Stinger

In the seven minutes since Daufin had left Cody Lockett, she'd seen no other humans on the streets of Inferno. She had gone back to the house of Tom, Jessie, and Ray, and though the doorway was unlocked, the abode was empty of life. She tried the doors of two other abodes, found the door to the first sealed and the second house also empty. The murk was getting thicker, and Daufin found that human eyes had a radically limited field of vision. The brown haze made her host eyes sting and water, and she could see less than forty feet in all directions as she continued along Celeste Street in search of help.



Two lights were coming through the smoke. Daufin stopped, waiting for them to get closer. She could hear an engine: the crude, combustion-powered conveyance called a car. But the car slowed and turned to the right before it reached her, and she saw the red smears of its taillights drawing rapidly away. She ran after it, crossing the sandy plot of earth where she'd hidden under the protective shell and met the Sarge Dennison creature. another set of headlights passed on Celeste Street, going east, but the vehicle was moving too fast for Daufin to catch and by that time she'd reached Cobre Road. She kept running in the direction of the first car she'd seen and in another moment she saw the red points of the taillights again, just up the street. The car wasn't moving, but the engine still rumbled. She approached it, saw that the vehicle's doors were open but no one was in sight. a little rectangle fixed to the back of the car had letters on it: CaDe-I. It was parked in front of a structure with shattered light apertures - "windows," she knew they were termed - and the doorway hung open as well. a square with writing above the doorway identified the structure as INFeRNO HaRDWaRe.



"Place has been ripped off," Rick said to Zarra as they stood at the rear of the store. He'd found a flashlight and batteries, and he shone its beam into the broken glass counter where the pistols had been locked up. Out of an assortment of eight guns on display, not one remained. "Somebody cleaned Mr. Luttrell out." He pointed the light at the racks where six rifles had been; they were gone, hacked right out of their locks by an ax or machete. Boxes of ammunition had been stolen from the storage shelves, and only a few cartridges gleamed in the light.



"So much for findin' a piece, man," Zarra said. "Let's get our butts across the bridge." "Hold on. Mr. Luttrell keeps a pistol in his office." Rick started back, through a swinging door into the storeroom, and Zarra followed the light. The office was locked, but Rick bashed open the door with two kicks and went to the manager's paper-cluttered desk. The drawers were locked too. He went out to the storeroom, found a box of screwdrivers, and returned to the job at hand. He and Zarra levered the drawers open with screwdrivers, and in the bottom drawer, under a pile of dog-eared Playboy magazines, was a loaded .38 pistol and an extra box of bullets. at the clinic Rick and Zarra had listened to Colonel Rhodes's story about the two spaceships and the creatures called Daufin and Stinger. Rick could still feel the slick scales of that thing's tail around his throat, and damned if he was going to go back to Bordertown without a gun. The Fang of Jesus paled before Smith & Wesson firepower.



"Let's go, man!" Zarra urged nervously. "You got what you came for!" "Right." Rick left the office with Zarra right behind him. They went through the storeroom door again, and suddenly from the front of the store there was a crash and clatter that almost made their hearts seize up. Zarra gave a little moan of terror, and Rick snapped the .38's safety off and cocked it. He probed around with the light, following the beam with the gun barrel.



He couldn't see anyone. Somebody in here after guns, just like us, he thought. He hoped. "Who's therei" he said.



Something moved to his left. He swung the light in that direction, toward shelves where coils of rope and wire were kept. "I've got a gun!" he warned. "I'll shoot your damned - " He stopped speaking when the light found her.



She was standing there holding a coil of rope between both hands. a bundle of copper wire had fallen off the shelf, upsetting a display of jars of nails. She was wearing just what Colonel Rhodes had said: a dusty Jetsons T-shirt and blue jeans, and her face was that of Mr. Hammond's child. except behind that face, according to Rhodes, was an alien called Daufin and this was the little girl the thing in Cade's autoyard was looking for. "Don't move." His throat clogged up. His heart was beating so hard he could hear the blood roaring in his ears. "I've got a gun," he repeated, and his gunhand trembled.



"Cody Lockett needs help," Daufin said calmly, squinting into the harsh light. Her memory banks found the term gun and identified it as a primitive percussion-cap weapon. She could tell from the human's voice that he was terrified, so she stood very still.



"It's her," Zarra whispered. His legs were about to fold up. "Oh Christ, it's her!" "What are you doing in herei" Rick asked, and kept his finger on the trigger.



"I saw your vehicle. I followed you," Daufin explained. "Cody Lockett is in need of help. Will you come with mei" It took a few seconds for him to register what she'd said. "What's happened to himi" "He fell. To below." "Below wherei" She remembered the name Cody Lockett had called into the house, and pronounced it with difficulty: "Mrs. Stell-en-berg's abode. I'll guide you there." "No way!" Zarra said. "We're goin' back to Bordertown! Right, Ricki" The other boy didn't answer. He wasn't exactly sure where Lockett was, but the creature seemed to be saying that he'd fallen under a house. "Do you know how far down he isi" "Thirteen-point-six earth feet. an approximate calculation, plus or minus three inches." "Oh." "By visuals I calculate this tether to be fifteen earth feet in length." She struggled to lift up the heavy coil of rope she'd dragged off a shelf. The muscles of the daughter's arms strained with the weight. "Will you help mei" "Forget Lockett, man!" Zarra objected. "Let's get back to our own people!" Daufin didn't understand the tone of refusal. "Is Cody Lockett not one of your owni" "No," Rick said. "He's a 'Gade, and we're Rattler - " He stopped, realizing how dumb that must sound to somebody from another planet. "He's different," "Cody Lockett is a human being. You are human beings. What is the differencei" "Our kind lives across the river," Zarra said. "That's where we're goin'." He walked on along the aisle toward the door, paused in the doorway when he saw Rick wasn't following. "Come on, man!" Rick kept the flashlight on the little girl's face. She stared fixedly at him, waiting for his response. Cody Lockett was nothing to him, but still... it seemed like they were all in this together, and the violet skygrid had caged both Renegades and Rattlers alike.



"Please," Daufin implored.



He sighed and lowered the .38. "You go on back to the church," he told Zarra. "Tell Paloma I'm okay." "You're off your bird! Lockett wouldn't do shit for you!" "Maybe he wouldn't, but I'm not Lockett. Go ahead, take the car. I'll come when I can." Zarra started to protest again, but he knew that once Rick's mind was made up, he couldn't be swayed. "Damn stupid!" he muttered, then, in a louder voice: "You watch your ass. Got iti" "Got it," Rick answered, and Zarra went out to Cade's Mercedes, got in, and wheeled it toward the bridge.



"Okay," Rick said to Daufin when the Mercedes was gone and it was too late for second thoughts. "Take me to him."