by Mel Odom
All of the children were younger than ten years. As she watched them stuffing their bellies with food she and Stampede had given them, Hella tried to remember what it was like to be that age and couldn’t. Flashes of memory hit her, but all of them quickly faded.
Two of the children were girls, one white and one black, and the boy was white as well. All of them were dressed in clothing equally as hard used as DaBen’s.
“Why are we stopping?” Pardot stood in front of Stampede while the bisonoid put together a kit of food and water.
Stampede wrapped the food in a tanned hide and tucked the ends in before he rolled it. When he had everything in place, he tied rawhide strips around the ends so it would remain closed.
Hella finished knotting a hide of her own. She felt guilty about the meager rations they were leaving the man and the children with, but Stampede had pointed out that the trio wouldn’t be able to carry much in the way of supplies. DaBen was too weak, and the children were too small.
And if we give them too much, they’ll just become a target for someone else on the trade road that’s willing to take advantage of weaker travelers, Hella told herself.
“This man needs help with these kids.” Stampede didn’t stop his work.
“That’s none of our concern.”
“No, it’s not. But I’m making it mine.” Stampede stood and held the wrapped hide knobby with supplies.
“You’re giving them food?”
“And water. Yes. It’s mine and Hella’s to give.”
“We’ve got to get moving.”
Stampede nodded. “We will.”
“Every minute we lose is another minute that someone else could beat us to that meteorite.”
“I know that but I also know that there’s no reason to believe that someone hasn’t already beaten us to it or that anything survived that impact.”
“It’s there.” Pardot was adamant.
“What’s there?”
The three kids sat on the rocks and watched the argument with interest. Their quick, little fingers pinched bites of the journey cakes Hella had given them. She was going to miss those cakes, but it was good to see the children enjoying them.
Colleen Trammell arrived, riding behind one of Riley’s men on an ATV. For a moment she sat there and stared at the children. Then she slid off the vehicle a little unsteadily and reached into the travel carrier behind the ATV. She took out a medical bag and glanced at Hella. “Bring the children here. Let me see if they need anything.”
Hella didn’t like being designated as nurse, but she knew the children would come closer to trusting her than they would Riley’s men or women. The hardshells made the guards look dangerous.
She crossed over to the children and to DaBen. “She’s a doctor. She can check the little ones over for any kind of sickness.”
DaBen nodded and spoke briefly to the children, explaining that they should see the doctor. The children backed away despite DaBen’s calm voice and his firmer tone.
“Look.” Hella fanned out flavored sugar sticks. The red, green, yellow, and blue colors shone in the morning sun. “If you see the lady, I’ll let you have these.”
One of the girls moved forward. “Sugar stick’s okay but we want something else.”
“What?”
“To pet your lizard.”
Hella smiled. “All right. But not till after Colleen’s checked you over.”
One by one, Colleen examined the children. She bandaged a burn on the boy that was showing signs of infection then shot him up with antibiotics. She followed up with instructions to DaBen on how to continue to treat the wound.
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I know how to treat wounds.” DaBen seemed more embarrassed than affronted. “We just haven’t had any meds.”
“Well, you do now.” Colleen pressed a med kit into his hands.
The little black girl had a cut down one forearm that would have required stitches. Instead of sewing her up, though, Colleen used some kind of glue that left a hard, protective surface.
“Don’t let her pick at that. As the wound heals, the glue will come off on its own.” Colleen closed her medical bag and brushed a lock of hair back from her face. She looked pale and sickly, and she shook a little bit. Hella guessed that she was still recovering from the drugs she’d been given.
DaBen told her he would watch the children closely.
Hella stood by Daisy’s side as the three kids wandered around her, touching her skin and oohing and ahhing. Frustrated with standing in one spot and wanting a treat, Daisy bellowed her displeasure. The kids jumped back at once then—realizing that the monstrous lizard wasn’t coming after them—unleashed gales of laughter, enjoying the sensation of being scared over something that ultimately wasn’t scary.
“Look at them.” Colleen’s whisper was full of amazement. “They’re so innocent, even after all they’ve been through.”
Though it was hard, Hella held her tongue and didn’t point out that innocence generally got a person killed as sure and as fast as anything. She knew that Colleen wasn’t seeing those children. The woman was seeing Alice, and Hella was seeing that dead rodent bleeding from all orifices.
“We can spare one pack animal.” Stampede handed the reins of the small horse to DaBen. Most of the supplies the animal had carried had already been donated to the man and the children. “And if we weren’t heading into more danger than you’re in now, I’d take you with us.”
Pardot stomped up at that, but a glare from Stampede sent the man into clanking retreat.
“And there’s this.” Stampede handed DaBen an assault rifle, a pistol, and bandoliers of ammunition for both weapons. “I’m sorry we can’t do more.”
Tears glistened in the old man’s eyes. “You done enough, scout. It’ll be a long ride from here to Blossom Heat, but I’ll get these children there.”
Stampede smiled. “I know you will. When you get there, ask for Faust. Tell him Stampede and Hella sent you.”
“I’ll do that. If you don’t mind me asking, where are you headed?”
“Wherever that rock that came down last night ended up.”
A troubled expression appeared on DaBen’s features. “You’ll want to be careful over in that part of the mountains, then, my friend. I saw that rock come down. Looked like it landed in ’Chine territory.”
“That’s what I thought too. I hope we’re both wrong.” Stampede clapped the man on the shoulder. “Neither mischief nor murder, fellow traveler. May your ways only find mercy and mother’s milk on the trade roads.”
“I wish the same for you and yours, scout.” DaBen called the children to him then got them situated on the pack animal amid the rolls of food and water. He talked to them, already telling them stories as he led them back toward Blossom Heat. The two little girls waved to Daisy.
Riley joined Hella. “What is the ’Chine territory?”
Hella pulled herself up onto Daisy back and took up the reins. “A bad place to be. Let’s hope he’s wrong.”
CHAPTER 14
As they closed on the impact area, Hella surveyed the damage. The meteorite had come close enough to the ground on its trajectory to set the tops of trees on fire. Several of them had burned and blackened leaves and branches at the top.
She guided Daisy from the trade road and headed down toward the burn scar that ran in a straight line. The damage was only twenty meters across and grew steadily smaller.
“Whatever it was cooled as it went through the trees.” Hella ducked under a low-hanging branch. “Not completely but the damage is lessening.”
“Left plenty of sign for anyone that wanted to follow it.” Stampede sounded grouchy.
Hella knew part of her partner’s mood came from not being able to do more for DaBen and the three orphans the old man had taken on. If they reached Blossom Heat, Faust would take care of them. But Stampede and Hella wouldn’t know how that turned out for a long time. That was part of life on the road. So many eve
nts and incidents remained unknowable.
“Don’t tell me Pardot isn’t the only one convinced that we’re going to find this thing in one piece.” Hella guided Daisy around a thick tree where embers spilled down from coals still burning in the upper branches. Once she was away from the spill area, she took off her boonie hat and knocked the embers off the brim.
“You seen any fragments yet, Red?”
Hella didn’t think she had. “Might not know them if we did see them.”
“Out here? With all this rain? With all that heat?” Stampede snorted irritably. “We’d have found something. Since we haven’t found fragments, that means this thing has held together.”
“Did you see it come out of a ripple?”
“No.”
“Could be a satellite. Those things still fall now and again.” Hella guided Daisy to a parallel position beside the burn trail. They were into the wilderness again, and the going was slower despite Pardot’s wishes.
“Just got a head’s up from Riley.”
Two ATV motors revved behind Hella and briefly startled Daisy as two riders quickly caught up and passed them.
Hella grimaced in understanding and took a fresh grip on her rifle. “Pardot wanted to send his own scouts on ahead.”
“Yeah.”
“I guess he doesn’t care much about his scouts.”
“Riley wasn’t happy about doing it.”
Hella took a little comfort from that. At least Riley was getting trainable.
An hour farther on, the destruction got worse. The path narrowed to ten meters, and the trees were broken and burned to within five meters from the ground. A little later the burn area chopped the tree stumps down to a little more than two meters.
By that time, Hella could see the impact area over the tops of the ruined trees.
The meteorite had slammed into a hillside and scattered red dirt in all directions. The surrounding landscape appeared covered in a cayenne coating. The impact had blown over the trees in all directions. Some of them lay uprooted and scorched. Closer in to the impact site, black ash mixed in with the red dirt. The stink of wood smoke and charred flesh thickened the air. The breeze followed the burn scar and blew fast enough to raise dust devils and ruffle the leaves.
“Do you see it?” Hella took a fresh grip on her rifle.
“Yeah. You seen any sign of Riley’s scouts?”
Hella glanced at the width of the burn scar. Less than a minute later, she spotted the thick tire treads from the ATVs. The vehicles had run in single-file formation, one set of tracks running right over the top of the first set of tracks.
Stupid. They should have stayed spread out. Less chance of being surprised by the same person or group.
“I found tracks but I don’t see any of the guards.”
“I wouldn’t think they’d have left the impact area.”
Hella didn’t either.
Only a few minutes later, Hella reined in at ground zero. She stared into the deep crater in the hillside and wondered what had struck. She didn’t know because whatever had hit was no longer there.
Four of Riley’s security guards arrived on their ATVs. They stayed encased in the hardshells and kept weapons ready to hand.
“It’s gone?” Stampede sounded a little irritated even though she knew he’d been expecting that.
“Yeah.”
“Someone took it.”
“Unless it got up and walked off on its own. Tell Riley to pull his men back while I take a look around. They’re ruining whatever sign might be left. If someone took whatever it was that landed here, there has to be a trail.” Hella slid down off Daisy and dropped the reins to the ground. She left the rifle in its scabbard on the saddle. She was in close quarters and would rather depend on her own weapons.
One of the security guards’ face shields popped open. He looked tense. “Where is it?”
“You should ask Dr. Trammell. She’s the precog. Now get back and let me look around.”
“I’m not going to—” The man stopped talking, listened for a moment, then turned back to his teammates. Together, they all moved back.
Hella ignored them and concentrated on the area. Land told a story. It was like a blank page, and anything that happened there, whether from a person or animal or climate condition, left the story written on the landscape.
The crater was roughly three meters wide, an ellipse that lay almost horizontal on the axis. It was almost that deep as well. Under the thin layer of red dirt, the stones making up the Buckled Mountains had cracked and crumbled. Millions of years earlier, an ocean had formed over the Redblight and left behind a layer of limestone and sandstone. The ground held the footprints well because most of the recent rainfall had drained through the karst. The soluble bedrock was composed mostly of limestone and allowed quick drainage into the aquifer below. The natural spring water fed a nearby lake.
Closer inspection revealed metallic smears against the coarse rock. But it was a metal construct that was strong enough to keep from burning up as it hurtled across the atmosphere.
A lot of footprints crisscrossed the ground. Many of them showed bare feet, not shod ones. That immediately made Hella more tense when she thought about the ’Chine. It looked like them. The ’Chine weren’t known for the stylish way they dressed.
Moving out from the empty ground zero site, Hella continued circling the area, picking up transient bits and pieces from recent travelers as well as older ones. She found a horseshoe nail, brass casings that she immediately picked up for salvage, and coals from fires where someone had camped there.
“Hella.” Stampede didn’t sound antsy, but Hella knew Pardot was probably giving him an earful.
“I’ve found a trail.” Hella squatted and eyed the line of tracks under a layer of loose sand. “Whoever took the meteorite tried to cover their sign.”
“But you have it.”
“I have it.” Hella stood and went back for Daisy. She tied the big lizard’s reins to the saddle pommel and commanded her to follow. They weren’t going to be invisible that way, but Daisy would alert her to other presences if she missed it while tracking the covered impressions.
“I’m coming to you.”
Hella relaxed at that. Having Daisy to watch over her was helpful, and even Riley’s people in hardshells would at least provide primary targets, but she was most comfortable with Stampede at her back.
The twin trails led down into the wilderness. After the first two hundred meters, the people who had taken the meteorite hadn’t bothered to sweep their tracks. Trailing them became easier. Hella could almost jog and track at the same time.
“Some kind of sled?” Riley paced Stampede, both of them to the left of Daisy.
Stampede kept his head moving, tracking motion all around them. Shadows danced constantly across the ground, and the moving grasses made spotting anyone lying in wait along the impromptu trail difficult.
Hella pushed her fear aside and concentrated on her tracking skills. That was one area where her abilities transcended Stampede’s.
“Yeah. A sled.” Stampede kept his voice low.
“Why didn’t they use a vehicle?”
“Because the ’Chine don’t frequent trade camps and they’re too mobile to set up stills to make their own fuel.”
“They’re primitives?”
Stampede snorted derisively. “Not like anything you’ve ever seen before.”
“Then what are they?”
“Machine people. ’Chines.”
Riley glanced at Hella. “You mean with nanobots?”
“No. I mean cyborgs. The way the story goes, there was a group of military survivors here or in Texas that tried to hide out after the collider self-destructed. They remained in lockdown for a few generations, till all their stockpiles were gone, before coming back out into the world. By that time they were inbred and physically deformed. They fixed what they could with military prosthetics. One of the military detachments was a medical unit workin
g on next-gen bionics and neural mapping. So maybe things turned out better than they would have otherwise. But the way things turned out was pretty horrifying.”
“How?”
“Intellectually the ’Chine aren’t the brightest people these days. Worst case scenario, they’re barely above animal intelligence. Every now and again, a genius shows up, a genetic joker in the deck, and keeps the ’Chine together. They’ve got baseline survival code hardwired into their nervous systems—kind of an auxiliary brain. They call it ApZero.”
“Application Zero?”
“Don’t know. You don’t get much of a chance for discussion with the ’Chine. If they catch you, they eat you.”
“Cannibals?” Riley’s face inside the open face shield pinched.
“Not the way they see it. They don’t eat anyone else who is a ’Chine. People that aren’t one of them are fair game.” Stampede shrugged and adjusted his rifle. “They’re brutal and they’re mean, and if they’ve got the meteorite, we’re going to have a hard time getting it back.” He looked at Riley. “My question is this: Why would the ’Chine want whatever landed back there? They only value salvage. Vehicles. Devices. Electronic as well as fuel powered. Your meteorite had to fit somewhere in that.”
“Not my meteorite.” Riley glanced away from Stampede and shook his head. “And I’m not the one you can be asking questions like that of.”
“Pardot’s not going to give us any straight answers.”
Riley remained closemouthed.
“Then tell me this: Is what we’re after dangerous?”
“It hasn’t killed the ’Chine yet, has it?”
The trail led over rocky ground and didn’t follow a trade route or path. The going got tougher for the land vehicles. Riley had even given up on his ATV and let one of his security men shepherd it for him.
“We’re getting ahead of the group.” Riley paused at the top of a rise beside Hella and Stampede and pointed back behind them. The rest of the expedition was almost three hundred meters to the rear. Much of the time they were invisible, and only the continued grinding and groaning of the vehicles let Hella know they were there.
