Through Fire Read online

  Chapter 4

  The Rhino rumbled south along the broad black strip of the way where it ran parallel to the sea, the calm blue waters shimmering on the right all the way to the horizon. Behind, shrinking with increasing distance, squatted the granite crags of the shield wall, while on their left stretched a grassy plain. The rig’s turbine ran at half power, keeping it at a stable six metres off the smooth surface of the way, but even at lower power the wind howled across the rig’s outer skin. All this Flint knew, but it occupied scant few scraps of his attention as he sat in the soft leather pilot’s seat on the left side of the cockpit, right hand on the wheel, left poised on the bank of keys set into his armrest. In here, and the rest of the crew compartments, walls packed with layers of aerogel shielded the roar of the wind and the growl of the turbine, muting them to a low hum that Flint found comforting.

  He reached past the wheel and flicked the fuel gauge, but it continued to give the same reading in glowing orange: 20%. He looked up at the way, and saw how it stretched far off into the distance, curving around with the line of the bay, until it ended at a tall, white tower that glimmered in the morning sun.

  “That’s Glory Point, isn’t it?”

  He turned and saw Diana leaning over the back of the other chair. “Didn’t hear you come in.”

  She shrugged and plopped down into the empty chair. “Didn’t answer my question.”

  She’d managed to open and shut the cabin door without making a sound. He looked back at the distant tower. From their position on the way, it seemed that the tower thrust straight up from the water. “Yeah, that’s the Point.”

  “That doesn’t look so far. What would happen if we went straight there?”

  He thought for a few moments, but not so much about her question. He’d been furious when he’d left her in the kitchenette, but once he’d got the rig out onto the way, he’d felt a lot calmer. He might not be free of Bay City yet, but he was in his rig, he was driving, and the way looked clear. That very sense of peace, however, made it easier to realise just how alarmed and upset the girl had looked when Caerlion had shown up. He eyed her now, watched her melt into the copilot’s chair like a sleepy cat, and she seemed almost a different person, but he could still make out traces of tension at the corners of her eyes and mouth.

  “You going to answer me, you damned rigger?”

  He took his hand off the wheel, and rubbed his forehead. “You shouldn’t say that all the time.”

  “My father did. He said it every day.”

  “Yeah, well he was a rigger. It’s different. Anyway, I bet he didn’t say it to every rigger he met.”

  She took her lip between her teeth. “I guess he mostly said it to the mirror, when he cut himself shaving.” She pursed her lips. “But you still haven’t answered me, and that’s rude too.”

  He gave her a tight smile. She gave as good as she got, he thought. “So, right, this stretch of the way goes direct to the Point. If we didn’t care about the race, we could get there pretty soon. It’d take longer than you think, though; that tower’s huge. It’s much farther off than it looks.”

  “What if we went faster? You do have a big huge turbine on this rusty old hulk, don’t you?”

  He tried to remember if Buck Ambrel had talked that way. Whether he had or not, he had a lot to answer for. “Yeah, about that…” He pointed at the fuel gauge. She gave him a blank look, and he sighed. “See, I didn’t stop for fuel on my way into town the other night. So even if I wanted to win the race badly enough to cheat, and I was stupid enough to forget that the inland way stations have radios, I couldn’t actually rush us up to the tower.”

  “Because you’d run out of gas.”

  “Mhm.”

  She turned and gazed out of the window. “Seems a bit shortsighted.”

  “...I guess.”

  “Kind of suicidal. I mean, if you had wanted to run away after the murder...”

  He winced at the word, but said nothing.

  “Seems like you might be a bit too good at getting yourself into trouble. Maybe I picked the wrong rig.”

  He eyed her sidelong. “It’s not like I haven’t been telling you that.”

  They sat in silence for a good stretch, the black way rushing below them, so fast it seemed to dance with half-seen colours, while the sea, the sky and the tower seemed not to move at all. Flint’s mind returned to the fuel question. They would soon come to the split, where he would leave the coastal way, and turn inland. Smelt lay a short distance along, and while they had stores of water, they didn’t always have a lot to spare, since their industrial machines needed so much to run. On a regular trip, he would chance it, but today, with all the riggers running along the same track, the odds were high that at least one other rigger would stop there to load up too.

  She broke in on his thoughts. “What about that?” She pointed off to the right, out to sea.

  He peered that way. “You see something out there?” His guts chilled at the thought.

  “I mean, what about going across the water?”

  He stared at her. “I don’t get it.”

  She raised her red eyes to heaven, as if imploring the god of twelve-year-old girls to save her from this mindless grown-up “Couldn’t you fly over the water? It’s a straight run across the bay. You’d save hours instead of going around the coast.”

  “Of all the… Your father taught you how to insult people, but he didn’t teach you the first thing about handling a rig.”

  “Hey!”

  “We don’t go over the water. We never go over standing water. Not any large body of surface water. It’s too dangerous.”

  “But why?”

  “You really don’t know. I can’t believe you don’t know. Your father-”

  “My father was President. He didn’t teach me things. I listened to him in the morning when he shaved in the mirror, and sometimes I heard him talk to the other men at night, but he was President all day, all the time, all my life. I learned everything from men like… Like...” Her lips quivered, and her eyes brimmed with tears.

  “Caerlion.”

  She reached out and put a finger on his lips. “He’s writing a lesson. Don’t disturb him.”

  “I-”

  “If he hears you, he’ll come and take me away. Please don’t say his name.”

  He wanted to tell her that if their argument hadn’t distracted the tutor already, nothing would, but he looked at Diana, once again a trembling little girl, and he leaned forward, and beckoned her in closer. “Right,” he said in a soft voice. “I’m no tutor, but I can spot a gap in your education. There’s a reason we don’t go over the water. Do you want to hear it?”

  She chewed her lip, then wiped tears from her eyes and nodded.

  “You know about the old world. How people used to have massive cities, and thousands and thousands of rigs, and-”

  “And planes, and ships, and space planes, and a moon base, and-”

  “Right, right. But you know what happened.”

  “There was a fight. A very big fight.”

  She sounded so serious that he almost laughed. “And the old world broke apart, and now we’re the only ones left who keep to the old ways.” And, he added in the silence of his mind, we don’t understand half of those ways.

  She rose in her seat. “But what has this got to do with the sea?”

  His eyes jumped to the water, but it still extended away to the right, bright, clear and serene. He checked the road, and saw the fuel gauge had dropped a notch, and he frowned. Then he turned back to face her. “The old ones went away, but they left things behind.”

  “Things?”

  “Monsters.”

  She stamped her foot. “I’m not a baby. I know there aren’t any monsters. It’s all made up.”

  “Monsters, weapons… With the old ones, they’re the same thing. They sleep in the water. They wait, down in the cold watery depths, for some foolish rigger to skim down too close to the edge, and the
n they rise from the sea, glowing green and red, and they surface in a cloud of steam so hot it’ll strip the flesh from your bones.” The girl swallowed, her eyes wide. “And then the steam catches fire, and all you can see is a cloud of brilliant white fire, like a small sun, and it rushes down on you as fast as lightning.”

  She spoke in a small voice. “But the hulks, the armour…”

  He nodded. “Layers and layers of it, but nothing under the sky can long resist fire from the sun. Besides, rigs are coated in titanium. It’s super strong, but it melts if you get a piece too near the turbine exhaust. And then there’s the fuel… Rigs drink…?”

  “Water, I know.”

  “Right, and the tanks convert it into hydrogen, to burn. But you see, the thing about hydrogen, bottled up in a tank, is that if it gets hot enough, it explodes.”

  She shook herself, and her brow tightened. “You’re talking like you’ve seen this happen, but if you’re telling the truth, then you’d have to already be dead, and it doesn’t make any sense, because I’m alive and you don’t look like a ghost, and anyway I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Smart, girl. But you’re missing one fact. The fire moves faster than a rig, but it doesn’t stray far from water. I was in a bad way some time ago, back when I was a just starting alone, and I thought I could draw water from an inlet on the coast. I had just killed the turbine when I saw the fire in the rear screen.”

  She gazed at him. “What happened?”

  “I ran. I ran as fast as the Rhino could go, and I got away. The fire burned a streak on one of the rear fins, though.”

  She pursed her lips. “I still don’t know if I believe you.”

  “I can show you, when we take on water at Smelt.”

  She nodded. “Do that, rigger.”

  And he did, and she touched the blistered metal, and they had water to draw, but it wasn’t enough.

  +

  Soon after pulling out of Smelt, Flint saw a dark object rise up in the rear screen, one of several panels set below the windows. At that distance, he couldn’t make it out, and it didn’t bother him much, except that it seemed to be running along the way. Sometimes birds or animals followed the line of the great way, but animals never went near a stretch just after a rig had hurtled along. He didn’t spend much time outside live rigs, and he wouldn’t want to; he could imagine the deafening roar, and the choking heat of the turbine exhaust. Bugs splashed themselves against the front window all the time, but if they strayed too near the exhaust, they got cooked. The same would happen, he believed, to any larger animal, although that would probably leave them black and crispy on one side, and a tender pink on the other. The turbine itself was like a meat grinder from hell. A damn stupid bird had once got itself sucked into the intake, and he’d been afraid it would choke up the engine, but the rig hadn’t even coughed, and when he’d looked at the rear screen, he’d seen a short plume of black smoke spray out of the Rhino’s backside.

  The cockpit door opened, and Diana ran in, sat down in the copilot’s seat, and put a sugar-dusted finger to her lips. “Shh,” she said. “I’m hiding.”

  “Doesn’t seem very effective,” he said. “If you really want to hide, you ought to go down to the cargo hold.”

  “That’s exactly where Caerlion thinks I went, but instead I hid in the toilet, and when I heard him come past out of the kitchen, and go down the stairs, I came back here.”

  “So you left your tutor hunting around in the hold?”

  She brushed her hands against her dress, and beamed at him. “Now, about our plan.”

  He gave her a vacant look. “Our plan?”

  “Yup. I think it’s best if we use hemlock.”

  His brows drew down into a tight V. “Hemlock.”

  “I would have preferred arsenic or cyanide, but no one knows how to make those any more, whereas hemlock, well, it’s a plant, and we’re out in nature, you know? Easy to procure, is what I’m saying, you da- Uh, darling rigger.”

  “I hear every word you’re saying, and it makes less sense every second.”

  Her face pinched, and she leaned forwards, frustration in her eyes. “For him,” she said in a breathy whisper, and jabbed a thumb at the cockpit door.

  His eyes half-closed, and he sighed through his teeth. “Oh, I see.”

  She fell back into her seat. “Right. Hemlock. Easy to get, well sort of easy, and quite painless. They gave it to Socrates, you know, I read about it.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, of course, Socrates.”

  She glance at him. “He was the first philosopher.”

  “I have read a book,” he said. “But your plan has a couple of big huge problems. First, Socrates lived in Ancient Greece, and second, I’m not going to help you murder your tutor.”

  She waved her hand. “Yes yes, but even if this isn’t Greece, I’m sure we can obtain a quantity of the requisite herb in North America.”

  “Okay, great, that would solve one of our problems, if we could get to America.”

  “You mean we’re not there already?”

  “Of course not. Of all the… What does that fool teach you? This is Australia.”

  She shot him a panicky look, and then she smoothed down the folds of her white silk dress, and wrinkled her nose. “I can’t believe you’ve gone fifty years without learning the most basic things about the world.”

  His jaw tightened. “I’m not fifty.”

  “Forty, then.”

  “I’m twenty-nine!”

  She rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, old man.”

  “I’m not an old man, and this is not America. Look, they got kangaroos in Australia, right?”

  She frowned.

  “Like, big dumb-looking rabbits with pockets in front is what I mean.”

  “I know what they are.”

  “And they live in Australia.”

  She nibbled the edge of her lip. “Well...”

  “Right, Australia, right. And I’ve seen kangaroos, big ones, not so far from here. You sight right there, and I’ll show you.”

  She seemed on the edge of saying something, and then the cockpit door opened, Caerlion poked his head in, and Diana dropped down into her chair and rolled into a ball. Flint half-turned, and looked at Caerlion over his shoulder. The tutor peered at him down his beak of a nose, his bald pate gleaming in the light that streamed in through the crystal windows. “The young miss. Missing. Absent. Not present.”

  “Yeah. Look, Caerlion, you’re an educated man, and I’ve got a serious question about geography for you.” From the corner of his eye, Flint saw Diana shake her head, but he ignored her. “I’ve been stuck with a question: is this continent Australia or… America?”

  Caerlion stood up straight and faced his way. “Actually, always been rather under the impression, of the continents, this would be the Antarctic.”

  Flint stared at Caerlion, trying to make out laughter in the eyes hidden behind those blue-framed, pink-tinted spectacles. “This would be the what now?”

  Caerlion opened his mouth and started to answer, but his words were lost in the noise as something crashed into the Rhino on the left, and shook the whole rig. The impact threw Flint half out of his seat, and left Diana sprawled over the arm of hers. Caerlion caught the sides of the copilot’s chair, and somehow managed to remain standing.

  Flint hauled himself back into his chair, and Diana screamed at him, “what was that?”

  “I don’t know, let me look,” he said, and did. The window showed the expanse of the way, now angled left of forward; the Rhino had been knocked off course. The right and rear screens showed nothing, but the left revealed another rig, with a fat nose and a pair of upthrust spikes, set up and back behind the front window, which bubbled out left and right, and gave the front of the rig the look of the face of a grey, overweight devil. “Old Horn,” he said. As soon as he caught sight of it, the second rig put on a burst of speed, until it was lined up parallel with the Rhino, and then it jerked right, and sl
ammed into them a second time. Flint saw it coming, and he grabbed his armrests and managed to hold on, although the force shook him in his chair, and strained his arms and back. Diana was still draped over her armrest, and she clung on, while Caerlion stood his ground, seeming almost to surf with the force of the blow.

  “Who is that maniac?” said Diana, and she heaved herself back into her chair, and yanked and locked down her seat belt.

  Flint had forgotten the rig had belts, but he saw the wisdom in her choice, and did the same. “It’s Blen. Blenner bloody Clavar, that’s who it is.”

  “This is not good news,” said Diana.

  “No, it is most definitely not good news.”

  “Speed, sir,” said Caerlion. “Might I suggest some?”

  Flint wrinkled his nose. “Might as well try,” he said, and gunned the engine. The Rhino hacked and roared, and he felt himself pulled back in his seat as they accelerated.

  “Look,” said Diana. “We’re leaving him behind,” and she pointed at the rear screen, which showed the horned rig fade back a ways.

  Flint shook his head, and Caerlion cleared his throat. “Don’t share the young lady’s buoyant optimism, sir?”

  “Let’s see,” said Flint.

  “Let’s not wait around,” said Diana. “Let’s keep burning gas and leave that damned rigger in the dust.”

  Flint said nothing. He corrected their course, putting the hulk back in line with the inland way, held their speed steady, and kept an eye on the rear screen. Minutes later he saw what he’d been waiting for. Old Horn drew a notch closer, and then another. Soon everyone in the cockpit had noticed. Diana put her knuckles in her mouth and moaned. “He’s cutting the distance. What’s he trying to do to us?”

  “He doesn’t want anything from you, I’ll bet,” said Flint. “I’m fairly sure he’s after me.”

  “Can’t you tell him we’re in here too?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, he probably doesn’t want to leave any witnesses. The rules say anything goes in the race, but we frown on actual bloodshed.”

  “Then it’s true,” she said in a small voice. “He means to kill us.” Flint shrugged, and they watched the horned rig creep closer. “But look,” she said, “there must be something you can do. Can’t you outrun him?”

  “What do you think I’m trying to do, make jam? This is the Rhino, not the Eagle. It’s not known for speed or subtle maneuvers.”

  “Not speed then, okay, not speed, but something… What about weapons? Don’t all these old world vehicles have, like, lasers and rockets and things?”

  Flint rolled his eyes. “You read too much, girl.”

  She grimaced. “What in hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  Caerlion leaned over the chair and peered down at the girl. “Believe the gentleman endeavoring to explain freighters, hulks, vessels of trade carry no ranged armaments.”

  She turned blazing eyes from Flint to the other and back. “But what if you get attacked by bandits or something?”

  Flint restrained the urge to throw them both out of the cockpit. Instead, he made himself speak with the calm of a mountain lake. “Yes, I do occasionally get ambushed by bandits set up on a stretch of the way. They crouch down behind makeshift wooden barricades, and hurl rocks and spears. Sometimes they have bows.”

  She stared at him. “And what do you do?”

  “Do? I’m sitting behind a screen made of diamond, in a hulk skinned with titanium. If I see them first, I blow the horn, and if they’re stupid enough to wait, well… I make jam.”

  Her eyes grew wide, and her skin took on a greenish tinge. “That’s… That’s horrible.”

  He raised his hands, palms up. “You did ask. Believe me, lasers and rockets are not going to be any more destructive than a rig going at full speed.”

  “Conversation fascinating, must take notes, but aggressor rapidly inbound,” said Caerlion. Flint frowned up at the man, and wondered how he could tutor anyone when he could barely make himself understood, but then he spotted a shadow in the rear screen, and spun the wheel right. The other rig hit them close to the rear, but thanks to his reflexive move, the Rhino escaped the full force of the impact, and he turned in a tight circle, trying to come around and get on the other rig’s rear.

  “Yes,” said Diana. “Get him, you da- You dear rigger.” He tried, but Blenner must have seen what he was doing, because Old Horn clung to the Rhino’s exhaust, and followed it around, and the two massive rigs snarled and burned a circle across the way.

  “No, not like that,” said Diana. “This isn’t working.”

  He gritted his teeth. “Hang on, I’ve got one more trick. Caerlion, find something heavy, and strap yourself to it.”

  “Believe this the best place, sir.”

  “If you don’t tie your body to something solid, it is likely to come hurtling past my chair and go splat on the window.”

  “...understood.” Caerlion disappeared into the depths of the hulk.

  “You shouldn’t have said that,” said Diana.

  “It was effective.”

  “But if you hadn’t said anything, we could have forgotten about finding some hemlock.”

  “Listen, you crazy girl, we’re not getting hemlock, we’re not getting cyanide, and we are not murdering your tutor.”

  She pouted, and then she brightened up. “Maybe those big chairs will squash him.”

  Flint shook his head, and concentrated. He pulled the Rhino out of the turn, and started it blazing back down the way in the direction of Smelt. Moments later he saw Old Horn line up on their tail. He knew the other rig would soon close the distance, so he didn’t hesitate. He cut the engine, and flipped all the fins, causing the Rhino to swing around in a tight half-circle. Then he fired up the engine to maximum power, and lined up the Rhino’s horn between Blenner’s devil spikes.

  Diana gasped, and then she turned to him, red eyes wider than they’d ever been. “You’re going to ram him.”

  He nodded.

  She looked ahead, and her hand snaked over and grabbed his wrist. Then she closed her eyes. “Let’s make jam.”

  +

  The two hulks rushed at each other, and the stretch of black way between them shrank with every beat of Flint’s heart, every pulse that ran through his hand, clenched and bloodless on the wheel. The dusty plains whipped past them, a red blur that reminded Flint of the stains of dry, dead blood, and the smells he’d encountered once at an old, abandoned abattoir. He felt heat rise in his gut, and an electrical tingle creep up his fingers and arms, and up his neck to his scalp, where it pricked up his hair. The heavyset devil’s face of the other rig grew bigger by the moment, and the corners of Flint’s eyes narrowed. He’d tried everything else, it hadn’t been enough, and now he could fight or roll over, and he would swim to hell before he rolled over to one of the Clavar brothers. The Rhino was the toughest rig he’d ever seen, and he’d ridden her to smash through boards, barricades, and even full-grown trees, but he’d never gone head-to-head with another rig, and he doubted anyone ever had.

  Madness swept through him, and he laughed.

  Diana had to shout over the thrumming engine and the screaming wind. “Is it over?”

  “No.”

  She kept her eyes shut when she spoke. “Then why are you cackling?”

  “Just thinking you should get Caerlion to write all this down. We’re about to make history.”

  “You are a crazy person, and I regret ever climbing on your floaty death express.”

  Any comeback he might have had got thrown out of the window the next second, as the two rigs screamed down on each other. Flint grimaced but held course, and then at the last moment Old Horn swerved to his left, and scraped along the side of the Rhino, shook the rig with a painful juddering, and raised a metallic shriek. Diana’s hand, still clasped on his arm, clamped down, and her fingers dug into his skin, but she held silence until the shaking ended and the howls of protesting metal faded. Then she drew a deep breath,
and looked at him, a question in her vivid red eyes.

  Flint shook his head.

  She looked away, and let go of his arm. “What now?” she said, and massaged her fingers.

  “Best outcome? Blenner decides we’re too crazy to tangle with, and leaves us alone.”

  “I’m not going to ask about the worst.”

  He eyed the rear screen. “I think we’re about to find out.”

  Her eyes darted to his face, and then to the rear screen, and she moaned when she saw Blenner’s rig swing around and resume the chase. She looked across at him with pleading eyes. “There must be something else you can try.”

  He scowled at the broad expanse of the way as it reached out left and right and far ahead of the rig. Blenner had rushed up and buffeted them before, and it had shaken the Rhino and her occupants, but it hadn’t pulped them. Now he’d seen that the Rhino could smash him back, he would have to try something different. With his edge on them in speed, Blenner could always keep ahead, could choose when to knock them and when to dodge away, and that would let him give them all a battering ride, but it wouldn’t be enough to beat them. No, thought Flint, Blenner had to have seen this already, he had to have come up with a different plan. He checked the rear screen, and once again saw Old Horn had crept up closer. He looked up, scanned the way ahead, and then the surrounding landscape. He knew he’d spotted it as soon as his eyes fell on the sight, and he snarled. “There.”

  “No, don’t tell me,” said Diana. Flint pointed, and the girl looked away to the right, and saw the red sandstone edge of a canyon that ran parallel to the way. “I see it, rigger.”

  +

  Flint did his best to dodge Old Horn’s buffets, and when he had a chance, he tried to strike back, but Blenner had the edge in acceleration, and proved able to keep Old Horn at just the perfect distance to swoop in and bash the Rhino before Flint could evade, yet still have enough air between them that when Flint spun the wheel and hit back, Old Horn floated away like an ungainly but agile bumblebee.

  Little by little, Blenner drove the Rhino towards the edge of the way, and then off it, to skim across the patchy brown scrub land, and ever nearer to the red cliffs and the canyon. Diana noticed how close they were getting, and she yelped. “Tell me we’re not going over the edge.”

  “Okay,” said Flint, eyes on the left screen. “We’re not going over the edge.”

  Her voice turned shrill. “You’re lying to me.”

  “I’m mostly trying to concentrate on driving.”

  “Great job so far, rigger.”

  “Do you want to try?”

  Old Horn smacked them again, and Diana put her hands in her hair, grabbed thick black bunches between her fingers, and grimaced. “Look, even if we go over the edge, we can fly to the other side, right?”

  He shook his head. “This is a rhino, not an albatross.”

  “But it’s got wings.”

  “You think sticking wings on a rhino means it can fly? This is a skimmer, a ground effect vehicle. No ground, no skimming.”

  She groaned. “Do something, Flint.”

  He narrowed his eyes and punched the wheel. Then he did the last thing he could think of, though he knew it wouldn’t work. He jabbed the power button on the radio, and opened up the common channel. “Blenner, you dirty son of a-”

  Diana unclipped her seat belt., leapt across the cockpit, and slapped her palm over his face, smothering his words. She shook her head. “What are you trying to do, make him angry?”

  He tried to ask how he could possibly make Blenner more angry, but she held on until he stopped struggling.

  “Blenner,” she said, “Mr Blenner Clavar?” She paused, but no reply came, and she started again. “I don’t know if you’re listening, Mr Clavar, but my name is Diana Ambrel, and I’m here on the Rhino, and you hurt me when you hit us, and I really don’t want you to drive us off the cliff.”

  But for a distant static hiss, the channel remained silent, and Flint saw beads of moisture well up at the corner of Diana’s eyes.

  “Mr Clavar, you’re in this race too, and that means you’ve got another little girl in there. She’s just like me. Do you want to throw a little girl off a cliff?”

  Silence followed her words, and then a man’s voice came on the line, angry and slurred, as if the speaker had stoked his rage with whiskey. “I ain’t in this race no more. I dropped my charges off at Smelt.”

  Now that they had got Blenner on the line, and he had stopped slamming into them, Flint felt they might have a chance. He tried to pull the girl’s hand away, but she held on with surprising strength, caught his eye, and shook her head. He didn’t like it, but perhaps she had a plan. He stopped struggling, and let her speak.

  “Mr Clavar, you’re a good person. You didn’t want to hurt any innocent folk. But I’m stuck here on the Rhino-”

  At the mention of Flint’s rig, Blenner spat a string of curses.

  Diana squeezed her eyes shut, but when the tirade wore down, she began again. “Mr Clavar, you want justice for your brother. But if you smash me up in, in this rig, that won’t be right, will it? Will it?”

  Blenner cursed some more, and then he sighed. “What do you want, girl?”

  “Let me get off.”

  Flint started to rise in his seat, but she used both hands to shoved him back.

  “Give Fl- Give the driver here a couple minutes to drop off me and, oh, damn it all, me and my tutor, and then you can do whatever you want.”

  Flint stared at her, betrayal etched in his features. Diana held one hand on his shoulder, and put the other to her lips. The pause that followed seemed to stretch for hours, and when the answer came, Flint didn’t want to believe it.

  “You got five minutes, and then I’m gonna turn that rig into a smoking wreck.”

  Diana hit the power switch, and radio died. Flint swept her hand away, undid his belt, rose in his seat, and glared down at her. “You little… You offered me to him on a gilded tray.”

  “Stop the rig.”

  “How can you expect me to do anything you say after that?”

  “Stop the rig or we’ll go right over the edge, and it’ll be your own stupid fault.”

  He checked the windows, saw the red rocks approaching like a row of giant, bloodstained teeth, and grabbed the wheel, turning the Rhino in a tight circle that swept up a circle of dust that clouded the windows and all of the screens. Then he threw on the brakes, and the rig settled down.

  “I guess you’d better grab your things,” he said.

  She stamped her foot. “Don’t be so silly, Flint. I’m not going to run and leave you. I have a plan.”

  “As I recall, you had a plan when you came onboard, and it’s worked out swell so far.”

  She raised a hand. “Now isn’t the time to get hysterical.”

  “I’m not hysterical!”

  “Listen, he wants you, and I figure he’d much rather pulp you with his fists than with his rig.”

  “Happens he’s in his rig.”

  “Shh, just shush. If you get out and stand on the edge of the cliff, I figure there’s two things he might do.”

  “Like smash me with his rig.”

  She nodded. “That’s one, yes. But if he did it that way he might go over the edge. No, I think it’s much more likely that he’ll set his rig down, then come out and fight you.”

  He shook his head. “That’s a terrible plan.”

  She stared up at him, her hands in fists. “Do you have a better one?”

  Flint started to speak, but the cockpit door opened and Caerlion walked in, his pink bow tie somewhat askew, but otherwise unruffled by the Rhino’s shaky ride to the cliff. He cleared his throat, and gave Flint a pointed look. “Seem to have ceased motion,” he said.

  “No,” said Flint, “it’s just that the world has caught up with us,” and he chuckled.

  “Oh dear,” said Diana, looking up at him. “I think he’s losing it.”

  “I think I lost
it when I agreed to enter this stupid race. If I hadn’t been in jail when Vistor asked me, I-”

  She waved her hands in front of his face. “No time, no time. Caer- Mr Caerlion, please go back to the front door, I mean the big door. I mean, get out, outside.”

  “To expect ride from that vehicle?” He pointed out of the window. Diana and Flint both shook their heads. “The other one then?”

  Flint’s eyes glazed over. “Other one?”

  They followed his finger, and looked out through the window, first at the heavy form of Old Horn as it settled down to face them, fat snout shining with a bright silvery streak down the left side, a gouge from when Flint had tried to ram it. He knew the Rhino had to bear a similar scar, and wondered if the left wing had also taken a hit. He’d have to check it later, if he had a later. He didn’t let his eyes linger on Blenner’s rig, for Caerlion pointed past it, and he saw a streak of dust back near the edge of the way, and rising.

  Diana gasped. “Is that a…?”

  He nodded. “That’s a rig.”

  “Comet, would seem to be,” said Caerlion.

  Flint glanced at him. “How can you tell?”

  “Twin exhaust plumes. Distinctive.”

  Flint shook his head. The other rig was far off and flew too fast to make out any clear features. He leaned forward on the wheel, peered at it, and at last he made out a narrow sliver of air running up the middle of the rising column of dust. “Guess those glasses really work. If we were betting, I’d owe you a drink, Caerlion. I’ll buy you one anyway. If we live through this.”

  The radio began to blink with a green light. Diana saw it first, and tapped Flint’s shoulder. “Look.” She half-turned towards him, but her eyes strayed back to the other rigs.

  “Direct call,” said Flint. “One-to-one.” He hit the power button, and opened the private channel. “Yeah, you got me. Now what?”

  A pause followed, and then he heard a familiar voice. “Flint.”

  “Wurnech.”

  The other man laughed. “Unless my memory has turned to syrupy goo, I seem to recall telling you to call me Vern.”

  Flint grinned. “Just checking you’re not Blen Clavar trying to be clever.”

  “The Clavars are not that subtle.”

  “How are you here?”

  “Heard you on the chat. Listen, shut up for a second, I can see how it is. The bastard’s got you pinned against the canyon, blah blah blah. I’ll come in and sweep around with the Comet. You use me for cover, and then I’ll shadow you as we head inland.”

  Flint shook his head. “Blen wants blood by the pint, Vern. Mine, every last drop. The Comet’s fast but she’s kind of tiny.”

  “Petite, I’ve always thought.”

  “Fine, sure, she’s svelte. Point is, if Blen charges us, he’s likely to drive both rigs over the cliff.”

  “Do you have a better plan?”

  Flint smacked a fist down on the dash, and Diana flinched. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

  Vern chuckled. “Genuine and abiding curiosity. Now listen, here’s what-”

  A light on the radio started to flash orange, and Diana patted Flint’s arm. He glanced at her, then at the radio, and then out of the window, and saw Old Horn shudder and rise from the ground. He stabbed a button on the radio, and started to speak. “Blen, wait-”

  Blenner had already begun shouting. “...enough time already. I don’t care if you’re carrying a half-dozen kids, I gave you your chance, and now I’m gonna-”

  Flint hit the power button. “So much for that, he said, and dropped into the pilot’s seat, fired up the engines, eased the Rhino into motion, and turned her right, to run parallel to the canyon. Something scraped the underside of the rig, and sent a vibration that Flint felt through his chair and the soles of his feet. He winced, and resisted the urge to shut down the turbine, and get out to check the damage. He didn’t dare to slow down, not then, even though every rigger’s instinct screamed at him for trying to take the Rhino over broken, rocky ground.

  “Diana,” he said. “My hands are full. Take the chair and talk to Vern. Maybe you two can hammer this out.”

  She sat down, then worked the radio and spoke into it, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t get Vern back on the line. “I’m sorry, Flint.”

  “Guess it’s a busy day all round.”

  The Rhino built up speed, and stubby sandstone rocks rose and fell on the right, seeming to Flint like a mass of clouds stained red at sunset. He felt no surprise at the image; those cliffs meant death, and they all knew it. Another spur of rock jabbed up into the Rhino’s underside, and raised a shrill screech that set his teeth on edge. It gave him an idea, too, and he started to look for any taller spikes up ahead. He spotted a few coming up, and then he checked the screens, and saw Old Horn closing in on the left, and the Comet rushing in almost at right angles to the edge, sending up twin plumes of red dust as she went. He grimaced. “Tell Vern about the canyon.”

  Diana kept her focus on the radio. “He knows.”

  “Remind him.”

  “He knows, he said so, you’ve just got to make enough space for him to shield us.”

  Flint half-turned towards her, but another rock spur yanked his attention back to driving. “That’s never gonna work, girl. Have you even seen the Comet?”

  “Stop telling me it’s a bad idea. I know it’s a bad idea, we’ve only got bad ideas. You have to try, Flint, please, you have to try.”

  He took the wheel in both hands, pictured Blenner Clavar’s thick neck, and squeezed. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said, eyed the upcoming rocks, and slammed on full acceleration. The Rhino’s turbine roared as it spun up to full power, wind screamed across the diamond bubble, and the whole cabin vibrated.

  “No, wait, stick with Vern’s plan,” yelled Diana.

  Flint watched Old Horn creep closer in the rear screen. “Hold on tight,” he said, and rolled the wheel all the way to the right. The Rhino turned in a tight circle, and Flint prayed to the great rigger in the sky that he’d judged it right. The Rhino skimmed up the gentle slope of the sandstone lip, and the cockpit filled with blue sky and a blaze of sunlight as the rig faced heaven. It seemed to hang in the air, the breath caught in Flint’s throat, and Diana cursed his family all the way back to the garden, and then it swung around again and crashed down to the broad, reddish brown expanse of scrub-land that stretched back to the way. But Flint didn’t run this time. He held the wheel locked right, kept the rig turning, and found his target: Old Horn’s solid metal rear, her exhaust blasting out superheated steam that made the air ripple and coated the Rhino’s windows with a fine mist.

  “The Comet’s getting closer,” said Diana.

  Flint didn’t look away. He had to peer through the steam, and he had to get this right, because he knew it would never work a second time. He had managed to get luck and physics on his side, but Blen wouldn’t let himself be fooled again. The Rhino rushed at the other rig from a slight angle from left to right, and Blen must have seen it coming, because he started to pull away from the edge, but it was too late, and the Rhino crashed into Old Horn from the left, turning the other vehicle half around, giving the Rhino just enough room between rig and canyon to shoot past and take the lead again, but this time was different. Flint spun the wheel left, threw on the air brakes, and turned to watch the effect of his attack.

  Old Horn spun in a lazy half-circle, her back-end fishtailed, and then the rig slammed sidelong into a tall upthrust rock spike. The rock exploded into red fragments, and Flint grimaced, afraid it would only slow the other rig down, but as he watched, the core of the spike ripped through a wing and bit deep into Old Horn’s side, and the rig, caught between rock and momentum, flipped up the air, to tumble down on her left side, crushing her remaining wing.

  Diana started laughing and crying at the same time. “You did it, Flint, you did it.”

  Flint said nothing, for in that moment he saw a second massive shape racing
their way, sparkling like a diamond in the sun, twin exhaust plumes trailing from behind. “No, no, no,” he said, and shook his head. He reached for the radio but it happened too fast. As the Comet shot in, smoke began to billow out of Old Horn. The Comet jerked away, but then the hydrogen tanks in the burning rig must have ruptured, for it exploded with a blast that shoved the Rhino back several metres, and tossed her occupants around the cabin. When Flint picked himself up and looked out of the window, he saw the Comet flying their way, and it roared in so close he felt the Rhino’s frame shake with the wind of its passage, but what he saw chilled him to the spine. One of the titanium spikes that had given Blen’s rig its name had torn loose from the wreck, hurled by the explosion, and lanced through the Comet’s window. In the instant as it passed, Flint saw that spike had been driven right through the pilot’s chair, and right through the pilot. Vern stared at him with cold, fixed eyes, in a moment of icy, immeasurable pain. Then the Comet flew past, straight as the great way, and he watched it in the rear screen, until the canyon curved around to the left, and the rig hurtled into the air. For brief seconds it soared, and then it fell from sight.