“There’s a house that way,” Dard panted as Kimber plowed ahead with the determination of breaking beyond the thin screen of trees.
“Any chance of finding some transportation there?”
“None of the landsmen have surface cars any more. Folley had a double A rating, and Lotta said his application for one was turned down twice. Horses-maybe…”
Kimber expelled a snort. “Horses, yet” he addressed the night. “And me not knowing which end of the animal is which!”
“We’d get away faster mounted,” Dard sputtered as he slipped on a piece of iced crust and fell into the spiky embrace of a bush. “They’ll probably put hounds on us-we’re so near to town.
Kimber’s pace slowed. “I’d forgotten those pleasures of civilization” he observed. “Do they use dogs a lot in tracking?”
“Depends on how important the tracked are.”
“And we’re probably number one on their list of public enemies now. Yes, nothing like being worthy of dogs and no meat to throw behind us! All right, let’s descend upon this house and see how many horses or reasonable facsimile of same we can find.”
But when they reached the end of the grove they stopped. Lights showed in three house windows and they reached far enough across the snow-crusted road to reveal a ’copter there. Kimber laughed without any amusement at all.
“That bird by the machine is waving a rifle.”