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enough! By Christ, Nanci& A dead wife. Two dead sons and a dead daughter. Boy, have
I done fucking well!"
"You got a live wife and four live children, Mac. Batting better than fifty percent, and
that's a damn sight better than you should expect."
"You reckon?"
"Yeah, I reckon." A cold anger filtered into her voice. "And I know, Mac. Believe me, on
this, I know."
"You want to talk to me, Nanci?"
"About who I am and where do I come from and what makes me tick?"
The warning note couldn't have been clearer if the woman had shoved the muzzle of the
Heckler & Koch P-111 in his mouth and cocked it.
Mac shrugged, hands off. "Hey, come on, Nanci. You can't blame any of us for being
curious. Just that it seems you know so much about the Hunters of the Sun and Zelig and
all that shit."
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"I know some." A little of the ice had melted from her voice. "But not all. I truly don't
know where Aurora is. I figure it for somewhere close by the Cascades, but that covers a
lot of miles."
For another few minutes they remained silent while the Belle sailed on across the painted
ocean.
Nanci spoke first. "If we can make it to Aurora, you know that it's not going to be heaven
on earth."
"Sure. But I guess I sort of see it as& as a kind of refuge. Where some decent people
have gotten themselves together to try and hit a lick for what's right." He laughed self-
consciously. "I sound like John Wayne at the Alamo. But you know what I mean, Nanci.
Someplace better."
She nodded, looking behind, then up at the sky, "Wind's still getting stronger. Could do
with a reef in the sail. Better get below and wake up Jeff and Paul."
"All right."
"Then we'll swing around northerly and start moving back toward land. Someone can
spell me at the wheel for a couple of hours. Best be you, Mac."
Mac nodded. "Good plan, Nanci."
Chapter Fourteen
In her desert base, Margaret Tabor's office had a large clock on the wall, with a sweep
second hand. It was old-fashioned, compared with the rest of the flickering digital
timekeepers around the place, but the leader of the Hunters of the Sun liked it. Somehow
it gave a better feeling for the way seconds and minutes and hours were racing by. Like
fine sand tumbling out of a huge hourglass. You could watch it go.
She turned and pressed the keys on her computer console, watching as the illuminated
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map on the far wall changed. Colored dots vanished and shifted, until all that remained
were a number of silver lights.
Some of them were speculative. Some of them were much more certain.
She was wearing her own version of the Hunters' uniform. Flagg had originally designed
it and chosen the logo of the golden arrow piercing a silver sun.
Her tight-fitting pants were tucked into highly polished black boots. A thin red stripe ran
down each leg. There was a similar stripe down each arm of the black jacket. Beneath
that was a white silk blouse, high at the throat.
She licked her full lips, considering the map, knowing that the conglomerate of
politicians and industrialists and senior officers from the old armed forces were all
desperate to try to locate Zelig and his secret base. Life after the eco-holocaust was
polarizing. Left and right. Good and bad.
Dark and light.
Margaret Tabor had not the least doubt in her sharp, ferretlike mind that the Hunters of
the Sun were the only force for the light.
Silver dots, gleaming like shards of diamond, spilled onto a velvet cloth.
"Power," she whispered.
If only she had access to more power. Staggering amounts of irreplaceable gasoline were
being expended to keep the base functioning. There were already one or two small,
improvised plants working out in the desert at refining gas from crude. But it was a
complex procedure and devoured much more power to get it running. Zelig had already
attracted several of the leading scientists who'd managed to survive beyond Earthblood.
The Hunters were far less successful in that area, though they had plenty of weapons men
and survivalists.
And lawyers.
But Margaret had personally taken charge of a murderous purge of some of the spineless
and useless hangers-on at the base. Mouths were food.
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Food was power.
Just to put one of their only two choppers into the air for an hour was a desperate
decision.
If only the right-thinking men and women who were the core of the Hunters had been
able to read the future and taken precautions as soon as the first red tendrils of the plant
cancer had appeared. Then they could have taken over huge stocks of gas.
Zelig would have been long dead, his scrawny throat crushed beneath the heel of her boot
if that had happened.
But it hadn't.
With more power, they would have tracked down the base in the Northwest weeks ago.
"Aurora, indeed," she said aloud to vent her anger.
Gradually their patrols were closing in, narrowing it down to a radius of a hundred and
fifty miles from the ruined city of Seattle. As soon as the circle tightened further, it
would be possible to mount a major operation with all their forces.
The silver dots seemed to mock her.
The landing of the space vessel Aquila, down at Stevenson Base, had been a total
shambles for the Hunters of the Sun. Prime targets for enlistment had been allowed to
escape.
Now where were they all?
Some dead.
She knew that, but she also knew that some of them were still very much alive. The dots
showed the survivors clustering together on the West Coast.
There was a faint knock on the door of her office.
"Enter."
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Margaret Tabor knew from the hesitancy and volume of the knock who was standing
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