From the distance, there came the echo of a single shot. The pickup slowed, then began jerking forward. The engine stopped.
There was a figure inside. Not moving.
“Hey, we’re over here,” Diana said. She rose out of cover.
“Stay down!”
Another bullet sprayed dirt five feet in front of her.
“You’ve just been warned,” Flynn said. Mac did not miss. He was telling them to stay the hell away from that truck.
The next thing he knew, she had her cell phone out.
“I wouldn’t turn that on.”
She ignored him.
He put his hand around hers, squeezing until she gave up the phone. “There’s no coverage out here. Except for the aliens. They might have very good coverage.”
“They do,” Geri said. She pointed.
Just above the western horizon and moving slowly this way at low altitude was a bright silver disk.
CHAPTER TEN
AS HE always did under such circumstances, Flynn inventoried his assets: both pistols, fully loaded; his knife; two people ill prepared in any useful way; and a pickup truck that was at the far end of a master sniper’s shooting gallery and had a corpse behind the wheel.
He reached into his mouth, took out the cyanide capsule, and threw it into the brush.
“What are you doing?” Diana asked.
“Getting rid of my gum. It looks like we have a choice to make. Either we get killed by friends or by enemies. What’ll it be?” He quietly ditched the rest of the cyanide. If the aliens captured them, there’d be no time to share it, and he didn’t want to do that now. One of them was liable to bite down out of fear if an attack developed.
“They know we’re here, so why not try the cell phones?”
Flynn watched the silver disk. It was now moving southward. “They could be combing the hills. Working their way back from wherever they were when they realized we had left the train. So forget doing anything that emits a signal.”
He looked toward the truck. The five hundred feet between here and there offered not the slightest cover.
Mac knew they were here, but he obviously didn’t know who they were. He was likely to watch for hours, waiting to see if there’d be another move. He might even shoot the truck to bits, or blow the gas tank to conceal evidence. If the truck began to move, he’d certainly start shooting.
Flynn made his decision. “I think there’s a chance we can reach the truck. We can find some concealment in it until dark. Then we can try driving back into the ranch. If we’re luckier than God, we might make it before Mac opens up.”
“What about the disk?” Diana asked.
“They’re going to detect four bodies in the truck. All we can do is hope that’ll throw them off. Geri?”
“They could be able to identify us individually, or not. Depends on the technology they possess.”
“Okay, I’m going to go over there on my stomach. I’ll signal each of you when to come.”
As it turned out, the move went smoothly. While Geri and Diana sat in the back of the double cab, Flynn shifted the body of a Mexican in ten thousand dollars’ worth of superb leather clothing and—improbably—a pair of fine Lucchese polo boots into the passenger seat.
Blood did not smell good, and corpses were about as maneuverable as bags of wet cement, but he got it done. He considered the polo boots. Legend had it that the game of kings was once played by Tamerlane with the heads of dead enemies, and Mac had bragged about reviving that tradition with some of his friends from south of the border. So this character had probably been lured up to play, without realizing that the plan was to use his head. He’d gotten away, though. Almost.
Too bad Mac hadn’t come out to harvest his prize, but if they finally got a little luck, maybe that would happen soon. Mac didn’t waste things, and he hated clutter on his property. He wouldn’t leave the truck out here forever, but if he didn’t want the head, it could be a few days before he finally showed up with his handyman, Carlos.
Morning wore on, the flies of West Texas became thicker and thicker, and nothing moved except an occasional chaparral cock and, yes, a diamondback sliding along, coming toward the truck.
“See that?” Flynn said. “It’s the heat of the day. He’s going to shelter in our shadow. When the sun sets, he’ll go hunting. He’ll have about three or four hours before he cools down and goes to sleep.”
“This planet has so many different creatures on it.”
“Aeon doesn’t have as many?”
“We weren’t careful enough. Before we knew it, it was too late.”
“You have any pictures of home? I’d love to see what another planet looks like.”
“Not allowed. On a lesser planet, we can only go in clean and in local genetics. Sorry.”
“Oltisis certainly wasn’t in ‘local genetics,’ as you call us.”
“That protocol has been changed.”
“Let’s call it a less advanced planet, okay, not lesser?” Diana said.
“Intergalactic political correctness—I like it, Diana,” Flynn said.
“Funnyish.”
Autumn or not, it was a hot day. He decided to work on Geri a bit more, see how far he might get.
“Where do you get your human genetic material?”
“There are dealers. But mine came in on the official line. We didn’t buy it.”
“Does it have a history?”
“It came from Earth. That’s its history.”
Was it that she wasn’t telling him something, or that she didn’t know? “You realize you look like my missing wife?”
“Of course.”
“It’s not pleasant.”
“We thought it would please you.”
“It’s agonizing.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“Are you … her? In some way, partly her?”
“I’m so sorry that we misunderstood your culture. The way love works among you.”
“I repeat, do you have my wife’s genes?”
She reached over the seat and touched his face. It was a gesture right out of Abby’s life and her soul, but those fingers were hard and as cold as if they were dead. Still, the touch went deep into Flynn’s heart and gave him, without words, as eloquent an answer to his question as he could have hoped for.
The loneliness he felt then was a thing of stunning power. Geri was not Abby, but her memory come to life.
It was toward evening that they became aware of the deep rattle of the disk.
Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to. They all knew that it was now directly above the truck, and they all knew exactly what that might mean.
Flynn laid his hand on the butt of his big pistol.
A shadow grew around the truck, then it began to shudder, then to rise off the ground. He had the key; he could start it. But they would win, inevitably. Behind him, he could hear Diana’s ragged breathing. Geri was making stifled noises into her hands.
Then he had an idea come into his mind out of, of all things, old submarine movies where desperate captains released corpses to float up and deceive the enemy.
He threw his weight onto the corpse so the truck lurched, then reached up and opened the passenger door. The corpse rolled out, falling to the ground with a wet thud. The cloud of flies gushed upward into the ship above them, the corpse with them.
The truck went higher. Higher still. Then it stopped. Wavered. And with a bone-rattling crash, it was dropped back to the ground.
Flynn heard himself gasp, almost cried out, stifled it.
“Get down, everybody!” He leaned down until his entire body was below the level of the dash.
Geri had burst into tears. Diana held her. He could feel them struggling to crouch in the confined space of the second seat.
“Nobody move,” he whispered, “and you, suck it up. Now!”
Geri gobbled her sobs.
He waited, silent. After a few more minutes, the shadow of the disk disappeared. N
ew flies began replacing the ones that had been drawn into the ship. Flynn lay in the dried blood, letting flies feast on the sweat that sheened his own face.
After ten minutes, he sat up a little, peering over the dashboard.
The ruse had maybe worked. The disk was moving low across the range, its surface shimmering. The corpse lay on the ground a few hundred yards away. The disk was going so slowly that it seemed almost as if it were standing still. But it was not standing still, and in time it disappeared into the northern sky.
The truck blazed with heat, the flies billowed and swarmed, not a breath of breeze blew. Rising heat made the land shimmer. There was a time when autumn had brought northerners screaming down into West Texas, but not for years.
Cramped as he was, with the right side of his face pressed into the bloody seat where the corpse had been, he still did not move and would not move, not an inch, not until it was full dark. Even then, he was certain that the aliens would be able to see them, and that Mac would detect them walking in. They couldn’t use the truck. Mac would blow it up.
He asked Geri, “How long are they likely to keep up their search?”
“Forever.”
“I mean, in this immediate area?”
“No way to tell.”
“Any details you know about their programming, tell me.”
“There are thousands of different programs for different uses. The way the rebels are banding together now, though, it’s impossible to tell. And the ones you’re dealing with aren’t even our design, remember. Morris has probably got a lot of designer programming built into them.”
“Where might he be building them? On Earth? Another planet?”
“In this solar system, certainly. Probably on-planet. It’d be cheaper and safer.”
Night came, and with it fewer flies, but also dropping temperatures. Flynn moved, stretching his aching legs. Slowly, he sat up. In the back, both women did the same.
Flynn had thought that maybe Mac would send Carlos out on his own to take care of the mess, but the only sign of life at the ranch was the light over the corral. In fact, the place looked abandoned, what Flynn could see of it. He knew different, of course. Mac didn’t show any more light than he had to.
“Can we get moving, Flynn? I’m too thirsty.”
“We’re all thirsty, Diana. Problem is, Mac’s got this whole approach covered by radar at night.”
“So how in hell do we do this?”
“We have to do it,” Geri said. “This body is failing.”
“So is this one,” Diana muttered.
Flynn considered their odds. Not good, but not zero. Seeing three living people come out of a truck that had previously held a single dead one might make Mac curious enough to give them a closer look before he opened up on them.
“I have to tell you, we could be blown off the face of the Earth or he might let us come in, and I can’t see how to calculate our odds. I think we just need to start walking.”
“We should’ve gone on down the line,” Diana said. “It’s your obsession with this particular nutcase that’s gotten us into this jam.”
“He’s a useful nutcase, Diana.”
“I don’t think so.”
Flynn opened his door. “Let’s go. Don’t trip over the corpse.”
He stepped out into the darkness. Right now, he was likely being painted by the radar. Alarms would be buzzing. In seconds, Mac’s arsenal would open up. However, not even Mac could sniper-shoot at this range using starlight amplification equipment, so he’d be likely to fire a rocket, hoping that anybody on foot would be in the kill zone when it hit the truck.
“Okay, run. Now. Straight toward the ranch.”
“Won’t that spook him?”
“Diana, just do it!”
When he ran, they followed. He kept it up until they were both gasping and falling back. Still, only when they were well clear of the truck did he stop. They came struggling up to him.
“Flynn,” Diana said, “I’m just about done. I can’t take much more.”
Flynn grunted. She might have to take a lot more—and if she couldn’t, she might die. But he didn’t go there, not right now. “We walk now, straight in.”
He was relieved that nothing had happened yet, but also curious. Could Mac have identified him and Diana? The continued lack of activity was building his confidence. “I think he might be letting us come in,” he said. Of course, it could also be that he was letting them get into night range. That, he did not say.
They had walked for about twenty minutes, and Flynn was beginning to feel good about this, when he heard something that he really, really did not like.
“Stop,” he said. “Everybody stay still.”
The sounds were faint but unmistakable. Things with four legs were running this way, lots of them. As always, Mac had come up with the perfect solution.
“The dogs are out,” he said.
“Oh my God.”
Now he could hear the clatter of claws on the stony ground.
“What we need to do is go back to the truck and lock ourselves in,” Geri said.
Now he could hear them breathing. Coming fast, coming hard.
“They’re too close, we won’t make it.” He drew his big pistol. “Stand behind me.” He gave Diana his small pistol. “Good luck.”
The sounds stopped and the dogs began to exchange low, complex growls. Dog language.
“Do you think they recognize us?”
“Me, probably. You, possibly.”
He felt Diana raise her arm. She was about to fire into the air.
“No! Bring it down. Shoot to kill or don’t shoot. Mac’s made his peace with these things, remember. They’re his friends now.”
“And yours?”
“We’ll find out.”
Very suddenly, there was a sleek head visible about ten feet in front of him, close enough to be seen by starlight. The snout was long and black; the eyes were gray.
Diana stifled a scream.
The dogs were being too careful for this to be a friendly visit.
The Casulls held just five rounds, a drawback that was offset by the power and the accuracy he had managed to attain with them. Diana, however, would not be so accurate. “When they come in, shoot at the closest dog. Do not try for the head. And remember, you have five rounds.” He raised his voice, addressing the dogs. “I think you can understand me. I’m a friend of Mac’s. You remember me, I know. It wasn’t my fault what happened at the Morris place. You backed the wrong team. But now you’re on the right team, and if you hurt us, Mac’s not going to appreciate it.”
Even as he spoke, they continued to edge toward him. They were trying to get close enough so they could strike before a trigger could be pulled. This tactic would work with Diana, but not with him.
“How many can you see?” he asked the women.
“There are two back here,” Geri said.
So, two they could see and two more that they couldn’t.
Clearly, they didn’t expect any resistance from that direction. He was facing four visible and four more crouching in the dark. Even if he made every shot count, he was still going to be dealing with three dogs.
“You understand that if you kill us, Mac will kill you all.”
They came in closer yet, heads down, eyes burning. They were smart but not that smart. Trouble from Mac later didn’t matter now, but revenge did.
Revenge, that was the key to understanding their thinking, and it was Morris’s design signature.
“I have eight of them on me, and they’re moving in,” he said. “If I let them take me, I think they’ll let you guys go.”
“Flynn, no. That’s an order.”
“Diana look, a guy like me, who does what I do—it’s dangerous. I’m out of options here.”
“I’m your superior officer, and you’re going to follow my orders.”
They came another step closer. A long line of drool came out of the mouth of one of them.
br /> “And how am I supposed to do that?”
Diana came shoulder to shoulder with him. Then she stepped in front of him.
The three in the center of the line tensed, their muscles rippling. Flynn prepared to do what he could. “Think, assholes,” he said. “This is a mistake.”
A bloodcurdling scream pealed out behind them, then another and another. There was no logical reason for it, and not only that, but the dogs were reacting to something, too, sidling away and snarling.
The disk was back, Flynn assumed, but when he turned, he was stunned to see instead the fearsome, glaring face of a huge tiger.
Snow Mountain. He was the magnificent Siberian tiger that Morris had also intelligence-enhanced.
At the single most desperate moment of Flynn’s life before this one, Snow Mountain had saved him from Morris.
The big cat strode up to the hysterical Geri and past her, and planted himself between Flynn and the dogs. He turned and gave Flynn a long look, then walked off into the night.
“Follow him in,” Flynn said.
His revenge programming must be working, too, but it wasn’t vengeance against Flynn that Snow Mountain wanted, and hadn’t been for a while. Whatever had happened between Flynn and Morris, Snow Mountain was now determined to harm his creator. Flynn thought about the rebels on Aeon, and how Snow Mountain’s anger at Morris reflected that larger picture. It seemed to him that the people of Aeon, while being more advanced than we were, perhaps lacked wisdom. They had fallen, on a grand scale, into the trap of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice; only their case was worse. The magic brooms had turned mean.
He and Geri and Diana walked behind Snow Mountain. The dogs had formed into two lines. As Flynn passed, they dragged their drooling, disappointed muzzles along his legs, touching him with their teeth and sighing with stifled bloodlust.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“YOU! WHAT in hell are you doin’ coming in off the range in the middle of the night? And Diana! You’re a honcho now in D.C.” Mac’s sun-weathered face briefly spread into a smile, then became more serious. He looked Flynn up and down. “You are damn lucky to be alive.” He shook his head. “I never thought you were out there, no way.”