Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [108]
“Let’s go.” Stampede slapped Daisy on the rump, and the mountain boomer dug her claws in, muscles bunching as she raced forward.
Hella stayed low over the creature, riding her effortlessly, becoming one with her mount as Daisy careened through the wilderness. She gazed down at her left palm. Scatter had dropped back into place there, but she couldn’t help thinking of the fractoid being held captive somewhere.
Hours later, hurting from the action and the hard riding, Hella tended the small fire in the cave she and Stampede had been fortunate enough to find an hour or so before dawn. The pot of stew hung that over the fire smelled almost ready. She lifted the lid and poked her knife in to skewer a chunk of squirrel. She tasted the meat and decided it was cooked enough.
Stampede sat over to one side of the cave and cleaned their rifles with respect and care. Ocastya sat beside him, still paralyzed from the waist down. So far, Scatter hadn’t put in an appearance.
“Stew’s ready.” Hella poured most of the pot’s contents into one of their tin plates and handed it to Stampede along with a spoon.
“Thanks.” He set the rifle aside and took the plate.
Hella poured the rest of the stew into her plate took her spoon. She leaned back against Daisy, who had stretched out on the other side of the cave and gone to sleep. The ride had been long and hard, and the lizard wasn’t a nocturnal creature by nature. She lived for warmth and the sun.
For a time they ate in silence while Ocastya watched them. The fractoid had talked with them some, but her language skills weren’t as good as Scatter’s. Hella was also fairly certain there was something wrong with her. She would trail off in the middle of sentences and be unable to return to her train of thought, and she sometimes looked afraid of them.
She asked about Scatter a lot.
Stampede had gotten tired of answering the same questions over and over again. It was like being around a mentally deficient child, annoying and sad and unsettling at the same time. Some of those children had carried weapons, but none of them could spring blades out of their fingers the way Ocastya could.
“We’re running low on ammunition.” Stampede spooned stew up and ate it with obvious relish.
“Considering how we’ve been burning through it, that’s not surprising.”
“So are you.” Stampede gestured to her special backpack. “I’ve loaded up the last of your supplies.”
That stopped Hella for a moment. With the way her body processed raw materials and turned them into bullets, she sometimes tended to take ammunition for granted. “There’s a trade camp a day from here.”
“That’s traveling by day. By night it will take even longer. And I don’t want to try to travel by day because Trazall knows as much about this area as we do. If he’s looking for us—and we still don’t know that he isn’t—he’ll know where to find us.”
“If we go to another trade camp, we run the same risk. Even if we get through, we’re too far out. By the time we get back, Trazall, Pardot, and Scatter will all be gone.”
Ocastya looked at them and said something in the machine language.
Hella looked at her. “I can’t understand you if you don’t speak like this.”
The fractoid waited a moment then nodded. “Where is my mate?”
“I don’t know.” That was the truth. Hella didn’t know if Pardot still had Scatter, or if Trazall had him. There were no guarantees Scatter had survived the attack. The thought of the fractoid’s possible death depressed her, and she worked hard not to think of that.
“Will he be here soon?”
“I don’t know.”
Ocastya looked troubled. “If he does not come soon, I may forget myself.” She’d said that a lot too.
“He’ll be here as soon as he can.”
“All right. May I sit in the sun?”
“Sure.” Hella put her bowl down and crossed over to the fractoid. She picked Ocastya up and carried her into the sunlight. The fractoid’s useless legs dragged.
“Thank you.” Ocastya stared out at the world as sunlight beamed down on her.
“You’re welcome.” Hella returned