“You didn’t think about going into the cellar and bringing up some fresh food for us to take along?” Carrie tried a tentative smile.
“Snails and frogs….” Jim matched her halfhearted grin. “The little bastards will probably take over the whole building before anyone else turns up there.”
“Won’t the Hunters reach the house first?”
He shook his head at Carrie’s question. “Nanci has a theory that Dave Bradley was reporting to Zelig. He couldn’t reach the Cascades from here, if that’s where home base is. So it’s a real chance that the general’s on the road, as well.”
Sly was sitting with his back against the rear of the leading horse trailer, gently clapping his hands together and chanting in a quiet voice.
“Snail went sorting and he did ride, froggy went sorting and he did ride, as well. Frogs and snails and dogs and tails and logs and whales and…” He stopped singing. “Me not remember any more. Jim?”
“Yeah, Sly?”
“Where did Jeff go?”
“How d’you mean?”
Sly’s eyes were puzzled as he wrestled with the problem. “Jeff went to bed and now he’s not with us.”
Heather shuffled across to sit by the disconsolate figure of the teenager. “Jeff decided that he was going off on his own. He told me to say goodbye to you for him. Said it specially. ‘Tell that tough old Sly to look after himself and to keep a watch over Heather.’ That was what he said.”
“Really, really, really?” Sly beamed and gave Heather a great hug that made her gasp.
Soon they were heading northward, running roughly parallel with the coast of the Pacific. With the ominous threat of the Hunters of the Sun riding at their shoulders, Jim ordered the fastest possible speed, even if it meant taking some chances. Nanci had suggested that they think about feinting south, in hope of throwing any pursuit off their track.
“No. The clouds are so low that I can’t see them actually using choppers up here. But we don’t know what the weather’s like farther south. If they had Chinooks up in a clear sky, then we’d stand out like a Klansman at the Apollo in Harlem. They’d see us easily at ten or fifteen miles.”
It had begun to get a little colder again, but every bridge they reached crossed over foaming streams and swollen rivers from the recent sudden thaw. There was little sign of life, and far fewer abandoned villages or wrecked cars. Jim thought the reason for that was that it had been a fairly sparsely populated region before Earthblood, and the coastal highways wouldn’t have been much use to refugees heading either north or south.
“It looks real desolate,” said Heather, standing on a pile of blankets and peeking out of the side window of the trailer. “Seems to be a sort of bracken on the hillsides.”
Jim looked where she pointed. “Seen a few green shoots breaking through all over. It really is beginning to seem as if the effects of the plant virus have burned themselves out. Maybe the Earth will come around again. Some people reckon there’s a sort of a life force in the planet itself. I heard it called ‘Gaia.’ They believe that it doesn’t matter what man tries to do, but that the planet is like a single organism and it shakes itself like a dog ridding itself of ticks. And starts all over again.”
THE YOUNG SERGEANT loped up to the vehicle General Zelig rode in. “Road’s blocked, General.”
“Rockslide?”
“More of an earthslide. Looks like about a million tons come down off the hill farther up. Can’t see if there’s any more waiting to drop. Clouds are too low.”
“Another obstacle. Give me the possibilities, soldier, once you look around. By hook or by crook, even if a foot at a time, we must move on.”
THE SECOND big helicopter settled gently to earth with just the faintest bump of the suspension taking up the weight. The engine was switched off, but the main rotor continued to revolve for several long seconds.
Everyone unbelted and started to stretch, ready to disembark, making sure they had tents and weapons and all the other equipment of the traveling strike force.