The Hunter will soon be awakened.
The Hunter will rise up in his glory and take upon him the robes of his power.
The Hunter will seek.
Before, there has always been success.
The Hunter was born to hunt, as his prey was born to be brought down at his desire
They made much poorer time on the secondary roads than they had on the highways where the beater surface was solid and flat. Here, the pavement had been originally designed for wheeled vehicles, which made it far too uneven and twisted to offer much to a shuttlecraft. Besides, they were moving into the mountains near' the end of the Pennsylvania line where the weather, if anything, was more fierce than before.
The wind had picked up a few notches, battered the already beaten craft until the shuddering of the wounded mechanical beast grew severe enough to shatter one of the two round ports on the rear, behind the luggage shelf. Glass imploded, spun throughout the cabin. A piece of it caught Leo on the cheek, drew blood. Other pieces stuck in Hulann's flesh but not deep enough to cause him pain or to make him bleed.
Hulann maintained a low blade revolution count in order to hug the road and avoid the draughts that were much stronger even a few feet farther up. Sudden rises in the pavement gave them hair-raising moments as Hulann fought to go around them-or increase the rotar speed and go over them-to keep from sheering off the blades.
Then there was the snow. There seemed to be half a dozen inches of it now, and the steadiness with which it fell indicated no soon end to the storm. The biting wind — now whistling and howling through the shattered rear port and leeching out their cabin heat-piled the white stuff into every nook and crevice, stacked it against every outcropping of stone, layer on layer until it backed up across the highway, thick, cold fingers packing hard and making progress on air cushion even more difficult. Un-drifted snow was light and flushed away under the blades. But the wind-packed stuff was solid as ice, would not blow away, and gave Hulann trouble with his machine.
"How much can it snow here?" he asked Leo as they flitted up the side of a mountain which should have been tunneled through. He was amazed at the impracticality.
"Maybe a foot. Two feet is not unusual."
"Two feet!"
"Like you and me."
"That's impossible!"
"You don't have snow on your world?"
"Not that much!"
"Wait," the boy said, smiling.
He waited.
The snow continued. Mounted. Blew. Drifted. The shuttlecraft slowed and slowed until he could not drop their forward speed any further. It was maddening to realize there were forces behind which would soon be after them and that they could only crawl along at under ten miles an hour. The only consolation Hulann could find was the realization that those chasing them would also have to move slowly. Then that consolation was ruined too. The Hunter-would the Hunter be turned loose on them? It seemed likely although the situation would be unique-would wait until the storm had ended, then come by air, in a helicopter.
They rounded a bend in the road near the top of the mountain, were confronted by a wall of packed snow four feet high, stretching across from the road bank of their right to the precipice on their left. Hulann braked, but not fast enough. The shuttlecraft bumped into the drift at seven miles an hour and wedged the first few feet of itself into the smooth, wind-polished whiteness.
"Stuck," Leo said knowledgeably.
"We have nothing to dig with. I'll have to manuever."
Leo braced himself, feet against the dash, back pressed into the seat. Hulann laughed. "Ready," Leo said.
Hulann fed power to the blades, and kicked the side jets into reverse, The craft lurched but held fast. He eased down on the accelerator until it was almost floored. The blades chewed at the snow that packed the front section of them, seemed only to lodge themselves more firmly.
He eased off on the pedal until the blades whirred softly, then tramped it down hard. The shuttle started like an animal, wiggled. He eased up, slammed down again. The craft jolted free and swept backwards, sliding sideways toward the guardrails and the long, deadly embankment.
Hulann let up on the pedal, but too quickly as the engine died and the blades choked and he no longer had control of his machine
They struck the rails, tilted, went over.
The car hung there, caught on some projection, teetering. Then it fell.
Glass shattered.
And they were rolling down, down
Chapter Five
It was a hundred and five minutes before dawn of that day.
In the city that had once been called Atlanta when there were men to make with names, one of the few human metropolises not destroyed by its owners in the last convulsions of their defeat, Sara Laramie moved through the iron castings in the foundry yard, keeping low so that she was at all times concealed from view on at least three sides. The Hunter Relemar was in pursuit of her, had been for some days. She did not know that he was called a Hunter by his kind or that his name was Relemar. It was obvious, however, that he was different from other naoli.
He moved quietly, stealthily, like a wraith. She had watched him prowl a street from a vantage point on the roof of a department store. At times, she had even lost sight of him, though there was damned little he could hide behind in an open avenue. She had been glad she was not down there, running. She saw, for the first time, why she had not been able to lose him before this. He was not a naoli. Not really.
He was something else. Something more.
A special breed of animal.
While she had been watching, he suddenly turned and scanned the rooftops along the street, as if some extra sense had warned him of her whereabouts. She had ducked behind the parapet, breathless, trembling. Her hands had begun to shake, and she felt a scream building up in her lungs that she could not allow into her throat.
Time passed.
She looked out.
Relemar the Hunter with the Fourth Division of the naoli occupation forces, was still there, standing in his dark clothes-the only naoli she had ever seen dressed- and watched, listened, felt the darkened buildings for her presence.
Then he moved, crossing toward the department store Deep scream, lovely scream, wanting out
At the last minute, he veered from his projected path and went into the building next door.
She breathed out, swallowed the scream, digested it. Then she moved fast, down through the department store, into the street and away before he could return.
Now, in the foundry yard, she slipped from hulk to hulk until she reached the thousand-gallon storage tank in which she now made her home. She went to the end, pulled open the entry plate as gently as possible (it squeaked; Relemar the Hunter listened for squeaks) and went inside, deposited her burlap sack of food on the metal floor. She had found a rare little grocery that dealt in specially still packaged foods-of all things! She was not partial to such exotic, weird items for her menu, but it was all she could find. With the destruction of the city generators, the dial-kitchens no longer functioned.
Behind her, farther back in the single room of the hollow tank, there was a scraping noise.
Rats, she thought. They found their way in through the entry plate which had no lock, of course-and which would have been sealed had the tank ever been completed. Rats did not bother her as much as they once would have. She would have run screaming only a year ago. Now she had learned how to beat them, how to avoid their lunges. Not the mutated kind, of course. Just the friendly little earth normal breeds. She had not seen a mutated rat since shortly after the fall of the city.
She bent and found the glow lamp next to the entrance, fumbled with it in the utter pitch.