FALLEN ANGELS

Harry Czescu and Bob Needleton had stopped moving. The night seemed to wait. C.C. cleared his throat and said, "Even if you die."

"Pay your dues! Pay your dues!" Was that a man's

voice or a woman's?

"Lee Arteria?"

"Right. You're… Miller? C.C. Miller. Director of the LASFS.

"Chairman now," Miller said.

Gary Hudson demanded, "Will someone please tell me--"

"She's a LASFS member," Miller said.

"Or was," Bob Needleton said.

Lee Arteria said, "Nobody leaves the LASFS. Death did not release me, nor fafiation. It took me a while to figure that out."

"Which is all very well, but where is the IMU?" Hudson said.

"I have it here." Arteria handed across a box. She held her weapon like a prosthetic attachment. Hudson took the box while trying to evade the machine gun's snout.

"And you better get it installed fast." Arteria glanced at her watch. "It's twenty-three forty-two now. By oh-eight-hundred, oh-eight-thirty tops, this place will be crawling with police. OSI, blues, Greens, Army, Immigration agents, Post Office inspectors for all I know."

"Yes. OK." Gary Hudson held the box gingerly, like a hot potato. Small wonder, Alex thought, considering what--who--had come attached to it. "Okay. And, Alex, you'd better tell Je

Alex went.

The hangar was larger from inside than it had looked from across the ride. Phoenix stood proudly, enshrouded by scaffolds now. They turned on all the lights. That was safer than using flashlights. Furtive lights might be investigated immediately. Working lights could wait until morning.

"God, it's beautiful," Lee said.

"Not as beautiful as when she flies," Hudson said.

"It really will work, then."

Hudson gave her a sour look. "I don't want to seem ungrateful, but you're about the hundredth person to ask that. Yes, Phoenix is ready. More precisely, I'm enough convinced that it will work that I'm going up with it."

Hudson took the IMU and climbed up into the well above one of the landing legs. The opening was barely large enough to admit him. A few moments later he came out far enough to take a wrench out of his pocket, then climbed back in. Finally he emerged with a big grin.

"All's well?" Lee Arteria asked.

Hudson gri

The cabin was crowded. The only empty spaces were the four seats, which could just be reached from above. Chickens protested the disturbance when Hudson turned on the lights. Lee watched from the hatchway as Hudson wormed into the command chair and pulled the panel toward him. He threw switches. Lights blinked yellow, then green, and the readout screen came alive. Hudson typed furiously at the keyboard.

"Hot damn," he a

"All's well?" Lee asked.

"Like a charm." He typed more commands. "There. I've got it in a test loop, but I don't expect any problems."

"And you can launch when?" Lee asked.

"In about ten minutes, or at oh-six-forty. We won't be ready in ten minutes."

"Six and a half hours," Lee said.

Jheri Moorkith was trying to be polite. After all, this was an Air Force Base, and he was talking to Air Force officers. It wasn't easy, though.

"Dammit, she lied to me," Moorkith said.

"How?" Lieutenant Billings asked.

"She said that message on the sermon board, 'Sermon by Nehemiah Scudder,' would lure them in."

"And it didn't. What makes you think they went anywhere near your church?" Colonel Murphy demanded.

"We know they went through Denver, and they crossed the California border at Needles four days ago. Four days! And you've known it all this time, and didn't tell me!"

"I sent you a memo," Billings said.

"Through cha

Murphy braced. "Yes, sir." He didn't pretend to like it.

"Good. Where is Captain Arteria?"

"We don't know exactly," Billings said. "She's communicating through the Mount Emma relay station. That serves the entire Mojave Desert. She could be anywhere out there, but for all I know she's here in Victorville. This is where she told me to wait for orders."

Moorkith grimaced. "Colonel, I am ordering you: find her. I want to know where Captain Lee Arteria is."

"Why?" Murphy demanded.

"Because I think she has gone over. Find Arteria, and we'll know exactly where those astronauts and their fa

Wheep! Wheep!

Lee tore off the fax sheet, read it and handed it to C.C. Miller.

BOSS IT'S GETTING STICKY. MOORKITH IS HERE WITH FULL AUTHORITY FROM THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL TO TAKE CHARGE. THE CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL TOLD HIM TWO MILKHEIM TRUCKS CROSSED THE BORDER AT NEEDLES FOUR DAYS AGO. MOORKITH IS UPSET. MOORKITH IS VERY UPSET. MOORKITH IS FURIOUS. HE'S SCREAMING AT COLONEL MURPHY. THE COLONEL IS SCREAMING AT ME.

DIRECT ORDER FROM COLONEL MURPHY: CAPTAIN ARTERIA, YOU WILL REPORT YOUR LOCATION AND CIRCUMSTANCES IMMEDIATELY. MURPHY.

COLONEL MURPHY SAYS I HAVE ONE HOUR TO FIND OUT WHERE YOU ARE AND GET A FULL REPORT AND THEN HE'S SENDING THE AP'S LOOKING FOR YOU.

HE SAYS THAT BUT I THINK HE SENT THEM OUT ALREADY.

I HOPE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING BECAUSE ITS GETTING HOTTER THAN HELL AROUND HERE.

BILLINGS

Miller read it, then handed it to Bob Needleton. They all stood in a group around Lee's car, reading in the light from the office windows behind them.

"That does look sticky," Bob Needleton said.

"It is sticky," Lee said. "Up to now I might just get away with saying you overpowered me. I'd look like an idiot letting you and Harry get my piece away from me after the way you telegraphed your moves, but I could talk my way out of a court martial. Now I have direct orders to tell my colonel where I am and what I'm doing. That's not a game anymore. That's Leavenworth."

"So what will you do?" Miller asked.'

She looked around at their faces as they stood in a circle around her car. At the desert beyond. Then at the open door to the hangar. She could just see the base of Phoenix.

She still held the submachine gun. She stood for another moment, then got into the car, laid down the machine pistol, and began to type furiously at her fax machine.

Harry looked at Miller. They both looked at Hudson. Hudson shrugged.

Arteria got out again and retrieved her weapon. "There. Take the big tank trucks to the oil fields at Taft and abandon them. Have somebody follow in a car to take the drivers, then call this number and tell the duty sergeant where you left the trucks. Get away from there fast. Keep going on north to wherever you want to hide. Meanwhile, I've got the Air Police watching Cajon Pass to San Bernardino. About the time they get that covered, they'll get the tip about the trucks in Taft. Go on, move! This ought to buy us a few hours."

Hudson nodded warily.

C.C. said, "Sarge, Mark, a truck each. Bjo, you've got a hydrogen car? Fuel up and follow them and keep moving. Sarge, you're in charge."

"Right."

Lee Arteria stood up briskly, The gun had never left her side. "Now as to my price."

"So what's your price?" There was something in Bob Needleton's voice that said he already knew. What had passed between them in the car on the way here?