The Future War

honest, he thought, at least with yourself. Her story holds together better than anything you've thought of yourself.

'I need to think about this, ma'am,' he said aloud.

'God, I would hope so,' Sarah said. 'While you're thinking about it, may I suggest you turn this baby around and head for Alaska. You'll find a friendly port there; they were hardly touched by the bombs.'

'And?'

'And I would very much like to travel there with you.'

Chu tipped his head. 'And?'

She smiled at him. 'And at the moment it's the headquarters for the resistance.'

'If we were to accept this proposal of yours,' he said, 'I assume I would be under your command.'

'You'd be under John Connor's command, my son. He's the only alternative to Skynet.'

'But for now we'd be under the commander in chief's mom's command, right?'

'Mmm, right.'

'Just so I know where I stand, ma'am.'

ALASKA

John moved his pointer over a topographical map as he outlined the plan of attack. Forty grim-faced men and women watched him, some taking notes; one woman looked both surprised and amused.

He wasn't used to talking to large groups of people yet and still found his heart pounding whenever he faced an audience. It wasn't made easier by having his newly inducted girlfriend find the whole thing amusing.

Cut her some slack, he told himself. She might just be nervous.

Sometimes he found himself almost convulsed with inappropriate laughter when he was nervous. And the kind of attention these people gave him, the sheer focus they put into listening to his every word, was extremely nerve-racking.

Especially for someone raised to avoid the limelight. Sometimes he felt naked up here.

Ninel wrinkled her nose at him, and with an effort of will he ignored her. It was too soon to include her on this mission, he knew. But he wanted to convince her to spy on her Luddite friends for him and he didn't think she'd do that without some evidence that it was necessary.

Or at the very least that my organization has a reason to exist and that I'm not a fascist asshole.

John ceded the floor to the leader of the scouting party.

'Trucks arrived and departed at four-hour intervals night and day,' he said. 'We have no way of knowing what was delivered or if the trucks left full or empty, as they were tied down all around or were actual eighteen- wheelers.'

There was a stir at that; the big transport trucks had been gone from the roads since Judgment Day.

'We saw no humans in the vicinity. Nor did we find any sign of automated defenses, though we did find security cameras and microphones. Most were quite obvious. There were several tiers of laser traps around the immediate facility. Other than that, the area seemed clear.'

John had worried about that. It could be arrogance, on Skynet's part, ignorance, or a trap. And yet, trap or not, it had to be dealt with. He stood up as the scout finished. 'Get some rest,'

he ordered. 'We move out at 0200.' He nodded to them and left the dais, heading for Ninel. She rose, smiling, and came to him.

'You almost made me break up, you little skunk,' he murmured.

'I can't help it,' she said with a little shrug. 'Extreme seriousness in other people has always given me the giggles.'

He smiled and shook his head. 'You stay with me tomorrow.'

'I wondered what I was supposed to do,' Ninel said.

'Everyone else seemed to know exactly where they were supposed to be and what to do, but no one said anything to me. I was starting to think I was going to be left behind.'

He started walking toward his office. 'The truth is you're not ready for a mission like this,' he told her, smiling at her expression of surprise. 'Not least because your attitude seems to be that we're all off our collective rockers. I need to show you that this is real,' he explained, stopping to look down at her.

'This is a real enemy we're fighting, one that wants us all dead.'

Ninel tightened her lips and looked down. 'I just…'

'I know,' he said, smiling. 'I needed proof myself once.' He became solemn again. 'Tomorrow you'll have yours.'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DRIFTLESS AREA, NORTHEASTERN IOWA

Now this, Tom Preston thought, is no goddamned fun at all.

He bent, leaning on the hoe in his right hand, and pulled up the weed whose roots he'd loosened with the tool. Despite the unusually cold weather, the corn was coming up just fine; the problem was that weeds were doing just fine as well. This particular patch wasn't very large; a scraggly strip along a little brook that ran down the mostly wooded valley between two steep hills—this part of the state looked more like Appalachia than the prairies.

It was only about a quarter of an acre, and carefully irregular so that it wouldn't show much from orbit, even on days without the current heavy gray cloud and occasional spatters of rain. The brook was running high not far off to his left, purling over abed of brown stones.'t

He tossed the uprooted thistle onto the mulch—leaves, twigs, grass, reeds—that covered the ground between the knee-high plants and moved on to the next weed, hacking at the base of it with a force that hurt his gloved hands. The turned earth had a cool, yeasty smell, oddly like bread. Despite the cool temperature, he was sweating, and his back hurt. Could it have been only last year that farming meant sitting in lordly comfort in an air-conditioned tractor cab, spraying herbicides?

He who does not work does not eat, he told himself.

There were a dozen other people working in the same field, and many more fields like it scattered through the nearby hills—

growing corn, potatoes, beets, all sorts of vegetables. They had come along more slowly than usual, but only by a couple of weeks. And they were a bit runty, but very welcome anyway.

The hunting had been very good, with abundant deer and hare. They'd had to shoot a bear a few weeks ago. It had risen cranky from hibernation and had made clear its antipathy toward its new neighbors; besides, they needed its cave for storage.

Tom Preston had liked the flavor of the meat, but he'd been in the minority. Most of their small community had found it too gamy and way too tough. There were still a lot of scavenged canned goods available for the picky, though, and his big gallon jars of multivitamins would keep deficiency diseases at bay for years, if need be.

The community had grown over the past year to a village of more than a hundred people. Most of whom refused to understand why they should avoid being visible from orbit.

Things had been so peaceful lately that Tom himself had begun to have doubts.

So when some of the newcomers suggested a party to celebrate their survival, he was willing to go along, to a point.

'Fireworks?' Tom said. 'You've got to be kidding!'

'Why? What's wrong with fireworks? It's been wet enough that they shouldn't pose a fire hazard,' one of the