Xenopath (28 page)

He was tempted
to return to the Bison and give chase, but before that decided to see
if the Scheering-Lassiter men had been aware of the radicals'
departure. It would make his job much easier if they were still
encamped in their shack on the edge of town, oblivious of the
radicals' escape.

He made his way
back down the track and crossed the main street, passing between two
buildings and looking down over the valley. He found the winding
thread of the road that left the highway and approached the
settlement, and the two shacks, which according to the farmers had
been recently occupied.

He sat on the
back veranda and, for the next hour, studiously watched the shacks
for the slightest sign of life.

All was still,
silent—and it was only after he'd been gazing at the dwellings
for over an hour that he noticed the twin circular burn marks outside
the nearest shack.

He stood,
staring, and knew instantly what they were.

He hurried back
to where he'd concealed the Bison, gunned the engine and slewed the
vehicle on the road into the settlement, accelerating along the main
street and out of town towards the highway.

Five minutes
later he came to the first shack and drew to a halt.

He climbed from
the cab and approached the burn marks on the gravel outside the
shack. He knelt, examining the perfect circles of carbonised ash.

They were the
landing and take-off marks of a twin-engined flier, and they looked
as if they had been made very recently.

So the radicals
had taken to the hills and Scheering's men had given chase?

He returned to
the Bison. There was only one course of action now: he would attempt
to follow the track-marks of the off-roader to wherever they might
lead.

He turned the
Bison and made his way back into Campbell's End, then turned off up
the track and crossed the secondary road, the track becoming uneven,
dangerous, as he climbed ever higher.

Soon it ceased
to be a track altogether and petered out into blue grassland rising
between jagged spurs of rock, terrain that would pose no trouble for
an off-roader, but which even his Bison found hard going.

The off-roader's
parallel track-marks patterned the grassland like an extended
equation sign, leading him onwards.

Perhaps a
kilometre further on, the track-marks veered left, seemingly into the
very flank of a sheer rock face, and Vaughan made out a cutting
between rearing grey slabs. He manhandled the Bison left, moving from
bright sunlight to inky shadow, and peered ahead. At least, here, the
going was easier, as if the surface of the cutting had been levelled
to form a passable track at some point in the past.

The track
between the rocks climbed, widening out so that sunlight was once
more admitted and shone down from beyond the snow-capped peaks like
shafted searchlights.

Then the track
became a definite road, though unmetalled and crude. It levelled out
and hugged the side of the mountain, with a precipitous, sick-making
drop to the right. He peered over once, which was enough. The side of
the mountain continued sheer for perhaps a hundred metres.

The track
continued along the side of the cliff face for perhaps two
kilometres, then climbed and passed between two jutting shoulders of
gunmetal grey rock. He passed into cold shadow again, not for the
first time wondering where the radicals had headed.

Ahead, the track
climbed seemingly without end: the vanishing point was so distant
that the flanks of the rock on either side seemed to come together
and close off the track completely. As he climbed, so the temperature
dropped, and he turned on the Bison's heater. Snow began to fall, a
talcum drift so fine it obscured the view ahead until stray gusts of
wind ripped it aside to reveal the endless, narrowing vista of grey
rock.

It seemed a
primitive form of travel, this bucking over unmade roads in a
ground-effect vehicle, when there were such inventions as fliers,
which would have made the journey a breeze.

He wondered how
he might evade being seen by Scheering's men, who had the double
advantage of elevation and speed.

He would worry
about that, he decided, when the time arrived.

Suddenly,
without warning, the cutting levelled out, the grey rock faces on
either side pulled back like a stage effect and Vaughan found himself
on a rise overlooking a precipitous track which led down to a narrow
cutting between boulders the size of buildings. He wondered if he had
actually passed through the mountain range and was emerging on the
far side.

He examined the
map on his handset and attempted to trace his course so far. He found
Campbell's End, and the two tracks that led from the highway. The
track he had taken into the mountains was not marked, but he
estimated his course by charting a probable route using contour lines
as his guide.

If he was where
he thought he was, then he had indeed passed through the range: the
cutting ahead should lead him into a vast, flat valley cupped between
this mountain range and the one to the south. He wondered if this was
the radicals' destination.

He set off
again, his satisfaction of making good progress tempered by the
uncertainty of what might lie ahead.

He dropped,
easing the Bison into the cutting between the boulders, and
considered the irony of getting so far only to be stopped by the
narrowness of the defile ahead. He reassured himself with the thought
that, going by the track-marks of the off-roader, that vehicle was
altogether larger than the Bison.

His fears proved
unfounded. The Bison squeezed through the cutting with a metre to
spare, and thirty minutes later emerged from between the rocks onto a
narrow track overlooking the high valley.

He braked,
climbed from the Bison and stared down into the sunlit valley. The
starship was just under two kilometres away, but its size—a
kilometre from its blunt nose-cone to its flaring tail-fins—made
it seem much closer.

He stared at the
wrecked vessel, experiencing an odd sensation of deja vu as he
recalled the alien starship from Denning's memories.

It was similar
in shape to other ships he'd seen over the years, but also strangely
other
in the baroque sweep of its lateral sponsons and
bulging, galleon-like mid-section. It struck him as magnificent but
also tragic, like some neglected epitaph to the extinct beings which
had piloted it across the light years: great sections of the ship's
panelling were missing, showing its interior framework like bones,
and much of the vessel was embroidered with growths of vegetation,
hung with vines and creepers like the ruins of some ancient
cathedral.

Only then, still
basking in the visual wonder of the starship and what it represented,
did Vaughan make out the shape of the off-roader, made minuscule as
it sat in the shadow of the alien vessel.

He scanned the
sky, but there was no sign of the flier.

He hurried back
to the Bison and rummaged among his luggage for the binoculars.

He turned them
on the starship and powered up the magnification. The vessel leaped
towards him, becoming even vaster, and he made out the beetle shape
of the off-roader and, beside it, the stick-like figures of a man and
a woman: the radicals, Jenna Larsen and Johan Weiss.

They were
discussing something, gesturing towards the ship—specifically
at a rent in the skin of the vessel.

As he watched,
the couple turned, and for a stomach-churning second he believed
that, somehow, they were aware of him watching them.

But they were
looking up, into the air.

Weiss grabbed
Larsen's arm, gestured towards the starship. In seconds they had
ducked through the rent and concealed themselves.

Vaughan lowered
the binoculars and made out the shape of a flier, high above the
valley, as it banked through the air towards the starship. He lifted
the binoculars, sighted the flier, and watched with mounting
apprehension.

The flier came
in low, flowing a metre above the grassland. There were two dark
figures in the flier, both men, and armed with laser rifles. The
flier slowed as it approached the radicals' off-roader.

Perhaps a
hundred metres from the starship, the flier cut its turbos and
settled onto the grassland. Scheering's men jumped out, rifles at the
ready, and walked slowly towards the off-roader.

Vaughan
magnified the image. The two men wore regular clothing, thermal
leggings and padded jackets. The bulky rifles they carried seemed
incongruous in the hands of people dressed so casually, and therefore
even more sinister. He watched, at a remove of kilometres, helpless
to intervene in the drama about to be enacted in the shadow of the
alien starship.

Scheering's
agents paused twenty metres from the off-roader. One of the men
cupped a hand to his mouth, obviously calling out.

They looked at
each other, nodded, and the first man called out again.

The second man
gestured. They made for the cover of the off-roader, knelt and
released a volley of laser fire into the rent where the radicals had
concealed themselves.

Their fire was
returned, but from further along the starship's flank. A single,
searingly blue vector hit the off-roader.

Vaughan lowered
the binoculars, dazzled—but even from kilometres away the
detonation of the vehicle was blinding. Seconds later he heard the
muffled crump of the explosion, as flame erupted from its petrol tank
and debris showered down across the plain in seeming slow motion.

He raised his
binoculars again, and made out two blackened, twisted figures, still
writhing, beside the wreckage of the off-roader.

Heart thudding,
he watched for what seemed like minutes before the small figure of a
radical—Johan Weiss—emerged from the starship and
approached the off-roader.

Of the second
radical, Jenna Larsen, there was no sign.

Weiss stood
before the twisted wreckage of his vehicle, staring down at the
carbonised remains of his pursuers, then dropped into a sitting
position and held his head in his hands.

Vaughan slipped
the binoculars into his pocket. For the time being, the danger from
Scheering's men was annulled—but soon, perhaps in a matter of
hours, Denning's team would arrive from Earth. He considered his
options and decided to conceal the Bison in the cutting and walk the
rest of the way to the starship.

He climbed back
into the truck, backed it between the rocks, and then set off.

Twenty minutes
later he was perhaps half a kilometre from the starship. The radical
was stili seated on the grass, head bowed. As Vaughan approached, the
man looked up and stared across the plain.

He rose to his
feet and lifted his laser warily, aiming at Vaughan.

Sunlight
illuminated the scene, the great derelict length of the alien vessel,
the smouldering debris of the off-roader. It looked like a shot from
an epic holo-movie.

Raising his arms
above his head, Vaughan made his slow way through the grass towards
the radical.

GHOST

Jeff had been
away for just one day and already Sukara was missing him like crazy.

She found
herself looking up at a sound from the next room, thinking it was
him, or anticipating the evening meal when she would be able to tell
him...

But their next
evening meal together would be days away, and until then Sukara faced
the prospect of one long, lonely day after another.

As the hours
passed, so her conviction that something terrible was about to happen
became stronger and stronger. She was convinced that if something
didn't happen to Jeff on Mallory, then tragedy would befall herself
or Li here on Earth. She could feel it, an edgy premonition that
fluttered in her chest and made her hands shake.

On the second
full day of his departure Sukara took the upchute to Level One,
strolled through the park and had coffee at the cafe overlooking the
sea. She normally enjoyed these occasions, but at the prospect of
returning to an empty, Jeff-less apartment, she felt miserable.

She
wondered—even if Jeff survived this mission—if this would
be the first of many cases that would take him away from her. She
might have a great Level Two apartment, and more money to spend than
she had ever dreamed of, but all that would mean nothing if much of
the time Jeff was not with her to share their new life.

She bought a
comic from a stall in the coffee shop, returned to her table, and
flicked through the garish pages. She hadn't read a comic for nearly
two years, and at one time she had been addicted to their colourful,
action adventure stories: they had allowed her to escape from the
hardship of her life in Bangkok. Now she had no reason to escape, and
she saw that the stories were melodramatic and trashy. Last year Jeff
had bought her real books to read, and despite her initial reluctance
she had soon found herself enjoying the complex stories of everyday
human drama. She decided, as she left the coffee shop and crossed the
park, that she would lose herself in a book when she got back. It
might take her mind off Jeff's absence for a while.

She stopped by
the market on the way back and bought a few vegetables and a mango,
Jeff's favourite fruit. She would eat it tonight and think of him,
out there on alien soil beneath a strange sun.

She had just
deposited the bag in the kitchen when a knock sounded at the door.

Her first
impulse was to ignore it. She'd been pestered by beggars recently,
and people trying to sell her things she didn't want. Then she
thought that it might be her friend, Lara.

She hurried
through the lounge and hit the control. The door slid aside,
revealing a diminutive Thai girl who looked about five years old.