Crunching through the salt, they reached the base of the cliff and studied the rock face. It was as they had feared—the cliff was a sheer vertical rise, without ledges or cracks to use for climbing. Even worse, the plain of the city seemed to be larger than the cliff above, so that any climb would be partially inverted, the climbers hanging downward.
“Nobody here before us,” Jak stated, only glancing momentarily at the pristine salt. Not a single footprint or spoor showed in the loose material.
“Not here anyway,” Ryan said. Trying to gauge the slope of the cliff, it appeared that the rock was less angled inward to their right, toward the east.
“This way,” he said. “Doc, use your coat.”
As the companions started forward once more, Doc removed his frock coat and tied the arms around his waist. Now hanging on the ground, the material smoothed over their prints in the salt to disguise their passing. It wouldn’t hide their presence from a human tracker, but might be good enough for the machines.
“Wish we had one working wag,” Krysty added, sliding a backpack over her shoulder.
“Pity about those two wheelers,” Mildred said, looking at the display of racing bicycles inside a dark sporting goods store.
Bikes were good for doing a recce in a city, and able to go places no motorcycle could because of their weight. But while most of the frames in the front window were badly corroded from the salt air, the better titanium frames were in excellent condition. The problem was the tires. The majority were only tatters of rubber draped over the shiny rims. There might be some in the back storeroom, but finding enough of the right size to fit seven of the titanium bikes would take hours. Time better spent making distance.
“Need a lot of oil to get those moving again,” J.B. commented, pausing to look into a crack of the salt before stepping over and across. “A hell of a lot more than I carry, and there’s not a garage or hardware store in sight.”
“Furniture store on the corner,” Dean noted, gesturing with his crossbow. “Got a couple of lamps on display. See ’em? Just drain the lightweight oil on top, and there’s enough heavy machine oil on the bottom to lube a hundred bikes. Good for blasters, too.”
“An exemplary notion, my young friend!” Doc rumbled in good humor, clasping the boy on the shoulder. “Highly laudable! Is this your own idea?”
“Learned it at Brody’s school,” Dean answered.
“Head’s up,” Ryan said, coming to attention. “We found them. Ten o’clock high.”
Facing in that direction, the others took a moment to study the preDark buildings, then scanned the top of the cliff. Barely visible against the light colored sand of the desert was a dark shape traveling along the very rim of the sinkhole, a cloudy rain of loose stones and sand falling in its wake.
“Dark night, that’s a LAV 25,” J.B. said, peering through the Navy longeyes. “Got to be Gaza.”
“Or Hawk,” Ryan added, backtracking the sand cloud of the war wag’s passage. It reached only a half mile or so. Good enough.
“Okay, if they’re going left, then we go right,” he stated, turning and proceeding quickly in the other direction. “Best to put more distance between us and hopefully cover ground they haven’t yet. We’ve got to locate some way out before they find a way down.”
“No prob,” Jak stated confidently. “Need cracks to climb. Gaza need highway for big wag.”
“The APC has a winch,” Mildred reminded him, “and can easily support its own weight.”
Walking along the soft salt, Ryan frowned. Fireblast, he hadn’t considered that possibility before. Turning to ask J.B. a question, he stopped as something dropped from the bare rocks above to land near the companions. Incredibly, it was a humanoid figure with skin the color and texture of the rock. Male sexual organs dangled obscenely between its scrawny legs, the hands and feet covered with rippling suckers.
“Stickie!” Ryan cried, firing his blaster at point blank range.
The creature recoiled, hooting in pain, thrashing its limbs wildly. Doc and Krysty frantically jerked out of the way to avoid touching the creature, and it fell to the salty ground, a gaping wound pulsating in its shoulder. A thin fluid trickled from the ragged opening, but then it started to close, and the stickie rose again, its naked legs already changing into the color of the powdery salt…