Freedom's Ransom

Chapter Eight

Once outside, a truck kept pace with them. As they neared the ship, Zainal opened the ship's comm unit to alert Gino of their return. The ramp was extended and Gino and the rest of the crew framed the open hatch as they watched the re turn of their crewmen. Kris noticed the pessimism on Zainal's face as he cycled the cargo holds to the one containing their metal ingots. He must have been wishing he hadn't said anything about having ores, but she felt paying for a convoy to safely acquire Eric's equipment was worth the swap. Botany did not produce much ore but the deposits were high quality. At least she thought the miners would object less to losing copper, zinc, tin, and lead even though in some instances those ores were far more useful than gold, silver, or platinum. Nevertheless, she could see how it pained Zainal to hand over the ingots and how eagerly Vitali's men received them.

Kris did not seek her bed yet. She was still absorbing the import of their interview with Vitali and other, less obvious information that she had gathered. Earth's victory was a hollow one, despite evidence of recovery. The rock squats had been worth their weight in any metal, and while they still had a few trays to spare, fresh bread might be useful to have on hand for goodwill and any unexpected "fees."

She hauled another sack of flour out of the supply locker and mixed up a triple batch of bread dough. It could rise overnight, have another quick rise as rolls, which would be easier to distribute than loaves, and be ready for their journey.

Kathy was still in heavy conference with John Wendell, who was almost drooling over the comm sat in the cargo hold. She was listen-ing avidly to his remarks, jotting down notes and looking all too bright-eyed, Kris thought, and not the least bit reserved.

Kris was grateful to fall asleep once she hit her bunk, and an-swered Zainal's sleepily muttered "Who's there?" with a kiss, which sent him back to sleep with a smile on his face. She hated to be roused by the alarm the next morning but rose and flicked it off before the noise woke him. It was fair. He often let her have an extra half hour. In the galley, she started the big oven and punched down the dough, deftly separating it into convenient rolls before she made the morn-ing's breakfast of boiled groats. She wondered if it would be hard to find cinnamon and maybe raisins somewhere in Manhattan. She had often longed for a Danish at breakfast.

It was the smell of baking bread that got folk out of their beds be-fore the official Klaxon sounded.

Everyone was dressed and ready when the security sensors beeped a proximity alert. Chuck greeted those who arrived in a battered pickup truck. He eyed the load bed but it looked long enough to hold Eric's equipment. He also tossed in a coil of rope on top of the two lift platforms, which he and Clime carefully loaded, ignoring ques-tions from the curious guards.

The truck had a wide front seat, which Zainal and Kris took. She was seated next to the driver, careful to keep her backpack full of rolls from being crushed against the battered dashboard. She was aware that the driver's pistol dug into her left hip and eased her buttocks slightly to the right. The smell of freshly baked bread vied with the smells of oil, diesel fuel, and unwashed bodies. As surreptitiously as possible, she held the pack closer to her nose. Then a final passenger wedging himself next to Zainal slammed her back into the driver's holster. The door was closed only because someone outside the truck gave it a good push.

"Sorry about the squeeze," the latecomer said, "but I'm Jelco, your official guide on this tour of New Manhattan." He nodded ami-ably at Zainal and Kris. "Driver's Murray. He don't talk much but he's a good driver. We were lucky to get him for this job. I believe he claims he knows every hole in every avenue and street in the city." Courteously Kris nodded to her left and was startled by a tooth-less grin. She wondered if he knew he was driving a dentist to his old office. She also wondered if he could enjoy the nice crunchy bread they had in their backpacks. Murray hadn't so much as glanced at the backpack she held in her lap but he must have smelled the bread because his nostrils flared every now and then and he had to lick his lips frequently. Salivating, possibly. The smell of fresh bread had its own magic.

"Dover and Wylee are our guards, case you wanted to know. Good men."

Which was what Kris hoped they would prove to be. "We'll have Kejas and Potts through the tunnel. They're actually the Midtown Coords men this week. They wear red bands." He pointed to the kelly green one on his upper arm. "We do a week on, a week off tunnel duty."

Zainal nodded.

There were very few people around as Murray drove slowly out of Newark Airport, its vast parking lots empty, except for a few burned-out autos. Then Murray pulled out onto a three-lane highway. Along the weedy verge of the highway, damaged bushes and trees were showing growth with new sprouts, and the occasional forsythia had some blooms. Shortly they turned again, off the turnpike onto the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel. Signs had been torn down but the wide highway, though pocked with gravel-filled holes, was empty ex-cept for their pickup and a cart full of what looked like potato sacks to Kris, laboriously drawn by two raggedly dressed men. The wheels were not pneumatic but wooden, rimmed by metal, and the axle squealed for lack of lubrication. Three small boys, walking behind the cart, eyed the truck. From the dirt on their faces, Kris wondered if they had dug the potatoes that were in the cart.

The New Jersey entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel had never been a prime residential area in its heyday and certainly looked wartorn now, the high sidewalls full of pockmarks. Other types of debris, probably from fighting to protect the tunnel approach, had been pushed to one side, leaving two lanes of the once six-lane approach clear, one on either side of the dividing parapet.

"Heavy fighting?" she asked, unnerved by the desolation, and needing to talk.

Murray nodded. "Only good midtown access to the island, ma'am, and had to be defended."

To the last man? she wondered.

"Hmmm, well done," she said, noncommittally. And then the road on the left was free of the bombed buildings. This road had always provided a breathtaking view of New York City, as it swept around in a long right-hand curve to the tollbooths and the actual tunnel faces. But the view of New York was vastly changed from her recollection of it. It was as if all the buildings had somehow been blunted. Oh, the Chrysler and the Empire State buildings were still standing, but oth-ers, including the Radio City complex, looked as if they'd been sliced off. The once proud city had gaps in its fabled silhouette. They trav-eled down toward the huge entrance plaza, swinging past tollbooths that had been shattered into rubble. Pieces of burned-out vehicles had, as on the approach roads, been pushed to the sides but gave mute testimony to the fierceness of attack and defense.

"And to think I once griped about waiting in the lines," Jelco remarked. Then armed men appeared from a galvanized shed, tucked under the shadow of the eastbound tunnel entrance. Murray slowed to a stop and turned off the engine, reaching for a sheaf of papers that had been tucked behind the eyeshade. Jelco swung down from the truck's cab and strode to the approaching guards, whose weapons were slung over their shoulders. Jelco had a slip of paper in his hand that Kris thought was decorated with seals and kelly green ribbons. Jelco had an earnest conversation with a guard, showing him the pa-per, while a dour man who reeked of sweat was thumbing through Murray's papers. The breeze was, unfortunately, coming across him and into the truck cab. Evidently soap and deodorant were no longer available.

"Would you like some fresh rolls?" Kris asked nervously and held one up for the man to see. She thought for a moment that the rest of his squad would rush the truck but the man with Jelco issued a sharp order and they moderated to a swift walk. She handed Murray the rolls to pass around and noticed that he dropped one into his own lap, though how he would manage without teeth, she didn't know. He simply tore a piece off the roll and popped it into his mouth, his eyes widening with appreciation at the taste.

"Thanks, miss," said the first guard, tipping his fingers in a salute. He passed rolls out to the rest of his unit.

"Klaus?" he yelled, attracting his leader's attention, and lofted a roll, which Klaus neatly hooked out of the air. "Sorry, ma'am, but a search is required. Becky, front and center," he yelled over his shoul-der, and a woman soldier quickly advanced.

Kris had never been frisked before but, considering what she had seen of the tunnel's environs, she had no intention of protesting such a security measure. Klaus gestured for Zainal to step out so he could be checked over, too.

"She's clean," Becky said after a fairly cursory feel of Kris's arms and legs, back and waist. Kris offered her a roll. "Thank you. Ain't had fresh-baked bread in ages." She bit into it with an almost savage gusto and chewed vigorously, nodding her approval. In all, a dozen rolls had been passed out before Kris was waved back into the truck. She was glad she'd made the offer, judging by the happy expressions on the tunnel guards' faces and the appreciative thumbs-up gestures as the truck was allowed to roll into the eastbound tube.

"I'm Wylee," said a small man who came back to the truck with Jelco. "Tunnel squad. Just wanted to reassure you that the fans have been circulating the bad air out. You got anyone in your group who's asthmatic or has respiratory problems?" He looked at Kris as he spoke, trying to ignore Zainal's solid Catteni form.

"None I know of."

"Well, the air in the middle of the tunnel ain't exactly one hun-dred percent unpolluted, ma'am. Anybody has any problem, call me, huh? We got respirators." He motioned to the backpack he was wear ing. His expression suggested that he didn't want to use them unless he absolutely had to. Oxygen was still free, wasn't it? Kris thought, feeling almost rebellious. She did not really know what those left on Earth had had to face so she swallowed the smart rejoinder. She felt the tilt of the truck as those in the back hauled up Wylee.

As Murray was waved to proceed into the left-hand tunnel, she had more to concern her. She wasn't claustrophobic but she really didn't like the idea of all the water over her head, and looked at the cream-tiled walls of the tunnel to see any signs of lack of mainte-nance. She didn't know what to look for-but cracks or moisture staining the walls would be obvious signs. Yet if this was one of the only accesses to New York City from the mainland, it would behoove them to keep it in good repair.

She was somewhat surprised to see a huge Dumpster at the en-trance and noticed that there were bits of cement and odd pieces of metal jutting from it. Then the truck swerved to the right and she saw the burned-out chassis of a car on the left. This was not the last wreck she was to see in the tunnel. Few had been burned out but all had been stripped down to the chassis.

"Recycling," Murray said around a mouthful of his roll.

"We'll get the junk out of the tunnel one of these years," Jelco said cheerfully. "And sometimes, when we have a group coming through, we get them to hump a chassis out for us."

When they were out of sight of the tunnel entrance she saw that the raised walkway along the inner side of the tunnel had been dam-aged, though most of the cement and tiles had been cleaned away from the break.

"That's as far in as the invaders got," Jelco said, pointing to where the damage ended with a hint of pride. "But then," and he cast a quick glance at Zainal, "Catteni don't like being underground, do they?"

There was a look on his face that suggested he'd hoped to see Zainal react.

"True enough," Zainal said with complete composure. "You did well to fight off Catteni soldiers. No other species has been able to." "So I heard," Jelco replied amiably.

That exchange seemed to please both participants and the rest of the journey, past other cars stripped to the bare bones of their chassis, passed without remarks. Kris had to keep reminding herself that Wylee had said the air had been circulated so she must be imagining the stink, but the stench of gasoline, oil, and burned tires was heavy enough to keep her taking shallow breaths to keep her lungs as uncontaminated as possible by the stale air. Shipboard air got to smell stale, too, but this tunnel was rank with ancient odors.

"Nearly there, ma'am," Jelco murmured reassuringly. She was un-deniably relieved to see more light on the tunnel tiles.

She smiled, turning her head in an almost regal nod in his direc-tion. She would be glad to fill her lungs with clean air again. Then the truck drove up out of the tunnel. Debris from the old Port Authority Building was tumbled around the exit; she inhaled and wished she hadn't for there was a stench of rot and garbage that almost made the tunnel's air seem sweet. Two huge Dumpsters were on either side of the exit, filled almost to capacity with debris that had been cleared from the tunnel. Maybe they should have used the lifts and brought out more, like one of the car bodies. But Zainal had mentioned that the floats had only so much power in their batteries and he had no spares to replace them with.

Then they had to go through a second security check, and Kris passed out the rest of the rolls she had in her backpack. Again the identity papers were shown, and Wylee swung out of the truck and went to confer with the squad leaders, beaming as he passed out the rolls to grateful Manhattan recipients.

"Green for go," he said, coming to the window. "Roll away, Mur-ray." He added a grandiose gesture for the driver. Murray grinned, crumbs of the roll he had eaten visible on his gums, and shifted into first gear, ignoring the complaints from the transmission. She hoped the truck would last to bring the heavy dental equipment back.

The truck rolled up the curved road at Forty-first and onto Tenth Avenue.

"I can detour up Broadway so you can see Times Square," Mur-ray offered. "Won't take much gas."

"I think not, thank you, Murray," Kris responded. She had seen that landmark once when her family had come east for a wedding, and she vaguely remembered the place for the cigarette smoke bill board and the colored lights on in the middle of the day, but she didn't think she could stand seeing it in ruins. Likewise she didn't want Zainal to see it at less than its best either.

Tenth Avenue was really a minefield of potholes, through which Murray drove carefully. It had never been one of New York's finest neighborhoods and looked even grimmer now. Especially when she saw the remains of a huge spit that had been erected over one of the potholes, still black from the fire that had been laid in it. A pile of ut-terly unfamiliar, and large, bones occupied one corner. And the street sign pole sported a huge skull. She couldn't imagine from what ani-mal it had come.

"Had us quite a party that night," Murray said, grinning at her. "Rhinoceros, wasn't it, Jelco?"

Jelco nodded, a slight smile of happy reminiscence on his face. "Rhinoceros?" Kris couldn't help blurting out the word. "A rather large African beast. How on earth:" She looked across Zainal at Jelco for an explanation.

"Well, we couldn't feed the zoo animals," he said with a wry grin, "so they fed us."

"Oh!"

"Miss going to the zoo on a Sunday, though," Murray said. "But we had enough to eat for everyone. Tough to chew, even if you had teeth." He gave her another grin. "But we had soup for a week after wards from the bones. One day, maybe, we can erect a monument on the spot. Sort of thanks for the best meal many of us had had in weeks."

"They were humanely put down, ma'am," Jelco added. "Better than all of us starving to death-and them, too."

"Yes, yes, I quite see the expediency," she murmured.

She was silent as she counted the streets on their way to Colum-bus. There were one or two street signs still in place-no more with skull adornment-and then the buildings turned from residences, if you could call the old shambles "residences," to the beginning of office-type buildings. By then she realized that very few, except upper stories, retained any glass panes in their windows. Many of the walls and entrances showed the pockmarks of bullets, and not a few en-trances had no doors at all.

She hadn't seen many people about, but as they neared the Circle she saw folk hurrying in both directions, some carrying armloads or hauling the little wheeled carts as quickly as possible toward the Circle.

The Circle itself surprised her-no longer the place of artistic dis-play but filled with carts and rudely made stalls, some with awnings to keep the sun and rain from whatever merchandise was on offer. She saw additional carts like the potato one.

"We got a bizarre every day now," Wylee said, and Kris blinked at his mispronunciation because the place was indeed bizarre. Not only were there ardent traders making bargains but also swarms of men armed with weapons slung to be brought to bear quickly. They wore brilliant red armbands and berets with some sort of an insignia on them.

"We're in the Cardinal Coord now," Jelco informed her, touching his own kelly green armband. "They keep the peace."

"Peace?" Kris blurted out, astounded.

"You've no idea how hot under the collar people can get when they lose a deal," Jelco said. "Newark runs its own bazaar Saturday and Sunday at the airport. No one really likes the duty but every now and then we get a chance at something fresh and tasty."

"Like the rolls?" Kris asked.

"Those were elegant, ma'am," he said earnestly. "D'you have more?" he asked hesitantly.

"It'll smooth our way here in the Cardinal Coord?" she asked. "Yes indeedy, ma'am. You've no idea."

Possibly, she thought to herself, she didn't. But then, she'd had the reality of Barevi and Botany to open her eyes. Idly she thought of goru pears and how juicy they had tasted during her days of refuge in the forests of Barevi. And she thought she'd been deprived there! She wondered how much she could get trading fresh goru pears at this bazaar.

The truck was swinging around the Circle in the appropriate traffic pattern before Murray drove it up onto the wide concrete apron fronting Eric's office building, which dominated its arc of the Circle. Immediately Jelco swung out of the truck as guards from the entrance to the building came forward to protest illegal parking.

Jelco beckoned urgently at Kris, and she called for someone to bring out a fresh supply of rolls. It was Eric who hurried forward, the straps of his backpack looped over his forearm and a roll in his hand as evidence of the treat. The pack was quickly emptied and then Eric was fumbling in his pockets, producing his license and a business card, which were passed around to verify his bona fides. Several of the guards kept curious people moving along, and it was evident why Dan Vitali had said they'd need guards.

However, Eric was approved and he waved for Zainal, Kris, and the others to join him. If folks eyed Zainal warily, he was in the midst of armed men they patently trusted so they ignored a single Cattem.

"You're in luck," the head guard was saying as they approached, Dover and Wylee unloading the awkward-looking lift platforms. "We got electricity for another half hour."

"You mean the elevator's working?" Eric exclaimed, staring around at their party, his eyes bright with relief.

"Yup. The weekly dispensation. You guys got good timing," the guard said, taking another bite from his roll and urging them into the foyer.

This was evidently a prime location to judge by the sophisticated stalls set about. "Outta the way. Official business." He had cleared cus-tomers away from the stalls to the voluble complaints of the mer-chants. Then they were at the elevator banks and with a flourish the guard punched the button. The light in the cracked display above the door came on. The elevator had been called.

Kris was not so sure about the noise that was coming from the shaft but she had not thought about having to walk up eighteen flights of stairs, much less coming back down.

"Both ways?" Eric asked.

"Only if you ain't got no more weight than you took up," the guard informed him. "Thing's ancient and stubborn. Has a tendency to get cranky and stop between floors. Passengers get to wait hours."

Eric sighed. "It would have been a squeeze with my units," he said diffidently and was happy enough to step into the car, watching Jelco and Dover as they cautiously entered with the upright lift platforms.

The door creaked shut, and after Eric had punched the floor but-ton with an air of importance, an alarming amount of chain rattling, hissing, and bucking ensued until the elevator began to ascend. Kris's eye caught on the inspection card that most elevators displayed. This was an Otis, which she knew to be a reliable make, and a hastily penned notation informed that it had last been inspected on July 2, 1992.

For the life of her, Kris couldn't remember what date this day should be. The weather had been warm but the forsythia bloom she had seen suggested early spring. Time seemed to have stopped: at least recordable time. It had been so for so long that she endured one day at a time and was thankful to live through each one, week after week as they added up to months and then years, but she couldn't have said what day, week, month, or year-Anno Domini-she was currently living in. Nor did she wish to embarrass herself by asking. Anyway, Botany time was different from Earth time.

The elevator lurched to a stop, terminating Kris's anxiety about getting stuck between floors. The elevator had not only ascended but also had stopped at the desired destination. There, as proof, on the wall opposite were the figures, gold, framed in black, that identified the eighteenth floor. Eric stepped out first, the others following quickly on his heels as he led the way to the right. Office doors on ei-ther side of the dark corridor were ajar, which lit their way, but also showed them that few offices had escaped pilfering. Mostly chairs had been taken though Kris rather thought some of the stalls in the foyer had once been tables in the upper levels. Torn curtains flapped in whatever breeze whined around the eighteenth floor.

Eric let out several startled exclamations. He did not need the keys he had brought with him, for his outer door, too, had been forced open. But as he charged forward into the inner office, he let out a cry of relief as he spotted his dental chair and the tower, which held the drill apparatus. Relief changed to mild expletives as he saw that the drawers of his accessory cupboards were pulled out.

"They only looked and saw nothing they could use," he cried af-ter a closer examination.

"Now, where's your electrical supply? Like the man said, it's on and I don't want to electrocute anyone, especially me," Herb Bayes said, lumbering forward.

Eric showed him both the panels and then where he would have to disconnect the tower and the chair, which could be adjusted by the dentist as needed. Kris remembered such a unit, with its foot controls, from visits to her own dentist. They had to pull up the carpet and un-loosen the bolts that held the two pieces to the floor.

"If you'd help me, Kris," Eric said, "I have more in my work-room." He pushed open the door to a small anteroom with work-tops and drawers in wall cabinets, many of which had been opened. As he examined one cabinet, he exclaimed again in relief. "Enough jaw trays, I think, and some of them must fit Catteni-size maws," he was muttering to himself. He opened a wall cabinet and hauled out some paper shopping bags with the Saks Fifth Avenue logo on them as well as some bubble wrap. "Here, help me package these things, Kris. And I've more in the storeroom-1 hope." He pulled out the drawers he wanted her to empty and then disappeared into a closet. "Good, good," he said, pulling some of the bubble wrap nearer so he could wrap mortars, pestles, and other items for which she had no names.

"Now, if only Eddie Spivak has anything left, we'll be in business even in benighted Barevi. you don't know how lucky I feel right now, Kris;' Eric said, almost crowing with success.

"One for our side, Eric," she said encouragingly.

By the time they returned to the main office, the men had fin-ished disconnecting the dental chair and had the lift tilted up to take its burden. Zainal was explaining the controls of the apparatus, em-bedded in one long side of the platform. They secured the chair with the rope that Jelco had tossed into the truck.

"Hey, don't use it all on this," Eric exclaimed. "The drill rig is more important than the chair."

"Whyn't you say so?" Bayes retorted huffily, tugging at a knot to be sure it was firm.

"See if you can find something else to tie it down with, Kris," Eric said, waving his hand toward the corridor.

Kris went out, as much to escape the tension in the room as to be useful. She hadn't a clue where to find more rope -someone would have found such a prize long before they arrived. But she did find some dusty draperies of a heavy fabric, and wondering that they had been left untouched, she hauled three pairs down. It must have been an attorney's office, to judge by the bindings on the books on the shelves. It was almost a travesty to have to use the draperies but once back in Eric's office, she asked him for something sharp to cut with and he provided her with a knife. She didn't ask what it was originally intended for, but with it she managed to tear the fabric into strips, which she then connected into a rope of sorts. She had yards of it, ready in time for the tower to be secured to its platform. Several of Eric's wrapped bundles were secured by adhesive tape (which he had also found a quantity of in his stores) to the empty spaces on the lift. They added a scatter o text- and reference books, nurses'uniforms, and some aprons. There were still more parcels for herself and Eric to carry. Zainal took several from those at her feet and then they felt ready to make the long descent.

The men, with Zainal showing them how to guide their cumber-some bundles, maneuvered into the corridor and toward the stairwell. Fortunately the powered units were easy to manipulate though the first landing on the way down took some angling, but once they found the trick to it, they proceeded at a fair pace down the stairs. Without the lifts they never would have managed. Even so, by the time they reached the last landing, everyone was sweating and winded, even Zainal. Kris leaned heavily into the final stair post, struggling to slow her heartbeat and pulse.

"Not as fit as I thought I was," Eric admitted, wiping his sweating forehead on his sleeve. "You guys have been splendid," he said, beam-ing at the team.

"Yeah, yeah," Dover said in a caustic tone.

"Free dentistry for your entire family?" Eric asked.

"If you got to start here, you'd never finish, Doc," Dover re-marked, "but kind of you to offer." His tone was nearly sarcastic but he caught the look Jelco gave him and nodded his head.

Their reappearance, not to mention their odd cargo, caused a complete silence in the foyer as they reached the ground floor. A few nasty looks were cast in Zainal's direction, but he ignored them. The silence continued as everyone watched the levitated heavy equipment float to the front doors. These were glassless but Dover pushed the frames open, hauling the front of his lift with him.

"Hey, what'll you take for one of those things?" a bearded man asked, pulling at Eric's sleeve.

"No one has that much money," Eric replied.

"I wouldn't insult you by offering you money, man," was the retort. "That's enough, Mac," the Cardinal head guard said, moving swiftly between the two men. Kris idly wondered what the man would have offered as she followed the others out of the foyer. The fresh breeze cooled her face and smelled of newly mown grass and other, less salubrious odors.

"What's in there?" the guard asked, pointing to the Saks carriers. "Oh, there was a sale on," she said whimsically and deposited them in the truck bed on one side of the dental chair. Her wrists and arms ached from lugging the oddments down so many flights. If they hadn't had the floats, how would they have managed? With great re-lief, she hauled herself back into the front seat and reached for the bottle of water that she had seen earlier. She was parched. She handed it to Zainal when he slid in beside her. Murray pulled another con-tainer from the door pocket on his side and took a long swig before a whistle reminded him that a guard was clearing the sidewalk and street so they could depart.

"Where to now?" Murray asked.

"One-thirteen East Thirteenth Street," Jelco said, consulting his notepad. "Eddie Spivak's Dental Supplies."

"A snap," Murray said. "We can go right down Ninth, or would you prefer Broadway or even Fifth?"

"Most direct route, Murray. We gotta conserve gasoline, y'know," Jelco said repressively.

"Gotcher!"

"Murray, is Macy's still there?" Kris asked softly.

"Yeah, but it still don't talk to Gimbels, which ain't," and he be-stowed another of his frightening toothless grins on her, reminiscent of Popeye.

"Oh!"

There was more traffic on the street now-most of it handcarts, many of them heaped with clothing and rolls of fabric. Kris remem-bered Floss and wondered what she had to trade for some blue cloth. As they passed a cart, she saw the blue had a huge stain down the middle of the bolt and she shrugged the incident aside.

They turned left on Fourteenth to Second Avenue and then turned right, and Kris noticed there seemed to be few vehicles. Maybe one-way streets were no longer required as traffic controls. She didn't remember this area at all, if she'd ever been in it. There were three- and four-story houses, all made into tenements to judge by the fire escapes, interspersed with concrete-block buildings that would house family-owned businesses of some sort. There were two cafes: she could see people at the counters eating whatever it was, and drinking. Coffee? She licked her lips. A cuppa would taste nice right now. Give her some energy. She was beginning to sag with fatigue. She wondered how the rolls were holding up and if there were enough to "do lunch" for everyone. They still had two trays of rock squats.

"One hunnert and t'oiteen," Murray said with some pride, point-ing to a three-story building that had a storefront clearly marked EDDIE SPIVAK, DENTAL SUPPLIER.

Eric sighed with relief. Some of the ground-level stores on both sides of the street looked empty from looting. Eddie Spivak's win-dows boasted iron grills and there was a pull-up aluminum shutter across the front, a certain deterrent to pilfering. Murray pulled over to the side and instantly people's heads popped out of the upper-story windows.

"Neighbors!" he said with some disgust as he turned off the mo-tor. "So?"

Eric had already vaulted out of the truck back and was running down the narrow walk between Eddie's and number 115. He pounded on the door.

"Eddie? Eddie Spivak? It's Eric, Eric Sachs. Are you there? Open up! Is he home?" Eric craned his neck up, looking through the iron slats of the fire escape at the observers. "I'm a dentist. An old cus-tomer of Eddie's. Where is he?"

"He's in. Leastwise," an old woman cried in answer, "ain't seen him or his missus today," she added warily.

"EDDIE!" Eric put his hands to his mouth to shout. "IT'S ERIC SACHS!" He rattled the doorknob and then stopped, peering through the grill on the small window set in the door, trying to see inside. Suddenly the door was pulled in and an old man stood in the doorway, staring at what to him was evidently an apparition. He had a scalpel in his raised hand that he immediately lowered after recog-nizing his visitor.

"Dr. Sachs!" The man came forward, embracing Eric enthusiasti-cally. "I can't believe my eyes and ears. It's been years! Where did you go to?"

"Long story" Eric said, "but do you still have any supplies? I'm setting up my office in a new location and I need a few things: if you have them."

"Who'd rob a shop like mine?" Eddie said, shrugging. Then he saw the truck and its load. "You really are moving, aren't you? Sudden?" "Sudden," Eric said, grinning as Kris and Jelco joined them, Zainal following more slowly. "These are my friends Kris Bjornsen and Jelco. And Zainal behind them is also."

"What's a Greeme doing on this side of the Hudson?" Eddie asked, suddenly half-closing the door as if he feared Jelco might barge into his premises.

"Escorting us. We had to work through coord channels, you might say," Eric said with a dismissive flick of his hand.

"Haven't done much business," Eddie said in a gloomy tone. "Who has time for dentistry when the world has gone to pot?"

"I do," Eric said. "How's Suzie? The grandkids?"

"Suzie's been ill, and I don't know where my son, the lazy wretch, has got to." Evidently the shortcomings of his son was an old topic of conversation between them, but Eddie stepped back and gestured po-litely for Eric to enter.

Kris, a spare pack with more than a dozen rolls in it looped over her arm, followed. There was an acrid smell in the air, similar to the one in Eric's small laboratory. Every profession has a special kind of odor attached to it, she thought.

However, nothing was wrong with Eddie's olfactory senses be-cause he sniffed, probably catching the odor of the rolls.

"I need some porcelains. Some of the good Liechtenstein ones," Eric said. "The darker shades, if you still have any."

Eddie gave a shrug. "Darker shades aren't that much in demand. Come."

He beckoned them farther in and flipped at a wall switch. Lights came on.

"Well! Whaddya know. Lights. Lights, Suzie. She's been doing some knitting, you see. Someone supplies the wool, she supplies the hands," he said, again shrugging off such a necessity. "No one teaches girls housewifely arts anymore, you know"

The lights showed a small foyer with two stools and a countertop. Eddie lifted the edge of the section near the wall and walked back into an area where he stored his wares.

"Good to have light. You'll be able to see the Vitapan shade chart." He rooted under the counter for a moment and then handed Eric a piece of cardboard with what looked to Kris like teeth inserted around the edges. Eric immediately started examining it, glancing from time to time at Zainal. Then, as if recalling himself to the task at hand, Eric pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket.

"I gotta list of other things I'll need. Jaw trays. Sizes one and two, mandibular-oh, twenty-one through twenty-four."

Eddie gave a little guffaw. "Whom are you doing dentures for? Neanderthal man? Don't know if I have any jaw trays those sizes. But maybe I have:" He walked straight to a row of cardboard boxes, neatly extracting one about halfway down with such a deft yank that none of the ones above it were disturbed. It clattered when he put it on the countertop.

"And some bonding gel. Several tubes of that, please."

"Hmm. Got that, and you're lucky," he added a moment later, four tubes flat on his hand. "Last I got and who knows when more will be made. Not that there's such a big demand for this either. Where are you setting up practice?"

"Botany," Eric said, then tapped the porcelain teeth. "I'll have all the colors from B-four through D-three."

"Done." Eddie was pulling out yet another drawer: they could hear the clicking of glass against glass, and then he started pulling in-dividual vials out, setting them on a tray.

"Next? You don't know what a relief it is to be back at work," Ed-die said with a huge sigh.

"Who's dere wid you, Eddie?" asked a querulous female voice from the small hall that led to the back of the building.

"Eric Sachs, Suzie."

"Eric? But I heard he got transported." Eddie gave Eric a wide-eyed stare.

"I was, but I'm back, Suzie. Good to hear your voice," Eric said, raising his to be heard.

"Oy, Eric, you wouldn't believe what we've been through," Suzie said, and a very frail-looking woman came into the light of the foyer. Her hair was skinned back from her face and bundled into a neat chignon. She clutched an old plaid dressing gown around her and her face looked pinched with hunger and sorrow.

"I have a little idea, Suzie m'dear, and it must have been dreadful for you," Eric said sympathetically.

"Don't kvetch, Suzie. This is business," Eddie said, evidently to forestall a litany of disasters.

"How's Molly keeping?" she asked, willing to exchange informa-tion as well as kvetch.

"I don't really know," Eric said, darting a glance at Kris.

"We may be able to find out today," Kris said, hoping that Dan Vi_ tali might have a connection to the Florida coords so Eric could check the registry lists of the area.

"So many friends dead, and gone who knows where?" Suzie said, her tone plaintive. "How are you finding clients these days, Eric?" She pointed with a worn and arthritically gnarled hand at the tray Ed-die was filling.

"I find those I can," Eric replied. "It's good to contemplate being useful again." He shot a grin at Zainal, who was still in the shadows of the doorway.

"Useful is good," Suzie agreed and sat down abruptly on one of the stools. It rocked under her and Eric steadied her by the arm. She wasn't a big woman but awkward. She hauled a handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose. "Always a cold. Never am warm enough these days. I could have gone to visit Becky in Florida before it happened. At least I would have been warm."

"Stop with the kvetching, Suzie. Who's been warm this winter? No one." He evidently asked and answered many questions out loud, for she shrugged and inched herself to a comfortable position on the stool, hugging her thick dressing gown around her. Then she sniffed, looking around.

"I smell bread. Oh, God, I'm going out of my mind. I can smell bread." Then she looked at Kris. "I haven't smelled bread in months!" "We have brought bread and some other food to trade for these items," Eric said. "We thought that was better than money."

"Never thought anything would be better than money," Suzie said, rubbing her fingers together in an age-old gesture.

Though neither Eddie nor Eric had mentioned paying for the items that were now displayed on the countertop, Kris opened the backpack and, indeed, the odor of fresh bread wafted out. Kris of-fered Suzie a roll.

"I baked them myself," she said, almost apologetically, and passed her a roll. The old woman tentatively reached out for the bread, glancing at her husband as if she didn't dare complete the gesture un-til he had agreed. He nodded.

"Take it," Kris said and extended her hand until the roll was nearly in the woman's fingers. They closed on the bread as if the woman was afraid Kris would snatch it away from her.

"Would you excuse me?" Suzie said, holding the roll protectively against her chest as she backed out of the room.

Kris placed the backpack on the counter and offered a roll to Ed-die, who eyed it as Murray had, with longing.

"I've nothing to offer you to drink," Eddie said wistfully. "We have all we need," Eric said soothingly.

Eddie took another deep breath. "You could charge for the smell of it, you know," he murmured. "What else?" he asked, hands on the edge of the counter.

Eric named a few more things, which Eddie scurried to find from his supplies.

"Now, I gotta tell you I can't charge it, Eric, though you were al-ways one of the promptest to settle your account," Eddie said, eyeing the roll. "And two rolls ain't enough."

Kris peered into the backpack. "Fifteen, sixteen rolls." "Well:"

"And some other food. Zainal, ask Dover to bring in a flat of the rock squats."

"Rock squats?" Eddie asked, surprised.

"A sort of avian from Botany that is very tasty. Game bird. It's been cooked."

"Kosher?" Eddie asked.

"You're asking kosher?" Eric said, surprised. He rested a hand on Eddie's and squeezed reassuringly. "I know God is everywhere and sees all, but you look like you need a few good meals. However, to re assure you, this is a kosher-type game bird and hunted, which is permissible, even if it is alien. Are you going to go kosher on me when I have good food to offer you in return for all this?"

"We do have gold," Zainal suggested.

"Gold, smold, what good is gold with shortages like we got?' Ed-die demanded.

"You were never that orthodox, Eddie," Eric said so firmly that Eddie Spivak gave a little shrug.

"No, but I still got my ethnic pride."

Eric blew an exasperated breath out just as Dover came in with the rock squats. He had judiciously covered the tray with one of the clean bread towels. With a flourish, he flicked off the towel to show the browned halves of rock squat.

Despite long-held principles, Eddie peered at the display. Kris could see his lips moving, not so much from hunger as from count-ing. The flat held twenty-four portions. And, when he achieved the total, Eddie clasped his hands together, almost reverently.

"Enough food for days!" he said on a happy sigh. "And the bread, too?"

"Both. Enjoy and have good health," Eric said. " Is this enough for what I have purchased?"

"More than enough. Can we make soup out of it, too?" he asked Kris, pointing to the rock squats. "They look like chickens."

Kris laughed. "Chicken soup is good for colds. I don't know as we ever used it specifically for that on Botany, but it does make a good soup."

"You have saved us, then, Eric," Eddie said with great solemnity, clasping his hands together against his chest.

"The backpack isn't ours to trade," Kris said when she heard Jelco clear his throat. "And I could use the flat tray back, too, if you don't mind."

"A minute, please," Eddie said and, flipping up the counter leaf, stepped out. He started for the hall down which Suzie had disap- peared and then whipped back, neatly picking up a rock-squat half before he was off again.

They could hear a shriek and then a gabble of excited comment before Eddie came back with a tray and a bread basket. He upended the backpack into the basket and carefully transferred the roasted meat to the tray, licking his fingers when he had finished the operation. "Hmm, not bad." He grinned like a happy gnome. Eric held out his hand. "Then we have a done deal?"

Eddie grasped it, shaking firmly. "Best deal I've been able to make in weeks."

Then Eric carefully packed away his supplies in the canvas carrier and pulled the loops over his arm.

"Will you be back again from this Botany place, Dr. Sachs?" Ed-die asked as everyone shifted toward the door.

Eric gave a diffident shrug. "Who knows?"

They exchanged more good wishes as Eddie saw them to the door. Once in the alleyway, they could hear him closing bolts and turning keys.

Urchins had gathered around the truck, Murray trying to shoo them away while Wylee stood, legs spread, in the truck bed, trying to look fierce.

"Let's get this show on the road," Jelco said, motioning for Kris and Zainal to get back in the front seat. "Didja get everything you needed, Doc?" Jelco asked as Eric carefully handed the backpack up to Dover, advising him to place it carefully.

"Actually, more than I hoped I'd find," Eric said, swinging up onto the back of the truck. "Eddie Spivak always kept his inventory current. Nothing here is close to its use-by date."

Kris gave a chortle. "'Use-by' date has probably lost its signif-icance. And I don't know about anyone else, but I'm hungry. We've enough rock squats for lunch, you know. And about two dozen more rolls."

"Let's do this down the road a bit," Jelco said, motioning to the kids who were now standing back from the truck. "I don't want to cause a minor riot, being seen to have food."

"Oh!" was all Kris could say. "Maybe we should:" she began, thinking of the wizened, hungry little faces.

"Charity begins at home," Jelco said so firmly that Kris put her usual compassion on hold. They really didn't have enough to share. They pulled up farther down Thirteenth, where there was no au-dience looking out of upper stories. Murray almost gulped down his portion of rock squat, licking his fingers for any juice, before he pulled apart his ration of roll. No one asked for seconds. But there were still supplies left.

They proceeded back to the Lincoln Tunnel, Kris trying not to look at the pathetic little clusters of people at street corners, ragged and hungry-looking. They stopped only long enough for the Eastside guards to check them off as returning, though the cargo was eyed with curiosity.

Kris didn't even give a thought to the air she was breathing in this second pass under the Hudson River. She wouldn't die of a lung-ful of tainted air. She took a deep breath once they came out on the other side.

"Hey, New Jersey smells pretty good."

"Even Secaucus smells pretty good now there ain't no more pigs raised there," Murray said. "Mind you, I wouldn't mind the smell if it'd get me a roast of pork now and again."

They proceeded south on the turnpike until they saw the airport on the right. Also visible was the unmistakable bulk of the BASS-1, sitting on the runway just where they had left it.

Their return must have been observed because Jelco's phone buzzed. He answered it with an affirmative-evidently a re-sponse to a query about their mission's success. He listened silently for a moment, casting a sideways glance at Zainal before closing the phone.

"As soon as we unload the stuff, coord wants to have a chat with you. Nothing serious," he added when he noticed Kris was anxious. "Sort of kinda to get your impressions, I think. He's real proud of our sector and wants to be sure the other coords did right by you, too. Gotta keep discipline, y'know"

"You guys were marvelous," Kris said with genuine appreciation. "Sometimes it works out that way, ma'am," Jelco admitted, salut-ing her with two fingers. "Glad we could oblige." He licked his lips, blushing when he realized what he had done. "Bread was super: and so was lunch. Those squats of yours are real tasty."

"Chickens all gone?" she asked, trying to put him at ease. "Ages ago. Don't even think there are any eggs anywhere."

"Well, we've been farming rock squats awhile now so a supply of them is guaranteed."

"What's Botany like, huh?"

"Well, I suppose it's like this continent was before the White Man came. We got a coupla bad things-night crawlers." Even the thought of them made Kris's spine shiver. "And an avian beast about the size of a dive-bomber. But they've been quiet awhile. We got six-legged critters we call loo-cows, good eating, too, but they don't give milk. Say, anywhere we could trade for cinnamon or raisins?"

Jelco chuckled, raising his eyebrows like "you gotta be kidding?" before he shook his head. "Long gone. We could trade for spices if any were coming in. And if any were coming in, they'd be landed at New York." He gave a helpless little shrug. "We'd get some from the Waterfront Coord but we ain't had any. Raisins? Grapes come in the autumn, don't they? I remember my gran making grape jelly."

"A peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich," Kris sighed with nostalgia. "Now and then we get some peanuts up from the south, but we don't waste time making butter out of them."

She sighed again and then the truck pulled in front of the termi-nal and stopped.

Jelco got out and beckoned for Zainal and Kris to come with him, then issued a few low words to Murray to take the truck around to the BASS-1 to unload. Kris asked Eric for the last of the rock squats and any leftover rolls. Zainal hooked the straps of the depleted back-pack over his arm while Kris took the last flat of rock squats.

"Would the coord have had lunch already?" she asked as she bal-anced the flat carefully. Wouldn't do to tip good food into the dirt and debris on the once well-swept sidewalk.

There was a bit of a delay while the door guards vetted them, and since the female assigned to frisk her pinched her, Kris was not of a mood to reward her clumsiness with a roll.

"You get to go in the front way this rime," Jelco said and led them down a wide corridor.

She was surprised that most of the glass sides of the promenade were still intact, though several showed that the airport had not en- tirely escaped attack. There were a few bullet holes with cracks radi-ating out from the hit and some windows had been patched with duct tape. That was one item she had many requests for. How the world had run prior to its invention she didn't know. Not that she thought they should trade gold for it, but she might get an argument out of Herbie Bayes or Pete Snyder on that score. She smiled, and then they were swinging into the plush-carpeted executive area. This was well kept with even a few potted plants-of a high survival type-set about to give it a "decorated" look.

There was a busy inner office, with cell phones burping and buzzing, several PC stations and everyone busy. But not too busy to glance up and react to the sight of a Catteni being formally ushered in. Almost as if Zainal had taken a hint from her previous regal pose, he nodded to workers on either side of the walkway as they passed. A plaque on the door said VICE-PRESIDENT and below that a roughly printed sign read, DANIEL X. VITALI, COORDINATOR, NEWARK AIRPORT HQ. She took a firmer grip on the flat as Jelco tapped on the door. One of the secretaries, busy at her keyboard, looked up and jerked her head to indicate they should go right in.

The divine smell of coffeereal coffee, ground and dripped-as-sailed them as they entered. Dan Vitali, coordinator, looking no more rested than he had the previous evening, was pouring himself a cup. He greeted them genially, waving at the guests to help themselves at the coffee station.

"Real coffee," he said. "In your honor." He raised his cup in a toast. "Real food to go with it," Kris said, knowing how to make a drama out of this fortuitous entrance. "And bread."

"More of the stuff you passed out last night?" The green coordi-nator smiled with considerable pleasure, seating himself at the big desk amid a stack of paperwork and clipboards. Kris served him first, 'Eric passed around the pack of rolls, and Vitali's expression was in-credulous. "Real bread?"

"Fresh this morning," she said and served them to the half-dozen people in the room working at desks or waiting to present papers and letters to their commander.

"We eat, kids," Dan Vitali said, pushing his chair away from the desk and leaning back as he took his first bite of the roll, Kris was pleased to see him enjoy it.

"Oooh, that goes down easily, Kris Bjornsen, very easily. jelco says everything went well?"

"He's right and we can't thank you enough for setting everything up for us," Chuck said, pulling up a stool and sitting down. He found a blank piece of paper, carefully folded it into quarters, then placed his coffee cup on a corner of the desk.

"I hope you take it black," jelco was saying as he poured coffee into enough mugs to go around. "We ain't had creamer in ages." "We take it black," Kris said. "Unless you have some sugar?" "Packet?" jelco said, holding up several of the packets that used to be served in restaurants.

"One'll do me fine."

When she caught his eye going to the sagging backpack, she ges-tured for him to take another roll. He did and once he had served everyone coffee, he leaned against a map-filled table at one side of Vi-tali's desk.

Vitali was busy with his impromptu snack. He, too, licked his fin-gers, drying them on a towel that he took from a lower desk drawer and wiping his mouth as well.

"That was an unexpected dividend," he said, burping once. He looked up and suddenly everyone in the room save jelco found busi-ness that took them from the office. "Now," and he gestured to a sack on one end of his desk-a sack that bore the logo of a well-known pharmaceutical company, "I gotta deal pending I'm hoping you can help me with-since I know what humanitarians you are." His grin was devious. "You ain't got any restrictions on you about where you fly while you're in Earth's atmosphere, have you?"

"I don't believe so," Chuck said. "Though I might need a reason if I'm asked."

"Good! I didn't know if you had only an in-and-out license or not."

"I set it up to be able to get the stuff we need to trade with," Chuck said.

"Great! Now, that package is drugs, badly needed in Kenya." Chuck hmmmed diplomatically and glanced at Zainal to see if he understood. Zainal gave a quick nod.

"We don't have enough gasoline in any of our planes to make such a flight. How's your fuel situation?"

"Where do we have to go?"

"Like I said, Kenya. Outside Nairobi. If that ship of yours can do another short flight, it would help immensely if you could make a small detour to the west, to the Kiambu Ridge area-near the Great Rift Valley, to give you a landmark few could miss."

Kris's eyes went wide. Chuck knew what that place meant and he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, to listen more intently.

"It also happens to be one of the big coffee-producing areas of Africa. They do the robustas, if you know the difference. Kiambu Ridge coffees are the creme of the creme for full flavor. Use 'em to give more taste to lesser beans. I gotta deal going with the local coord that if I can get those medicines to him, he'll see I can fill my plane"-and now there was a decidedly wicked twinkle in the coord's eyes-"full of coffee beans. Roasted beans. Oh, we got a facility in Newark that roasts but they'd want their cut, too."

"Wow!" Kris said. Since Catteni had become addicted to coffee during their stay on Earth, to be able to trade roasted beans would mean they'd have a surefire commodity few Catteni would pass up. Maybe they could even set up a coffee bar to serve those dealing with Zainal and the others for more important items, like spare comm sat parts, tires, batteries, and what was the other thing so desperately needed? Spark plugs, she thought, but they wouldn't be at the top of the list.

"My deal is that if you take that: KDM did you call it?: you can keep ten percent of whatever you bring back to me."

"How do you know we'd come back with a KDM-load of coffee beans?" Chuck asked, grinning.

"You're the only one I'd trust to do so, Mitford," Dan Vitali said, looking straight into the sergeant's eyes. "Now I've met you, I believe everything I been told about you."

"Thank you," Chuck replied with a nod of his head, but the grin hadn't left his face.

"Of course, Jelco will come with you as he's dealing for me," the coord added with a sly grin of his own.

"Of course," Chuck agreed affably. "Is ten percent much?" Zainal asked. "That'd be one in every ten sacks of raw beans."

"Not raw, Chuck," the coord said firmly. "Roasted. And I don't want to split more than I have to. Each sack of beans weighs fifty pounds."

Kris sighed and Vitali laughed.

"We could do a lot with a KDM-sized load."

"They made a deal for a plane load," Chuck reminded him, "not a spaceship full."

"Jelco will handle that detail. The stuff we bring is more than they asked for but it will stop the epidemic of typhoid they got on their hands right now"

"Typhoid?" Kris said. "Is that back?"

"I don't think it ever went away in some parts of the world," Chuck said.

"There's broad-spectrum antibiotics in the package, polio, the lat- est cholera vaccine, on account of that's endemic where there's so lit-tle hygiene and lots of starvation, and some other stuff ointments for the kind of sores that are rampant in Africa, which the laboratory said could be useful there. But Kenya is willing to trade for it. Espe-cially as there won't be any ships going that way for a while. Not even by sea."

"Then we can be, as you said, philanthropists as well as haulers," Chuck said and looked at Kris and Zainal to see if they agreed. "Coffee," Kris said with a sigh. "Wow!"

"There is an area down by the Masai encampment on Botany," Zainal mentioned idly, "hot enough and with sufficient rain on the mountains to grow coffee beans. It might be worth it to try cultivat ing our own coffee on Botany. If we were going straight back to Botany, I'd risk bringing some plants," Zainal said and shook his head in regret.

The coord leaned forward across the table. "How can someone get into Botany?"

"Like, immigrate?" Chuck asked. "We discussed that before we left, sir. We can only accept so many invalids before our economy is disrupted. We took in a shipload of those folks the Eosi tried to brain wash and they've integrated well into our population. We agreed to accept applications, preferably people who have some sort of skill that can help the commonweal," at which Vitali nodded sagely, "but we could use a discreet number of young folk to increase the gene pool for future generations."

"All sorts?" Vitali asked, his expression intense.

"All sorts," Chuck agreed. "We're pretty representative of races, creeds, and colors to begin with, on account of we had no choice in the first place getting dumped there."

"Hmm. So, what sort of occupations are you aiming for?" "Anyone trained in biology, botany, medicine. Even another dentist."

"Will you be coming back here soon?"

"Oh, we'll be back when we spring loose some of the stuff the Catteni heisted," Chuck said with a wave of his hand. "We can also send back more wheat, I think." He looked for approval at Zainal and Kris, who nodded solemnly. "Maybe some protein. We got these loo-cows. Got six feet and no milk, but they make good eating." "Meat? Red meat?" Vitali asked in an almost wistful voice.

"I like the rock squats better myself," Chuck said amiably, "but any kind of steak goes down easily."

"Even rhinoceros, I hear tell," Kris murmured, overcome by whimsy. Vitali flashed her a startled look.

"Yes, well, I can see that this might be the beginning of a mutu-ally profitable association," Vitali said. He lifted the medicinal package toward them and some papers, including a map and airplane charts.

"Got these from one of the airlines in case they'd be any use to a spaceship," he said, handing them across to Chuck, who slipped them inside his shirt before shaking hands with the coord. "We don't, by the by, intend to hog all the coffee beans to ourselves, you know"

"Glad to hear it, Vitali," Chuck said, and then the man offered his hand to Kris and Zainal.

Jelco came forward and plucked the medicines from the desk and accepted his superior's handshake.

"Glad we could make a deal, Mitford "

As they left the coord's office he was calling his assistants back in, searching through clipboards to see which had the priority of his im-mediate attention.

"Coffee'" Chuck said under his breath as Jelco led them down cor-ridors and steps and eventually back onto the deserted expanse of the airfield. "We can sure use ten percent of what the KDM can hold."

Kris was wondering about improving on a mere ten percent. She couldn't quite sort fifty pounds of beans into individual portions, nor now much weight the KDM could haul, but she did believe that they could probably sell any coffee they could bring to Barevi.

She wondered if the Kenyan coffee merchants might do a deal with them for tires, batteries, and spark plugs. She didn't want to be greedy but so much depended on their success. For both Earth and Botany.

She found herself rushing up the ramp of the KDM, grateful to hear voices, experiencing an unexpected nostalgia for the ship as a haven. Good Lord, what had gotten into her?

Then Kathy was there, giving her a big hug, Jax was beyond, grin-ning like a fool, and the boys rushed to greet their father, demanding his attention with glad cries at his return.

Kris and Zainal thanked Jelco and asked him to thank Wylee, Murray, and Dover for their assistance.

"Miss Kris," and for the first time she detected his southern ac-cent, "it was a real pleasure. 'Sides, you bake a mean loaf of bread! I'll see you tomorrow. Until then, ciao."

And with another salute of two fingers to his eyebrow, he left them, lounging away toward the terminal building.

"We managed to trade for fresh food," Jax told Kris excitedly. "You should have seen Ferris and Ditsy. They just knew where stuff was growing." She waved a hand toward distant green fields. "And they brought back carrots! And potatoes! I haven't had them in years! We know you were successful with the dental stuff, and boy, did those guys covet the lifts."

"I don't know how we would have gotten those units down eight-een flights without them. And, Kathy, thanks for helping me with the rolls," Kris said, squeezing her arm gratefully, "because they opened doors everywhere."

"Those simple rolls?" Kathy was amazed.

"We'll do a full report at dinner, as we've a lot to discuss, but right now, is there enough hot water for me to have a shower? I feel sticky."

"You don't look sticky," Kathy said with mock horror and whooshed her down the corridor to her quarters. "We filled all the water tanks, and there should be plenty of hot by now."

The water was hot and Kris let it sluice down her body, soaping herself well, luxuriating in the warmth until Zainal tapped on the shower door. The amenity was not large enough for them to share the shower as they often did at home, but she gave herself one more rinse before she emerged and let him in.

While dressing, Zainal said that they would discuss the upcoming coffee-bean project with the entire crew. Considering the benefits of such an excursion for the commonweal, she doubted anyone would object to the detour.

Before they left, Kris had told Ferris to barter another sack of wheat for a good supply of carrots and potatoes. They did taste un-believably good. She wished they could take seedlings back to Botany but not with a long stopover at Barevi. There was a green salad as well with early lettuce (greenhouse lettuce, which Clime said was evi-dently a thriving business, delivering crates of fresh produce to be taken into the city) and spring onions, crunchy and sweet. She won-dered about dried beans. Well, besides coffee beans.

Jax Kiznet had had more air miles on Earth than anyone else, so Zainal had given her the charts to see what she thought of piloting for the trip.

"Well, I haven't flown over Africa," she demurred, looking at the flight charts, "but if we could land the KDM here, I don't see why we can't at Nairobi. The Jomo Kenyatta Airport's an international facil ity-or was," she added. "There's a good one at Mombasa, too, plus the port. We aren't circumscribed to just this area, at least I didn't get that impression from our interrogation on the way in. I'll just check frequencies and weather reports."

"We need to go to the northeast of Nairobi to the coffee planta-tion area: and the Kiambu Ridge area." Kris found the place, which had been underlined on the detailed map.

"Oh, near the Rift Valley," she said, following Kris's pointing fin-ger. "Well, that's hard to miss and so is Lake Rudolf."

"We don't need to go that far north."

"No, we don't," Jax said, staring down at the map. "I like the idea of getting coffee."

"I think we all do," Kris agreed. "Even Zainal's beginning to be-come addicted."

Jax grinned back. She was doing some figuring. "Look, if we can go orbital, we can do the great circle route at orbital velocity and it'll only take the KDM an hour and ten minutes to reach our destination. Wow! Hey, I like hypersonic!"

"Kenya's where Chief Materu comes from, isn't it?" Peran asked. "Right you are," Zainal said, giving the boy a hug. "And we have another reason for being there. Alkoriti."

"Oh, hey, that's right," Kris said, remembering their earlier search for the acacia plant that had proved to be the unexpected weapon that had brought about the defeat of the Eosi, who had suffered respira-tory failure from inhaling the dust.

She grinned at Zainal, spreading her hands in acceptance of the excuse. "As if bringing vaccines to Kenya isn't enough."

"Only how did you happen to get to be messenger?" Clune asked cynically.

"Evidently, individual coords will arrange things to suit them-selves."

"We'll just hope that's a good enough excuse."

"Well, we know the Biffs are at two hundred and fifty kilometers and their sensors are fixed outward, not inward," Kathy pointed out. "So we're delivering medicines. Big deal."

Jax talked with the meteorology folk at Newark Tower, got the latest reports-no turbulence anticipated-and had her flight plan checked. There had been judicious gifts of rock squats to the tower staff, so they were disposed to be helpful: once they got over the shock of a vertical landing and takeoff craft.

"We coulda used a whole flock of the durned squats," Clune said as they finished the last of the supply.

"They're a game bird so they're also kosher," Kris said, and no one else quite appreciated why Eric guffawed.

The equipment that was now lodged in the cargo hold had fasci-nated Ferris. Later Zainal told Kris that Eric had explained to Ferris exactly what he had traded from Eddie Spivak and what it was used for. They decided that a number C-4 Vitapan shade matched the boy's tooth color, and Eric had pantomimed how he would use it, bonding it to a tooth in layers. Although Eric couldn't set up his equipment, he did check Ferris's teeth and found some cavities that ought to be taken care of as soon as possible. Ferris did not remember ever having been to a dentist and, because he knew Eric, did not have any anxi-eties about having his teeth fixed. During the evening, Eric checked over everyone on the ship, even Kris, and he shook his head over the state of her teeth. Zainal submitted and Eric said that he could prob-ably fix the chip off one of Zainal's eyeteeth: in Zainal's case, not caused by a brawl but by a fall against something tougher than Catteni teeth. Peran and Bazil were pronounced to have excellent teeth with not a trace of decay, though Bazil's bite could stand a little correction. he next morning, after Jelco boarded the KDM, they received clearance to leave Newark Airport, with many good wishes for a safe flight. New York Center was going to turn them over to Air Africa Control so certain protocols were taken care of. And now that they were aware of the surprise a vertical lift and takeoff vessel gave Tower

Control crews, they would handle their appearance at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with more aplomb if they had to land there. Kris decreed that, since the rolls had been so useful in New York, she didn't see why they wouldn't be in Kenya, where they might meet more people who would be delighted with freshly baked bread. The notion of baking her way across the Atlantic and the Dark Continent left her grinning.

She did her baking with the help of Clune and Floss. The girl was still a restless type and had not liked being immured in the KDM the previous day when "everyone else" appeared to be out and about and having fun. She ignored the fact that Ferris and Clune had lugged heavy sacks of potatoes back to the ship, and that Bazil and Peran had carried in bundles of carrots and greens. They had been out and about her native planet. Kris recognized a certain merit in her argument and hoped she would be able to include Floss in some unusual activity at their current destination, even if she only helped with the rolls and bread they were going to use as goodwill offerings. She couldn't re-member if Kenyans ate bread as a rule but it had once been a British colony and probably bread was known, no matter what other cereal grain was more popular. Jax remembered something about manioc but didn't know what it was. Kathy had suggested rice but Kris didn't think Kenya was rice country, which required irrigated fields. Kenya did have avocados, bananas, and other fresh fruits that might be avail-able. They'd just have to wait and see. A banana, Kris thought whim-sically, would taste very good. It had been so long since she had had one!

They were not challenged on the flight. The Atlantic Ocean was not that exciting from a high altitude. Even Africa was more a pattern of greens and beiges as they sped across it on the great circle route. Jax handled the controls well as they dropped out of hypersonic space, being high enough for a view of Lake Rudolph and the ripple of the Rift Valley. Nairobi Tower welcomed them in their space and gave them directions to their destination. ollow the big road northwest fifty miles: you can probably see it-it's the C-84 and keep the Karura forest on the port side. You're looking for a small town among ridges. About thirteen land kilome-ters from the airport. We understand that you are VTOL and there is sufficient parking in front of the warehouse to accommodate you." "Over, Nairobi, and thank you. Out."

"They said they were from Botany," they heard the air controller say. "Where the hell's Botany?" Whatever response he got was lost as he shut off his microphone but those in the cockpit grinned at his confusion.

They found the site without too much trouble. The forest was un-mistakable and the road twisted, visible to the starboard of the thick trees. Jax reduced airspeed. In fact, she laughed that it took almost more time to lose speed than it did to make the transatlantic segment.

It was easy to follow the road, visible through the lush forestry when the land swept upward to the very edge of the Rift Valley area. As a final identification, the warehouse had KIAMBU RIDGE painted in big white letters on its roof.

"Hey, neat," Jax said with relief at having almost completed such a prestigious run. "Hope they don't freak out seeing a spaceship land" "Open the hatch and let the smell of fresh bread waft out and en-tice them to our web, hehehehe," Kris said, doing her evil-witch imitation and rubbing her hands together. Chuck grinned but the display was lost on Zainal, though Floss, whom Kris had made sure had one of the jump seats to witness this landing, gave a contemptu-ous "Pshaw!"

Though the KDM was no longer supersonic, it made sufficient noise in landing to bring a number of people out of the warehouse.

The building had a galvanized roof, propped up by pillars of cinder blocks, but the facade was lined with local stone. As Jax cut the en-gines, Zainal and Jelco took places at the hatch until it was safe to open and extend the ramp. Several men, dressed in the long skirts used for cool comfort on this continent, came forward to greet them.

"Hi there, I am Jelco, representing Dan Vitali, Newark Airport Coordinator," Jelco said, holding the pharmaceutical package up so it was visible.

A very tall black man grinned, his teeth so white in his face that Bazil, standing by his father, was astonished and automatically came out with a Masai greeting.

Startled, the man halted midstride, staring first at Bazil and then at Zainal.

"Catteni?" he demanded, his nostrils flaring, smile disappearing. Whatever Bazil said in response relieved the man, and he resumed his welcoming grin. He said something else and Bazil gave what was obviously a very courteous reply.

"He did not think our race could speak his language," Bazil said in a proud aside to his father. "He feels honored for his entire tribe." "Good," Jelco murmured. "We have the medicines that were re-quested."

A second man, a stethoscope lying around his neck and sweat dripping down his shoulders, heaved a dramatic sigh of relief and stepped forward. "You cannot know how many lives you will be sav ing with this. Welcome, and thrice welcome. I'm Dr. Standish." He looked through the contents, sighing with relief as he identified the various packages. "Will you excuse me if I dash ofl?"

"Certainly," Jelco said. "We understand the need for haste." "What I don't understand is how you got here so fast. My coordi-nator only got the radio message an hour ago."

"This ship is hypersonic, Doctor," Zainal said, "and we under-stood that time was critical."

"You have no idea," the doctor replied, somewhat distracted. "Fa-ther Simeon's prayers are the most efficacious I have ever encoun-tered. Excuse me." He dashed off to a waiting jeep that bore a faded Red Cross insignia and some other emblems that neither Kris nor Chuck could identify.

"Please to come inside. Coffee is available for your pleasure," said the African. "I am Chief Sembu."

Bazil then suavely introduced the arrivals and included Floss, who was hovering, slightly out of sight. Sembu was once more astonished when Floss gave him a greeting in the Masai's Swahili dialect. Kris ur-gently gestured for her to accompany the party.

Jelco strode into the warehouse and into what was obviously a tasting room. The smell of rich, dark coffee was a fragrance everyone inhaled, and there was a small pot of brown sugar fragments to sweeten the fine brew. Underlying the coffee odor was something else, fruity, which she couldn't identify.

Jelco and Sembu sat opposite each other and began the dickering. "A plane we could load easily," Sembu was saying, gesturing to the contents of the warehouse, glimpsed through the separating win-dow. "That: aircraft looks as if it could take all we have bagged." "And roasted?" Jelco asked.

"Well, not all are roasted," Sembu had to admit. "For one thing, we counted on an average-sized plane. Secondly, our buyers usually have their own roasters and prefer to have their people supervise such a delicate operation."

"Will Barevi appreciate 'careful' roasting?" Kris asked Zainal. She knew the process took time but did they have any to spare?

"How much is already roasted, Chief Sembu?" Jelco asked.

"We surmised that you would bring the largest aircraft you have," Sembu said with an understanding grin. "A 747, perhaps. We have sufficient to fill that size craft that have been roasted, as we agreed with Coord Vitali."

"And enough for a two-thousand-ton capacity?" Chuck asked. "Hmm, but not all would be roasted."

"Beggars can't be choosers."

"Nor winners poor losers," Sembu said and extended his hand to Chuck. "I can provide you with a roaster and instructions, but roast-ing is a delicate business."

"We'll take the roaster, and the mistakes will be ours," Chuck said, taking the hand. "In all fairness to Jelco here and the green coord," he added, "they'd no idea we'd be dropping the KDM in their lap, so to speak."

The deal was struck and the chief gave orders to his workers to start loading. At which point Zainal called back to the ship to bring out the lifts. He suspected they'd be needed to load the roaster, though he'd no idea what size the thing would be.

That was providential because the large and bulky roaster could accommodate three sacks of beans at a time. It was loaded onto the KDM. Sembu was fascinated by the lift, even after Zainal warned him that its power pack was half-drained, but trading it bought them all the fresh produce they could store as well as four twenty-five-pound sacks of the rough brown sugar that Kris and Floss found in the local market. Kris also bought some lengths of a blue fabric displayed at the market so that Floss could finally have some new dresses. The girl was touched that Kris remembered such a detail amid all the others she was currently handling. Kris tried to find cinnamon and raisins but no one paid her much mind in the scurry to load the coffee beans. The entire warehouse of coffee bean sacks fit neatly into two of the three KDM cargo holds.

"Having all robustas is great," Kris said, "but we could use some of the milder arabicas, too." She had listened to enough of the spiel to have absorbed some details about the romance of coffee.

"They are grown elsewhere than Kenya," Sembu replied. "How-ever, as ours are often used in combination with arabicas, and considering that trade is nonexistent, you might be able to exchange robus-tas for a few sacks of arabicas in, say, Santa Lucia in the Caribbean. If that's on your way, of course."

"That's an island," Kris said, trying to place it.

"In the Caribbean. There are many plantations on it. One, in fact, not far from the volcano."

"Volcano?" An acceptable landmark, certainly.

"Oh, it's not active. Or wasn't when I last had news, but you might do a deal with them. Their beans are very good-for arabicas," he said with a slightly deprecating smile for a lesser breed, "but excel-lent in its category."

Kris grinned.

"Asante sana," Bazil said politely, bowing slightly to the man.

"I never thought I'd hear a Catteni speaking Swahili. It is worth much to have you here," Sembu said, smiling benignly down at the sturdy boy.

"Would you know, sir, where we can get some Alkoriti?" Kris asked.

"But of course." Sembu was really surprised.

"We found some bushes the last time we were here," she said, "for the Masai tribe that now resides on Botany. They require the plant for a rite of passage."

"You have Masai on Botany?"

"Yes," and when the man frowned, Kris hurried on. "They have their own settlement on the southern peninsula and we brought them some acacia bushes, but there is always a need for more Alkoriti."

"The children grow well?" Sembu asked, interested. He had also beckoned a worker to his side and gave him a low command. The man raced down the hill at such speed Kris worried that he would do himself damage.

"Well and strong," Bazil said proudly, "so that my father wanted me with him on this trip."

Shortly, Zainal reappeared, having finished securing the cargo, and joined Peran.

"Sembu has offered to bring us Alkoriti," Kris said.

"Ah, very good. Our thanks, Sembu. We promised to find more for Chief Materu " He also winked at Kris, for now they could hon-estly answer queries-if there were any-as to why they had de toured to Kenya instead of departing spaceward from Newark. Jelco joined them while they waited for the return of the messenger, who came back panting somewhat from a quick round-trip, but carrying a pouch that he turned over to Sembu. Who, in his turn, passed it over to Kris.

"Please to say that we of Kenya are happy to provide this to your Masai chief."

"You must let the green coord know when you stand in need of medicines again, Sembu, and we will return."

"For more coffee beans, no doubt." The man's smile was under-standing.

"I shall send along more power packs for the float, too," Zainal promised, before he bowed formally to Sembu and waved at the other workers who were unwilling to miss any of this pageant. Then Zainal led them all back into the KDM and pushed the button to retract the ramp.

Carefully, so that little dust lifted from the ground to discommode Sembu, Jax lifted the KDM away from the heights and eased the ship over the forestry before she increased power. Heading west, she turned the KDM's nose skyward and increased power until the ship could once again engage its hypersonic drives and take them back to Newark.

It was almost anticlimactic to be back in Newark air space barely two hours after they had taken off -a fact that the air tower person-nel remarked on as they extended a warm welcome back, "so soon." They were assigned their previous landing spot, and by the time Jax had landed the KDM, there were all kinds of trucks waiting to offload the precious coffee beans.

Twenty sacks of robusta beans were left in the KDM's hold and a good half of the fresh fruit and vegetables they had acquired at Ki-ambu Ridge. On the way back they had all enjoyed various fruits they had acquired: bananas, oranges, passion fruit, cape gooseberries with their lanternlike husks, custard apples and guavas, avocados, coconuts, papayas, and pineapples. And there were even chicken eggs and milk. Kris made a huge custard for dessert and planned to treat everyone to pancakes for breakfast. The KDM had a freezer unit but not a refrig-erator, so she could not keep milk fresh for long.

Rummaging in the galley cabinets, Kathy had found a grinder of sorts and managed to reduce some beans to the proper consistency to brew coffee, so everyone had enjoyed the spoils of their excursion.

She gave Murray half a dozen eggs and the same to Jelco as well as a carton of milk for his young child and a hand of bananas. She had a huge stalk to present to the caterer. And two green stalks to ripen on the way back to Barevi as well as several crates of oranges, limes, and lemons.

Then she got in touch with the tower controller and bribed him with some of their own coffee beans to give her aerial maps of Santa Lucia so they could plot a course and see if they couldn't exchange a quantity of robustas for arabicas. Nothing else they had, even the largesse from Nairobi, would be useful for trade, and they had only three sacks of wheat left with which to trade on Barevi.

There was no need to mention to anyone that they planned to stop off at Santa Lucia but they did spend the night at Newark. If this next stop was anything like the Kiambu Ridge one had been, Zainal thought they needed to be rested.

Kathy and Jax plotted the southern course, which they figured would take about twenty minutes, allowing another fifteen first to get to speed and then to slow down enough to land without damaging anything. The volcano, while not active, was currently sending a gray plume skyward so they had a fine guide to it on the northern tip of the island and a great look at the plateaus as well as the choice of sev-eral obvious landing sites. They saw several long, low, galvanized roofs that looked similar to the type used for bean storage in Kenya. Well, that made sense to Kris.

Somewhat to their dismay, they found that Catteni must have vis-ited the plantation several years earlier for the KDM's type of ship was recognized and men armed with rifles and machetes were waiting as the ramp extruded. Chuck was their spokesperson and Zainal and his sons stayed tactfully out of sight. Kathy and Jax accompanied the ser-geant, with the remaining float carrying a sack of robusta beans. The sight of the logo on the sack turned out to be the reassurance needed, and with a minimum of talk and an excess of pleasure, they managed to trade five robusta sacks and the remaining float for thirty arabicas, plus thirty more pounds of unrefined sugar. They got more green ba-nanas and a case of local rum. Despite the fact that she was safe with Zainal, Kris did not join in the evening celebration once she had had a sniff of the liquor.

"That's stronger than Mayock's hooch," Kris remarked, after a smell of the rum and felt no desire at all to imbibe. She did reserve one bottle of the case for cooking. No one had cinnamon or raisins to trade. They were given more crates of citrus fruits, which would be novelties on Barevi. She wondered if she could manage to keep at least one stalk of the green bananas and a crate of oranges to bring back to Botany.

They stayed the night on the surface-at the owner's invitation-and evidently he had sent messages to his neighbors to come see what had landed on his parking lot. And they came in droves, on horse back. Peran was much taken with horses and was put in the saddle of one animal (very gentle, Kris was assured) for a walk around. Bazil, naturally, had to have a turn, too. It was a convivial evening and es-tablished their KDM as friendly, Catteni and all.

When Kris suggested that they would probably return, they were begged to do so, and she made a list of the items for which they would gladly trade. She was not astonished to note that tires, Toyota truck spark plugs, and twenty-volt batteries were the most important items. "We could keep all our KDMs busy hauling stuff in and coffee beans out," she said to Zainal.

"Mmmm," was his response. "But these folks don't have what we desperately need." he next morning, when the KDM lifted from Santa Lucia, everyone was refreshed and keen to get on with the next phase of their mission. They logged out of the system with the Watch Dog and were given a cheerful "farewell, come back again soon" from the Cheyenne Mountain NOR-AD facility. If Gino, who was pilot for the first leg of their flight to Barevi, cheer-fully assured them that they would, there was no demur on their part.

"The Botany boys will be back," he crowed as he signed out of Terran space, and the powerful engines of the KDM sent them galac-tically north toward Barevi. s they neared the trading planet, there was more chat on the l comm lines between Catteni captains, and whenever possible the duty officer repeated Peter's carefully composed commercial about the new trader and goods coming soon to Barevi. The other key members of the ransom group now spent shifts listening to Catteni messages and practicing with Zainal's sons, who were delighted to be in the position of teachers instead of pupils. They also absorbed new vocabulary and phrases.

When not on duty, Bazil and Peran indulged in what Kris knew was simple sibling bickering, but she was unable to discipline the boys. They certainly resented any interference in their "discussions" or the way they teased Floss. Fortunately, Kris could distract Floss, and Jax and Kathy both helped the girl make a dress from the fabric Kris had unexpectedly found at the market in Kenya. Floss had gushed with appreciation for Kris's thoughtfulness. Of course, the boys teased Floss about that-when Zainal and Chuck were absent-but she was well able to make sharp retorts. There were a few incidents when they tried the same tactics on Ferris and Ditsy, but the two Terran boys were more than able to deal with the Catteni ones and earned their respect. Kris knew they resented her monopolizing their adored fa-ther's free time and were inclined to disregard any requests she made of them; she had expected that, even if she didn't know how to counter their impudence. But it was a long flight to Barevi. She would be very glad when there was a tutor assigned to keep them occupied.

When it came time for the BASS-1 to contact the Barevi space station that regulated all traffic in and out of the system, Captain Jax Kiznet was the pilot. This included her insistence that she did com-mand the BASS-1, origin: Botany Free Planet. Zainal was sitting as copilot, letting her handle the contact and repeat the landing instruc-tions. Barevi Tower was sarcastically upset over having a female an-swering their orders and evidently in command of a ship: a pilot of unknown ability flying in busy traffic space. Jax was quizzed on dock-ing procedures by the space station commander, Ladade, who sounded surly until finally Zainal intervened and said that he, Zainal, had been her instructor and that she was competent to pilot, even in such a busy port.

"Hey, this Ladade backed down real quick when you said you were Zainal," Jax said admiringly.

"See that you prove my ability to teach you properly," was Zainal's reply.

She did, concentrating on the job. As they made their approach, Zainal kept checking the screen for any navigational anomaly. Al-though there were stiff penalties for abusing Barevian space, there were also hazards, which he hoped to help Jax avoid. The barges that carried inter-system traffic were known to deviate from their pro-jected courses and provide obstacles. She had her eyes open for such problems and kept one eye on the screens.

"This is a very active spaceport?" she asked Zainal when he pointed out an erratic ship for her to avoid. "And I thought there was a lot of junk in Earth space!" She pointed to the mass in the upper starboard quadrant.

"Oh, that," Zainal replied, shrugging it off. "That's real space junk. Barevi port facility is equipped to do major overhauls and refits. That's where they put carcasses and damaged structural members. And ships that don't pay their docking charges."

"Oh? When they haven't a bean left?" she asked, flashing a quick grin at him.

She really was a good pilot, Zainal thought, wondering whom he should train next on their return to Botany. There were plenty of willing candidates. He had watched all of them on the simulator and they all had good reflexes and instincts. The Botany Space Force had enough cargo ships now that new pilots were always needed.

From space, Kris thought that Barevi Market really hadn't changed at all, except perhaps for its lack of eager customers filling the vast places. As they hovered above the docking facility seeking their as signed bay, Kris pointed out the overlapping squares of the market. She felt an almost-definitely almost-nostalgic relief at seeing it again. It was, after all, the site of the beginning of her amazing ad-ventures. They'd already started the rumor mill with Peter's inten-tionally provocative commercial, and they had had to keep the comm unit manned on a twenty-four-hour basis with their best Cattem speakers. Even Peran and Bazil had taken short stints, enormously pleased to be allowed such a responsibility, and certainly Zainal was delighted that they handled their first official duty so capably.