'Even Dodger gets it right sometimes,' Tsung said. The trip through the strip of forest between them and the Gaeatronics slip at the dockyards was short. They covered it quickly. Janice guessed that Ghost's tribesmen had already cleared the route. She felt sure of it when another Indian joined them at the outer fence. In moments a hole had been clipped, and the runners slipped through. The Indian who had joined them remained behind to seal the breach.
The dock they headed for was dark, but that didn't bother Janice. She could see a couple of twelve-meter surface craft moored on the left, and out at the far end on the right was a low-riding shape with a tall, conical hump amidships. Stenciled next to the Gaeatronics logo was the name Searaven. They reached the craft with three minutes left in their window.
The Searaven was a deep-water-construction submersible converted to serve as an underwater taxi for the wave-motion power plants Gaeatronics maintained in the Sound. The sectioned forward end, with its command and power modules and their manipulator housings, antennae, and light booms gave the vehicle a wasplike appearance. The imagery was enhanced by the slope of the aft hull where, instead of a normal open cargo frame, the Searaven carried an enclosed and pressurized hull for passengers. The rear of the cabin narrowed down to a docking collar that could serve as a diver's port or, after mating with another hatch, could allow the passengers to cross in relatively dry comfort from the submersible to another vessel or to an underwater station. She could imagine the connection assembly thrusting downward from the machine's belly like an insect's stinger.
She hadn't liked the idea of going underwater when Sam had presented it. She hated the water. It would be dark and cold down there, like a grave. She would be in an alien environment where she would have no control. Now, faced with the imminent realization of her fears, she hesitated.
'What's the problem?' Ghost asked as the others scrambled aboard.
She didn't want to speak her fears aloud. 'Who's driving this thing?' 'Rabo,'
'Ya got a problem wid dat?' Kham snarled. 'Rabo's a good rigger,' Ghost said soothingly. 'Yeah,' Rabo agreed. His voice came from the submersible's external speaker. He had been the first aboard and was already jacked in. 'Being ork don't mean nothing in the interface.'
'Bruiser like you ain't afraid of going down, are ya?' Kham taunted.
She lied with a shake of her head. Her voice almost cracked when she said, 'I don't like water and I don't like tight places.'
'Gonna get both.' Kham laughed, and disappeared below.
'Come on, Wolf shaman,' Ghost urged. 'Only got forty seconds till security check. Got to get the hatch dogged.'
She forced her fear down and stepped aboard. Ghost waited with seemingly imperturbable patience as she squeezed her way past the coaming. As soon as she had cleared the ladder he was in in a flash of jacked reflexes, and swinging the hatch closed. He spun the wheel as soon as the lip of the hatch touched the coaming.
'How close?' Tsung asked. 'Point five,' he replied.
'Too close,' she said, giving Janice a sour look. 'All right, Rabo. Soon as you get clearance from Dodger, get us going.'
'What's your hurry? Wichita ain't going anywhere.'
Janice was puzzled. Wichita was in Kansas. There was no way to get there by boat. 'What are you talking about? We can't get there by boat.'
'She's worse dan her brudder,' Kham griped.
'Back off,' Ghost warned him. To Janice, he said 'Wichita is a submarine, Nereid class. She put to sea just before Thunder Tyee's boys overran the Bremerton sub base back in the teens. The warriors had already gotten a few cannon hits on her, and they put a missile into her before she cleared harbor. She went down and exploded, or so it seemed. Salish dredges still bring up bits of debris sometimes, but not much.'
'So if we're headed after her,' Janice said, 'she didn't explode.'
'That's what Dodger's data says,' Ghost confirmed. 'Bad guys know it, too. The Wichita didn't sink when she went under the waves. At least not immediately. Captain Walker was running a scam, but the tech didn't match his nerve. He wanted to run for safe territory, didn't want the Indians getting control of the missiles on board. He barely coaxed the Wichita out past Cape Flattery. The sub was in no shape to make it down the coast. Wouldn't have had a prayer of making it to the Canal, so he scuttled her.'
That had all happened before Janice was born. It seemed incredibly ancient. 'What makes anyone think that the missiles will be any good after more than thirty years under water?''
'Oh, the missiles won't,' Tsung said. 'But the bombs, that's another matter. Missiles are cheap, but bomb production is quite restricted. There's not so much fissionable material around anymore. What comes out of the plants is strictly monitored by an international commission, which doesn't leave a terrorist squad much chance of getting their hands on anything.'
'And we're going to keep it that way,' Ghost said solemnly.
The dance was well under way.
Sam rose on the power and felt himself widening, spreading through the sky. He rushed through the hole to the otherworld. He reached the guardian, no longer a Man of Light that mocked him, but something unseen, yet somehow recognizable. Tonight it had no power to limit him. He felt it bow out of his way as he approached.
Beyond the tunnel, another night sky awaited him.
The silver moon hung overhead, its glow full of magic and wonder. Its light lay on the land like a shroud, blanketing the woods and rolling hills in argent stillness. A thread hung from the moon, and from that thread a darkness.
The dark spot descended, growing as it did or only appearing to grow, but appearance was reality in the otherworld. A rush of power swept by Sam, fluttering his clothes. The air carried a scent at once familiar and alien. Familiar, in that he had sensed it once before in a diluted and fragmentary fashion. Alien, in that it was so other in its simultaneous menace and fascination.
When the darkness settled to the ground, it danced before him on eight slender legs. The many-jointed limbs arched out of the forward portion of the great, furred body, rising above it to angle down again to the ground. A shining drop of half-formed silk beaded at the spinneret tipping the end of the abdomen. The rounded head glistened with moonlit highlights that ran in silver streams from its crown to the great mandibles. There were no markings that Sam could see. Spider.
Sam could feel the eyes two large and six lesser-watching him. Unnerving, their jet gaze raised childhood fears. Sam's image was reflected in their depths as the totemic creature bobbed up and down. The multiple reflections jittered, their motion reflecting his feelings.
This was not as it should be. 'How have you come here?' he asked. Spider's voice was sweet, uncanny in its warmth. 'How have you? Power calls to power, does it not? Out in the colorless world, you did me a service. For a time, you carried a small fragment that had been touched by my power. Through such trifling contact, I came to know you and your power. Now that you walk the realms where the totems dwell, how could I miss you? You shine like a beacon. The power cloaking your shoulders calls me to be near you.'
Sam didn't like the idea that Spider could follow him wherever he went. Did she already know of his plans? 'What do you want?'
'To help you.' One of the great eyes seemed to wink at him. 'I know many secrets.'
'For which the price is, no doubt, more than I care to pay.'
A shrug rippled through her battery of legs. 'Cost is balanced by desire and need. I can be helpful.'
As could any totem, for they were inherently powerful. 'You can be deadly as well. I've heard the stories.'
'You cite stories as a reason to distrust me? Fairy tales and myths? Who has told you of any personal dealings with me?'
'No one,' Sam answered honestly. 'Then how can you know what it is like to deal with me? How can you know whether I am trustworthy or not? Where is your proof, your evidence? Do you condemn so blindly? Those who shutter their minds and hearts with fear of the unknown travel a perilous course. Have you not been maligned by those who oppose you? I, too, have been maligned by ignorant enemies. I am innocent of crime.'
Sam was confused. 'If you're innocent, why did the elves lock you up?''
'Did they tell you that they had?' Spider's amused laugh was a high-pitched chitter. When she continued speaking, her voice was full of indignation. 'Such as they cannot chain me. They are petty flesh entities, moved by petty and foolish flesh desires. They do not understand my nature, and so they fear me. They turn their backs on
