Rick's cousins were two specks floating on the horizon, leaving him far behind on the treacherous bush track. He looked at his punctured tyres in dismay. Ten kilometres. If he walked, he'd be too late to save them. If he ran, he'd expire in the heat.
Somewhere across the flats, in between the red-dirt back roads, there was real trouble happening. Rick had never felt so alone; the land around him felt as alien as the moon - nothing like the city. But now was no time to hesitate . . . Ian and Nita were depending on him.
Then the voice of his dead father came back to him: "Don't use up all your energy at once. Walk twenty, run twenty".
