Mirabile (13 page)

I looked at the light, looked at Leo. He had that intensity of focus he always gets when there’s something needs doing. One damn thing after another—and if this sort of thing kept up, I would never have the moment’s peace I needed to choose a proper courting gift for that man.

“Fasten your seat belt,” I said, even though I knew he always did. Leo doesn’t take unnecessary risks.

I threw the hover into forward and gunned it across country. Hovercraft across brush and rocks gets bumpy, especially at the speed I was doing. I don’t take unnecessary risks either—so I was careful not to outrun the lights. Still, navigating was tricky and I concentrated on that while Leo picked up the comunit to call in a warning.

I slalomed through a stand of popcorn trees, dipped over a creek, swung wide to avoid a massive old churchill (must have been two hundred feet in circumference), scared the living daylights out of a herd of clashings, dipped down once again for another creek, and came up the rise on the opposite side to a blaze of light.

I hit the brakes again.

Leo whistled. “Somebody’s been damn careless,” he said.

I knew what he meant—weather we’d been having in this area, there was no chance the fire had been set by lightning.

The wind chased the fire across the meadow. Most of the flame stuck to the ground—usually did in a brushfire like this. But even as we watched two trees crowned out—lit like torches, streaming red, orange, yellow—so bright I could almost feel the heat from them.

Cautious now, I edged the hover closer, lifting it up the rise to overlook as much of the fire as I could. “I make it a couple of hundred acres just now,” I said.

“Just now,” agreed Leo, meaning he saw what I saw—no natural breaks to put a stop to it. He repeated my estimate into the comunit while I thumbed the transponder button to give the local controllers our exact position.

Then I took the comunit from Leo and said, “We’ll skirt it for accuracy.

Meanwhile, you check out any families in the area and make sure they’re notified.”

“Will do,” came the reply.

Another tree crowned out just then and there were a half dozen sharp reports as burning bits of it struck the hover. Leo whistled. I backed the hover off hastily then started forward again, this time at a crawl.

After a nod of approval, Leo said, “This is new territory, Annie. There won’t be many folks in permanent residence. If the wind shifts, we’re in trouble, though.

Northwest aims it at Milo’s Ford.”

I knew the town. “I don’t need this,” I said.

“Only about fifty families. We can get them out in no time. Just takes fast work.”

“It’s not the families I’m worried about. As you say, we can evacuate fifty families in no time. But Milo’s Ford has our only breeding population of Cornish fowl and I’d hate like hell to lose them!” I picked up the comunit yet again and punched in for the home team.

“Hi, Annie,” said Mike’s voice. “I thought you and Leo were out dancing.

What’s up?”

“Forest fire,” I said and I gave him the coordinates. “Get on the line to the folks at Milo’s Ford, tell ‘em to round up the Cornish fowl and get ready to get out if there’s a change in the wind.

Then phone round to Emergency Services and make sure they’ve got transport standing by.”

“Milo’s Ford, Emergency Services, I gotcha, Annie. We’re on it.” He didn’t break contact.

There was a moment’s pause, then he said, “Susan and Selima are on their way to Milo’s Ford.

They’re taking both of the specimen hovers. They’ll meet you there.” Then he hung up, before I could order the damn kids to stay out of it.

I snarled but my curses got applied to a series of crown-outs that made a Chinese Guild New Year celebration look like a newborn’s birthday cake. I squinted in the afterimage and edged the hover still further away from the leading edge of the fire. It was running faster now; the wind had picked up.

A gust blew smoke our way and, eyes burning, I gunned the hover through it.

There was a bit of clear patch on the other side, much to my relief. Leo punched the transponder again.

“Damn kids,” I said.

Leo snorted. “You couldn’t keep them away if you tried. Everybody likes an excuse to watch a fire.”

I took my eyes off the terrain long enough to glower at him. It was the waste of a good glower because he never even saw it.

Proof of his own words, he was watching the fire, all awed concentration.

Reflected light made his dark skin glow like embers, turned his white hair a flaming orange.

Beyond him another tree crowned out and he said, “Aaah!” with a sound something like satisfaction. Then he reached over and punched the transponder again.

I turned my attention back to business. We’d almost completed our circuit of the fire. “Good enough,” I said. “Tell ’em we’re headed for Milo’s Ford.”

From that spot Milo’s Ford was almost dead straight. The only natural firebreak between here and there was the river. This time of year the river would be low — not much help if the wind should change.

Even as the thought struck me, I could feel it in the way the hover handled.

“Wind’s changed,” Leo said. Same tone of voice he’d used to tell me about the fire. He twisted in his seat, fighting the belt to look back the way we’d come.

I spared a glance in the mirror and saw the wind chase the line of fire down the hill, hot on our trail. “Sit, Leo, dammit!” I gunned the hover again. If he hadn’t been sitting, he was now.

We left the fire behind, but we were riding the wind now and I knew it wasn’t far behind. I had some hope, I think, of reaching Milo’s Ford before Susan and Selima did.

Fat chance. The two specimen hovers were right there in the middle of main street, surrounded by a motley collection of other craft, everything from hovers to dogcarts, and a milling mass of people that I could already see were too riled to be useful to themselves or anybody else.

I grounded the hover with a thump, unsnapped my harness, and reached for the persuader I keep alongside my seat. Then I was on the ground and headed for the largest knot of argument, Leo right behind me.

I paused just a minute to assess the situation. Selima and a bunch of kids were loading Cornish fowl into the specimen hovers. There was nothing gentle about the way they were doing it and the birds were kicking up more than the usual amount of rumpus. Even that didn’t drown out the argument.

“And I say we leave the little bastard here!” This got a howl of agreement from the onlookers.

“He started the damn fire, I say, let him roast!” The speaker was a big man. Worse, he spoke for the rest of the mob.

Somebody else added, “Yeah, and let his birds roast, too!”

The middle of the knot was Susan. She looked dwarfed. Hell, she was all of sixteen and a skinny kid at that. She looked exasperated beyond her years. “And I say I won’t be party to a murder.” She turned on one of the other people in the crowd. “Will you? We leave him here and he dies and then maybe you find out he didn’t start the fire… You gonna take that on you?”

She’d gotten through to that one, all right. That one ducked away from the mob and, like a cat playing innocent, went to offer Selima her assistance. Susan turned the same stare on a second person in the mob. “You, Catalan, you gonna be a murderer? Thought I knew you better. Thought Elly’d raised you better, in fact, than to go around accusing somebody without the damndest bit of proof. You gonna leave ’im here to die on just his say-so?”

It was good work on Susan’s part. She might even have brought it off—but the stabbing gesture she made at the ringleader connected somewhere in the area of his paunch. He turned purple, roared, and reached for her.

I raised my persuader and fired it once into the air. Everybody froze and turned.

Nothing like a double-barreled shotgun to get their attention.

Having gotten it, I shouted, “All right, everybody. The wind’s changed, in case you were too busy to notice. The fire’s now headed straight for the town. If you want to save the buildings, you’ve still got a chance— you get all the able-bodied if adults down to the edge of the river to douse any sparks that land on this side.

Meanwhile, let’s get the kids loaded and out of here.”

Still nobody moved. I lowered my persuader and aimed it at the feet of the ringleader. “You with the big mouth,” I said. “Go spit on the damn fire. That, at least, would make you of some
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use.” I went to squeeze the trigger.

The minute he saw I had every intention of blasting him, he put his hands up.

“Buckets!” he said. “Harriet, get buckets!”

“And shovels,” I suggested.

The whole crowd turned and went for buckets and shovels. I tucked my persuader back under my arm and went over to Susan.

Susan swiped at her forehead with the back of her hand and grinned at me. “Am I glad to see you

, Mama Jason!” She gave me a peck on the cheek, then delivered a matching one to Leo. “Hi, Noisy,” she said, “I guess I didn’t do so well, hunh?”

“You had him outshouted,” Leo told her, bestowing an accolade. “I’d say all those contests we had paid off pretty well.”

“Sorry,” I said, “no time to rest on your laurels. Give me the rundown.”

Susan twisted to look over her shoulder at Selima, who was just closing up the huge hover doors with an equally huge thunk. Selima gave Susan a thumbs up and climbed into the cab. “That’s all the kids and the Cornish fowl taken care of,” Susan said. “Selima’s taking the kids up to Loch Moose Lodge. Elly said she’d look after them. The Cornish fowl I’m taking back to the lab.”

Selima took off in the first hover. I watched for a moment as she angled it out toward Loch Moose. When I looked back, Susan was still standing in front of me.

“Well? What’s keeping you?” I said.

Susan shot a quick look around. The glow on the horizon had become distinct flames now—another ballyhoo crowning out, I thought, and realized as I thought it that all the trees I’d seen flame had all had that distinct shape of the ballyhoo tree.

You could hear the roar now, too. I glared back at Susan, wondering why in hell she still hadn’t moved.

She leaned closer. “The guy they accused of setting the fire. He’s in—” Her hand made a covert stab at the second specimen hover.

“Ah,” I said, understanding at last. I think I must have grinned, I was so proud of her. “Good.

Then get him out of here, too.” I handed my persuader to Leo. “Just in case. You go with her, Leo, and ride herd on the suspect.”

Susan had recovered enough to cast a scandalized eye on the persuader.

Leo laughed. “It’s loaded with rock salt. Stings like the dickens. Why do you think she always calls it her ‘persuader’? Nothing quite like a shotgun full of rock salt to convince a man to move ass.”

“Then let’s,” said Susan.

I made them both promise they’d take care of business before they did any more fire watching and saw them off. Then I grabbed a shovel out of my hover and went down to the edge of the river to do what I could.

Now that they had something constructive to do, the townspeople had organized themselves pretty damn well. One of them had disconnected the town pump and hooked it to a few lengths of hose. They used the river water to damp down everything on this side of the river. Another handful cleared brush from the bank, chucking it into the river and letting it slide away downstream. The bend in the river here made the current slow and the water shallow (about waist high because of the drought we’d been having) but the river was wider than I’d remembered, which gave us more of an edge against the fire’s advance.

The wind was still blowing it in our direction, though. That made enough light to see by, lurid though it was. What I hadn’t counted on was the sound of it.

Everybody talks about the roar of a fire, especially a big one, but that doesn’t tell the half of it.

That sound is the sound of a living creature roaring its challenge at you.

That sound is a beast straight out of your worst nightmare coming to get you. That sound made my entire nervous system scream panic.

I managed to beat most of the feeling into submission but the hairs on the back of my neck stayed up—and I knew I’d be hearing my nightmares for months to come.

Something shot past me about hip high, startling me enough to make me jump back. Somebody else let out a shriek. Then we both realized that it was only a hopfish. A full school bounced by, adding to the general confusion. They were headed away from the fire as fast as their hopping would take them. Weird thing about it was that they were headed away from the river as well.

Didn’t seem sensible.

But then other animals were fleeing as well, and they were more scared of the fire than they were of us.

We spotted the herd of clashings headed our way just in time. Clashings will butt anything their size. Under these circumstances, they might have made an exception, but nobody near me wanted to test the theory. We hit the ground and the clashings sailed over us, neat as you please, and crashed into the wood behind us and

vanished, screaming challenges as they went.

There was another sound, too, and I realized why it had earlier put me in mind of the Chinese Guild New Year celebrations. The ballyhoo trees didn’t just crown out.

When they caught, they went like a fireworks burst, complete with a volley of cracks and a shower of burning coals in all directions. I’ve seen a pine log burst like that—in ships’ records.

You hear the same sound when it bursts, come to think of it. Happening for real, it was damn pretty, but those coals were getting flung just too damn far for my taste.

The wind picked up speed. A metallic roar behind me made me jump. I turned and saw that somebody’d been bright enough to bring a chain saw. She was cutting down the trees nearest the bank.

I charged over and shouted at her over the sound of the chain saw and approaching fire, “The ballyhoos! Cut the ballyhoos first!”

Either she didn’t hear me or she didn’t heed me. By then I had recognized her, though.