Runaway World

Montes Alpes

     Andrew nodded as the Sergeant left the cockpit, heading back for the makeshift command centre in the childrens' bedroom.

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     A few hours later Andrew went to get some sleep, leaving Cheval in charge in the cockpit. He returned after a sleep that lasted longer than he'd intended to find that the Sergeant had been replaced by Windsor. "Sorry," he apologised as he took his place in the co-pilot's chair. "Overslept. I must have been tireder that I realised."

     "No worries," the Constable replied. He reached down to rub his bandaged foot. It was sprained rather than broken, he'd been relieved ro find, but that only meant it wouldn't take as long to heal. In the meantime, he was as handicapped as if it were broken.

     "Everything is very boring here," he continued. "Fox is still going south and we are still chasing after him. You get as much sleep as you need."

     "Have we reached Civezzano yet?" Andrew stared at the cockpit displays to see for himself. They were just approaching it now, he saw. Soon, they would see if Cheval's guess had been correct.

     He took the rover as high up the side of the valley as he dared so that when they came to the side pass they could search the entire width of its entrance for the tracks left by Fox's rover. Cheval returned to help him look, and both policemen gave a cry of delight and triumph when they saw them. The original tracks left by Fox's rover continued to lead straight ahead, but crossing them from right to left was a second set of tracks leading into Civezzano. They all knew for a fact that no other rover had been this way since The Emergence began. The second set of tracks could only have been left by Fox, forced to turn back by the ice fall ahead and take an alternate route.

     "We must have gained six hours on him!" declared Cheval triumphantly, leaning forward in the co-pilot's chair as if it would somehow make the rover go faster. "And still nearly a thousand kilometres to go before we reach Etna. We've got him! By God we've got him!"

     A mood of celebration reigned in the rover for the rest of the day, therefore, as they imagined themselves gaining on the other rover kilometre by kilometres as the other man was forced to carefully navigate unfamiliar terrain. Andrew's rover, in contrast, could drive at full speed across ground that had already been proven to be safe by their quarry. Cheval was confident that Fox had no more explosives. There was a limit to how much he could have hidden at the dig site and he'd had no opportunity to obtain more supplies and equipment from the city. They wouldn't have to worry about a repeat of what had happened at Augsburg.

     As evening was approaching and Andrew and Windsor were starting to think about what they were going to have for their evening meal, though, they were surprised to feel the rover come to a halt. The gentle rocking and bouncing of the rover as it travelled across the uneven terrain had become so familiar to them that they barely noticed it any more, and when it suddenly stopped it took them a few moments to identify what it was about their environment that had changed. When the truth hit then they both jumped to their feet at the same time, anxious and worried, but before they could investigate Cheval came back from the cockpit with a look of excitement on his face.

     "The infra-red camera's picked up a heat source from up ahead," he said. "Consistent with what you would expect from a hab-rover."

     "A stationary source?" said Windsor.

     "Yes. Higher up the valley wall than you'd expect a rover to be, but Fox might have been forced to climb higher to go around an obstruction of some kind."

     "And then he broke down?" said Andrew. "You think it's him? Stopped for some reason?"

     "Laying another trap for us, perhaps," said Cheval. "That's why I thought it prudent to stop here for a bit while we investigate further. Make sure it's safe before we take our transport into danger."