Mordecai dangled them in reply.
—
They reached the site of Caine's forced landing fifteen minutes later... to find that while they'd been gone the universe had taken a hard left turn.
"What do you mean, not here?" Lathe fumed to Jensen. "They have to be here."
"All I know is that no one's replying to tingler signals," the other said, frustration evident in his voice. "Hawking's been driving up and down the road for ten minutes without drawing a single buzz in response."
"But—" Lathe broke off as their tinglers came on: Glider located, four hundred meters west on road.
They found Hawking in the bushes about five meters off the southern edge of the road. "Torn up some, but it's definitely Colvin's cargo glider."
"Any sign of the cargo pod itself?"
"Not yet. Maybe Colvin just pushed his range too far and crashed, but everyone was in good enough shape to hike it."
Lathe looked around. Behind them a tall bluff rose against the starry sky, directly back along the route the gliders had been tracking.
Jensen followed his gaze and his thoughts. "Could be they steered around it," he suggested. "A bit tricky, but possible."
"The road switchbacks upward on the other side of that bluff," Skyler pointed out. "That would have created some updrafts this direction. And Colvin did have more altitude than the others."
"Finding the other gliders might give us a better idea of what happened," Hawking added.
Lathe glanced west just as another blue-violet light appeared briefly between distant mountain peaks. "Unfortunately, we haven't got that much time," he said. "Whether Security's got them or not, we're going to need help finding them." So much for giving Caine his grand illusion of independence, the comsquare thought with a touch of bitterness. I should have known better.
"Help from whom?" Hawking asked. "Caine's mysterious Torch?"
"Maybe later—if they really exist. For now, I've got someone a bit more substantial in mind. Come on—we need to get back to the bar before it closes."
Chapter 5
Back on Plinry, Colvin knew, he would never live this down.
He'd made it over the mountain that had nailed Alamzad and was gliding above the road watching for the switchbacks with plenty of altitude to spare. And then that damn wind had come in out of nowhere and that bluff had shot up right in front of him, and he'd panicked.
Panicked. There was no other word for it. He'd frozen like an amateur, riding that wind dead-on for the bluff until there was no time to try to steer around it. By the time he'd been able to think again he had exactly two options: ram the mountain just above the second switchback, or try and fly over the damn thing. He'd almost made it, too... but almost never counted for anything.
And so now here he sat, all alone on top of the bluff with an injured bird and a heavy cargo pod and a wind that was trying to freeze his face off... and a massively bruised ego.
"Colvin?" Pittman's voice came anxiously in his ear. "You okay?"
"Sure," Colvin said, trying to sound casually hearty. I meant to do that; of course I did. Not fooling anybody but himself. "Where are you?"
Braune's voice cut in. "We're on the road around beyond the bluff you landed on—maybe a couple hundred meters past that last switchback curve. The road looks pretty level now for a while—shouldn't be too bad a hike."
"Though it'll probably get worse before it gets better," Pittman added. "What's the view like from up there?"
"Oh, terrific." It was a terrific view, too. The problem was that it was a terrific view of all the wrong things. To the southeast he could see that the road did indeed begin to climb again no more than a kilometer or two past the others' position; to the west he could see the blue-violet lights of searching aircraft circling the mountains a few kilometers away. The trajectory of the falling drop pods had temporarily fooled them, but that wouldn't last long. Soon the search would widen, and picking up five men hiking along the road in the middle of nowhere would be child's play.
And as he gazed westward, he saw a flicker of light along the road.
Headlights.
It was a crazy idea—he knew it was a crazy idea—but for all that it was their best hope. The road passed beneath him twice in a sharp hairpin switchback turn before rounding the bluff to continue past Braune and Pittman. At their position the vehicle would be starting to pick up speed, but around the curves it would surely be going slowly enough to hijack.
If he could get down there fast enough.
He stood up, nearly losing his balance to the wind, and sent his hands on a quick inspection tour of his glider. Injured, sure, but not crippled. A few bent struts and a small rip or two in the wing, but nothing that couldn't handle a short flight. The cargo pod was the only problem, but if the gale whistling in his ears held up he'd have no problem launching even with that dragging along the runway.
The lights were moving closer, approaching the first pass beneath him, and for the first time Colvin could see that the headlights were backed up by a minor Christmas-tree display of amber running lights. The "car" was actually a large trailer truck—which opened up an entirely new possibility.
Wrestling the glider against the wind, he snapped into his harness and pushed off. For a second the pod dragged against the bare rock like an anchor, threatening to send him head-downward over the rim to the road below. Then it came free and he was airborne, fighting the eddy currents near the bluff as he came around in a tight circle. The truck was laboring along the upper part of the switchback now. Coming around behind and above it, he brought the glider's nose sharply up to kill his excess speed, and dropped squarely onto the top of the trailer.
And for a long second thought he was going to lose the whole thing. Even as he snatched out a knife and cut the pod loose, the truck rounded the top curve and the winds sweeping his perch abruptly changed. Ramming his knife hilt-deep into the trailer roof, he held on, fighting the bucking glider with his other hand until the pull eased enough for him to hit the harness release. The glider flew off into the darkness, and he was just trying to figure out how best to assault the cab when the truck rounded the curve and came to a tire-screeching stop at the side of the road.
Again, he managed to hold on. From ahead came the sound of doors opening, and suddenly he realized what was going on. The truckers had heard the thump of his landing and were coming back to investigate.
Pittman, Braune: Assistance needed NW on road, he signaled, flattening himself against the rooftop.
Tackling two men single-handedly on opposite sides of a truck would be a tricky proposition, and the stakes were too high to risk botching it. Drawing his nunchaku, he eased to the left edge of the trailer and looked down.
To discover the driver examining the truck's axles was a woman.
Even in the faint backwash glow of her flashlight there was no doubt about that. Young-looking, reasonably petite—hardly the sort, somehow, that he would have expected to be driving such a monster on a tricky mountain road at night. But perhaps her companion was a man.
"Karen?" the driver called over the wind. "Anything?"
"Not on this side," a second female voice drifted back. "You?"
"Nope. What could it have been?"
Colvin recognized a cue when he heard it. Flipping his legs over the side, he dropped to the ground in front of the driver. She jumped backward, eyes going wide. "What the hell—who are you?"
"Unexpected company—the thump you heard on your trailer," he said. "Sorry to interrupt your trip, but I'm afraid I need transportation to Denver." He raised his voice. "Karen? Come over to this side of the truck, please."
The driver's gaze dropped to the nunchaku in Colvin's hand. "Oh, God," she breathed. Eyes flicked over his shoulder. "Karen—no!"
And with the crack of a small projectile gun from behind him, something hard slammed into the center of Colvin's back.