Andre Norton - Daybreak—2250 A.D.

A thin fluting—like the piping of a child’s reed whistle-cut the air somewhere behind. Fors guessed it to be what he had dreaded most to hear—the signal that the quarry had been flushed out of hiding and was now to be pursued in the open.

Arskane had forged ahead. And because the big man seemed to know just what he was going to do next Fors accepted his lead. They came into a corner of the parapet between the east and south sides of the roof. Lura had already gone over it; she called softly from below.

“Now we must trust to luck, comrade—and to the favor of Fortune. Slip over quickly on the same instant that I move. It may be that if we give them two targets they will not be able to choose either. Are you ready?”

“Yes!”

“Then-go!”

Fors reached up and caught the top of the parapet at the same moment Arskane moved. Together their bodies went over and they let themselves roll across the second roof, painfully shedding some skin in the process. Here the surface was not clear. Blocks, fallen from a taller building beyond, made a barrier which Arskane greeted with an exclamation of satisfaction. Both gained the protection of the rubble and squatted down to listen. The pipe of the whistle sounded again, imperatively. Arskane rubbed dust off his hands.

“Beyond here lies another street, and below is the river valley which you crossed—”

Fors nodded. He, too, could remember what they had seen from the tower. The river valley made a curve, cutting due east at this point. He shut his eyes for an instant the better to visualize the old train yards, the clustered buildings—

“Well,” Arskane shook himself, “if we give them more time they will be better able to greet us in a manner we shall not relish. Therefore, we must keep on the move. Now that they expect to find us on roof tops it might be wise to seek the street level—”

“See here.” Fors had been examining the rubbish about them. “This did not fall from above.” He dug into the pile of rubble. Set in the roof was a slanted door. Arskane pounced upon it joyfully.

They dug as furiously as ground squirrels in autumn until they cleared it. Then they tugged it open and looked down into a musty darkness from which old evil odors arose. There were stairs, almost ladder steep. They used them.

Long hallways and more stairs. Although all three walked with the silence of forest hunters their passing sent small thuds and old sighings through the deserted building. Now and again they stopped to listen. But Lura manifested no signs of uneasiness and Fors could hear nothing beyond the fall of plaster, the shifting of old boards their tread had disturbed.

’Wait!” He caught Arskane as the latter started down the last flight of stairs. Fors’ swinging hand had struck lightly against a door in the wall and something in the hollow sound which had followed that blow seemed promising. He opened the door. They stepped out on a kind of ledge above a wide cavern of a place.

“By the Great Horned Lizard!” Arskane was shaken and Fors gripped the rail which framed the platform.

They looked down into what once must have been a storage place for the heavy tracks which the Old Ones had used for transportation of goods. Ten—fifteen of the monsters stood in line waiting for the masters who were long gone. And several were of the sealed engine type which had been the last invention of the Old Ones. These appeared unblighted by time, still perfect and ready for use.

One of them had its nose almost against a wide closed door. A door, decided Fors instantly, which must give upon the street. A wild idea began to flower in his mind. He turned to Arskane.

“There was a road leading down into the valley of the trains—a road which was mostly steep slope—”

“True—”

“See that machine—the one by the gate? If we could start it out it would roll down that street and nothing could stop it!”

Arskane licked his lips. “The machine is probably dead. Its motor would not run and we could not push it—”

“We might not need to push. And do not be sure that the motor would not serve us. Jarl of the Star Men once piloted a sealed motor car a full quarter of a mile before it died again. If this would only bring us to the top of the slope it would be enough. At least we can try. It would be a safe and easy way to gain the valley—”

“As you say—we can try!” Arskane bounded down the steps and headed for the truck.

The door to the driver’s seat hung open as if to welcome them. Fors slid across the disintegrating pad to sit behind the controls—just as if he were one of the Old Ones who had used this marvel as a matter of course.

Arskane crowded in beside him and was leaning forward to examine the rows of dials and buttons confronting them. He touched one.

“This locks the wheels—”

“How do you know?”

“We have a man of learning in the tribe. He has taken apart many of the old machines to learn the secret of their fashioning. Only we have no longer the fuel to run them and so they are of no use to us. But from Unger I have learned something concerning their powers.”

Fors yielded his place, not without some reluctance, and watched Arskane delicately test the controls. At last the southerner stamped with his foot upon a floor-set button and what they had believed in their hearts would never happen, did. The ancient engine came to Me. The sealed engine was not dead!

“The door!” Askane’s face was white beneath its brown stain, he clung to the wheel with real fear of the terrifying power that was throbbing under him.

Fors leaped out of the cab and dashed for the big door. He pulled down on the counter bar and it gave so that he could push back the ponderous barrier. He looked out upon a street clear of wrecks. A glance up slope told him why. At the head—only a few feet back from the door-one of the great trucks had slewed sidewise, its nose smashed into the wall of a building on the opposite side— an effective barricade. He did not linger after that fleeting examination. Behind, the sound of the dying engine was horrible—grating and grinding out its last few seconds of life.

Fors gained the cabin, bringing Lura in with him. They crouched together with pounding hearts as Arskane fumbled with the wheel. But the last spurt of power set the big truck moving, rubber shredding away from the remains of the tires as they turned. The engine faltered and died as they rolled out of the garage and reached the rise, but the momentum carried on and they sped faster and faster down the steep hill to the valley below.

Only pure luck had given them that clear street ahead. Had it not been for the smashed truck corking the street at its head they might have crashed into wreckage which would have killed them all. Arskane fought the wheel, steering only by instinct, and brought them along the pavement at a pace which grew ever wilder as the truck gained speed.

Twice Fors closed his eyes, only to force them open again. His hands were buried deep in the fur of the squalling Lura who wanted none of this form of travel. But the truck went on and on and they were at last on level land, bumping over the rusted tracks of the railroad. The truck slowed, and at last it stopped as it buried its front bumper in a heap of coal.

For a moment the three simply remained where they were, shaken and weak. Then they roused enough to tumble out. Arskane laughed, but his voice was going up scale as he said.

“If anyone followed us they must be well behind now. And we must labor so that such a distance grows even wider.”

They took advantage of any cover afforded by the wreckage in the train yards, and struck south at a trotting pace until, at last, the valley of the river looped away again from the southern path they had set themselves. Then they climbed the slope and went on across the tree-grown ruins of the city outskirts.