By the Feet of Men Page 9

  ‘But what do you think?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Humour me,’ he said, and sat next to the remains of a fire that had been built the previous night.

  Katarina dropped to her haunches. ‘As you wish. A long time ago, something happened to me that left me hovering between life and death. The two paths were open to me. I could have chosen the latter. It would have been simple. But something brought me back, and since then I’ve had the idea it was for a reason, that I’m here to make a difference. By this I do not mean transporting a few barrels of water to murderers or rapists or fanatics. That is a question of compromise for the sake of one’s own survival. A man whom we have never met is asking us to risk our lives to save a community of unknowns. He appears with a fantastic story about a machine that could reverse the Change and he hopes we’ll make a leap of faith. I’m not willing to jump for him – men with promises are not to be trusted – but I would do it for myself.’

  Hearst made another dismissive noise that Katarina ignored. ‘But, as I said, I am not the owner of this pantech,’ she continued. ‘And so it is not me you have to convince.’

  Cassady nodded. He allowed the silence to linger before addressing Hearst. His voice grew harsh. ‘We’re going to the Alps and we need you with us.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re the best driver in the group.’

  ‘Words.’

  ‘It’s the truth. Nobody drives a rig like you. And nobody is more pragmatic. If you don’t join the convoy, we won’t make it.’

  ‘Not my problem.’

  ‘Maybe not. But I know you don’t want to see us dead.’

  She tapped the tattooed skin near her ear. ‘You do not know. You cannot see.’

  ‘Then I hope.’

  ‘Too much unknown. Too dangerous.’

  ‘We never know what’s on the road until we’re out there.’

  ‘Only suffering for you all.’

  Cassady took his hat off and rubbed his forehead. He looked to Ghazi. All he could do was shrug his shoulders. There was nothing he could add. They had never won an argument with Hearst before, and it was no different now.

  ‘Fine,’ said Cassady, standing up and walking over to Orion. Up close, the abuse stood out against the red paint. He brushed the outline of a long scratch with his finger. ‘Before you pack up the rest of your stuff and ball it back to Prestige, just do me one favour. Think about how it’ll feel knowing you turned your back on the greatest challenge anybody ever asked of you. You had the chance to compete with six other drivers and you said no. Really think about it. Because when you’re back out there, especially on those long stretches when you’ve got no distractions to stop you from confronting your fears, you’re going to end up asking yourself anyway. Trust me.’

  Without another word, Hearst climbed into the back of the truck and slammed the door. Cassady shook his head and chuckled despite himself. Ghazi rested his hand on Katarina’s shoulder. ‘Take care, mamani.’

  ‘I will. Look after yourself. Both of you.’

  He waited until they were out of earshot of the truck before he addressed Cassady.

  ‘You did what you could.’

  The other man scowled. ‘She’s more stubborn than tyre tracks on tarmac.’

  ‘Maybe she’ll still change her mind.’

  ‘No point wondering.’

  When Warspite’s tarpaulin cover came into sight, Ghazi asked the only question that mattered. ‘Are we still on?’

  Cassady didn’t hesitate. ‘Get her ready. Once we hit that road, we’re not stopping. Not even if Death tries to get in the way.’

  Part II – On the Trail

  1

  Hearst came to Warspite’s campsite, alone, before dawn. When he spotted her, Cassady dropped the torque wrench he was holding and wiped his hands on his already filthy trousers. His pupils were the size of buttons and an electric current scratched under the surface of his skin. After the briefing, he’d spent an hour interrogating Lupo for every scrap of information the scientist had about the Koalition and its Alpine state. Then the bald man had turned up at their berth with the medical supplies bound for La Talpa, and he and Ghazi had placed them in crates and secured them in the cargo hold. They had taken it in turns studying the maps while the other slept for a couple of hours, before both dropping a blitz pill so they could work through the night. The Old Lady was in sparring shape now. There was little more they could do except get out on the road.

  In the dawn light, Orion’s owner was a spectre from a nightmare, all dirt and ink and scars undercut with anger at the world and everything in it. She waited for Cassady on the path. With the blood audible in his ears, he approached and stared her down.

  ‘You're still here.’

  Hearst glanced beyond him to Ghazi, who was running a cloth over a set of immaculate plugs and humming softly to himself. Then her eyes were on his once more. ‘My decision. Ours.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We go with you.’

  His breath boiled in his throat. With some effort, he kept his voice steady.

  ‘Then get ready,’ he said simply. ‘We leave in an hour.’

  She held his gaze for a moment longer and left. The blood continued to throb in his head and a muscle in his cheek trembled. His relief at her decision was so strong that it soured and turned to shame. He told himself to get a grip. He walked back to the berth and, retrieving the wrench, bent down to tighten the lug nuts that held the Old Lady’s wheels in place. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a smile on Ghazi’s face and he did his best to relax. Hearst and Katarina were coming with them.

  By the time the trucks lined up in formation by the gate, the sky had been slashed open and the darkest blue poured from its wounds. The temperature was already on the wrong side of comfortable. The ancient, indomitable Warspite sat at the head of the convoy, her new battery safely stowed between the seats in the cab. Orion tucked in just behind her, a fat red beetle ready to bite anything that stood in its way. A few metres further back was the battering-ram outline of the Silkworm, while at the rear, the massive Telamonian attempted to block out the dawn. The crews waited in silence outside their cabs. Each Runner ran through their pre-road ritual, hoping it would be enough to keep them alive for another day.

  Cassady stood next to Sergei, taking in the sight of the rigs. Lined up like that, with the crews ready to go, it looked as though nothing could stop them. And he would be leading them out.

  ‘Faustine’s paid a tribute to the stations,’ said Sergei. ‘It didn’t come cheap. But you can count on reports until you hit the Alps.’

  ‘Vultures preying on people’s superstitions,’ said Cassady. He always had to laugh whenever another Runner trotted out the old line about the stations being their guardian angels. If a station didn’t receive enough donations, it stopped broadcasting until the drop points filled up with supplies. It was as simple as that.

  ‘If it keeps your drivers satisfied, you oughta listen in to those broadcasts. Don’t underestimate the strength of belief.’ Sergei handed Cassady a piece of fabric containing the frequencies.

  ‘Anything else?’

  The giant looked down at him through his remaining eye. ‘You ain’t gonna be able to use those medical supplies you’re schlepping if you run into trouble. They ain’t exactly bandages and painkillers. If you don’t know how to mix them right, they’re useless to you.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well. Good luck. Work as a team. Keep your head. And don’t think that anyone’s gonna help you down there. We’re counting on you.’

  He nodded. It was time to go. ‘Okay,’ he shouted. ‘Let’s mount up.’ The crews jumped into their vehicles. As he went to join Ghazi, Cassady’s attention was drawn to a solitary figure leaning on a cane near the gate. Lupo wore a fresh bandage around his head.

  ‘In bocca al lupo,’ he shouted. ‘Good luck. May God be with you.’ The scientist coughed and his battered body heaved wi
th the effort.

  ‘Which God is that?’ Cassady muttered. He swung himself into the cab, adjusted his cap and exchanged glances with Ghazi.

  ‘Show us the way,’ said his co-driver.

  The sterile whine of the electric engines drew some of the disciples from their tents. They watched as the Runners, faces lined with concentration, ran through their final checks. Four sets of headlights turned the earth the colour of dried blood. Metal bodies shuddered. Then Cassady coaxed the gearstick into first and applied pressure to the pedal. Warspite crunched over the plateau. One by one, the heavy trucks slipped through the gate and left the stockade behind.

  The sun was about to reach its high-water mark. Warspite rumbled along at a steady speed on a track heading south. The landscape was a sea of scrubland. Jagged metal pylons that predated the Change marched off towards the horizon. Cassady’s gaze flickered to his mirrors every few minutes. Hearst was keeping pace. The Silkworm and Telamonian were somewhere further back. Excessive ionisation in the atmosphere put a stop to radio transmissions. Once they were out of sight, the trucks had no means of contacting one another.

  The Old Lady obeyed his every command like she’d been put together yesterday, not over a century ago. It gave him some comfort, but the uncertainties continued to twist his thoughts in different directions. He was already worried about Telamonian. The beast was too much of a heavyweight to match the speed of the others. There wasn’t much he could do about it other than set a rendezvous point every evening and hope each rig made it before dark. At the briefing Victor had protested about the plan, arguing they should continue through the night, but the other Runners had dismissed the idea. They would need all the rest they could get before they hit the mountains. Of that Cassady was sure.

  Ghazi shifted in the co-seat.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something that’s been playing on my mind,’ he said slowly. ‘I think those boys in their black box would rather break before they bend to us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They’re hungry, like Brandt said, but there’s more to them than that. Somebody has lit a fire inside them, and that means we should watch ourselves – how we speak to them. You, me, Brandt and the rest. A mind with something to prove is rarely the most rational one.’

  ‘Is that a warning?’

  ‘No. I just want us to be facing in the same direction. Even so, they aren’t your enemy. Remember that. We’ll need them out here.’

  ‘I know.’ Cassady pressed down on the accelerator, signalling an end to the conversation. He jammed a piece of root into the space between his gum and his cheek and felt his mind become clear.

  They passed the occasional vehicle heading in the other direction but didn’t slow down or stop to make small talk. When they hit a two-lane tarmac road that hadn’t yet disintegrated, Orion drew level with Warspite. Hearst was a statue in the driver’s seat. Ghazi wound down his window and Cassady flicked the A/C off. Katarina grinned at them, her white hair sitting atop her scalp in thick, oily braids. Both drivers slowed their pace so the co-drivers could hear each other over the biting tyres.

  ‘Chetori?’ shouted Katarina by way of greeting.

  Ghazi chuckled. ‘Khoobam.’

  ‘Silkworm fell back to run with Tela.’

  ‘I hope they behave themselves.’

  ‘Did you listen to the station report?’

  Ghazi read from the sheet. ‘Activity quiet up and down the map. No inclement weather. No other issues.’

  Katarina nodded. ‘Right. That puts us clear while we go around Motze.’

  Cassady had made sure they wouldn’t be driving into that bleak town. Too many people knew their faces there.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘A request from my partner here. Okay if we take the lead?’

  Cassady raised his thumb. He’d led them out of the camp, but there was nothing to gain from holding Hearst back.

  ‘Go ahead,’ shouted Ghazi.

  ‘See you at the rendezvous.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  The squat eight-wheeler streaked ahead and grit rapped against the Old Lady’s bumper. Cassady kept his eyes on Orion as the gap between them gradually widened. Hearst had grudgingly given him the details on her pantech once. Parabolic tapered leaf springs and telescopic shock absorbers made it a smoother drive than Warspite, and Hearst could rely on a seven-speed transmission to get her out of trouble. The cargo bed was closed on all sides with plates of heat-treated carbon manganese steel, and she’d stripped the chassis and cab as much as possible to make the truck more manoeuvrable.

  Orion danced around a couple of burnt-out wrecks without slowing down. Cassady’s mouth bent into a tight smile. He was good at what he did, but she turned driving into an art form. Having her with them was good, no doubt about it, but it added pressure, too. If he made a mistake, she would be gone before he had time to switch off his engine. And she wasn’t alone. Victor and Tagawa were waiting to pounce on the slightest weakness. But he had to stop dwelling on the negatives. He pushed the worries into a dark corner of his mind and put his foot down.

  When his hands started shaking so badly that the Old Lady weaved to the left and right, he switched with Ghazi. His body was running on root and blitz pills and his head was stuffed with what-ifs and maybes. In the co-seat, he checked the report from the station again, idly noting how poor the intelligence was, before staring at a map of the surrounding area until the lines fused together. Then he put his cap over his eyes and waited for sleep to come.

  Warspite passed the next marker an hour later. It was an old gas station, no more than a shell, with a towering billboard nearby that had been claimed by climbing vines. Cassady stared at the building with lamplight eyes, mechanically chewing on another piece of root. Then his breath caught in his throat and he recoiled. Ghazi was jerked from his hypnotic state.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Cassady slumped in his seat. ‘Nothing. I thought I saw a face in the window of that building.’

  ‘Maybe there was one.’

  ‘No. There were flames. It was burning.’

  He kept his attention on the dashboard to avoid Ghazi’s probing gaze.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ he muttered. ‘Just keep going. We only have three hours of daylight left.’

  ‘Maybe you ought to take it easy with that stuff. Try to get some rest.’

  Cassady glowered at his reflection in the long, rectangular side mirror. He wanted to slap himself around the face. Ghazi was right. He had to lay off the root. The chemicals in the genetically modified plant were messing with his mind. He wound down the window and spat out the pulp before retrieving the maps that had fallen to the cab floor. He glanced at the pages. They could only go as fast as the slowest rig, which was Telamonian. La Talpa was right in the middle of the Italian desert, approximately 1,500 kilometres away by the route he’d sketched out, though that didn’t account for detours. Over the next couple of days they would follow a narrow route through a minor mountain chain and then switch to a highway Brandt had told him was still in drivable condition. Although it would take them to within spitting distance of one of the dead cities, the route cut straight through the Bowl, which meant they should avoid contact with the tribes that somehow scratched out a living from the dead ground. If everything went to plan, they would hit the Alps four days from now. After that it would have to be guesswork. They couldn’t plan for what they would find down there, where the mountains rose like so many shadowy wraiths. They didn’t even know if there was a way in. Lupo had marked his supply road through the mountains and assured Cassady it was unguarded and passable, but he needed more proof than the word of the scientist. Besides, a motorcycle wasn’t a pantech. He folded the maps and stowed them in the locker beneath his seat. Automatically, his hand reached for the pouch on his belt. He stopped himself. Forget the root. Get some rest. He drank a few mouthfuls of water to appease his throat and then leaned agains
t the window. Orion was long gone. Telamonian and the Silkworm chased Warspite’s tail. He imagined a silver thread linking them all together over kilometres of road. And he held the spool in his hand.

  The odour of death tainted the air. Flames framed the face in the window, a woman’s face, her skin melting and dribbling off the bone. She was not in pain. A pair of red eyes, full of hate, bore into him. He wanted to scream, but he didn’t have a tongue.

  ‘Cassady, wake up.’ Ghazi’s voice was tense.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Exos to our left. Possible hunters.’

  The light was beginning to fail. They had left the paved road and were now churning up a trail of mud. The rendezvous was close. Cassady could see the fresh welts that had been left by Orion’s eight wheels sometime earlier. The trail was hemmed in on both sides by ranks of hardwood trees with leaves injured by acid rain. From the sound of the engine, Warspite was thrumming along at a steady rate of 40 km/h. A flash of movement between the trunks drew his gaze. Something out there was keeping pace with the truck.

  ‘I see them. How long have they been on us?’

  ‘A couple of minutes, I think.’

  He concentrated. ‘I make four of them.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Single crews.’

  ‘Right.’

  Cassady unclipped a pair of binoculars from above his head and held them up. Bipedal metal forms darted between the trees. They were close enough for him to see the pistons moving up and down in the legs and the barrels of rifles strapped to armour-plated backs. Each oversized robotic suit cradled an operator made of flesh and blood. Helmets obscured their faces, and chest guards, greaves and other metal plates protected their bodies. From the mismatched outlines, it looked as though the exoskeletons had been cannibalised many times over. Cassady had never learned how to operate one. Too cumbersome, too dangerous. He encountered them out on the road from time to time, blocky humanoid shapes lurching from one settlement to another, carrying warnings, summons, pleas and threats. It was difficult to tell if these ones were hunters or farmers. Farmers used them as lifting equipment and for defence. Hunters tracked vehicles in packs before swarming to take them out.