Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (49 page)

“So we postpone the inevitable four or five days. Whoopee.”

“Pizzle, you're a crybaby, you know that? You're a spoiled brat of a crybaby,” Treet said. “Here we all are, trying to pull together for survival, and all you can think of to do is carp and whine because things aren't absolutely peachy.”

“I beg your pardon! The prospect of immediate death makes me a little testy,” Pizzle japed.

Crocker ignored him. “I figure if we push ourselves as hard as we dare, we ought to be able to make ten thousand kilometers in four days. That should take us out of this desert—it
can't
be much bigger than that.”

“Want to bet?” muttered Pizzle.

“Can we go that fast?” wondered Treet.

“I don't see why not. Didn't you tell me we topped out at four hundred kilometers per hour?” Crocker patted the side of the skimmer he leaned against. “That's flying.”

“But that was a race. We couldn't drive like that all day.”

“Only short bursts. I figure all we have to do is maintain an average of two hundred and fifty per hour over ten hours travel time per day. We could do that, I think.”

“We'd have to double our average,” pointed out Yarden. “Before we got sick, we were doing a hundred and twenty-five. I kept track.”

“Impossible,” said Pizzle, but he stood and came over to join the discussion. “I mean, we'd have to push it to the limit. And even if we were somehow able to keep from going around in big circles, we still don't know precisely where we're heading.”

“We keep the sun at our backs in the morning and aim for it in the afternoon,” remarked Crocker. “Just like we've been doing.”

“Too bad we can't travel at night and use the stars,” Pizzle mused, “like in
Dune.”

“That's another one of your adolescent fantasy stories, I take it?” said Treet archly.

“Only one of the most famous classics of all time.”

“Never heard of it.”

The
company struck camp and proceeded on their way, pushing the skimmers as fast as safety would allow, and changing drivers regularly. The pace wore down muscle tone and reflexes fast. But they soon developed a rhythm of driving and resting, and the kilometers fell away beneath the gleaming, sand-sharpened blades of the skimmers.

At the end of the first day they had covered nearly two thousand kilometers. “We're five hundred short for the day,” said Crocker, “but we had a late start. We'll do better tomorrow.”

They did do better the next day, covering almost three thousand kilometers of dune-strewn desert. They climbed down from the skimmers in the early twilight—gritty, bone-weary, parched, and triumphant. In their sleep that night they relived every dip and swell of the sand-filled wilderness as they slid once more over the endless white void in their dreams.

On the third day disaster struck.

Pizzle was far out ahead of the group—they took turns leading one another so those behind could relax somewhat since it was easier to follow than to forge the trail. Treet was second, watching the high white plume of Pizzle's skimmer weaving its way over the desert landscape when without warning the plume disappeared in a great puff of sand and dust.

Treet gunned his vehicle to the spot and skidded to a stop beside the smoking wreckage of Pizzle's skimmer. Crocker bounded from the passenger's seat and dashed through the clouds of hanging dust to where Pizzle lay spread-eagle on the sand fifty meters away. Treet approached as Crocker rolled Pizzle over.

“Is he dead?” asked Treet. Pizzle's head wobbled loosely on his shoulders. One side of his face was turning a bright red from an ugly scrape, and the heels of both hands were raw and bleeding. It looked as if he'd slid across the desert floor on his hands and face.

“I don't think so,” replied Crocker, placing two fingers beneath Pizzle's jaw at the carotid artery. “I've got a good pulse here. He's just out. I don't see anything broken.”

Treet straightened and turned back to the ruined skimmer. The smoke was clearing, revealing a twisted pile of metal half-buried in the face of a dune. “Oh, something's broken all right.”

Yarden and Calin came skidding in and ran to them. “Is he—” began Yarden, glancing fearfully at the limp body cradled in Crocker's arms.

Holding up his hands, Treet said, “We don't know yet, but we think he's okay. He's scraped up pretty bad—that's all we can tell right now.”

Pizzle gave a long, low moan that sounded like a snore. “If I didn't know better, I'd swear he was sleeping,” said Treet.

Crocker peered at him doubtfully. “He's coming around.” He patted Pizzle's cheek gently. “Pizzle, can you hear me? It's Crocker—hear?”

Pizzle's eyes fluttered open. “O-o-h-h …” A hand went to his head. “What happened?”

“You had a wreck,” said Treet. “Where does it hurt?”

“All over … O-o-h-h. I don't… remember … a thing,” he said, rolling his head from side to side. “I think my neck is broken.”

“I doubt it,” said Crocker. “But it probably should be. Can you get up?”

“Just let me sit here a minute.” Pizzle closed his eyes again. “I must have blacked out.”

“Like a light,” said Crocker. “Tell us what happened.”

“I don't know. I mean—I was driving along, I looked down at the instrument panel to check my speed, and the next thing I know I'm waking up here.” He rolled his head again. “Oh, baby! Is my skimmer all right?”

“Total loss,” said Treet. “You were lucky.” He studied Pizzle closely. His eyes narrowed. “In fact, more than lucky, I think. The only people who walk away from accidents like this in one piece are drunks.”

“What are you saying? Pizzle certainly wasn't drunk,” Yarden remarked.

“No, he wasn't drunk. He was
asleep.”

An expression of recognition spread across Crocker's face. “Is that true? You fell asleep?”

Pizzle blanched. “How do I know? Everything's kind of blurry. Maybe I did get a little dizzy just before—”

“Just before you fell off?” said Treet with disgust. He stomped off to examine the smashed skimmer. The machine looked like someone had tried to fold it in the middle. Its sides were crumpled and bowed; its blades stuck out in artistic angles.

“Pizzle, you grouthead!” exploded Crocker. He stood up quickly, dropping Pizzle onto the sand. “Look what you've done!”

A sickly grin warped Pizzle's face. He pushed himself back up on his elbows. “Sorry, guys. I don't know what to say. I didn't mean to. I guess I got mesmerized or something. Rapture of the road, you know? It's never happened before.”

“Well, we don't have to worry about it happening again. You'll have to ride with Yarden. You take the prize, Pizzle, you know that?”

“Ease up on him,” said Yarden. “He could have been killed.”

“Maybe that's not such a bad idea,” said Treet, joining them once again. The tone of his voice made the others glance at him. “We've lost the rest of the water. The tent was punctured in the crash. It's all gone.”

Pizzle groaned. Crocker swore under his breath.

“We've still got the emergency flasks,” Yarden pointed out.

“Well, this is an emergency.”

“We're never going to make it,” moaned Pizzle.

“Not if we sit around here much longer,” said Treet.

“He's right. I suggest we get moving again pronto. We can't get out of this desert fast enough to suit me,” Crocker said.

They left, but not before Pizzle had stripped everything of possible use from the damaged vehicle. That took some time, but Pizzle convinced the others that it would likely pay off in the long run. When at last they got underway again, the sun was starting its slide down toward the western horizon and a stiff breeze had picked up, sending sand devils twirling across the flats.

A ridge of cloud appeared away to the south, and the breeze turned into a steady wind. Treet noted the clouds and pointed them out to Crocker. When he looked again, he was amazed to see that the ridge had swelled to a hard, brassy brown bank that was moving toward them fast. He held up his hand and slowed to a stop.

“I think we're in for a storm,” he said, indicating the clouds. The wind whistled over the tops of nearby dunes as sand snakes hissed up the smooth dune faces. The sun had become a pale platinum disk in a sky of brittle glass.

“Maybe we can outrun it,” said Crocker.

“We can try,” agreed Treet.

They pushed the skimmers as fast as they would go, but at the end of another hour the wind had become cold and strong, flinging the sand into their faces, stinging exposed flesh; it became apparent they would not be able to outrun the storm. Crocker cupped his hand and shouted, “Let's find the biggest dune around here and pitch our tents in the windshadow.”

Visibility had dropped to a scant few meters by the time they found a place to stop. Copper clouds opaqued the sky and all but obscured the sun, which burned with a ghostly pallor, like a candle shining through burlap. They managed to get one tent up and anchored between the two skimmers when the gale hit.

The wind roared with the sound of a rocket thruster throttled flat out. Overlaying this was a harsh, shushing rasp that was the wind-driven sand in flight. The company huddled together in the crowded tent and listened to the storm. Its howl absorbed all conversation, so they lay back in the dim orange halflight and watched the fabric of the tent stretch and flutter, hoping against hope that their fragile shelter would last the night.

Some
time later Treet awoke. The wind had died away to a murmuring whisper. He slipped quietly out of the tent, shoving sand away from the flap with a swimming motion of his hands. He stood and looked around. It was early evening. The sun was down, but the sky still held a leaden glow. Stars burned coolly overhead and the newly-rearranged dunes stood like bleached shadows, silent and immobile, their crests touched with silver.

Treet surveyed their position. One of the skimmers was completely buried in the sand, the other only half-buried. The curved roof of the tent jutted between them. He climbed to the top of the nearest dune and scanned the horizon, letting his eyes sweep the undulating desert beneath the twilight sky. He had completed a ninety degree arc when he saw the obelisk.

“It's no use,” sighed
Pizzle. “I've done everything I can think of to do. I don't think it's going to start.”

He sat in a ring of scattered skimmer pieces—cowling, chain, sprocket gears, screen mesh, wire, sealed bearings—his face and hands smeared with grease, peering doubtfully into the complicated innards of a dead sand skimmer.

Crocker sat on his heels next to Pizzle, scratching his head and frowning. “I'm sure I don't know what else to do.” He drew a soiled sleeve across his brow, jerked his thumb over his shoulder to the skimmer gliding up, and said, “You want to give 'em the bad news or should I?”

“What bad news?” asked Treet as he, Yarden, and Calin, who had become little more than a ghost since her psi deserted her, climbed down from the last working sand skimmer. They had driven to the obelisk Treet had spotted the night before to check it out.

Crocker squinted up into the sunlight at Treet. “We're down to one vehicle. We can't get this other one to start.”

“That's bad,” said Treet. “But at least we still have one.”

“Yeah,” said Pizzle darkly. “Keep your fingers crossed and hope it holds out.”

“What did you find?” Crocker unfolded himself and stood, squinting in the direction of the obelisk—a narrow white slash in the pale blue sky.

“It's some kind of signal tower—that's my best guess. It's huge—I'd estimate close to two hundred meters tall. The base is one hundred meters in circumference—Yarden paced it off—five sides, twenty meters to a side. There are some funny markings on the base, like numbers or letters, only they're not. The rest of it is completely smooth—some kind of plastic sheeting that covers it to about halfway up, then bare metal beams and struts like a radio antenna all the way to the top.”

“Anything on top?” asked Crocker.

Yarden answered, “Some kind of dish—like a satellite dish.”

“Could be a microwave reflector,” mused Pizzle. “Those have to be pretty tall like that. Any way to climb it?”

“There is a ladder of sorts that begins about five meters off the ground on the south side. But the thing is almost straight up and down. I wouldn't want to go climbing around on it.”

Crocker nodded thoughtfully. “Well, let's get packed up here and take a look. The day is getting away from us as it is. We'd better make some good use out of it, or we've wasted a day's ration of water.”

The skimmer fairly groaned under the weight to its passengers. All five managed somehow to crowd aboard—along with the tents and the gear Pizzle insisted on bringing in case of a breakdown. They drove to the tower, a short ride of about six kilometers. Crocker parked the skimmer in the shadow of the soaring object and then walked around it.

“Sure is a big old thing,” he said. “I think one of us should try to climb it. Maybe we'd see something from way up there that could help us out.”

“You mean like an oasis or something? Forget it,” said Pizzle. “You're dreaming.”

“Or like a river, or green hills, or anything that shows us the way out of this desert,” said Crocker.