Frey shook his head. ‘That is quite a tale,’ he said. ‘I could dine out on that one for a while.’
‘Heh,’ said Ugrik. He took a swig from the canteen.
They drove on into the late afternoon. Ugrik drowsed in the heat. Frey steered the Rattletrap across the dunes, always heading east by the compass.
He found himself unexpectedly light of heart. He’d cast himself out into the wilderness, alone but for his guide, and there was liberation in that. He wasn’t intimidated by the endless emptiness of the desert or the punishing sun. He welcomed the threat of it all.
For the first time in years, he only had himself to worry about. His crew were behind him. Their fates were beyond his ability to influence. Trinica was gone, a remnant of an old life. He put her out of his mind as best he could. He’d grieve tomorrow, if he ever got there.
All he needed to think about was tonight.
His life had been compressed to a handful of hours, and the proximity of death unburdened him. If he survived, if he somehow evaded the doom that awaited, the years would stretch out before him again, unfolding like a concertina into the future. Then he would have to return to the Ketty Jay and deal with his broken aircraft, his marooned crew. But for now, just for this one day, he was free. It was only now he realised how heavily his responsibilities had laid on him.
‘It’s gonna be alright, Darian,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Gonna be alright.’
The Rattletrap’s engine sputtered, clunked and juddered before coughing its last in a wheeze of noxious black smoke. The buggy rolled gently to a halt.
Ugrik opened his eyes to find Frey thumping his forehead against the steering wheel. He blinked, rubbed his eyes and looked around.
‘Why’ve we stopped?’ he asked.
Frey had never thought of himself as a man prone to homesickness. After all, he’d never had a real home. Patriotism was an affliction for people like Malvery and Harkins. To Frey, his country was just the place he happened to be born.
Not today, though. Today he dreamed of familiar shores. He’d have given anything for one honest Vardic raincloud. Or better still, a nice slate-grey sky, like you got in the North most days in autumn. He’d always found them depressing in the past, but he promised never to bad-mouth the weather at home again, if only someone would relieve this endless bloody heat.
The sand gave easily beneath his boots, making every step a struggle. Ugrik trudged alongside him. Each of them wore one half of the black sheet of tarp, which Frey had split down the middle with his cutlass. They’d put it across their backs and tied it with twine to their wrists and shoulders. It overhung their heads like crude cowls, it flapped in their eyes, and it caught around their calves and ankles. Ugrik assured him that exposed skin would burn quickly in the desert heat, but Frey would almost rather that than this. The tarp was ungainly, uncomfortably hot, and worst of all, he felt ridiculous. They looked like lost manta rays, or a pair of particularly rubbish kites.
They laboured up the flank of a massive dune that cut across their path. Ugrik was muttering to himself, as was his habit. Frey wasn’t sure if he was insane or just eccentric, but either way he didn’t trust the explorer’s competence. The sense of liberation and freedom he’d enjoyed had faded quickly once the discomfort of the march set in, and he began to wonder, far too late, if Ugrik was leading him on a wild goose chase.
Frey stopped just before the ridge of the dune and turned around with some difficulty, the tarp tangling around him like a sail. He rested his hands on his aching thighs and caught his breath.
It was getting towards evening, and the sun was lowering towards the horizon in the west, reddening the sky. The sight filled him with dread. Soon the night would come. He was suddenly seized with the horrible notion that he might have wasted the last day of his life slogging pointlessly through a desert with a cackling Yort nutbag for company.
Ugrik was lumbering up the slope in Frey’s wake, the relic clutched to his chest. Each step caused a miniature landslide. Frey was happy to let him carry the burden. He wanted to touch it as little as possible.
‘How much further?’ Frey asked.
‘Not far now, not far at all,’ Ugrik said blithely. He didn’t seem the least bit concerned by their predicament.
‘That’s what I thought you’d say,’ Frey murmured. He straightened and took a swig from his canteen. It was almost empty.
Ugrik climbed past him and up to the ridge of the dune. Frey screwed the top back on to the canteen, sighed, and followed.
‘Don’t you worry,’ Ugrik threw over his shoulder. ‘According to my calculations, we’ll be there well before nightfall.’
Frey joined him atop the crest of the rise. What he saAe. What w there took the last of the strength from his legs, and he dropped to his knees.
The desert stretched out before him, all the way to the horizon. As far as the eye could see, there were only dunes, shimmering in the heat-haze. It had to be fifteen, twenty kloms to the limits of his vision, and in all that distance, there was nothing but sand.
‘According…’ he muttered, and swallowed. ‘According to your calculations?’ He felt rage boiling up within him.
‘Allowin’ for a small margin of error, o’ course,’ Ugrik said cheerily.
Frey got to his feet and flung out one arm towards the empty horizon. ‘That’s what you call a small margin of error?’ he demanded in a strangled voice.
‘Here, now, there’s no need for losin’ your rag,’ said Ugrik.
‘You crazy son of a bitch!’ he screamed. ‘This is my last day alive! Don’t you get that? I could’ve been drunk, or stoned, or at the very least trying to get a sympathy shag out of Ashua! But instead I’m going to die here in the desert, in the dark, and there won’t be a single person here who ever gave a shit about me! You’ve killed me, you dumb Yort bastard! You’ve killed me, and what’s worse, I’m still wearing this stupid bloody tarpaulin!’
He flailed ineffectually, trying to dislodge the tarp from his back, then launched himself at Ugrik and clamped his hands round the explorer’s throat. All his pent-up fear had turned to fury, directed at this grinning idiot who’d cheated him out of the final precious moments of his existence. He was going to die in the same absurd manner as he’d lived, and it was too much to bear.
His fault, he thought, as Ugrik’s eyes bulged. His fault.
Then Ugrik rammed the relic into his belly. Frey’s foot slipped in the sand, and then the two of them were tipping, rolling, bouncing uncontrollably down the far slope of the dune. This flank was steeper than the one they’d climbed up, and there was no stopping themselves as they fell. They tumbled end over end, black tarp flapping around them. By the time they came to a halt at the base of the dune, they were thoroughly battered.
Frey pulled his face from the sand and pushed the tarp out of his eyes. He blinked.
He didn’t believe what he saw.
Swimming in the heat-haze, less than a klom away, there was an enormous oasis. Tall trees were densely packed together, thick with deep green leaves. Above the trees he could see the tips of strange structures, their details obscured by the haze. Thin towers, and arched constructions that curved like r ibs.
He wiped his crusted lips and Ated lipscoughed. ‘Ugrik!’ he said, looking around.
The Yort emerged from beneath the desert like some mythical horror, sloughing off sand as he rose. He was still clutching the relic. ‘A-ha!’ he cried.
‘Tell me that’s not a mirage,’ said Frey.
Ugrik cackled. ‘What are you, mad?’
Frey stumbled to his feet and finally fought his way clear of the tarp. He threw it aside and glared at it. ‘How come we couldn’t see this place till we got close?’
‘Same reason your craft went down, I reckon,’ said Ugrik. ‘Same reason Peleshar’s gone missin’. Same reason you got that manky hand. They made it happen.’