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make iteven if they did get past the rest of the ville and reached the gateway
in safety.
Krysty leaned against a large, frost-scarred boulder, eyes closed. Sensing
that Ryan was looking at her, she opened her green eyes.
"How d'you read it, lover?" she asked.
"Not good if they got the blacktop covered. We can't get any transport to move
any distance. Desert'll chill us, like the biker said. What we have to do is
find some way of bringing Mote and his buddies into a serious firefight.
Distract them and hold them long enough for us to get through Snakefish and
out past the snakes. No way we can avoid them. Just step careful and light.
But" His voice trailed doubtfully away.
Krysty smiled at him. "I don't see any better way. They won't come at us until
first light. We gotta be ready. Either in the old park ruins or in the
gas-processing plant. Gaia! The smell from that place fills my nostrils."
Ryan kissed her unexpectedly on the cheek. "Lover, you've just given me the
seed of an idea. It might just"
"What?"
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"No. Let me think on it. Try and get some sleep. Nobody's going anywhere until
we get close to the dawning."
RYAN, KRYSTY, J.B and Jak kept watch in turn through the night. As soon as
there was the faintest pink lightening to the east, Ryan woke everyone in the
group.
Rick rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "Always feel better first thing," he
said. "Soon as the day starts it's all downhill. Is that the sun I see?"
"False dawn," J.B. told him.
"How can you tell?"
The Armorer gave him a thin, humorless smile. "Secrets of our trade, freezie.
But since you're one of us, I'll show you. Watch."
He stooped and picked up a white, smooth pebble, tossing it from hand to hand.
He looked at the walls of rock that rose twenty or thirty feet above them.
Ryan grinned at Krysty. He'd seen J.B. pull this trick before, in a different
place and at a very different time.
"Watch the stone," J.B. ordered.
He lobbed it as high as he could in the air. Everyone watched it rise then
disappear into the darkness, before suddenly reappearing. J.B. put out a hand
and caught it cleanly. "Now, you all lost sight of it, didn't you?" Everyone
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
nodded dutifully. "I'll do it again, in five minutes or so. Then you'll all
see the point of it."
The storm had drifted away to south toward the old looping Rio Grande and the
barbaric wilderness that had once been the country of Mexico.
Ryan went around a bend in the draw and pissed against a rock, the urine
steaming in the cool of the morning. Jak appeared at his side, on a similar
mission.
"Ryan?"
"Yeah?"
"Me an' J.B. could circle and start diversion. Keep 'em off rest."
"No, Jak. Nice offer. We got Rick and we got Carla, and we got Lori and Doc.
None of them are that strong in a firelight. We go down or we go through. But
we do it together."
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"Sure. Just thought"
"Thanks, Jak. I mean it." He patted the slim boy on the shoulder.
When they rejoined the others, J.B. was holding the pebble again. "Come on,
guys. Might learn something. I know you've seen it, Ryan. But the kid hasn't."
"Don't call"
"Sorry," he said hastily. "Watch the stone now."
It spiraled way up, vanishing like before. Then, at its highest point, it
reappeared, startlingly white, catching the first rays of the dawn from beyond
the visible horizon. Krysty clapped her hands.
"Great, J.B., great."
"Nice," Jak nodded.
Doc beamed. "A fine example of the multifarious uses of physics, my dear Mr.
Dix. If I was only back in my lecture room at But I am not. And I never will
be. So, let that pass."
The stone dropped into the dirt. Ryan rubbed at the stubble on his chin.
"Tells us what we need to know.
They'll likely be out here at full light. Best find some place to be ready for
them."
A TWO-WHEEL WAG was parked in the entrance to the Sierra Sunrise Park, its
chrome glittering, the flake finish bright. It was Zombie's beloved
Harley-Davidson Electra Glide, propped on its stand, the sissy bars raked
back. Carla walked over to it and tapped her thumb on the gas tank.
"Full." She hesitated, looking at the others. "Nobody objects if I take it, do
they?"
J.B. answered for them all. "Nobody got a better right to it, Carla."
She swung her leg over it, straddling the soft leather of the narrow seat,
hands on the grips. "The ville's done and I don't want to stay. I'm not
running from the fight. It's just that it's not my fight anymore. I'll move
on, away. Full tank'll take me a long ways off."
"Where will you go?" Krysty asked, seeing that J.B. wanted to ask, knowing
that his pride would stop him.
"North. Have a sister in a ville called Chapmanston. I'll head there."
"Good luck," Lori said.
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