“I don’t doubt there is desert hog in it,” remarked Sket.
“Doesn’t matter, I could eat a horse,” said Fenli.
Miko grunted. “I could care less if it was desert crickets.”
A squabble broke out near some tents and Iasan trundled over to deal with the problem.
For some time, quiet moments reigned and the fugitives enjoyed some privacy.
Between mouthfuls of food, Miko motioned to Usk and murmured to Sket, “The Skullroxers are prejudiced against locusts and kill them, as do your prison mates, yet these folk are only kind to him.”
“If all folk were as humble as the nomads, it would be a kinder universe.”
“Well, it ain’t. And I suggest we hightail it.”
“Patience, Fenli,” uttered Sket irritably. “We’ll be out of this camp soon enough. You’ll be squawking to be back here by that time. We don’t want to offend these people. They’re letting us pass through their terrain umolested.” A warning look flashed in his eyes. “See those spears piked by the chief elder’s hut? Those others who survived the mines will get those in their throats and bellies before the night’s over. The nomads only wish to honour their pact with their god, Beasilmus. Their hospitality is not to be sloughed off.”
As the distant yellow sun sank beyond the crumbling ridge, the desert dwellers approached and gave the fugitives each a wristlet. To Star came a lovely necklace of black beads placed round her neck, at which she beamed in appreciation; the gleaming stones looked as if they had been cut from the hills.
Fenli wore his wristband flippantly, shaking out his wrist and rattling the coloured beads, but he held his tongue, seeing that nothing was to be gained by ingratitude.
Sket swallowed the last of his stew and took the elder aside. “We must push on, Iasan, though I am reluctant to leave this oasis.” He dipped his head and handed his bowl to an attendant. “We must fulfil our mission, and I thank you for your kindness and generosity.”
The old woman who was his mate beamed and Iasan bowed, as was the nomadic way of hospitality given and recognized.
Sket pulled Miko aside. “If those impulsive fools who tripped the land mines get to the mesh before we do, they’ll alert the utility guard and we’ll have no chance of escape.”
“Follow the trail,” the old chief intoned. The flesh around his closed eye quivered. “Through the darkness of the desert you must tread and onto the next junction. “You’ll meet up with the combs again.”
Miko gathered that the elder referred to the catacombs.
“Nightwalker will show you to your destination. You’ll need water too...” Iasan snapped his fingers.
A young boy wrapped in loose robes ran off and returned carrying two small water bladders crafted of pig hide. Miko gratefully accepted the first and wrapped the attached thin leather strap over his neck and shoulder. Sket tipped his head in thanks and took the other bladder.
“Enough to get you to the mesh,” grunted the elder.
It was a precious resource, and Sket and Miko did not miss the generosity of these simple people.
Sket thanked the chief and they left the encampment, stumbling slantwise along the crumbling slope up the opposite way from where they had come. Slips and spills were many, resulting in scraped knees and twisted ankles and scratched palms. But finally they came abreast a low cliff face that caught the rising rosy moon. Usk’s hard, shell-cased hind legs clanked on loose stone and his eyes glowed in appreciation, craning his neck as they made their ascent.
The guide, a willowy man with a jackal-pelt cap, led them on, speaking no words and padding barefoot silently and swiftly like the breath of the wind. Miko’s breath rattled in his chest. The air was thin here, less oxygen-rich than in the city, and even less than in the rank prison confines, which had a primitive filtration system.
Nightwalker led them behind two shrivelled shrubs that faced the rock cliff. He pulled back a hidden door of twigs, branches and dry leaves stitched together cunningly to look as if part of the landscape. Miko looked grimly upon the darkened interior; it held the faint odour of must, rats and ancient dust. The combs were theirs for the taking.
Miko turned to look back but Nightwalker had vanished into the night, as if he had never been.
* * *
The locust navigator of Audra’s pirated vessel docked the L-Doraxu on the outcrop above the lakeshore. Below, a strip of the vast desert yawned; here Audra picked out scatterings of human life farther down in the valley, of rude settlements, low hovels and makeshift tents, curling smoke and sooty little fires amongst the small ant-like movement of dark-robed figures. Miko was not amongst them, but somewhere in the ridge itself that towered at her back. She sensed it.
She concealed the ship in a small enclosure on a ledge and ensured it was adequately powered down before unstrapping the locust from its command post, wrapping slimy tentacles around its limp form. She plunged it into one of the holding tanks. Then she sealed the stopper tightly. The creature’s sightless eyes glared and blinked as he twitched. What a miserable existence to live in the body of one of these lifeforms! She had learned the best way to subdue these enemies was to dunk them in the primitive vats, for they, the bloodsuckers of the universe, proved treacherous to the end. If she didn’t return to the ship, too bad, the three specimens would live long in their amniotic fluid...
Exiting the craft, Audra moved toward the cliff wall where glinted a large, locked steel door. While the metal gleamed sombrely in the noonday sun, trails of smoke rose overtop the great crumbling ridge from a set of huge funnels belching waste fumes into the sky. Beyond the cliff face and the
