party had not encountered tracks of any small

groups during their southward journey, it meant the cloud-warriors must

have headed in the direction he expected - towards the west. If they

were travelling on foot through deep snow with at least one wounded

companion, their progress would be painfully slow.

The condition of his quarry and the direction they had

taken were guesses based on the most tenuous evidence but, in the

past, Izo had always been lucky when he had backed his own judgement.

If he was right again (and he was convinced he was) then there was a

reasonable chance of picking up their trail before they reached the

Miz-Hippy.

But without food for themselves and their exhausted horses, Izo knew

that immediate pursuit was impossible.

Given the present weather they would need fresh mounts and more

pack-animals before undertaking another overland journey. The first

move was to return to the house-boat and send word to his masters.

Signalling the sea-soldier to follow him, he turned back towards the

campsite and broke into a stumbling lan...

Steve's unknown adversary was right. Since abandoning their first

makeshift shelter beneath the wing of the wrecked Skyrider, progress

across the snow-covered landscape had been painfully slow but the

problem of keeping warm had been partially solved prior to their

departure. Leaving Clearwater to look after Kelso, Steve and Jodi had

gone out hunting with Cadillac. The hand-guns lacked the range of the

Mute crossbows but after two days of plugging away at anything and

everything dressed in a fur coat they amassed enough skins to keep the

worst of the cold out.

The problem of stitching them together had been foreseen by whoever had

designed the survival packs that came with each Skyrider; each pack

contained a variety of needles and reels of stout waxed thread.

Squatting around the fire like immigrant tailors fresh from a shetl in

Czarist Russia, they set to work. By dawn, the sewing circle had

produced some rough shapeless over-garments which they then tied in

place around each other's bodies using electric wiring and strips of

fabric culled from the wrecked Skyrider. It was fortunate they were

concerned more with keeping warm than keeping up appearances for when

the last knots were tied and they emerged to test their yeti-boots in

the snow, they looked like a ragamuffin quartet of stone-age primitives

in search of a mammoth beefburger.

The collective but somewhat reluctant decision to head west along the

hardway was taken round about the time that Izo Wantanabe decided to

head in the same direction. A bitterly chill wind was driving the snow

horizontally across the landscape but Steve would not allow them to

wait until it stopped. They set out in a somewhat acrimonious mood but

despite the appalling weather they chose the right moment for the snow

and wind quickly obliterated their tracks.

Dave Kelso, trussed up like a Bacofoil mummy in his reflective

blankets, and covered with a bear skin - still raw and bloody on the

inside - lay on an improvised stretcher with Jodi's half of the canopy

lashed over the top part of his body as extra protection.

With Steve paired with Clearwater at the front, and Cadillac with Jodi

at the back, the load was evenly and easily distributed but after

they'd covered the first few miles, Steve realized there was no way

they could carry him through the snow to Wyoming.

Besides being not physically possible, there was no point in doing so

as Steve had already concluded.

Kelso's fractures would be incurable by the time he got there. But

even if they dumped him, it was highly doubtful whether they themselves

could survive such a journey, ill-prepared, and in the depths of

winter.

They had to find somewhere to hole up until spring.

Steve only knew of one place - the dugout he'd used in Nebraska. It

was warm, dry, well-concealed and just about big enough for the five of

them. Nice idea, but there were two big snags. The dugout had been