'It's going to be trickier than I thought,' she began. 'Rugard still has the transmitter in his storeroom, and he's going to let me work on it in return for my promise to take him along. But he won't let it out of his cabin. We can't just sneak out of here.'
They looked at her gloomily.
She took a breath. 'So I'm going to have to fake a repair with my electronic junk until we can steal it. There's a compound meeting and autumn celebration tomorrow night, lubricated with the compound's latest innovation: moonshine. Everyone will be there. We sneak into his cabin then.'
'Won't he have guards?' Daniel asked.
'Probably. But I've got another idea about how to get inside. Has anyone done any climbing?'
There was an uncomfortable silence. 'A little,' Daniel finally conceded. 'On an adventure vacation. But…'
'Could you rappel down that cliff?' She pointed to the monolith by Rugard's cabin. 'Lots of drunks, a moonless night, and any guards facing outward. You slip down the cliff onto his terrace, steal the transmitter, and get hoisted back up.'
'That's crazy.'
'That's our only chance.'
'Break in!' Ico exclaimed. 'Why don't we just take Rugard with us? Cut a deal?'
She winced. 'Because there's something else I haven't told you.'
'Ah, geez. I knew it.'
'The instrument will work, but it will only call in a rescue craft, not a transport. A small hover. My superiors knew the risk of sending me into this place with the knowledge I have and so they warned me up front that the beacon response plane would only take me. I have to be recognized. Me, and… the missing pilot.'
They all looked at her in disbelief, stunned. Hope had been slammed shut again.
'I was really sent to find him, or at least learn his fate. He's the nephew of a board member who was being groomed to start up the ladder of promotion, and he was proving himself with this job. His failure to return caused quite a shock: apparently a crash like that had never happened before. There's even some suspicion of sabotage, because of his political connections. In any event, Rugard killed him. So that just leaves me… and room for one other.'
'You want to go back with Dyson,' Ico accused.
She looked at Daniel, then away, her face betraying just a moment of doubt. 'No. I promised the seat to Ethan after he told me the pilot was missing and probably dead. I promised so he'd help me find the wreck.' Ethan's face was impassive. 'It's still his, by rights. It was his transport that crashed.'
'But you didn't tell us this,' Ico said.
'No.'
'So we'd help you.'
'Yes.'
He looked at Ethan. 'No wonder you weren't happy to see us. We threatened your spot.'
'I just didn't want to use you.'
'But she did. Because she works for U.C.! Because we're still being screwed!'
'Ico, shut up,' Daniel said.
'Why should we believe you?' Ico persisted to Raven. 'Why should we believe a thing you say?'
'Because I still need your help,' she said stubbornly.
'For what? A bon voyage party?'
'If you help me steal the transmitter, you'll still have a chance to get back. Here's my plan. We retrieve the activator I hid, flee into the desert, call for help, uncouple the activator from the transmitter again so it can't penetrate the jamming, and you four go on toward the coast.'
'Now there's a great plan. You go, we stay. How could I have ever doubted you?'
'No, this is your ticket to get back. Listen. The authorities won't bring me back without the activator. That was my assignment. I have to take the activator with me. But the transmitter alone- the piece that Rugard has been keeping-will work on the coast. It will work, if you get far enough east. I think. You hike there, signal, and by that time I'll have explained your cooperation to my superiors. They'll send in another hover and you'll come back heroes after doing what you set out to do: cross Australia. Such a reward has happened before.'
The quartet looked at each other. If they made it back, it wouldn't be to become chums with United Corporations.
'The transmitter alone will work?' Tucker said, sounding skeptical.
'You're not supposed to know that, but yes, it will. There, not here.'
'All we have to do to make Rugard's transmitter work is go to the coast?' Daniel clarified, puzzled.
'The Cone,' Amaya said slowly. 'The circle. That's what she's talking about. I've been wondering about that myself. If a satellite is projecting a blanket of electronic interference it should fall on Australia with a regular geometry such as a circle or oval. But the continent can't be that regular. At its edges, some pieces of land must leak out from under the Cone.'
'They'd just make it bigger.'
'No,' said Raven. 'There are too many sea and air lanes and nearby islands to overlap out onto the ocean very far. Australia is wider east to west than north to south. If you get to the east coast, the transmitter should work.'
'Should work?' Ico asked.
'That's what they told me,' she said defensively.
'And that must have been what the pilot was talking about when he gave me the activator,' Ethan said. 'That if we didn't have it, we'd have to walk to the beach.'
'Listen, Daniel, this is insane,' Ico pleaded. 'We can't let these two run off with our help and then be stranded here, taking our chances in the wild. Who cares if the transmitter will work by itself? They know we'll never make it across the remaining desert! One of us should go on that plane with Raven to make sure she'll bring somebody back for us: somebody back here.'
'You want to wait with the morally impaired?'
'Better than dying of thirst on her itinerary for us. I'm sorry, but she's lied to you from the minute you met her. If she wants our help, one of us gets to go.'
'Who?' Daniel asked.
'Not you. You can't be objective about her. Frankly, it should be me. I understand the system now, I'm a good talker, and I won't be taken in by a bunch of United Corporations bullshit.'
'You?'
'I've seen through them from the beginning. And I'll see through them at home.'
'No,' said Amaya. 'You're not the right person, Ico. No offense, but you rub people the wrong way.'
'We need a revolutionary, not a glad-hander!'
'We need someone who will be listened to. You'll sound too abrasive. Too extreme. Too… nutty.'
'I'm the only sane person here!'
'I'm sorry. I just don't trust you to do this.'
He threw up his hands. 'Okay, you then. Not just these two, who somehow find us in the desert and have been using us ever since. They're going to leave us in the lurch, I know it.'
'No I'm not,' said Ethan. 'I came here like you, Ico. I'm as angry about it as you are. I forced Raven to agree to take me back if she wanted to be shown that plane.'
Ico ignored him. 'How about it, Amaya? Women and children first.'
'No! That's silly.' She looked hesitant. 'I… I want to finish trying to sort out my life here.' Her look ended at Daniel as she said that. Raven would be gone again. 'Ethan's one of us. He's been here longer than any of us. He's the one who was in the crash with the transmitter. United Corporations can't object to taking him back after he helped Raven. And he can talk for all of us, even the convicts. He makes the most sense by far.'
'Yes,' said Daniel. 'Ethan's the logical one.'
'Tucker, for God's sake…'
The big man shrugged. 'I don't know if any of this is going to work, but I came to walk across Australia. I say Ethan too. This way the four of us stick together. All for one, one for all.'
Ico looked around the group. 'In Purgatory.'
