“I can tell you how it comes out. The computers take over the universe.”

“Very funny.” Julio stumped away lugging the gasoline. He was in a good mood; the helicopter had brought him half a dozen science fictions.

Vargas and his crew hooked up the first field gun and Kruger down below waited with his arms folded on his chest, head tipped back, blinking when raindrops struck his face; brooding. To Kruger everything had come out of kilter with time. The tragedy of Kruger’s existence was that he hadn’t been born early enough to be a storm trooper.

The engine coughed and started up again. Cielo looked back toward the cliff and thought of checking up on the oak tree again but he was feeling a bit lazy and his earlier unease had been settled by a gentle calm. He wagged a finger at Vargas and then at Julio; the field gun dragged along the ground a bit and then swung aloft and swayed out over the drop.

Down below him Kruger’s men stood out well away from the cliff. Kruger walked across the hardpan and dragged the dolly aside; they wouldn’t need it this time, the gun had its own wheels. Coming back onto the drop zone Kniger looked up and watched the gun descend; he began to wave the others forward and they moved in like scavengers toward a carcass. Old men now, all of them—old for this at least; they were over forty, some of them fifty or as near to it as made no difference; Vargas was what, now—fifty-six? For men like these this kind of life was nothing more than simulation.

They’d been nurtured on patriotism and old Draga’s monstrous calumnies. Time had betrayed them. When Draga was gone Cielo would have to face up to the dismal grief of disbanding them. Some of them would take it with relief, he knew—Vargas for instance. Others would lose their moorings and be swept away by the guilt of their failure: He could picture one or two of them on skid row and he didn’t know how he could prevent that. Julio had his own plans, Cielo thought—but they involved business, not insurrection. As for Kruger, that one wouldn’t suffer; he’d find another war and go off to shoot Communists somewhere.

For himself there was simply the money Draga would leave him. There was something curious in that—not long ago he’d had ten million dollars in his hands but he’d turned it over to the old man. When Julio had questioned that he’d explained that they couldn’t double-cross the old man and survive it; the old man had tentacles everywhere and how could you spend money without his getting wind of it? But that was only a half truth. In a way he loved the old man. After the old man died it wouldn’t matter if Cielo turned traitor to his cause but while Draga lived Cielo would humor him because these dreams were all the old man had left.

A boat. That was his own dream. Not a Greek yacht; just a boat—fifty feet, maybe sixty, an old one would do if it didn’t have dry rot. Something with plenty of canvas and a little diesel auxiliary. A boat and a warm-water landing where he could moor it; a house by the landing where he could moor Soledad and the children and bask away his days in a soft warm nesty feeling of family and love. All he really wanted was the old man’s half million dollars to see him through. Ah, he thought, I’m one hell of a revolutionary.

Musing, he watched Kruger’s men drag the field gun out of sight into the cave. The cable came back up and Vargas hooked it to the last gun.

The drizzle tapered off. Steam in the air now; he could hardly see the oak back there and beneath him Kruger’s face was leached of color by the gray mist. There was always rain in El Yunque but it seemed to have been heavier than usual this year—every day a half dozen squalls, some of them drenching. It was a wonder the whole mountain didn’t wash away. Everywhere you saw trees with their root systems exposed to the air where floods had carried the earth away.

He didn’t like it up here. Cabin fever was another danger; he couldn’t keep the men here forever. The schedule of rotations permitted each man a two-day furlough in the fleshpots; the men were away two at a time on overlapping days; their discipline was strong and he knew none of them would get drunk enough to let anything slip. Nevertheless they were beginning to think of themselves as prisoners. A few had their own resources: Julio would last as long as the supply of science fiction held out and Vargas had the methodical patience of a saint and Kruger, the good soldier, obeyed orders to the end but the others were restless and soon a listless apathy would infect them; they would begin to quarrel among themselves and things would begin to disintegrate. And there was Emil, if he ever returned from the city. But he saw no solution to it unless the old man died soon.

The idea had occurred to him that if push came to shove he might mount an attempt to invade Cuba, then abort it for some reason. That would push things back toward Square One for a while. It would take time to reorganize and re-equip. The thought remained in his mind as a workable contingency but he preferred to avoid it; anything like that might cause injuries and jeopardy. What was the sense in exposing the men to pointless risks? Besides, an aborted attack would disappoint the old man acutely.

Something snapped—very loud. The earth seemed to quake under him. He was watching Kruger, waiting for signals, but the noisy tremor spun him around and he was in time to see Vargas diving toward a man nearby, tackling the man, driving him down and back from the cliff—and then it registered on Cielo’s consciousness that the derrick was coming apart.

He saw in an instant what was happening: The one thing they hadn’t been able to test—the rim of the cliff itself was buckling. A fissure must have opened; rot in the rock. The telegraph pole that had been pinned into the ledge by cables and rock drills was letting go and in that split instant of time he saw the great logs scatter like toothpicks,

He whipped around to scream a warning at Kruger but Kruger had seen it, too, and was scrambling to get out from under the plummeting field gun. For a moment Cielo thought there was time, believed Kruger would make it; the angle of perspective gave him false hope. Kruger launched himself like an Olympic swimmer—a flat dive to get away from the impact area—but his soles skidded on the wet and he bellyflopped and the gun came down on him—bounced horribly and tipped over, its cable whipping like a snake, lashing its heavy loop back toward the cliff where it knocked a man—Ramirez—clear off his feet; Cielo wasn’t certain but he had the terrible feeling the cable had struck Ramirez right in the face. The man pirouetted back out of sight.

Stunned by shock and the suddenness of it Cielo climbed to his feet on rubber knees and looked left: Vargas was standing up, the man he’d rescued dusting himself off, someone else lying askew with the butt end of a telegraph pole across his chest. The donkey engine died with a sputter and Julio stared at Cielo in horror. Vargas on his big legs stumbled from side to side like a man concussed; but Cielo believed he’d not been hurt.

Juices pumped through him but he forced himself to behave with leaderly calm. He went jogging across to the man pinned under the pole. It was Ordovara and he was quite dead, his rib cage crushed; Cielo turned away, then turned back and laid a finger along Ordovara’s throat to feel for a pulse. There was none. A stink of excrement hung in the air.

He went to the lip and looked down. Two men were manhandling the capsized field gun away from Kruger who lay on his belly with both legs splayed out at weird angles. Even from up here Cielo could hear Kruger’s moans. Well, at least he was still alive but it looked as if both legs had been crushed.

He felt weight behind him. When he turned Vargas was there. Cielo pointed toward the body of Ordovara. “Get that thing off him and bring him down to the camp. Tell the others to clear up—get the equipment out of sight. Put Julio in charge. I’m going down.”