Rising Storm

thought. He'd probably have a heart attack. Of course, then at least half of her problem would be solved.

Killing them both was so tempting. She could toss the bodies down a crevasse today, and by the time searchers found them, the two would be so frozen no one would be able to tell exactly when they'd died, and even if she beat them to a pulp they'd most likely attribute the wounds to the fall. Then she'd be free to work in peace. A perfect solution.

Except… it would also redouble Tricker's surveillance. She sighed, looking around at the white, white landscape with its drifting wisps of ice crystal under the deep-purple-blue sky. In the long run she supposed the best thing to do was to simply put up with them. But it is so tempting. Without them, I could imagine

there were no humans in the world at all. This place is… clean.

'Look,' the I-950 said, trying to sound conciliatory, 'I'll call in every half hour, and if anything, anything at all seems to be going wrong, I'll call you and immediately head back to camp.' Clea shrugged. 'What more can I do? If I don't do this now it will be time to go back and I'll have accomplished nothing.'

Locke folded his arms across his chest and seemed about to speak.

'Unless you'd both like to give up some of your time out here to stay with me while I work?' she suggested.

He barked a laugh. 'The thing is, Tricker…'

Here we go again, she thought. 'Who's going to tell him?' Clea demanded. 'I'm not.' She shrugged. 'Look, it's cold out here and we're losing working time. Why don't we discuss this later, back at camp?' Just like they had every day so far.

After a moment's hesitation he nodded. 'All right,' he said. Then, almost reluctantly, he turned and tottered off.

Clea watched him go. Suddenly an image of him squirming on the ice with blood pouring from his mouth came to her. If only, she thought, and regretted the virtue of necessity.

She looked down at the seal. Its heartbeat was normal and it seemed to be sleeping naturally. The circuit that activated the machines she'd implanted was controlled by another one in her complex and somewhat bulky wristwatch. Clea activated them, testing each one in turn and getting a positive signal. Now all

that remained was to give them an actual field test.

Something to look forward to, she thought.

She looked behind her and saw Locke disappearing around a wind-sculpted ridge of snow touched with exquisite shades of pale blue. Clea watched for a full minute and saw no sign of him, not even in the ultraviolet stage. Her ears hadn't picked anything up that sounded human either.

Picking up her backpack and sliding it on, she jogged off, looking for another leopard seal. Time wasted delayed Skynet's advent.

Kurt was there to greet her, in the chamber that resembled an air lock when they came in off the ice. Clea grinned and ran into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and kissing him passionately.

'We have permission to work together,' Kurt murmured in her ear when they came up for air; then he licked her neck.

The I-950 giggled and snuggled her head into his shoulder. 'Good,' she whispered.

'I hate to break this up, kids,' Tricker said, 'but we have some things to discuss.'

Clea continued to cling to Viemeister like a monkey as she glanced over her shoulder at Tricker. She offered him a lazy smile. 'Oh? Then let's make an appointment,' she suggested.

'Hey, I'm free now,' he said, appearing totally unimpressed by their display of

heated sensuality.

The I-950 looked adoringly at Kurt. 'But I'm busy,' she said. Then she looked over her shoulder again at Tricker. 'Perhaps in a couple of hours?'

'Perhaps now?' Tricker didn't try to hide his dislike for either of them most times; now he seemed to be doing his best to project it. He had an extremely effective way of suggesting what he was seeing when he looked at a person—

something reminiscent of a small, yapping, incontinent dog that might be too valuable to be put down.

Viemeister moved his hands from Clea's waist to cup her buttocks; he hoisted her up and she laughed. 'Two hours,' he said, and started to walk off.

'Kurt,' Tricker said, pointedly not looking at the muscular scientist and his comely burden, 'you make me wait, I make you wait.'

Kurt and Clea looked at each other and sighed as one, then smiled wickedly. He let her down slowly, and she came over to the security chief.

'What exactly is there to discuss? You've received permission for me to work with my friend. So… ?' She shrugged, her eyes wide.

'I need to know what you're going to do about your work,' he said through clenched teeth.

'I think this is more important,' Clea told him. If you only knew how much more important, human. 'Once my attention is engaged like this, it's very difficult for me to concentrate on anything else.'

'So you're just going to abandon the work you were brought here to do?'

'Well, actually…' She produced a disk and handed it to him with a sweet smile.

'It's largely finished. I think you'll find several people here—' she named them

—'can handle the remaining details. That's okay with you, isn't it?'

Tricker bit the inside of his cheek. 'Sure,' he said after a moment. He gave her an insincere smile. 'Run along, kids. Get some work done.' The sarcasm was as thick as butter.

'All in good time.' Clea blew him a kiss, then engulfed Viemeister's muscular arm in a hug and looked up at him. 'All in good time.'

She walked off with Kurt, feeling as happy as it was possible for her to feel without Skynet whispering in her mind. She looked forward to the sex she would soon be having with Kurt. And it was good that she now had official permission to work with him on Skynet. No one on earth, with the exception of Alissa, could offer more help in developing its intelligence. As a bonus, she'd annoyed Tricker again.

Serena had regarded him as an exceptional human being. But Clea wasn't finding him to be that formidable; he hadn't even pursued her resemblance to her parent, which, frankly was a relief.

It was also a relief to know that she'd finally convinced her computer to allow her natural reactions to sex to prevail. She'd successfully argued that as she was less experienced than her predecessor, she was less able to fake her reactions.

Therefore, it was reasonable to assume that someone as intelligent as Viemeister

would almost certainly detect her lack of enthusiasm.

Her stomach fluttered pleasantly in anticipation. Life was good.

ROUTE 9, PARAGUAY

Wendy had somehow thought of Paraguay as a small country. She supposed that was because it looked like a peanut nestled between Brazil and Argentina. But the place was; as big as most American states and its character had changed completely since she'd passed the Brazilian border. Lush semitropical forest full of smoking clearings had given way to flat, dry grasslands where scattered cattle grazed between occasional clumps of palms. It smelled strange, too: hot in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature; dusty like spices and acrid musk.

Even the smells of cattle were alien. She'd been a city girl all her life.

According to what John had told her, he was living on a farm or something just outside Villa Hayes. Sometimes it sounded like he was talking about Dogpatch, and sometimes like the Ponderosa.

She was tired, and she was hungry, and she was fighting the feeling that she was hopelessly lost, it was hot and everything that she'd brought with her was made of black velvet at Snog's insistence. She'd kill for a T-shirt and shorts right now.

Money was rapidly running out, making her want to continue to drive, not stopping for bed or food, but she