Systemic Shock

small secondary marks. 'Control, patch me to CenCom research.'

'Patching,' then a voice indistinguishable from Control's: 'CenCom research on standby.' CenCom's site was never far from the soul of government. Now it was near Ogden, Utah.

'I have a hoofprint in wet sand,' Quantrill mused, 'and I want to know what made it. Uh — identify an animal track, CenCom.'

'Please lay out a graphic plot,' said CenCom, as if he had all the time in the world.

'Neg. Work from oral description, CenCom. Ah, give me a human auditor.'

Somewhere an electronic mind was passing the buck without reluctance. CenCom could not care less, or more. Or at all.

'Research auditor on-line for Tau Sector,' said the same voice, no longer the same mind.

'I have an animal track and need you to identify it.' He was walking again, aware that he might be drawing the curiosity of the man on his flank, speaking now from memory. 'Split hoof like a deer but a very wide splay in front. Bullet-shaped marks behind, the diameter of my finger and pointing outward. Width of print eight or nine centimeters, length ten or more.'

'Location?'

'Oh; open range in Sutton County, Texas.'

'Searching,' said the voice. Every five seconds it said,'searching' again. Finally, 'No Olympic elk your area. Swine a possibility, but no known variety with prints those dimensions.'

'Check on Russian boar,' he said, licking dry lips. Suddenly Quantrill wished very much that he had a weapon; and if possible, one much larger than a thirty-caliber brush gun.

'Neg. Repeat, neg. Subject would mass four to five hundred kilos or more, the size of a Montana grizzly. A definite possibility if you downsize your figures.'

'Try upsizing yours,' Quantrill snorted. 'Thank you, CenCom; patch me back to Tau Sector Control.' He advised Control of his suspicion that a red-eyed satan of five-hundred kilo mass was not far away. Then, 'Now, about my interesting new sanction—'

'Take all males; repeat, your team sanctioned to take all males. Do you copy?'

'All the prophets? Good God, first you tell me Pelletier can't make a weapons drop, and next you call for a massacre!'

Control's tone did not threaten. No threat was necessary in its, 'You're aborting, Q?'

'Neg. Maybe we can pick 'em off gradually. Listen, some of these guys are just harmless weirdos. Do I rate an explanation?'

He had never heard a voder translate a sigh before. 'Fourth Army can't spare troops into wild country for Mexican incursions. There are more vital things to protect further west. Civilian agencies are swamped and every one of those crazies is a potential nucleus of another group. They're just too good at what they do. Wait one, Q.' Pause; a long one. Quantrill saw the man on his flank angling in his direction. Control again: 'S has just reported that a Prophet Ryerson has killed a woman escapee. Now your sanction priority reads Jansen, Coates, Beasley, Ryerson, Contreras. The rest are secondary.'

'I don't know Coates or Ryerson.'

'Your partner does. Intimately,' said Control. 'They took their frustrations out on her.'

Quantrill quenched a rise of fury, coded out, squinting at a rock overhang swept clear in a recent freshet. Protected from the midday sun by the ledge, a shallow stagnant pool gleamed in late reflections. Quantrill spotted the tracks in gritty sand, hurried near, squatted by the puddle and ran his fingers over the deep prints. The hackles of his forearms were at attention.

'What'cha got?' Striding up with his small arsenal was Contreras, the only latino prophet, who made no secret of his distaste for young 'Stone'.

Quantrill stood up, stepped forward, planted a foot squarely on the print he had been studying. 'Aw, shit,' he mumbled and made a gesture of hopeless cloddishness. 'Well, you c'n still see 'em. Biggest deer in these parts, I reckon.'

Contreras blanched, crossed himself, realized what he was doing and ended by scratching his right breast. “Come away from there. That's the devil's waterhole.'

Quantrill went quickly, glad that Contreras did not want a closer inspection. 'The real devil, Prophet Contreras? Honest?'

A gulp and nod. 'I saw him once,' Contreras said, gruff and matter-of-fact, climbing up a prominence in search of the truck. Quantrill knew he could take Contreras with or without weapons; but he was none too sure of the return route. Better to wait until he and Sanger could cover each other's flanks.

'You seen the devil' Tell me about it,' Quantrill pursued, because it seemed to put Contreras on edge.

'Folks who used to own this spread told us he was here,' Contreras said, scanning the brush in half-light. 'Prophet Jansen, he said it was devil worship to set out sacrifices. He put three of us out as sentries ever' night. Then one mornin' we found a prophet tore all to pieces. His gun had been fired once. We seen the same prints you seen. We spread out and went after him afoot thinkin' it was just some ol' boar hog. It was after dark when I sat down for a breather, waitin' for the moon to show me the way home. Pretty soon I hear a snuffle. Looked around, but all I seen was this boulder on the rise above me.

'And then I seen the boulder move,' Contreras breathed. 'It sort of growed, big as a chickenhouse, and he was lookin' down on me and I seen his horns and I didn't wait to see no more.'

Horns? Quantrill wondered if moon-silhouetted ears or tusks would serve up such a horrific vision. “Why didn't you try and shoot,' he asked.

'Shoot the devil? Shoot Ba'al? It's been tried, fool. I value my hide too much,' said Contreras, staring toward the headlights that bobbed toward them in dusk, clicking his chemlamp in reply.

The driver, Monroe, had already picked up Beasley, whose elation balanced Monroe's dejection. 'They found the Grange woman,' Beasley said, clapping a hand on the shoulder of Contreras. 'She nearly made it to the Roosevelt Road.'

At the name, Quantrill forced his pulse to diminish. Not once, until now, had anyone mentioned the names of the fugitives. It was the third one, the baby, that had diverted Quantrill's suspicion — and hope.

Contreras: 'She lead 'em to the others?'

Monroe: 'She might have, if Ryerson wasn't so trigger-happy. Jansen figures we'll find the kids around there tomorrow.'

'No point snoopin' around out here in Ba'al's back yard anymore,' Contreras said in plain relief.

'You see him again?' Beasley's religion was in his ammo clips. He fingered the safety of his carbine.

'Just his prints. The acolyte here seen 'em first at a water hole. Why shit, he didn' know what he seen.'

The others laughed uneasily. Quantrill nodded as if the joke were on himself. In a way, it was. At first he had known only that a child's sandal had made a single print in the sand, later marred by the great deep incisions of a demonic hoof. Quantrill's foot had erased the datum. Probably, he thought in sympathetic dread, that grizzly-sized brute had already tracked the child; had sought his kill many klicks from any possible help. But now he was certain that the sandal had been worn by little Sandy Grange. How long ago had she made that print?

Quantrill felt gooseflesh at his nape, arms, calves. The superstitious awe in these murdering fanatics was affecting him, he decided. He'd give a year of his life to be left alone out there with a night-scoped H & K — but the little truck was taking him away, toward a danger he understood, and to Marbrye Sanger whom he thought he understood. Unable to contact Control in such close quarters he sat sullen, silent, listening to Beasley exult over the murder of an exhausted woman; promising himself that Beasley's ledger would balance before long.

Chapter Seventy-Four

Decanting from the truck between the Willard house and barn, Quantrill peered at moving figures, seeking Sanger. The dark earth was splashed with parallelograms of light from the house and, as always, the women and children cowered anonymously hoping to be overlooked. Near the husky terratired truck was a group of prophets,