“Extremely persuasive Peter. So okay! We discovered that a Mister Conway had a collection of radial engines and had preserved and maintained them in a desert museum, in Arizona-EB. Our engineers quickly determined they were, and still are well suited to our conditions.”
“What’s this radial thing again,” he says.
“Twice is once too much. Use My Answers dot Search Engine...you’ll know.”
He jabs me three times in the kidneys hissing, “Manners. Manners. Manners. Yeah. Continue!”
In a pain strained voice, I do. “Okay. Just a tour and well paid for—on both sides of that coin. Damn that hurt. Okay. Okay! We found the owner, James Conway the Tenth, unwilling to sell even one of his precious engines despite owning many hundreds of them. Right after he refused to sell them he suffered a sudden heart-stopping moment...and his heart never started again.
“Immediately his son, Thomas Conway the Twenty-first, expressed interest in selling what then became his radial engines. In fact, he called before the funeral and sold them more-or-less, one-two-three all gone. They are troublesome engines, though...very—,”
“Yeah interesting, but let me add a correction...as I’ve already mentioned. Per our historical records Here-Born actually stole and reverse engineered them. You are all thieves, dogs, lowly hyenas in the night.”
The Desert Driver glances at Peter then at me, chuckles and says, “What little problems?” and laughs but not because anything seems amusing to him. He floors the accelerator and the SandMaster leaps forward headed ever northwards.
There’s nothing I can do about Peter’s plans other than to cloud all I’d earlier imparted with useless data and hopefully hide what’s important from him.
“I suppose if I must, I must,” I say. “He’s referring to a Hydro-Static Lock brought on by incorrectly shutting the engines down which can cause oil and fuel to seep past the valves into the lower cylinder’s combustion chamber. Neither liquid fuel nor oil compresses. So when starting the engines...things tend to break quite dramatically if you don’t first check.”
“Stealing wasn’t enough,” Peter says. “Now you create imaginary problems and blame us for them.”
“Perhaps you should tell me what’s actually going on Peter.”
He ignores that.
In silence, we both stare out across the desert.
I inhale two deep breaths of the clear air and notice I’m enjoying the drive despite that it’s my last. The sky seems bluer than ever and even sand glows alive like never before.
Sand grains cling to my clothes, snuggle closer and whisper how much they will miss my presence upon themselves. Off in the distance, dust-devils dance a requiem as the wind sings a dirge in anticipation of the ghost I am to become.
We charge onwards for endless hours of heat, sand, engine roars, transmission howls and seat pounding.
Without warning the Desert Driver swerves off the Freeway dives down a steep bank and heads into virgin desert taxing the suspension across the rough terrain. Wernt and I grab handholds and hang on as we bounce in our seat.
The winds gust harder, the SandMaster shudders like a loose window beset by a hurricane. Beneath our wheels is another Crier warren long since abandoned. We lurch and fantail across it. My elbows threaten to pop from holding on and bouncing about in my seat.
I bend my arms to relieve the stress. Wernt wraps his legs around the bench leg and snarls at me. The Desert Driver struggles as both steering wheels twist in his hand and the crook of arm. His good arm bulges, the injured one shakes and sweat streams down his face. His eyes remain fixed on the way ahead and on instrumentation...a loner fighting the elements and in his element.
The empty warren ends abruptly. Wernt’s eyes widen as we plunge downwards into a ravine. “Yeah, how steep can we go and the wheels will still...?” he asks.
I smile and the Desert Driver smiles.
Wernt tries smiling as though we are all making idle chitchat, but it fails to mount properly. He stands up, scans ahead, overhead, backward, east and west while murmuring to himself. Can he be charting a course? Has he the faculties to do that without charts or hardware?
The Desert Driver glances briefly at me—hard, cold and indifferent. He neither sends nor offers to receive a communication. He is making an assessment—that much is clear. Wernt turns to me and the Desert Driver looks back to the control panel.
I ponder on why he checked me over but can find no answer. I take a sip of water. Wernt follows suit. “Refreshing!” he says and chuckles dryly.
The SandMaster drives up a gentle slope and exists the ravine. Ahead the way is rough and broken. The SandMaster roars and heaves across the rocky terrain once again reminding us that it is military built with a single goal in mind—traverse desert as fast and reliably as possible.
The Desert Driver engages eight-wheel-drive, steers northwest, swerves left and races up a steep incline to the top of a high dune. All eight wheels fly free as we crest the edge to land upon a tabletop bouncing like kids on a trampoline—more-or-less. He switches to four-wheel-drive bears hard right and storms onwards.
We travel north without stop. Engines, tires and gearboxes whine-n-drone in concert. A little before nightfall, he pulls to a halt. Brakes screech and sand spurts. “Time for a refill,” he says and shuts down the engines by cutting off fuel until they die.
I gaze about and frown. So does Wernt.
Out there the desert is quiet, desolate.
Distant winds blow sand-clouds off the edges of towering dunes. Here-n-there dust-devils dance to the whim of Mother Wind. Simple dances, short and sweet but the music ends and the uncaring winds deny further life.
The SandMaster ticks and groans while hot engines grow warmer before cooling. The loud ticking as they cool, distinct in the silence. I glance upwards. No Arzerns hang in the sky.
Around us not a whisper of wind stirs sand.
The Half-Day-Moon watches all with a straight face.
There is no sign of life about let alone a gas station.
Nothing lives out here.
The door slides open. Air rushes in.
I turn to it with arms spread offering body moisture to gain faint relief from the stifling heat.
Wernt rubs his calves while staring northwards, eyes unfocused. In the distance soar mountains so high they vanish into the blue. Nothing else exists this close to Iron Ridge Mountains.
CHAPTER 49
Of Gasoline Stops And Escape Options
The Desert Driver indicates for us to remain seated, exits, kneels next to the SandMaster and scans the surface as I did when searching for Crier nests.
Wernt grimaces and wipes at the sweat under his collar. In deference to my aching posterior, I disobey and stand up to receive a hard glare from the Desert Drive but nothing else.
I quickly become as interested as Wernt is when the Desert Driver extends a flat sensor screen from his Nomadi on which an arrow blinks. He heads off following the pointing arrowhead. Ten paces on the pointer changes into a dot. He kneels, scoops away sand at his feet to reveal the head of a gasoline pump.
Wernt’s mouth drops open, but he quickly covers it by pretending to yawn. “Long days, Once-Other,” he says.
I grin inside.
The Desert Driver returns and detaches a Fragger unit from its exterior mounting on the SandMaster. Back at the gas pump, he frags sand exposing a hose coupling. He wipes it down with a super lube-n-clean cloth, connects his Nomadi and enters a code. Heads back and remounts the Fragger. He then unlocks a long, narrow storage compartment on the lower exterior of the SandMaster to expose two flexible six-finger diameter hoses.
He hooks a center coupling in one to the other forming a ‘Y’. He connects the single end to the gas pump and the other two to the twin-gas-tanks. He hits the activate button and the hoses snap up to suspend like a frozen two-headed snake quivering in the sunlight.
Pumping gas at full go, it howls like a demented banshee rock star at a make or brea
k audition. One determined to beat out all competition and so become the Head Wailer. Wernt covers his ears but watches with keen interest, taking mental notes while pretending disinterest.
Howling ends.
Minutes on, we again thunder across desert our perpetual dust cloud trailing us. Two hours later we ramp back onto the North Freeway headed northwest.
I doze. Peter dozes.
I awake. Peter awakens.
A high wind awakens and night embraces us with its regular suddenness. The Desert Driver nods towards a compartment. I open it to find several fur coats. I hand one to Peter and slip into the other.
The roof closes.
Another bout of Crier poison hits me.
I wait and after a while it passes.
Peter curls up on his seat and dozes fitfully.
I consider opening the door and jumping overboard, but chances of survival are too slim this far north. Along the same lines, traveling at over a hundred miles an hour speaks of broken bones should I try.
Instead, I curl up, close my eyes and sleep surrounded by the roar of the SandMaster’s twins and the howling wind.
Day becomes night, becomes day.
Through each, engines thunder our presence to any-n-all who may be close. I suspect no one is about and any that are would not care. At daybreak on day five he hits the brakes and the SandMaster plows to a halt. I remove the fur coat, stumble out and stretch as joints pop.
The Desert Driver hits a button. A kitchenette opens presenting hot coffee and bagels.
I climb back up and we eat with vigor having not eaten since leaving Sand Lake Flats. I look the kitchenette over and despite its olive green color there’s nothing quite like a touch of civility upon the hard aspects of military life.
With coffee and food settled, we set off and travel all day through the billowing sand. Fatigue assaults Wernt and unable to make himself comfortable he sleeps restlessly.
Late that night beneath the Star-of-Hope and the Half-Day-Moon we halt and both engines shut down. Hot metal ticks beneath the whispering wind.
The Desert Driver checks his new arm, nods in satisfaction, stows it, curls up on a floor mat, pulls his fur coat tight and without a word spoken falls asleep.
Peter and I follow suit.
Outside, the ominous rumblings of Thunder River alert us to its closeness and the reality that flowing sand drives its currents, flying rocks are its rapids and CO2—its mists of death.
CHAPTER 50
Of A Severed Arm And Revelations
The morning sun awakens and lights up the magnificent eight-mile width of Iron Rock Falls. Over sheer cliffs Wellspring Lake’s CO2, sand, and rock tumble. At the foot of the Falls, they churn whirlpools and charge off headed southeast to become Thunder River.
Across the plateau north of Wellspring Lake spread the flat plains of the Highlands, which most all hardy adventurers insist is endless. Iron Ridge Mountain cradles both the Highlands and Wellspring Lake with arms and towering peaks of solid rock.
On Here-Born, we have desert and then we have desert.
In the center of Wellspring Lake sand-n-rocks erupt as though there is a volcano below. Rumor says the rocks and sand near Here-Born’s core explode upwards like popcorn. A final thrust breaks the surface sending rock and sand into the air then on crashing back into Wellspring Lake they head for the plunge over the falls.
EB’s become confused by the name Wellspring Lake. It makes them think of a water lake. No, it is a lake of sand and rock and CO2. There is no surface water on Here-Born.
I listen carefully to the thunder of sand and rock and the cacophony seems more distant in the morning light. I glance about and off to the northwest is a vast section of Rocklands.
I shudder. The other two stand a way off looking northwards and talking softly to each other.
We breakfast on croissants and coffee courtesy of this Desert Driver and for me the last meal. Paper cups and plates incinerate without smoke using a handy Fragger.
With the usual roar of engines, we set off headed for the Rocklands. I express my concern over this despite my prior understanding of Peter’s purpose. “Do we want to get this close to the Rocklands?”
He smiles a reminder to me.
I nod sage-like to hide a tightening gut and say, “Okay Peter. This is...where....” I leave the rest unsaid and stare off at the Rocklands. To date, I had not seen this great an expanse of rock. Now that I have I confess it is not the mystery I’d imagined. Nothing more than dark brown rock and cacti. I lean forward for a better look.
Above its surface heat waves dance like cobras swaying to a master’s flute. Cactus plants imitate shape-shifting aliens enticing the unwary to come closer. As far as one can see dark brown rock bubbles an illusion of boiling chocolate.
We slide, do a skip-n-hop and shudder to a halt.
The Desert Driver cuts the fuel. The engines growl a while longer, cough and die. He sits thinking for a few moments. A movement to my right grabs my attention. I look there and find the muzzle of Wernt’s handgun a mere finger away.
He taps my front teeth with the muzzle and smiles, a predator contemplating an opportune meal. With an effort I pull my attention off him, turn away and out across the Rocklands something grabs my attention altogether.
Close to the edge of the Rocklands at the foot of a tall cactus lies a severed arm. One which is now well beyond any value as a pre-owned. I’m unable to fathom what anyone would be doing out here in this life forsaken wilderness.
A sharp chord suddenly strums through me. Vibrations tingle erect the hair down my back and arms—I shiver and fight the urge to glance at the Desert Driver. Something wild just happened and I cannot for the life of me fathom why.
At this late hour, a communication arrived from this no-damn-good-n-treasonous Desert Driver. It impacted like a force ten wind driven straight into my face. I grapple with the fact that he has offered me access to his mind.
Fearing he will withdraw the offer I push caution aside, quickly accept and track what’s available through many twists of encryption layered one over the other. Four layers in I find what’s he’s made available.
The first images are of him sitting around a fire with a few other Desert Drivers. They are talking, but none of the content is available. The next shows him standing near my home peering ahead as though expecting the unexpected.
I reach in deeper...and there they are...those footprints...leading to my house and back out into the desert.
Anticipation leaps ahead predicting Peter Wernt will step into view. But it’s that damn odious EB tourist I’d met at the Drinks-n-All some days back, Gordon Odentien! He is still dressed in his pale blue fan-n-fit with mustache still not trimmed.
With a sickening thud, I recall Karrell’s description of the EB tourist that came to visit his mother—built like me but a little stockier.
Odentien exactly!
I quiet self and continue inspecting what’s offered.
And another familiar face!
Mister Conqueror waits, with something in hand, atop a small dune dressed in his red and black checkered suit. A closer examination shows he has an EB oil can in hand. So he added that oil in my SandRider.
The last image brings me close to gasping involuntarily.
It is the severed arm lying next to the cactus plant but a few sand-paces away from where we are. But it’s freshly severed. I focus on the Desert Driver, but his face remains blank. I glance at Wernt; his attention is still focused on the Rocklands.
I engage the Desert Driver’s offering again.
In the image, there’re no signs of life—just the Rocklands and the severed arm. A blur of rewind and the arm disappears.
Rewind stops on bare rock and plays forward.
The roar of dual engines starts as a faint grumbling and grows louder. After a minute or two a SandMaster races into view and stops, rocking on a taxed suspension. Dust flies as though a sandstorm was under way. Engines die and this Desert Dri
ver climbs out with both his arms intact.
He gazes across the Rocklands for a long time face chiseled by the granite hand of hard decision. He takes several deep breaths, squares his shoulders, comes to attention, marches to the Rocklands and steps onto it.
Wisps of smoke rise from the soles of his boots forming clouds like mist adrift above a waterfall. He heads for a cactus. Stops a safe distance off and pauses to look off northwards his chin held high.
He salutes with a crisp, determined motion. Pulls his arm out the leather jacket sleeve, leans over and holds it out. He steps closer and in one blinding flash the cactus slices it off as cleanly as does a butcher’s knife swung with skill.
He staggers backward clutching at the stump.
His mouth open he sucks in air.
His loud gasps of pain mixed with animal snarls bark a warning to any who would dare to cross him. He turns and heads back towards the camera, growling as he stumbles his face creased with pain.
He stops and stares into the camera for a few seconds. Blood from the wound drips slower-n-slower as preservatives kick in and go to work. He pulls out a Bondo-Preserve bandage and binds the stump tight.
He takes several slow breaths his focus on sand at his feet. He looks up and stares into camera, eyes hard, face expressionless. The corners of his mouth twitch a smile that does not reflect in his eyes. He nods a confirmation of something I do not get and steps around the camera.
It swivels to follow him.
Back at his SandMaster he boards, the door hisses closed, dust flies and access ends.
And I had noted his arm was severed below the elbow. That left length enough to grasp and hold the outer steering wheel of a SandMaster. Hmm?
“My name is Mawlendor Ozerken of Plaeth City, Far North Highlands,” he says.
And I’m stunned almost comatose—we never reveal an actual name!
For the life of me, I cannot fathom why he provided those thoughts let alone his name. I examine him in detail, but his face remains carved in stone. A flash of motion to my right.
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