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things around. Almost nobody crossed at night. Not even a Navigator could see
all the landmarks and keep dead on at night, and it was generally only done
when it was some kind of military or medical emergency or in the case of
urgent diplomatic dispatches which would be aided and guided by sorcery. Night
crossing wasn't a real option anyway. Kira couldn't navigate it was a talent
you had to be born with, or so they all said. You could only learn to control
and develop it, not bestow it on someone else. Besides, while Kira was real
smart in a lot of ways she'd been a female jock. Something called the
Biathlon, she'd said. Crazy kind of thing that had to do with cross-country
snow skiing and rifle shooting. That was why she was such a good shot, but the
deserts of the Kudaan were a hell of a place for a snow skier to wind up!
But it was beginning to get darker, though, and not from any impending
storm she could tell that now but because of the lateness of the day. Her hair
and everything she had was still soaked through, and there was a chill wind
blowing from whatever world was up right now.
She was still trying to figure out what to do when she heard the sounds of
others approaching from the hub. Crim! Or was it? Not one wagon there, but
two!
She moved off a bit so she wouldn't be right in line once again, but she
wanted to stick close enough, risk or no risk, to make sure just who was in
what.
The lead one was Crim! She felt some relief at that, but what the hell was the
second, trailing wagon? Two tough, weathered men in front, on the seat, and
probably two more in the wagon since four horses were trailing behind them.
This didn't look good, and it was unlike Crim to take this long to get across.
Hell, what if it was sundown before he could clear the entry point? What if it
was sundown while he was at the entry point?
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She shadowed them at a distance, taking a wide semicircular route around them.
Wherever Crim was going, that's where she was going, and to hell with those
other guys. If he was being shadowed by suspicious characters, maybe with too
many guns, figuring on just what they were pulling and hoping to catch her
when she caught up with the Navigator, then that was a problem, but not an
insurmountable one. She was sick and tired of being hunted like an animal and
kicked around by the fates and something within her had hardened her. If she
was mortal then they were mortal, too. She'd rather take her chances with Crim
and
Kira, even if it meant taking these men on, than wander around another unknown
land until she bumped into another Duke Pasedo or worse.
After you saw the Stormriders, four guys with guns didn't seem half as
frightening as they might have.
Crim had gotten a bit ahead of her, but now he stopped, very close to the
border region, as the trailing wagon crept up to him and then passed him,
allowing her to draw roughly even but maybe a few hundred yards down. It was
risky being this close, but this was a new circumstance. She was going in with
Crim, no matter what Crim did.
The Navigator looked nervous, maybe even tense. There were two more guys
looking out of the back of the wagon and they had guns of some kind, that was
for sure.
So why had they decided to pass him?
Suddenly she realized the reason. He was the Navigator none of them were. He
had to be behind to bring up the world and stabilize it for them to cross. It
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would also hold only a couple of minutes after he let it go at best, so she
had to be really ready now. It was maybe a quarter of a mile to the border.
She didn't feel much like more exercise, but she was prepared to float over if
she had to. She took off the backpack and let it fall. The hell with that
waterlogged dead weight. She had other clothes in the wagon. Besides, some
cruel god or fate seemed to like her naked for some reason. At least this time
she was armed.
The worlds began to flip, faster and faster, and, after a couple of minutes,
they stopped on just what he had described a great forest, in the first throes
of dusk, with another good road leading up to an entry station carved out of
the forest that already had some lights on.
She started to go in, for some reason, held herself, as she watched the men in
the wagon proceed in and then up onto the road itself. Something, perhaps in
Crim's manner or perhaps a sixth sense she hadn't suspected and which hadn't
been very useful until now, warned her.
Suddenly the forests vanished and several worlds flipped past before slowly
coming to a stop again. He'd gotten rid of them! He'd dumped them in that
world and then let them go.' "Misa! If you're out there run like hell now!"
Crim called at the top of his lungs, and she ran as if the Stormriders were
right on her tail.
Crim slowly edged forward as she took off. He was buying her all the time he
could, but it was still an ordeal for her after the rest of the day and no
picnic at all. She was going on sheer determination, every muscle aching, not
even seeing what kind of world had come up.
Suddenly there were trees and leaves batting her face and she grabbed some
limb and brought herself to a stop, then dropped on the ground, gasping for
breath.
It was several minutes before she could get hold of herself, and when she did
she knew that Crim had crossed the border. There was lightning and the start
of a storm out there in the void.
She took stock of her surroundings. It was getting pretty damned dingy, but
they were going west, after all. This sure wasn't the world Crim had planned
on, though, and she wondered if he had any more idea about this place than she
did or had just picked it as the first decent-looking one that came up before
he lost control of the "deck." Probably the latter, but the odds were he'd
spotted a road or something, so her best bet was to head back over towards
that road if the land allowed her.
The humidity was tremendous, and the vegetation was incredibly thick and
seemed to reach almost into the mist itself. She worked herself around as best
she
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walking stick. It was getting very dark very fast, and she wanted that road.
If it was dark and nobody crossed late, then the odds were it was a pretty
safe area so long as she avoided any entry station.
It wasn't easy. Several times she almost slipped off the slick floor into the
mist, and while she had no fear of the transition zone as such she had no
desire to lose Crim now that she'd kept up with him. Or maybe Kira by now. She
hoped that after all there hadn't been some kind of awkward embarrassment
ahead.
Finally she made it to a cleared area that was most certainly the main road.
It was more than a little muddy, although none of the rain that she could see
had escaped from the transition zone, but she wasn't going to be on it,
anyway, but rather walking along it.
About ten feet inside there was a strong and very high fence with a kind of
barbed wire on top, and she realized that when she'd dropped the pack she'd
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also dropped the wire cutters. Smart. If she had tried to press in, she
wouldn't have been able to get through. The road was open, though, and the
gate there was a simple wooden slab on a hinge.
Just beyond was the entry station, a pretty small affair by its look, with
just room for a couple of people. There was a small cottage made of bamboo or
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