“Your father,” Kobol made it sound as if he were accusing Alec, “knew we need the fissionables. So he’s taken them away. He’s trying to kill the whole settlement.”

Alec asked levelly, “How long can we go on what’s left in the settlement?”

“A year. Maybe eighteen months. What difference does it make?”

“By that time we’ll have the fissionables. If I have to tear this planet apart, I’ll find them.”

Kobol didn’t reply. He merely made a derisive, snorting sound.

They trudged slowly back out of the vaults and through the empty processing building, heading for the entrance they had come through. The tired march of defeated men, Alec said to himself. But somehow he did not feel defeated. He was excited, almost happy. Father’s forcing me to seek him out. His first mistake.

They were halfway through the connector tunnel when Alec’s earphone crackled: “There’s somebody... toward us...” The radio voice was weak and masked by heavy sizzling interference.

“What?”

“...lone person... walk... us here on the truck...”

Alec hurried through the tunnel and got out of the metal-walled area in time to hear, “Hey, it’s a girl!”

They quickened their pace. Once outside, Alec could see a lone, slim figure heading for the truck, walking slowly but deliberately from the distant woods toward them. By the time he and his men reached the truck, she was almost in hailing distance.

“She’s unarmed,” Kobol observed.

“And good to look at,” said Gianelli.

Small and slim, wearing a stained white blouse and long slacks that fitted the curve of her hips snugly. Longish, serious, big-eyed face. Long blonde hair wisping in the breeze. She shrugged it back away from her face as she came up to the truck.

Alec said, “Looks like she’s got a definite reason for coming here.”

“Maybe she’s lonesome,” Gianelli snickered.

“Not for you, big nose,” one of the other men said.

“Can’t see anyone else around,” Kobol said, scanning the woods with binoculars. “But there could be an army out there among those trees.”

Like Hannibal’s army at Lake Trasimene, Alec thought.

He watched the girl as she calmly approached them. A stubborn face, frowning slightly in the sun. Strong jaw, prominent cheekbones, thin patrician nose. Mouth set in a determined line. But the eyes were searching, a bit uncertain, perhaps a bit frightened.

He could feel the tension among the men as she walked closer. Ridiculous! A dozen men armed to the teeth, staring nervously at a lone unarmed girl. The firing bolt of a rifle snicked mechanically.

Scared to death of one girl! Alec almost smiled.

“Gianelli,” he said softly, “keep an eye on the buildings. She might be a decoy.”

“Watch the flanks, too,” Kobol said to no one in particular.

“I’d rather watch her flanks,” Gianelli muttered.

The girl raised her right hand, palm open, and stopped some twenty paces from the truck. Alec walked out toward her. He knew without looking over his shoulder that Kobol was right behind him.

“My name is Angela,” she said. No smile. Her voice was unemotional, matter-of-fact.

“I’m Alec, and this is...”

“Alexander Morgan and Martin Kobol,” she said.

“You know my father.” Alec wasn’t surprised.

“He sent me here. To warn you.”

For an instant Alec felt as if the entire world hung suspended in time. He could feel the sun on his shoulders and neck, see the bright sky and the new green woods in the distance, hear the girl’s soft, wary voice. But it was all as if he were really somewhere else, far more distant them the Moon, watching the scene remotely.

“We’re not frightened by warnings,” Kobol said.

“Wait,” Alec snapped. To the girl, “Warn us about what?”

She pushed a strand of hair from her face. “There’s a raider band heading for the airport. They saw your ships land...”

“Why would they head for us? Aren’t they frightened...?”

A smile toyed at Angela’s lips. “Scared of a few dozen men? You know how many men the raiders can put together?”

“We have enough firepower...”

“I know,” she interrupted. “They know, too. It’s your weapons they’re after.”

Kobol stepped up to her. “You’re lying. We would have detected a large group of men moving through this territory. We have sensors...”

“No shit?” She turned back to Alec. “Look, your father told me all about the platform you’ve got up in the sky. They can’t see the raiders—not down under the trees. There’s at least a couple hundred of them linking up together a few klicks from the airport. We’re trying to keep them off balance...”

“It’s a trick,” Kobol insisted.

She scowled at him.

“Where is my father?” Alec asked her.

Angela waved a hand. “Up north... seven, eight hundred klicks from here.”

“And the fissionables?”

“The what?”

So he hasn’t told her everything. “The machines and things that were in these buildings. My father has them up north with him?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. These buildings have been empty for years.”

I’ll bet. “Come on,” Alec said to Kobol, “we’ve got to get back to the airport. If there really are several hundred...”