[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

barely
managed to get the nose elevated slightly before the tail section caught and
slammed the body of the sled into the ground, sending out plumes of dust and
dirt as it plowed a long furrow in the desert before coming to a shuddering
stop.
Higgins leaned back against his seat, blood running down his face from a cut
on
his forehead. He took a ragged breath and let it out in a long and heavy
exhalation. "Damn. We made it. I was afraid we'd tumble when we hit. That
would've been a real mess. Is everybody all right?"
"We're all right back here," said Breck. "O'Toole?"
"Barely," I said. I turned on Higgins furiously. "Well, that sure was fun!
Your
stupid stunt going through that cactus forest was what probably damaged the
damn
sled!"
"No way," said Higgins emphatically. "We only scraped by a couple of those
plants, just barely touched 'em. That wouldn't have been enough to rupture
any
of the fuel cells or cause a failure in the stabilizer system. Besides, the
gauge was showing full! I can't understand it. I checked the sled myself this
morning!"
"But I suppose anyone could've gotten to it since then," said Breck.
"Are you saying someone sabotaged it?"
"Someone or some thing," said Breck. "What sort of shape are we in?"
"Not good." Higgins stabbed at the buttons on the console. It was dead. He
shook
his head. "This sled isn't going anywhere. We've torn up the entire
undercarriage. It's nothing but a pile of junk now."
He released the canopy, but it wouldn't open all the way. He swore and
hammered
at it several times, but it wouldn't budge.
"Great! We'll fry in here when the sun comes up."
"Allow me," Breck said.
He rose up in his seat, grabbed hold of the canopy, grunted, and shoved with
all
his might. There was the sound of metal buckling in protest, then it scraped
back with a grating whine into the fully retracted position. I felt the cool
night air on my face. The silence was eerie.
Higgins jumped down lightly to the ground, Breck and Tyla followed. I climbed
down out of the cockpit, thinking back to the last time I was on Purgatory,
when
those crewmates of mine had gotten drunk and taken a sled out into the
desert.,.
Higgins reached inside the cockpit and pulled out his small backpack, then he
tossed our packs down. "Might as well start walking," he said.
"Wait a minute," I said. "What are you talking about? We're miles from
anywhere!
Wouldn't we be better off staying with the sled?"
"What for? There won't be any help coming," Higgins said, hiking the pack up
onto his shoulders. "The locator beacon's out and we don't have any radios.
Your
people at Psychodrome could send for help, but even with tachyon broadcast,
by
the time anyone got out here to pick us up, about a dozen different things
could
happen to us, none of them very pleasant. We've got some nocturnal predators
out
here that could be dangerous, but the ones active during the day, you really
wouldn't want to meet, believe me. We'd best try to make the high country
before
daybreak."
I could barely see the hills against the night sky. "We'll never make it," I
said.
"Of course we will," said Higgins. "Remember, Tyla's people have lived out
here
for generations. She'll get us through."
I glanced at her, standing casually off to one side as if nothing unusual had
happened, looking almost bored by our discussion. She was barefoot, dressed
only
in a hide skirt that was belted at the waist and fastened at the shoulder,
leaving the opposite shoulder and both arms bare. It was crudely made from
the
skin of some native animal, light-colored, thin and supple, cut high on one
hip
to allow for freedom of movement. It was a garment meant to be purely
utilitarian and not in the least bit decorative, though she looked terrific
in
it. Her lush, manelike hair hung long and loose, blowing in the wind. In the
moonlight, her shadowed form standing with legs slightly apart, hair rippling
in
the wind and arms hanging loosely at her sides, she seemed like an archetype
of
the primal female. She certainly didn't seem worried. But then, she wasn't
human, either.
"He's right," said Breck, checking his weapons and shouldering his pack. "It
will be easier traveling on foot at night than during the day. Let's not
waste
any time. It seems someone doesn't want us to contact Tyla's tribe. Since we
already know there are ambimorphs on Purgatory, I wonder what it is they
don't
want us to find out."
"I'll settle for finding out how we're going to get out of this alive," I
said.
We started walking, heading toward the distant hills. Tyla led the way. She
had
a graceful, easy walk, springy and absolutely soundless. She placed one foot
almost directly in front of the other, holding her body upright, sniffing the
air on occasion as she walked. By contrast, I felt clumsy. The two small
bright
moons of Purgatory made the night a cool, shadowy blue rather than an
impenetrable black. The figures of Tyla and Breck looked like ghostly shadows
moving ahead of me. Higgins walked in the rear with me, no doubt to make sure
I
didn't straggle and get lost.
I was in good condition-or at least I thought I was-but after a while, the
seemingly easygoing pace set by Tyla started to feel exhausting and I began
to
fall behind. Breck, of course, had no trouble keeping up with her. She could
have sprinted and he'd probably have been able to run rings around her.
However,
what little solace my ego could have derived from the fact that Breck was
superhuman and Tyla wasn't human at all was dissipated by Higgins, who wasn't
tiring anywhere near as quickly as I was. Several times, he had to call out
to
Tyla in her native tongue as she and Breck started to get too far ahead. Then
they'd stop and wait for us-for me-and I'd feel humiliated at the easy way
she
stood there, head cocked, watching me as I closed the distance between us.
Then
she would turn and go on at what seemed to be a slower pace, only to have me
start falling behind again after about a mile or two.
Under other circumstances, I might even have enjoyed it. A little. Maybe. The
ground sloped very gently upward as we headed toward the foothills. The wind
was
brisk and it was subtly perfumed with the piquant smells of the flowering
scrub
brush all around us and the short, grasslike growths with delicate stalks
surmounted by whispy blooms rising out of the centers of the clumps. All
around
us was a lovely surreal vista in hues of blue and black and purple, eerie and
peaceful save for the occasional piercing cry of some nightflyer giving
warning [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]