Escape Velocity

8

The sign said, “You are now leaving HASKERVILLE.”

He turned to the tough who shared the back seat with them. “You must work for somebody important, to rate a car.”

“Might be,” the man said shortly. “Ain’t so much, though.”

“Well, no—it goes on wheels, not an air cushion. But it’s still more than most folks have here. Must cost a fortune—all that metal in the engine.”

“Metal?” The man frowned. “Where’d you grow up—on Orehouse?”

“They’re doing such marvelous things with synthetics these days,” Sam murmured.

“Sure, plastic,” the driver confirmed. “Polythermothane. Takes all the heat we need to give it, an’ more.”

“Well, I suppose—for a turbine.” Dar frowned. “Maybe even for a boiler. But how do you shield the fissionables?”

“ ‘E is from Orehouse,” the first tough snorted. “Fissionables’re metal, lunk. How’d we get ‘em ‘ere?”

“Yeah, I suppose it would be a little heavy on the import price.” Dar scratched his head. “So what do you use for an energy source?”

“Methane.”

“Methane?” Sam cried, scandalized. “Chemicals?”

“Uh—I hate to butt in.” Dar glommed onto the tough’s arm with a mastiff-grip. “But, could you say a word to your friend? We’re running right into a mountainside!”

The granite outcrop towered over them, rushing down on them.

The tough nodded. “Close enough, Rog.”

Rog pushed a button set into the dashboard, and the scrub at the base of the cliff swung outward and upward, revealing a huge gaping cave-mouth.

“Just a bit o’ camouflage,” the backseat tough explained. “Can’t leave yer front door open fer just any Tom, Dick, or Paddy t’ walk in, y’ know.”

“No, definitely not.” Dar’s eyes fairly bulged out of his head as the car swept into the cave, and a line of glow-plates lit up along the length of the walls, lighting their way onward. The floor sloped away in front of them, spiraling down at a thirty-degree angle. Rog held the car to a continuing hairpin turn, slowing down only as much as was absolutely necessary. Sam swung over against Dar and stayed there, which would’ve been very pleasant, if Dar hadn’t had to keep fighting to hold himself away from the backseat tough, who might not have understood, especially since that was his gun-hand.

The ramp leveled off and the car straightened out, but Sam stayed over against Dar. He counted it a hopeful sign, but was no longer sure he cared, now that he’d seen Lona.

The tunnel flared out into a huge cavern. Brilliant glow-plates spread a cold greenish light over alleyways between towering gray plastrete slabs.

“I’d almost think those were buildings,” Dar said, in hushed tones, “if they had windows.”

“They are buildings,” the tough affirmed. “What’d y’ need windows for, down ‘ere? Whacher gonna look at?”

Rog pulled the car into a slot between a small van and another car. They got out, and found themselves surrounded by a fleet of trucks and vans, parked in very orderly rows.

“Yes,” Dar mused, “your boss isn’t exactly hurting, is he?”

“Ask ‘im,” the tough invited. “Y’ve got an appointment—immediate.”

The door slid aside, and they stepped into a leather-and-mahogany office with a rug as thick as graft.

“Citizens Dar Mandra and Sam Bine,” said the bald man behind the acre of desktop, almost lost in the vast swivel chair. “Come in.”

They came in slowly, feeling as though there were guns pointed at their backs from all angles. Ridiculous, of course; the guns were probably aimed from the front.

“Sit.” It was an order, not an invitation. Under the circumstances, Dar wasn’t disposed to argue. He sat at the lefthand corner of the desk; Sam sat at the right. That’s where the chairs were. They didn’t look as though they’d move.

“What is this—our invitation to join the Underground?” Dar joked, with a tight smile.

It died under the look the little man gave him. Did he always have to make the right guess at the wrong time?

Their host wasn’t tall, but he was very broad across the shoulders and chest—and not fat. In fact, he was very hard, in the flesh—and, from the look of him, in the soul, too. He wore a quiet brown business tunic with a muted yellow ascot—conservative, punctiliously correct, with the look of a very high price. His nails were manicured, and his eyes were hidden behind brown lenses.

“You’re in the House of Houses,” he grated.

Dar stiffened and tried to keep his face immobile. Even buried on a prison planet, he’d heard of the I.D.E.’s biggest organized crime ring.

“The House of …” Sam’s voice choked off. She cleared her throat. “Uh, not the head offices, of course.”

The brown lenses swiveled toward her. The little man nodded slowly.

“But the head offices have to be on Terra!”

The brown lenses turned slowly from side to side. “We like it better here.”

Dar clenched his fists to hide their quivering. “And, uh, whom do we have the pleasure of addressing?”

The brown lenses tracked back toward him. “I’ve got a lot of names.”

“Any one will do.” Dar tried to grin.

“Call me Sard, then—Thalvor Sard. I’m the Syndic.”

“The Syndic?” Sam gasped. “The biggest boss criminal in all of Terran space?”

“A businessman,” Sard said, a bit impatiently, “only a businessman. Just a little impatient with government regulation, that’s all.

“Right?” His masked gaze swung to Dar.

“Right,” Dar mumbled. From what he’d heard, Sard’s “impatience” amounted to a running war on fifteen planets, and underground anarchy on most of the rest.

“But—here?” Sam spluttered. “On a frontier planet halfway to the marches?”

“Not so much of a frontier, as you’ve maybe noticed. The folks here like their comfort—like it enough to be glad to have us handy, and make sure their cops can’t do much about us.”

“And because they don’t have radios,” Dar guessed.

Sard’s head swiveled back to him. “My, you’re the quick one, though. Right, this time—radios cost so much, the cops don’t have ‘em. That means we can stay one jump ahead out here. Oh, they can move efficiently enough inside the town, where they can use couriers—but not out here. I’m what little law there is, outside the bounds of Haskerville.”

Dar nodded slowly.

“And the law can do a lot for you.” Sard nodded back at Dar. “Safety and protection, and a fat salary. What’ll the town law give you, the I.D.E. law? Arrest and, probably, a quick death.”

“Arrest? Whoa! What is this?” Dar protested. “We’re not in trouble with the cops!”

Sard just stared at him.

“Well … okay. Maybe they did try to bushwhack us in that tavern,” Dar amended. “And maybe they were trying to take us in when your, ah, people intervened. But we haven’t done anything illegal.”

“You’re there,” Sard said. “That’s enough.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a telepath—or your woman is. And all the government sees is that, in the wrong hands, your power could be a real threat to them.” He leaned back. “They’re right, too.”

Dar found his voice again. “Telepath? Me?”

Sard shrugged. “All right, play innocent, if you want. They’ll be out after you, just the same. That’s why that BOA man faked being murdered right next to you—to give the cops a reason for arresting you.”

“No!” Dar cried. “He’s trying to stop us from taking the new governor of Wolmar’s resignation back to Terra!”

“Sure,” Sard said slowly. “Right.”

“Uh … what would we have to do for this salary-plus-benefits of yours?” Sam put in.

The dark glasses swiveled toward her. “Nothing much. Just tell us what certain people are planning to do. You’d travel a lot—especially to Terra.”

“Handsome offer,” Sam said slowly. “Unfortunately, neither of us is a telepath.”

The glasses swung toward Dar.

“ ‘Fraid that’s true,” Dar seconded. “Either I.D.E.’s got its signals crossed, or you do.”

“My signals don’t get crossed,” Sard corrected. “I.D.E. might, but not the LORDS—and they’re the ones who’re out after telepaths.”

“The exception proves the rule,” Sam said. “This is it.”

Sard shook his head slowly. “Too bad. Such nice young kids.”

“What’s too bad?” Dar felt a premonition walking up his spine.

“Your untimely deaths.” Sard leaned forward. “One of you is a telepath, whether or not the other one knows it—and that telepath must’ve already picked up enough information to pack half of my people off to prison worlds, maybe enough to shut down the whole House of Houses. And you’d do it, too, ‘cause you’d think it’d buy the LORDS off your back.”

“But we’re not telepaths.”

“Sorry.” Sard shook his head. “Can’t take the chance. Either you join, or you leave in an urn.” He pushed a button. “Don’t say anything right now—think it over. This shouldn’t be a snap judgment, you understand.”

Two tall, muscular men, impeccably dressed, came in.

“These gentlemen will conduct you to your accommodations,” Sard explained. “You’ll get better ones if you join up, of course. Think it over.”

The accommodations had a door made of steel bars and a very elaborate combination lock.

“Gee, I didn’t know you were a telepath.” Dar flopped down on a very hard bunk.

“I didn’t know you were,” Sam retorted. “Now that we’ve established that, shall we try to make sense out of the situation?”

“What’s to make sense of?” Dar shrugged. “Somebody’s spreading nasty lies about us. Probably Rat-Face. Does that make any more sense out of it?”

“Some,” Sam insisted. “That gets him official help in trying to get us locked up, which keeps the resignation from getting to BOA, while he waits for Bhelabher to change his mind.”

Dar snorted. “Bhelabher? He’ll wait for a century. The Honorable won’t change his mind as long as Shacklar’s right next to him.”

Sam shrugged. “So Rat-Face is doomed to failure. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know that—so he still gets in our way.”

“So the telepath who just landed on the planet, and for whom the police are searching, is supposed to be one of us, huh?”

Sam nodded. “Looks like it—which explains why we’ve seen so many of their shoestring police.”

“Well, what they don’t get done, the House of Houses does.” Dar scratched behind his ear. “It’s almost as though this planet has two governments, one inside the cities, and one out.”

“Somewhat like our noble interstellar government,” Sam said acidly. “There’s the official government, and there’s the LORDS.”

“Can’t stand long, can it?” Dar stretched. “Well! That leaves us two real simple problems—one, to get out of here; and two, clearing our names.”

“I don’t know what to do about two,” Sam said, “but about one …” She stared off into space, eyes losing focus.

Dar frowned. What was she doing? He was just about to ask, when Sam turned and smiled brightly. “Nope, don’t hear a murmur. Now, let’s see …” She stood up, went to the door, knelt down, reached around to the front, and pressed her ear against the back of the lock. “One nice thing about a low-metal planet is the lack of modern devices.”

“What’re you …?”

“Sh!” she hissed fiercely, and Dar shut up. She punched buttons and turned a dial for a few minutes, muttering, “No … no, the other way … there, that’s right … there … there!” Triumphantly, she shoved on the door and, slowly, with a soft rumble, it slid to the side. She stepped out.

Dar stared.

Then he darted out after her. “Where did you …?”

“Whisper,” she hissed. “Sound carries in these tunnels!”

Dar put his lips against her ear and murmured, “Where did you learn to do that?”

“You pick up a lot in a government office,” she whispered back, “especially if you want a look at your own personnel file. Come on, let’s go!”

She led off, padding silently down the dark tunnel. Dar could remember that they had to turn left as they came out of the cell, but after that, he was as lost as Handsel and Gretel without the bread crumbs. But Sam wasn’t in doubt for a moment; she paused at the corridor’s end (he bumped into her. It was so dark, that was the only way he knew she’d stopped), listened a moment, then darted to her right, hauling Dar after her. They went on for what seemed a half-hour, but must’ve been all of five minutes; then he bumped into her again. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Sh!” she answered; then, “All clear. Come on.”

Halfway down the next midnight passage, she stopped suddenly. Then she was pushing him back frantically, and shoving him into a cross-corridor. They went down it for a few steps; then she yanked on his arm, stopping him, and froze. He could tell she froze because he could see her in the first ragtag of light that hit the far wall from a handlamp. Dar froze too, plastered against the wall like a tapestry.

“Whut’ja expect?” A lean, scarred man in faded coveralls, hands handcuffed behind him, slouched forward in front of two toughs in business tunics. “A’ter all, he wint for me with a knife!”

“Y’ c’n tell Sard about it in th’ mornin’.” One tough prodded him. “Git along, now.”

The scarred one snarled, and they passed across the end of the corridor. The reflection from the handlamp wavered over the wall to Sam’s right, and was gone. Dar held his breath till their footsteps had faded away, then let it out in a gusty sigh. Instantly, Sam’s finger pressed over his lips, then was gone, and she was tugging on his hand again.

They turned right at the end of the corridor, and went on.

So it went, for what seemed the better part of a day. Dar was amazed at the sharpness of her hearing. Twice she pushed them into hiding in time for someone passing by to miss them, when Dar hadn’t heard the faintest sound until after they were in hiding. And she never led him past an occupied cell. How could she figure out where to go?

Then, finally, she dropped down to kneel; Dar almost fell over her, but he groped back just in time. He wondered what she was doing until he heard a very faint click. Then, slowly, a slit of light appeared, and widened into a narrow rectangle that widened to a door. They stepped out into a starlit night; the door slid quietly shut behind that.

“How did you manage that?” Dar whispered. “The Labyrinth couldn’t’ve been worse!”

“This was nothing,” she snorted. “You should’ve seen the government building where I used to work. Come on!”

She set out at a long, catlike stride that Dar had to stretch to keep up with. They’d come out of the side of a hillock; as they rounded it, they saw nothing but a level plain, broken by the occasional outcrop, stretching away into the distance. At its limit, a feeble gleam marked Haskerville.

“Just like the early days,” Dar sighed, “when the Wolmen still thought we were enemies and I had to be ready to hide, fast, whenever I went out trading!”

“Oh.” Sam eyed him sideways. “You’ve been on the run in open country before?”

Dar nodded. “The main principle is to stay away from the roads, and stay near whatever cover there is. And, of course, if something moves, you hit the ground fast, and worry later about whether it’s dangerous or good to eat. Here, I’ll show you some of the fine points.”

He moved off through the long grass without a breath of sound. Sam shook her head and sighed, then went after him.

As the sky lightened with false dawn, Dar started to sneak across the last yard that separated dirt track from paved Haskerville street.

Sam caught his shoulder. “Act nonchantly, gnappie. You go sneaking around like that, the first citizen who spots you’ll blow the whistle.”

Dar turned back. “So who’s going to be awake to see me?”

“Agreed. So why sneak?”

Dar sighed and gave up.

So they strolled into town like a couple of late-night revelers returning to their hotel rooms.

“Any idea where we’re going?” Dar asked. “With the authorities and the Underground after us, we’re kinda short on hideouts.”

“A point,” Sam admitted. “In this town, I wouldn’t even trust a cheap hotel… What’s that?”

Dar stopped, turning his head from side to side, and saw nothing. He strained his ears, but all he heard was a hiss of wind.

“Over there.” Sam pointed towards a shopfront a block to her left. “Come on.”

She set off toward the shop. After the episode in the jail-tunnels, Dar wasn’t about to dispute her hearing. He followed.

They had come into a shabbier section of Haskerville. The houses were big, but they were simple frame dwellings—no half-timbering and stucco—and looked somewhat infirm. Most of them were overdue for a coat of paint—the older part of town, at a guess, built before the planet had enough surplus to worry about aesthetics in architecture.

Someone came out of the shopfront they were heading for, and turned down the street away from them. He/she was bald, and wore a gray, loose coverall.

“I think,” Sam said, with a catch to her voice, “we’ve struck paydirt.”

Dar could see her point—and now he could hear the trace she’d picked up: a low mutter of conversation, underscored by the ripple of a string instrument and a flute.

Sam swung the door open. They stepped into a room decorated in Late-Modern Junkyard. The walls were plain pastel-painted plastiboard, decorated with hangings of knotted, brightly colored twine, some of which held potted plants. The tables were plastic delivery drums, and the “chairs” were tree stumps, somewhat leveled off on the bottom. There was a counter against one wall; Dar recognized a section of it—it had “Wolmar” rolled across it. The far end was topped by an arcane plastic contraption that gave off clouds of steam and a rich, spicy aroma.

Most of the tables were filled, and all the patrons had shaved heads and loose gray coveralls. So, for that matter, did the people behind the counter. The musicians, on a small raised platform at the far end, wore the same attire.

Dar paused just inside the doorway, feeling a prickling along the back of his neck. He couldn’t help it; he felt as though he’d just stepped into a village populated by a tribe he hadn’t met, who might or might not be hostile.

“Don’t worry,” Sam murmured, “you’re with me.”

She sauntered over to the counter. A girl who looked enough like her to make Dar rub his eyes, came over and said, “Yeah?” in a neutral tone.

“Two cups,” Sam said, and Dar felt in his purse for nails. The girl turned to the arcane contraption, picked up a cup, and pressed a valve; then she turned back to them with two steaming mugs. “New here.”

“Am,” Sam confirmed. “Just in from Wolmar.”

Panic jammed Dar’s stomach up toward his throat. Why not just send up a rocket that’d explode into the words, “Here’re the suspects!”

But the girl’s face came alive. “The prison planet? Where they’re oppressing the natives? Hey, tell me about it!”

“Yeah, me too!” A tall, lanky man lounged up to lean on the bar beside Sam.

“Wolmar? I want to hear this!”

“Hey! The real word?”

In thirty seconds, they were surrounded by a small crowd. Dar kept trying to edge closer and closer to the counter, and to glance over both shoulders at once; but Sam launched happily into an account of her tour of Wolmar. Dar was amazed at her accuracy; under equivalent conditions, he couldn’t have resisted the temptation to color the tale a little, probably putting in a bevy of scantily clad maidens and a hair-raising escape from a bloodthirsty tribe or two; but Sam stuck to reporting what she’d seen and heard, introducing Dar as her guide, which won him a look of respect, then glares of scorn when she mentioned his being a trader, then looks of awe when she explained his teaching function.

“You mean it’s not really a prison colony?”

Sam shrugged. “Depends on how you look at it. They’ve all been sentenced to go there.”

“They’re not really oppressing the natives?” The asker sounded almost disappointed.

“No—but look what they are doing!” Sam fairly glowed with missionary fervor as she went into an explanation of Cholly’s educational program. Dar listened, enthralled. He hadn’t known he was that much of a hero.

“Hey—it sounds like heaven,” said one Hume, with a shaky laugh.

“Yeah. What crime do I have to commit to get sent there?” another joked; but the laughter that followed had a rather serious echo.

“Well, don’t jump too soon.” Sam leaned on the counter and pushed her cup over for a refill. “The Bureau of Otherworldly Affairs sent out a new governor.”

Dar was delighted at the groan.

“Bastards always gotta foul up something good when they find it,” muttered one Angry Young Man.

“Establishments can’t stand progress,” growled another.

“Yeah, but BOA didn’t figure on Shacklar.” Sam sipped her refill with relish.

“Why? What could he do?” The AYM frowned.

“Well, the new governor’s credentials kinda got, uh, ‘lost,’ before he could show them to Shacklar. And by the time Shacklar got done with him, he’d decided to resign and join the colony.”

The room rocked with a hoot of laughter. The AYM smote the counter gleefully. “Go, General! The Organic Will Grow, in spite of the defoliators!”

Sam nodded. “Dar and I got the job of carrying his resignation back to Terra. But the new ex-governor’s lefthand man didn’t like the whole idea, so he set out to sabotage us.”

“How?” The AYM scowled. “What could he do?”

“Well, first off, he seems to have wrangled himself in as the pilot of the courier ship that brought us here—and he sicced a bunch of pirates on us as soon as we broke out of H-space.”

A low mutter of anger ran around the crowd.

“Oh, it was okay—we got out of it, all right, and got picked up by a patrol cruiser. But when we got here, we found out he’d told the Haskerville government that one of us was a telepath and was a threat to social order.”

“You?” a voice hooted. “You’re the witches they’re hunting?”

“What’ve they got against telepaths, anyway?” the AYM grumbled. “They’re not hurting anybody.”

“Especially when they aren’t really telepaths,” Sam agreed. “But the House of Houses got wind of it, too, and tried to ‘script us. So we’re on the run two ways, and running out of hideouts.”

A chorus of protest filled the room, and a dozen Humes thrust forward with offers of sympathy.

“Sons o’ sobakas,” the AYM growled. “Just let one person try do do something decent, and they throw every roller they can in your way! Come on! We’ll hide you!”

And the whole crowd swirled them out with a chorus of agreement. Dar started to dig in his heels in alarm, then noticed Sam whirling by with a delighted grin. He relaxed, and let himself be borne by the current.

It deposited them in the street outside, with only the AYM and a few other Humes.

“Come on!” the AYM declared, and he set off down the street. Dar had to hurry to catch up.

“Lucky bumping into you,” Sam was saying as he came up with them.

“Not all that much luck. This’s the ideal place for us—they leave us alone.”

Dar could see why. The townsfolk would want to stay as far away as they could from the drab Humes and their shoestring existence. Of course, the shortage of radio communication and police might have had something to do with it, too—if the system was rigged to stay out of the way of the taxpayers’ pleasures, it wouldn’t be able to bother anyone else much, either.

The AYM led them into an old building that looked as though it had been an office collection in its youth, but had been converted to dwelling purposes. The liftshaft still operated, and took them up to the third level.

“Got to exploring one day.” The AYM ran his fingers over the bas-reliefs that decorated the wall at the end of the corridor. “I was doing a rubbing here, and I must have pressed just hard enough on the right thing, because …”

Something clicked; a hum sprang up; then, slowly, a portion of the wall retracted, to leave a doorway about two meters high.

Dar stared. Then, slowly, he nodded. “A very interesting suite.”

“Yeah, isn’t it?” The AYM grinned. “I don’t know what kind of business the office had in the old days, but they must’ve had some kind of a security problem. Import-export trade, at a guess.”

Dar stooped through the doorway. “Don’t suppose it comes equipped with little luxuries like light.”

“Try the wall-plate.”

It hadn’t occurred to Dar that there might be one. He slid his hand over the wall until he felt the smoother rectangle. It responded to his skin temperature by glowing a small, dim plate in the ceiling into life.

Sam stepped through, too. “You knew we were coming?”

“No, but I had a notion I might need it someday.” The AYM pointed to a few boxes of sealed packets and demijohns against the lefthand wall. “Made a deposit every time I could scrounge a little extra. There’s a week’s supply in here, at least. Pretty plain—biscuit and fruit, and some meat, and nothing to drink but water—but it’ll keep you alive.” He pointed to a neat stack of blankets just beyond the two straight chairs. “That’s all I could scrounge for sleeping and sitting. But all I promised was a hideout.”

“The way we are right now, this is a palace.” Sam clasped his hand. “No way I can thank you, really, grozh.”

“No need. Who knows? You may be doing the same for me someday.” He squeezed her arm. “Enjoy what you can. I’ll check in every now and then.” He stepped back through the doorway, and the wall-segment rolled back into place.

“Of course,” Dar observed, “you realize we can’t get out now.”

“Lesser of two evils.” Sam settled herself on one of the hard chairs. “We can get him to tell us when the next ship lands, and duck out to the port.”

“A month in this crackerbox?”

“This one, or one like it, maintained by the authorities.” Sam shrugged. “Your choice. Personally, I’ll take this one.”

“No contest,” Dar sighed, flopping down onto the other chair. “I didn’t know your tribe was so widespread.”

“There’re a lot of us—an awful lot. Oh, there always have been some, at least as far back as the late nineteenth century—but they’re always a minority, unless something’s going wrong in the government. When a political system has engine trouble, alternative cultures spread.”

“Until the engine starts running again?”

Sam nodded. “But the numbers have been on the increase, steadily, for more than a hundred years now.”

“I always seem to come in on the end of things,” Dar sighed.

“And the beginning.” Sam’s face lit with a rare, dazzling smile. “That’s what comes after the end, you know.”

The monster in his dream was knocking on his head with a very loud, hollow sound. Dar waded up out of the morass of slumber to check on the objectivity of the knocking.

Sure enough, it was objective—but in the drab reality of their roomlet, it sounded only as a tapping, not a booming pounding.

Dar frowned. Why would the AYM tap? He knew how to open the door!

Therefore, the tapper didn’t know how.

Therefore, it wasn’t the AYM.

Dar reached out and squeezed Sam’s ankle. Her head came up slowly, eyes squinting painfully. “What …?”

“Sh.” Dar laid a finger across her lips, then pointed toward the wall/door.

She turned toward the tapping, irritated. He could virtually see her brain waking up as her eyes widened and her mind traced the same path of logic his had.

“Double-crossed?” Dar whispered.

“Can’t be!” Sam scrambled to her feet. “I just won’t believe it!”

The door/wall began to hum.

“Uh oh.” Dar tried to get between Sam and the entryway. “He found the right leaf.”

The door rolled back to show a segment of a man.

It was sort of the center stripe of a personality. Dar could see the man’s face, and a little of his shoulders to either side (he had no neck), a slice of chest and belly, one knee and the other thigh, and the middle of the front of an armchair. The rest of both the man and the armchair went on to either side of the doorway and, from the look of him, went on for quite a distance. If the average Falstavian was fat, he was enormous. His face was a beachball with four chins and a blob of nose over a thin-lipped, tight mouth. But the eyes, tiny as currants in a vat of dough, were sharp and alive, quick with intelligence, chill with shrewdness. His chest and belly had been cast in one piece and, if there was a ribcage beneath, it was sunk full fathom five. His legs were sections of whale, and his foot was the whaleboat.

The chair floated a good eighteen inches off the floor—anti-gravity, no doubt; and the connection sparked in Dar’s mind: the man couldn’t get out of the chair. He couldn’t move without it. That fat.

“Greetings,” Gargantua said. “I am Myles Croft.”

“Uh—a pleasure. I suppose.” Dar was willing to take a chance on it; after all, the man couldn’t get in. “Let me guess—you’re the landlord, and it’s the first of the month.”

“Closer than you intended.” The mouth didn’t smile, but the eyes twinkled. “I have the honor to be mayor of Haskerville.”

Dar levered his jaw back in place and swallowed.

“We’re doing better than I thought,” Sam said behind him. “The Humes’re getting chummy with the mayor.”

“Not particularly.” The irony in Croft’s voice had to be humor. “No one needed to tell me where you were hidden. Once I’d heard that you’d escaped from the House of Houses, it was obvious you’d be somewhere back in Haskerville—and, since I knew the lady of the party was a Hume, it was logical to conclude you’d seek refuge in this quarter.”

Sam nodded. “All right, so far as it goes—but how’d you know about the two of us? … Hold on, cancel that! Of course. If the police knew, you’d know. But how’d you know we’d been taken to Sard, let alone that we’d escaped?”

“I have my sources.”

“Interesting, interesting.” Dar nodded slowly. “But how’d you know which building to look in?”

“If anyone had hidden you, it would logically be Anthony Marne, who’s as much of a leader as the Humes have.”

“Angry-young-man type?”

“I thought you’d met. Therefore, you’d probably be hidden in his building—so I surveyed the establishment floor by floor, until I realized one hall was noticeably shorter than the others. Beyond that, I believe you heard my search for the activating control.”

Dar just stared.

Then he gave his head a quick shake. “Did you ever consider taking up detective work?”

“Frequently, young man—and I frequently do. The mayor should know something about the goings-on in his own city.”

“But if you know all that, the House shouldn’t be able to get away with anything, and ninety percent of your citizens ought to be in jail.”

The huge face smiled into waves of fat. “You are observant, young man. I leave it to your imagination to determine why all are still at large. Suffice it to say that I have some rather elaborate plans, which are working rather well in practice; but they result in a delicate balance, which could very easily be upset by a new and random factor.”

Dar’s spine turned into an icicle. “You mean us.”

Croft nodded. “It is in my interest to see that you’re removed from my planet as quickly as possible.”

“Shouldn’t you have brought along a little protection on this jaunt?” Sam asked grimly.

“I think not. I’ve discussed you with a friend of mine, and he seems to have high regard for you.”

“Well, it’s nice to have a good reference.” Dar was wary. “Who’s our yea-sayer?”

“A Mr. Tambourin; he styles himself ‘Whitey the Wino.’ And, too, I think, all things considered, that the best way to remove you from circulation is to assist you in your progress.”

“You mean you’ll get us out of here?” Dar pounced on it.

“I had that in mind, yes. You’ve certainly done nothing meriting permanent incarceration; but the longer you’re here, the more disruptive you’ll be. And I don’t relish having two police forces on my planet.”

“Two?” Now it was Sam who pounced. “Where’d the second one come from?”

“A gentleman named Canis Destinus, I believe. He came to me yesterday morning, bearing a letter ‘To Whom It May Concern,’ from the Secretary for Internal Security for the I.D.E., requesting the reader to aid Mr. Destinus in any way possible. But the Secretary, as you may know, is head of the reactionary LORDS party …”

“I didn’t,” Sam said, “but I’m glad to.”

“Mr. Destinus seems to be more than he appears,” Dar said softly.

“Really? I thought his appearance quite indicative; looks somewhat like a rat.”

“I take it you don’t quite approve of the LORDS?”

“Not germane.” Croft dismissed the point with a wave of his hand. “Fortunately, in such circumstances, the letter of the law requires a planetary official, such as myself, to make certain lengthy verifications of the applicant’s bona fides, including the Secretary’s signature; so I explained to Mr. Destinus that I would probably be able to accord him my full cooperation early next week.”

“As I said.” Dar grinned. “You don’t approve of the LORDS.”

“Be that as it may; Mr. Destinus did not seem disposed to wait. So I assumed, when I began to receive reports of pairs of police officers who were definitely not among those I had employed, that Mr. Destinus had induced my cooperation by his own initiative, possibly with Sard’s assistance.”

“He hired some bullyboys from the House to impersonate cops,” Dar translated. “But I can see your problem; the longer we’re around, the longer you’ve got a second, but illegal, police force.”

“Of course, I have ways of making such an enterprise prohibitively expensive for Mr. Sard—but not while the LORDS’ bottomless purse is open to him. However if you depart. Mr. Destinus will leave in pursuit of you.”

“Makes excellent sense,” Dar agreed, “from your point of view.”

“And from yours, I should think.”

“As far as it goes,” Sam said cautiously. “Problem is, when we do leave, we’re a little picky about where we’re going.”

“Young Hume, where you go is entirely your own affair.”

“Nice theory,” Dar approved. “Unfortunately, once you’re on a freighter, it’s kind of hard to persuade it to change its destination.”

“Come to that,” Sam chimed in, “there aren’t any ships of any kind scheduled to lift off for a month. How’re you getting us out of here?”

Croft sighed. “Haskerville is the only town of any size on the planet; we’ve something near ninety percent of the population here. Accordingly, I’m de facto planetary governor, as well as mayor. So I’ve authority over all I.D.E. equipment here; and part of that inventory is a small fleet of outmoded I.D.E. scout ships. I’ve arranged for Mr. Tambourin to buy one, as government surplus.”

“To buy a spacer?” Dar’s eyes fairly bulged. “All by himself?”

“Government surplus is ridiculously inexpensive,” Croft noted.

“Even so—a spacer! How much money does this guy have?”

“Not much, after this little purchase.” Sam smiled up at the mayor. “Can we hitch a ride, Mr. Croft?”

“Hey, hold on!” Dar caught her arm. “What do you mean, hitch a ride? We can’t trust this man!”

Sam turned back, frowning up at him. “Why not?”

“Why not?” Dar spluttered. “I mean … look! We’re on the run! He’s the law!”

“That’s right, he’s the law. So if he says to let us go, they’ll let us go.”

“But … but …”

“Look,” Sam said, with forced patience, “I’m a good judge of character. Have you ever known me to be wrong about who I could trust, and who I couldn’t?”

Dar started to answer, then hesitated.

“Including you,” Sam reminded.

Dar sighed and capitulated. “All right. You win.” He looked toward Croft. “When does the next bus leave?”

With a load like Croft in it, Dar wouldn’t’ve thought the armchair could support any more. But it had lift to spare; they glided through the deserted streets of Haskerville perched on the arms like a couple of children come to recite their Christmas lists to Santa.

After a little while, Dar said, “It occurs to me that what you’ve got here is a planetful of grifters and marks, about evenly divided.”

Croft nodded agreeably. “An oversimplification, but accurate within its limits.”

“In fact, you could almost say it’s got the potential for becoming a balanced society.”

“The potential, perhaps,” Croft agreed.

“How do you manage to keep the House of Houses from totally destroying the citizens?”

Croft smiled, amused. “Come now, young man! You give me too much credit. Even a criminal realizes that he must take care of his geese if he wants them to grow more feathers for plucking.”

“Not from what I’ve read,” Dar said slowly. “Historically, even the organized criminals haven’t cared who they hurt or killed, as long as they made a profit on it.”

“Ah, but that is when they have an unlimited supply of geese!”

“Somehow, I don’t think the House of Houses has quite that much foresight.”

Croft nodded, amused. “I may have arranged for the odd idea to reach the House through circuitous routes. Then, too, even with a severely limited police force, there are ways of making certain activities unprofitable.”

Dar nodded, bemused. “So you’ve got two societies that pretty much balance each other—and it’s got the potential for becoming a single, cohesive society. That would take a lot of guidance and maneuvering—but it is possible.”

Croft nodded. “Of course. Anything is possible—even that; with an exterior challenge and thrown back on their own resources, both halves of the population might forgo their own forms of decadence.”

“A challenge such as being cut off from the rest of the human-inhabited universe?”

Croft nodded, a slight smile on his thin lips. “You evince a definite talent, young fellow. Given time and practice, you might prove as capable of deduction as I am.”

The spaceport was guarded by a split-log fence, like an old-time Western fort. But the gate opened at Croft’s approach, and they floated through, to stare at a square mile of plastrete, pock-marked with blast-pits. The two-story personnel and passenger building seemed like a miniscule bump on the fence. The only other break in the bald field was a silvery manta-ray shape tilted upward toward the stars, as though it strained to be free of the planet—an FTL scout, streamlined and planed for atmospheric capability. No ferry this time, but a ship that could go from surface to surface, though without the speed of the great liners. It was beautiful, but it seemed pathetically small and frail against the immense stretch of plastrete.

The hatch was open, and a silhouette appeared against its rectangle of yellow light as they drifted up. “As good as your word! You found ‘em!” Whitey jumped down to pump Croft’s arm.

“You doubted me, Whitey?”

“Not for a second! Trouble was, it was turning into hours.”

A black robe blocked the hatch, and light gleamed off a bald pate. “Welcome, wanderers!” Father Marco waved. “Come on in and tell us about your travels! We should have time; we’re going seventy-five light-years!”

But Dar’s eyes snapped to the figure beside the priest. Even as a silhouette, she looked wonderful.

“Good to see you again, Father.” Sam hopped down off Croft’s chair and strode toward the hatch. “But, why’re you coming along? It’s our misfortune, and none of your own.”

“Someone has to look after your souls,” the friar joked. At least, Dar hoped he was joking. “Nice of you to care, Father—but why should you?” He jumped up into the ship, carefully brushing against Lona in the process.

“Because,” said the priest, “I’m a brother of the Order of St. Vidicon, and you two present a case that an engineer can’t resist.”

Dar didn’t follow the logic, but it didn’t matter; Lona was giving him the long stare. He couldn’t tell whether it was admiring or accusing, but he didn’t really care—so long as he had her attention.

“Well, that’s it!” Whitey hopped aboard and sealed the hatch behind him. “Always helps to have friends in the right places.”

“Sure does,” Dar agreed, “and I’m awfully glad we’ve got you. But why? This isn’t your quarrel, Whitey.”

“It is now.” Whitey flopped down into the nearest acceleration couch and stretched his webbing across. “Things were getting dull, but you two promise to make them interesting again.”

“But you’re heading for the frontier, and we have to get to Terra!”

“So do we—now.” Whitey grinned. “As long as you promise to shake the old place up a bit. Besides, I have to see my publisher—I’ve suddenly run low on funds.”

Dar swallowed, feeling guilty, but Whitey looked around and bawled, “Who’s going to pilot this tub?”

“Who else?” Lona jumped into the pilot’s couch with relish. “I’d fly a mountain to get back to some good old-fashioned decadence!” She hit a few keys, and the spacer roared to life.

“I’ll take communications.” Sam slipped into the couch beside Lona and keyed the talker. “What’s the name of this tub?”

“I christen it Ray of Hope,” Whitey declared.

“Ray of Hope to Control,” Sam called, “outward-bound toward Sol.”

“Uh … come in, Ray of Hope.” Control was, to say the least, startled.

“Permission to lift off.”

“Permission to …? Uh—be right with you, Ray of Hope.” Dar could hear a squawk in the background before Control killed its mike. “Looks like we took them by surprise,” he said to Whitey.

“Not surprising enough.” Whitey frowned. “Who’s gotten to them?”

“Three guesses—which is two more than you need.” Sam keyed her mike again. “Ray of Hope to Falstaff Control. What’s the delay?”

“Uh … Ray of Hope,” Control stammered, “it seems you forgot to file a ballistic plan.”

“Ballistic plan?” Whitey bawled. “What does he think this is—a hop to the next planet?”

“Ray of Hope to Control,” Sam said grimly. “I thought ballistic plans went out when FTL came in.”

“Well—we have to make sure you don’t interfere with any incoming traffic.”

“Incoming traffic! What incoming traffic? The sky’s as clear as a verdict!”

Whitey chuckled. “As owner of this ship, pilot, I order you to lift off.”

“Yes, Grandpa,” Lona murmured, entirely too demurely. Then there wasn’t much talking, because they were plastered back in their couches for a few minutes as the Ray streaked up through the atmosphere.

Then the pressure eased off, and “down” gradually stopped being the back of the ship and became the deck, as ship’s gravity took over from acceleration.

“Coasting at nine-tenths maximum.” Lona spun her chair around and loosened her webbing. “I’d advise you stay in your couches, though; should only be about twenty minutes till we’re far enough out to isomorph into H-space.”

“We barely made it,” Sam said with a sour smile. “Remember that squawk in the background? That was Destinus.”

“Destinus?” Father Marco sat up, frowning. “Canis Destinus?”

“Why, yes, now that you mention it.” Sam turned to Father Marco. “You know him?”

“More than that; we’re related.” The priest seemed suddenly saddened. “He’s my father’s half-brother’s son.”

Dar frowned. “Wait a minute—that makes him …”

“Half a cousin of the brother.” Whitey turned to the friar. “The two of you were on the same planet, and he didn’t bother to say hello?”

Father Marco nodded. “And it would seem that he probably knew I was here. But then, under the circumstances, I suppose he wouldn’t’ve wanted to be associated with me.”

“Doesn’t sound like the overly sentimental sort.”

“To say the least,” Father Marco replied grimly. “In fact, I haven’t heard from him since I went into seminary; he was very upset with my choice of order. Thought I was horribly radical, that sort of thing.” He turned to Sam. “He’s been causing you trouble for a while?”

“Hunting us down,” Sam confirmed. “He seems to be working for the LORDS.”

Father Marco sighed and shook his head. “Poor Destinus! We knew he was keeping bad company, being in the government and all—but I didn’t know it was this bad … well!” He slapped his knees and sat up straight. “Looks as though I made the right decision, coming along with you.”

“How so?” Dar frowned. “Finding out about your half-cousin makes that much of a difference?”

Father Marco nodded. “Family obligation. It’s up to me to try to counter the damage Destinus’s trying to do to you.”

“Well, don’t be too hard on the boy.” Dar frowned up at Sam. “I mean, it’s not as if he were doing it on his own. He’s just acting for his bosses. They’re the ones who’re going in for telepath-hunting.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” Sam’s lip curled slightly. “Do you think hardheaded politicians would really believe in telepaths? I mean, believe in ‘em enough to mount a major hunt?”

“Why else would they bring in their own ‘police’?”

“Because,” Sam grinned, “it makes an excellent excuse to immobilize you and me, before we can get Bhelabher’s resignation to BOA.”

“Could a governorship of a boondocks planet be all that important?”

“To the governor’s righthand man it could. Besides, even if the LORDS are planning to cut off all the outlying planets, that doesn’t mean they like the idea of governors who’re ready to get along without them very nicely, thank you.”

“A point,” Dar admitted. “That is a little deflating to the collective Terran ego. Which makes me think Myles Croft can’t be all that popular with BOA, either.”

“He always was an independent cuss, My was.” Whitey grinned, leaning back with his hands locked behind his head. “Myself, I think it’s just fine, seeing the outer worlds getting ready for Terra to ax ‘em”

“Ready? Eager, almost.” Lona was watching her data board. “About to isomorph, gentlefolk—tighten your webbing.” She frowned, and peered closer at her detectors. “Strange—that blip’s gotta be another ship lifting off from Falstaff.”

“Strange indeed.” Dar frowned, too. “There weren’t supposed to be any arrivals or departures for a month.”

“You don’t think …?” Sam began, but then the isomorpher kicked in, and reality turned very fuzzy for a while.