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with effortless skill toward the top of the farther, angled slope.
Mac stood and reached for a catering-size can of soup from one of the capacious
storage closets on the RV. He glanced through the ingredients, noting the
amazing range of additives and coloring agents and flavoring agents and
preserving agents that the soup contained.
With the effects of Earthblood still leaching their way through the planet's
ecostructure, he guessed that it would be a long, long while before any fresh
canned food became available. If ever. And when it did, there wasn't likely to be
a string of coded letters and numbers packed into it.
The way that green shoots were grudgingly beginning to appear here and there
through the dried crimson blight made it seem a possibility that one day the tiny
number of survivors might be able to eat fresh fruit and vegetables again.
"One day," he said, putting the glutinous contents of the can into the large
enameled pan and placing it carefully onto low heat.
There was a flurry of fresh snow when he looked out of the window, but the
trickle of water was wider and the temperature was obviously still rising.
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There was a snowball fight going on between his children, with Jeanne favoring
the two young girls against Paul and Pamela. Mac took up the binoculars once
more and adjusted the focus with the milled black plastic wheel, bringing the
faraway contest into sharp detail.
Jocelyn was laughing her head off, mouth open wide with delight, the distance
turning the fight into a mime. She had just hit Paul flush in the face with a
handful of packed snow, making him look like an enraged Santa Claus.
That thought made Henderson McGill wonder again about the rapid approach of
Christmas.
The last family ceremony had been Pamela's birthday on November 18. The
warm, caring ritual full of happiness and emotion that in an instant had turned
the white Victorian house up on Melville Avenue to a charnel house of death and
bare-bones violence.
Mac shook his head and laid down the glasses, getting up to check the soup. It
was just beginning to bubble gently around the edges. He took a ladle out of the
cutlery drawer and stirred it for a few moments, worried about the chance of it
sticking. There was a row of spice jars in a neat rosewood rack, and he added a
few pinches of turmeric and some cumin to give the bland soup some extra
flavoring.
He tasted it. "Not bad. Maybe I'll take up cooking for real when we get to
Aurora," he said.
A noise outside made him start. Quickly he wiped condensation from the
window and peered into the bright sunlight. The sound was repeated, but this
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time he saw what was happening. The warmth of the day was melting the snow,
sending it tumbling off the low branches of the dead trees in great wet clumps.
"Could be on the move in a day or so," he said, then tutted at the realization that
he seemed to be talking to himself a lot recently, wondering if this was the male
menopause that he'd read about in a magazine only a couple of days before
blasting off into space in the Aquila.
Another bunch of snow fell heavily, landing on the domed top of the fuel tank
with a hollow ringing noise. The melt was gathering momentum.
A sudden thought struck Mac, and he looked around for the binoculars. "Place is
turning into a dump," he muttered.
Finally he spotted it on the bench seat, half-hidden by Sukie's favorite doll, a
droopy trollop that rejoiced in the name of Mournful Megg. He took up the
glasses and went to the window that gave the best view of the steep, overhung
cliff where Angel had said she was going to ski.
Now he was aware of the melodious tinkling of water, running musically off the
roof of the RV, down onto the rutted ice of the highway.
The glass was steamed up from the simmering pan of soup, and again he wiped
it with a shirtsleeve, finding that his fingers were trembling when he lifted the
binoculars. The lenses were clouded with condensation.
"There," he breathed, finally aiming them toward where he'd last seen her,
twisting the control until he located the twin trails of her skis vanishing among
the trees, heading upward.
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He found them again, higher, much higher.
He scanned the slope until he finally picked up a darting, twisting figure, cutting
her own piste with a skillful agility that took his breath.
Mac watched Angel, his peripheral vision picking up the monstrous slab of
undercut snow that toppled soundlessly above her. Frozen in disbelief, he saw it
race down in a surging cloud of immense destruction, snapping off trees like
matchwood.
Overwhelming and burying her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The chief of the Hunters of the Sun sat waiting patiently in her office,
contentedly turning the thin pages of the old nineteenth-century novel. Pride and
Prejudice was one of her true all-time favorites.
It was a book that she always enjoyed reading just before going into an
interrogation, particularly if it promised to be something a little special.
And Jeff Thomas, ex-journalist, accomplished liar and one-time crew member of
the USSV Aquila, looked as though he might be real interesting.
The name of the chief, though hardly any of the subordinates knew it, was
Margaret Tabor. She was twenty-seven years old and had been the mistress and
associate of the man called Flagg. Not even she knew what his real name had
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been.
But she knew how important names were. Her degree in socio-psychology at
UCLA had brought her few friends, but it had brought one young man, named
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