Starhammer (28 page)

With the knife he cut into a strongbox that disgorged wads of Laowon Mercantile notes. Jon pocketed them and, after tying up Bompipi and Og Uk with their own cuffs, he set off for the caravan garages that surrounded the Meridian Gate. It was time to get out of Quism.

After stopping at an expeditioneer's outfitting yard, Jon moved on down the Grand Levee toward the Meridian Gate. He now wore stout desert boots and a suit of wind-resistant polyfiber. His headgear was a tight-fitting windcap with sun- and wind-goggles and blast flaps.

In addition to the Taw Taw longbarrel that he'd recovered at Bompipi's, he wore a Bahnkouv .330 assault rifle on his shoulder. For it he carried four clips of explosive shells and eight of antipersonnel soft jackets. On the back of his belt he had two satchel charges, two antipersonnel grenades, and his binoculars. On his wrist he wore a sophisticated computer radar/radio that strapped on next to the chrononavigator.

With the mote hidden inside his desert-rate topcoat and the monofil knife in his boot, Jon felt like a walking armory as he moved through the crowds and dust.

Hydrogen-powered IC engines roared steadily from the garages clustered along the last stretch of the levee. As he got closer, the smell of the night air outside the city, cold and laced with oil fumes, filled his nostrils. A hive of activity surrounded the gate portal.

Expeditions were gathered on the forecourts of commercial garages. Groups of vehicles were loaded, then moved down the levee on their rubber skirts, engines whistling, and out through the relatively narrow portal about four hundred meters away. Above the portal the roof rock of Quism was blackened back to the lightbars. Metal inspection walks climbed the walls.

On the first walk, three meters above the roadbed, Jon noticed a tall figure in a laowon-cut military uniform. Instinctively he ducked aside into the shadows cast by advertising panels surrounding the forecourt of the Desert Beater garage. A pair of squat four-seater mantids were being loaded on the concrete apron. A dozen figures in buff-color desert wear were gathered about another, much larger craft with heavily ablated front windows and nose cone.

Iehard checked the portal through his binoculars. A tall blue figure in Superior Buro uniform was filming the departing caravans. Jon made out a pair of human-sized figures standing behind, guarding him in the shadows.

Clearly Superior Buro were in action, but with only their local forces. Jon however could easily imagine the frantic activity in the sector fleet if the local Buro had indeed picked up a trace of Eblis Bey. He had to move fast before reinforcements appeared.

However, the laowon's equipment would most certainly be primed with his likeness. He doubted he could pass by the camera without its alerting the Superior Buro.

Jon replaced the binoculars and considered the antipersonnel grenades.

A few minutes later a figure in desert khaki slid along the rock wall beneath the catwalk on which stood the laowon. Suddenly something small and dark was lobbed onto the walk. The man in desert garb ran back into the shadows.

A deafening crack resounded in the portal space, and where the laowon and his camera had been, there bloomed a white-and-pink fog of vapor and hot smoke. Pieces of the three figures rained down inside the portal for several seconds.

Jon secreted himself in the shadows of a side alley between two garages. A few moments of near silence pervaded the levee. The explosion had been shockingly loud and unexpected. All had noticed the laowon officer and discussed his presence and unusual activities. Now they stared.

After a full half minute a few crept cautiously forward to examine the remains. They poked about, but in truth there was little to be found in the mess. They returned to the garages. A babble of conversation followed that lasted less than a minute before engines roared and expeditions headed out the gate, in their haste to get away before the inquiries began they passed directly over the bloody fragments.

Reassured that the ancient manners of Quism had prevailed once more, Jon entered the forecourt of the Chequered Mutant garage and quickly arranged to hire a stout four-seat mantid and driver, a grim, taciturn fellow named Braunt. After a brief bout of haggling, Jon paid with Bompipi's cash, torn between his desire to conserve the cash and the powerful urge to get out of Quism before the Buro arrived in force.

A few minutes later Braunt eased the mantid off the forecourt and, with lights blazing, they whistled out through the portal, heading south directly for Fort Pinshon, which sat astride the junction of the two major treasure trails, the North Coastal and the old Oolite. There Jon hoped to catch up with Eblis Bey. If he missed the Bey there, Jon knew only to do what Rhap Dimple knew, which was to head south into the equatorial dust belts. Of course Braunt would not go farther than Fort Pinshon, but Jon could hire another driver there, one of the deeper desert specialists. However, when he asked Braunt if such drivers would be willing to go as far as the equator, the gaunt man gave him a startled look.

"Nobody goes that far, there's nothing down there but the worst mutants and dust."

"Where does the Oolite trail go then?"

"All the way down to the Tropical Boneyards, at the southern tip of Bolgol's Continent. But that's all north of the worst dust. Only idiots and archeologists go down off the continental shelf. You look it up on the computer, it'll show you. The chances of dying out there go up dramatically once you move off the trails either inland or down onto the seabeds."

"Why should that be?"

"Both ways you get into dust, and mutants. Plus on the seabed there's always groundquakes. Even the Oolite trail has been shifted twice these last ten years because quakes keep chopping bits off the Boneyard Headland."

Jon examined all the locations on the maps projected by the computer. It was more important than ever to get to Fort Pinshun in time to catch up with the Bey and the Orners.

Outside the portal it was full polar night. The skies blazed with stars. Red taillights trailed south toward the distant Meridian Gap. Dozens of expeditions, large and small, roved ahead of them leaving clouds of thin white dust behind them that blew away slowly into the dark bean fields.

The seats in the mantid were comfortable, if a little worn. The front windshield was split by a central divider. The passenger's side was cracked and pitted with the unmistakable trace of a bullet impact.

He concentrated on the map. Most expeditions headed south for Meridian Gap, a deep cleft in the mountain barrier lying between Quism and the rest of the Bolgol Continent. On the far side, the major trail doglegged back to the west and on down to the ancient coastlines where the city sites and Boneyards were. There, on a promontory overlooking the edge of the continental shelf, was Fort Pinshun.

"What if we avoided Meridian Gap?" said Jon.

"Sheer madness. On the other side of the West Mountains is the range of the Hardgrains Bluescabbies. They are led these days by Blood Head, a terrible warrior indeed. Only the most heavily armed caravans dare the direct western route to Fort Pinshon. Which is why Bengo's has done such a good business over the last few years."

"But it would be much quicker to go over the West Mountains, wouldn't it?"

"The trails are steep, it's bad on the engines. You know, the High West Pass is two thousand meters high. Gets damn cold up there too."

But Jon was sure the laowon would be watching the caravans coming into the Meridian Gap. "Nevertheless, I wish to go that way."

"Did you not listen? Are your ears defective? On the far side is Blood Head. Why do you wish to end your days in the Bluescabby meat herds?"

"We will defend ourselves. Perhaps if we drive quickly enough they won't even catch up with us."

Braunt began easing off the accelerator; the mantid slowed.

"What are you doing?" Jon said.

"I'm stopping to let you get out. If you want to go over the High West Pass I suggest you get yourself another car and driver."

Jon brought the Taw Taw longbarrel out and aimed it at Braunt's head. "If you don't get your foot back on that accelerator and keep it there I'll simply leave your body here at the roadside and drive there myself. I'm sure I could master the details as I went along."

Braunt paled. Jon gestured to the road ahead. The mantid surged forward again, Braunt angrily hunched over the steering wheel. A few colored lights appeared in the distance and slowly grew into a cluster of illuminated signs erected above a buried waystation called Last Water & Hydro.

Jon insisted that Braunt turn right and head southwest toward the mountains on a trail that was visibly underused. As Braunt drove, Jon ostentatiously took notes. Soon he felt reasonably confident of being able to keep the hovercraft in forward motion. There didn't seem to be much to it in fact since the controls were largely computerized.

They had left the bean fields behind. Oddly shaped trees and other mutant terrestrial plants grew in dark clumps beside the road. After an hour they had seen only three other vehicles, all coming from the opposite direction.

Very occasionally they would see a speck of light from some distant farm or mutant's shack. It was inherently peaceful. Jon allowed himself to relax a trifle, with the gun still ready should Braunt get any ideas. The tension of the last few hours began to fade. He realized he was really exhausted.

On reflection he decided that Quism was not a city he would in any way miss. He hoped Doctor Dawl was forced to undergo prolonged restorative dental surgery and that she would find Bompipi sharing the same hospital ward.

The dark prairies gave way to rocks, clumped with mutant forests.

"We approach the mountains. Now is the time to reconsider. Let us turn back. I could take a side road and rejoin the Meridian Highway in less than three hours. Don't sacrifice our lives for nothing."

"Drive on," Jon muttered.

Braunt, with increasingly gloomy looks to either side, began to take the hovercraft up a long sloping path, scarcely fit to be called a road so cut up with gulleys and loose stones was it. Eventually, as they curved around the side of a small mountain, Jon saw the first glimmers of dawnlight in the east. The long polar night of Baraf was ending.

"We'll be going across the foreland in daylight. The mutants won't bother with us. One vehicle, two bodies, and their supplies, it would hardly be worth it. They prefer to stay below ground in the daylight. Which is a sensible thing to do, I believe."

"And you don't have the brains of a mutant!" Braunt snapped.

"Exactly so," Jon agreed.

Braunt made no reply. They wound on higher into the bare flanks of the mountains, which were heavily scored by erosion. The light got progressively brighter. Jon could see the western ridge of peaks quite clearly. They were covered in frost and a dusting of snow. He looked eastward with his binoculars but could only identify the nearer of the mountains overlooking the Meridian Gap.

As they climbed farther the hovercraft engines protested.

"Of course, if we break down on the Hardscabbies' range then nothing we do will save us from joining the meat herds."

"Don't worry, Braunt, I'll save a bullet for each of us."

Braunt stared at him for a long moment then turned back to the track.

Slowly now they wound up the last, highest stretch and came into the Western High Pass. The light was getting strong, as bright as normal daylight on Hyperion Grandee.

Passing around a curve they were greeted by a vast vista of the plains of Bolgol, which ended in a dimness, a cloudiness that stretched from one end to the other of the horizon.

"What is that?" Jon asked, gesturing to the cloud.

"Any fool knows that's the Northern Dust Belt. Looks pretty quiet to me from here. I've seen it when storms twenty kilometers high come rolling right up to and even through the Meridian Gap. Winds can top two hundred kilometers an hour. Not as fierce as the equatorial belts, of course, but very hard to keep a hovercraft moving forward in."

Jon looked again at the distant line of haze. "Then our luck is definitely in today! Forward!"

They moved to the end of the pass and descended toward the arid plains below.

Jon wondered how anything, mutant or not, could survive on that terrain; it seemed absolutely barren.

The hovercraft swooped around the curves now, the computer fighting the craft's tendency to go out of control by angling the fans and tilting the bow up to get a braking action from the hoverflow.

Jon looked down into the grim gulleys. Jagged boulders filled the stream beds on their flanks. If they went over the edge he doubted that either of them would survive the impact below.

They came around a large rock that had been sundered in two by whoever had built the road.

On the top of the stone stood a tall figure wrapped in brown cloth. A heavy rifle boomed, the bullet smashed the already cracked window plate of the mantid. Glass flew inward.

Braunt gave a cry, almost lost control. Another bullet whined off the mantid's roof. Jon fired back through the window, holding the Taw Taw in both hands. The bullets whined off the rocks but succeeded in driving the marksman into cover.

Then they were past him and turning into another corner. A bullet smacked against the rear window, but the glass held, merely cracking radially around a small impact pit.

Another ricocheted off the boulders to their right and then they were out of the line of fire, sweeping down a long, gentle incline.

"We're dead if we get caught in a dust storm now," Braunt said with an angry gesture at the smashed window.

Jon examined the map carefully. Several hours' driving lay ahead of them, across the foreland to Fort Pinshon. The sun was rising fast, and the dust would soon begin to kick up off the ancient seabeds as the first storm of the day began. He thought they would be lucky to make Fort Pinshon.

It was already painful to look out at the desert. Jon pulled down the polarizing goggles, noted that Braunt had done the same. Made a mental note to watch the driver.