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"Don't worry,"Chaz said. "We'll get the explosives from inside. All we need,
just like with the weapons."
"From where?"
Chaznodded at Eileen.
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"The covens will help."
"Covens?"Rover echoed, looking at her.
"Witches get together in covens," Eileen said from the bed. She was beginning
to get some normal color back in her face, after the drawn look that the fever
had given her. "Something like Roversget together in packs. I'm a witch."
"Witch?" said Rover. He blinked at her. "You don't mean& witch?"
"Why not?" said Eileen, smiling a little wickedly at him. "You're a witch,
too or as good as. Remember what you did with those pieces of pa-per just now?
Otherwise you'd never have been immune to the Rot. Why? You aren't prejudiced
against witches, are you?"
"Well . . . of course not," said Rover."I was just thinking, that's all. It's
the other Immunes. What I mean is, maybe we better not rush them. Suppose I
just start talking about some people inside who're against putting out every
poorwonker who might have breathedunsterile air for a minute." He became
brisk. "Now, how do you plan to do this?"
He turned his back toChaz .
"Eileen knows where the Citadel people are in a building actually called
theEmbryTower ," saidChaz . "Some of us attack that at the same time as one
hole is blown in a single sterile area, as a warning. Mean-while, another
bunch the witches, maybe have gotten their hands on the city's emergency
channel on theviz -phones. They cut in on the gen-eral alert following the
explosion, and broadcast a warning that the rest ofChicago gets opened up
un-less the Citadel people are handed over to the outsiders. Then they switch
to phoning pictures of us taking over the Citadel building and also to filming
the mobs that form to help us."
"And what," said Red Rover, "will the Chicago District Government and police
be doing while all this is going on?"
"You ought to know better than that," Eileen put in from the bed. "The
Citadel owns the Chicago Dis-trict Government. The District Di-rector, the
General of Police, and nearly everyone else that counts, are Citadel
members just like with ev-ery other large city district in the world. In fact
it's not justChicago . The whole world, more or less, is run from that Citadel
building."
Red Rover grunted, as if someone had punched him in the stomach.
"Want to back out?"Chaz asked, watching him closely.
Rover shook his head.
"I guess you want our Rover packs to guard the explosive positions out-side
the walls and tunnels then," he said.
"That's right,"Chaz said. "And set them off only when ordered if or-dered by
you. We can't trust anyone else outside."
"That's true enough." Without ac-tually moving, Rover gave the im-pression of
shaking himself off, like someone coming up into the air after a deep dive
underwater."Now what?"
"Next,"Chaz said, "we get to-gether with the covens. Eileen con-tacted one of
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the witches in her own coven, this afternoon. The whole coven will get us
inside and meet with us, as soon as we can come in. What's the closest air
lock to the Chicago District?"
"About five miles east," Rover said. `There is a trash disposal lock. We can
walk it in a couple of hours. Night's the safe time to move around if Eileen
there's up to it. I've got a portable limpet light."
"I'm up to it," said Eileen.
It was actually closer to four hours before they all sat together in a
witches' hole in the sterile areas with those members of Eileen's coven who
could be gathered together on such short notice. Noticeably among the missing
were the Gray Man and one or two others not trusted by thecoven.
Chazintroduced Red Rover and once more explained his plan.
"You know," said a white-haired man among the witches, "we're not fighters;
and we've got a responsi-bility to protect the sisterhood and the brotherhood.
But we could get your Rovers anything they need it's our people, not the
Citadel's, who control the supply tunnels. And we can probably dig up some of
us who know something about the use of ex-plosives for demolition and things
like that."
"How about people to man the phones and get what we're doing on theviz
-screens?"Chazasked. The white-haired man hesitated.
"Maybe some of the younger ones might want to take an active part in that end
of it," he said. "We'll know after we check with the otherChi-cago covens.
That'll take several days. Now, about payment for our part in this "
"Payment!" said Red Rover. The word came out of him with the abrupt, brutal
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