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Baker turned his head, trying to get a binaural fix. He found the task impossible. He opened his eyes and tried to see.
She screamed again. Baker heard a thick, heavy voice shout, “I find you, remember that! Then you find out. Can’t hide the rest of your life here!”
From his aerial vantage, he saw a white figure stumble across a half-plowed field and dive under a bush. It looked for all the world like a scabrous Delia Trine, naked and filthy. He craned his neck to watch the bush pass under him, but the field suddenly entered a patch of darkness and he lost his bearings.
Time to get a closer look.
He braked until he hung motionless along the axis. The sphere rotated about him in a majestic, dizzying pirouette. Changing his position, he fired the jet pack for one second. The engine kicked him off axis, allowing the rotating winds of Bernal Bre
“Hey, you!” the deep voice growled. Baker looked behind and below him to see a hairy, naked man climb out of a ravine shaking his fists. He slowly turned and powered upward and back, gaining altitude until he hovered a few hundred meters above the man. He could not remain weightless and be motionless relative to the sphere’s i
“Dante!” he bellowed down on his outside speakers. “Jord Baker here. How did you survive the Valliardi Transfer?” A cloak of blackness fell across the area. A square of light passed through it, returning daytime.
“Made me die and die!” the filth-encrusted man shouted. “Punishment from God for not killing Wanderer. He gets dirty death for straying. I found his prize. Stole her from him!”
“I’m taking her back!” Baker answered, firing a blast at the naked man. He yelped and fell down, grasping the bloody hole in his left calf.
Baker tried to become oriented enough to find where Delia’s clone had hidden. The jigsaw starlight flashed back and forth across him, pounding in his head like glowing fists. Then he heard a buzz and a whine that dropped in pitch.
Out of fuel. I really need this crap.
He began falling, slowly, tangentially to the point at which he had been hovering. Since the atmosphere was rotating with the faster rate of the sphere’s i
He brushed a treetop, shattering the dead branches. It slowed him enough-rather, imparted more of the sphere’s motion to him-that when he hit the dusty square of a dead lawn, he rolled and bounced without much damage. He retrieved his rifle, discarded the depleted flying harness, and sought his bearings. A kilometer spinward and north of the equator, a slender figure jumped from a bush and into a house. He ran toward it, trying to maintain his footing despite the constantly shifting shadows.
He passed a pathway intersection to see Bre
“I get you, Hunter!” Bre
Baker smiled and said, “I’ll give you a clean one.”
Out of breath, his bones aching, the pressure suit at full dilation to evaporate sweat, Baker approached the house. A dry, shriveled body hung from the tree in front of it, a faded note pi
“It’s all right. Come on out,” he said. “You don’t have to hide. I’m here to help you.” I wonder how much of that she understood. She’s only a clone. How long could he have had her, anyway? Half a year, if he arrived when he said he would. Maybe much longer, if he wanted to case the system first.
Footsteps stamped down the back stairs. He raced into the sudden night to see her disappear down a path. He looked over the small hillock and caught sight of her when a square beam of light arced across the farm.
“Hold it! Stop. I’m not like him!”
She tried climbing a terrace. He bounded after her and seized her by the waist, pulling her down on top of him.
Up close, she looked truly filthy. Dust and scars covered her naked body. Her hair hung in matted clumps. Her breasts were black and blue, as were her wrists and thighs. She tried scratching at him with nails split and broken to the quick.
“Leggo,” she screamed, her voice a high-pitched imitation of the hairy man’s speech. “Gotta runaway.”
“You’re safe and you’re coming back with me. I’ve got someone waiting for you.”
“Not I!” she screamed, looking about her. “I tried hurt You.”
“No you didn’t.”
She pounded against his chest. “Not You,” she said, pointing to her groin. She pointed away from them. “I! I!”
Bre
“Yeah! I. Who?” She nodded at him.
“Jord.”
She tugged at his arm. “Fast, Jord and You. We hide. Hide!”
Baker felt his consciousness slipping away at the sound of the word. He jerked his head back, screaming. “No!”
Her damned voice was all I needed to free myself was a single word and now I’m no longer watching but-
“Delia!” “Who?” Virgil spun around, witnessed the insane display of light and darkness cascading about, and trembled. Carnival! And Death Angel has been through all the rides.
A howl caught his attention. He saw Bre
“No,” the woman said, tugging at his arm. “You take Jord and hide.”
“I’m Virgil,” he said, pointing toward his heart.
“No. I tried”-she made an explicit gesture-“to You.”
“No, you didn’t-” wait, wait. Something that just happened when the dead man was… Right. She’s all screwed up, confused by Master Snoop’s light show.
“Mad Wizard”-he pointed at the man-“I won’t get You. Virgil will protect You now.” He pointed at his chest. “Virgil.”
“Virgil, Jord. We go.” She ran off, her thick, matted hair slapping against her back. She led him toward the equator.
Poor dirty Death Angel. Take you out of Mad Wizard’s house and back to Circus. “This way,” he said, leading her up the curving meridian pathway. “It’s easier.”
“No,” she pleaded. “I live there. I take You there!”
“I is Mad Wizard. Call I Mad Wizard.”
She looked at him, frowned, and said, “I is Mad Wizard. Mad Wizard live there?”
“Yes. But Mad Wizard is hurt-” he pointed back to the path. Bre
“Mad Wizard gone?” She pointed toward the small cart bumping across the cluttered pathway toward another meridian.
“Don’t worry. He’ll have to get out and climb after a bit anyway. And even in low gravity, he’s got two bad legs.” The dead man inside me is good with a rifle. “I can get-Virgil can get You away from Mad Wizard.”
Her eyes brightened and she nodded. “Take You away!”
They ran up the pathway, passing dead men, women, and children. Children die the worst. They have the imagination, but not the means or skill. Most must have just starved to death or been killed. Maybe by Mad Wizard.