Scale shook his head.
“You take it, Burt. You and Koll. Get outta here fast and warn the camp we’re
shiftin’. We’ll hold the norms off and kill those buggy riders.”
The man with the drooping nose made an O with his forefinger and thumb.
“Yeah, Scale. You get us some fresh norm meat, huh?”
“I’ll get us some fresh norm meat,” muttered Scale, his tone colorless, his eyes
unblinking.
He jammed open the passenger door of the nearest truck and climbed in. The man
with the long arms jumped into the driver’s seat, sweating, not looking at his
leader. He said in a low voice, “Smart, Scale. Take the heat off us.”
Scale did not bother to reply as the jeep in front started up, revved hard,
roared away in a swirl of dust, its sound like a heavy MG jabbering, its muffler
long gone. The long-armed man eased the panel truck slowly toward the cave
entrance. He braked just inside the opening, then jumped out and ran to the
boulder-screened edge of the track.
In the distance the jeep was already at the bottom of the short hill and was now
bumping and jouncing along the track at high speed. Farther on was a bend to the
right, into the hills. That was where another track, from the road below, joined
it. The long-armed man watched as the jeep powered along the straight to hit the
bend at speed. It screeched out of sight. The long-armed man turned his eyes to
the road below, and for the first time in a long while a gap-toothed smile
creased his face.
The lead buggy had clearly spotted the jeep. It was way beyond the feeder track,
but suddenly its driver threw her into reverse and stormed back along the road.
Then the driver hit the brakes and dust clouded. He geared up, yanked hard at
the wheel, trod on the gas again and the buggy, engine howling, roared up the
high-incline track.
The long-armed man dodged back into boulder cover as the little vehicle appeared
at the top of the track and hurtled out of sight after the jeep. Another buggy
followed. The long-armed man frowned: one was okay, two was not so hot. He kept
his eyes on the track but no more buggies appeared. He couldn’t hear any more
engine roar through the heavy chatter of MG- and auto-fire still ripping out
below.
He plodded back to the truck, hauled himself in.
“Two of them ‘stead of one.”
“We can hit ’em.”
Scale sounded supremely confident, utterly sure of himself, and the long-armed
man shuddered silently. He drove fast but warily. While on the parallel track he
kept glancing to his left, down to the road below, to see if he could catch any
sign that someone down there had spotted them. But it looked as if luck—or some
damn thing— was on their side. Someone down there had let off a smoke grenade
and that, together with all the dust and shit that was still being kicked up,
had dragged an obscuring pall over the proceedings.
He swung right, checked out the rearview mirror. The second truck was on their
tail but not too close. He began to feel relief seeping through him. Maybe they
were going to make it, out of this one alive, after all.
His thoughts turned suddenly to the red-haired girl. She was certainly one sweet
receptacle for his meat! After Scale was done with her, of course. Always after
Scale. The long-armed man felt no resentment.toward his leader in this or any
other matter. Scale was one strong hombre and he went first in all things, and
the long-armed man was perfectly content to remain in his shadow. He was not
ambitious.
He flicked back to Red Hair. Man, that was going to be something— He felt
himself stiffen as he thought about her. He wondered idly why there’d been no
other women on that two-wag train—the one they’d hit and mauled the crap out of
yesterday. Kind of weird, that was; he couldn’t figure it out at all. Young,
too, and that was weird as well, because all the others had been oldies. Dead