GeneStorm: City in the Sky Read Free Page A

and even lengths of conductive cable. When she was done, she carefully laid the bike back in place. She reassembled as much of the old skeleton as she could find, and laid it off to one side in the trench, smoothing everything quietly into place.
    “There we are mate. All squared away.” She made certain everything was straight. “Much better.”
    Snapper carefully back-filled the hole over the old bones. She finished off the grave with a rock planted at the skeleton’s head, and another near its feet: a sure sign to other prospectors to leave old bones in peace. Dusting herself off, she dragged her finds back to the shade of the bacon fruit trees, sitting down to feed a salty cracker to her delighted cockatoo. Two of the melons growing from the vines were ripe: weird things, sort of half cantaloupe and half banana. They were not bad at all. Snapper saved the seeds, rolling them inside a paper packet while Onan showered bits of melon rind over everything in range. The bird chuckled, well entertained, and tried to extort more crackers as Snapper slung her loot behind the creature’s saddlebags.
    The ironwood reach formed a belt of meandering, folded terrain a hundred kilometres to the north of Spark Town. Beyond the reach, plains gave way to rolling hills, reaching finally to the great barrier cliff range that towered high above. Tangled and occasionally treacherous, the ironwood reach was host to countless small finds of ruins; small places that yielded occasional salvage. There was enough scrap metal, scavenged polymers and artefacts to provide a living to any prospector cunning enough to scratch them from the earth. But the threat from feral tribes, cruising giga-moths and predators made it a dangerous occupation. Junk prospectors were decidedly a breed apart – restless, driven and occasionally quite mad.
    Some parch lines in the grass revealed the presence of old walls, or perhaps an ancient road. Snapper carefully hunted her way down along the marks, looking for any humps or hummocks in the soil, but there seemed to be nothing of real interest hidden in the dirt. She made a note in her journal, and then decided to move on.
    Winter rains sometimes washed artefacts down out of the uplands. They tended to collect in the deep crevices between hills, often smothered by gravel and dried mud. Snapper rode her cockatoo out from beneath the trees and headed for a creek bed, hoping there might be some titbits sloughed down out of the hills. A trinket trail might lead back to something far more interesting. The shark was forever hopeful that some day – some day – she would find something wonderful . Something utterly worthwhile.
    All through the afternoon, Snapper quietly sifted and searched. She found a few shards of glass, a pair of white chips, and a rather beautifully weathered glass bottle. Ordinary items found in any ordinary stream.
    The water courses were already drying up. The broad creek bed now held a narrow trickle that linked deeper billabongs. Trees clustered at the banks – gingerbark and pfaffenpepper, sweet gum and tangle bush. Several plant-animals had come to set up house beside the billabongs for the summer – mobile creatures covered in photosynthetic sprigs and leaves. They seemed interested in one particular area of the banks.
    There was an awful lot of dung at the water’s edge. The entire area had been trampled by dozens of hoof marks. They looked like cocoplod hooves: the plodding, rather stupid animal-plant hybrids were raised by ranchers far back around Spark Town.
    Someone had crossed the creek here with a considerable herd of beasts. Snapper leaned over in her saddle and inspected the morass of half-dried mud: the herd could only have been here a few hours ago. But why would anybody bring a herd this far east, so far from civilisation? The hills were dangerous territory.
    The tracks continued east – towards a landscape of rock piles and boulders. Intrigued, Snapper swirled her elegant