Part 21 (1/2)

'Just be sure to leave some buildings standing,' the Doctor advised. 'The people are going to need some shelter. And whatever you do, don't put them all under one roof. Spread them between several buildings, some distance apart. I doubt it will help very much, but it should make them feel a little safer. For a while.'

'Thanks,' Morgan said, but meant the exact opposite. He licked his teeth and exhaled. 'All right. Doc. But before you go, listen up. There's been some new developments up there you should know about.' He briefed the Doc carefully on the incident at the cabin and indicated the site on his map. The Doc thanked him and gunned the engine of the snowmobile.

It spluttered and he had to gun it again.

'You sure you've driven one of these things before?' Morgan shouted above the noise.

'Oh,' the Doc waved a farewell, 'I'm sure I must have done.

In a previous life'

And with that, he was off, racing headlong into the h.e.l.lish blizzard.

It didn't see. see.

It touched without fingers. Its tactile consciousness dipped into the streams of energy that flowed between its scattered threads. And sometimes other minds would wade through those streams, lighting up in its consciousness like solar flares on animal retina.

There was a nest of many such minds nearby, aglow like the core of a galaxy.

And out from that core came a single mind, brilliant and intense, like a comet arcing across the night sky.

Chapter Fifteen.

As soon as they'd seen that cabin, Joanna Hmieleski had known another life was on the line. Now as they headed for the truck, that loss seemed manifested in the dragging depth of snow.

Jacks shoved her at the pa.s.senger door of the couple's pickup. Joanna stood firm, and looked daggers at Jacks'

reflection in the wing mirror.

'You don't have any plan, do you? All this killing is just so you can run away.'

Emilie's reflection twitched, but her eyes were stone.

'Crayford said the winds at the summit would be perfect.

They could have carried the word to everyone. Well, it's all dead now. We're all stuck in this world.' Her sneer was bitter and primitive. 'Survival's all there is. Something you should think about, before you open your mouth again.'

'You know,' Joanna said. 'I should have given him an answer. He deserved one.'

Jacks spat. What are you talking about?'

Your partner. Lagoy. He wanted to know the truth - about extraterrestrials. All those secrets I'm supposed to know because I work for the government.'

Jacks raised the AK like a polearm. ready to slam Joanna against the cab, but she looked trapped, caught between wondering if she could spare the time and whether she could afford not to. She asked, 'So what would you have told him?'

Joanna savoured the woman's pretend disinterest, while her throat burned from the acid medicine she was busy swallowing. 'I would have told him he was wrong,' she said.

'Extraterrestrials arc nothing to be wors.h.i.+pped. There's very little to get religious over. Do you know what they're really like? They're like us. There's good and there's bad. But I don't think any of them have sickened me as much as you do.'

'My heart is bleeding. Open the G.o.dd.a.m.n door and get in.'

Joanna knew she'd effectively lost her audience, but she turned around, slow and deliberate, to aim her hate where it would do the most damage. 'I'm an officer in the United States military. You know, for me a gun is a tool I'd prefer not to use unless I have to. I don't get off on muzzle velocity and cyclic rate of fire. Do you hear what I'm saying?'

Jacks was a fortress. 'So you stand back and let people get killed. How big of you.'

'Fine, so you figured out what's eating me. The difference is, you don't have to tell me where I've gone wrong. I have this thing called a conscience, does that for me on a regular basis. People like you make me regret my calling.'

'So you'd prefer I shoot you now?' Jacks gave a twisted grin and presented the muzzle of the a.s.sault rifle like an offer not to be missed.

'No - no, I guess not.' Joanna turned away. She opened the door and climbed into the pa.s.senger seat, trying to find some way of seeing that grin as a crack in Jacks' armour. 'Maybe some day one of these alien threats will learn to discriminate.

Weed out the trash.'

Jacks kept her gun on Joanna as she drew closer. 'Keep praying for the day,' she sneered.

Joanna saw the b.u.t.t of the AK swinging around to club her skull. Just before lights out.

Leela found it demanding enough simply to walk through this haunted land. Now they were having to run. Or at least to drive their limbs with the power of a run. while the land straggled by with aching sloth.

Kristal had been running a hand gingerly over the surface of a fallen trunk, as if, through the fabric of her gloves, she could feel the last breaths of the dead wood. A few dribbles of blood stained the l.u.s.treless bark. 'Whatever was here,'

Kristal determined, with a cryptic wisdom to rival the Doctor's, 'has gone now. Carried on the winds, and taking its victim with it.'

That was when the sound of the shots reached them through the wailing wind.

The sheer effort of the run seemed to indicate otherwise, but perhaps it was only a few minutes before the dark grey silhouette of the cabin emerged from the snowstorm, its gaping doorway venting all the heat, along with the scent of death.

There was a machine roar, finely chopped and tossed around with the snowflakes. A truck broke from beyond the cabin and skidded into a frantic turn, ploughing a fresh trail between the trees, its headlights edging the branches with ghostly silver.

Kristal cut across the open to the cabin door.

Leela followed her indoors, her pistol braced in both hands.

A female was crying over her dead mate, lagged in his blood from where she had embraced the body. Leela lowered the gun. There was no danger here, only distress.

'Where's the nearest cabin? Miss!' Miss!' Kristal squatted to shake the woman roughly by the shoulders. Leela had seen this before: mourners had to be dragged back to the land of the living if they were to be of any use. Kristal squatted to shake the woman roughly by the shoulders. Leela had seen this before: mourners had to be dragged back to the land of the living if they were to be of any use.

'Help,' the woman bawled feebly, teetering on some inner precipice. 'You have to help.'

Kristal stood, abandoning the woman and s.n.a.t.c.hing up her radio. Her features formed one of the harshest masks Leela had ever seen.

If only Sergeant Garvey 's radio had been an effigy of Kristal Owl Eye Wildcat, he could have wrung its neck. As things were, he had to settle for a mute growl at the crackling voice coming through on the speaker.

'Maybe you're not getting me, Lieutenant,' Lieutenant,' he strained as though shouting the full distance, 'but we've lost Marotta. he strained as though shouting the full distance, 'but we've lost Marotta.

We're still engaged in the search.'