Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [63]
Turning away, Hella slapped Daisy on the shoulder then started out after Stampede on foot. The mountain boomer followed along, tossing her head into the air again and again to scent.
At the top of the farthest rise from the camp, just before she heading down into the valley and leaving the expedition behind, Hella stopped and looked back. Riley remained standing where she’d left him. He gave her a final wave, then his face shield snapped closed and he turned away.
Hella put her face into the wind, found Stampede already twenty meters ahead of her, and lengthened her stride to catch up. She tried to put Riley out of her thoughts and focus on what she was doing, but it was difficult.
Following the sled tracks became easy for a while then turned hard again as efforts had been made to disguise or cover them.
“Evidently they figured out their ambush team wasn’t coming back somewhere in here.” Stampede circled the last track they’d found, going farther and farther from the origin point.
“Think they’ll have any more spider-holes waiting?” Hella walked along the back trail, acting on a niggling thought that wouldn’t go away.
The spider-holes were the ’Chine’s favorite ambush. Trade lore had it that a ’Chine could hole up for years, using just one fingertip to trickle charge his cybernetic systems through solar power and keep the meat part alive. Hella didn’t know if that was possible. Living things, even barely living things like the ’Chine, needed water.
“No. I think they’ll run for shelter now.”
“I’ve been thinking about why the ’Chine took whatever it was that survived the impact.”
“That the ’Chine wouldn’t take anything unless they could use it?”
“Maybe I’m not the only one that’s been thinking.” Hella knelt and brushed dust out of the sled tracks they’d found. She looked around for more ’Chine footprints.
“Had plenty of time for thinking on this little hike.” Stampede was grumpy. They’d covered a lot of ground, probably traveling a lot faster than their quarry across the uneven terrain. Getting a sled through the trees couldn’t have been easy so far off the trade routes. “The only thing I can come up with that they’d work this hard to get is something electronic.”
“Remember when the satellite landed up in Little Sahara?” The area was in the northwest section of the territory. “ ’Chine were all over that.”
“According to legend.”
“It was supposedly some sort of military satellite. When they downloaded it, people say the programming boosted the AI over that group. Made them smarter, harder to kill, and they figured out how to make laser arrays to use as weapons.”
“Is this your morning for legends, Red?”
“I’m just saying. Whatever this thing is the ’Chine recovered, they’ve already had it long enough for it to change them.”
“If it’s uploadable. If it even has a program.”
“I don’t think they’d work this hard for something that was just raw materials. And if it was just raw materials, they’d have already divvied, not worked to keep it intact.”
Stampede sighed in frustration at not knowing and went back to his origin point. Then he looked up. “Maybe we should start looking through the trees.”
“ ’Chine don’t climb trees. They think of the world as two-dimensional. You taught me that.”
“Maybe these are some of those mil-sat Little Sahara ’Chine. Could be they’ve figured out the world isn’t flat.”
“They didn’t use any lasers last night.” Hella brushed away more loose earth and leaves.
“I know they didn’t learn to fly.” Stampede snorted. “That would be a nightmare.”
Hella studied the tracks she’d found. “They know they’re being followed, so maybe they’re trying to trip us up. We must be getting close. And they had to have seen us.” Hella moved along the tracks she’d found. “They doubled back here.”
Stampede came back to join her. He dipped a finger into the sled tracks. “These are deeper than they’ve been.”
“Yeah.” Hella grinned at her own cleverness. “So unless someone hopped onto the sled to increase the weight, it’s been over these tracks twice.” She dragged a finger along the track. “The real giveaway