Escape Velocity

7

The courier ship had room for ten passengers. Dar and Sam were the only ones. After five days, they’d both tried all ten seats at least twice.

“No, really, I do think it looks better from back here,” Dar said from the seat just in front of the aft bulkhead. “You get more of a feeling of depth—and it’s definitely more aesthetic to feel the force of acceleration on your back.”

“What force of acceleration? This ship could be in free-fall, for all we feel. Built-in acceleration compensators, remember? This cabin’s got its own gravity unit.”

“Luxury craft,” Dar griped, “absolutely destroys all sense of motion.”

“Which makes it far more aesthetic to sit in the middle of the cabin,” Sam opined. “You get the sense of the environment this way.” She spread her arms. “The feeling of space—limited, but space. You’re immersed in it.”

“Yeah, but who wants to be immersed in molded-plastic seats and creon upholstery?”

“If your accommodations bother you, sir …”

Dar looked up at the stewardess in annoyance. “I know: I don’t have any choice about it.”

“Not at all, sir. I can offer you a variety of other realms of reality.” The stewardess’s chest slid open, revealing several shelves crammed with pill bottles. “All guaranteed to make you forget where you are, sir, and make the time fly.”

“And my brain with it. No, thank you—I’ll stick with the old-fashioned narcotics.”

A plastic tumbler rammed into his palm; the stewardess’s finger turned into a spigot, and splashed amber-colored fluid and crushed ice into his tumbler. “One old-fashioned, sir.”

“I had in mind a martini,” Dar grumbled. “But thanks, anyway.”

“It is unnecessary to thank me, sir I am merely …”

“A machine, yes. But it keeps me from getting into bad habits. When do we get to Haldane IV?”

“That’s got to be the twelfth time you’ve asked that question,” Sam sighed, “and I told you as soon as we’d boarded—Bhelabher said it’d take us five days!”

“I know, I know,” Dar griped, “but I like to hear her say it. When do we get to Haldane IV, stewardess?”

“Experienced space travelers never ask ‘when,’ sir,” the stewardess answered, a bit primly.

“I love the programmed response.” Dar leaned back, grinning.

“Look at it this way—it’s a faster trip then I had on the way out,” Sam offered. “That took a week and a half.”

“I believe the ship transporting you on the outbound swing was a common freighter, sir…”

“Miz!”

“Oh, really? But I believe you’ll find that an I.D.E. courier ship is a bit faster than your earlier conveyance. In fact, we’re approaching breakout now. Stretch webbing, please.” And the stewardess rolled into her closet, clicking the door shut behind her.

“Talk about bad habits!” Sam snorted. “Or didn’t you realize you were making fun of her?”

“I know, I know,” Dar growled. “But I have definitely taken a dislike to that machine.”

“Programmed by a snob,” Sam agreed. “Come on, we’d better get ready.”

“Approaching breakout,” the resonant PA ship’s voice informed them.

“I don’t know why we bother.” Dar stretched his shock webbing across his body. “What could happen when you break out of H-space, anyway?”

“Y’know, you’re getting to be a pretty surly bird.”

“So, I’ll get a worm. You’ve got to admit, there isn’t even a jar when you break out into normal space.”

“Not unless they’ve got you bottled up.”

Dar frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sam sighed. “It’s a holdover from the pre-I.D.E. days, when there wasn’t any central government and things were pretty chaotic outside the Sol system. Pirates used to lie in wait for ships at the breakout points. They couldn’t touch a freighter while it was in H-space, but they could jump it as soon as it broke out.”

“Oh.” Dar felt a slight chill of apprehension. “Uh—the central government isn’t too effective, these days…”

“Breaking out,” the ship’s voice informed them. “We will be without interior power for a few seconds.”

The lights went out as all the ship’s power was channeled into the isomorpher, translating them back into normal space. A surge of dizziness washed over Dar, and objective reality became a little subjective for a second or two—in fact, it seemed to go away altogether. Then it came back, and the lights came on again. Dar blinked and turned his head from side to side, to see if it still worked. “On second thought, maybe the webbing isn’t such a bad idea.”

“Please maintain your position,” the ship’s voice advised. “There is an unidentified craft in pursuit.”

Dar looked over at Sam. “What were you saying about pirates?”

“Not in this day and age, certainly.” But she looked a little pale.

“I think they said something like that in the early 1800s, to a man named Jean Laffite.” Dar turned to stare out the porthole. “You know, you can actually see something out there now.”

“Of course—stars. We’re back in normal space, remember? So what did he answer?”

“That one’s got a discernible disk; must be Haldane… Who?”

“This Jean Laffite.”

“Oh—‘Stand and deliver.’ ” Dar peered through the porthole. “There was more; I forget the exact wording, but it had something to do with the ownership of a place called ‘the Caribbean…’ Wow!”

An orange glare lit up the cabin.

“That was close!” Sam said through the afterimages.

“I think that’s what they used to call a ‘shot across the bow.’ ”

“This is serious!” Sam yelped. “Where’s the Navy when you need it?”

“Ask the pirates—I’m sure they know.”

“So do I; I got one of the Navy data operators drunk one night, just before I quit, and got the access code out of him.”

Dar frowned. “Why’d you do that?”

“I wanted to make sure I was going to be safe on my trip out here. And I found out I would be; there wasn’t supposed to be a sailor for fifty parsecs. The nearest fleet’s a hundred seventy-five light-years away, over toward Aldebaran, sitting on their thumbs and polishing the brightwork.”

“What’re they doing there?”

“Somebody called ‘em, about a year ago, to come take care of some pirates.”

“So, while they were on their way out, the pirates were coming back here! Great!” Dar said.

Sam took a deep breath. “Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. We’re getting carried away here. For all we know, those aren’t pirates out there.”

“Sure, maybe it is the Navy—and for all they know, we’re pirates. If you’ll pardon my saying so …”

A brilliant flare lit up the cabin. Sam shrieked. “I’m convinced! It’s pirates!”

Dar shrugged. “Pirates or Navy—after we’ve been turned into an expanding cloud of hydrogen atoms, I’m afraid I won’t really care much about distinctions.”

“You’re right.” Sam loosed her shock webbing. “Whoever it is, we’ve gotta get out of here.”

Dar’s head snapped up, startled. Then he waved an airy hand toward the porthole. “Sure—be my guest. It’s a great day outside, if you face sunwards. Of course, the night on your backside gets a teeny bit chilly.”

“Credit me with some sense,” she snorted. “This ship must have some kind of lifeboat!”

But Dar was looking out the porthole. “Get down!”

Startled, Sam obeyed. A rending crash shot through the ship, and she slammed back against the cabin wall. Dar bounced out against his webbing.

“What in Ceres’ name was that?” Sam gasped.

“They got tired of playing games.” Dar yanked his webbing loose and struggled to his feet, bracing himself against the pull of acceleration. “They shot to maim this time, and they had some luck. They got our gravity generator. Where’d you say the lifeboat was?”

“It’d make sense to put it between the pilot’s bridge and the passenger cabin, wouldn’t it?”

“Right.” Dar turned aft. “Since that makes sense, it’ll obviously be between the cabin and the cargo space. Let’s go.”

Sam started to protest, then shut up and followed.

The ship bucked and heaved. Dar caught the tops of the seats on either side, bracing himself. Sam slammed into his back. “Near miss,” he grated. “We got hit by a wave of exploding gas. Wish I had time to watch; this pilot’s doing one hell of a job of dodging.”

“Is that why my body keeps trying to go through the wall?”

“Yeah, and why it keeps changing its mind as to which wall. Come on.”

They wallowed through a morass of acceleration-pull to the aft hatch. Dar turned to a small closet beside the hatch, and yanked it open. “Two on this side; there’ll be three on the other side, I suppose.” He took down a slack length of silver fabric with a plastic bulb on top. “Here, scramble into it.”

Sam started struggling into the space suit. “Little flimsy, isn’t it?”

Dar nodded. “It won’t stop anything sharper than a cheese wedge. It’s not supposed to; the lifeboat’ll take care of that. The suit’s just to hold in air.”

The ship bucked to the side with a rending crash, slamming Sam up against him. Jumpsuit or not, he realized dizzily, she was very definitely female. Somehow, this didn’t seem like the time to mention it.

She scrambled back from him, and kept on scrambling, into her suit. “They’re getting closer! Hurry!”

Dar stretched the suit on and pressed the seal-seam shut, being careful to keep it flat. Sam copied him. Then he braced himself and touched his helmet against hers, to let his voice conduct through the plastic. “Okay, turn around so I can turn on your air supply and check your connections.”

Sam turned her back to him. Dar checked her connections, then turned on her air supply. When the meter read in the blue, he tapped her shoulder and turned his back. He could feel her hands fumbling over him; then air hissed in his helmet. He took a breath and nodded, then turned to the hatch, wrenched it open, and waved Sam in. She stepped through; he followed, and pulled the door closed behind them, wrenching it down. Sam had already pushed the cycle button. When the air had been pumped back into the reserve tank, the green light lit up over the side hatch. Dar leaned on the handle and hauled back; the three-foot circle swung open. Sam stepped through, and Dar stepped after her.

He sat down, stretching the web over his body. Sam leaned over to touch helmets. “How about the pilot?”

“He’s on his own—got his own lifeboat if he wants it.” Dar punched the power button, and the control panel lit up.

“You know how to drive this thing?”

“Sure; besides, how can you go wrong, with two buttons, two pedals, and a steering wheel?”

“I could think of a few ways.”

Dar shrugged. “So I’m not creative. Here goes.” The “READY” light was blinking; he stabbed at the “EJECT” button.

A five-hundred-pound masseur slammed him in the chest, and went to work on the rest of his body. Then the steamroller lightened to a flatiron, and Dar could breathe again. He sat up against the push of slackening acceleration and looked around through the bubble-dome. It had darkened to his right, where a sun was close enough to show a small disk and kick out some lethal radiation. But that didn’t matter; the silver slab of pirate ship filled most of the starboard sky. “Way too close,” Dar muttered, and pressed down on the acceleration pedal. The flatiron pressed down on him again, expanding into a printing press. He glanced behind him, once, at the silver-baseball courier ship, then turned back to the emptiness before him.

Sam struggled forward against the pull of acceleration. “Any chance they haven’t spotted us?”

Dar shrugged. “Hard to say. We’ll show up on their detectors; but they might not pay attention to anything this small.”

Then the silver slab began to slide toward them.

“Do they have to be so damn observant?” Dar adjusted his chair upright and tromped down on the acceleration pedal. The masseur dumped the steamroller on him again, shoving him back into the chair; he could just barely stretch his arms enough to hold onto the wheel.

The silver slab picked up speed.

“Somehow, I don’t think we can outrun them.” Dar turned the wheel left; the port-attitude jets slackened, then died, as the starboard jets boosted their mutter to a roar, and the lifeboat turned in a graceful U, throwing Dar over against Sam. She sat huddled back in her chair, face pale, eyes huge.

No wonder, Dar thought. He’d feel the same way if he were a passenger in a boat he was driving. He straightened out the wheel and held the pedal down, sending the little ship arrowing back toward the courier ship, which was taking advantage of the pirates’ preoccupation to try to sneak away.

Sam struggled forward, adjusting her chair upright, and laid her helmet against his. “Shouldn’t we be going away from them?”

Dar shook his head. “They’d have about as much trouble catching us as a lean cat would have with a fat mouse. Our only chance is to hide.”

“Hide? Behind what? There’s nothing out here!”

A bright red energy-bolt exploded just behind them and a little to their right.

“YEOW!” Sam shrank down inside her suit. “Hide behind something! Fast!”

“As fast as I can.” Dar threw the wheel hard over Sam slammed hard against his side.

“What’re you doing?”

“Evasive action. They might get smart and hook that cannon up to a ballistic computer.” And Dar proceeded to lay a course that would have given a triple-jointed snake double lumbago. They rattled around inside the lifeboat like dice in a cup.

“We’re winning,” Dar grated. “We’ve got it confused.”

A fireball exploded right under their tail.

“YEOW! Learns fast, doesn’t it?” Dar tromped hard on the accelerator and pushed on the wheel. They dived, and a great gleaming curve slid by overhead. Then they were out, with open space before them. Dar pressed down on the deceleration pedal, and threw himself and Sam forward against their webbing.

Her helmet cracked against his. “Why don’t you keep on running?”

“ ‘Cause they’d catch us.” Dar turned the boat, sent it racing back toward the silver sphere and the slab that loomed over it like a tombstone.

Sam stiffened in her seat. “Don’t ram it!”

“No fear.”

Blue sparks spattered up all around the courier. “I think they just mistook it for us.” Then Dar pushed on the wheel again. The lifeboat dived, and the bottom of the silver sphere swam by overhead again.

“Why?” Sam fairly shrieked.

“Because.”

The little ship spat out from under the courier, darting across the gap toward the silver slab.

Sam took a deep breath. “Correct me if I’m wrong—but aren’t we supposed to be trying to get away from them?”

“Yes—and we are.” The silver slab loomed right above them, so close it seemed they could almost touch it. Dar shoved on the deceleration pedal again, slowing the lifeboat by deft touches till the pitted silver plates above them were almost motionless. “There!” He sat back and relaxed. “We’ve matched velocities. With any luck, they won’t have noticed us jumping under them; they’ll have been too busy taking potshots at the courier.”

“Why wouldn’t they notice us?”

“Because it would make a lot more sense for us to be still hiding behind our mother ship.”

“Definitely.” Sam glanced up at the pirate with apprehension.

“Even if they do start looking for us, they’re apt to overlook us—unless they’ve got their ventral detectors on.”

“Which they probably have.”

“With our luck, of course. But even if they do, they probably won’t see us—we’re too close to their skin, in their detectors’ shadow.”

“Nice theory.” Sam settled back. “What happens if you’re wrong?”

“Well, in that case, they shoot away from us faster than we can go, leave us sitting here, and play skeet shoot.”

“Now I know why I always sympathized with the clay pigeons.” Sam shivered. “What’re they doing?”

Dar turned around, looking out over the tail. “Still trying to shoot through the courier … whup!”

“ ‘Whup,’ what?” Sam asked with foreboding.

“The courier’s moving away—‘streaking’ would be more likely. Brace yourself—the pirates’re going after him, and fast! Even damaged, that courier’s quick!”

Sam frowned. “Then how’d the pirates catch ‘em in the first place?”

“Lurking in ambush.”

“Lurking where? There’s no cover bigger than a hydrogen atom out here!”

“Whup! There they go!” Dar spun around and set himself as the silver slab slid away toward their rear. Dar pushed down the acceleration pedal, heading sunwards.

“We … can’t … possibly outrun … them,” Sam grated against the pull of acceleration.

“Not if they’re going … our way,” Dar answered. “But at the moment … they’re going … out, and we’re going … in.”

“Why bother?” Sam spoke more easily. “As soon as they’re done with the courier, they’ll come after us.”

“Assuming we’re big enough to bother with. But by that time, maybe we can find a place to hide.”

“Hide? Where?”

“Wherever they did, while they were lurking … there!” Dar’s forefinger stabbed out, pointing ahead, at a string of pierced diamonds backlit by the sun. “Asteroids! They confused the ship’s detection system; it thought the pirates’ ship was just a large rock, closer than the others!”

Sam stared. “What’re they doing here?”

“This is not the time to ask questions.” Dar craned around, looking aft. “They’re still going after the courier … they’ve overhauled it, they’re gonna fire a warning shot… NO! They’re starting to slow and turn!”

Sam stared. “Why?”

“Because they’re not interested in the courier, obviously! They just took a peek, saw our boat’s pod was still empty and we were nowhere in sight, and started scanning for us!”

Sam frowned, shaking her head. “I don’t get it. You make it sound as though they want us.”

“Guess what?” Dar said dryly. “What I’d like to know is how they knew we were aboard?”

“Maybe they didn’t,” Sam said hopefully. “Maybe they think we’re somebody else.”

“You’ll pardon me if I don’t stay around to find out.” Dar swerved and jammed the deceleration pedal; the ship bucked as the nose rockets spewed superheated steam, slamming them into their webbing. The shiplet danced and curvetted as Dar tried to avoid the smaller chunks of stone and metal. The ship rang like a cymbal in a percussion solo, but nothing holed them. Dar managed to match velocity with an asteroid a little larger than the lifeboat. The ringing diminished to an occasional dong.

“So far, we’re fantastically lucky.” Dar killed all power. “As long as we don’t run into a really fast-moving pebble astern, or a slow-moving one ahead, we’re okay. This lifeboat’s got enough armor to take care of most of the debris.”

Sam released a long, shaky breath. “Taking a bit of a chance, weren’t you?”

Dar shrugged. “I had a choice? Now, as long as we don’t get our engines smashed, we’re okay.”

“And if we do?”

“So, which would you rather be—a prisoner, or an asteroid?”

Sam frowned. “Let me think it over.”

“Sure.” Dar leaned back, folding his arms. “You’ll have plenty of time.”

The asteroid’s path had carried them considerably out of the pirates’ path; the huge silver slab flashed by overhead and well behind them.

“Just like that?” Sam looked about her, puzzled. “They just go by and leave us?”

“Wrong,” Dar said grimly. “They saw us curve off and join the asteroids, you can bet on it. But they couldn’t decelerate fast enough to follow us—we do have an edge in maneuverability. They’ll be back, though, don’t worry.”

“Thanks for the reassurance.” Sam sat very still. “Why’d you kill the power?”

“Because at least one of their detectors searches for it. Right now, that’s the only thing that makes us different from an asteroid, unless they happen to get close enough to eyeball us.”

“Don’t we reflect a lot more light?”

“I chose a bright asteroid to hide next to.”

“Here they come!” Sam yelped.

Dar poised a finger over the power button.

The pirates couldn’t hear them, of course, and they both knew it—but the rabbit reflex took over, and they both sat rock-still as the silver tombstone drifted slowly over them in a prowling zigzag. It cruised closer, closer, and Dar felt an urge to shove his tiny boat to starboard, to nestle up against the comforting bulk of the asteroid. The pirate zagged to the right—and, as it zigged past them, it was out beyond their covering asteroid. It loomed closer and closer, but slanting away now. It crossed their path a good half-mile in front of them, and kept on going.

Sam collapsed back against her chair with a sigh. “Thank heaven.”

“Yeah.” Dar felt himself beginning to tremble as he lowered his finger from the power button. “I never thought I’d be so glad to be inconspicuous.”

“As long as it worked.” Sam eyed him with dawning respect.

Dar felt his pulse quicken—after all, she was the only woman for several million miles. Sam stiffened, pointing ahead. “Look! What’re they doing?”

Dar stared. A giant hatch had opened in the stomach of the silver tombstone.

“They’re gonna send down their scout boat for a closer look!” Dar lunged at the power button.

Sam caught his arm. “No! You said that was a dead giveaway!”

Dar paused, his eyes on the pirate ship. “Wait a minute! They’re thinking it over.”

A shuttle hung halfway out the huge hatchway, motionless. Then it started to rise back up into the mother ship, and the huge doors swung shut.

“But why?” Dar bleated. “They had us dead cold!”

“That’s why!” Sam jabbed a finger toward the back window.

A huge, truncated pyramid came hurtling toward them. A vast eye seemed to float above it. The pirate ship slid into motion, gathering speed, and streaked away.

Dar winced in sympathy. “I’d’ve hated to’ve taken that slap of acceleration … But they didn’t have much choice, did they?”

“Why not?” Sam stared at the approaching pyramid. “What is that megalith?”

“The cops.” Dar shrugged. “Which ones, I’m not sure—but it comes out to the same thing. For once, I’m glad to see them.”

“Yo! Over here! Whoa! Help!” Sam tried to stand up, waving her arms frantically. “Damn! Don’t they hear us?”

“Sound waves don’t travel too well through vacuum,” Dar pointed out.

“I know, I know,” Sam groused, dropping back into her seat. “Just carried away by the heat of the moment.”

“So are they,” Dar noted, watching the police ship zip by.

“Now what do we do? Get out and walk?”

“Well, presumably we’re in the Haldane system, since that’s where we were going. And at our top speed, it can’t be more than three or four months to the nearest habitable planet.”

“I don’t think I can wait that long for lunch.”

“Oh, I’m sure there’re some rations tucked away around here somewhere. But I don’t think we’ll have to wait that long. I expect the police ship to be coming back this way pretty soon.”

“Why?” Sam frowned. “For reinforcements?”

“Oh, they don’t need any. Did you see that ‘eye’ on top of their ship? It is one very powerful blaster.”

“Oh.” Sam chewed that one over. “That why the pirates ran?”

Dar nodded. “With that ‘eye,’ the police have the pirates out-ranged, no matter how many guns they mount.”

“So why’ll the police be coming back?”

“Because the pirate ship also mounts an isomorpher, and I strongly suspect that police ship is purely local. As soon as the pirate goes into H-space, the police’ll be homeward bound.”

“Oh.” Sam thought it over. “But couldn’t the police catch the pirates before they isomorph?”

“They could,” Dar said judiciously, “but I don’t think they will. Those pirates’re going to be very good at running. If they’re not, they lose profits. So they’ll take risks the police won’t.”

“Like going into H-space too soon?”

“That’s possible. If you see a big explosion, you’ll know they tried it.”

They waited, staring ahead, where the police ship had dwindled to a glint of light.

After a while, Sam ventured, “I don’t think they tried it.”

A speck of light glinted in the distance. Dar’s finger sprang out to the power button again.

“Not yet!” Sam cried. “We don’t know who won!”

“I bet we’re gonna find out, though.” Dar waited, tense.

The glint grew into a dot, and kept growing.

It became a triangular dot.

“Victory!” Dar stabbed the button, and the engine roared into life. “Let’s hear it for the good guys!” He hauled back on the wheel, and the boat sprang up out of the plane of the ecliptic, toward the police ship.

“Shouldn’t we identify ourselves? So they don’t think we’re attacking?”

“Not as ridiculous as it sounds,” Dar said soberly. “For all they know, we could be a torpedo. There oughta be some kinda distress beacon around here. See if you can find it, will ya?”

It was labeled “Distress Beacon,” and it only had one button. Sam pressed it, and waited.

“How do we know if it’s working?” she said finally.

“How do you know God listens?” Dar retorted. “It’s got radio; we don’t.”

“Faith,” Sam grumbled. “Does it always have to come down to that?”

The pyramid loomed up toward them—and disappeared in a cloud of steam.

“They heard us!” Dar yelped. “They’re decelerating!”

The fog cleared, and the police ship towered over them.

Sam shrank back. “I can’t help it—I feel as though it’s going to fall on me!”

And it did. The great pyramid sank toward them, giving them a fly’s-eye view of a giant foot. Dar opened his mouth to scream just as a hatch slid open in the huge silver wall above them, swooping down to swallow them up.

“Saved?” someone croaked. Dar would’ve thought it was Sam, but it was coming from inside his own head.

“Just glad we were nearby.” The captain poured two glasses of brandy and held them out to Sam and Dar. His insignia gleamed on the breast of his doublet—an eye-topped pyramid with “Space Police” inside it in cursive script. Arcing above it were the words, “Hal. IV,” and, below it, “Falstaff.” It stood out in a sea of ocher—no, maybe an ocean. The captain was obese, to say the least. So was his crew—the smallest of them was at least four feet around, and all were shorter than Dar. The captain also had the typical Haldane IV face: florid, with long curly hair and a jawline beard.

Dar accepted the brandy eagerly, but Sam held up a palm. “Thanks, but I don’t believe in alcohol.”

The captain blinked in surprise. “I assure you, it exists.”

“We were lucky you were in the neighborhood,” Dar said quickly.

“Well, it wasn’t entirely luck,” the captain admitted. “We have had reports about pirates trying to ambush merchantmen at the H-space jump points. But last week a freighter full of pickled herring that was supposed to come through this way, didn’t—so we decided to guard this jump point. We only have this one patrol cruiser, so you’ll understand that we couldn’t guard all the points.”

“And the load of pickled herring was that important?” Dar said in surprise.

“To us,” said the captain, “it’s vital. But what brings you to Falstaff, gentlefolk?”

“ ‘Falstaff’?” Dar frowned, puzzled.

“It’s the local name for Haldane IV,” Sam explained. “Just here to make a connection, Captain. We’re inbound from Wolmar.”

The captain still sat comfortably leaning back, fingers laced across his butterbelly, but suddenly he was all vigilance. “Wolmar? Really! How interesting. By the way, could I see your papers?”

“Hm? Oh, sure!” Dar slid his passport and ID out of his jacket pocket and laid them on the desk; Sam followed suit. “Sorry; we should have thought of that right off.”

“Well, you were a little flustered.” The captain picked up their passports and suddenly, illogically, Dar had the insane conviction that the captain had a jeweler’s loupe in his eye.

“Everything in order—of course.” The last part lacked conviction. The captain slid their papers back to them. “We don’t get many coming from Wolmar.”

“The traffic does seem to run the other way,” Dar agreed. “But our pharmaceutical materials company’s getting itchy to expand, and we’re heading back to the inner planets to sound out possible investors.” Sam twitched; Dar reflected that he really should have told her about the cover story he was dreaming up.

“Didn’t realize it was getting to be that big a business.” The captain seemed genuinely interested.

Dar grinned. “It may not be—but we’re sure going to find out. By the way, I was mightily relieved when you noticed our boat so quickly. Were you on the lookout for us?”

“No, not particularly.” The captain frowned. “Should we have been?”

Dar sat still for a moment, letting the shock wash through him.

“Well,” he said carefully, “I would’ve thought our courier ship would’ve told you we were missing.”

“That is strange, now that you mention it.” The captain scratched his head, then looked up. “Maybe the pilot didn’t notice you’d abandoned ship.”

“Uh … could be.” Dar thought of how much of a lurch the lifeboat must’ve given the courier ship when it blasted free. “Of course—now that I think about it, that must be it. After all, how could the pilot have noticed we were gone?”

“How couldn’t he’ve noticed?” Dar raged. “When that lifeboat blasted free, it must’ve kicked the ship like a foundation anomaly!”

“Maybe he thought it was a blaster bolt,” Sam offered. “It was a little hectic just then.”

“And he wouldn’t’ve checked the passengers when the action was over?” Dar shook his head. “No. It washes about as well as baked-on grease.”

They were strolling through the downtown section of Haskerville, the capital of Falstaff. The street was wide, but all the buildings had a second story that projected out over the sidewalk—convenient in rainy weather, Dar was sure, but a little depressing on a sunny day. Also, it was a little strange that all the buildings were half-timbered and stuccoed.

“Well, it’s a frontier planet, I guess,” he said aloud.

“Not really—it’s a third of the way back to Terra, and it’s been colonized for four hundred years. What makes you think so?”

“The architecture.” Dar pointed to the wooden beams. “Don’t they know how to make steel?”

“Oh, they know how, well enough.” Sam smiled. “I asked about it on my way out here. Seems there’s very little free metal on Falstaff. Even the iron’s all locked up in rust, in the soil.”

“Oh.” Dar pursed his lips. “So what do I use for money here—nails?”

Sam started, surprised. “How’d you guess?”

“You’re kidding!”

“Think so, do you? Well, just try to pay for something with an I.D.E. BTU credit here.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Dar stopped by a storefront, looking up at the sign. “I think this is the place we’re looking for. Maybe they do money-changing here.”

“Makes sense,” Sam agreed, “so probably they don’t.”

They went into the ticket office of Outworld Interstellar Starship Enterprises, Unltd.

“Help you?” the clerk grunted around his sausage, his eyes on the newsfax. He was grossly fat, and jowly, like all the Falstavians they’d seen. In fact, Dar was beginning to feel like a freak—he was slim.

“Uh, yeah. We’d like to book passage to Terra.”

“Sure thing.” The man pulled out two tickets without even looking. “That’ll be two hundred pounds. Next ship lifts at fourteen hundred hours, May third.”

Dar froze with his hand on his wallet. “May third!? But it’s only April fifth!”

“Too bad, isn’t it?” the clerk commiserated. “You just missed the last boat—two days ago.”

“But we can’t wait! We’ve got to get to Terra fast!”

The clerk shrugged. “I just sell the tickets, buddy—I don’t schedule the ships. Y’ want ‘em, or not?”

“Uh, not just yet, thanks.” Dar turned to Sam, looking helpless.

“Do you change money here?” she said briskly.

The clerk looked up. “Money? Yeah, sure! Whacha got?”

“I.D.E. therms—ten of them,” Sam said with a meaningful stare at Dar.

“Oh.” The clerk seemed disappointed. “Well, we’ll take anything, I guess. Put ‘em up here.” He pulled out a small cloth sack and set it on the counter; it clanked.

Dar paused with his cash halfway to the counter “What’s that?”

“Money,” the clerk looked up, frowning. “For ten I.D.E. therms, you get two pounds.”

“Two pounds?” Dar bleated, aghast. “You must think your pound’s worth an awful lot!”

“A pound of ten-penny nails?” The clerk eyed Dar as if doubting his sanity. “Buddy, around here, that’s worth a hell of a lot!”

“Oh.” Dar glanced at Sam out of the corner of his eye; she nodded. He sighed and laid his bills down on the counter “Okay, here you are. Say, uh—is there any connection to Terra sooner than next month?”

“Well, if y’ really wanna know …” The clerk leaned forward confidentially. “I got this buddy, see, an’ he’s got an inside track on this nice, used space yacht…”

“Uh, thanks anyway.” Dar took a step back. “I, uh, haven’t done all that much piloting lately.”

Sam bit the inside of her cheek.

“Oh.” The clerk leaned back with a look of disgust. “No high-grade, huh? Well, suit yourself.” He turned back to the newsfax.

“Uh, yeah.” Dar scooped up the moneybag. “We’ll, uh, get back to you.”

“You an’ what miner?” But the clerk lifted an affable hand anyway. “Good luck, chum.”

“Well, he tried to sound friendly, I suppose,” Dar said as they came out of the office.

“Not really. Around here, ‘chum’ doesn’t mean ‘friend’—it means ‘fishbait.’ The garbage kind.”

“Oh.” Dar frowned. “What was all that stuff about ‘high-grade’? And why would we come back with a miner?”

“The kind who digs up ore,” Sam explained. “High-grade ore.”

Dar glanced at her, but she wasn’t smiling. He shrugged. “Really serious about this iron thing, aren’t they?”

A ground car went past, hissing steam from its turbine. The body was wooden; the boltheads were plastic.

“Very,” Sam agreed.

Dar’s head swiveled, tracking the ground car. “What do they make the engine out of?”

“A very high-temperature plastic,” Sam answered. “But I understand they’re short on radios.”

Dar turned back to her, frowning. “That does require metal, doesn’t it? But how does the newsfax work?”

“Optical-fiber cables; they’ve got no shortage of silicon. And it can print by heat-transfer.”

Dar shook his head, flabbergasted. “Well, at least they don’t have traffic jams.”

“Sausage, sir?” inquired a rotund pushcart proprietor.

Dar stopped, suddenly realizing that darn near every passerby had a sausage in his mouth, chewing placidly. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t look out of place. Yeah, we’ll take two.” He fished in his moneybag, and brought out …

… a large nail.

He looked up at Sam, horrified.

She frowned, and nodded toward the peddler, who was holding out two sausages on a scrap of plastic. Dar stared from her to the hotdogs and back. Then he shrugged, took the sausages, and dropped the spike in the peddler’s palm. He turned away, with two three-penny nails and a brad for change. “What do they do around here when the Revenue Service comes calling?”

“They pay their tacks, like honest citizens. What’s the matter? Culture shock?”

Dar shook his head. “Couldn’t be; I can’t find the conductor.”

“Around here,” Sam said slowly, “I think that’s some kind of political office. You need a drink.”

“Good idea.” Dar nodded numbly. “I used to favor a cocktail called a ‘rusty nail.’ ”

“On this planet, that’s an obscenity.” Sam steered him through a swinging door. “I think you’d better have an old-fashioned.”

“I think I already have,” Dar muttered.

The tavern was dim, in the best tradition of alcohol stations. They stepped up to the bar.

“Orderzh? Orderzh?” the bartender slurred, blinking.

“Uh, an old-fashioned and a martinus.” Sam seemed fascinated by the blinking.

“Two bitsh.” The bartender pushed buttons.

Dar laid down a ten-penny nail.

“Two from a ten-pin,” the bartender muttered. Its hand sucked up the nail; a door in its chest slid open, and ejected two glasses of clear liquid and one glass of amber. It rolled away down the bar to the next customer, leaving two flat-head screws and a drill behind it.

“I’d count your change, if I were you,” the patron two stools down advised. He wore a dark brown robe belted with a length of coaxial cable; the crown of his head was shaved in a neat circle. The yellow handle of a small screwdriver peeked from his breast pocket. “That bartender isn’t too reliable today.”

“I thought his lights weren’t blinking in the right pattern!” Sam said triumphantly. “What’s the matter with him?”

“You’d have to say he’s drunk, I suppose,” the shave-pate answered. “You see, the tavernkeeper couldn’t afford wire for his conductors, so he had to use tubes of saline solution. Well, that means the bartender has to have a little fluid added every morning, and it seems someone spiced his morning pickup with metallic salts today. That increased conductivity, of course, and threw all his circuits off.”

“Which is why I got two when I only ordered one. Oh, well.” Sam shrugged and took a sip. “I should gripe?”

“Sounds like an expensive prank, for this neck of the woods,” Dar commented.

“No, not really. It’s free metal that’s in short supply on Falstaff. Compounds are plentiful.”

“You seem to know quite a bit about it.” Dar held up his glass and peered through it warily. “From your clothing, I would’ve thought you were a friar—but you talk like an engineer.”

“I’m both, really.” The stranger grinned and held out a hand. “Father Marco Ricci, O.S.V., at your service.”

“Dar Mandra.” Dar shook his hand. “And this is Sam Bine. What’s ‘O.S.V.’?”

“The ‘Order of Saint Vidicon of Cathode,’ ” the friar answered. “We’re a society of Roman Catholic engineers and scientists.”

“Oh, yeah. I should have recognized it. The chaplain on our transport was one of your boys.”

“They frequently are.” Father Marco nodded. “The Church tends to assign Cathodeans who specialize in astronautics to such jobs—it’s one more protection in case of a malfunction.”

“Yeah, makes sense.” Dar nodded, and his training in Cholly’s bar took over. “If you’ll pardon me, though—isn’t that something of a paradox?”

“What, having a priest who’s a scientist? Not really. Any conflict between science and religion is simply the result of clergy who don’t understand science, and scientists who don’t understand religion.”

“Wouldn’t a scientist-religious tend to be a bit skeptical about both?”

“Indeed he would.” The priest grinned. “The Vatican’s habitually annoyed with us—we tend to keep asking new questions.”

“Then, why do they let you keep going?”

“Because they need us.” Father Marco shrugged. “Even the Vatican has plumbing.”

“Well, I can see that.” Dar sipped. “But why would the church ever declare a maverick like one of you a saint?”

“Oh, you’re thinking of our founder.” Father Marco nodded. “Well, they hadn’t much choice, there. It was very clearly a case of martyrdom.”

“That gives you quite a record to live up to,” Sam noted.

“Oh, we don’t plan to be martyrs,” Father Marco assured them, “and I’m sure our founder would approve. After all, he was the practical sort—and a live priest can usually accomplish far more than a dead one.”

Dar wondered about the “usually.”

“Well, we have a bit of a practical problem ourselves, at the moment, Father—and you seem to be familiar with the planet.”

“But not native—as I’m sure you could tell by my size.” Father Marco was only a little on the stout side.

“Yes, and that’s our problem—we’re not native, and we would like to get on with our trip.”

“And the last freighter left orbit a few days ago.” Father Marco nodded. “Well, I’m afraid there’s not much you can do just now—especially with the I.D.E. police sealing off the planet.”

“Doing what?”

“Sealing off the planet,” Father Marco said mildly. “You hadn’t heard? It was on the newsfax just a few minutes ago. The Interstels had a reliable tip that a telepath came in on the last ship, so they’ve forbidden anyone to leave the planet while they search for him.”

“Well,” Sam said slowly, “that does kind of delay us, doesn’t it?”

Dar frowned. “What’s this telepath done?”

Father Marco shrugged. “Nothing, so far as I know. At least, nothing was said about it.”

“Then, why are they searching for him?”

“You don’t know?” Father Marco asked in mild surprise. “Why, telepaths are a menace to everything any right-thinking citizen holds sacred—haven’t you heard?”

“Something of the sort, yes,” Sam admitted. “We didn’t know it was exactly a widely held belief.”

“Oh, it’s been all the rage for at least a month! Telepaths invade other people’s privacy, you see—you can never tell when one might be reading your mind. You could make laws against that, but there’d be no way to enforce them—unless you had telepathic police; and if you did, they’d probably side with their fellows. Those telepaths stick together, you know.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Dar. “In fact, I didn’t know there were any—well, almost.” He remembered the Wolman shaman.

“Ah, you see?” Father Marco wagged a forefinger at him. “You’ve known at least one person who always seemed to know what you were thinking. So has everyone, of course.”

“Of course! Who doesn’t have someone who knows them really well?”

“It could be that,” the priest said judiciously. “But when that person always seems to be one jump ahead of you—well, you naturally tend to wonder. Because telepaths use what you’re thinking against you, you see—they have an unfair advantage in the competition of life. They always know what you’re going to do, so they always know how to head you off.”

“That’s horrible!”

“Isn’t it just? But it gets worse. The I.D.E. police are reasonably sure that telepaths all over the Terran Sphere are getting in touch with one another, forming a society of their own, conspiring to overthrow the government and take over.”

“But how?” Sam frowned. “Couldn’t the police intercept their messages?”

“Intercept a message from one mind reader to another? Hardly. Besides, rumor has it that these telepaths don’t even need to get on a starship to get a message from one planet to another.”

“What?”

“That’s the word.” Father Marco nodded. “Their thoughts travel from star to star almost instantaneously. You can see that would give their conspiracy a bit of an advantage over the forces of society.”

“Yes, I certainly can.” Dar leaned a little closer and lowered his voice. “And do I gather from your tone, Father, that you don’t quite believe all this?”

Father Marco leaned over. “Frankly, I think it’s the biggest pot of rotten incense I’ve ever smelled!”

“What I can’t figure out,” Sam put in, “is why people would get so worked up about something that probably doesn’t even exist.”

“Well, it’s been known to happen before,” Father Marco said judiciously. “Mass hysteria is never that far beneath the skin, I suppose. A human being is a thinking animal, but crowds don’t seem to be. So I suppose it’s just as well that the police are taking action, even though they’re probably acting only on the strength of a rumor.”

“Rumor?” Dar frowned. “How so?”

“Tips are usually hearsay, I gather. Nonetheless, better to act on a rumor than to risk a riot.”

“Riot?” Sam protested. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not. If the people didn’t know the authorities were on the lookout, they might try to do something on their own—then all it’d take would be one whisper that so-and-so was a telepath, and you’d have a full-scale witch-hunt to deal with. No, it’s better that …”

“Do you mind?”

A portly gentleman had huffed up from a nearby table.

“Am I in your way?” Father Marco said politely.

“No, but you’re upsetting my party quite a bit! If you must insist on discussing politics, would you please have the courtesy to do it in your own quarters? It’s in frightfully poor taste, and it’s ruining my digestion!”

“Oh!” Dar exchanged a look with Father Marco. “My apologies, citizen. Of course, if we’re offending …”

“You’ll keep right on!” A skinny hand clapped Dar’s shoulder like a pincers. “Ay, give offense! Bother the lazy hogs out of their trough! Goad them into doing something—into living, for Lord’s sake!” He was a short, lean, aging man, who looked to be as hard as a meteorite and as merry as a comet. And next to him …

Dar stiffened, eyes widening. Next to the old man stood the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, with the body of Venus outlined by a flowing, sleeveless, calf-length gown that clung to every curve. Her face was comprised of a high, smooth brow, delicate eyebrows; large, wide-set eyes heavily lidded; a small, tip-tilted nose; and a mouth with a hint of a smile that promised delights and challenged him to seek them. Tawny hair rippled down to her waist. It was the face from the dreams of his boyhood, the face that he had never thought could be, the face that could never let the grown man rest.

The unfairness of it hit him like a stiletto—that she should be with that old geezer, instead of with him!

The old geezer was turning on the portly indigestion case, who had made some outraged noises. “And I’ll thank you to let your remarks go public! Don’t you know what happens to people who won’t talk politics? They stop caring about their government! And do you know what happens when they stop caring? One night, some sneaky, unprincipled scoundrel sneaks in and changes their government on them! And the next morning, they wake up and find their taxes are as high as their collarbones, and they can’t go anyplace without a permit, and, taken all in all, they’re not much better than slaves! And that’s what happens when you keep your remarks to yourself!”

“Sir!” The fat one recoiled as though he’d stepped on slime. “This is obscene!”

“I’d rather be obscene, and not absurd—but since you seem to think the other way, I think my friends and I had better go look for some fresher air!” He turned to Father Marco, Dar, and Sam. “How about it, oh ones with spirit? You’ll find a breeze blowing by the stage that’s amazingly fresh! We’re going down there, my niece and I—join us, if you’re up to it!” And he turned away, limping between the tables in a rush, as though life would get away from him if he didn’t hurry to catch it.

The girl turned to follow him—and did her gaze linger just a moment on Dar?

Imagination. Had to be. But …

She was only his niece!

“Huh? What?” His head snapped around toward Father Marco.

“I said, shall we join them?” There was a gleam in the priest’s eye.

“Uh … yeah. Seem like nice folks.”

“Why not?” Sam was a monotone in a frigid face. “It’s sure to be lively.”

They got up, with their glasses, and filed after the loud voice on the old legs.

“Sit down, sit down!” The geezer waved them to chairs around a large table as he slid into one himself. His niece sat demurely next to him. “So you’re a Cathodean,” the oldster greeted Father Marco. “What’s a live order like yours doing in a dead place like this?”

“Where is a minister of Life more needed than among the moribund?” Father Marco countered.

“Wait a minute. Hold on, there.” Dar held up a palm. “Back that up a few lines, will you? I think I missed something.”

“What?”

“How’d you know he was a Cathodean?”

“Huh? Why, the emblem of his order, of course!” the old man exclaimed.

“This.” Father Marco tapped the tiny yellow screwdriver in his breast pocket. “Used to be the sign of an electrical engineer—like a fraternity pin. We just made if official.”

“Oh.” Dar pulled his head down, feeling dense.

“You’ve got the advantage of me now,” Father Marco informed the geezer.

“Yeah, I know.” The old man grinned wickedly. “Ain’t it great?”

“Grandfather!” the vision reproved, and the old man winced (her shoes did have very sharply pointed toes).

“Well, I can’t have everything,” he sighed. “I’m Whitey, Father, and this is Lona, my … niece,” he added, with a glare at her.

She tried to look chastened. “Anything you say, Grandfather.”

“Must you make me feel my age, lass?” Whitey sighed. “I know you have a fixation about absolute honesty in all the little things—but have mercy! I don’t ask for much—just that you call me ‘Uncle’ when other people are around. Is that so much to ask?”

“Not at all, now that they know the truth.” She gave the rest of the company a dazzling smile, and lied, “He’s my uncle.”

“Glad to meet him,” Dar muttered, his eyes on Lona.

Father Marco cleared his throat and stretched out a hand. “I’m Father Marco Ricci. And this is Dar Mandra, and Sam Bine.”

“Here y’ are, Whitey.” A waiter set a large glass of wine in front of the old man. “And you, Lona.”

“Thank you.” She accepted the cocktail with a smile that was polite, but warm too, then deliberately turned her eyes away. The waiter hesitated a moment hopefully, then sighed and turned away.

“Whitey the Wino?” Father Marco guessed.

Whitey held up his glass in a semi-toast and nodded approval. “You’re quick.”

“Not really; I’ve been hearing about you in every tavern and taproom for the last three parsecs. Glad I finally caught up with you.”

The name fitted, Dar decided. The old man’s hair was stark white, and his eyes were so light a blue that they verged on being colorless. Even his skin had a bleached look—weathered and toughened, as though it ought to have a deep space-tan; but he was almost white.

And the second name seemed to fit, too. He’d drained half the glass at a gulp.

“ ‘Caught up with me,’ is it?” Whitey grinned. “If it weren’t for the cassock, I’d worry.”

Father Marco grinned too. “No, I’m not the Revenue Service.”

“Or an angry husband,” Lona added.

“My dear!” Whitey protested, wounded. “Would I come between a man and his wife?”

“Only if you had a chance to,” she murmured, and sipped at her drink.

Whitey turned to Father Marco with a sigh of despair. “Ah, the cynicism of this latter generation! Are there no ideals left, Father? No faith?”

“I believe in you implicitly, Grandfather—I’m just not saying what for.”

“To move around, for one thing,” Father Marco said. “You don’t seem to have stayed on any one planet any longer than I have, Whitey.”

The Wino nodded. “I can take any of these fat, complacent peoples, for just so long.”

“Or they you,” Lona murmured.

“Well, they usually do offer to pay my expenses to the next planet. I’m getting a bit restless in my old age, Father—moving outward, hoping to find a place that isn’t sliding down into decadence.”

“It’s about time, Whitey.” A tallow-ketch of a man stopped by the table.

“And I have to keep finding new audiences.” Whitey slid a flat keyboard out of his tunic and stood up. “If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes, folks …”

“You’re the entertainment?” Dar said, astonished.

“Aren’t I always?” he answered. Lona added, “Not much security, but it’s a living.”

“Better than it was in the old days, my dear,” Whitey reminded her, “before I met your grandmother. I sold narcotics back then, Father—not entirely legally. Before I saw the light—when I went under the name of Tod Tambourin.” He turned away toward the stage, following Lona.

Sam sat stiff and rigid, her eyes bulging. “That’s Tod Tambourin?”

“Couldn’t be.” But Dar felt a sinking certainty. “Great poets don’t sing in bars.”

“I can think of a few exceptions.” Father Marco leaned back and sipped his drink. “Let’s judge the product, shall we?”

The “product” didn’t bear judgment at all. Whitey settled himself on a low stool while Lona slid onto a high one, heels hooked on a rung, knees together, hands clasped in her lap. Whitey struck a rippling crescendo from his keyboard. It filled the room, leaving a moment of silence behind it. Into that silence Whitey pumped a vigorous song which had its roots in the best of the bad old days, a bit of bawdy nonsense about a lady spacer, who was scarcely a lady, and whose interest in space was confined to some interesting spaces. Lona sat through it, amused, joining in on the choruses with almost as much relish as her grandfather.

“This is the poet laureate of the Terran Sphere?” Sam cried, scandalized.

Dar felt a trifle disillusioned too—but not in Whitey.

The song ended with a rocketing crescendo that sounded like a spaceship taking off. The patrons roared their approval, stomping and laughing; and when the racket slackened and died, it blended into a slower, almost melancholy tune that nonetheless had a feeling of quiet certainty underlying it.

Then Lona began to sing, not looking at Whitey, gazing off into space a little above the audience’s heads, in a voice as sweet as spring and as clear as a fountain. The words didn’t quite register; they seemed to slide around and envelop Dar in a dazzle of consonants—but the meaning sank in: a lament for the wilderness that was, but never was, the primeval beauty that men hearkened back to when the name “Terra” was spoken.

Then Whitey joined in on the chorus, in a quiet, sad-but-satisfied judgment that the wilderness had passed, but that it had had to, as all things must. Then Lona took up the verse again, in lilting wonder that the same wilderness had greeted men anew, on distant planets, under suns unseen from Terra.

Then the chorus again, that these too had passed, as they’d had to; and another verse, another planet, a hundred more, each greeting humankind with wilderness, to tame and then destroy within the bars of hedges; then the chorus, and one final verse, in notes that soared with triumph—for bit by bit, men had learned to live within the wilderness, and preserve it—and yonder, past the marches, new planets beckoned with their forests—the ancient home of humans, which they must ever seek.

Dar sat, stunned. How could he have ever thought that poem was great when he’d read it without hearing its music?

Then the keyboard slashed out a great, jarring discord, and they were off into another bawdy song. And so it went—bits of poetry sandwiched in between carousing, continually taking the audience by surprise. When Whitey finally bade the audience give the singer time for a drink, Dar was on his feet with the rest of them, applauding wildly and shouting, “More! More!” Then Lona and Whitey came up to the table, she flushed and glowing, he smiling, grinning, and Dar felt very foolish.

“Sit, sit!” Whitey waved him into his chair. “And thousands of thanks, youngling. That’s the greatest praise a singer can get—that you forget yourself in the music.”

Lona didn’t say anything, but she answered with a look that set Dar’s blood thrilling through him and gave his teeth a tingle.

Then the waiter broke the spell by plunking glasses down in front of the singers.

“I can believe it!” Sam exploded. “I couldn’t believe such a distinguished poet would be playing in taverns—but I’ve heard you! I believe it!”

“Well—I’m glad to know I’m still myself,” Whitey said, with a twinkle in his eye. “And a poet I am—but ‘distinguished’ I most emphatically am not!”

“Don’t let him bother you,” Lona assured Sam. “You couldn’t have known it was an insult.”

“But what’re you doing, playing in a backwater bar on a boondock planet?”

“Looking for a clean breath of air.” Whitey’s mouth tightened a little. “The bars on Terra, now, they’re so damn polite you can’t get away with anything but poetry, and that takes all the fun out of it. Also, they don’t really listen—they just want you for background while they try to make time with each other. And say a word about politics, and wham! you’re out the door! They’ve gone effete, they’ve gone gloomy, they’ve gone hopeless, and the finest songs in the world won’t cheer ‘em! Things get better as you go away from Sol—but even here, though there’s some life, they’ve lost the sense of joy and wonder. They want to just sit back behind thick walls and taste fat meat, and they don’t want to hear about hunting dragons.”

“It’s true enough,” Lona agreed, “but you’re not so young any more, Grandfather.”

“That’s so.” Whitey nodded. “That’s why I need to seek for life and freshness.”

“But I am fresh,” Lona pointed out, “and fully alive, and no doubt of it! Just give me a try at being decadent, Grandfather—just give me a little try!”

Whitey sighed, and started to answer, but a huge slab of lard interrupted him, six feet four in height and three feet wide, four feet at the waist, with little, squinting, piggy eyes and an outhrust jaw. “Whatsa matter, singer? Don’t like progress?”

Whitey’s eyes kindled. “Progress? Just because you get more goods doesn’t mean your soul’s better!”

“So, who are you, my father confessor?” The thickened thug grabbed Whitey’s shirtfront and yanked him out of his chair. “Disgusting little bastard! First talking politics, and now religion! Why, I oughta paste you up on the wall.”

“Go ahead,” Whitey caroled, “try!”

The thug stared at him for a moment; then his eyes narrowed, and he wound up for a pitch with a snarl.

Whitey chopped down on his elbow, hard.

The beefy one dropped him with a howl, and two more slabs of meat waded in, reaching for Whitey. Someone yanked Dar out of his chair and flipped him around with a fist to his jaw. He slammed back against the tabletop and sat up, blinking, the roar of a full-scale brawl coming faintly through the ringing in his ears. Most of the patrons were squealing and clearing back against the walls, looking for an exit. A knot of thugs kept trying to form around Whitey, but Father Marco kept roaring in, yanking them out of the way by their collars and bumping them away with his back when they tried to swing back in. The ones who did get in kept popping back as Whitey caught them with undercuts.

Sam and Lona fought back-to-back, with clips to the chin, and kicks to the shin. So far, they’d yielded a lot of hoppers.

Then Dar saw the glint of steel swinging up at Sam’s belly.

He shouted and leaped forward, lurching in between Sam and her attacker. The blade slid along his side, opening the skin; he bleated in pain and anger, and pivoted to face the slice artist.

He was tall and fat, with a gloating grin. “You’ll do just as well.” The knife snaked out at his liver.

Dar swung to the side, grabbing the man’s wrist, cradling the elbow on top of his own, and snapping down. The thug yelled, high and hoarsely; his hand opened, and the knife fell out. Then a grenade exploded on the back of Dar’s neck.

He lifted his head, blinking blearily, and got a great view of feet kicking and lunging all around him. Through the singing in his ears, he heard the hoot of police horns. About time! Then it occurred to him that the tangling feet all around him might think he was part of the floor. He stumbled to his feet, and looked up into a breast-patch that said “Police.” He looked on up to a grinning face underneath a helmet, and noticed an electroclub swinging down at him. He spun away, to find a stun-gun level with his chest, with another police-patch behind it. He yelled and leaped to the side just as the club came crashing down and the stun-gun fired. The one cop was shocked, the other was stunned, and a third caught Dar around the middle. Dar slammed a fist down—right on a helmet. The cop dropped him and leveled a stun-gun. Then the cop dropped, period, and Father Marco grabbed Dar’s arm and yanked him over the scrambling uniform. “Follow me! Fast!” He turned away, and Dar stumbled after him. He bumped into Sam, coming up on his right, and caromed off Whitey on his left. Father Marco yanked open a door, and Lona darted through ahead of them. “Follow her!” the priest snapped.

Well, it went along with Dar’s natural inclinations; he just wished he hadn’t had so much company. He clattered down a set of narrow steps, following Lona’s slim form, and came out in a cellar surrounded by shelves of kegs and racks of bottles. The door slammed behind him, and the noise of the fight diminished to a far-off rumble.

“Quick! It won’t take them but a few minutes to think of the cellar!” Father Marco brushed past them, fumbled at a bolthead in the paneled wall, and swung open a hidden door. Lona darted through, and Dar followed.

Father Marco slammed the door behind Whitey, and Dar found himself suddenly in total darkness. Something soft and curved brushed against him. Lona sprang to his mind’s eye, and he wished she hadn’t brushed away so quickly.

“Dar?” Sam whispered, right next to him, and he fairly jumped. “Yeah, right here,” he whispered back through a whirl of emotions. She’d sounded shy and unsure of herself—feminine. It roused every protective reflex he had—and a full flood of hormones behind them. And the touch of her …

“Where are we?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Why are we whispering?”

Then a spot of light glared. They turned to see Father Marco’s face, illuminated from below by a tiny glow-globe in the handle of his miniature screwdriver. “The reflex is correct," he said in a very low tone. “Keep your voices down; I don’t think the police know about this bolthole, but they might search the tavern basement, and we don’t want them to get curious.”

“Perish the thought!” Whitey agreed. “Where are we, Father? In a, you should pardon the phrase, priest-hole?”

“No, the persecutions on this planet have never been religiously oriented.” Father Marco grinned. “We’re in the basement of the establishment next door.”

“Which one—Leong Chakov’s Foot Laundry?”

“No, the other one.”

“Oh, Madame Tessie’s Tenderloin Chop House.” Whitey raised his eyebrows, nodding. “Pretty good, Father. Even I didn’t know there was any, ah, connection, between the two establishments.”

The priest nodded. “Only a few select patrons know.”

“You’re one of them?”

“Well—let’s just say it’s surprising what you pick up in moments of confidence.” Father Marco turned away, groping along the wall.

“Oh.” Whitey fell in beside him. “You picked it up in the confessional.”

“No, because of it. They had something of an emergency here last month, calling for the Last Rites and all possible discretion.” There was a loud clunk, and the light bobbed. Father Marco hissed something under his breath. Dar wondered why “blue” should be sacred.

“I think I’ve found the stairs.” Father Marco’s voice was strained. “Slowly and quietly, now.” The light began to bob upward. “The net result is, the ladies here have come to trust me. I think they’ll be discreet about our passage through their quarters.” His light shone on a richly-grained door. “Quietly, now,” he murmured, and turned the knob.

Laughter and raucous music assaulted their ears. They stepped out into the middle of a party for the usual assortment of portly patrons and what had to be the only slender inhabitants of Falstaff. The svelte shapeliness was real, too, obviously—since they were wearing as little as possible.

“Must be later than I thought,” Sam observed.

“No, it’s always like this,” Father Marco answered. “Come now, let’s see if we can’t find a quiet place to meditate.”

Personally, Dar had all he wanted to meditate on right there; but Father Marco was slipping quietly along the wall toward the stairway, and Whitey was pushing from behind, so he followed suit.

“Marco!”

The priest turned just as a bosomy beldam smacked into him, lips first. She leaned back, holding him by the shoulders and laughing. “You old scoundrel, what brings you here? Interested in our services, for a change?”

“In a way, Tessie, in a way.” Father Marco gave the madam an affectionate squeeze—on the hand. “Just looking for a place to relax and chat with a few friends, where there’s a little less noise than the average tavern.”

Tessie sighed and shook her head. “What a waste of a good man! And here I was getting my hopes up. I really ought to be angry with you, y’know.” She gave him a coquettish flicker of eyelashes.

“Because of Rosamund, eh?” Father Marco spread his arms. “There’s no help for it, Tessie. I have to do my job, even as you have to do yours.”

“Yes, and usually it’s all well and good—the girls get remorseful for a few days, and when they get back to work, they’ve got a certain freshness about them. But getting one of them to kick the trade completely? Now, don’t you think that’s going a bit too far?” She emphasized the point with a few strokes on his arm.

Father Marco gently disengaged her hand. “No, from my point of few, it’s just enough. Where is she now, do you know?”

Tessie shrugged. “Hopped an outbound liner, that’s all I can say. None of us are natives, Father.”

“Father?”

“It’s Father Marco!”

In a second, they were surrounded by a bevy of shapely no-longer-maidens with very long fingers. Dar thought of checking his wallet, but he was having too much fun being frisked.

The hands were all over the priest, coming on faster than he could take them off.

“Oh, Father, I’m so glad to see you!”

“Have I got a lot to tell you!”

“Oh, Father, it’s so horrible. I tried and I tried to resist, but …”

“Yes, girls, I understand. Patience, patience; if I can’t talk with each of you today, I’ll come back another time.”

“You aren’t a priest’s apprentice, are you?” A beautiful redhead straightened Dar’s tunic with a lingering touch.

“Well, no, not really. I am interested in virtue, though.”

“So am I,” she cooed, “it’s such a wonderful conversation topic.”

Dar felt a stroke along his buttocks, and just barely managed to keep from jumping. A blond head poked over his shoulder and murmured, “Any friend of Father’s is a friend of mine.”

“Well, I am the friendly type…”

There were at least five of them, all very good with innuendo, verbal and otherwise. It would’ve been great if they’d come one at a time; as it was, Dar was beginning to feel a little like a pound of ground sirloin at a hamburger sale.

Not that he was complaining …

A rippling chord filled the room. Everyone looked up, startled.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Whitey was standing on a chair, with Lona beside him, perched on a table. “For your entertainment and delectation—the ‘Ballad of Gresham’s Law’!”

An incredulous mutter ran through the room—especially from the zoftig patrons, who were all in the bracket that knows some economics.

The rippling chord stilled them again, and Whitey and Lona began to sing:

“When the upright ladies come to town.

Right away they gather ‘round

To form a club, and then decide

Who is out, and who’s inside.”

There was a tap on Dar’s shoulder, and Father Marco murmured, “I hate to distract you from what looks to be a rare event, but we do have other matters to consider.”

With a jolt, Dar remembered an electroclub swinging down at him. “Uh, yeah. We are in kind of a rush, aren’t we?” He sidled through his circle of admirers. “Excuse me, ladies. I’m on call.”

They made politely distressed noises, and turned back to Whitey and Lona eagerly. Whatever the song was, it seemed to strike a chord with them.

It seemed to be making an analogy between economics and sexual relations, but reversing what was usually understood to be a “good” woman versus a “bad.”

“Look at the coin in which you pay,

The wages of a working day.

Compare it to the ‘honest’ bill

Of lifelong toil and thwarted will.”

The patrons cheered, and the girls’ faces turned very thoughtful. It occurred to Dar that Whitey might be accomplishing the same task Father Marco was trying, though by very different methods.

“… but it is pretty urgent,” Father Marco was explaining to Tessie.

She held up a palm and shook her head. “Don’t explain, Father; I might be pegged for an accomplice. Besides, I’ve had to leave a place in something of a hurry myself, on occasion. Bring your people here.” She beckoned.

They followed her around through a darkened salon. There was a squeal and a muffled curse. “As you were,” Tessie ordered crisply, eyes resolutely fixed straight forward. Dar followed her example, though he was burning to look over his shoulder and make sure Sam was safely following. He felt like Orpheus on the return trip.

They turned left into what was either a small room or a very large closet—probably the latter; the walls were lined with racks of evening clothes, cut for small elephants.

“Sometimes our, ah, clients, find it advisable to leave in a different set of clothes than the one they wore on the way in,” Tessie explained. “We’ve gathered quite a stock, over the years. Of course, you’ll all need some padding, but we’re not exactly short on pillows here. Let’s see, now—this one ought to fit you, Father, and this one’ll do for your young friend, here…”

Half an hour later, swathed in evening clothes and padded out to the equator, they filed out of Madam Tessie’s like a flock of pregnant penguins.

“Well, you can’t deny they were hospitable,” Dar said through a dazed but happy smile.

“I don’t particularly care for that sort of hospitality.” Sam was fuming.

Dar glanced at her, and couldn’t help feeling gratified. Yesterday he would’ve felt downright hopeful. Today, though, he was primarily concerned with Lona, who was, unfortunately, taking it all in stride.

“They even offered me a job,” she noted.

Sam hadn’t been asked. “Is that’s what’s bothering you?” Dar could at least make it sound as though she had.

“No,” Sam snapped. “What bothered me was that whole scene in the tavern.”

Whitey shrugged. “A brawl is a brawl—and you can’t blame the cops; squelching that kind of thing is their job.”

“Yeah, but they don’t have to gang up three-on-one.” Dar frowned, remembering. “Especially since I was losing.”

“No, that isn’t standard.” Whitey frowned, too. Then he shrugged. “Anyway, I had a good time.”

“I didn’t,” Sam said stiffly. “I recognized the chock who led the cops in—and he wasn’t in uniform.”

“Oh?” Dar looked up. “Anyone I know?”

“You might say that. He had a face like a rat.”

“A rat! What’s he doing here …? Oh.” Dar pursed his lips. “We never did see who was piloting our courier ship, did we?”

“We didn’t,” Sam confirmed. “I wondered why he took off and left us to the pirates, remember?”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Father Marco put in, “What’s this all about?”

“Our nemesis, at a guess,” Sam said slowly. “We thought we’d left him back on Wolmar, with the rest of Governor Bhelabher’s staff. At least, Terra sent Bhelabher out to take over the governorship; but he, ah, wound up resigning. We got the assignment of taking his resignation back to Terra.”

“And we thought we were the only ones who left,” Dar explained. “But apparently Bhelabher had a change of heart, and sent his right-hand man along to stop us.”

“No, it wasn’t Bhelabher.” Sam shook her head. “If he’d changed his mind, all his sidekick would’ve had to do is order us to hand back that resignation form—or even to hand in a counter-letter from Bhelabher.”

“You mean Rat-Face is doing this all on his own?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Sam said slowly. “He is a career bureaucrat in the Bureau of Otherworldly Activities, remember. Chances are he’s doing what his superiors in BOA want done.”

“A man with a face like a rat, in the BOA bureaucracy?” Father Marco asked. He was frowning.

Dar nodded. “That’s him. But why would he be trying to kill us?”

“Kill you?”

Sam shook her head. “There were two cops after me, but the worst thing they had was a hypodermic bulb.”

“A hypo?” Dar looked up sharply. “They were trying to put you out and take you in?”

Sam nodded. “That’s the way it looked. But it doesn’t make sense. There were two of them, and they were a lot bigger than I was. Why’d they have needed a hypo?”

“And why’d their buddies be trying to put me out completely? I could swear their intentions weren’t toward prolonging my life.”

“Could be you’re paranoid,” Lona suggested.

“No doubt; but in this case, I think it doesn’t matter. And I don’t quite agree with your reading of it, Sam—one of them was trying a blade on you.” He touched the bandage that Tessie had thoughtfully taped over his wound.

“No, I’m afraid you’re both right.” Father Marco was definitely brooding. “After all, if you think someone’s a threat, and you can’t capture them, what’s the logical thing to do?”

“But why would they think I’m dangerous?” Sam wailed. “I don’t have the papers!”

Lona was looking very interested.

“A fascinating episode,” Whitey mused, “especially since I do believe I see some uniforms approaching.”

All heads snapped up, and noticed the strolling pair who had just turned the corner.

“Just keep walking,” Father Marco’s iron tone advised, and Dar soothed his body’s impulse to jump into flight.

“ ‘Course, it’s been a while since I did this …” Whitey offered, and Lona coughed, “… but I do notice there’s some sort of arcade just a few feet down, on our left. Might make a handy bolthole.”

“Ideal,” Father Marco breathed. “Shall we, gentlefolk?”

They nonchalantly turned into the cavelike coolness of the arcade. Its long concourse stretched away before them, lined with shops on both sides.

“Last time you did this, Grandfather, you split us up into small groups,” Lona reminded.

“A good point,” Father Marco agreed. “No doubt they counted noses after that tavern brawl, and came to the conclusion we’d all gone off together.”

“Well …” Dar caught a door-handle and swung it open. “… see ya ‘round, folks.”

Sam stepped through the door before he could close it; the rest went on their way, and his team was back to its original components.

They moved down a short aisle, surrounded by skeins of yarn, squares of stiff netting, and racks of patterns. “What is all this stuff?” Dar whispered.

“Knitting, crocheting, things like that—age-old hobbies,” Sam whispered back. “Ever try needlepoint?”

Dar was about to answer with a pointed remark of his own, when the proprietor popped up behind the counter at the end of the aisle, grossly fat, with the face of an aging cherub and a fringe of puffy white hair around a bald dome. “Something you’d … like, gentlefolk?”

“Just browsing,” Dar said quickly. “Interesting collection you’ve got here.”

“Oh yes, I try to keep it up-to-date. Had some fascinating patterns come in last week, from Samia.”

“Samia?” Dar wondered, but another customer approached before the storekeeper could answer. “Ah there, Kontak! Is my order in?”

“Just an hour ago,” Kontak grinned. He laid a slender parcel in plain brown wrap on the counter. “Sixty spikes, five brads, Grazh Danko.”

“Samia?” Dar whispered to Sam. “Isn’t that the pleasure-planet? You know, ‘wrap up all your cares and clothes, and do whatever’s legal’?”

Sam nodded, her eyes on the brown parcel. “And there isn’t much that’s illegal, except murder. I understand they don’t even look too closely at that, provided the victim isn’t a tourist. I think I’d like a look at the next shop.”

“But this is just getting interesting,” Dar protested as Sam hustled him toward the door.

“Maybe too interesting.” She kept her voice low as the door closed behind them. “That was a porno shop. And did you catch the prices? For a pack of sleazy pictures? I have a sneaking suspicion we’re in the middle of what they euphemistically call an ‘organic market.’ ”

“One that charges whatever the traffic will bear?” Dar looked around him. “These innocent little shops? Illegal goods?”

“And services,” Sam reminded. They went into a confectionary. The patron at the end of the counter was thumbing through a menu that seemed to be mostly bodies, while the proprietor was helping an obese, surly patron strike up an acquaintance with a slender sweet young thing. They turned around and went back out.

So it went, for the length of the arcade. Finally, in the office of the Legal Aid Society, which kept a neat list of judges, cases, and the aid the judges required to help them make up their minds about the cases, Dar exploded. “Is there anything that isn’t for sale?”

“Haven’t found anything, myself,” a customer answered cheerfully, not noticing Sam’s frantic shushing motions. “Of course, some commodities can’t be had for cash just yet; but I understand they’re working on them.”

“I suppose I’m naïve,” Dar said slowly, “but I thought the law was supposed to help make people equal, not uphold the one who can pay the most.”

The customer winced. “Please, young man! We must be patient with the follies of youth—but that remark was so distinctly political that I can’t ignore it!”

“Don’t offend the gentleman,” the proprietor growled, an ugly glint in his piggy little eye.

“That was political?” Dar stared. While he was staring, Sam grabbed his arm and hustled him out the door. By the time he recovered enough to resist, he was in the street. Then he managed to get his mouth moving again. “Political? Speculating about the purpose of law is political?”

“Of course, when you say things such as ‘equal,’ ” Sam explained. “You really must do something about that death wish of yours.”

“Why?” Dar shrugged her hand off. “It puts me in phase with this whole planet!”

“Just because people don’t talk politics, doesn’t mean they’re moribund,” Sam hissed.

“No, but it means their society is! They don’t even care about the law any more! Don’t they realize that’s what keeps a society from falling apart?”

“Oh. You’re one of these people who believes that law prevents revolutions, huh?”

“Sure, by making sure no one’s too badly oppressed.”

“Sin?”

Dar looked up, startled; but it was just a portly passerby, chatting with a waddling clergyman. “Sin? Come now, Reverend! What a medieval idea!”

“It’ll always be current, I’m afraid,” the minister rejoined, “and even fashionable—though rarely as a conversational topic.”

“It does lend a certain sauce to pleasure,” the passerby admitted. “And, after all, the really important element in life is getting what you want—the things that make you happy.”

“Of course, of course,” the clergyman agreed. “Take heaven, for example…”

The passerby was laughing as they passed out of hearing.

Dar shook his head. “I don’t think the revolution’ll wait a hundred years.”

“You think this is bad?” Sam scoffed. “Just wait till you get to Terra!”

“I can wait, thank you. I’m beginning to see why you liked Wolmar so much. You know, this pretty little market couldn’t be here unless the police were helping it a lot.”

“Of course,” Sam said brightly. “But be fair—they might not have enough officers to cover everything.”

“Yeah, but which is it?” Dar muttered. He glanced up and saw a blimp of a shopkeeper leaning against his storefront. Dar stepped up to him, pointing an accusing finger and snapping, “Which is it, citizen? How can you get away with this? Don’t you have any police here?”

“Sir!” The shopkeeper drew himself up, offended. “I’ll thank you not to discuss such disgusting issues!” And he wheeled about majestically, slamming his door behind him.

“I’m not so squeamish,” said an oily voice.

Dar and Sam looked up and saw a hunched old man with a lascivious grin, peering out from the shop next door. He was obscenely slender. “What’s your perversion, younglings? Plato? Descartes? Machiavelli? I’ve got ‘em all in here, all the banned books! Come in and read anything—just fifty BTUs an hour!”

“Let’s go,” Sam hissed. “I don’t like the way your jaw is setting!”

“All right, all right,” Dar growled. He turned away toward the end of the arcade, and bumped into someone. “Oh, excuse me …” He broke off, staring into a face like a rat’s above a short, lean body.

The little man stared back at him, eyes widening in shock and horror. Then his mouth opened in a moan that turned into a scream, and he slumped to the ground, clutching his chest.

“What happened?” Dar bleated, staring at the bright redness spreading over the man’s tunic from under his hands.

“Murder, I’d say.”

Dar’s head snapped up; he found himself staring into a very familiar beefy face, above an even more familiar breast-patch badge.

“You’re under arrest.” There was another one like him on the other side of Sam. “Just hold out your wrists, now …” He produced a length of cable that glowed, even in daylight.

“Uh, no thanks.” Dar stepped backward; he’d worn a manacle-loop before, on his way to Wolmar. Once around his wrists, the cable would virtually meld with his skin, and his wrists would stick together as though they’d grown that way. “Actually, I have an appointment at the confectionary shop, you see …”

“Well, I’m afraid we’ve got one that’s a little more important. Come on now, let’s not make a scene.” The policeman stepped forward. Sam backed away as the shopkeeper hefted an electroclub and snapped it down against the officer’s occiput. He slumped to the ground with a muted sigh as two lean and muscular types materialized out of adjacent doorways to zap the other policeman and take their places.

“Bit of a lucky thing for you we happened along,” the shopkeeper observed. “From what I read on the newsfax, all the cops in Haskerville’re out hunting you two. Now, if I was you, I’d be wanting a nice, safe bolthole to bolt into, and lock behind me.”

“Good idea,” Dar agreed. “But, personally, I go along with the idea that says the more you move around, the harder you are to find.”

“I was afraid you’d make this difficult,” the shopkeeper sighed. He nodded to the two gorillas. “Move ‘em around, boys.”

Huge arms seized Dar from behind, hoisting him off the ground and carrying him toward the open air. Beside him, Sam cursed and swore, trying to kick a shin with her heels, and missing every time.

As the toughs bundled them into a waiting car, Dar observed, “I think the cops were the better choice.”