"That's right," said the driver in a lower voice, as they came up to him. He glared at them, his face above the floor of the cab on a level with theirs as they stood outside it. "Leave me here, all shot up. Leave me here to die."
"You can drive," said Falt, flatly. "It'll hurt some, but I've seen Command members drive half a day in worse shape than you are."
"And what'll happen when I get home - if I get home?" the driver demanded. "Because if they've got one roadblock up here, they've got a dozen; and now they'll be looking for this truck after we went around them the way you did! Even if I could get past the roadblocks, even if I could get home, could I go to my family, knowing the Militia'll be searching everywhere and what'd happen to my people if I was found at the farm? Do you think I'm the kind to go back and let them in for that?"
"You can't come with us," said Falt. "What else is there for you?"
The driver stared at him for a moment, breathing raggedly.
"There's a place in the mountains I could go," he said, more quietly. "But I can't make it alone."
"I tell you, you can drive, if you want to," said Falt.
"I can drive!" shouted the driver at him. "I can drive on a road. I can drive a little ways like this is, from a road. But I can't take this truck ten kilometers back into the woods when I might get jammed between trees or hung up on a rock, or turned over at any minute - and what'd happen to me then? Could I crawl the rest of the way to the cabin?"
"Some might," said Falt, dryly. But he looked at Hal with a small frown line between his eyes.
"I'll take him to his cabin," said Hal.
"We can't spare you," said Falt.
"No reason why not," Hal said. "There's no pursuit at the moment. You've got more than enough beasts and the rest of the team's in good shape. I can drive him to his place, and still make it to rendezvous not more than a couple of hours behind the rest of you."
Falt hesitated. Hal turned to the driver.
"This cabin of yours," he said. "What's it doing away off like that, by itself?"
"It's a fishing cabin." The driver lowered his eyes. "All right, there's some fishing up here, but not much. It's mainly a place a few of us go just to get away."
"How few of you? How many know about this place?"
The driver's eyes came up again, defiantly.
"Me, my two next brothers and my cousin Joab," he said. "We all live at home together. The Militia couldn't make any of them say anything, anyway. Besides, when I don't come back, they'll think to look for me up there, in a day or two."
"How far from here is it?" he asked. "How long to get there in your truck?"
"Half an hour." The voice of the driver was now eager. "Just half an hour, and no danger of running into Militia, I swear it."
"So you'd swear, would you?" said Falt, looking at him, disgust in the older Command member's voice.
The driver colored and looked down at the floor of the cab.
"I only meant…"
Hal looked back at Falt.
"There's no reason I can't take him and meet you all at rendezvous."
Falt sighed hissingly, between closed teeth.
"Take him then." He turned his back on the driver. "Don't take any risks for him. He's not worth it."
He walked away.
"Move back," said Hal to the driver. "Let me in."
Grunting with pain at each movement of his leg, the other pulled back away from the cab doorway. Hal hoisted himself up inside and took the seat behind the controls. He closed the cab doors, switched the motors from warm to idle, and lifted the truck on its travelling cushion of air from the blowers. Turning the vehicle, he waved through the windshield at the rest of the team who were now watching him, and drove off, toward the road. Behind him there was a good deal of scrabbling and grunting, and the driver at last hauled himself up into the empty seat alongside Hal.
"Which way?" asked Hal, as they came to the road.
"Left."
They turned on to the road, headed deeper into the foothills, toward the mountains. Hal followed the monosyllabic directions through several turns and changes of roads; and very shortly they were climbing steeply up a track that was hardly more than a donkey-trail. He had expected them to turn off even from this, but instead the track itself came to an end.
"Where now?" Hal asked, seeing the end of the trail approaching.
"Straight ahead for now. Then I'll tell you."
Hal glanced over at the other man as he followed this latest direction. The driver's face as he stared ahead out the windshield was tight-skinned, his jaws clamped, his eyes hooded and sullen.
"Left now," he said. They went a short distance. "Now, right again, between those two large trees and to the left of that boulder. Slow down. The spring thaw makes rocks roll down, and we can run right on top of one of those and get hung up or flipped over before we know it."
Hal drove. The directions continued. After a short while they came through an opening in some bushes and into a small depression through which a stream ran - a stream too small for fish of reasonable size, but sufficient to provide drinking and washing water for the rather clumsy log cabin with a single drunken eye of a window in its front wall that had been thrown up beside it.
"Here," said the driver.
Hal stopped the truck. He got out and went around to open the other door of the cab and help the driver out. For a Harmonyite who would not curse, he did a good job of expressing his dissatisfaction with the help he was being given.
"… Careful! Can't you be more careful?" he snapped.
"Want to try it on your own?" Hal said. "I can leave you just where you are, here, outside the cabin."
The driver became silent. Hal half-carried, half-supported the man in a hopping progress toward the door of the cabin, through it and into the interior - an untidy area of portable camp beds, a woodbox stove, and a large, round table with four chairs, that looked out of place in these surroundings.
"What's the table for - card games?" asked Hal.
The driver flashed a sudden glance that showed a good deal of the whites of the other's eyes; and suddenly Hal realized that by accident he had named the real reason for the existence of the cabin. He aided the driver to one of the camp beds and the driver collapsed on it.
"Is there something clean around here I can fill with water to leave with you?" Hal said. "And what have you got, a privy somewhere out back? How far is it? By tomorrow you're literally going to have to crawl to get anywhere. You don't have some kind of bucket I can get to put by your bed?"
"There's a water bucket to the left of the stove," said the driver sullenly. "And there's a compression toilet under the canvas groundcloth in the corner. Get my accordion."
"All right. I'll move the toilet over by your cot," said Hal. He did so, went out to fill the bucket and brought it back full with a dipper floating in it, to put it by the bedside. "Now, what about food? Have you got any food here?"
"There's another box on the far side of the stove," said the driver, sullenly. "You can bring that over. It's got boxed stuff that keeps in it. You can get some more blankets, too, from the other beds. It gets cold up here, nights."
"All right," said Hal. He did so. "Have you got any medical supplies up here?"
"Emergency kit's around here someplace," said the driver. "You'll have to look for it."
It took eight to ten minutes of searching before Hal came up with the kit. He took it back to the driver, cleaned and spot-bandaged the needle-holes in the man.
"You said the needle's still in my leg," said the other, suddenly fearful as Hal was doing this. "What'll it do? What's going to happen to me?"