His course led him to rocky foothills. He had skirted them when another gnawing thought came. When did Mona adopt a brother? He’d never known of one. He shrugged the thought aside. He was coming to a broad pass. He kept his course straight, for it was still dark. When dawn came he would seek cover—or did darkness mean anything to the tetrarchians? It probably didn’t.
He covered the pass and worked his way up the far right of three towering mountains. It was cold—colder even than the bitter keenness of the level lands. He notched the heating element in his suit to the top position and continued his climb. In the deep darkness that preceded dawn he felt his way along the edge of narrow, jagged ravines. The swirling sands made sight impossible. His progress became slower.
He had reached almost to the top when dawn glimmered over the horizon. Far down over the rocky crags intermittent flashes glowed. Rod sat back on his haunches and watched their approach.
In the dawn’s half-light the glowing lights dimmed but he was able to mark their progress. Assuming their current speed and allowing for lost trails and going off course, they would overtake him in about two hours—if he continued at his past speed. They had established a nice calculation—precisely balanced to catch him at the moment his air supply hit zero.
He would soon be fair bait for the operating room.
He watched the flaring lights more intently. As they swarmed over the foothills they seemed to lose some of their capacity for glimmering. Rod nodded comprehension and turned to clamber up the almost vertical slope.
It was hard going and he was in plain view by the time he reached the top. Up here the shifting sand was finer. There was less of it, and it hugged the ground more closely than in the lowlands.
Another hour passed before the flames sensed him. They were working toward him but more slowly. They had lost all semblance of glimmer and had taken on the aspects of a solid sheet, of flame. Rod glanced back and noted there was no sign of any figures following the flashes. He nodded decisively.
The facts had fallen into a definite pattern!