The skid faltered past him, no faster than he could run. He looked away from the incandescent flare of the one tail jet, then that stopped too. Tall as a man, a dozen feet long, the skid lay waiting on the trail.
Waiting for Steve Nolan?
Anything was better than walking. Nolan walked up to the skid, not fast, and kicked solidly at the entrance. It slid open with a creaking noise and he was in the tank, sealing the outer door behind him.
The inner door didn't open. A female voice from a speaker said, "Who are you?"
Steve waited till he saw the pressure and temperature gauges shoot up to normal, then swung open his faceplate. "Matthews is the name," he lied easily, out of three long years of practice. "I thought you were waiting for me. Say the word and I'll get out again if I was wrong."
"Oh, no." The girl's voice hesitated a second. "What are you doing out here?"
"I'm on my way to Avalon, out of Aylette. A skid bus took me across the Ice Plains, then I caught a lift on a prospector's skid. He turned off ten miles back and I decided to walk the rest of the way."
"Do you know anything about skids? Mine isn't working very well. I'll pay you if you can—"
"I'm not a mechanic," Nolan said wearily.
"Oh. Then you can't fix it."