Listening carefully, Alec thought he heard two horses slowly advancing toward the cave.
“Mr. Morgan?” a young voice called out.
He did not answer.
“Mr. Morgan.” A silhouette appeared at the cave’s mouth. Then another. “We’d like to join with you, if you’ll have us.”
They were young, barely into their teens. Bored with life in the village. They saw in Alec a chance to find adventure, an opportunity to see the great wondrous world. Alec tried to dissuade them, told them all he had to offer was danger and an early grave. They grinned and insisted that they weren’t afraid and they would follow wherever he led.
So he led them.
First into the nearly abandoned cities, where there were still supplies to be had. Alec avoided the feral gangs that huddled in the burned-out city buildings, and fought only when he was forced to. The two youngsters got sick over the first killings, but soon hardened themselves. Alec traded some ammunition and Peters’ rifle for fresh food and an extra horse in a village on the eastern edge of Douglas’s territory. They left the village with another recruit, an older man who had lost his wife and child to sickness and wanted no more memories of them.
As they rode from that village, Alec’s plan took shape. Let Kobol work his way up here by spring. By then I’ll have defenses completely mapped out. I’ll be waiting for Kobol, and I’ll take command of the force that he brings here.
But he needed a radio. And he knew where to get one.
Alec waited. With newfound patience he bided his time, waited out the blizzards in caves and forest shelters, recruited more men—youngsters, mostly—from the village elders who knew it would be wise to treat him fairly because the days of The Douglas’ reign were numbered.
He learned the territory, mapped its folds and hills, its forests and streams, the roads, the abandoned cities, the villages. And Douglas’s defenses. A new perimeter of wire fencing was going up, he saw; teams of men digging through the snow and frozen ground on the outermost edges of his territory. They also erected wooden watchtowers every kilometer or so, despite the bitter weather. Douglas was not waiting for spring.
Alec located the firebases on hilltops inside the new perimeter fence. He saw scouting parties and larger armed patrols riding across the snowy countryside, but he kept a few jumps away from them. He wanted no serious fighting. Not yet. Once he thought he recognized Will Russo at the head of a column of men on snowshoes. Alec stayed especially far from them.
The days were becoming noticeably longer when he attacked the firebase. He had to lead his men around the long way through a gap in the still-uncompleted fence and watchtower ring. It was still bitterly cold, and the sky seemed to be a constant blank of gray as Alec marched his two dozen men toward the firebase. But toward evening the Sun broke through the western clouds and Alec noticed a tiny blue flower poking its head out of the snow along a hillside brook.
He smiled to himself. Not at the flower’s beauty or the promise of the sunset, but at the correctness of his timing for the attack.
They waited until well after midnight and climbed the hill to the firebase stealthily. It was laid out almost exactly like the base Alec had been in. The men clambered over the snow-packed earthen ramparts and used knives and crossbows on the defenders. Alec got to the radio before the base commander could switch it on. He shot the man twice through the chest as he clawed wildly at the console controls. Only when the commander lay twitching and bleeding to death on the floor of the radio room did Alec notice that the man was still gripping his unbelted trousers with one hand and his feet were bare.
They took no prisoners. They carefully disassembled the radio and its generator and packed them onto the firebase’s own truck. They used the explosives they found there to blow up the underground dugouts and artillery pieces, leaving no evidence that they had stolen the radio.
He’d suspect, Alec knew. But they’d stay far enough from his other radio equipment so that he wouldn’t be able to monitor their calls.
The truck slipped and groaned through the night, bearing the radio equipment and all of Alec’s men. They got back safely outside Douglas’ perimeter and then pushed on for another whole day before Alec tried to call the satellite station. When he finally made contact, the voice that crackled in his earphones was totally incredulous.
“We thought you were dead or...”
“Or gone over to Douglas’s side?”
“Well...”
“Never mind,” Alec said. “Get word to Kobol that I want to see him or his representative as soon as he can get someone up here. There’s much planning to do. I’ll stay in touch with you at least every other day and relay instructions on where to find me.”
“Yessir. I suppose you want to be patched through to the settlement, and speak to your mother?”
Without an eyeblink’s hesitation, Alec answered, “No. I can’t afford to keep broadcasting that long. My transmission might get picked up. Relay this message to her: Tell her that I’m fine and we’ll soon have accomplished our mission.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s everything.”
Chapter 25
Kobol sent Jameson. He arrived within two weeks of Alec’s first radio call.
“How did you get here so quickly?” Alec wondered.
Jameson smiled in his eagle-fierce way. “There are lots of boats down in Florida. And plenty of fuel for them, too. They make the fuel from seawater—electrolyze the hydrogen and then freeze it down to a liquid.”
“I didn’t know that level of technology still existed on Earth,” Alec said.
“The old civilian spaceport is still there,” Jameson explained. “Nobody bothered to bomb it.”
“So there are scientists there.”
“A few. Some engineers. They needed our help, though, otherwise they would’ve been overrun by barbarians.”
“And you came by boat all this way?”
Jameson nodded tightly. “Up the old inland waterway to Delaware Bay, then up the Delaware River. Scooted past Philadelphia as fast as we could—it’s still pretty radioactive. When we ran out of river we trekked overland, and here we are.”
Alec and Jameson were standing on the brow of a small hill, sheltered from the wind by a stand of white-barked birches. Their limbs were still gaunt and snow still covered most of the ground. But the Sun was shining out of a perfectly blue sky and warmth was returning to the land. Alec could hear trickles of melting water running beneath the snow. Soon the streams would be rushing noisily again.
“What’s Kobol doing down there?” Alec asked.
