Cold War - Jerome Preisler [132]
“Meanwhile he’s playing UpLink . . .”
“Dealing us what he figures we want most . . .”
“The whereabouts of our people, in other words . . .”
“In exchange for our agreeing to testify that he was cooperative when the time comes to face the music,” Waylon said.
Megan looked from one man to the other.
“This explains a lot,” she said. “Explains almost everything, in fact. Our rover coincidentally rolls too close to the notch . . . we’d programmed it to explore the area . . . and then whoever is out there in Bull Pass takes preemptive action. Disables or destroys it before we can receive telemetry that exposes their presence.”
Nimec was nodding.
“Next our S&R team arrives,” Megan said. “They pick up Scout’s trail, follow it to where it ends—”
“Come too close to the notch themselves with Granger sounding the alert . . .”
“And stumble into the same concealed pitfall as the rover,” Megan said.
Nimec and Waylon gave her near-synchronous nods. Then they were all silent for some moments.
“Why would they want to kill David Payton if they were going to let the others live?” Megan said.
“Granger swears he doesn’t have any idea,” Nimec said.
“And you believe him?”
Nimec shrugged.
“Hard to be sure, but my gut sense is he’s on the level,” he said.
Waylon looked at Megan.
“You know how Doc Payton was,” he said. “I want to say the crew here got along with him. But the truth is there isn’t anybody at CC that didn’t have the urge to strangle him at least once.” Waylon shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s terrible what happened to him. I wish it hadn’t happened. But I’m thinking it’s possible he could have done something to provoke it.”
There was more silence.
“Okay,” Megan said. “We have to make some decisions—”
“Like how we get Scarborough and Bradley out, you mean?” Nimec said.
Megan exchanged glances with him.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “It isn’t that simple. I won’t allow any more of our own to find themselves in a situation where they’re easy targets. There’s a question of how we can accomplish it. Whether we should request help—”
“From who? And when’s it going to reach us? I thought we went through this together once before. The boss got us the authority to act.”
“No argument about that,” Megan said. “But we have a small force here . . . and a slice of it’s been allocated to recovering function at the desalinization plant.”
“You know the pump kicked in for a little while this morning,” Nimec said. It had been a good piece of news he’d gotten upon his return from Marble Point, where he and his rescue pilot had spent an overnight due to passing fog whiteout. “Don’t ask me how the crew did it. For all I can tell they used string, scotch tape, and chewing gum. But they got it to show signs of life. And they figure to have some of its capacity back soon.”
Megan looked at Waylon.
“How much?” she said. “And how soon?”
“I’m estimating we can get to almost a quarter of our regular freshwater output in a couple of days. That’s with four or five of us on it round the clock.” Waylon spread his hands. “I can’t guarantee the pump’ll stay up, but if we lose it again manpower won’t matter. We’ve done about all we can with the parts we’ve cannibalized.”
Megan shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she said. “There are other considerations to weigh. Before she left yesterday, Annie Caulfield advised me about a range of problems we can expect because of the solar flares—”
“Just another reason we should move fast.”
“Pete, we’ve already felt some effects,” she said. “Though they haven’t even emerged from the far side of the sun, it appears we’ve already had some irregularities in our satellite and radio connections. Dead spots.” Megan gestured toward her timed-out desktop computer. “I’ve experienced them myself. Annie provided an access code for a turnkey NASA Web site. A half hour ago I tried to log on and access the latest models for when the activity’s going to peak. And couldn’t. The data link broke on me. It’s still fouled up. We might be looking at periods when our radio connections go partially or entirely down