Neutron Solstice

"No."

"I can drive it," said Fi

After a moment Ryan nodded his agreement. There was a simple rule you learned in the Deathlands. If you held it, then it was yours. If someone else held it, then it belonged to them.

The swamp buggy was about to belong to Ryan and his comrades.

The Trader had established routines for most occasions. Even for stealing someone else's transport.

"One gets in, slow and easy. Watch for traps. Small landwag, one man can watch. Big one takes two or three. Don't start it until the last possible moment. Say again. Don't start it until the last moment. Once you make a noise, then they're on you, and you got borrowed time. Once it's ru

Fi

Once he felt he could master the controls, Fi

"Which way?" asked Fi

"Cross the river. That's where the old road went. Must lead to a ville of some kind."

"Ready?"

"Ready, Fi

The starter was a three-inch nail, bent and smoothed from use. Fi

There was a spluttering muffled cough, like a sleeping bear waking in a deep cavern. Fi

"Again!"

"Bastard won't..."

"Come on, Fi

On the third go the engine very nearly caught, turning over a dozen times, then dying away. Krysty half stood in her seat, pointing to her right; to the west.

"I hear someone, Ryan. Men ru

At the fourth attempt the engine of the swampwag fired, filling the small clearing with a deep throaty roar. Smoke rushed from the exhaust in a choking pall. Standing on the ladder, rifle at the ready, Ryan gestured for the others to climb aboard.

"Go. Fast as you can, Fi

"Only blasters they got look like they come from a hundred years 'fore the nukes," said J.B.

The massive wheels began to rotate, throwing a spray of mud and brackish water in the air.

"All the tires give power," shouted Fi

Ryan watched behind them, where Krysty had warned of men coming fast. But there was no sign of them. He suddenly realized that the bottom of the ladder was going to be immersed as the buggy slid fully into the river and he hastily climbed aboard. Clambering up, his eye caught a movement near the bottom of the short ladder: the scaly spade-shaped head of a huge water moccasin emerged above the water, and the two deep-set eyes gazed blankly into his.

The utter depth of feeling made the short hairs bristle at the nape of his neck.

"Left, you gaudy bastard bitch!" cursed Fi

"Open her up!" yelled the Armorer, one hand hanging on to his beloved fedora hat.

"She's open wider than a low-jack whore's legs already," replied Fi

They were about halfway into the serene brown water when men appeared on the bank.

"Five of... no, six. Seven," amended He

"Hold fire," warned Ryan. "We already stole their buggy. Let 'em deal the first hand. See what they're holding."

Krysty shaded her eyes with her hand, peering toward the men silhouetted against the elusive sun as it broke through the clouds.

"Nothing much. Nothing automatic. The one on the left with the scarf around his head has a... some kind of long blaster. He's thumbing back on a sort of hammer."

He

The buggy was very close to the belt of sycamores that lined the far side of the river. Another ten seconds or so, and they'd be under their cover.

"Hold it. There might be hundreds of the double-poor bastards round here on both sides o' the water."

"I'll just warn them some," said the black, bracing himself and squeezing the trigger.

The blaster was set on continuous, and a stream of bullets flowed out, with a sound like tearing silk; it kicked up a line of spray a few paces from the watching men.

Fi

"One of them's got a blaster aimed!" shouted Krysty warningly.

He

Ryan watched the men pick themselves up after He

There was something menacing about the man's deadly calm. There was the look about him of someone who knew precisely what he was doing, not frightened by the shattering effects of the fire from the buggy. Ryan could almost feel himself inside the man's skull.

He considered the windage, the elevation, the drift, the distance.

Then he squeezed and squeezed again.

Ryan turned toward He

"Get down, He

The tall black glanced sideways at him, the smile of triumph still on his lips. From the corner of his eye Ryan spotted the puff of gray powder smoke as it billowed from the muzzle of the long gun.

A moment later he caught the crack of the explosion. Almost simultaneously he heard the unforgettable flat wet slap of lead striking flesh. He

"No," said Fi

"Keep on it," yelled J.B., nearest to He

Ryan sprayed the men on the bank with his blaster, getting a vicious satisfaction from seeing three or four of them go down, kicking and jerking. But the man with the musket had reached the safety of the fringe of low scrub.

The buggy jolted and tipped as it reached the far side of the river and moved up the sloping bank. The six wheels worked independently, grinding over the tangled roots of the bayous. Mud and water splashed up off the huge tires.

Low branches scraped across the top of the swampwag, leaves crowding in on the crouching men and women. The moment they were totally under cover, Fi

"How is?.."

Both Fi

The leaden ball had struck the black man just above the right eye, leaving a neat dark hole from which a little blood seeped, bright scarlet against the skin. The exit hole was huge: a chunk of skull the size of a man's fist had been punched out in jagged fragments, blood and brains slopping all over the bottom of the buggy.