“Know anything?”
There was a minute pause—as if the captain had looked over his shoulder. Then his voice came, tense, low and fast. “ Yeah! Only a Yellow alert, so far. First wave sneaked in low, somewhere above Great Slave Lake. Spread out and cruised slowly. They’re split in pieces now and under attack. Thing is—thing that gets everybody! —a wave is coming from the south!” The voice became Hat again: “Okay, Conner. Report, Hink, instanter.”
At that moment, Charles Conner had perhaps the most accurate information of any person within the main confines of the Sister Cities.
He walked back into the distraught living room and said, casually almost, “Mother, I’ve got to report to Hink, myself. Guess I should take you home now; we’ll have to use the buses.”
“Take my car,” Jim said. Chuck looked at him. “Wouldn’t you rather keep it, under the circumstances?”
Jim was sitting in his easy chair now, his face puckered with indignation and a glass of beer in his hand. “Hell. This phoney-baloney? Take the car, boy.”
“It may not be—phoney….” Chuck didn’t want to frighten his uncle, merely to warn him. And he didn’t want to violate his own trust. He was cleared to know the thing he now knew.
Unauthorized civilians in this region, so far, were not supposed to know anything at all.
Jim Williams stood up, his expression sardonic. “You complete your call?”
Chuck nodded.