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“Yes, boiling in a pot. It means he’s up to something.” The man scanned through the rest of the message. “The gibberish that follows is just a list of novels.”
“What sort of novels?”
“I don’t know. The sort of boring crap teachers make you read in school.”
“So, it’s just junk to confuse my programs?” Lila snorted. “Luckily mine don’t work like that. What about the next file?”
“Same idiom. Different books.”
The mole has nothing new to report. He’s merely checking in, Dixon wrote.
“Seems like it.”
Several more messages possessed similar content.
Anastasio laughed suddenly at the next one, dated several months after the first message. “No idioms this time. This isn’t a test at all. Someone got inside your little compound, purple man. I might have been blindfolded when I came through, but I’ve seen the plans.”
“‘A hundred log houses mixed with communal buildings,’” Lila read aloud. “‘The oracle’s cabin is the biggest and oldest structure. It has a green roof. The oracle sleeps in the’—”
Connell lifted his gun at the prisoner’s head.
“That won’t help,” Lila said gently.
“I don’t care,” he replied through clenched teeth. “They know where she sleeps.”
“They know where you both sleep. I doubt they’ll get past you easily.”
Connell lowered his gun an
d stood up straighter. “You’re damn right they won’t. I’ll tear them to bits and eat their heart, none of this putting the bastards in cages. I’m moving her tonight. I don’t like them knowing where she is.”
“I think I know what she’ll say to that.”
“You and me both.”
Lila moved to the next file.
“Novels. Nothing of consequence,” Anastasio said, squinting at the next message. “He’s gone back to information. This one details the Star Gazer.”
“It says she might be turned like a glove,” Lila said.
“He thinks she might be easily manipulated.”
Connell snorted. “Blair would have to look up from her telescope for that.”
Dixon smiled slowly.
The group kept going through the files, with Dixon taking notes on Anastasio’s translations. Soon a pattern emerged. Some messages resorted to idioms. Others spoke in plain terms. Sometimes the writer had no problem giving out concrete information, like the militia’s patrol routes and the names of future oracles who had visited from compounds nearby. Other times, the writer clammed up, calling the oracles “the prophets of the stars.” The oracles were real, the writer claimed. The mission should be abandoned.
After several hours, they finished up the last message.
When Dr. McCrae arrived to check on the patient and Lila’s wounds, Dixon saved Anastasio’s translations and the audio file from their meeting. Lila winced as the doctor pressed too hard on her cheek.
“She’s going to be fine,” Dr. McCrae assured Connell.
The little group passed Dr. Patterson as they returned to the rotunda.
Nico stopped when he spied them in the corridor. He’d shaved again, and ironed his uniform. “I invited myself to dinner tonight, chief. I’m making something special.”
