Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF

by Mike Ashley

  Beside me, Danny seemed to relax. We were in a position of power in this stand-off. He said, "What do you have to trade?"

  The women licked her lips. I found the gesture sensuous. I gazed at her shape, the curve of her torso from breast to hip.

  She said, "Solar arrays."

  I sensed Danny's interest. "In good working order?"

  "Of course. You can check them before the trade."

  "How many are you talking about?"

  She pointed to a panel which overhung the flank of her craft. "Four, like that."

  Danny calculated. "I can give you ... four litres of water in return."

  "Ten," she said.

  "Six," Danny said with admirable force, "or no deal."

  I stared at the woman. She needed water more than we needed the arrays. I saw her look me up and down, and I felt suddenly, oddly, vulnerable.

  She nodded, then spoke rapidly to one of her guards in a language I didn't recognize. Two of her men returned to their craft, the weight of the sun-shade taken up by the two who remained.

  I was reminded, by her regal stance beneath the shade and her henchmen's quick attention to duty, of an illustration I had seen in a magazine of an Ancient Egyptian Queen.

  Her big, dark eyes regarded me again. She smiled. I found myself looking away, flushing.

  Her men returned, hauling the solar arrays. They lay them on the sand and backed off. Samara gestured, and Danny stepped forward to examine the arrays while I covered him.

  Minutes later he looked back at me and nodded.

  "They look okay," he told the woman. "We'll take them."

  "I'll have them placed between our vehicles," she said. "If you bring out the water, we will meet halfway."

  Danny nodded. He stood and rejoined me. To Samara he said, "What have you been doing for water?"

  She paused before replying. "There is a settlement with a rig about 200 kilometres east of here, along the old coast. They have a deep bore. We trade with them every so often. You?"

  Danny said, "We trade with a colony up in old Spain."

  The woman nodded, and I wondered if she'd seen through the lie. She said, "And how many of you live in the truck?"

  "Five," he said. He nodded at the hovercraft. "And you?"

  "Just six," she said.

  Danny said, "We'll fetch the water."

  We turned our backs on the woman and her men and began the slow walk back to the truck. I felt uneasy, presenting such an easy target like that, but I knew I was being irrational. They wanted water, after all; they would gain nothing by shooting us now.

  "You hear that?" Danny said. "A mob has a deep bore, east of here. So there is water."

  He unlocked the hatch on the side of the truck where we stored the water. We hauled out two plastic canisters and carried them back to where the woman's lackeys had placed the arrays. She stood over the shimmering rectangles, watching us as we placed the canisters on the ground.

  She snapped something to one of the men, who opened the canister and tipped a teaspoonful of water into his palm. He lifted it to his cracked lip and tasted the water. After a second he nodded to Samara and said something in their language.

  I could not keep my eyes off the woman. Her legs were bare, long and brown, and I could see the cleavage of her breasts between the fabric of her bleached blouse. She saw me looking and stared at me, her expression unreadable. I looked away quickly.

  She said, "Where are you heading?"

  Danny waved vaguely. "South."

  She looked surprised. "Tangiers?"

  "In that direction, yes."

  She calculated. "Then we should travel together, no? There are bandits in the area. Together we are stronger."

  Danny looked at me, and I found myself nodding.

  "Very well, we'll do that. We stop at sunset, set off at dawn."

  Samara smiled. "To Tangiers, then."

  She said something to her men and two of them took the canisters. She turned and walked towards the hovercraft, flanked by her sunshade toting lackeys.

  I watched her go.

  Danny laughed and said, "Put your tongue away and help me with these."

  We hauled the arrays across the sea-bed and stowed them in the truck.

  We stepped into the lounge to find an altercation in progress.

  Skull was standing at one end of the room, Kat and Edvard at the other. Skull's face was livid with rage, his lips contorted, eyes wide with accusation.

  "You told her!" he yelled across at us as we entered. "You contacted her and told her I was here!"

  I looked across at Edvard. He said, "He came flying from his berth, shouting insane accusations."

  "That's because you bastards told her!"

  I was glad he had a broken leg; able-bodied, he would undoubtedly have attacked us.

  Danny said, "Calm down. We told no one. Listen to me - we don't have a radio, okay? How could we have contacted her if we don't possess a damned radio? And anyway, why the hell would we tell her we'd picked you up?"

  Skull let go of his crutch to gesture beyond the truck. "So how come she's found me?"

  I moved into the lounge and sat down, watching Skull. Danny joined me, gesturing Skull to a seat opposite. Glaring at us, he stumped across the lounge and sat down. Kat and Edvard joined us.

  Danny said, reasonably, "Are you sure it's the same mob?"

  "How many hovercraft you think are out there?" Skull snorted. "And you think I wouldn't recognize the queen bitch herself?"

  Kat said, "It's a coincidence. They saw us from a distance, and as they needed water..."

  Skull shook his head. "Some coincidence! Do you know how big this desert is? The chances of two tiny vehicles meeting like this—"

  Edvard said, "We didn't contact them, Skull. So it has to be coincidence, no? What other explanation is there?"

  "The plane," Danny said. "You took it from them, right? What about this: that she had it tagged with some kind of tracking device? It'd make sense, a valuable piece of kit like that."

  Skull held his head in his hands and sobbed.

  I said, "What have you got to fear?"

  He looked up, staring through his tears. "She's evil. They all are. I ran out on her because I didn't like what she was doing. She won't rest till I'm dead. And now she's found you, she won't stop at just killing me."

  "You make her sound like a monster," I said.

  He nodded. "Oh, she is. She might have traded solar arrays now, but she'll be scheming to get them back - and more. Right now they'll be working out how to kill us, take the truck ..."

  Danny shook his head. "I don't think so. There's only six of them - and we're well armed. The truck's armoured. We can defend ourselves."

  Skull brayed a laugh. "Six! Is that what she told you? She's lying. There were a dozen of the bastards with her when I left."

  I looked across at Danny, who said, "Like I said, we can look after ourselves."

  "Okay, but the best defence is distance. Let's get the hell away from her before she attacks us, okay?"

  Danny considered. We had agreed with Samara that we would travel south together; it would be hard to shake her, especially if Skull was correct in thinking she had come for him.

  Danny nodded and said to Kat, "Okay, start us up. Let's move on."

  Kat and Edvard moved to the cab. Skull nodded, gratefully. "Thank Christ ..." was all he said before hiking himself upright on his crutches and hobbling back to his berth. I watched him go, wondering what his reaction might be when he discovered that Samara was following us.

  I sat with Danny. The silence was broken by the drone of the engine as Kat kicked the truck into life.

  I said, "What do you think?"

  Danny rubbed his beard. "I think we trust no one but ourselves, Pierre. We keep Samara at arm's length, and as for Skull-" "Yes?" "As Edvard said yesterday, I don't trust him as far as I can spit."

  I moved to the rear of the truck and sat before an observation screen, staring o
ut across the sea-bed. Through the sandy spindrift of our wake, I made out the scintillating shape of the hovercraft. It was perhaps half a kilometre behind us, and keeping pace.

  For the next couple of hours before sunset, my thoughts slipped between Skull's warning and fantasies involving Samara. I interpreted the way she looked at me as indicating desire on her part, and told myself that her henchmen were less than prime physical specimens.

  The sun went down, replaced by the deep blue of night shot through with the raging flares of magnetic storms. Kat brought the truck to a standstill and Edvard fixed a meal.

  The hovercraft slowed and came alongside, sinking to the sand a hundred metres from us with a curtsey of rubber skirts.

  I moved to the lounge and joined Danny and Kat. Edvard ferried plates from the galley and slid them onto the table. The heady scent of braised meat filled the air.

  We ate quietly, subdued. Danny had told Edvard and Kat about the travel pact with Samara, and from time to time I saw Kat glance through the hatch at the settled hovercraft across the sand.

  I said, "What do we do when we get to the trench?"

  Danny chewed on a mouthful of tough meat. "We stop."

  "But we don't set up the rig, right?"

  "Of course not. I don't want her knowing anything about the rig. We stop the night and in the morning feign a mechanical fault. And if she doesn't go on without us, then we know she wants something."

  "Skull?" Kat said.

  "And maybe the rest of us," Danny said in a low voice.

  Five minutes later Skull emerged from his berth. I was waiting for his reaction when he saw the hovercraft, but evidently he was already aware of its presence. He said, "You see, she's following us. She knows I'm here. Tonight, they'll come across ... " He seemed resigned to his fate, no longer angry.

  Danny said, "You don't know that. Anyway, the truck's secure."

  Skull considered a reply, but merely nodded his acknowledgment of Danny's words, grabbed his bowl of food and returned to his berth.

  We finished the meal in uneasy silence.

  Later I took my rifle outside, broke up the surface crust, and scooped myself a hollow in the sand beneath.

  The hovercraft squatted a hundred metres away, an ugly beetle armoured in a patchwork of solar arrays. Evidently the crew had exited and were having a party on the far side of the vehicle. I heard the sound of drunken voices, raised in revelry.

  I undressed and rubbed myself with sand, ridding myself of the day's sweat and grime. I lay back and closed my eyes.

  Minutes later a sound startled me. I opened my eyes. Someone had cracked a hatch on the flank of the hovercraft and was crossing the sand towards the truck. I judged I had no time to get dressed before they arrived, so instead reached out and grabbed the rifle.

  Then I paddled a heap of sand onto my groin, covering myself.

  I stared into the darkness, making out the figure as it emerged into the light falling from the lounge behind me, and I set aside the rifle.

  Samara halted about three metres away, smiling down at me. She had discarded her shorts and blouse of earlier. Now she wore a thin white dress which hugged her chest, flanks and belly and flowed around her bare legs.

  And there was something else about her, something I had not noticed on our first meeting. She smelled of flowers.

  My heart banged like a faulty engine.

  She moved closer and knelt, tossing a strand of dark hair from her face. Her scent almost overwhelmed me. "I saw you out here. Thought it was you."

  I opened my mouth. I wanted to ask what she wanted, but no words came. I was very aware of how ridiculous I looked, torso and legs emerging from the hollow I'd dug in the sand.

  She sat before me, cross-legged. "So I thought I'd come over, say hello."

  It struck me then that, unless she was a consummate actress, she was as nervous as I was. A catch in her voice, a hesitation in her gaze as it flicked from the sand to my upper torso.

  The dress was low-cut, and I could not keep my eyes from the swelling of her breasts.

  "You know, I get lonely, surrounded by ..." she gestured over her shoulder with a long-fingered hand, "those animals."

  I said, "It must be," I shrugged, "diff cult to control them."

  She smiled. "Oh, I have my ways." She wasn't beautiful, nor really pretty, but when she smiled her face changed, became suddenly attractive. She shrugged, and the way her breasts moved together...

  I responded. The sand at my groin stirred, disturbed.

  She saw it, reached out and took me.

  I surged upright with a moan, and she lifted her dress, pushed me back onto the sand and straddled me. I closed my eyes as she eased herself around me, impossibly warm and fluid. I reached out, dug my fingers into her bottom as she rocked, leaning fonvard and pressing her breasts into my face.

  Minutes later it was over. I spasmed in ecstasy and cried aloud, then lay back in the cool sand as she gripped me and shook, her teeth biting the flesh of my shoulder.

  I was near to tears. I thought back over the long, lonely years, the years of thwarted desire, of wondering if I would ever experience such intimacy.

  She whispered something to me, then rolled off and pulled her dress down over her nakedness. Before I could protest, she stood and padded back to the hovercraft.

  I stared into the storm-ripped night sky. Beyond the hovercraft, her crew was still partying. A hot wind blew. It was like a hundred other nights, a thousand, I had experienced in the hell that was my world, and yet tonight I felt an elation beyond description.

  I considered what Skull had said about her, and contrasted his words with what I had experienced. How could she be the evil woman that he claimed she was, when she gave herself like that, and parted with such words? It was her farewell which convinced me.

  "Thank you," she had whispered.

  I was woken in the early hours by a shout.

  I sat up, listening. I heard the sound of a scuffle in the lounge, loud footsteps and something crashing to the floor. I pulled on my clothes and pushed open the door. I made out movement along the narrow corridor to the lounge.

  In the dim light I saw half a dozen figures, and someone struggling in their midst.

  I hurried along the corridor, regretting having stowed away my rifle in the locker.

  I stopped dead when I came to the lounge.

  Three individuals had Skull bound and gagged, and another three stood guard, armed with rifles. They faced Danny and Kat, who had just emerged from their room. Seconds later Edvard appeared.

  One of the men saw me and gestured with his rifle. "Move. Join the others."

  The point of his weapon tracked me as I rounded the group and joined my friends. From this angle I could see more of Skull. He was on his knees, arms tied behind his back. A gag obscured the lower half of his face, but above it his eyes blazed with the anger of betrayal.

  Kat clutched Danny's arm, and I understood her fear. I wondered if this was where four years of comparative security and safety would come to an end. Too late, I knew we should have listened to Skull.

  Calmly, Danny said, "What do you want?"

  I looked around the faces of the men.

  Many I did not recognize from our meeting the day before; so evidently Samara had been lying when she claimed a crew of half a dozen.

  One of the men, bigger and meaner looking than the others, nodded down to Skull. "We've got what we came for."

  I felt an almost incredulous relief -then checked myself. He must be lying, surely? They could kill us and ransack the truck, taking our water and provisions and laying claim to the vehicle itself.

  A scrawny African looked around the lounge with evident disgust. "We'd as soon as kill you all ..." There were mutters of assent from those around him. "But she doesn't want that. She said just take the bastard." He grinned. "It's your lucky day."

  Skull struggled, tried to say something. Someone cuffed him around the head. Their leader grunted in their la
nguage and they kicked open the hatch and left the lounge, dragging Skull with them.

  As soon as they were gone, Kat hurried across the room and closed the door. The lock was smashed. "Don't worry about it, Kat," Edvard said. "I'll fix it."

  We sat down around the table in silence. I think each of us felt pretty much the same mix of emotions: a vast relief that we were still alive, a kind of retrospective dread of what might have become of us, and guilt as we thought back to the reassurances we had given Skull.

  Eventually, Kat said, "So ... what do we do?"

  Danny said, "We leave right now. Head for the trench as first planned. Lose them. We were lucky, just now.

  Let's not push that luck. Yes?"

  He looked around at each of us. Edvard and Kat nodded their agreement.

  "Pierre?"

  I thought of Samara, the ecstasy I had experienced with her just hours ago. At last I nodded. "Let's get the hell out of here," I said.

  Danny drove, Kat in the cab beside him. Edvard retired to his bunk in an attempt to catch some sleep. I tried to sleep, but visions of Samara's body, and the look of terror in Skull's eyes as he was dragged away, kept me awake.

  I moved to the rear of the truck and looked out through the observation screen. The sun was coming up ahead of us, casting our long shadow far behind. As I stared, I made out the glinting, glimmering shape of Samara's hovercraft, following steadily in our wake.

  My stomach lurched with a sensation that was not wholly dread.

  We made steady progress during the day, south-west towards the trench. The hovercraft tracked us all the way, a constant presence. I moved to the cab in the early afternoon. Danny glanced at me. "Still there?"

  I nodded.

  He eased the throttle fonvard gently and we accelerated. Kat slipped from the passenger seat and moved through the lounge. I sat beside Danny as we crawled over the sea-bed. Ahead, the sun was a blinding white explosion high above the horizon. All around us the sea-bed was barren, utterly lifeless.

  Kat returned. "They're still there, keeping pace."

  "What the hell do they want?" Danny muttered. "I mean, they could have taken everything we had back there."

  "Perhaps Samara was being truthful," I said. "She wants us to travel together, for safety. And she just wanted Skull back, for her own reasons ..." It sounded lame, even as I spoke the words.