“The plane,” Danny said. “You took it from them, right? What about this: that she had it tagged with some kind of tracking device? It’d make sense, a valuable piece of kit like that.”
Skull held his head in his hands and sobbed.
I said, “What have you got to fear?”
He looked up, staring through his tears. “She’s evil. They all are. I ran out on her because I didn’t like what she was doing. She won’t rest till I’m dead. And now she’s found you, she won’t stop at just killing me.”
“You make her sound like a monster,” I said.
He nodded. “Oh, she is. She might have traded solar arrays now, but she’ll be scheming to get them back — and more. Right now they’ll be working out how to kill us and take the truck.”
Danny shook his head. “I don’t think so. There’s only six of them — and we’re well armed. The truck’s armoured. We can defend ourselves.”
Skull brayed a laugh. “Six! Is that what she told you? She’s lying. There were a dozen of the bastards with her when I left.”
I looked across at Danny, who said, “Like I said, we can look after ourselves.”
“Okay, but the best defence is distance. Let’s get the hell away from her before she attacks us, okay?”
Danny considered. We had agreed with Samara that we would travel south together; it would be hard to shake her, especially if Skull was correct and she had come for him.
Danny nodded and said to Kat, “Okay, start us up. Let’s move on.”
Kat and Edvard moved to the cab. Skull nodded, gratefully. “Thank Christ,” was all he said before hiking himself upright on his crutches and hobbling back to his berth. I watched him go, wondering what his reaction might be when he discovered that Samara was following us.
I sat with Danny. The silence was broken by the drone of the engine as Kat kicked the truck into life.
I said, “What do you think?”
Danny rubbed his beard. “I think we trust no-one but ourselves, Pierre. We keep Samara at arm’s length, and as for Skull…”
“Yes?”
“As Edvard said yesterday, I don’t trust him as far as I can spit.”
I moved to the rear of the truck and sat before an observation screen, staring out across the sea-bed. Through the sandy spindrift of our wake I made out the scintillating shape of the hovercraft. It was perhaps half a kilometre behind us, and keeping pace.
For the next couple of hours before sunset, my thoughts slipped between Skull’s warning and fantasies involving Samara. I interpreted the way she looked at me as indicating desire on her part, and told myself that her henchmen were less than prime physical specimens.
The sun went down, replaced by the deep blue of night shot through with the raging flares of magnetic storms. Kat brought the truck to a standstill and Edvard fixed a meal.
The hovercraft slowed and came alongside, sinking to the sand a hundred metres from us with a curtsey of rubber skirts.
I moved to the lounge and joined Danny and Kat. Edvard ferried plates from the galley and slid them onto the table. The heady scent of braised meat filled the air.
We ate quietly, subdued. Danny had told Edvard and Kat about the travel pact with Samara, and from time to time I saw Kat glance through the hatch at the settled hovercraft across the sand.
I said, “What do we do when we get to the trench?”
Danny chewed on a mouthful of tough meat. “We stop.”
“But we don’t set up the rig, right?”
“Of course not. I don’t want her knowing anything about the rig. We stop the night and in the morning feign a mechanical fault. And if she doesn’t go on without us, then we know she wants something.”
“Skull?” Kat said.
“And maybe the rest of us,” Danny said in a low voice.
Five minutes later Skull emerged from his berth. I was waiting for his reaction when he saw the hovercraft, but evidently he was already aware of its presence. He said, “You see, she’s following us. She knows I’m here. Tonight, they’ll come across…” He seemed resigned to his fate, no longer angry.
Danny said, “You don’t know that. Anyway, the truck’s secure.”
Skull considered a reply, but merely nodded his acknowledgement of Danny’s words, grabbed his bowl of food and returned to his berth.
We finished the meal in uneasy silence.
Later I took my rifle outside, broke up the surface crust, and scooped myself a hollow in the sand beneath.
The hovercraft squatted a hundred metres away, an ugly beetle armoured in a patchwork of solar arrays. Evidently the crew had exited and were having a party on the far side of the vehicle. I heard the sound of drunken voices, raised in revelry.
I undressed and rubbed myself with sand, ridding myself of the day’s sweat and grime. I lay back and closed my eyes.
Minutes later a sound startled me. I opened my eyes. Someone had cracked a hatch on the flank of the hovercraft and was crossing the sand towards the truck. I judged I had no time to get dressed before they arrived, so instead reached out and grabbed the rifle.
Then I paddled a heap of sand onto my groin, covering myself.
I stared into the darkness, making out the figure as it emerged into the light falling from the lounge behind me, and I set aside the rifle.
Samara halted about three metres away, smiling down at me. She had discarded her shorts and blouse of earlier. Now she wore a thin white dress which hugged her chest, flanks and belly and flowed around her bare legs.
And there was something else about her, something I had not noticed on our first meeting. She smelled of flowers.
My heart banged like a faulty engine.
She moved closer and knelt, tossing a strand of dark hair from her face. Her scent almost overwhelmed me. “I saw someone out here. I thought it was you.”
I opened my mouth. I wanted to ask what she wanted, but no words came. I was very aware of how ridiculous I looked, torso and legs emerging from the hollow I’d dug in the sand.
She sat before me, cross-legged. “So I thought I’d come over, say hello.”
It struck me then that, unless she was a consummate actress, she was as nervous as I was. A catch in her voice, a hesitation in her gaze as it flicked from the sand to my upper torso.
The dress was low-cut, and I could not keep my eyes from the swelling of her breasts.
“You know, I get lonely, surrounded by…” she gestured over her shoulder with a long-fingered hand, “those animals.”
I said, “It must be…” I shrugged, “difficult to control them.”
She smiled. “Oh, I have my ways.” She wasn’t beautiful, nor really pretty, but when she smiled her face changed, became suddenly attractive. She shrugged, and the way her breasts moved…
I responded. The sand at my groin stirred, disturbed.
She saw it, reached out and took me.
I surged upright with a moan, and she lifted her dress, pushed me back onto the sand and straddled me. I closed my eyes as she eased herself around me, impossibly warm and fluid. I reached out, dug my fingers into her bottom as she rocked, leaning forward and pressing her breasts into my face.
Then it was over. I spasmed in ecstasy and cried aloud, then lay back in the cool sand as she gripped me and shook, her teeth biting the flesh of my shoulder.
I was near to tears. I thought back over the long, lonely years, the years of thwarted desire, of wondering if I would ever experience such intimacy.
She whispered something to me, then rolled off and pulled her dress down over her nakedness. Before I could protest, she stood and padded back to the hovercraft.
I stared into the storm ripped night sky. Beyond the hovercraft, her crew was still partying. A hot wind blew. It was like a hundred other nights, a thousand, I had experienced in the hell that was my world, and yet tonight I felt an elation beyond description.