Warm rain roused him to an aching body. So far, he had survived the landing. Raising a hand to explore his most immediate pain, his fingers came away sticky with what the lightning showed to be blood. Did he have a concussion? Dazed, he stared at his bloody fingers as the rain sluiced them clean.

Fitful flashes lit the barren landscape. The harsh white light washed out perspective, but Sam thought that the revealed formations looked too flat. A couple of twists of his head told him that he was only seeing out of his left eye. The other was swollen shut or gummed closed with blood. That was his hope, at least. He didn’t dare touch to see if the eye was still there.

Another sharp pain announced itself in his side, but that one he was willing to explore. He slit open his palm in the process of discovering that his torso had been gashed open by a ragged strut torn from Little Eagle’s airframe. He winced at his own touch and vomited. New agony erupted from the convulsion.

Then he was standing outside the wreck, looking at the devastation. He didn’t remember crawling free, but that was just as well. It would have been a tortuous process and he was feeling enough pain. He staggered back a step, his foot slipping in the thick, slick mud. He fell.

Pain exploded in him as he slid down toward a raging thunder that was more terrifying than the storm. He fetched up on an overhang that stopped him from plunging into the crashing torrent that rushed through what had minutes- hours? — before been a dry gulch. His reprieve was momentary, for already he felt the ground shifting beneath him; his precipitous landing had weakened the overhang.

Fear drove him from his perch and sent him scrambling upward. A detached part of his mind noted the blazing pain and the blood that flowed onto the slick mud. For every three meters he gained, Sam slipped back two, but he kept on climbing. He fainted for a bit, but the hungry water below spurred him forward as soon as he regained his fogged senses.

He had almost reached the wreck again when his foot found a solid rocky surface under the mud. He leaned into it, a safe place amid the morass. Then his hands slipped and his body twisted away from the ledge. His ravaged side screamed its pain and his foot wedged against something hard, sending a new agony searing through his leg. He slipped downward, surrendering to the pain, embracing the darkness.

34

“Change?”

The interrogative quavered with a faded hint of the brilliant trill the sasquatch’s voice must once have held. Sasquatches couldn’t speak like people, but they could imitate almost any Sound. Hart wondered how this one had come to associate the word with panhandling for money to buy more of the booze that stank on her breath. Most of her kind seemed unable to make the connection between the spoken word and communication. Why, Hart didn’t know. Another mystery of the Sixth World, she supposed. The large, furry bipeds could communicate with sign language, though, and this one’s fingers gestured in a fumbling way. Hart didn’t know the language, but it was obvious the sasquatch’s words were as blurred as any Humans would be when drowned in alcohol. How could any thinking being do that to itself?

“Change?” the sasquatch repeated exactly.

Just like a recording, Hart thought, or a dog barking to get a cookie. She shook her head and motioned the sasquatch away. As the furry panhandler hung her head, her hopeful, idiot smile died. She shuffled down the street to collapse outside the bar.

Hart shook her head. Disgusting.

She went back to scanning the sky for a sign of Tessien. The Dragon had finally checked in with the transmitter it wore and she had given it the final approach vector to cut off the running panzer. Tessien had been out of contact for too long. Had something happened to it?

Standing by the battered Chevrolet four-by-four she had rented in Grand Forks, Hart waited. There was no one in sight but that rummy old sasquatch. She didn’t like meeting out in the open, but no building in the town had enough space to house the Dragon. This street was at least in a nearly deserted part of town. That made it better than most for her purpose. Anyone who saw the pair would be more than happy to stay out of their way or else be on shadow business of his own.

If Tessien came.

The night cooled rapidly. Just after moonrise, Hart began to contemplate crawling into the vehicle to start its heater. When a cool breeze sprang up, she almost did so. Then she caught the musty odor of feathers among the high desert scents.

The serpent landed, surprisingly quiet. Its length coiled about the Chevy and it placed its head on the hood. The truck’s suspension groaned. From the reek of blood on its breath, she knew that the Dragon had fed on its way back. It exuded satisfaction.

“It is done.”

“He’s really dead this time?”

“The machine is destroyed. There was no life within it.”

“Where did you catch them? Were there witnesses?”

“Three hours to the northeast. It was good land, wild. There are none to talk.”

“That’s wiz. No one to tattle to Mr. Drake about our little clean-up operation. If he knew Verner was running around this long, he’d pay handsomely for our hides.”

“He could do a lot more with mine than yours.”

“He’d still want them both.” She pushed at the feathered tail that barred her from the Chevy’s door. “Come on, let’s let back to civilization.”

The furry lump didn’t stir until the Dragon and the Elf had passed from sight. Then she stood, occasionally repeating the call for “Change?” as she shuffled away in the opposite direction. After a dozen blocks, she turned down an alley and approached a car, It was an expensive model, totally out of place among the debris of the alley. Showing uncharacteristic awareness for a being enslaved to alcohol, she scanned the area quickly. Satisfied that no one was watching, she palmed open the car’s lock and slipped inside.

The door closed, hiding her from prying eyes and ears. She stretched with a growl, working out the kinks left from her role as a drunk. She reached into the back and opened the refrigerator compartment, from which she fished a foil-wrapped package of meat. She munched on the contents while reflecting on what she had heard.

Once the hunt had gone up from the Sioux Wildcats encounter, it had become a distinct possibility that the Dragon would achieve its lethal results. Still, her master would disappointed, and if one was to be the bearer of disappointing news, it was preferable to have proof positive. She was always very thorough and that was good, for thoroughness was a survival necessity for her kind.

How to locate the kill? The Dragon’s report gave her general vector and an estimate of distance. She would still need to cover a bit of ground. A helicopter or a tilt-wing craft would be the most suitable search vehicle, allowing her to land in tight confines if necessary. Such a craft must be fast, though, with a higher cruising speed than the Dragon’s. She wanted to get there first in case Hart decided to check the site. There was also the matter of Sioux patrols. Not to mention the weather. Forecasts called for scattered thunderstorms. If the Sioux arrived before her or if one of the storms hit the area of interest, she might lose valuable evidence from which to draw her own conclusions. She picked up the telecom headset to make the arrangements.