Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [54]
By that time, Hella could see the impact area over the tops of the ruined trees.
The meteorite had slammed into a hillside and scattered red dirt in all directions. The surrounding landscape appeared covered in a cayenne coating. The impact had blown over the trees in all directions. Some of them lay uprooted and scorched. Closer in to the impact site, black ash mixed in with the red dirt. The stink of wood smoke and charred flesh thickened the air. The breeze followed the burn scar and blew fast enough to raise dust devils and ruffle the leaves.
“Do you see it?” Hella took a fresh grip on her rifle.
“Yeah. You seen any sign of Riley’s scouts?”
Hella glanced at the width of the burn scar. Less than a minute later, she spotted the thick tire treads from the ATVs. The vehicles had run in single-file formation, one set of tracks running right over the top of the first set of tracks.
Stupid. They should have stayed spread out. Less chance of being surprised by the same person or group.
“I found tracks but I don’t see any of the guards.”
“I wouldn’t think they’d have left the impact area.”
Hella didn’t either.
Only a few minutes later, Hella reined in at ground zero. She stared into the deep crater in the hillside and wondered what had struck. She didn’t know because whatever had hit was no longer there.
Four of Riley’s security guards arrived on their ATVs. They stayed encased in the hardshells and kept weapons ready to hand.
“It’s gone?” Stampede sounded a little irritated even though she knew he’d been expecting that.
“Yeah.”
“Someone took it.”
“Unless it got up and walked off on its own. Tell Riley to pull his men back while I take a look around. They’re ruining whatever sign might be left. If someone took whatever it was that landed here, there has to be a trail.” Hella slid down off Daisy and dropped the reins to the ground. She left the rifle in its scabbard on the saddle. She was in close quarters and would rather depend on her own weapons.
One of the security guards’ face shields popped open. He looked tense. “Where is it?”
“You should ask Dr. Trammell. She’s the precog. Now get back and let me look around.”
“I’m not going to—” The man stopped talking, listened for a moment, then turned back to his teammates. Together, they all moved back.
Hella ignored them and concentrated on the area. Land told a story. It was like a blank page, and anything that happened there, whether from a person or animal or climate condition, left the story written on the landscape.
The crater was roughly three meters wide, an ellipse that lay almost horizontal on the axis. It was almost that deep as well. Under the thin layer of red dirt, the stones making up the Buckled Mountains had cracked and crumbled. Millions of years earlier, an ocean had formed over the Redblight and left behind a layer of limestone and sandstone. The ground held the footprints well because most of the recent rainfall had drained through the karst. The soluble bedrock was composed mostly of limestone and allowed quick drainage into the aquifer below. The natural spring water fed a nearby lake.
Closer inspection revealed metallic smears against the coarse rock. But it was a metal construct that was strong enough to keep from burning up as it hurtled across the atmosphere.
A lot of footprints crisscrossed the ground. Many of them showed bare feet, not shod ones. That immediately made Hella more tense when she thought about the ’Chine. It looked like them. The ’Chine weren’t known for the stylish way they dressed.
Moving out from the empty ground zero site, Hella continued circling the area, picking up transient bits and pieces from recent travelers as well as older ones. She found a horseshoe nail, brass casings that she immediately picked up for salvage, and coals from fires where someone had camped there.
“Hella.” Stampede didn’t sound antsy, but Hella knew Pardot was probably giving him an