Wild Country

Chapter Sixty

The stage to the Thrillkiller complex was loaded to its running boards, and two small boys were "forced" to sit up with the driver to their whoops of delight as they looked down on the rumps of the four-horse team. Their parents sat with Sorel's party and discussed the Thrillkiller; that is. until they saw it. Rounding a bend, the occupants of the stage all fell silent before the spectacle that sprawled the length of the valley.

They passed the quaint urban jungle of Soho to the left, on their way to a broad ground-level parking area a kilometer or so farther. A pair of sunken hotels flanked two sides of the parking area, and a vast hangarlike structure, housing most of the amusement rides, loomed beyond. Stretching alongside these structures, angling toward the butte at the head of the valley, was a well-surfaced airstrip with hangar space for small visiting craft as well as Heinkels and Spitfires. But no one spent much time staring at these secondary attractions. Even Sorel, who had come solely to see the delta moorage, stared in awe, speechless as the two boys who were first to spot a Thrillkiller capsule spiraling down from the lip of the butte several kilometers away.

From this distance, only the silver two-place capsule and its maglev rails glinted in the sun, the support structures painted to blend into the ochre tints of Wild Country. When Quantrill spotted it, the tiny bubble-topped dart was emerging from its downward spiral and onto the high-speed straight, heading in their general direction. It dropped from sight as the stage negotiated a gentle bend toward the parking area and did not come into view again until they were passing the natural earth berm of the nearest hotel. It was still nearly a kilometer away, but now over the clip-clopping and homely squeaks of a horse-drawn stage they could hear the synthesized turbine howl of the capsule. Even at this distance, they found it easy to believe that the thing was streaking along at supersonic velocity.

The little capsule banked into a broad turn, arrowing nearer, then sweeping to parallel the parking area before braking for its last series of gut-wrenching chicanes. In seconds it had disappeared, heading for the start-finish arcade near the other rides. "That tears it," said the father of the boys in a hushed voice. "Nobody in his right mind would let his kids ride that thing by themselves."

"That's the hypersonic track," Quantrill offered. "Besides, WCS won't let children ride alone."

"Then that really settles it," the man replied. "I'm not crazy."

"I'm with you," Quantrill said, grinning. He could see his new friend Matthias studying the curve of the maglev rails, nodding, smiling. Chiefly for the Mexican's benefit and mindful of their heavy lunch, he added, "It can empty a full stomach in a hurry, they say."

Stepping from the stage near a berm walkway, they watched a double-decker London bus lurch away, half-filled with patrons, toward the distant Soho. The other passengers ambled away to leave Quantrill and his party alone. The place might be thronged by holiday season, but today the hubbub of foot traffic was light. Still gazing at the rails gleaming laserlike in the near distance, Sorel said, "I would not have thought you could resist a challenge like that, Mr. Coulter. You have been here before, without trying this Thrillkiller?"

On his first trip Quantrill had been on duty for WCS, and in any case he had not given expensive thrill rides much thought at the time. A manhunter, even a part-time deputy, found challenges enough without creating them. "I was with a miz," he lied, and followed it up with another. "Which reminds me, a girl I knew from Alpine used to work at one of these places. Really should look her up. If she's homesick, I could get lucky." He winked. "Where'll you three be in… oh. an hour, I reckon?"

Sorel laughed, accepting the fact that Sam Coulter liked to cruise for women alone. It also occurred to him that he could better study the delta moorage without Coulter. He looked around, saw the concession signs beyond an ornamental cactus garden, and pointed. "Under the 'Dee and Dee' sign, then, in an hour."

Quantrill entered the nearest hotel while Sorel and his companions strode off in the direction of the concessions. Longo, noting that the crowd was too sparse for his liking, said, "I feel like we're naked out here in the open."

"I must get a close look at the air terminal, such as it is," said Sorel. "Perhaps it would be better if you two separated and mingled with the tourists. If you pick up a little puta or two, so much the better." With that, he struck off on a perimeter path toward the airstrip, a ten-minute walk away.