional openings in the branches. Beyond Rosas, he could see an ordinary-looking path. He turned and looked at the doorway. Living shrubs grew from the cover.
The cart pulled forward until the elder Kaladze was even with the boy. Rosas came back to help the old man down, but the Russian shook his head. 'We'll only be here a few minutes,' he whispered.
His son looked up from some instrument in his lap. 'We're the only man-sized animals nearby, Colonel.'
'Good. Nevertheless, we still have much to do tonight back at home.' For a moment, he sounded tired. 'Wili, do you know why we three came the way out here with you?'
'No, sir.' The 'sir' came naturally when he talked to the Colonel. Next to Naismith himself, Wili had found more to respect in this man than anyone else. Jonque leaders — and the bosses of the Ndelante Ali — all demanded a respectful manner from their stooges, but old Kaladze actually gave his people something in return.
'Well, son, I wanted to convince you that you are important, and that what you must do is even more important. We didn't mean insult at the meeting last night; we just know that you are wrong about Mike.' He lifted his hand a couple of centimeters, and Wili stifled the fresh pleading that rose to his lips. 'I'm not going to try to convince you that you're wrong. I know you believe all you say. But even with such disagreement, we still need you desperately. You know that Paul Naismith is the key to all of this. He may be able to crack the secret of the bobbles. He may be able to get us out from under the Authority.'
Wili nodded.
'Paul has told us that he needs you, that without your help his success will be delayed. They're looking for him, Wili. If they get him before he can help us — well, I don't think we'll have a chance. They'll treat us all like the Tinkers in La Jolla. So. We brought Elmir with us.' He gestured at the mare Rosas had been leading. 'Mike says you learned how to ride in L.A.'
Wili nodded again. That was an exaggeration; he knew how not to fall off. With the Ndelante Ali, getaways had occasionally been on horseback.
'We want you to return to Paul. We think you can make it from here. The path ahead crosses under Old 101. You shouldn't see anyone else unless you stray too far south. There's a trucker camp down that way.'
For the first time Rosas spoke. 'He must really need your help, Wili. The only thing that protects him is his hiding place. If you were captured and forced to talk —'
'I wont talk,' Wili said and tried not to think of things he had seen happen to uncooperative prisoners in Pasadena.
