Chapter 74
Driven by the tortured climate, the wind is always present. It blasts over the parched scrub-covered plains and spirals relentlessly up and around the gigantic structures of the V-Cities: it never stops and has been blowing for hundreds of years.
And within the V-Cities themselves, where rusting gaps allow ingress, the wind slips in and rattles with decreasing strength and increasing capriciousness along the passageways and corridors.
Abigail sniffed the breeze and caught the faint but unmistakable smell of dog. She must be catching up with them: for nearly a day she had stalked them, staying resolutely downwind, following fresh droppings and the occasional distant noise or bark. And now she was getting close.
If she read the occasional paw-prints in the dust correctly, ther
