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father's that I had met exactly once who lived somewhere in Inequital.
The sky was overcast, and the strange dark cloud pillars continued to dominate
the western sky, in the general area of Inequital, although the capital itself
was farther than I could have seen. A light mist was falling. The air was
mostly warm, although the occasional strange cold gusts still accompanied the
warmer mist. The dirt of the trail below me was unmarked, sheltered by a
double row of overhanging firs. Behind the firs were the usual mix of Westron
trees, most of the leafy ones well toward losing their summer foliage and
having but scraggly winter leaves.
The marker sat about a hundred rods above the Eastern Highway. Why the trail
ended near no town was a mystery to me, but I had never asked. All I knew was
that I had another five kays to walk, and that I was getting hungry, and that
I
wanted a bath.
The last seemed most unlikely. Food was probable, one way or another, and
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walking was certain for now. I didn't dare waste the energy on place-sliding,
not unless I was faced with an emergency, or worse.
Before I headed toward the highway, I unstrapped my pack and set it on top of
the flat stone marker, unfastened it, and removed the last blue chyst. After
three days, even the blue ones didn't taste too bad. I needed some energy, and
otherwise there were only a few sticks of jerky and two small chunks of cheese
left. Those I wanted to save.
Allyson had done well, but like all good things her provisions were about to
end. When I finished the chyst, nibbled all the way down to the hard seed, I
tossed it into the deep brush to my right.
Swwiiissshh.
A grossjay swooped after it, almost catching the seed before it struck the
ground. Times had apparently been hard for the birds as well. Grossjays were
not known for their fondness for chyst seeds.
I pulled the pack back on, shrugging my shoulders to try to relieve the
stiffness that seemed permanent. Then I
started down the trail, staying on the short grass on the side, avoiding the
slippery combination of dirt and mud in the middle.
The line of firs ended halfway to the highway, and I pulled up short, staying
in their shade, as I could hear the rumble of a vehicle in the distance.
Instead of walking along the road, stupid in any case, I kept under the
overhang of the trees, where I stumbled every so often. While most of the
trees were light-leaved for winter, between the mist and the evergreens, I
wasn't as exposed as I would be closer to the road, and I could hide quickly.
The idea of hiding and skulking around bothered me, but being picked up by the
ConFeds would have bothered me a lot more especially since I didn't know why
they were after my family... and presumably me.
After about a kay, the rumbling increased in pitch, and I dropped behind a
pine, waiting.
Over the hill from the west they came, clear even from a distance. First came
a steamer, black, with a flag on the
front bumper. The flag was the ConFed banner. Then there were two open steam
freighters, carrying fall loads covered with tarps. Last came an armored
steamer, the kind with the composite ceramic plates and a turret gun. The
armored steamer was wreathed in vapor as it rattled along.
In my whole life, I had never seen such a detachment on the Eastern Highway,
not near Bremarlyn, so far from
Eastron, even father from the Northern Isles although that conflict had been
over even before my father was bom.
So I crouched in a hollow behind the pine and waited for them to pass out of
sight. The wait wasn't all loss, though.
In looking around, I saw what might have been a stunted pearapple, behind the
firs to my left, toward Herfidian. As I
waited, watching, I marked the pearapple location and studied the steamer as
it hum-hissed past my pine tree, less than five rods away. Double-tired and
totally enclosed, that black steamer was easily twice the size of my father's
official steamer. The black finish was wearing thin and beginning to show the
reddish ceramic beneath, and the faded purple stripe along the side, across
both doors, was also heavily scratched.
I could feel the ground vibrate as the rest of the road convoy neared. The
dull gray freighters looked newer, but still battered. Unlike the steamer,
their cabs were open, and one had the windscreen folded down. Both were
heavy-laden, with what appeared to be machines under the tarps. An armed
ConFed stood in the guard booth at each comer of the cargo bay of each
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