Zelazny, Roger - Last Of The Wild Ones

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LAST OF THE WILD ONES

By Roger Zelazny

Spinning through the dream of time and dust they came, beneath a lake-cold, lake-blue, lake-deep

sky, the sun a crashed and burning wreck above the western mountains; the wind a whipper of

turning sand devils, chill turquoise wind out of the west, taking wind. They ran on bald tires,

they listed on broken springs, their bodies creased, paint faded, windows cracked, exhaust tails

black and gray and white, streaming behind them into the northern quarter whence they had been

driven this day. And now the pursuing line of vehicles, fingers of fire curving, hooking, above,

before them. And they came, stragglers and breakdowns being blasted from bloom to wilt, flash to

smolder, ignored by their fleeing fellows ....

Murdock lay upon his belly atop the ridge, regarding the advancing herd through powerful field

glasses. In the arroyo to his rear, the Angel of Death-all cream and chrome and bulletproof glass,

sporting a laser cannon and two bands of armor-piercing rockets-stood like an exiled

mirage glistening in the sun, vibrating, tugging against reality.

It was a country of hills, long ridges, deep canyons toward which they were being driven. Soon

they would be faced with a choice. They could pass into the canyon below or enter the one farther

to the east. They could also split and take both passages. The results would be the same. Other

armed observers were mounted atop other ridges, waiting.

As he watched to see what the choice would be, Murdock's mind roamed back over the previous

fifteen years, since the destruction of the Devil Car at the graveyard of the autos. He had, for

twenty-five years, devoted his life to the pursuit of the wild ones. In that time he had become

the world's foremost authority on the car herds-their habitats, their psychology, their means of

maintenance and fueling-learning virtually everything concerning their ways, save for the precise

nature of the initial flaw that one fatal year, which had led to the aberrant radio communicable

program that spread like a virus among the computerized vehicles. Some, but not all, were

susceptible to it, tightening the disease analogy by another twist of the wrench. And some

recovered, to be found returned to the garage or parked before the house one morning, battered but

back in service, reluctant to recite their doings of days past. For the wild ones killed and

raided, turning service stations into fortresses, dealerships into armed camps. The black Caddy

had even borne within it the remains of the driver it had monoed long ago.

Murdock could feel the vibrations beneath him. He lowered the glasses, no longer needing them, and

stared through the blue wind. After a few moments more he could hear the sound, as well as feel it-

over a thousand engines roaring, gears grinding, sounds of scraping and

crashing-as the last wild herd rushed to its doom. For a quarter of a century he had sought this

day, ever since his brother's death had set him upon the trail. How many cars had he used up? He

could no longer remember. And now...

He recalled his days of tracking, stalking, observing, and recording. The patience, the self-

control it had required, exercising restraint when what he most desired was the immediate

destruction of his quarry. But there had been a benefit in the postponement-this day was the

reward, in that it would see the passing of the last of them. Yet the things he remembered had

left strange tracks upon the path he had traveled.

As he watched their advance, he recalled the fights for supremacy he had witnessed within the

herds he had followed. Often the defeated car would withdraw after it was clear that it was

beaten; grill smashed, trunk sprung, lights shattered, body crumpled and leaking. The new leader

would then run in wide circles, horn blaring, signal of its victory, its mastery. The defeated

one, denied repair from the herd supply, would sometimes trail after the pack, an outcast.

Occasionally it would be taken back in if it located something worth raiding. More often, however,

it wandered across the Plains, never to be seen mobile again. He had tracked one once, wondering

whether it had made its way to some new graveyard of the autos. He was startled to see it suddenly

appear atop a mesa, turn toward the face that rose above a deep gorge, grind its gears, rev its

engine, and rush forward, to plunge over the edge, crashing, rolling, and burning below.

But he recalled one occasion when the winner would not settle for less than a total victory. The

blue sedan had approached the beige one where it sat on a low hillock with four or five parked

sports cars. Spinning its wheels, it

blared its challenge at several hundred meters' distance, then turned, cutting through a half-

circle, and began its approach. The beige began a series of similar maneuvers, wheeling and

honking, circling as it answered the challenge. The sports cars hastily withdrew to the sidelines.

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