Runaway World

The Chase Begins

     "Looks like he's heading into the mountains," said James, leaning forward across his father's chair to see the monitor screens. "I mean, right over them. Right over the highest parts."

     "Can he do that?" asked Jasmine, sounding alarmed. "Right over the top of a mountain?"

     "These aren't mountains like in the movies," Andrew assured her. "Not like the Himalayas. By global standards they're not much more than a high range of hills. They have flat, smooth tops. Reg told me once that, before The Freeze, people used to climb them. Just walk up them. They were lumpy and uneven in places, but there's a deep layer of water ice all over them now, smoothing them out. We should have no trouble driving over them."

     "Will it be daytime by the time we get up there?" asked David hopefully. 'There should be a great view!"

     "There'll be no time for sightseeing I'm afraid," said Andrew. "Everyone out now. I've got to talk to Phil, tell him we've picked up the trail of his fugitive. Where are we, James?"

     "Place called Keswick," his son replied, staring at the old map. "So far as I can tell. He'll be able to get an exact satellite fix on our transponder."

     Andrew nodded and told the rover to open a line to the dig site.

☆☆☆

     "Looks like he's following the ridge," said James an hour or so later, looking out through the cockpit window from the co-pilot's seat. "About half way up. He's probably hoping that there'll be patches of bare rock that won't preserve signs of his passage."

     Reginald Fox's rover had only climbed half way up the mountain after all. It had then turned to run parallel to the valley below, on a sheet of ice that was inclined at an angle to the horizontal. Andrew had turned their own rover to follow it.

     "But that's dangerous!" said Susan from the doorway behind him, clutching hold of the door rim to keep herself steady as the rover tilted heavily to the right. "His cleats won't be able to get a grip on bare rock. His rover could slip and fall. If we follow him, we could slip and fall."

     The whole family was gathered once more, drawn by the romance and allure of the chase. The posse hot on the trail of the dangerous, fugitive outlaw as if they were re-enacting one of the old westerns from the city's huge media archive. It was now the small hours of the morning but none of them thought of getting any sleep. Who knows what exciting developments they might miss?

     "If he made it, we can make it," said Andrew.

     "You promised you wouldn't put the children at risk."

     "Reg clearly doesn't think there's a risk," Andrew replied. "If he crashes, it's over for him, and for the Remainers. We recover the dysprosium from the wreckage and The Return takes place on schedule. He's gone too far to risk that. Ended his career, earned himself a long spell in prison. If he fails to keep the dysprosium out of our hands it was all for nothing. I'm guessing that means he's confident he won't come to grief on this ridge."

     "And you're willing to gamble all our lives on that?"

     "Hab-rovers have very low centres of gravity. Everything heavy's under the floor. They're rated as stable on sideways tilts up to twenty eight degrees and inclinations up to forty degrees. This slope is..." He checked an instrument on the dashboard. "Nineteen degrees."

     "Here it is, maybe," Susan replied, her eyes bright with anger and worry as they fixed on her husband. "What about further along? And I assume those measurements are for ice, on which cleats can get a good grip. What are the numbers on bare rock?"