minute. Wouldn't it shut down anyway with the power off?'
'The water pump has an independent system. We're sending someone out to investigate.'
'What about the windmills?' Tricker asked. 'Anybody gotten back to us on those?'
'They're destroyed,' she said. Her voice sounded thoughtful.
'My first thought is sabotage,' he said honestly.
'As it should be.' The commander sounded amused. 'However, initial investigation indicates that the seals were degraded. The investigator said they'd basically turned to powder. The windmills had nothing to control them, so when the wind rose they just broke up.'
'Do we have replacement parts?'
'Not enough on hand to meet our power needs,' she said. 'We didn't anticipate all the seals going at once, and then the rotors destroying themselves. So obviously the evacuation is on. Even if we had running water, which we don't, we couldn't stay here. Round 'em up, Mr. Tricker, move 'em out.'
'Just Tricker,' he said impatiently. Then he realized she'd hung up.
Excited, Clea decided to risk contact with home base; the humans would be busy with the power crises and so might miss the transmission. It was important that this information be passed on. To her surprise Alissa was awake.
*Are you well?* Clea asked.
*As well as can be expected. I'm not yet fully mature. I estimate that I'm the human equivalent of fifteen years old. But I look adult with the right makeup and
accessories.*
*Excellent,* Clea said. *I have news.* Silence greeted the announcement.
*What reasons?* Alissa demanded.
Clea responded by showing her the crucial moment in a recording of her augmented-seals reconnaissance. A tall, slender figure, male by his movements, exited a shed, his face concealed by goggles and a balaclava. Behind him a taller male came: this one's face was exposed, briefly, to the weather.
Clea stilled the picture and allowed her computer to enhance it. Shadows and shapes refined and rearranged themselves until they resolved into the image of a T-101. Which, since she and her sister could account for every Terminator on earth, meant that this was none other than Dieter von Rossbach.
The recording began again and in a few movements von Rossbach's face was obscured by fabric and goggles. The two males walked over to a skimobile to be joined by a smaller figure that was undoubtedly female.
*That was definitely von Rossbach,* Alissa agreed. *Which means the younger male probably is John Connor. But the female is not Sarah Connor.*
Startled, Clea asked, *Then who is she?* There was a silence from her sister and Clea realized she should have asked a different question. *How can you tell?*
*This woman's body is looser, indicating that she's much younger than Sarah Connor. Her shoulders are narrower as well.*
Alissa froze a picture of the woman with her back turned toward the seal and superimposed an outline of Sarah Connor's body over her frame. There was a difference of four centimeters at the shoulders.
Clea was dumbstruck. She knew without checking that there were only three humans in this party. If the female wasn't Sarah Connor then where was she?
*She would never let her son come here on a mission so dangerous—* Clea began.
*Unless she trusted von Rossbach implicitly,* Alissa finished. *Meaning she may well be at his home. Going by Serena's recordings, Connor was badly wounded, she may still be recovering. She is, after all, only human.*
*That makes my task a bit less daunting,* Clea said.
*Good,* her sister replied. *You deal with these invaders, I will deal with Sarah Connor.*
***
At the water-pumping station they'd treated the plant's independently functioning windmill the same as the others, then carefully burned out the conductors for the heating system, causing the water to begin freezing in the pipes. Soon those pipes would burst, far underground, where they couldn't be easily accessed. By tomorrow morning the base should be uninhabitable.
For now they rested in the relative comfort of their tent a little less than a mile from the base, stuffed into their sleeping bags, their combined body heat bringing the ambient temperature up to almost fifty degrees. John and Dieter bracketed Wendy, who'd eaten as quickly as she could and then crawled into her sack and dropped off to sleep instantly. Now she began to emit a cute little snore and John smiled.
'She'll be all right, John,' Dieter's voice rumbled from beside her. 'This is hard on her, but she doesn't want to fail you and that will make her strong.'
'I know,' John whispered back. 'But thanks.' After a moment he asked, 'How are your hands?'
'Slightly burned,' Dieter answered. 'I don't know if it's from the cold or the chemicals, but it's nothing.'
John nodded once. 'Good.'
Dieter woke, instantly on guard. He lay still, listening, alert for what he could learn in the darkness. The wind had come up and the tent frame creaked as it moved, sounding vaguely like stealthy footsteps. Beside him Wendy and John breathed in the slow, steady cadence of those deeply asleep. None of these sounds was out of the ordinary; it had to have been something unusual that had wakened him.
He was just about to surrender to sleep again when a scent tickled his nostrils.
Von Rossbach inhaled deeply and recognized what he'd been smelling. Blood.
He opened his eyes and looked at Wendy, though he couldn't see her. Perhaps
the girl had begun her menses; it would explain why she'd been so weak today.
Then he heard a soft sound outside the tent and what sounded like an animal's whine. Moving quietly, Dieter began to dress. It was easy to find his gear; most of his clothes were in the sleeping bag with him. He put on his parka, then his boots, and last he extracted his handgun from one of the parka's many pockets and checked to make sure it wasn't frozen solid.
He stood hunched over and looked at the two sleepers. Then he-decided to let them rest. He must have heard some odd sound the weather was making, but it needed to be checked out or he'd never get back to sleep. Dieter unzipped the tent flap and stepped into the freezing darkness, zipping it back up behind him.
He cast a glance at the sky and his lips tightened. There was a storm coming, no doubt. It wasn't night-dark by any means, but the thick clouds had made a deep twilight out of what should have been a sunny day. Dieter glanced at the watch on his sleeve.
The stiff wind had already numbed his face, so he tugged down the balaclava and flung up his hood, though he didn't tie it down. Ideally he should also put on his goggles to protect his eyes from being burned by ultraviolet rays that no cloud could stop. Then he rejected the idea. They would turn twilight into full night and he didn't plan to be out here that long.
He looked around the hollow in which they'd pitched the dome-shaped tent.
They'd backed it onto the highest wall of the depression to give it the best possible protection from the wind. He could see no sign that anyone besides them had been here in the last million years. Rising from his crouch, he headed for higher ground, meaning to circle the area once to confirm what he was sure
he'd find out—that they were the only human beings around for a mile.
Dieter reached the lip of the hollow and crouched down again, listening and looking around. The snow seemed to glow in the dim light and he could make out the tracks the snowmobile and the sledge had made. But he saw nothing else.
He stood and moved a careful ten paces before crouching again. A gust of wind butted him like a linebacker, almost knocking him over. Glancing at the clouds again, he decided to be a little less careful; he wanted to be in the tent when the weather broke.
