From the Ashes - 02 by Timothy Zahn

Author:Timothy Zahn [me]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-03-28T17:32:02+00:00

75

A minute later, he and Star were walking down the street beside Nguyen, wrapped in a silence broken only by the crunching of their footsteps and the snuffling of the burros. Kyle had lost many friends and acquaintances over the years, either through death or simple desertion, to the point where he no longer cried over those losses.

But it was a near thing. It was a really near thing.

Nguyen and his men were very impressed by the gasoline stash, commenting several times on both its layered concealment and the booby-traps set up to protect it. Kyle had expected them to take as much of the gasoline as their burros could carry, and was therefore surprised when they quit after siphoning off only thirty gallons.

Still, pulling even that much of the precious liquid took nearly an hour, and by the time the group emerged again into the open air the faint glow in the clouds that marked the sun’s position was already halfway to the horizon.

“What now?” Kyle asked as they headed east.

“We get out of this neighborhood,” Nguyen said grimly, “and then cover as much distance as we can before we have to turn in for the night.”

Star touched Kyle’s arm. Where will we stay? she signed.

“You have some place in mind for that?” Kyle asked Nguyen.

“There are a couple of possibilities,” the other said. “We have to see first how far we get.”

“What are they like?” Kyle asked. They were passing the spot where he and Orozco had had the confrontation with the new gang yesterday, and he wondered whether they’d actually left like they’d said they would.

Apparently not.

Even as Kyle eyed their ramshackle headquarters the door opened a crack and a single eye peered out. The eye flicked back and forth, taking in the size and armament of the group, and then the door quietly closed again.

“One’s just an empty building,” Nguyen said. He’d noticed the door and the eye too, Kyle saw, and his gaze lingered there another moment before turning away. “The other’s the home of some of our other customers. Much safer, but they’ll charge a hefty fee for putting us up.”

Kyle nodded, looking up over the broken buildings and piles of wreckage to Moldering Lost Ashes. Up there on the eighth floor, he knew, the sentries were watching, and he wondered if they’d spotted him and Star among the crowd of men and animals.

If they had, what were they thinking? Did they think he and Star had deserted them, the way Ellis had?

The group had made it three blocks east of Moldering Lost Ashes when Kyle spotted two figures standing motionlessly in the shadow of a broken wall, just two blocks farther ahead.

“Nguyen?” he murmured.

“I see them,” Nguyen said grimly. “Vuong?”

“Terminators,” Vuong said, squinting toward the figures. “T-600s, probably—haven’t seen a T-400 in ages.”

“Agreed,” Nguyen said. “I wonder what they’re doing. Terminators usually don’t just stand around like that.”

Vuong shrugged. “Maybe they’re on break.”

Someone in the rear of the group snorted.

“Well, whatever they’re up to, we don’t want to know about it,” Nguyen said.

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