Puzzling!tao said angrily. Father, it is bloody lethal, and it’s right outside the tree. To hell with
Laton let the glimmer image of a smile penetrate their shared affinity. Only his children ever dared to contradict him, which pleased him after a fashion; obsequiousness was something he disapproved of almost as much as disloyalty. Which gave everybody a narrow, and perilous, balance to maintain. No doubt you have an idea as to what we should do.
Yeah. Load up the landcruisers, and head for the hills. Call it a strategic withdrawal, call it prudence, but just let’s get
I would imagine that even this planet’s chief sheriff will know that something odd is happening in Aberdale and the other Quallheim villages by now,laton said. he sensed the others coming into the conversation, their minds carefully shielded from leaking too many emotions. The LDC’s surveillance satellite may be in a deplorable condition, but I assure you it would be quite capable of spotting the landcruisers. And it will be focused on the Quallheim Counties with considerable diligence.
So? We just zap it. The old blackhawk masers you brought down can reach it. It’ll be weeks before the LDC replace it. By that time we’ll be long gone. They’ll see the track we made breaking through the jungle, but once we reach the savannah they’ll lose us.
I would remind you just how close to success our immortality project is. Are you willing to sacrifice that?
Father, unless we get out of here, we aren’t going to have a project left, or a life to immortalize. We can’t defend ourselves against these usurped villagers. I’ve watched what happens when anyone shoots them. They don’t even notice it! And even if somebody does manage to beat them, the Quallheim Counties are going to be searched a centimetre at a time afterwards. Either way, we can’t stay here.
The lad’s got a point there, Laton,salkid said. We can’t cling on here simply out of sentiment.
You always told me knowledge can’t be destroyed,tao said. We know how to splice a parallel-processing brain together. What we need is a secure location in which to do it. The tree certainly isn’t it, not any more.
Well argued,laton said. Except I’m not sure anywhere on Lalonde can be classed as safe any more. This technology is fearsome.he deliberately allowed his emotional shield to slip, and felt the shocked recoil of their thoughts that he who never demonstrated weakness was so deeply perturbed.
We can hardly walk into Durringham’s spaceport and ask for a lift outsystem,waldsey said.
The children can,laton said. They have been born here, the intelligence agencies have no record of them. Once in orbit they can secure a starship for us.
Bloody hell, you mean it.
Indeed. It is the logical course. At the ultimate extreme, I am prepared to contact the Intelligence agencies in Durringham and report the situation to them. They will take me seriously, and that way a warning will get out.
Is it that bad, Father?salsett asked anxiously.
Laton projected a burst of reassuring warmth at the fifteen-year-old girl. I don’t think it will come to that, darling.
Leaving the tree,she said wonderingly.
Yes,he said. Tao, that was a good suggestion of yours; you and Salkid take a blackhawk maser out of storage, and be ready to eliminate that observation satellite. The rest of you have ten hours to pack. We start for Durringham tonight.
He couldn’t detect a single whiff of dissension. Minds retreated from the affinity contact.
In the hours which followed, the gigantea tree was subject to the kind of coordinated activity it hadn’t seen since their arrival. Orders were flung frantically at the incorporated and the housechimps as the residents attempted to dismantle the work of thirty years in the short hours they had left. Heartbreaking decisions were made over what could go and what must stay, several couples arguing. The landcruisers had to be checked over and prepared after thirty years’ unemployment. Laton’s younger children scampered about getting in the way, nervous and elated at the prospect of leaving; the older members of the fellowship started thinking about the Confederation worlds again. Thermal charges were set throughout the rooms and corridors, ready to obliterate all trace of the gigantea’s secrets.
The hectic activity registered as a background burble amid Laton’s steely thoughts. Occasionally someone would intrude into his contemplation to ask for instructions.
After designating the few personal items he wanted to accompany them, he spent his time reviewing the memory of what happened in the clearing when Quinn Dexter killed Supervisor Manani. That strange lightning was the start of it. He ran and re-ran Camilla’s memory images, which were stored in the tree’s sub-sentient bitek processor array. The lightning seemed to be flat, almost compressed, some sections darker than others. As he ran the memory again the dark areas moved, sliding down the glaring streamers of rampaging electrons. The lightning bolts were acting as conduits to some kind of energy pattern, one which behaved outside the accepted norm.
A draught of air stroked his face. He opened his eyes to darkness. The study was as it always had been. He switched his retinal implants to infrared. Jackson Gael and Ruth Hilton stood on the curving wood before him.
“Clever,” Laton said. His contact with the processors faded away. Affinity was reduced to a whisper rattling round the closed confines of his skull. “It’s energy, isn’t it? A self-determining viral program that can store itself in a non-physical lattice.”
Ruth bent down, and put her hand under his chin, tilting his face up so she could examine him. “Edenists. Always so rational.”
“But where did it come from, I wonder?” Laton asked.
“What will it take to break his beliefs?” Jackson Gael asked.
“It’s not of human origin,” Laton said. “I’m sure of that; nor any of the xenoc races we know.”
“We’ll find out tonight,” Ruth said. She let go of Laton’s chin, and held out her hand. “Come along.”
