wondered whether a day or two spent in the open would have him as warm.
“Trouble,” he said as he pulled the grav car out onto the lane which the snow had obscured.
“What?” she asked.
He pointed to the radio. “The bulb has stopped blinking. Which means they may have decided their rep is in trouble.”
The snow whooshed up around them, obliterating the forest on either side as the grav plates' field disturbed the powdery stuff. Davis drove the car back the lane, toward the Sanctuary, until Leah directed him to the best point of entrance into the woods for the journey to the mountain called Tooth and the fortress that might or might not be there. He angled across open fields at her insistence, which meant the speed of the grav car had to be reduced. He kept anxiously studying the road in the rearview mirror, certain the dark shapes of police vans would glide into view at any moment. It was a good four miles through the rising, sparsely vegetated foothills, always rising, disappearing from the highway for short moments, then reappearing again as they started up the slope of the next hill which was higher than the last. In ten minutes, they arrived at the edge of the woods where he drove the car between the trees, scraping the paint from it, tearing off a strip of chrome, but effectively concealing it from anyone down there on the lane who might chance to look up and see the dark gleam of metal.
“It's on foot now,” he said. “I'm going to give you an injection of adrenalin and a few c.c.s of a speedheal restorative. Roll up your sleeve.”
She struggled with the bulky garment, finally managed to oblige, and didn't protest when the needles punctured her slim arm. Two little marks of blood were left behind, but she had bled enough recently not to be bothered by that.
“I'll carry a rucksack on each shoulder and switch the suitcase from hand to hand until you've built enough energy through those drugs to lend me support.”
“I can do it now,” she said.
“Yeah. Maybe for ninety seconds. Come on, love. I know you're a brave girl and a strong girl, but let's be honest with ourselves. When we're tired, we rest. If we don't make that rule, we'll collapse before we're a third of the way to this fortress of yours.”
They got out, Proteus immediately behind, and Davis loaded up with the gear. As he was picking up the suitcase, both rucksacks firmly on his shoulders, Leah gasped and said, “Look! Down at the Sanctuary!”
He looked back down the rippling landscape at the temple and the Sanctuary, which was only partially visible on the other side of the religious structure. Perched on the hilltop around the ugly place were four grav vehicles much too large to be anything but police vans. Even as they watched, the things began moving away from the Sanctuary, down the lane toward the aviary where he had been doing his research. Their headlights were like the luminous eyes of giant moths, slicing down the darkness that had begun to descend. In minutes, they would find their prey had fled. And, Davis noted miserably, the grav car had left a perfect trail up the foothills to the forest, a trail a blind and noseless bloodhound could follow. The only thing that might possibly yet save them was the night which was rapidly settling over the land.
“Come on,” he said to Leah. “I'll break the trail.” He stomped off into the trees, trying not to look as frightened as he was…
VI
If it wouldn't have been for the snow and the bitter cold, Davis would have praised their luck and thanked every god he had ever heard of. They climbed on through the dark hours without being molested, trusting to the faint gleam of the snow cover whenever that was possible and breaking out a hand torch when the trees grew too thickly to allow natural light in — what little of it there was — and they could no longer trust to put their feet down before them, unable to make out the lay of the land and any obstacles or pitfalls that might be present. There was no sound of pursuit, no voices on the slopes below, no copter blades overhead. The mountainside was often steep, but never so sharply angled that climbing gear or techniques were required. These were old mountains, a range that had been weathered away through thousands of years. It was more like hiking, though strenuous and exhausting. Still, all would have been well if the storm had not grown and grown in fury, mounting into the range of blizzards with every passing hour.
The wind roared through the tress, rattling the many-forked branches so rudely that there was a continual dull roar over which they had to shout if they wished to speak. Often, he felt as if he stood below a mighty waterfall, within inches of the spot where the river dashed itself into the rocks. As long as the trees were tightly packed, the worst of the stinging cold was blocked from them. But several times, they were forced to pass through long stretches where the density of the trees was as much as 50 % below average and the howling hurricanelike masses of air tore down upon them, made them bend double to keep from being blown away. Once, on a steeper slope where the wind was banked off the mountain above and shunted right down through the nearly treeless expanse they were trying to negotiate, they had had to hold tightly to the trees, Davis locking his legs around her body to hold her as best he could. In the short moments when the wind abated, they would rush forward to another handhold, anchor themselves in time to be struck again by the hammering blows of their invisible enemy.
By the middle of the night, the snow was falling so hard that it was nearly impossible to see more than an arm's length ahead, even with the aid of the electric torch. Davis had never seen such a heavy storm in his life and found himself, for long moments, stopping to look with wonder at the white deluge that was smothering the land. Invariably, Leah would stop behind, holding his free hand, squeezing it to urge him onward. He wished he had given himself the energy boost he had provided her with the drugs of the medkit.
They made the top of the mountain some time before dawn and struck across the relatively flat topland, grateful for the chance to just walk without the necessity to fight the pull of gravity and the slipperiness of the earth that wanted to send them tumbling backwards and down. They made very good time once on the level, despite the drifts that bogged them down and concealed obstacles which Davis, more and more, found himself tripping over, sprawling into the wetness with all their gear. Leah had been carrying the suitcase for some time, but the weight of the two rucksacks was enough to make him feel as if his feet were not only sinking through snow at every step, but through an inch or two of the ground as well.
As the first rays of light touched the sky behind the thick cloud cover and made the gray horizon a slightly lighter shadow, they reached the far side of the mountain and came to the point where the ground began to slope downwards again. In the first hundred yards of the descent into the ravine between this and the next looming landrise, he fell twice, almost knocking himself out the second time. When he got up to continue, she grabbed his arm and said she was very tired.
When he turned, certain she was only trying to save his feelings by blaming a halt on herself, he found that her eyes were sunken, her cheeks drawn and pale inside the hood of the Alaskan survival outfit. He had forgotten that the energy those drugs had provided would not stop the wear and tear on her body, but would only give her the energy to go on despite the way she felt. She must be agonizingly weary, as exhausted as he was. He nodded, struggled a hundred yards back up the slope, found a copse of trees in which the snow was not so deep as in the more open land. He shucked off the baggage, took a large square of durable plastic out of the suitcase, unfolded it, tied it to some branches to make a partially effective lean-to in which they might huddle.
Inside, they sat close, sharing what bodily warmth managed to escape through their heavy clothing. Now that the harsh whip of the wind was off them, it seemed not nearly so cold as it had all night — even when they were walking and constantly on the move, building bodily warmth. They did not talk, simply because they were too weary to think of what to say, to form the words if they could think. And their mouths were a slight bit numb from the stinging cold. Words, however, proved unnecessary. They opened two cans of stew with warming tabs in their bases and enjoyed a hot meal. They drank water from one of the bottles, then filled up what they had drunk with snow. When they were finished, they leaned together again, head to head, and nestled under the blanket which had heat radiators woven into its threads, an item Davis was especially pleased to have thought of bringing.
He looked at Proteus, bobbling at the other end of the lean-to, and wondered what the mechanical protection
