Man O' War, стр. 15

People didn't really live there, he reminded himself, they went there to work, period. Like the jobbers who flocked to the Moon and the Maldives when Lunar City and the Skyhook had to be built . . . or to Alaska a century earlier, when the great pipeline was constructed . . . or to Panama before that, to dig the great canal . . . or the gold fields . . .

"Damn it—so they've got tough lives," he spat, looking out over the acres of poisoned land, at the enormous skeletal remains of the fallen aircraft at its center. "What does that have to do with me? Why does that mean I have to eat fungus and go live the rest of my life in a cave? Why me?"

No more steak, started a litany in his head. No more Happy Times—no more fresh water—no more horses— no more trees—no more sunlight—no more grass—no more calamari—no more beaches—no more birds—no more . . .

His eyes narrowed on the massive rusting framework of the fallen ship. Closing them, he could see the ore carrier in the sky once more. His mind took him back to that day completely.

He was eleven again. His father was there with him. They had ridden out to the touchdown site to watch the approaching freighter. They had taken a lunch with them and it had been a happy outing—for a while.

Young Benton had spotted the ship first. At least that was the way he had always remembered it. It had loomed up out of the clear sky, a pinpoint that grew into a larger and larger shape, dazzling in the reflected sunlight. It moved with a fascinating majesty—slowly, calmly, and orderly—until the moment when a thin line of fumes began to spray outward from between a set of strained connector plates. After that, it took only seconds for the ship to list badly. A moment after, it began to shake. Another moment saw it shudder as a massive jolt shook the entire vessel. And then, as an exhaust of white mist darkened to fumes of purple, the stricken ore ship began its final, sickeningly dizzy descent. Long before the younger Hawkes had realized what was happening, his father had understood.

"Get to your horse, son."

"Dad, what is it?"

"Move, Ben—now!"

Benton turned to do as he was told, but it was too late. A massive explosion tore the sky apart, blowing a hole in the clouds above the freighter. Benton was thrown to the ground. The sky filled with flames and a thick dark blanket of oily smoke. Benton's horse bolted, racing away in fear.

The senior Hawkes, still standing, his hands on his own horse's reins, looked up—saw what was coming toward them. Benton staggered to his feet, his arm bruised, face bleeding. Without a word, his father grabbed him from behind with one hand and then threw his son up into the saddle of his own horse.

"Ride, boy," was all he said to Benton before he ordered the stallion home, cracking its flank with a vicious slap.

Try as he might, the boy could not turn the horse back to the death his father had foreseen. The horse galloped madly, crashing through the brush in between trees. Benton hung on with all his strength, screaming for his father. Burning chunks of steel and plastic fell all around them, setting the forest on fire. The horse kept running, its fear giving it a speed it had never known before.

In the end, young Benton escaped the slamming, burning carnage by the merest of seconds. His father had been right: had they both attempted to escape on the same horse, they both would have been dead.

Hawkes opened his eyes with a shudder. Still gazing out over the edge, he watched a gigantic shadow move across the face of the Scar as a cloud drifted over the ruin. The massive dark oval blotted the dead zone, tricking the eye for a moment, making the land look the way it did when the ambassador had been a boy. He could feel his father at his side for an instant, looking out over the Scar with him. Pulling on his reins with force, he turned his mare away from the view, pointing her back toward the deep forest.

"They're not going to take the ranch, Dad," the ambassador promised. Then, glancing down to his side, he saw his faithful retriever staring up at him with a mournful look.

"And I'm not spending my last years on a frozen dust-ball, living in an elevator shaft. No way, Dizzy." He nudged his heels against the horse's sides, snapping the reins at the same time.

"I'm staying here," he told himself with almost vicious defiance as he rode away. "Right here."

DISRAELI RACED PAST THE BARN WHERE HAWKES stopped, heading back to bark at the 4 X 4. As Hawkes handed his mare off to one of his ranch hands, he could hear Keller cursing the dog. The ambassador walked on, sighing. As he neared the barn, he called to the retriever, asking, "Dizzy, for God's sake, boy, what's got into you?"

The black Labrador kept barking, however, not coming out of the barn. Hawkes went in, wondering just what had caught the big dog's attention. Before he had gone riding he had simply thought the animal's carrying on had been enthusiasm.

As he stood next to the still-barking dog, the ambassador decided it had to be something else. "It's happened before, you know."

"You think maybe a chipmunk or something's climbed up inside the damn framework?" asked Keller.

"Maybe we should just let it get out on its own," offered Stine, seeming somewhat uncomfortable at the thought of confronting a wild animal.

"Oh, don't be such a baby," said Keller. He had grown a bit tired of the city-bred aide during their repair session. If there was an excuse to put down tools and keep away from grease, the old man was