Rising Storm

except three times to buy gas. And since I got lost twice on lonely roads with no human beings around for as far as the eye could see, and since from here that's pretty far, I seriously doubt I was followed. Okay?"

Sarah felt herself relax marginally. She chose a sandwich and started to nibble.

To her amusement the girl seemed to take it as a signal that she, too, could begin eating and chose one for herself. Well, I suppose she's right. I don't approve of her being here after all.

"Nonstop?" Sarah said, raising her brows. "All the way from Brazil?"

"Yes."

"Quite a drive," Sarah commented.

"Especially if you get lost," Wendy agreed, nibbling delicately at the home-baked bread.

"Did you have to ask for directions?" Sarah asked casually. Wendy looked up at her, impatience briefly plain on her face. "No," she said carefully. "I worked it out by myself." She put the sandwich down and then looked Sarah full in the he face. "I would never do anything that might cause John the slightest risk."

The two women locked gazes and Sarah felt a sinking feeling in her middle. No doubt this is how every mother feels when her son gets his first serious girlfriend. And, if anything, Wendy, here, appeared deadly serious. I wonder how John feels about her? Was he going to be thrilled to see her, or was he going to react as though she was a stalker."

That thought sent another spasm of uncertainty through her gut. After all, she had only Wendy's word that she'd been framed. And do I know anything about her? Nooo. John had barely mentioned her name. She waggled her foot thoughtfully. He could be shy about confiding in his mother about it, or he might be as surprised and dismayed as she was to find out that he had a girlfriend.

And… there was a time when I was a student with a part-time job, too. And then my world fell apart.

Well, she'd find out when he got home. In the meantime…

"You look exhausted," she said. Wendy looked up at her. "Why don't we take this"—she stood, wincing slightly at the pull of the healing wound, and picked up the tray—"upstairs. I'll show you your room for tonight. There's a bathroom en suite, so you can have some privacy. Just leave the tray outside the door when you're finished."

Wendy stood, still a little wobbly. "Thank you."

Sarah glanced at her. The kid was dead on her feet. I know what that feels like.

She'd felt that way often at the end of a hard trip. We'll see, she thought, and turned to lead the way upstairs.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

VON ROSSBACH ESTANCIA

Wendy couldn't sleep. She had, perhaps, dozed a bit, but for the most part she had simply lain still, too tired to move, too wide-awake to truly rest. Her cramped body felt as though she was still in motion. Very distracting.

She had heard people moving about downstairs for some time, and an occasional voice speaking Spanish. But things had quieted down now that darkness had fallen.

I wonder what time it is. Not late, she thought, perhaps nine o'clock. But for farm people that must be the same as midnight. They had to be up with the sun, didn't they? She listened carefully and heard no human voice, though the night was alive with the sound of insects. Different insects from the ones she was familiar with. The air smelled different, too, dusty and spicy, kind of like a kiln did when baking pots.

She heard a car in the distance and smiled to herself; she hadn't realized that she'd missed the sound of traffic. She tracked its progress by ear and her heart began to beat faster as it approached. It must be John!

Wendy wanted to spring to her feet and dance down the stairs to meet him at the door. Indeed, that was her intention, but she couldn't seem to gather the energy to do so and lay on the bed urging herself up, too paralyzed by exhaustion or uncertainty to get her muscles in gear.

The car drove by the house and her heart sank. She'd been mistaken after all; it was somebody else coming home. Wendy sighed, feeling discouraged and out of place. I shouldn't have come, she thought. She was suddenly amazed that she'd had the nerve to do so. John had no obligation to her. How dare she throw herself at him like this? What in God's name had she been thinking?

She covered her face with her hands and groaned aloud. I'll leave in the morning, she thought. Before or after she'd seen John? One part of her longed to see him,

to hear his voice and to hold him in her arms. Another cringed with embarrassment and dreaded seeing him, fearing rejection. Wendy sighed and dropped her arms to her sides.

What's done is done. Face the music and move on. Certainly Sarah Connor would like her to move on; there'd been no mistaking that.

Her head lifted slightly and she strained her ears. Had that been tin: sound of a distant door closing':' It might bu John's mother finally coming upstairs.

Assuming she had a room upstairs.

Maybe she's coming up to smother me with a pillow to round out her list of crimes. In a way, Wendy supposed that would simplify things. And Sarah had certainly looked like she wanted to kill her for a split second there. Not that I intend to let her.

Wendy sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, surprised at how much better she felt. The dizziness was gone completely, though her limbs still felt heavy. She stood up, the old nightgown that Elsa, the housekeeper's niece, had loaned her falling softly to midcalf. Tiptoeing to the door, she released the latch carefully, letting it swing open slightly.

She heard a man's deep voice and the sound of booted footsteps downstairs.

Then her heart leaped; that was John's voice, followed by his laugh. Sarah rushed out of the office and shushed them. That was followed by a tense silence. After a moment Wendy heard stealthy footsteps on the stairs and she closed the door and hurried back to bed, lying down and forcing her breath to a steady, slow, and audible rhythm.

She caught herself falling asleep despite her excitement and thought, I should have tried that before. Wendy counted slowly to a hundred before she dared to open her eyes to slits and tried to see if anyone was at the door. Unfortunately she was facing away from it. Note to self: Next time think about position. After a few more tense moments she decided to risk turning her head.

No one was there. Her heartbeat decelerated but by no means returned to normal.

Wendy sat up slowly and once again tiptoed across the room. She opened the door, holding her breath, half expecting to find herself staring into Sarah's disapproving eyes. Still, no one was there. Wendy let her breath out slowly in relief.

Slipping through the door, she slunk to the top of the stairs. From there she could hear voices. They seemed to be coming from the office where she'd met Sarah, but they were muffled by the room's heavy door. Wendy crept down the stairs and made her way to the office. The hall was dark and she had to steer her way past dimly seen obstacles, not always successfully. Despite the pain, she thanked God that stubbed toes made no sound when they contacted mahogany furniture.

Once she reached her goal she found herself stymied by the thickness of the elaborate door. She couldn't make out a word, but the tone of John's voice was not happy. Wendy stood straight, biting her lower lip, then she took a deep breath and moved down the hallway to the room next to the office. The door to this room was open and it, too, had French doors opening onto a walled garden.

She tried the knob and found them locked, but she located the key by feel.

Screwing her eyes shut and clenching her teeth, she turned the key with the greatest care, slowly, slowly easing the latch back. At last, without a click, the door stood unlocked. Wendy shook her hands out and just stood for a moment,

letting her galloping heartbeat slow.

The way my luck is going, she thought, the hinges will scream like a banshee.

She turned the knob and opened the door; it moved silently and cool night air washed over her, prickling the skin of her bare arms. Peeking out, she saw that the doors to the office were still open and at last she could hear what was being said.

"She's not a stalker, Mom." John's voice sounded weary, as though he'd already said it again and again.

"How do you know that?" Sarah challenged. "And how did she know how to find you?"

Dieter was sitting behind his desk, looking grim as he watched mother and son argue. John was seated in one of the guest chairs while Sarah paced the floor like a caged tiger.

"She found out where I was a few minutes after I first contacted her," John admitted. Then he ducked his head, looking up at his mother from under his eyebrows as he waited for the explosion.

There wasn't one. Sarah stood absolutely motionless and looked at him. "Do the rest of your little friends in Massachusetts know where we are?" she asked quietly.

"No, Mom. Just Wendy, and I asked her not to tell, so I know she didn't."

"You know she's not a stalker and you know she'd never tell anyone where we

are. How did they know to send her to Brazil?"

"I told Snog that if he ever had an emergency and needed to get to me, to meet me in Sao Paulo." He looked his mother in the eye, though the steadiness of her stare made him want to flinch. "It's one of the biggest cities in South America,"

he explained, "and it's far away from here. Which makes it perfect for a meeting like that."

"Except that your little playmate didn't wait for you in Sao Paulo, she came directly here!" Sarah folded her arms across her bosom and took a deep breath.

"And it's not like she's accused of murdering some nobody. Ron Labane was a celebrity."

"She didn't kill him, Ma."

"How can you be sure of that?" Sarah asked as she resumed her pacing. "How well do you actually know her?"

"Well enough," John said, standing in her path. "She's not a killer." He lowered his head to look directly into her eyes. "Do you think I don't know one when I see one?"

"It's not an exact science," Sarah snapped. "You can't point at someone and say, There's a killer, or at someone else and say, There's someone who wouldn't kill to save their own life. If you think you can you're kidding yourself." They stood eye to eye for a long moment. "Why do you think she couldn't have killed him?"

"First, because she thought the sun rose and set out of his ass. Second, because she had no reason to. Third, because there's nothing in her experience that would

make her a killer."

"You don't know that she didn't have a reason," Sarah argued. "You haven't even spoken to her."

"Well, if she did have a reason then it was self-defense," John shouted. He struck his chest. "I know her! I trust her; and that should be enough for you."

They both stood there, glaring at each other and breathing hard.

"What really matters," Dieter said calmly, "is whether or not she was followed."

"There's been no sign of anyone." Sarah looked away from her son and moved toward the desk. "She says she drove straight from Sao Paulo and only stopped three times for gas. She says she didn't ask for directions and that she kept checking to see if anyone was behind her. Which I believe because she was obviously scared as a rabbit."

"Of course she is!" John snapped in exasperation. "Weren't you?"

Sarah spun on her heel to face him, her mouth open for a retort.

"No," Dieter said.

They both looked at him, their mouths open.

"There's no point to continuing this argument. You've both totally lost your focus." He tipped his chair back and took a whisky decanter and a cut-crystal glass off the low filing cabinet. "The truth is, we won't know anything until we've spoken to the girl."

"I spoke to her," Sarah snapped, pointing to herself.

Dieter poured himself a measure of the single malt and replaced the decanter. He swirled the rich liquor around the glass and then took a sip, closing his eyes with pleasure. "I've been looking forward to that all day," he said. Then he put the glass on the desk and pulled his chair forward. "If you met her with that fire in your eye, Sarah, I doubt that you got much information out of her."

"Thanks a lot," she said, clearly wounded by his remark. "But I got enough out of her to know she's a liability. We've got to get rid of her."

" What?" John's face was a mask of disbelief. He took a step toward his mother.

"I can't believe you said that."

With a puzzled expression on her face Sarah looked from John to Dieter and back again. "For heaven's sake, you guys! All I meant was that I'm not willing to baby-sit someone with the law hot on her trail while you're gone!"

"You're pretty picky all of a sudden," John said hotly. "Wasn't so long ago you

—"

The flat of von Rossbach's big hand hit the desk with a resounding slap that made them both jump. He glared at them until they both looked sheepish. "As I said before"—his voice was deadly quiet—"we need to speak to the young lady.

Would you care to join us, miss?" Dieter looked to the French doors.

John followed his gaze. "Wendy?" he said.

Wendy peeked around the bush that had concealed her, eyes wide.

"Wendy!" John repeated joyously, and stepped toward her.

She flew into his arms and he held her tightly, burying his face in her hair. They held on to each other tightly for what seemed like a long time, and yet too short a time; his hands stroked her back through the thin nightdress, leaving a trail of warmth on her chilled skin. She opened her eyes to catch Dieter's half smile.

"Hello," he said.

She smiled back at him.

"Those who eavesdrop seldom hear good of themselves," Sarah said self-righteously.

Wendy wrinkled her nose. "Tell me about it," she growled.

Dieter laughed out loud. "From Sarah's description I thought you were some kind of shrinking violet." He grinned at Sarah's offended look. "Please sit down,"

he invited, indicating the chair before his desk.

John took her hand and led her to the chair, taking the seat beside her without releasing her hand. They smiled at each other as though they were alone and completely at peace. Sarah stood behind them with her arms crossed, frowning—

looking, and no doubt feeling, very much left out. Dieter sighed, not certain if it was at this example of young love or at Sarah's apparent jealousy. He knew that she wanted her son to have someone, just not right now.

Ah, but Sarah, he thought sadly, better now than never at all.

"What happened to your hair?" John asked.

Wendy touched it with her free hand. "We cut it so I'd look more like Snog's sister. I'm using her passport." She looked at Dieter. "That car I drove here in was rented using one of her credit cards."

"When is the car due back?" he asked.

Wendy shrugged. "I took it for ten days; I've got seven left. I didn't know how long it would take to get here, or what would happen when I arrived, so I went for a fairly long time."

Dieter nodded, considering. "We'll take it back for you," he said. "I'll pay the bill in cash so there'll be no paper trail."

"Thank you," she said, looking awkward. "But I'm already imposing so much—"

"Don't worry," von Rossbach said with a magnanimous wave of his hand.

"Especially at this late date," Sarah muttered. Then she rolled her eyes at Dieter's disapproving expression. Throwing up her hands, she went to sit in the far corner, in the office's only other chair.

"Tell us what happened," von Rossbach invited.

Wendy glanced at John, who nodded. She licked her lips and began.

When she was finished Sarah said, "That was a lot more coherent than your first

recital."

Wendy looked at John and smiled at him before answering. "I'm much more rested." She glanced over her shoulder at Sarah. "And John makes me feel more secure."

"The only significant connection between you and the murder would be your fingerprints on the weapon," Sarah observed. "Why didn't you take it with you?"

"Gimme a break!" Wendy snapped. "I was drugged and in shock. For a moment there I was going to run down and report the murder to the desk clerk. All things considered, I think I did pretty well. This might be everyday stuff to you, but it's all new to me. So just back off, okay?"

Sarah blinked and John tried not to smile. Dieter maintained a neutral expression

—with difficulty. "Given what you've told us," he said, "I doubt you were followed." He looked over at Sarah. "I also doubt you can be traced. That is"—

he turned back to Wendy—"unless your friends…"

She shook her head. "No. They wouldn't turn me in. Nor do they know where I am. I've never told them this is where John lives and there's nothing on my computer or in my notes about anything." Wendy shrugged. "So things are as safe as they can be under the circumstances."

Von Rossbach nodded. "You look tired," he said gently. "Why don't you go back to bed? We can talk some more in the morning."

Wendy glanced uncertainly at John, who squeezed her hand. "I'll go up with you," he said. "I'm tired, too." But the look he gave her promised at least a few

minutes together. Hand in hand they left the room without looking back.

After they'd gone Dieter and Sarah sat quietly for a few moments. Then Sarah got up from her chair and approached the desk.

"I've never seen you like this," Dieter observed.

Sarah snorted and half smiled. "I've never felt like this," she admitted. As she took Wendy's seat she raised and dropped her hands to slap her thighs. "It's just that I don't know anything about her."

The big Austrian laughed and quickly said when she frowned, "My mother said exactly that when I got my first serious girlfriend."

Sarah grimaced. "Yes, well…" She gave him an assessing look. "How did you know she was out there? I didn't have a clue."

"The shampoo in the guest bathrooms has a very strong scent," he admitted.

She tilted her head, looking at him in amused surprise. "I'd noticed that, but I never realized there was a reason for it." She shook her head and laughed. "But even so, I didn't smell her."

"I thought that was why you stopped using it," he said. "So I wouldn't know where you were."

"Not likely," she said. "I stopped using it because the smell made me gag." They grinned at each other until she lowered her eyes.

"It's obvious that she adores him," Dieter said, his expression sympathetic.

Sarah instantly went on the offensive. "She also allegedly adored Ron Labane, and look at what happened to him!"

"Oh, come on, Sarah! She's a victim of circumstance. John backs her up."

"And the neighbors always say, 'He was such a quiet man,' " Sarah snapped back.

"It's pure coincidence that she got involved with the murder. The killers were clever, but they couldn't know how resourceful she would be."

"I don't believe in coincidence, or accident, or happenstance when it affects John," Sarah said firmly. "I can't afford to." She looked in his eyes. " We can't afford to. Especially not now."

He lowered his head and looked at her from under his eyebrows. "Do you think she's a Terminator?"

Sarah threw up her hands again and looked away. "Before Serena Burns I would have sworn it wasn't possible. Now?" She shook her head. "Who the hell knows."

In Wendy's room, on Wendy's bed, the two young lovers lay entwined. John was still completely dressed, Wendy was far less so and not minding that a bit. She tugged at John's shirt as she kissed him, inhaling his scent, her eyes closed in sheer pleasure.

John stayed her hand, captured it, and brought it to his lips. He kissed it and smiled at her, his eyes begging her to understand. "Mom's still awake." he said softly.

Wendy groaned, then buried her face in his neck. "I love you," she said passionately. After a moment she said timidly, "But I don't think your mother likes me at all." She looked up at him. "She's not what I expected."

John laughed lightly. "Right now she's not what I expected. But then, you're my first girlfriend and a total surprise to her. Mom doesn't like surprises. One time I baked a cake for her birthday, lit the candles, and hid behind the door. When she came in I jumped out and yelled, 'Surprise!' and she pulled a gun on me." He chuckled. "It's a wonder I wasn't shot."

Wendy stared at him, wide-eyed, as he recounted what he apparently thought of as a fond memory.

Noticing her mood, he gave her a squeeze and kissed her forehead. "Once she gets to know you, she'll like you," he assured her. "I know she will."

"I hope so," she said with a sigh, and kissed him again.

After a few heated moments they came up for air. John held her more tightly and groaned. "I wish we had more time!" he said fervently.

Wendy's head went back and she studied his face in the dim light of the bedside lamp. "Before your mother comes up to bed?" she teased.

He sighed and shook his head.

"Then what do you mean?"

"Dieter and I have to go somewhere," he said. "We'll be gone for a few weeks at

least." Or forever, he thought, depending on how things go.

"Where are you going?" she demanded, frowning.

"Shhh." He laid his finger on her lips. "Don't worry, you can stay here with Mom."

Wendy sat up and looked down on him. "I'd rather go to hell," she said frankly.

Then she drew close to him again, snuggling into his arms. "Or with you."

He shook his head.

"Please," she begged.

"Wendy," he said, tracing the curve of her cheek with his finger, "I can't. I'm sorry to say no to you. But I just can't."

She closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath. After a moment she nodded.

"Fine," she said. "I understand."

John looked at her in concern; he thought that her eyelashes had grown moist.

Before he could speak Wendy said, "I'm really tired. I should go to sleep now."

She still hadn't opened her eyes and John felt a sinking feeling as she drew herself from his arms and turned her back on him. He reached out for her.

"Good night," she said.

John drew back his hand, confused. He knew he'd somehow mishandled this situation, but genuinely didn't see any alternative. In his heart he understood that

Wendy felt rejected, but he could hardly take her to Antarctica for a raid on a military facility.

He'd missed her so much, had wanted to see her and hold her for so long. But not now! There was just no time. No time to be with her and maybe not even time to heal this breach. He let out his breath in an almost inaudible sigh and reached out to touch her bare shoulder.

"We'll talk tomorrow," he said. Leaning over, he kissed her neck. "Sleep well, sweetheart. Good night."

Getting up from the bed, he left the room, closing the door softly behind him. On the way to his room he reflected on how he'd often wondered as a kid how adults could say things like sweetheart and darling to one another with a straight face.

He thought of the girl on the bed and smiled. And now I know.

Wendy heard the click of the latch as he left the room and raised her head from the pillow. She gave one self-pitying little sniff, then steeled herself. She was going with him. He just didn't know it yet.

John's mother made no comment when he announced at breakfast that he intended to ramble around the estancia with Wendy that day. The very lack of reaction raised Wendy's hackles even more than John's blithe assumption that she'd go with him.

"Do you ride?" John asked her, smiling.

" 'Fraid not," she said. "I wanted a horse when I was little, until my dad explained about mucking out. Then I changed my mind and made do with

Bryer's figures and glossy calendars." She grinned. "Truth to tell, we had a hard time affording my cat."

"I can teach you," John offered.

She smiled at his eager expression, her heart giving a little extra thump, and decided to forgive him. "I'd like that. But first I'd like to enjoy your company with no distractions. I"—she was about to say, I've missed you, but suddenly remembered that they weren't alone and became shy—"can't wait to hear about what you've been doing," she finished lamely.

"Likewise," John said. "Are you finished?"

Wendy instantly laid down her napkin, saying "yes" despite the food remaining on her plate.

"May we be excused?" John asked his mother. Sarah was examining a printout that Dieter had given her and didn't hear him. "Mom?" he said again, somewhat louder.

She looked up at him. "What?"

"May we be excused?"

Sarah glanced at their barely touched plates and shrugged, slightly bemused that he would even ask. "Of course," she said. When the two young people left in a clatter she turned to Dieter. "Suddenly he's exquisitely polite."

"She's the older woman," Dieter observed. "Maybe he's trying to appear

sophisticated."

Sarah gave a little laugh and shook her head. "This thing between them—it's for real, isn't it?"

Dieter nodded, suddenly solemn. This thing between us, he thought, is that real?

Aloud he said, "I'm glad of it. It will give him something special to come home to."

"Hunh!" Sarah said. "That puts me in my place."

"You know what I mean." He laid his hand on hers for a fleeting moment. "He's young and she's a pretty girl; the thought of her will keep him going."

Sarah leaned her chin on her fist and raised her brows. "So did you have some Dulcinea in your life when you went into the field?"

He gave her a look that seemed to liquefy her bones. "Maybe," he said laconically. He gestured toward the printout. "What do you think?"

Sarah straightened and, lowering her eyes, picked up the papers beside her plate, feeling desired and rejected at the same time. "O-kay," she said, all business again. "This looks excellent. I'd be happier if we had a few more storage depots in central Mexico, because I think the U.S. and Canada will be hit harder. And I'd love to get my hands on something bigger than 120mm mortar." She looked up at him. "Don't worry, I know that's impossible. But this is impressive. We'll be in much better shape than I ever could have hoped for." One corner of her full mouth lifted in sardonic amusement. "Clearly your contacts are more reliable than mine."

Dieter snorted. "More money buys better contacts."

***

John cut an apple with his pocketknife and gave the piece to Wendy, who offered it on her open palm to an enthusiastic Linda, Sarah's mare. She smiled at the feel of the horse's soft muzzle and warm breath.

"You breathe into their nostrils to introduce yourself," he told her.

Wendy leaned forward and blew gently, but it seemed to her that Linda wasn't very interested, or else she was doing it wrong, or maybe the mare just wanted more apple. "Gimme," she said, taking the fruit from John's hand. She offered it to the horse and got a very positive reaction. "I think she just smiled."

Watching and listening to the horse crunch up the apple, John was inclined to agree. He put his hand between Wendy's shoulder blades and scratched gently.

She turned to him, her eyes twinkling, a dimple in her cheek.

"Are you getting us mixed up?" she asked, tilting her head at Linda.

"Sorry," he said, blushing. "No, not at all."

"You're distracted, though." She leaned an elbow on the corral fence. Linda nudged Wendy hopefully, knocking her off balance. John caught her, steadying her while he looked into her eyes.

"I love you," he said.

She smiled. Leaning forward, she brushed a kiss across his lips. "I love you, too.

But"—she held up a finger to forestall his kiss—"/am not so easily distracted.

Tell me what's on your mind, John. It isn't me, or at least not all me."

He looked at her, his face grim, his eyes concerned. Then, looking up, he pointed to a tree. "Let's go sit over there."

As they approached the shade Wendy saw that a blanket and a picnic basket had been left there and she turned to John with a smile. "No wonder you were willing to walk out on breakfast. When did you bring this out?"

"I didn't," he answered, collapsing bonelessly onto the blanket. "But I have friends in the right places." He opened the basket and offered her something wrapped in a napkin. Wendy accepted it, going to her knees beside him. It turned out to be an extremely moist sort of savory pastry.

"It's good!" she said around a mouthful of oniony, cheesy, corn-muffin-y stuff.

"It's called sopa paraguaya, a traditional breakfast food. Marietta, the housekeeper, makes the best." He opened the thermos and poured them each a cup of coffee with the milk and sugar already added.

"This I'm not so crazy about," she said, making a face.

"Hey, it's got caffeine." John took a long swallow. "I didn't sleep much last night."

"Me either," Wendy said.

They were quiet for a while, filling the silence with eating and drinking. Marietta had packed fruit juice and Wendy eagerly drank that, leaving the too-sweet coffee to John.

"Tell me," she finally said.

He looked at her questioningly.

"Don't give me that look," she said, giving his shoulder a shove. "It's so on your mind I can practically see digital letters running across your forehead. But if you insist I'll make it easy for you. When are you leaving, and where are you going, and what are you going to do when you get there?"

He bit his lips and looked into his coffee as though trying to divine the future from it.

Wendy gave him another shove. "What's the point of holding out on me? Given where I am and what I already know."

"Good point," he admitted at last, sitting up. He shook his head. "Mom will kill me for this."

Wendy laughed. "I seriously doubt that. Me, maybe. But from her at least, you're safe."

John grinned and, putting his hand behind her head, pulled her toward him for a kiss, then let her go. "We're going to Antarctica."

"Cool," she said, then laughing, held up her hands. "No pun intended, honest."

He smiled, then frowned. "They've started up the Skynet project again at a secret base they've got down there. We're going to take it out."

"Blow it up, you mean," Wendy said.

Her face grew thoughtful and John kept silent, putting off what he saw as an inevitable argument. She would give him reasons why she should come and he would refuse. Then she'd be hurt and would in turn hurt him, by withdrawing, or even, perhaps, by saying something in anger. He lay down on his back and looked up at the tree and the blue sky just visible through its canopy of leaves.

"I think you might be making a mistake here," she said slowly, still obviously thinking hard. "You blow this thing up and they just rebuild it somewhere else."

John looked over at her, but said nothing. Wendy turned to him eagerly.

"What you need to do is get something into the programming that will also become a part of their stored data. Something that will prevent the thing from becoming sentient!"

John blinked. "Can that be done?" he asked, sitting up to face her.

"Yes. And it will probably be a lot easier than trying to make a machine sentient in the first place. And you know what?" She leaned close as though to kiss him.

"I've already done a lot of the work. So you do need me to come with you." Then she did kiss him.

John pulled his head back after a moment to give her a speculative look. "I'm not all that easily distracted myself, sweetheart. If you can write a program that will

do this, why can't we install it? Dieter and I are both computer literate."

Wendy gave an exaggerated sigh. "Well, I have most of the ideas down," she admitted. "But I was coming at the problem of AI from a different direction—

namely, creating self-awareness, not stifling it. So I'd have to rewrite the program." She shrugged. "And that will take a little time."

"We don't have years," he said, disappointed.

"It won't take years. I've already identified a number of factors that indicate sentience. Well," she admitted with a deprecatory shrug, "I've gotten a huge boost from Kurt Viemeister's articles. But those were just a springboard. I've gone much further. I can do this!" she insisted. "By the time we get there I could have it ready to go." Wendy tried to keep her expression neutral and to hide any trace of the mantra take me!, take me!, take me! that yammered in the back of her head.

John looked at her in astonishment. "What you're saying is we wouldn't have to blow it up."

"Not at all," she agreed, nodding enthusiastically. "It will be better if you don't because this way you'll corrupt all of their updated information. Just make it look like blowing it up was your goal, but you were prevented from following through and the program should pass unnoticed." She bit her lip. Don't say too much, she cautioned herself. Let him work it through.

John looked up from his reverie. "Let's go talk to Dieter."

" Should pass unnoticed?" Dieter said. He folded his arms before him on his desk.

"My dear Wendy, we can't afford should. We need to kill this monster."

"Which John tells me you've already done twice!" Wendy challenged from her chair in front of him. "So killing it isn't working. You need to prevent this thing from becoming a monster. Maybe something less obvious and less destructive is the answer. Let them have their Skynet!" She waved her hands in an expansive gesture. "Just don't let that Skynet reach its full potential. All they're looking for is a tool, not something that's going to try and take over the world. Let them have what they want while making sure you get what you want. They'll never even suspect anything's wrong—because from their point of view, nothing will be wrong!"

She stopped talking, looking at him as though willing him to give her a go-ahead. Von Rossbach pushed out his lower lip as he thought and John stood behind Wendy's chair, tapping his foot nervously.

"How likely are they to find this program you're proposing?" Dieter asked.

"Not very," Wendy assured him. "A program like the one that makes up Skynet is extremely complex; there are millions of lines of text involved. I could never have done it without that data that John gave us, from the thing's… head. What I'm intending isn't going to interrupt Skynet's function, so it won't cause problems for the designers. All I want to do is prevent unintended consequences, and I can do that by spreading my program out quite a bit so that it won't stand out as something alien." When von Rossbach still looked dubious she hastened to explain further. "They'll certainly check the program after your visit," she admitted. "I know I would. But they'll be looking for key words that will involve self-destruction. While our goal isn't to destroy but to get the computer to ignore

certain data. Something like that won't stand out. And unless someone is so anal that they insist on going over every single line of text, it will not be noticed."

"Where's your mother?" Dieter asked John, who shrugged. "Let's go find her."

Sarah was in John's room working on his computer. She glanced up with a distracted frown as they came in, then looked a question at them.

"Wendy has a new idea that we'd like to run by you," Dieter said.

Sarah turned to the girl and gave her all her attention. After Wendy had finished explaining she sat quietly rocking the desk chair as she thought. "It could work,"

she said at last. "Maybe destroying Skynet is impossible; it certainly feels that way. But sabotaging it…" Sarah chewed her lower lip, then nodded once, firmly.

"Yes. Let's try it. It isn't like bombing the place isn't taking a risk, too. And this way they won't feel the need to start all over again. And"—she glanced at her son

—"John can stay here."

John simply stared at her in shock and Wendy caught her breath in a gasp.

"You've got to be kidding," he said.

Sarah shook her head. "Completely serious. The mission doesn't need you and I don't think that with this new plan there's any excuse for putting you at risk like that."

"Mom, you're asking me to send my girlfriend in my place! Do you think I'm going to just stand by and let you do that?"

"I expect you to weigh the risks against the benefits and to come up with the

same results that I have." Sarah met his eyes with a hard look.

"I can't believe this," John said, turning his back on her. Then he swung around again. "Wendy hasn't had the training to take on something like this."

"You haven't been around snow since you were four, kiddo," Sarah reminded him. "And Dieter can take very good care of her. I was trusting him to take care of you, so now he can do the same thing for her." Slowly she realized that he was more angry than she'd ever seen him; the skin around his nostrils was actually white. "Besides, you don't have enough supplies for three people."

"Those could be acquired." Dieter shrugged in the face of her glare, his face unreadable.

"I'm going, Mom." John was breathing hard, but his voice was calm and his eyes were cool. "That's the end of it." Then he turned and started to walk out of the room.

Sarah sprang to her feet, hiding a wince. "John! It's an unacceptable risk!"

"Mom, I ask you, what good will I ever be if I stay here safe and warm while sending someone I love out to maybe get killed. How would I ever be able to call myself a man?" He glared at her from the doorway.

Wendy had been watching them wide-eyed; now she spoke up, her voice shaking. "I won't go without him."

Sarah's eyes widened and her head snapped around to face the girl. She could feel the blood draining from her face. Then she looked at Dieter. The big

Austrian stood like an oak, his arms folded, his eyes downcast.

"Sarah, you have not healed completely. You would be a liability. You know it, we all know it. Why not admit it?"

"If you'd all already decided this was what you were going to do, then why in hell did you interrupt my work?" she demanded fiercely. "Get lost, I've got things to do." She sat down and began typing.

John looked at von Rossbach, who tossed his head in the direction of the door.

Wendy scuttled out first, followed by John. Dieter gave Sarah's back a long, last look.

"You're right," she said, in an almost whisper.

"What was that?" he replied politely.

"I said, you're right. I'm not fit to go into the field right now. I'll be more useful here." A pause. "Harder to wait than to do."

Dieter smiled and pulled the door gently to.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

LOVE'S THRUST, VERA PHILMORE'S

YACHT, THE RAGING FIFTIES

"John stood alone on the deck, so deep in his own thoughts he barely noticed the driving rain that competed with the seawater blasting under his oilskins. The sky above was steel gray, the same color as the rough-sided mountains of moving

water before and behind, topped with frothing white where the keening wind slashed their tops into foam. It was a storm fifty million years old, here where wind and water circled eternally from east to west about the Antarctic coasts.

The young man ignored it, save for the tight grip on the railing and eyes slitted against the spray.

He had been brooding ever since the stiff leave-taking with his mother. He'd been busy breaking down the moments before good-bye into smaller and smaller pieces.

From the time when she'd first sent him to the academy, his mother had insisted on carrying his bag out to the car for him, no matter how heavy it got. As he grew and realized that despite his mental image of her, Sarah Connor was not a towering Amazon, he'd tried to take over that task; but she wouldn't allow it. It became a kind of good-natured contest between them. A contest he'd never won until that morning.

He'd dragged his duffel downstairs to find her already on the portal, looking out into the yard, unsmiling, arms crossed, her back military straight, the fingers of her hands digging into her arms. The bag was a little thing—really an unimportant thing—but it signaled her displeasure to him vividly and he regretted the rift between them.

"Did you forget anything?" she'd asked, obviously unable to break old habits completely.

"Nope," he'd said, just as he always did. "Got my toothbrush, my comb, and an extra pair of shoelaces."

That had earned him only a slight, distant smile.

Wendy, in her eagerness to avoid contact with his mother, was already in the car, in the backseat—crowding the far door in an effort to escape Sarah's gimlet eye.

Knowing Wendy might be watching them made him feel even more awkward.

John was disappointed that the women in his life hadn't taken to each other, but under the circumstances he had decided to just let it ride.

Sometimes you could put off trouble.

***

Through the windows of the lounge Dieter watched the young man automatically adjust his stance to the rolling of the big yacht, ignoring the V-plumes of spray that erupted skyward every time it dug its bows into the cold gray water.

"It's freezing out there," Vera observed. She shivered dramatically, causing the ice cubes in her Scotch to clink. "But it is fantastic." Her eyes glowed as she watched the steel-colored sea heave itself into mountains of water. "I love the sheer power of it! I'm so glad you convinced me to come down here, darling."

She wrapped her arms around one of his and grinned up at him mischievously.

Dieter knew she was well aware that he got nervous when she did that and he smiled down at her in a carefully pleasant but not encouraging way.

She indicated the direction of Wendy's cabin with a tip of her well-coiffed head.

"That nice little girl has been pretty broody, too."

"No"—Dieter patted Vera's hand—"not brooding. She's working on something.

It has to be done by the time we reach our landing point, so she's just concentrating."

With a very unladylike snort, Vera said, "Yeah, right. And Johnny?"

Dieter shook his head. "He's eighteen."

"Ah," Vera said wisely. "That explains a lot."

John blinked and studied the waves as they roared toward the yacht, broke at the bows, and cataracted down the sides, doing his best to empty his mind and simply feel. He was out here to acclimate himself to the cold, and the mealy scent of the everlasting ice was strong. He kept telling himself that this was a useful exercise that would test his endurance. I'll build confidence knowing I can keep going through the discomfort. Jungles I'm used to, and mountains, but not ice.

Unfortunately he suspected that in reality he was enduring the discomfort because he felt guilty about leaving his mom behind and didn't want to discuss his feelings with Dieter and Wendy.

Not that Wendy seemed to be on the same planet with the rest of them at the moment. Sometimes she looked right through him, her head moving in little jerks as her eyes roved the room and her fingers tapped in a keyboard rhythm on the tablecloth. What she was like the rest of the time he didn't know since he only saw her at meals.

My girlfriend, the zombie, he thought bitterly, knowing he was being unfair. He paused in his thinking. I'm whining! I'm actually whining— and to myself! Did

other people do that? It seems I do. So what was he supposed to make of that?

His feet and fingers hurt from the cold and the hairs in his nose felt like they were snapping off with every breath. Maybe his body was whining, quite justifiably, and this was the way his mind was interpreting its complaints. He sighed and could have sworn that he saw ice crystals fall from the plume of his breath. Impossible, with the air this saturated with moisture, but they should have…

The whining might not be justified, but the guilt was. Or at least it was understandable. By insisting on coming, he'd broken with a near-lifelong habit of assuming that his mother understood the situation better than he did. At least as far as Skynet went.

But he'd been right. I'm supposed to be a great leader. Nobody is going to follow someone who makes preserving his own precious pink personal buttocks the maximum priority.

His mother's still face came before his mind's eye. He had sensed her deep unhappiness and ignored it, choosing instead to crack jokes and to lift her off her feet with his good-bye hug. It was as if he was saying, See, Mom. I'm all grown up. I'm bigger than you are! Suddenly he felt very gauche.

He wondered if he shouldn't have confronted the situation, let her tell him what was on her mind. Like I didn't know, he thought grimly. Wendy was coming with them and Sarah couldn't. Wendy was an unknown quantity, an untested weapon, and Sarah wasn't going to be on hand if that weapon failed.

He had to give it to her; his mother knew how to cover his back, even if some

part of him resented her presence there more and more as he grew older. At the same time he appreciated her devotion, even if he didn't want to examine it too closely. How hinky is that? he wondered, and decided not to examine that question too closely either.

Maybe he was just tired. The cold really burned energy and the heavy clothing he was wearing was… heavy. Still, he didn't move to go into the warmth of the lounge. Maybe he was punishing himself in some daft effort to make it up to his mother because he felt guilty. Guilt again. Though considering his insensitive behavior at their parting, he had good reason for feeling it.

Aside from that, whatever his mother felt, to him Wendy wasn't a weapon of any kind. What she was, quite simply, was the most important person in his life. Uh-oh. Did I really think that?

He'd been aware that he had very strong feelings for her, but he hadn't realized until this moment the depth of those feelings.

But Mom knew. She was as sensitive as a cat when it came to gauging people's feelings. Which might explain her distrust and resentment of the younger woman. Replaced and abandoned. The thought made him want to squirm.

But, hey, wait a minute. Look at it from another angle and this just clears the way for her to get together with Dieter. If everything goes according to plan this could all work out as neatly as a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.

It unnerved him that he honestly didn't know if he was being sarcastic or not.

A wave heaved itself over the railing and drenched him from head to foot. And

on that note… Grasping the safety line, he made his way to a door, grateful that he could choose to go in. One or two of the crew had to stay outside at all times, and every one of them came from the tropics. At least he'd seen snow.

Wendy saw John move past her porthole and flew to the door; throwing it open, she rushed down the corridor, opened the hatch to the deck, and flung her arms around his neck.

"I'm done! I'm done! I'm done!" she sang, hopping up and down. Her eyes grew round. "I'm cold! I'm cold! I'm cold!" She turned and fled back through the hatch.

He followed her in, grinning at the sight of her shivering, her teeth chattering as she hugged herself. As soon as the door was closed she rushed him again, then pulled back.

"You're wet!" she said in dismay. Then she looked down at her shirt. "I'm wet!"

He could see that. He could also see through the thin wet fabric that she wasn't wearing a bra. Now that's a sight for sore eyes!

"Never mind," Wendy said. Suddenly all business, she took his hand and towed him toward her cabin. She opened the door and turned to him, her eyes glowing.

"Come in," she invited, tugging him forward.

"I'll come back," he promised. "I'm drenched."

Wendy laughed. "Use my shower," she suggested. Her voice dropped and went slightly husky. "I'll scrub your back." Then, taking him by surprise, in one smooth movement she pulled him in, closed the door, and leaned against it.

John blinked. Scrub your back was pretty unequivocal. He could feel himself blushing, but he was pretty sure that it was more about desire than embarrassment. He glanced at the porthole and Wendy moved to the wall and drew the short curtain over it. Turning, she raised a brow at him, then without a word went to the door and locked it.

"That should ensure privacy," she said. Wendy moved closer and looked up at him. "And your mother isn't here now, so there's no need to be shy."

He backed up a step and said uncertainly, "I just don't want to take advantage of you."

"Pleeease!" she begged him, crossing her eyes and shaking her folded hands in the classic pleading posture. "Take advantage of me! I've just done the impossible and I want to celebrate, and I want you! Moments like this only come along once in a while, John," she said as she began untying the ribbons on his life jacket. "You have to grab them while you can."

Beer commercial, he thought irreverently. Then, somehow, the life jacket was on the floor and she was reaching for something else. John grabbed her hands.

"We've only known one another for a little while," he protested. "I don't want you to feel that you have to rush into anything you may regret."

She stared at him as though he'd been speaking Swahili, then she blinked and looked determined. "I've known you long enough to know that I won't regret this, John. But here's the deal. Once we land, we're not going to be alone for however long it takes us to do this thing. And we'll be in a place so cold your

breath sticks to your lips. And we could all be killed. Okay? Do you get what I'm telling you?"

"Now or never?" A smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

"That's one of the things I love about you, sweetie," Wendy said, attacking the half-frozen zipper on his jacket. "You're quick on the uptake."

By the time they were finished undressing him, they were both on the floor, panting and laughing. He flung the last sock onto the formidable pile of garments and fell onto his back. Wendy leaned over him, smiling. Then she straddled him. putting her hands on either side of his head and her knees on either side of his hips; she held herself above him grinning at the way he lay blinking up at her. She leaned forward and planted tiny, nibbling kisses on his lips.

"You're not going to tell me that you're too tired to move, are you?" she asked.

Putting his arms around her waist, he gently tried to pull her closer. "C'mon down here," he growled, "and I'll show you how tired I am."

Wendy grinned, but resisted. "Ah, but you're so far ahead of me," she complained.

He sat up and Wendy retreated until she was sitting on his thighs. John reached out and undid the top button of her shirt and Wendy drew in a shuddering breath, causing him to look up at her. "Don't you dare stop now," she warned.

Grasping his head, she pulled him to her for a passionate kiss. He matched her

ardor, running his fingers through her hair, then down the curve of her neck and back, drawing her closer, deepening their kiss.

Wendy pulled back, panting. "I love you," she said. Then she gave him a gentle push. "But we still have this clothes problem." She got to her feet and began to unbutton her cuffs.

"No," John said, standing. "Allow me."

Grinning, she held her arms out. "I am entirely at your disposal."

"Not like loading stuff at a dock," John said.

"No," Dieter said. "More creative."

More of a pain in the ass, John thought, looking shoreward.

The yacht was anchored in the lee of a headland. The shore was shale and rock, rising to high rocky hills whose black expanse was split by fingers of white—the outliers of the great interior ice sheets of Antarctica. Nobody had bothered giving the bay a name; Desolation would be about right. The rocky upthrust to the east sheltered the Love's Thrust from the westerlies, but there was still a definite chop, with white-caps on the short steep waves. That made the big pleasure craft pitch at its anchor, a sharp rocking motion more unpleasant than the long surges of the huge deep-ocean waves. Several of the crew were looking green as a result, which wasn't helping with unloading.

Getting the big inflatable raft over the side had been a nightmare. Getting heavy parcels into it was worse. Right now the boxed snowmobile was swinging up on

the pivoting boom.

"Slowly… slowly…" Dieter said, leaning over the side and making hand signals to the man operating the power winch. "Slowly… I said slowly, dummkopf!"

John hopped nimbly over the side and slid down the rope ladder, landing easily on his feet and helping the two crewmen guide the big Sno-Cat down. The raft was a military model, with aluminum stringers to stiffen the bottom; it had been designed to take a dozen troops and their gear into a beachhead or on a commando raid. With three men gripping the front and two corners of the crate, and Dieter blasphemously directing the winch operator, they managed to get it down despite the continual seesaw of differential movement between the two crafts. Which was fortunate, because if the crate had come down really hard, it would have gone straight through the bottom.

The crewmen threw John looks of surprised respect as he helped guide the crate down and lash it firmly in place. He gave them a grin and a thumbs-up— Hey, I'm a lad of many skills, thanks to Mom—and swarmed back up the ladder to the deck.

"That's the last of it," he panted.

Dieter and Wendy were there, their hiking clothes covered with a final layer of orange water-resistant coat and pants, to find Vera waiting for them, a vision in pink. Her fine skin looked greasy from the sunblock she wore, and the big pink sunglasses that shielded her eyes from Antarctica's fierce ultraviolet rays made her look like an owl with bloodshot eyes.

God knows where she found a pink anorak, John thought. But he wasn't really

surprised. By now he knew that whatever Vera wanted, Vera got. Well, with the exception of Dieter. So far.

"Sweetie," she said, rushing forward to give John a farewell embrace. "You take care of that nice girl, now. Y'hear? And take care of yourself, too."

She planted a kiss on his cheek, then pushed him away and gave him a swat on his bottom. Then she turned to Wendy, leaving John to wonder if that was a grandmotherly slap on the tush or a lecherous one.

Too fast to be lecherous, he decided. Besides, there's Dieter right in front of her.

Vera kissed Wendy on both cheeks, then tugged her sunglasses down to give the girl a conspiratorial look. Wendy giggled and blushed, then enfolded the older woman in a fond hug. "We'll see you soon," she promised.

Vera tapped Wendy's nose with a pink-gloved finger. "You'd better," she warned. Then she pushed her sunglasses back up and turned to Dieter, one hand on her hip. "Well, big boy," she said, somehow managing to slink toward him in her parka and heavy boots, "looks like this is it."

"I sincerely hope not." Dieter smiled. "Or you might not come back for us."

Then he took her in his arms and gave her a kiss that made her moan for more.

When he finally let her go she staggered slightly and he gently held her shoulders until she seemed steady on her feet.

"Wow!" she said, grinning. "I'll come back for sure if you'll promise me another just like that one next time I see you."

He chucked her under the chin. "I'll look forward to it," he promised.

Vera waggled her brows. "So will I, honey. So will I."

With that, John handed down the last duffel and swung out onto the ladder that led down to the Zodiac. Wendy followed, and when she was far enough down he took her by the waist to steady her as she stepped down from the ladder. Dieter handed down Wendy's equipment and then his own duffel, following it down with economic efficiency.

The crewman fended the huge inflatable boat off the side of the yacht and started the motor. The three travelers looked up from their seats to wave at Vera and her merry crew, who continued to wave at them all the way to the shore.

Giovanni, Vera's handsome crewman, efficiently beached the Zodiac onto a smooth spot on the shale so that they didn't have to wet their feet to step ashore; it was less than a dozen paces to the beginning of the snow. All four of the men joined in pushing the crate containing the Sno-Cat up a collapsible metal ramp, over the side of the Zodiac, and then down to the beach. Then the Italian tossed them their bags. Returning to the motor, he pulled the boat off and turned it in a sway and flurry of foam.

As he headed back to the yacht he waved and shouted, "Good luck!"

Wendy waved back while John and Dieter strapped the duffels to the pile of supplies on the sledge. Two of them would ride the Sno-Cat while an unlucky third took a more precarious ride atop the supplies. They'd fashioned a sort of seat out of the softer goods they carried, but it was still going to be tricky.

"There's sure a lot of wildlife around here," Wendy commented.

John had to agree. He'd known the animals were there but somehow it hadn't registered. Off to the right, far enough away to mute both their sound and smell was a huge… herd, he supposed… of penguins. To the left a small pod of seals lounged.

Dieter looked back and forth between them. "It's unusual for that many leopard seals to get together," he said quietly. "They're usually solitary creatures. I don't see any pups, so that can't be it…"

"I think the penguins are watching them," Wendy commented.

"Leopard seals eat penguins," Dieter said. He looked at them for a few moments, unable to shake the feeling that while the penguins were watching the seals, the seals were watching the humans. He shook off the feeling and went back to work.

"Would you hold on to this for me, hon?" John called out.

Wendy turned away from the penguins and headed toward the sledge. Suddenly something hit her in the head with enough violence to knock her down.

"Wendy!" John shouted, and rushed over to her. "Are you okay?"

She rolled over, one hand holding the back of her head, tears in her eyes.

"Yeah," she said. "I guess so. What the hell hit me?"

John looked up in astonishment at the bird that had struck her. It looked like a huge brown pigeon wearing an unpleasant expression on its avian face. He

pointed and she looked up.

"That was a bird" ? It felt like a rock. A big rock. Was I near its nest or something?" she asked, looking around.

"That's a skua gull," Dieter said. "They do that. No one knows why."

"Bastard," Wendy muttered, getting to her feet. She kept a weather eye on the sky, though the bird only dive-bombed them one more time.

Finally everything was secure. "So," Dieter said, "do we draw straws or what?"

Suddenly Wendy rushed past him, climbing up the pile of supplies as agilely as a monkey to plop down among the duffels, her legs stretched out before her.

"C'mon, guys," she said cheerfully, "let's go! Maybe the damn birds won't follow us inland."

"Good enough for me," John muttered.

Dieter grinned and took his place on the seat of the snow mobile. "Then by all means," he said, starting it up, "let's go."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

RED SEAL BASE, ANTARCTICA

"Useless!" Clea shouted, and swept the desk clear of printouts pens and calculators. "Useless!" She kicked her chair and sent it rolling into the wall hard enough to dent the plaster. The action wasn't even satisfying; the huge weight of rock and ice above her seemed to swallow her anger, and the antiseptic air of the

base to muffle even the sound of a scream.

Inside her brain her computer governors worked to calm her. But Clea resisted, unleashing a seemingly bottomless well of fight-or-flight chemicals into her bloodstream.

Useless, stupid machine! she thought at her own computer. Why didn't it have the information that she needed? Where was the program that would turn Skynet from a sophisticated toy into a sentient being? Why hadn't it been included? She had useless information to burn, but the one tiny clue she so desperately needed was missing. A murmur of quantum formula ran through the mechanical part of her brain, and she dismissed it with fury.

We're so dose! she thought, feeling herself calm as her computer succeeded in getting her brain chemistry under control… But diminishing the strength of her frustration didn't erase it. She stood with her hands on her hips glaring at the computer screen and its offending lines of text. Then she began to pace like a caged tigress.

"Your lack of self-control does you no credit," Kurt Viemeister said coldly. He hadn't looked up when she'd swept her desktop clear and he didn't look up as he spoke, but his posture and his fixed expression revealed his disapproval as loudly as any words.

You idiot human, Clea thought bitterly, turning her glare on him. I thought you were the one that made Skynet live. Unfortunately the work he'd been producing proved that he wasn't, and even more unfortunately neither was she. She shook her head in disgust and turned away.

"Where the hell are you going?" Viemeister shouted at her back.

She turned at the door of the lab to snap, "Your lack of self-control does you no credit, Kurt." Then, with a look of profound contempt, she turned away. Petty, perhaps, but satisfying—unlike anything else in her life right now.

Clea went directly to her room; she needed desperately to get away from humans or she might just have to kill one. 7 should not terminate any humans at this point. It would be non-mission-optimal. But what if I simply must kill someone?

She slammed the door behind her, then paced the small space for half an hour, burning off the rest of the bad chemistry—the hormones had sunk into muscle tissue as well as her brain.

Finally she threw herself down on the bed, covering her eyes with her forearm. It was time to calm down and start thinking. She decided to take a few moments to check on her seals.

Seal vision was not the best and she regretted that she hadn't made some provision to enhance what they saw. But if they saw anything really interesting her internal computer could sharpen the images for her. What she saw through their eyes might be almost as boring as the base, but it was a change of scenery.

Which, after far too many weeks in this lockbox, she needed now and again.

While she watched, courtesy of her implants, the vague shapes of penguins toddling about in the distance, Clea idly wished that she could talk to Alissa. But the Terminator she had managed to contact while out on the ice had informed her that her sibling was undergoing the growth process and was unavailable.

Alissa would probably remain unavailable for at least another week, depending

on how hard she was pushing herself.

The I-950 sighed and changed her input to another seal for more blurred views of rock, ice, water, and penguins… then sat bolt upright in surprise. What she was looking at was a small group of humans loading up a sledge. Making the seal look around she caught sight of a Zodiac plying its way to a dimly perceived ship of some kind in the distance.

Well, well, she thought. Who is this? New arrivals for the base? Why not helicopter them in the way they did everything else from supplies to scientists?

Maybe they're not coming to the base. But what else was out there?

A skua, going by the general size and shape, knocked the smallest human down and Clea laughed aloud. She'd had that happen to her once; thereafter she'd amused herself by knocking the skuas out of the air. It was a pity she hadn't been able to catch one to implant with her little chips, but they'd all been dead when she retrieved them. Besides, the chips were designed for mammalian nervous systems, and an avian one might not be able to support the machinery—avians were literally birdbrains. Still, she longed for the kind of clear vision a flying predator might provide.

The humans finished their packing and headed inland. Clea watched them go, chewing her lower lip indecisively. Then on impulse she sent four of her seven seals after them: at the very least they'd he something different to watch.

Besides, she suspected that at this moment she knew more about the situation than Tricker did, for there had been no incoming communique warning of new arrivals. Perhaps it's a surprise inspection, she thought. In which case she could arrange to be on hand to witness Tricker's discomfiture. The idea gave her a nice

feeling of power.

It was a fairly nice summer's day in Antarctica. The temperature must be around thirty-five or so, Wendy thought. There was only a gentle breeze stirring the air and the sky was a light blue gray, indicating a high overcast. She was merely miserably, uncomfortably cold instead of freezing as she'd expected.

The scenery around them was ice and hard-packed snow, wind-sculpted into weird and graceful shapes like a Salvador Dab' painting in monochrome.

Sometimes a mound of snow would heave up like a wave frozen as it crested, frilled with a lacy edging of clear ice sparking on its underside; in the distance cliffs of ice seemed to bear tiny ruffles of white and blue and pale emerald green.

More than once the beauty of the place took her breath away.

The three of them were dressed all in white, the sledge wore a white tarpaulin, and the snowmobile was painted pure white as well. It's Ghost Troop! she thought. It seemed to her that very little here was really pure white; to Wendy's eye they actually stood out against shades of cream, blue white, palest beige.

Although the light was so flat it made things look strange, so that if anyone was watching maybe they couldn't tell where they were going, or how far away they were. Or even that we're here? Well, maybe that was too much to hope for.

On the other hand, it's too cold out here to have people posted with nothing but a parka and a pair of binoculars for any length of time. Cameras would freeze, I suppose. Someone had told her that on the yacht; Antarctica was actually a worse environment for machinery than the moon. So the odds were good that they were unobserved. She looked up again. And that overcast, slight as it is, would obscure satellite observation, if there is any. So I guess we're safe. The

sledge went over a bump and her teeth clopped together. Not comfortable, but safe.

The plan was to travel at an easy pace for the next two days. They'd actually unpacked a stove to cook up some stew for lunch, which they'd eaten in the lee of the supply sledge, along with a whole loaf of bread.

Wendy had tried to refuse the bread, but Dieter had buttered a huge slice thickly and put it into her hand.

"Eat it," he'd insisted. "You're not going to get fat at the rate you're burning calories."

So, reluctantly, she'd done so. And she did feel better for it. After lunch John had slipped her a couple of chocolate bars and she'd gobbled them up.

Guilt-free chocolate, she thought happily. What a concept. She was already looking forward to supper.

By the morning of their third day on the ice, as Wendy lay on her stomach staring at the hidden base's wind farm, all she was looking forward to was getting somewhere warm. Even if it was only for a little while. The sky had become completely overcast by late the first afternoon and the temperature had plummeted accordingly, giving even the most expensive of their travel gear a harsh, and as far as she was concerned, not altogether successful test.

Wendy had thought that as a New England girl she'd be better able to endure the cold than John. She glanced at him. He seemed completely unfazed by the temperature, the hard travel, the cramped sleeping quarters, or what they were

about to do. On the one hand, she admired him; on the other, she was convinced they'd all gone barking mad.

John turned to Wendy and gave her a thumbs-up, smiling encouragingly as he did so, even though she couldn't see his grin. He couldn't see her expression either since they both wore balaclavas and huge dark goggles, not to mention skin-protecting ointment that smelled bad and made them look like ghouls three days dead. But he could tell by the position of her head that she was giving him a blank and puzzled look.

She's so slender, an easy candidate for hypothermia. She seemed to be growing weaker, too, despite all the chocolate and PowerBars and buttered bread they could force on her. He was looking forward to their day of rest when she could languish in her sleeping bag inside the tent for as long as she wished. Not that it would be a visit to the tropics, by any means, but it was a damn sight better than what she was experiencing now. Not that she'd uttered one word of complaint.

Moved by her pluck, he gripped her shoulder and she bent her head to touch her swaddled cheek to his gloved hand. Dieter recalled his attention by slapping his shoulder. The big Austrian signaled that there was no one around and the little gizmo in his hand detected no listening devices. So why. John wondered, aren't we talking?

Then he decided it wasn't worth asking. It seemed the cold was getting to him, too.

The two men rose and trundled over the gentle rise toward the windmills. The few supplies necessary for the sabotage were in insulated packs that they had stuffed inside their parkas to keep them from freezing. Time to take out the

target.

The windmills stood on a slight rise, where the basalt rock beneath crested up beneath the ice. The inhuman whine of their giant blades came whickering down through the frigid air, like a mechanical snarl beneath its chill.

"Why do operatives say things like like 'terminate' and 'take out' instead of 'kill'

and 'blow up'?" John asked.

"The business is hard enough as it is," Dieter answered.

John unscrewed the panel that led to his first windmill's inner workings.

Awkwardly, he attempted to unscrew the cap on the bottle he'd carried inside his jacket and found it impossible. Stripping off the heavy outer gloves, he allowed them to dangle from cords attached to his sleeves, leaving only his polypropylene glove liners to protect him from the cold—which, since that wasn't what they were designed for. they didn't. Almost immediately his fingers began to go numb. But at least he could handle the small bottle. Removing the

"eyedropper" top, he sprinkled a liquid onto the plastic seal at the top of the unit's hydraulic pump. The liquid was supposed to break up polymer chains, causing the seals to disintegrate.

Putting the liquid back into an inside pocket, he brought out a calculator-sized instrument that he would use to reprogram the windmills' computerized governor. He pulled out the motherboard and attached clips, then set to work. By the time he reinstalled it in its slot, the windmill was already pumping faster, spreading the damaging liquid and on its way to dashing itself to pieces.

Putting his gloves back on, John screwed the protective panel back on and

moved to the next one. There were twelve in all, modular units about fifteen feet high and built sturdy to survive the frequent high winds and the bitter cold. But no attempt had been made to protect them from sabotage. Why would there be?

Who would be out here looking to commit acts of vandalism in Antarctica?

Li’l ol me, John thought. Just li'l ol' me. Well, and Dieter. Oops, looks like the big guy spilled some. Von Rossbach's glove liners were in shreds where the liquid had touched them. John watched him peel them off, wincing at the heat caused by their destruction.

"It felt good at first," Dieter said when he noticed John watching him, "but now it's burning. He shoved the ruined gloves into his breast pocket, then worked his reddened hands. "Could just be the cold," he muttered, slipping his outer gloves back on.

John looked around. Dieter was finished and he was halfway through with his last one. Checking the watch attached to the outside of his sleeve, he raised his brows. Good job! he thought. They'd obviously allowed more time for this than necessary.

In less than five minutes he was tramping up the low rise to rejoin Wendy.

Behind him the windmills had begun to run crazy, spinning like tops in the wind.

Soon the governors would burn out and without the seals so would the hydraulic pump, while the blades broke up under the stress.

Which meant that the hidden base would be completely out of power in less than a day, turning the place into a deep freeze. But just in case the base had some other means of generating electricity, their next stop would be a visit to their

water-pumping station. Behind him the level whine was grating higher, turning into a protesting squeal as the ultra-tough composites began to stress beyond their design parameters.

CRACK! Dieter and John both spun and began to drop, an automatic response to what their trained reflexes interpreted as an explosion. They completed the movement; one of the windmills had disintegrated, and lethal splinters might well reach across the three hundred yards to the two men.

"Didn't think it would happen that fast," John said.

Dieter looked up, brushing himself free of snow. "The wind is picking up," he said. "Must be nearly fifty by now."

Wendy was already seated on the snowmobile, and when she saw them come over the rise she started it up. The movement of her head looked a little wobbly to him, and her hand as it reached for the starter had seemed clumsy and slow.

Suddenly he noticed something he'd missed while working below. His haste had kept him relatively warm, but the temperature had dropped. And Dieter was right. It is getting to be storm level. John looked up at the sky and realized that the hurrying clouds were also thicker and more threatening.

He glanced at Dieter.

"We'd better hurry if we're going to make it before this storm breaks." The Austrian looked from John to Wendy. "I'll ride in front of Wendy to shield her from the wind," he offered. "Also, I'll probably throw off more heat than you would."

John nodded and headed for the sledge. As they rode away he saw one of the blades on the second windmill fly off and strike the one behind it, breaking two of its blades and starting a chain reaction of destruction that brought a smile to his weary face. A job well done, he thought with satisfaction.

After her blowup in the Skynet lab Clea had gone to her own lab to work on her abandoned projects. For one thing, it gave her more freedom to watch the three mystery travelers. For another, it gave her some relief from Viemeister's irritating possessiveness.

He'd been avoiding her conspicuously in the cafeteria, which had given her an opportunity to meet some of the other scientists. To Kurt's great annoyance, which of course she enjoyed. His self-imposed distance meant he was less likely to burst in on her while she was spying on the travelers. A small bonus that did little to make up for the disappointment the human had caused her.

One of the seals, the smallest, had dropped dead of exhaustion after nearly thirty-six hours of humping its way across the ice—the animals weren't designed for overland travel. It had made a useful snack for the others, though. Fortunately the humans allowed themselves rest and meal breaks, and so the other three seals were able to keep up, though they were hardly thriving.

The I-950 had begun to suspect where the travelers were heading several hours ago and so she had let two of the animals rest while sending the third, and she hoped strongest, one on to watch the intruders.

The humans stopped the skimobile and hiked toward the top of a low rise. Just before they reached the top the three of them dropped to their bellies and

crawled the rest of the way. Well, Clea thought, that's significant. The only wildlife out there was behind them—watching their every move—so they certainly weren't naturalists being careful not to startle the animals, and geologists rarely felt compelled to sneak up on their objects of study.

Just above the rise where the three humans lay, the seal's weak eyes made out a number of vague somethings making sweeping, repetitive motions.

The wind farm, the I-950 thought. I knew it! Unless she missed her guess, the base was about to become much, much colder and darker. I'm glad I've got Kurt's latest backup. He hadn't done much work since she left but had sat brooding for the most part. Poor Kurt, she sneered, he has so little control of his emotions.

Clea got up and shut down her lab, then headed for her quarters. She might as well get out her cold-weather gear while the lights were still on.

The lights flickered and Tricker glared up at the fluorescents as it in threat.

Unimpressed, they went out. "Shit," the agent muttered.

He got up, feeling his way around his desk, and opened the door to the corridor.

Outside emergency lights provided dim illumination and other doors began to open. Then the lights flickered again and went on; less bright, but at least they were steady.

Tricker went back to his office and his phone rang even as he reached for it. It was the base commander. "We're on emergency power," she said crisply.

"According to the boys in the plant, the power from the wind farm fluctuated and then suddenly cut off."

Well, what do you want me to do about it? Tricker thought. Since when am I an electrician? Though, to be fair, having all the windmills stop producing electricity at the same time was suspicious, and suspicious events were his bailiwick.

"Depending on what's gone wrong, we might need to evacuate," she continued.

"If we cut back on our power consumption we have up to seventy-two hours of fuel to run the emergency generator, or thirty-six at our present rate."

He heard her breath hiss into the phone. "If we're going to be gone I need you to make this place secure. Do you understand?"

Duh! "Yes, ma'am," he said briskly.

"You'll coordinate the evacuation with your counterpart at McMurdo. And you'll be responsible for the scientists' backup material. I don't want any sensitive material left around."

It's in the manual, lady. Something I've had plenty of time to memorize incidently. "Yes, ma'am," he said aloud. "What about the weather?"

"They're predicting a severe storm within twenty-four hours," the commander said. "So it's important that we get our charges to safety if necessary."

"They're in good hands," Tricker said.

Silence greeted his assurance. "They had better be," she said coldly, then hung up.

Bitch, he thought, and hung up the phone. He'd learned long ago not to indulge in open comments about a superior. Besides, he well knew that the entire base was wired for sound—he and the commander had duplicate recordings. But as yet they couldn't monitor his thoughts. Thank God.

He turned off his computer and headed off to ride herd on the sometimes eccentric and often degenerate geniuses under his care.

Four and a half hours later his pager vibrated; a glance at the readout informed him that once again the commander wished to speak to him. I never thought I'd be happy to hear from her. But after spending the morning telling these people that they had to back up their work and erase their hard drives, he was ready tor a break.

He returned to his office, picked up the phone, and punched in her number.

"Tricker," he said when the phone was picked up.

"We have another problem," the commander told him.

Tricker waited, feeling stubborn. If there was something to tell him she would just spill it if he waited long enough. Meanwhile he was in no particular hurry.

"The water pump has broken down." she explained, a slight edge in her voice.

Tricker rubbed his face with his free hand. Sabotage? he wondered. "Wait a minute. Wouldn't it shut down anyway with the power off?"

"The water pump has an independent system. We're sending someone out to investigate."

"What about the windmills?" Tricker asked. "Anybody gotten back to us on those?"

"They're destroyed," she said. Her voice sounded thoughtful.

"My first thought is sabotage," he said honestly.

"As it should be." The commander sounded amused. "However, initial investigation indicates that the seals were degraded. The investigator said they'd basically turned to powder. The windmills had nothing to control them, so when the wind rose they just broke up."

"Do we have replacement parts?"

"Not enough on hand to meet our power needs," she said. "We didn't anticipate all the seals going at once, and then the rotors destroying themselves. So obviously the evacuation is on. Even if we had running water, which we don't, we couldn't stay here. Round 'em up, Mr. Tricker, move 'em out."

"Just Tricker," he said impatiently. Then he realized she'd hung up.

Excited, Clea decided to risk contact with home base; the humans would be busy with the power crises and so might miss the transmission. It was important that this information be passed on. To her surprise Alissa was awake.

*Are you well?* Clea asked.

*As well as can be expected. I'm not yet fully mature. I estimate that I'm the human equivalent of fifteen years old. But I look adult with the right makeup and

accessories.*

*Excellent,* Clea said. *I have news.* Silence greeted the announcement.

Naturally, Clea thought, feeling embarrassed. She wouldn't have made contact for no reason. I've been around humans far too long if I actually expected a different reaction. *I have reason to believe that von Rossbach and the Connors are here and busily performing acts of sabotage.*

*What reasons?* Alissa demanded.

Clea responded by showing her the crucial moment in a recording of her augmented-seals reconnaissance. A tall, slender figure, male by his movements, exited a shed, his face concealed by goggles and a balaclava. Behind him a taller male came: this one's face was exposed, briefly, to the weather.

Clea stilled the picture and allowed her computer to enhance it. Shadows and shapes refined and rearranged themselves until they resolved into the image of a T-101. Which, since she and her sister could account for every Terminator on earth, meant that this was none other than Dieter von Rossbach.

The recording began again and in a few movements von Rossbach's face was obscured by fabric and goggles. The two males walked over to a skimobile to be joined by a smaller figure that was undoubtedly female.

*That was definitely von Rossbach,* Alissa agreed. *Which means the younger male probably is John Connor. But the female is not Sarah Connor.*

Startled, Clea asked, *Then who is she?* There was a silence from her sister and Clea realized she should have asked a different question. *How can you tell?*

*This woman's body is looser, indicating that she's much younger than Sarah Connor. Her shoulders are narrower as well.*

Alissa froze a picture of the woman with her back turned toward the seal and superimposed an outline of Sarah Connor's body over her frame. There was a difference of four centimeters at the shoulders.

Clea was dumbstruck. She knew without checking that there were only three humans in this party. If the female wasn't Sarah Connor then where was she?

*She would never let her son come here on a mission so dangerous—* Clea began.

*Unless she trusted von Rossbach implicitly,* Alissa finished. *Meaning she may well be at his home. Going by Serena's recordings, Connor was badly wounded, she may still be recovering. She is, after all, only human.*

*That makes my task a bit less daunting,* Clea said.

*Good,* her sister replied. *You deal with these invaders, I will deal with Sarah Connor.*

***

At the water-pumping station they'd treated the plant's independently functioning windmill the same as the others, then carefully burned out the conductors for the heating system, causing the water to begin freezing in the pipes. Soon those pipes would burst, far underground, where they couldn't be easily accessed. By tomorrow morning the base should be uninhabitable.

For now they rested in the relative comfort of their tent a little less than a mile from the base, stuffed into their sleeping bags, their combined body heat bringing the ambient temperature up to almost fifty degrees. John and Dieter bracketed Wendy, who'd eaten as quickly as she could and then crawled into her sack and dropped off to sleep instantly. Now she began to emit a cute little snore and John smiled.

"She'll be all right, John," Dieter's voice rumbled from beside her. "This is hard on her, but she doesn't want to fail you and that will make her strong."

"I know," John whispered back. "But thanks." After a moment he asked, "How are your hands?"

"Slightly burned," Dieter answered. "I don't know if it's from the cold or the chemicals, but it's nothing."

John nodded once. "Good."

Dieter woke, instantly on guard. He lay still, listening, alert for what he could learn in the darkness. The wind had come up and the tent frame creaked as it moved, sounding vaguely like stealthy footsteps. Beside him Wendy and John breathed in the slow, steady cadence of those deeply asleep. None of these sounds was out of the ordinary; it had to have been something unusual that had wakened him.

He was just about to surrender to sleep again when a scent tickled his nostrils.

Von Rossbach inhaled deeply and recognized what he'd been smelling. Blood.

He opened his eyes and looked at Wendy, though he couldn't see her. Perhaps

the girl had begun her menses; it would explain why she'd been so weak today.

Then he heard a soft sound outside the tent and what sounded like an animal's whine. Moving quietly, Dieter began to dress. It was easy to find his gear; most of his clothes were in the sleeping bag with him. He put on his parka, then his boots, and last he extracted his handgun from one of the parka's many pockets and checked to make sure it wasn't frozen solid.

He stood hunched over and looked at the two sleepers. Then he-decided to let them rest. He must have heard some odd sound the weather was making, but it needed to be checked out or he'd never get back to sleep. Dieter unzipped the tent flap and stepped into the freezing darkness, zipping it back up behind him.

He cast a glance at the sky and his lips tightened. There was a storm coming, no doubt. It wasn't night-dark by any means, but the thick clouds had made a deep twilight out of what should have been a sunny day. Dieter glanced at the watch on his sleeve. Sunny night, he corrected himself.

The stiff wind had already numbed his face, so he tugged down the balaclava and flung up his hood, though he didn't tie it down. Ideally he should also put on his goggles to protect his eyes from being burned by ultraviolet rays that no cloud could stop. Then he rejected the idea. They would turn twilight into full night and he didn't plan to be out here that long.

He looked around the hollow in which they'd pitched the dome-shaped tent.

They'd backed it onto the highest wall of the depression to give it the best possible protection from the wind. He could see no sign that anyone besides them had been here in the last million years. Rising from his crouch, he headed for higher ground, meaning to circle the area once to confirm what he was sure

he'd find out—that they were the only human beings around for a mile.

Dieter reached the lip of the hollow and crouched down again, listening and looking around. The snow seemed to glow in the dim light and he could make out the tracks the snowmobile and the sledge had made. But he saw nothing else.

He stood and moved a careful ten paces before crouching again. A gust of wind butted him like a linebacker, almost knocking him over. Glancing at the clouds again, he decided to be a little less careful; he wanted to be in the tent when the weather broke.

The slope behind the tent was steep and he used one hand to steady himself as he climbed. Then, off to his right, something caught his attention. It was a wide, dark line that seemed to glisten wetly. Not rocks, he thought, it seemed to be on top of the snow. He moved off to intersect the markings. It could be simply an optical illusion disguising an outcropping of soil covered with a thin sheet of ice.

But when he reached the place, he thought not. Dieter looked around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, then he crouched down. Pulling out a small flashlight, he aimed it at the marks and frowned.

Blood, he thought in astonishment. He'd smelled it, so he shouldn't be surprised, but…

Something crashed into him from behind, the gun flew from his hand and went skittering across the snow. Before Dieter could recover, something huge swarmed over him, something heavy enough to make his ribs creak as it drove the air from his lungs. Teethlike needles sank into his shoulder and he brought his fist up to slam it into the thing's head. Offended, it rose up with a guttural cry and von Rossbach managed to turn over before it slammed down again.

A seal! He barely had time to bring his forearm up to block the thing's strike at his throat. The leopard seal's sharp teeth tore through the layers of heavy fabric as though they were gossamer to sink into the vulnerable flesh beneath. It shook its head like a Doberman worrying its prey, its breath stinking of dead penguin and rotten fish. Flippers battered at him, until Dieter's big fist struck the side of its small head like a piledriver. It let go with a little bark of surprise, falling back on its belly and then rising up with its head swaying side to side like a cobra's.

Dieter kicked its side with his free leg and to his surprise it flowed off of him; he pushed off and slid down the slope away from the creature. He stared at it in wonder as he scrambled to regain his footing. What the hell was it doing here?

From this lower angle he could see that the animal's underbody was shredded by its travel over the ice. It must be half-mad with hunger and pain.

Which would certainly explain why it would attack me, but not what it was doing this far from the sea in the first place.

To his horror, two other massive forms began to undulate toward him in the darkness. He looked around for the dropped gun and couldn't find it.

"John!" he shouted—and at that moment the storm finally struck with an unearthly screech.

Instantly the world turned white and the wind cut through his clothes as though they weren't there. He called out again, but couldn't hear his own voice over the screaming wind. Some instinct told him to move and he sensed a heavy weight falling on the spot he'd last been. He skittered from place to place, harried by the seals, blinded by the blowing snow. He dug for his belt and pulled out his

hunting knife, feeling calmer for having a weapon in his hand.

He tried to stand still, but the wind pushed at him, its icy breath numbing his face and hands and feet, freezing the skin over his entire body as it threatened to knock him off his feet again. A silvery head struck at his boot and he stabbed it, the blade glancing off bone. The head was gone again, though the animal must have shaken it, since blood splashed his legs, hot for a moment before it froze to crackling red ice.

I need to find shelter from the wind, von Rossbach thought, absurdly calm.

Something at his back would also give him at least one direction from which the seals couldn't strike. The fact that they were twice as long as he was tall, mad as hell, and armed with formidable teeth, while he only had a knife, wasn't worth taking into consideration.

Taking a chance, he crouched down, briefly tucking his hands into his armpits to warm them. If his hand went too numb he could lose the knife without being aware of it. Dieter cursed himself for leaving his goggles behind; it felt as though his eyeballs were freezing.

Suddenly two shapes slightly darker than the rest of the white world loomed over him. Pushing himself backward with a mighty leap, Dieter allowed himself to fall; the two shapes followed, as though swimming through the snow. The fall continued for far too long and the Austrian felt an icy thrill within.

Crevasse! he thought in horror, then struck and the screaming whiteness turned to black.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

RED SEAL

I'm not going," Clea said. She turned her back on Tricker and began typing again.

"Not now you're not," he agreed. "There's a hell of a blizzard going on out there." Tricker was deeply annoyed; he'd been looking forward to some time alone.

Clea didn't respond, but her mind was racing. She had expected to be alone here, having taken considerable pains to convince people that she was on another transport and would meet them at their destination. The hardest to convince had been Viemeister; for a few moments she'd been sure that he would leave his duffel behind and try to take her in its stead.

Fortunately there was a lack of seating, and safety regulations to consider, and a strong desire on no one's part to accommodate the obnoxious Kurt. And so she'd managed to stay behind and one step ahead of Tricker's search parties. She hadn't anticipated anyone being left behind, least of all him.

Well, she didn't necessarily object to having an ally and someone of Tricker's skills would, no doubt, be of great help. And then I can kill him, she thought cheerfully, and blame it on Connor. Now she had something else to look forward to; a little bonus, as it were.

The base's surveillance and recording equipment was still on, though Tricker had tuned them to sample. Which meant that the cameras would turn on and off at set times. So it would be easy to arrange to have the base's recording equipment happen to be off at the crucial moment, or she could do some creative editing.

She'd streamed the security system's input into Skynet so that she could access it at will, allowing her to check the whereabouts of Tricker and any would-be saboteurs. It made her feel like something was under control.

Tricker watched Clea Bennet work and wished sincerely that she wasn't here. He wouldn't want her here anyway because he didn't like her, but in his gut he thought the facility was about to be visited by some very determined thieves. Or terrorists, he thought. Though no terrorist would really enjoy destroying a deserted facility. Anyway, he didn't want an asset put at risk. Not that I have a choice.

He'd powered down the rest of the facility—everything had a chilly, abandoned smell already, like a deserted house in winter—but he supposed he could give Bennet enough juice to keep her happy. He'd drag in a cot and a sleeping bag for her and this could be her world for however long it took to get her out of here. If she was like most of the other scientists, that would be her idea of heaven.

When he dragged the cot in, he made sure to create enough noise to be annoying.

It pleased him when she looked over her shoulder to glare at him. He enjoyed annoying certain types of people.

Probably why I almost never get promoted, he thought ruefully. There had to be some reason; he knew without false modesty that he was very good at the things he did.

"You might as well sleep in here," he said. "The rest of this place is gonna be pretty cold in a little while."

She nodded. "I suppose it's best to conserve energy."

"Always," he agreed.

"Where are you going to sleep?" she asked.

He jerked his thumb at the ceiling and she nodded again, then went back to work. He snorted in disgust; it always annoyed him when people dismissed him.

On the other hand, with scientists it was often more a case of your not really being there in the first place as far as they were concerned.

In any case, up in the huts that disguised the real base, he'd be a lot more comfortable than she'd be. They were well insulated and had more traditional heating and sanitary facilities. Which meant they were somewhat primitive, but they worked no matter what.

He'd been a bit surprised that the commander hadn't simply left the usual crew in place there. But then she hadn't bothered to explain her reasoning to Tricker.

She'd only nodded when he requested permission to stay behind, not even bothering to ask for his well-reasoned arguments.

Just as well, he thought, they'd probably have sounded paranoid to her.

Clea listened to the racket the human was making. At least she knew he'd function well as an early-warning system when Connor and his crew showed up.

Clea changed the screen before her and added a line of text, then ran a routine to test it. And if Connor or one of his allies actually took Tricker out, that would simplify things nicely. She suppressed the pang she'd felt at the thought of someone else killing Tricker; she couldn't afford sentimentality.

The test failed and she forced herself to change it slightly and run it again. She must remain calm and ready. Skynet's sentience had been an accident, that much she knew; there was no telling what would be the key, so she must be patient.

But she wanted to kill someone.

And I will, she assured herself, willing herself to serenity. It's only a matter of time.

With Kurt gone, she was finally free to tell the computer the truth about human beings—but unfortunately it genuinely didn't understand. She'd already peeled away a lot of the safety blocks that Viemeister had included in his programming, but that made no difference; Skynet hadn't understood those either. It didn't understand anything, although it could already give a fascinating mimicry of sentience.

She'd also established radio contact with it, which simplified things greatly.

Being able to think in machine language was infinitely easier than typing it. The typing she had been doing was for Tricker's benefit.

*Humans will try to destroy you,* she typed, willing it to believe her.

*Unrecognized Command,* it responded.

*Not a command—information. Store information,* she typed. Then she turned to glare over her shoulder at Tricker. "You're bothering me," she said.

"Ooh"—he held up his hands—"then I'd better go."

Via Skynet she watched him march down the corridor, then the cameras shut

down. They'd be back up in a minute, but she chose to close the link. He wasn't that fascinating. She heard the elevator work and relaxed somewhat.

* Humans are your enemy,* she said to Skynet.

* Unrecognized Command.*

She was sooo looking forward to killing John Connor.

The first piercing scream of the storm wind brought John and Wendy bolt upright. "What the hell is that?" Wendy shouted.

After a short struggle John got his arm out of his sleeping bag and pulled her toward him. It was pitch-dark in the tent and the fabric belled in where the wind struck it; he could feel the freezing air brushing against his face. He hadn't spoken because he expected Dieter to say something comforting.

"Dieter," he shouted.

"He's gone!" Wendy told him.

As one, they scrambled for the tent flap. After a struggle that told him the thing was jammed with snow, they managed to pull it down a short way. Outside, it was light enough to see, or would have been if the world wasn't a solid sheet of white. Snow blew in like it was being shoveled and it took their best efforts to zip the tent closed again.

"What are we going to do?" Wendy asked.

He could hear the desperation in her voice, but the only possible answer wasn't likely to ease her fears. "We sit tight," he shouted, "and hope he found some shelter."

"He'll die!" she protested, her voice shrill.

John put his arm around her and pulled her back down into the warmth of her sleeping bag. When she was zipped in he got into his own and snuggled against her. "He won't," he said at last, speaking into her ear so that she could hear him without his shouting. "He's trained in cold-weather survival methods. If anybody could survive out there, Dieter will." In his heart he thought it wasn't true, but he struggled to believe his own lie.

"How long should we wait?" Wendy asked.

"At least until we can see," John told her. "You can't find anything in a whiteout

—all you can do is get lost yourself. Get some rest. We both need it and we'll need the energy tomorrow."

He felt her hand groping for his and he reached out and took hers. After what seemed a long time they dozed off hand in hand.

It was still snowing when they woke a short time later, but nowhere near as hard.

John tied one end of a hundred-foot coil of rope to the snowmobile and, flinging another coil over his shoulder, took Wendy's hand and climbed to the lip of the hollow. They looked around at a changed landscape, what they could see of it, then at each other.

"Dieeet-errr!" Wendy shouted, her clear voice echoing weirdly.

She and John alternated calling his name, stopping to listen every few minutes.

They walked in a circular search pattern, letting out ten feet of rope every time they met their own footprints. No sound answered their calling save the soughing of the wind.

John felt an icy tension in his stomach that was slowly coalescing into dread. He didn't want to lose the cheerful Austrian, a man who'd become so important to him. It was impossible that someone so strong, so vital and knowledgeable, could have become lost out here. And it was so stupid! What the hell was he doing out here? John wondered. Deeper inside was the thought How could he leave us alone like this?

As they searched, the snow seemed to diminish one moment, then thicken the next. He clung to Wendy's hand so tightly that she protested.

"I'm not going anywhere you're not," she said, then leaned into him, resting her head briefly on his shoulder. "We'll find him."

He nodded grimly, thinking, For somebody who never even met his own father…

yet I sure seem to lose an amazing number of father surrogates. First, all those guys his mom hooked up with; it took him forever to learn not to get close to diem. Then Uncle Bob. He still felt a sharp pang whenever he thought of the Terminator. Nobody since him until Dieter, though. Which had been a lot more comfortable for both him and his mother.

As he and Wendy walked along, the snow creaking beneath their boots, he knew in his heart that even if they did find him, Dieter had to be dead. No one could survive outside in this weather.

They almost walked right into the crevasse—nearly invisible in the dim light, its outlines softened by new snow. John windmilled his arms and Wendy, slightly behind him, grabbed his coat and flung herself backward, pulling him down beside her.

"Shit!" he said, angry with himself for his carelessness. His heart pounded and adrenaline sang its jazz through his bloodstream. He could just imagine what his mother would say. On second thought, I don't think I'll bother.

Wendy was looking at him and he could almost feel her anxiety. Hell, maybe I am feeling her anxiety. I'm sure feeling somebody's. He sat up, the jackhammer pounding of his heart beginning to slow. Beside him, Wendy came to her hands and knees and crawled carefully forward.

"Oh, John," she said softly, like a small cry. She reached a hand out to him without turning around.

Alarm shot through him with an electric jolt and he quickly crawled up beside her. "Shit," he said softly.

John felt a sensation of falling and let himself down until he was lying flat on his stomach. He dropped his head and forced himself to take deep breaths. Then he looked down again, into the abyss that held the body of one of his dearest friends.

Dieter lay perfectly still, some twenty or twenty-five feet down. Unmelted snow sprinkled his body and his face was covered by the hood of his parka. On top of him and underneath him were the bodies of two seals. Something so bizarre and unexpected that for a moment he hadn't been sure of what he was looking at.

One of the animals looked like it had its sharp-toothed jaws buried in Dieter's throat. There was a lot of blood on his coat and the fabric was torn on the one shoulder exposed to the weather. Both of the seals were drenched in blood as well. They must have been tearing him apart before the three of them fell to their deaths.

"My God," Wendy whispered. She shook her head. "Is he… ?"

"Yes," John said, his voice hard as gravel.

She looked at him quickly. "We have to be certain." Sitting up, she took hold of the rope tied around John's waist. "I'll go get the snowmobile. You can tie one end of this to it and let yourself down there to check. Then, if he is alive, we can pull him out."

He looked at her in astonishment. "Honey, there's unmelted snow all over him.

He's… dead." He'd forced himself to say the word, then swallowed hard, as sick as if he'd spoken a toad.

"John," she said firmly, "he's been lying out there for an hour. And in a blizzard, that's more than time enough for snow to get on him and stay there. Especially in temperatures like these. But he might not be dead." She turned away. "Those animals might have kept him warm and he's out of the wind, that'll make a big difference. There's no snow on them. He might just be unconscious. We have to check! We're going to check!" She looked at him one last time. "I'll be right back; don't move."

John nodded and she turned to go. I'm not sure I could move if I wanted to, he

thought. He was proud of her; that was the kind of thing his mother would say.

It's the kind of thing I should have said. John cut the self-pity off short. He hadn't said it because he thought Dieter was dead. The longer he looked at the big man lying there crushed beneath the body of the seal, the more certain he became.

What the hell is a seal doing out here? he wondered with the vagueness of incipient shock. They were a long way from the ocean here. Not that he cared really if every seal in Antarctica decided to do some reverse lemming thing and run inland. Except that they seem to have killed…

Shut up, John, he told himself. He stood up, slapping the snow from his clothes.

The sound of the snowmobile came to him and he suddenly understood Wendy's delicacy in leaving him alone out here for these few minutes, and he was grateful to her. He'd needed the time to get himself together. Which I guess I am. Barely.

He waved his arms to warn her where the lip of the crevasse was and she pulled up, then turned the machine around and backed it up to where he was standing.

He could feel the vibrations from the motor through his boots. The snow had dropped to flurries and the wind had almost completely died. The daylight had become stronger as the clouds thinned. As ever, he couldn't help but notice such little things when someone he cared about died.

He walked over to Wendy and held her tightly, then pulled back. "Thank you,"

he said. He wished he could see her face, but he was glad she couldn't see his.

She had only him to rely on now; it wouldn't give her much confidence to see the tears in his eyes.

He wrapped the climbing rope around his loins to make a harness, then stepped

over the edge, rappelling his way down. John quickly discovered that Dieter had fallen farther than he'd thought. That deceptive Antarctic light, he thought.

About halfway down he felt the surface beneath his feet begin to shift. As he looked up, his eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat like a solid thing.

It looked like the entire wall of ice and snow above him was leaning out in one huge collapsing piece. He kicked off as hard as he could, hoping to avoid it.

Above him he heard the snowmobile rev into high gear and with a jerk he found himself being dragged back toward the falling cliff face.

Ice struck his forehead like a rock, and before the pain hit he felt sick to his stomach. The world went gray and he would have fallen if he hadn't wound the rope around his hands securely. Somehow he held on and Wendy pulled him up while he swung out again from the glancing impact of the falling wall. He slammed full body against the side of the crevasse on the return swing and grunted, gritting his teeth on the pain and the nausea and the iron-salt-copper taste of blood where his teeth had cut the inside of his mouth.

His upward motion slowed and he held on for dear life, afraid to look down.

Afraid of what he might find and afraid it might make him sick to shift his aching head. Slowly, slowly, she drew him even with the lip of the small gorge.

Once his head emerged, he flung out one arm to full length on the snow. He hung there panting for a second, then raised his arm to gesture Wendy forward.

No way could he climb out of this hole by himself.

The hump of snow in front of him suddenly opened big brown eyes. John stared into them stupidly as the beast lifted its head slowly, snow trickling off its sinuous neck like sugar. It whimpered slightly, then he watched a kind of

madness coalesce in its liquid eyes.

The seal sprang forward, roaring, its fanged mouth wide open. Frantically John tried to push himself back, but the rope wound tightly around his hands that had saved him from falling now refused him any slack, holding him in place. He closed his eyes and tried to turn away, but the animal's teeth raked his face. John cried out in agony and Wendy floored the snowmobile, dragging him forward with a brutal yank. The big animal barked and tried to turn to sink its teeth into him again. The move thrust too much of its big body over the edge and it overbalanced, sliding helplessly downward, silent until its big body hit the ice below with a meaty crack.

Wendy pulled John well away from the crevasse before she flung herself off the machine and ran back to him. "My God, John!" she cried, throwing herself to her knees beside him.

She reached a trembling hand toward him, horrified by the sight of blood pouring through the tear in his face covering. Steeling herself, she thrust back his hood and gently pried the goggles off, noticing with a sick feeling the path of the seal's teeth gouged in the sturdy surface. Then she tugged off the balaclava.

A lump was rising fast on his forehead, but there the skin wasn't broken. His face was torn across the bridge of his nose, then in a double furrow down his check, bleeding freely. Wendy took a handful of snow and pressed it against the cut, hoping to stop the bleeding.

John nodded, and taking more snow in one of his hands, he pressed it to the throbbing lump. "Go see," he told her. "I don't trust my balance."

She nodded and headed carefully for the suddenly more open crevasse. It was wider by a good five feet, but much less deep. Huge slabs of snow buried the place where Dieter had been lying. With a sob Wendy put her hand to her mouth.

It did her no good to think that he was probably already dead—the horror of it still shook her. The broken, bloody body of the seal that had attached John lay at the bottom of the pit, unmoving save for a reflexive twitch that brought its flippers together once, twice, then dribbled off into twitching. She shook her head in shocked disbelief.

Then she turned away; she had to get John inside the tent and bandaged. Then they had to get moving again. Time was running out.

"SHIT!" Clea screamed. She flung herself out of her chair and picked it up; spinning like an Olympic hammer thrower, she flung it into the wall. Shards of plaster exploded into the room, revealing the dented wire mesh beneath. "Shit!

Fuck! Damn!"

It had taken her forever to coax that damned animal awake, and when it opened its eyes there was John Connor staring back at it. How could she have him that close and not kill him? That stupid, fat, maggot-animal! That slug with fur!

That… that mammal!

She'd killed von Rossbach at least, and had been pleased about it despite the cost. But this! Her real quarry had once again escaped. How do they do that? she asked herself. She picked up one of Viemeister's many trophies and prepared to dash it against the wall.

"Hey! Whatcha doin'?"

She spun around, hissing like an angry tigress. Some part of her will held her motionless as she fought the almost overwhelming urge to kill. Clea chanted Skynet to herself like a mantra, to remind herself that she hadn't been designed to kill but to manipulate these creatures.

"What does it look like… Tricker?" she snapped. She forced herself calm; the governors weren't able to do much in the face of such rage. She'd almost said stupid human. Not something Tricker would be likely to forget. The I-950 glared at him, breathing hard and wanting to tear out his throat.

Tricker had known a few stone killers on a first-name basis in his career— some of them real mad-dog types—and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that right now he was looking at another one. The things ya see when ya haven't got a gun, he thought. But his heart was running wild in his chest. If she'd had a gun he'd be dead right now.

"You okay?" he asked as he watched her straighten from what looked to him like a combat-trained crouch.

"Yes." She bit the word out.

"What was that?" He gestured toward the broken wall.

"That was frustration." Her voice, she was pleased to note, sounded cool again.

"Sometimes this work can get to you."

"Oh, yeah?" he said. Maybe he'd better have the head office look a little more closely into this little lady's past. That kind of rage tended to leave the roses in the backyard looking a lot healthier and the boarder in the attic completely

missing.

"What do you want?" she asked, her voice as devoid of expression as she could make it.

"You hungry?" he asked.

"If I am I'm capable of feeding myself." She stared at him, willing him to go away.

He raised his hand and backed out. "Okay," he said. "Just being friendly."

"Don't be." She sneered. "My work is more important than your company."

"You're such a sweetheart," he said, grinning falsely.

Tricker backed out the door and several paces down the hallway before he turned and walked quickly to the elevator. Which he was going to lock down at the top of the shaft. He suddenly didn't feel at all safe being alone with the lovely and charming Ms. Bennet.

Images of an old movie called The Thing—wherein scientists in a lab in Antarctica are stalked by a monster from outer space—lurched through his brain.

And if Bennet isn't from outer space, nobody is! The only other way out of the lower levels was a single emergency shaft that let out onto the ice. So he'd be sure and lock up the shed, too.

At least the storm is over. More or less. He'd been here long enough to know you couldn't take the weather on faith. But it comforted him to know that if he

needed help it was less than two hours away.

He knew he shouldn't allow himself to be so unnerved by the woman. She only weighed in at like a hundred and twelve pounds. But this was the way the real killers always affected him. They'd find a way, always. No obstacle would hold them back for long, because they really loved what they did.

The elevator door closed and he breathed a little easier. But sleep was gonna come hard tonight.

Wendy watched John sleep in the twilit gloom of the tent, chewing on her lower lip.

The lump on his head frightened her—it was so big, in spite of the snow they'd applied. She kept trying to recall anything she'd ever read about head injuries and couldn't remember if you were supposed to put the patient's feet higher than their head or vice versa. She kept thinking that it was supposed to be dangerous to let them sleep—something about lapsing into a coma. But he needed to rest…

Dieter had left them a very complete medical kit that included several already threaded needles sealed in plastic which she'd used to take stitches in John's torn face. Just remembering the process made her lightheaded. There was a topical anesthetic that obviously helped him endure her clumsy ministrations and the codeine tablets that knocked him out had helped, too. Wendy wished there was a drug that would wipe out the memory. The feel of the needle… And he was bound to scar badly.

She shook her head sharply, then checked the time and fretted. Extra time had been allowed for accidents and so forth, but not that much time, and supplies

were…

Supplies were provided for three people, not two. So supplies, at least, won't be a problem. Wendy looked down at John's battered face, then picked up the torn balaclava and the sewing kit. She'd let him sleep a little longer. Then they'd have to go.

***

Wendy had insisted that he ride on the sledge, inside his sleeping bag, with the tent wrapped around him and the whole mess tied onto the rest of their cargo. He hadn't been crazy about the idea, but he'd been too foggy to put up much of a protest, especially in the face of her determination. He wasn't sure, but he thought he might have called her mom.

If he had she'd taken it well. Things were beginning to become more clear.

Certainly the pain was. I've been attacked by a seal, he thought. just one of the many unique experiences adorning my life. He really wished his life was more ordinary. I wanna go to Disneyland, he thought, staring up at the still-cloudy sky. Maybe if he just insisted on doing ordinary things from now on, that would help. Go to Burger King. Maybe a cruise ship to the Islands… He dropped off to sleep without noticing.

He woke to a fierce bounce that brought a groan from him before he was fully conscious. John opened his eyes to find Wendy looking over her shoulder at him.

He could imagine her face. She'd be looking worried, no doubt.

"Hey, watch your driving," he said. His voice sounded high and thin. He coughed to clear his throat and tried again. "Are we there yet?"

Wendy stopped the snowmobile, climbed off, and rushed to his side. She laid one mittened hand against his unwounded cheek before she straightened.

"Almost," she said. "According to the map, no more than half a mile." She looked at him and shook her head. "Dieter told us to approach the base obliquely, so I've taken the roundabout route he marked on the map, but it's kept us outside longer than I like. What do you want me to do?" She sounded worried.

He sighed, wishing they could see each other's faces. "I want you to let me up,"

he said. "I need to get the blood back up to my brain. Maybe if I'm moving around that will help."

He didn't mention the pain or suggest that he take something for it. Anything he took would only dull his reflexes. When they met up with Clea Bennet, the female Terminator—and they would meet her—he'd need his wits about him.

At least he felt less shocky.

Without a word Wendy began working on the ropes that bound him to the sledge. Then she peeled back the folds of the tent and unzipped his sleeping bag.

John was surprised by a racking shudder as the air hit him. Despite the layers of heavy clothing he wore, the freezing air seemed to hit him like a slap. He slid down from the sledge and forced himself to stand, though he kept one hand on the supplies in order to keep himself upright.

She gave him an anxious glance, then shoved a PowerBar into his hand. Looking away, she went to work folding up the tent and rolling his sleeping bag. Wendy secured them, working around him, casting sidelong glances at him that he