stomach. “That’s the hard part over. Move through the culvert and crawl across the road to the clump of scrub right opposite. Once through that, we’ll be clear of the perimeter surveillance cams and we can walk out. Two more klicks will bring us to the road back into Serhati City. Hopefully, we’ll find Willems and the mobibot there. Questions? No? Right, let’s move out.”
Two hours after Michael and Kallewi left the barracks, the mobibot accelerated smoothly away toward Serhati City, an orange bloom of light on the horizon. Their guide, Klera Willems, a dark-skinned Jascarian with a forgettable face-in Michael’s opinion the sort of face well suited to a spook-sat up front. She turned around to look at Michael and Kallewi.
“Right, pay attention,” she said. “It’s a straight run into town. This time of night, there’s no traffic, and this road takes us pretty much right to the embassy. When I give the word, capes on, lie back, and don’t move. The Serhati police have … well, let’s just say they’ve got every incentive to let us into the embassy.”
Content to let Willems do all the worrying, Michael watched the desert slide through the mobibot’s headlights, the sand broken up only by scrappy clumps of brush. It was not long before fatigue overwhelmed him and he dropped off to sleep.
He awoke to a steady stream of profanity from Willems.
“What’s up?” Michael asked.
“Bloody Serhatis!” Willems scowled. “The problem with corrupt places like this is the people you’ve just bribed immediately have something new to sell: who’s just bribed them and why. The bastards put themselves straight back on the market for sale to the highest bidder. The embassy’s been in touch. Someone’s talked, so the Serhatis know we’re coming. They are searching every mobibot going into the embassy compound, and thoroughly. Sadly, our covert people mover was written off two months ago, and I’m still waiting for a replacement, so unless we fight our way in, the embassy’s not an option.”
Michael’s spirits crashed. “So what happens now?”
Willems flicked him a grin. “There’s always a plan B, young man. You should know that.”
Michael grinned back, reassured by the unassuming woman’s quiet confidence. “You’re Department 24, aren’t you? You must know Amos Bichel.”
“You should know better than to ask a girl a question like that,” Willems shot back, “but since you ask, yes, I know Amos Bichel.”
“Well, he smuggled me off Commitment under the noses of the Hammers, so I reckon getting us off this dump should be a breeze.”
“I wish! Getting you off-planet comes later. Let me work out how we keep you two out of the Serhatis’ hands first.”
Michael glanced across at Kallewi. The man sat impassively; he had barely said a word so far. Happy to go with the flow, he stayed quiet, apparently unconcerned by the latest turn of events. Michael wished he shared the marine’s relaxed view of things. It would be a big improvement on the near panic that threatened to overwhelm him every time circumstances reminded him that at best the Serhatis and their Hammer friends were only a few steps behind him, with a DocSec firing squad only a few paces behind them.
“Okay, folks. New plan. We’ll stop short of the city to pick up supplies before we head out on Highway 2 to a place called Algal Springs”-Michael’s eyebrows shot up; that did not sound promising-“which is one of the few places on this entire planet with potable surface water. A few days there and we’ll move again. Where to, we’ll work out later. Right?”
Michael nodded; he checked Algal Springs in his escape knowledge base, trying not to wince when an archetypal one-horse town popped into his neuronics: a single street flanked by sad, decaying buildings and a spring supplying water reputed to be packed with “health-giving” properties. But Michael saw immediately why Willems had picked it. Algal Springs backed onto a chaotic jumble of heat-shattered rocks, outliers of the foothills that climbed up to form the Red Mountains. An army could hide around Algal Springs, and nobody would know. Better, there were freshwater springs, none big enough to support a settlement even a fraction of the size of Algal Springs but big enough to keep a small group well watered.
Satisfied, Michael closed the file and looked down the road. Serhati City was close enough to see the buildings that dominated the center of town, their lights diamond sharp in the still, cool air of early morning, the stars crystalline points of white overhead. It was a beautiful sight, the stars against-
“Oh, shit. Klera!” Michael said, his voice a half shout.
“What? What is it?”
“The Hammer cruiser. What orbit is it in?”
“Hang on,” Willems said. “Yes, the
“Hard to say,” Michael said. “Conditions are close to perfect, though: no wind, dry air, and a cooling atmosphere. Hold on, let me see what my TECHINT knowledge base says about her optronics … Okay, there’s no chance they saw Janos and me leave the base. Too small a target, and our chromaflage capes are way too good. But the pickup vehicle, yes. Mobibots have big infrared signatures, so it would have seen that, no problem, and I’m sure they will have been watching the compound pretty closely. Why else would they sit in Clarke orbit right over the top of us? Whether the Hammers made anything of a lone mobibot, I don’t know, but we need to assume they might, especially when they find out we’ve escaped.”
Willems nodded. “Goddamn it to hell. Michael, Janos, I’m real sorry. Just to be safe, we need to get out of this mobibot, and … Hold on, there’s an incoming com … okay. Goddamn it. We’re in the shit big-time. The Serhatis have just done a bed check. They know you’re missing, so I’m pretty sure the Hammers will, too. If they haven’t pinged the bot, they will when they backtrack through their holovid records. Let’s have a look … Yes, couple of klicks up the road there’s a cluster of houses and before them a park. Lots and lots of trees. Grab your stuff. When I give the word, I’ll slow the bot, and out we go. Hopefully, they won’t see us, and I’ll program the bot to wander all over town as a decoy once it’s dropped us off. Should buy us some time while we transfer to a backup mobibot. Sound okay?”
The fugitives nodded.
Michael tried to steady himself while the mobibot drove toward the park, the trees appearing as black cutouts against a night sky splashed with orange light from city street-lamps. When will it ever end? he asked himself in despair, even though he knew the answer: only when Chief Councillor Polk and the Hammer government came crashing to the ground.
Under cover of a line of scrawny trees, the mobibot slowed, but not by much. Michael knew this was going to hurt.
“Stand by. In three, go, go, go!”
With Kallewi and Willems close behind, Michael hurled himself out of the vehicle. He hit the sidewalk hard, his attempt to roll his way to a stop degenerating into a slithering, tumbling slide, the pain agonizing as the ceramcrete surface flayed clothes and skin off his right thigh and arm. “Jeez,” he mumbled through agony-clenched teeth as he skidded to a halt; shakily, he climbed to his feet, relieved not to have suffered anything more serious than the loss of a few square meters of skin, or so it felt.
Willems did not hang around. “Capes on, let’s go.”
Ignoring the blood congealing stickily on his arm and leg, Michael set off after Willems, jaw locked against the pain as he commed drugbots into his bloodstream. He had a sinking feeling that they all faced a long day.
Two hours later, the group found itself on the outskirts of Serhati City as dawn was flushing the night sky away, life beginning to return to the streets. Willems called a halt, waving to the group. “Okay. Pickup’s in ten, then it’s thirty klicks to Algal Springs.”
“Can’t wait. I’ve had enough of this,” Michael muttered.
“And me,” Kallewi added with feeling.
Willems’s head bobbed apologetically. “Sorry, guys. My fault. Never occur-”
“Don’t sweat it,” Kallewi said. “Stuff happens, but we’re okay. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Thanks,” Willems said. “Now, where’s our lift?”
They were getting close now. Ahead, the mountains rose slowly out of the haze, a fragmented, fissured nightmare of broken rock cliffs splashed red-gold by the early-morning sun. Soon the dun-colored buildings of Algal Springs took shape, the little settlement sitting in a bay of sand beset by slab-sided rock walls and boulder falls.
