"Georges is a genius," she said, turning back, "but this may not
actually be possible. Nobody's ever done it before."
"Whatever you're planning had better be possible or we've got to begin
thinking up a Plan B, and quick." He was staring out the open door.
"Because our new friends are definitely on their way and ready for a
close encounter."
"Georges has got to hook this terminal directly to the Fujitsu--which
isn't how we normally use it--and then give me control of the routine
that runs the servos. In effect he has to put them on manual."
"Don't think you're going to manage it in time," he said. He was
thinking this was no time to get experimental, but he decided to keep
the thought to himself. Instead he nervously checked the Uzi. Three
rounds were left in the last remaining clip. He regretted all the
random firing he had done over the last few hours. Now every round had
to be hoarded as though it were the last. On the other hand, maybe he
was lucky just to have the damned Uzi at all, along with the few puny
rounds left. The trick now was to try not to have to use them.
Down below them the four black figures had already moved past the
helicopter landing pad and were about to be swallowed up in the copse
of trees that began at the base of the hill. But now a sliver of moon
had appeared from behind a bank of clouds in the east, casting an eerie
pale glow onto the scene. He found himself deeply wishing for an IR
scope, which would be a great help, bring them right up.
"I just lost them in the trees," he said, turning back. "Which means
we've got about five minutes left for whatever you've got in mind."
"Trust me." She was still typing. 'This workstation just logged onto
the big system, so the main servo program is now accessible from here.
Georges, I love you. Now all I have to do is try and override the
internal checks that go through the Fujitsu down in Command."
Vance was staring, not quite sure what he was expected to say. "Then
what?"
"Hopefully it's a surprise," she laughed, a trifle grimly.
Just be quiet and let me work." Then her voice swelled with nger. "The
bastards. This is going to be a pleasure. After what they did to Chris,
maybe I'll get to return the favor."
Vance started to say something, but stopped when he noticed the first
signs of motion at the edge of the copse of brush. The killers were
emerging, and the sight gave him a chill. They're the hunters and we're
the quarry, he thought, it's going to be like a giant turkey-shoot,
played with automatics.
"You know . . ." He turned back. '"here's still time for you to give
yourself up. They'd probably rather have you live anyway. You could do
the white-flag thing and I could use the confusion to try and make it
into the brush down here, toward the shore. Those guys are carrying
something that looks suspiciously like heavy weaponry. But that's a
riddle we don't want to solve empirically."
"Look, trust me," she shot back. "I know what I'm doing . . . I think.
Don't you have any faith?"
"We may not know each other well enough to be having his conversation."
"As a matter of fact, you're exactly right." She hurriedly finished
typing. "Okay, Georges has the control set up now and we're on line.
Hang on."
She reached down to flip a large red switch on the side of he console.
Immediately one of the large green cathode-ray tubes began to glow.
What it showed, however, was not the usual sweeping line going round
and round. Instead it dismayed the crisp outline of the VX-1 space
vehicle at the other end of the island. Next she flipped another
switch, then reached for a mouse that was connected to the keyboard.
She zipped it across, and the focus of the radar picture changed,
almost as though it were a zoom lens. The image of the vehicle became
larger and smaller. He realized the radar could be focused.
Then she called in another routine.
"I'm going to cut the power for a second, take it down cross the
facility and onto the base of the mountain, and then I'll power up
again."
He watched as the outline of the island, in exquisite detail, swept
over the screen.
"I thought this thing was only for transmission. How can it be sending
back images?"
"There's the phased-array section for powering the vehicle with
microwaves--that's part of the Cyclops--but we also have to have a
guidance section, for keeping the beam on track. The Cyclops is the
gun, but the guidance radar here is what we use to aim it." She was
concentrating on the screen "Now, where do you think our friends are
down there?"
'They're probably halfway up the hill by now."
"Let's take a look." She brought down the focus, then began scanning.
"Hold on." He stayed her hand, bringing the mouse to halt, and then
pointing to the lower left corner of the large screen. "Didn't
something move just then, right there?"
"Where?"
There." He took the mouse and guided the image to center screen. "Where
is that in the real world? It's got to be close."
She zipped the mouse again, bringing up the detail. A number scrolled
at the bottom of the screen. "Four hundred meters, to be exact."