GeneStorm: City in the Sky Read Free Page B

tail, settled her spectacles upon her nose, and clicked her tongue to Onan. The beautiful apricot coloured cockatoo trotted onwards, his eyes rolling about to spy at the bushes and dust.
    The trail lead up and over a rise of ground, then down through a valley filled with flattened fern grass. They crossed up along another rise, where Snapper found another type of track clearly imprinted amongst the cocoplod trails.
    The tracks were from something heavy – something four, or possibly six legged. Almost definitely with a rider.
    The hoof marks were broader than a cocoplod hoof print. Deep-scored, with a sharp imprint, almost like the letter omega . Whatever it was, the creature’s hooves had chipped rock. The shark sniffed the scent of broken stone and gave a puzzled scowl.
    She dismounted and searched the ground, looking reflexively about for tiny artefacts. But it was Onan who suddenly bobbed his head up and down, fluffing out his feathers in satisfaction.
    “Shiny-shiny!”
    Snapper turned. “Shiny?”
    “Shiny-shiny!” The bird pointed with its beak – sharp enough to shear a man’s arm clean off. “Clever birdie!”
    “Clever birdie!” The shark made her way awkwardly over the rock bed to where something artificial gleamed amongst the pebbles. “Clever birdie!”
    “Salty cracker?”
    “Oh alright.” Snapper found a cracker in her belt pouch and tossed it to the bird. “You know you keep that damned bakery in business!”
    Onan stood on one leg, holding the cracker in his great beak, turning it around and around with his horny tongue. As the cockatoo chuckled in satisfaction, Snapper knelt to see just what the bird had discovered.
    It was a strange little piece of silver metal. A star shape that seemed to be made as a clip or pin. Military insignia? It was utterly untarnished. Snapper weighed the thing in her hand. It was apparently solid silver – a useful metal. Gunsmiths could use it for making percussion caps.
    She looked up and spied a few strands of long white hair drifting from where they had caught upon a shrub. She immediately clicked back the hammer of her carbine and brought the butt up to her shoulder.
    The strands were from the mane of a feral.
    There were seven civilised settlements scattered about the known wilds: Spark Town here in the north was the most technically advanced. They were all mixed communities – with inhabitants of all kinds of varied ancestry. But out in the deeper wilds, there were nomadic feral tribes: single species groups still gripped by the violence of the ancient GeneStorm plague. They were warlike primitives, constantly at war with other feral tribes. Although there were verbal treaties with the nearest clans, war parties from other tribes sometimes risked making raids. The tribe closest to Spark Town were a violent species of crocodile-pig hybrids: powerful creatures that rode insectoid battle mounts.
    If ferals had been rustling cocoplods, a veritable range war might result. For twenty years the ferals had kept their distance – the guns and riders of Spark Town were deadly. But a new feral tribe might have migrated into the hills – or young warriors split off from an older tribe could be trying to make a name for themselves as raiders. Raids would swiftly bring counter raids, and it would become impossible for an honest prospector to make a living.
    It all sounded like bad news. Snapper swung back up into Onan’s saddle and sent the bird swiftly climbing up the hill, keeping to the shadows of the rocks. They shadowed the cocoplod trail from a distance, keeping well hidden amongst the rocks and trees.
    A sharp escarpment looked down into a narrow, twisting valley. Cocoplod prints ran through the valley, following a path through bramble trees that curved off to the east. The water course in valley bottom was still slightly muddy – the herd would not be raising any dust. The rustlers had clearly thought out their strategy.
    Snapper’s eye spied a good path