They climbed over the side and helped Mara snap the mooring lines to the large eyebolts sunk into the plain for that purpose. Otherwise the large vehicle could be blown away by a sudden storm. Once the wagon was secure they followed her toward town. The sun was dipping behind the horizon, now, soon to disappear.
The flatness of the plain quickly gave way to a gentle slope. Their path was wide and unpaved but rock hard from constant use. Up ahead McCade could see the dim shapes of the outlying domes and hear the shouts of those fighting the fires. Smoke swirled everywhere, irritating his eyes and making it hard to breathe. They came to a stop when a middle-aged man with a blackened face and a grim expression appeared out of the smoke. He nodded in Mara's direction.
"Hello, Mara. So you're here. The Walkers sent word to expect you." There was no welcome in his voice or his eyes. They were angry and resentful. He turned to the others. "My name's Nick. Welcome to Trailhead . . . or what's left of it. I don't know what this is all about, but I sure hope it's worth it." And with that he turned his back on them and started back up the trail.
McCade looked at Mara and she shrugged. Silently they followed Nick up the trail. It didn't take long to see why he felt the way he did. For all practical purposes Trailhead was a memory. Many of the low earthen domes had been crushed. Others were surrounded by flames fed by some sort of liquid that burned with intense heat. As they reached the top of the low hill Nick stopped and pointed wordlessly down into the center of the settlement below. McCade looked and found his worst fears had come true.
Sprawled across the small valley was the long broken shape of an Imperial Intruder. There was no mistaking the ship's lethal ugliness. Intruders were specifically designed for landings under combat conditions, but the Wind World had turned this one into a pile of useless scrap. The fires which burned around it, and reflected off its polished surface, made it look like a vision from hell. Muffled explosions could be heard as internal fires found and set off stored explosives. Rivers of flame were born deep inside the ship to flow out and between the domes. Here and there figures darted through the flames, searching for survivors, salvaging what they could.
Mara turned away from the destruction and placed a hand on Nick's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Nick. I know that doesn't help, but please believe me, it's more important than you can imagine." She hesitated for a moment as if considering her options, and then spoke in a low, urgent voice, quickly outlining what was happening and why.
When she'd finished, much of the anger had disappeared from Nick's eyes, leaving only sadness behind. He nodded. "Yes, I'll do what I can. You'll have to catch those bastards before they can reach Chimehome."
"Catch them?" McCade and Mara asked together.
"Yes," Nick replied, anger flooding his features once more. "Right after the ship crashed, a hatch opened and an armed crawler rolled out. An officer, Major Tell, Tellor—something like that—asked me for directions to Chimehome, and like an idiot I told him. Then they took off. Didn't even try to help their own . . . much less ours."
The three men looked at each other. Major Tellor! Here. It certainly sounded like him. All three remembered the enjoyment in his eyes as he'd left them to die in the coliseum. Their situation had just gone from bad to worse.
"All right," McCade said grimly. "They've got a head start . . . and we've got to stop them before they reach Chimehome. Is there anything around here which can match that crawler for speed?"
Nick thought for a moment, and then shook his head. "No, we've got a few tractors for pushing ore around, but nothing to match that military job."
Mara shook her head. "Even if there was, we'd be crazy to race them, that crawler won't make it even halfway to Chimehome."
Nick nodded his agreement.
Seeing the doubt in McCade's eyes Mara said, "The planet will stop them. That's why we don't use crawlers ourselves. This world turns unprotected machinery into junk faster than you can bring it in. All we have to do is grab a couple of Nuags and plod along. They'll be waiting for us."
McCade had his doubts, but Mara seemed certain, and from what Nick said there wasn't much choice. Of greater concern was what lay ahead. Assuming Mara was correct, something nasty would eventually happen to the Imperial crawler, and as a result, they would run into Major Tellor and an undetermined number of marines. And knowing Tellor, his troops wouldn't be sitting around reading poetry to each other. They'd either be hiking toward Chimehome on foot, a less than pleasant experience on the Wind World, or, more likely, laying in ambush, hoping to acquire some new transportation. Like a couple of Nuags for example. With us thrown in as a bonus, McCade thought to himself. It wasn't a very pleasant thought.
Nineteen
At some time during his long career Tellor had probably been more uncomfortable than he was right now, but he couldn't remember when. For almost half a day he'd been waiting. It was the sound that bothered him most: a low rumble, which rose and fell endlessly. Try as he might he couldn't get rid of it. He'd tried ignoring it, accepting it, and humming over it. Nothing worked.
Gritting his teeth, he stared at the point where the path disappeared around the bend, and willed some sort of transportation to appear. Anything. Anything that would get him up the path to Chimehome. Sweeping his powerful glasses across the land his eyes confirmed what his mind already knew. Had known even in orbit. Out here it was a long way between bars.
The space jockeys had provided a fairly decent aerial survey map showing all the major roads, settlements, and ground features for the area. The cloud cover had obscured a few areas, Chimehome among them, but all things considered it was a good map. One glance told him: One, this was wide open country with very little vegetation or other natural obstacles, in other words, tank country, and two, for some stupid reason all the roads meandered from place to place. Solution, ignore 'em. The quickest way from point to point is always a straight line. So Tellor laid his plans accordingly, but instead of a nice neat landing, the damn winds had smeared the Intruder all over the landscape.
Luckily, about ten percent of his insertion team survived the crash, as did one of his five armored vehicles. Not good, but not bad all things considered. The idea of aborting his mission never even occurred to him. Duty first.
They had made pretty good time at first, slowed by the wind, but still burning up the miles. As the only surviving driver, Blenko had the con. He was a homely man, with raw asymmetrical features, stooped shoulders, and tiny little white hands. As he drove they darted here and there, uncertain and afraid.
The road was not a road in the conventional sense. No intelligence had planned and then paved it. It went where Nuags had gone for thousands of years.
Seeing no reason to follow the road's meandering course, Tellor ordered Blenko to ignore it. So the crawler cut across great loops of road doing in minutes what it took Nuags hours to do. It looked like they'd reach the settlement in time for lunch the next day. And then, just when things were going so well, it all came apart. They were rolling across the floor of a valley, heading toward the far slope, when disaster struck.
Looking left, Blenko saw a brown wall of wind-borne sand scudding toward them, and shrugged. No big deal he told himself, just another dust storm. Since leaving the ship they'd rolled through three or four small ones without a hitch, and no wonder, it takes a lot to stop an armored crawler. Blenko's flat brown eyes flicked over the gauges. All four intake filters looked good, both engines, okay, all systems go. Satisfied there was nothing to fear, Blenko slumped back, returning his attention to a well-worn fantasy concerning Sergeant Okada.
At first Tellor agreed with Blenko's superficial assessment of the storm, but as he watched it race toward them, he began to wonder, and wonder turned to doubt, and then doubt to certainty. Punching the port screens up to full mag be felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Sol! That thing was carrying more than just sand! It was picking up boulders and tossing them around like feathers! Other shapes were dimly visible within the brown mist to
o, including something which looked a lot like one of those big animals the local colonists used, and other stuff as well. Now the brown wall was only a mile away and moving with incredible speed. They'd never outrun it, and if the storm hit them broadside, those rocks would pound the crawler into pieces.
"Turn into the storm, Blenko! Turn left, damnit!"
Tellor could still see the vacant look in Blenko's eyes as the marine slowly turned his attention from a vision of Okada's naked buttocks to his commanding officer's urgent voice. Finally Tellor's words seemed to register, and Blenko's tiny white hands fluttered from one control to the next, slowly turning the crawler into the storm. Had he reacted faster they might have made it.
Thunderclaps of sound came at them as the storm beat the crawler like a gong, pushing it higher and higher, finally flipping it over altogether, and exposing its vulnerable underside to the full fury of the storm. Within seconds the rock bombardment had destroyed the crawler's drive-train, ripped off a track, and holed the main fuel tank. Ten minutes later the storm was gone, leaving three dead marines, a wrecked crawler, and a furious Major in its wake. Once he realized the storm was over Tellor grabbed Blenko from behind, with every intention of killing him. Unfortunately his hands encountered no resistance. The driver was already dead.
Salvaging what they could from the wreckage, the marines trudged to the nearest loop of road, and dug in. Tellor sighed. So instead of rolling into Chimehome, he was lying on some very uncomfortable rocks, trying to shut out the sound of the blasted wind. Even if the interference suddenly disappeared, their remaining com set wasn't powerful enough to reach into space, so help was out of the question, and the storms made continuing on foot impossible. So, all he could do was wait, and hope some transportation would come along and fall into his trap.
And then, as if in answer to his prayers, something moved in the far distance. Whipping the binocam left, he stopped, hitting the autofocus button, and marveling at his good luck. He certainly deserved some, and there it was, one, no, two of those beetlelike animals. Where were their heads anyway? They'd been included in the pre-drop briefing, but he hadn't paid much attention. Nugs? No, Nuags. All he remembered was people rode under them, instead of on top, and that Nuags refused to deviate from their ancestral paths. Well, it didn't matter. A ride's a ride. Carefully chinning his mic on he whispered, "Objective in sight. Range, two thousand yards. Hold for my signal."
Eight double clicks echoed in Tellor's ear as each member of his team flicked their mic on and off twice. Good. Everyone was awake and paying attention.
The Nuags were closer now. Just a few more minutes and he'd spring the trap. His troops would slip out of their hiding places quickly surrounding the animals. They'd call for the passengers to surrender, and if they refused, go in after them. Either way they'd have to die. On a mission like this one it's a mistake to leave enemies or witnesses behind you. Those were the rules—good rules—rules which had protected him for many years. After all, what if by some twist of fate Claudia lost her bid for the throne? His sponsor would be gone, along with her the legal protection he presently enjoyed.
Suddenly something hard and cold was jammed into Tellor's right ear. He knew what it was. A gun barrel. The damned wind had allowed someone to sneak up on him unheard.
"Move and you're dead." For a split second Tellor considered going for his blaster but didn't. The voice was as hard and as cold as the steel in his ear. He felt an expert hand remove his sidearm, combat knife, and the tiny backup needler strapped to his ankle. He still had a small knife concealed in his belt, but that wasn't going to accomplish much against someone with a gun. Best to wait, and see how things went.
"OK, you can turn . . . slowly." A chill ran down Tellor's spine. There was something familiar about that voice. It couldn't be. Nobody could have luck that bad. As the gun barrel left his ear he slowly turned his head. Shit! It was Sam McCade.
McCade grinned. "Hello, Major, fancy meeting you here." He placed a finger over his lips. "Mum's the word though. We wouldn't want to distract your team with our idle chatter."
McCade used his left hand to remove the binocam from Tellor's unresisting fingers. He used his left hand to sweep it across the hillside below, while his right hand kept the slug gun centered on the marine's spine. Tellor didn't even consider testing McCade's reflexes. Not after seeing tapes of the battle in the Imperial Coliseum.
McCade saw that the Nuags were almost in position. "All right, Major, in a moment I'm going to say 'now.' When I do, give your team the go ahead. Get fancy and you're dead. It's up to you. OK . . . ready . . . now."
Tellor chinned his mic switch, and said, "The objective is in position . . . go!"
And they went. Rising from the ground like ghosts they swept down the hillside to surround the Nuags below. The moment they were in position, Sergeant Okada bellowed, "You're surrounded. In the name of the Emperor, throw down your weapons and come out!"
For a moment nothing happened. Then, just as Okada started to order the team in, the lead animal gave a snort of protest, and grudgingly lifted an armored skirt. An attractive black woman emerged. As she straightened up, Okada saw both her hip and shoulder holsters were empty. "Where's the rest?" Okada demanded.
The black woman smiled. "Behind you. Throw down your weapons and surrender."
But Okada was having none of that. She knew what her job was, and it didn't include dropping her weapon for some unarmed colonial. Her blast rifle was already spitting blue energy as she spun around. Her dying brain barely registered the flash of light that killed her before a wave of darkness snuffed her out. Two more marines fell to Rico's and Phil's markmanship, before the rest gave up, and threw down their weapons. As Rico and Phil made their way down from their hiding places at the top of the hill, Mara forced the marines to sit on their hands, while she gathered their weapons into a pile.
As McCade followed Tellor down the hill, he gave thanks the plan had worked. About a hundred things could have gone wrong but didn't. They'd been very lucky to spot the marines while they were too busy carving hiding places to notice.
After forcing the Nuags out of sight down the trail and sneaking up to the crest of the hill, they'd watched the marines for a while, counting the opposition, mapping their locations, and planning their counterambush. Unfortunately the Nuags wouldn't leave their ancestral path, so there was no way to circle around the ambush. After that, it was a matter of creeping into position, and hoping for the best.
As McCade and Tellor reached the bottom of the slope, Phil said, "Welcome, Major, if you'd just step over there." He pointed to the group of angry-looking marines.
Tellor did as he was told. Rico turned to McCade. "What's the plan, sport, we can't take 'em with us."
McCade ran his eyes over the marines. They were a bedraggled bunch, but far from beaten, and even unarmed they were dangerous as hell. He hated to leave them behind, but Rico was right, they didn't have room for prisoners. If the positions were reversed, McCade knew what Tellor would do. But McCade had no stomach for cold-blooded murder. They'd have to leave the marines behind and hope for the best.
Tellor sneered, as if able to read his thoughts, and amused by his weakness. McCade ignored him as they made ready to depart. They left the marines their food and medical kits, nothing more.
Thirty minutes later they were on their way. Mara and Phil rode together, suspended under the first Nuag, while McCade and Rico followed along behind.
The marines were just a dwindling image on the rear screens. They stood in a clump apparently listening to Major Tellor. A little pep talk perhaps, or maybe a major ass chewing, with the Major doing the chewing.
Hours passed and it seemed as if their luck had taken a turn for the better. The wind died down, the clouds vanished, and the Nuags walked along under blue skies. Soon they were out of the foothills and working their way up into the mountains beyond.
Occasionally they took turns walking beside the Nuags, enjoying the fresh air and the
exercise. There were lots of things to look at. Rocks shimmered and sparkled in the sun. Flowers shaped like dinner plates, which turned toward the sun and shook off layers of windblown dust to reveal their brilliant colors. Small animals scurried here and there, largely ignoring human and Nuag alike, intent on their various errands. Mara told them that while the clear weather wouldn't last long, it arrived with a certain regularity, and played an important part in the local ecology. Each period of clear weather functioned like a Terran spring, setting off a frenzy of feeding, mating, and other behaviors. As a result, many life forms had very short birth to death cycles, though some—the Nuags were a good example—had evolved adaptations allowing them to live to a ripe old age.
Once, McCade sighted a distant speck in the sky. It moved in wide lazy circles, riding the thermals upward. Thinking it a bird, he pointed, and asked Mara what kind it was. She took one glance and swore. "Wind Riders." She spat the words out one at a time. Moments later the speck disappeared into the distant haze. There was no way to tell if they'd been spotted, but the incident worked to dampen their spirits, and Mara urged the Nuags to move faster.
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