Starrigger

3

"Never figured Wilkes to make a grandstand play like that," Sam said as we searched the hinterlands of Mach City for an out-of-the-way motel. "Would've made a martyr out of you."

"Just call me Venerable Jake, and take my cause to the Pope. I don't really think he meant to. His boy got too excited."

"Probably. They would have had the exits covered for a genuine ambuscade. Howsoever―"

"There being only one way off this tropical paradise, and that being the Skyway―"

"It's safe to say they have the exits covered now," Sam said.

"A good bet. Anybody still following us?" I asked.

"Not a soul."

We passed plantations, a power plant, a few lonely residences off the road. There was not much to see besides jungle.

"What's this up ahead?"

I squinted. Off in the mass of overhanging greenery were little houses nestled in the treetops. It looked like a movie set. A sign by the road.

'"Greystoke Groves ― Treecabins, Free Total Vid, Whirlpool Jungle Lagoon, Guided Safari Tour, Reasonable Rates ― VACANCY.' Charming. Just the thing for a cozy getaway weekend. What say, Sam?"

"All the same to me. I live in a truck."

"Heck, you'll miss the safari. Pity."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world. Hang on." There was a large parking lot, which Sam traversed. Without stopping, he plunged the rig into the wall of undergrowth that bordered same. Branches thumped against the bulkhead, creaked, and shattered. Sam kept going, cutting a swath through the jungle.

Brightly colored flying critters took wing in our path, screeching their panic. We hit a hidden ditch and slammed down. The engine whined, groaned, and we were out of it, crashing forward again through a cataract of vinery. "Sam, large tree.", "I know. Damn! Let me back up." The rollers crackled to maximum grab, and spun. "Double diddley damn. This stuff is wet." "They don't call it a rain forest for nothing." We backed up and whanged against something. "Ouch. Hold on."

After some uncomfortable maneuverings, we battered our way onward. A centipedelike animal found itself clinging to our forward viewport, much to its chagrin. It extended two sets of antennae, fore and aft, and elongated itself vertically, each end checking out a possible escape route. It (they?) decided on up, and crawled out of sight.

Finally, we came to a crunching halt near the base of a stout treetrunk. Sam cut the engine, and we sat for a while surrounded by chirping, twittering jungle.

Presently, Sam asked, "One of those treehuts near here?" "I think. Can't really see a thing." "Well, find the nearest one and see if it's vacant." "Wait a minute. Is this a clearing up ahead? Go forward a few meters."

Sam started the engine, eased ahead. We poked through the edge of a paved footpath. "C'mon, Darla," I said. 'Take your pack. Let's look like tourists."

The woman in the office was a short, dark-haired woman who spoke incomprehensible English, but her Intersystem was as bad as mine. The accent was Spanish, the eyes Oriental, and I took her for a recently arrived Filipina.

"Twenty UTC, please. You have ID?"

"Yes." I showed her my Alonzo Q. Snerd persona, the duly authorized plasticard of which I keep for the times when I feel like Alonzo Q. Snerd. "This is my lifecompanion," I said, indicating Darla.

"Mistah-Missa Snerd? Happy you be here. You got bags?"

"Yes, thank you. By the way, we want that particular cabin," I told her, pointing to the layout on the wall. "We took a walk back there. We hope it's available."

"Number Seventeen. Nice! No one there now. FRONT!"

The bellhop came in from a back room. It was a squat but powerfully thewed, very hairy, anthropoid creature, a native. The species is regarded as borderline-sentient by most authorities. It had two large wide-set eyes that were owl-like, a wet, dark-lipped mouth splitting a short snout, and floppy long ears. Its feet were splay-toed, hairless, pink, and looked prehensile. Its three-fingered hands had what looked like opposable thumbs on either side. The creature had no tail.

"This Cheetah. She take you."

Cheetah grabbed our bags, took the key from the woman, and scurried off through a vine-covered archway that led into a tunnel. We followed her.

At the end of the tunnel was an elevator door. It looked conventional, but the shaft, as it turned out, was nonexistent. Instead, we found an open-air car faked up to look like logs and sticks. It more than likely had a metal frame. We got on and it rose into the trees.

From the upper platform we debarked into a maze of sturdy rope bridges with plank walkways leading from tree to tree, cabin to cabin. Ours was bigger than it had appeared from the footpath, but still quite cozy, resting in the crook of three huge structural boughs. Inside, the decor was consistent with the rest of the place, early-RKO Pictures; floors, walls, furniture, and everything else were made of the native equivalents of wicker, rattan, and bamboo.

I slumped in the peacock Empire chair and sighed. The Eridani creature darted about, opening shutters, flicking on lights, turning down beds, and plumping pillows, all very briskly, and with far more dexterity than a Terran ape could muster. It was surprising, in away. More surprisingly, the creature turned to me and spoke.

"Huh?" was all I could reply.

"That all, sir? That all?"

"Uhhh…Darla?"

Darla smiled at the creature. "Is there a gift shop or store here? I need some tissue paper."

"I go get some! You need, I get!"

Darla offered her a credit note. Cheetah refused.

"No, no! Fwee! Soap, towel, keenex, fwee. No money!"

Cheetah left and closed the door quietly.

"Call me Bwana," I said, not feeling particularly witty.

"She's cute. I've seen them before, at carnivals and things. They're really very intelligent."

"Hmmm. And honest. She could have snagged that tenner."

Darla laughed, scoffing. "Do you actually think she needs money?"

"Why is she working here?"

That stumped her.

I got out Sam's key and buzzed him. "Sam, we've set up housekeeping."

"How is it?"

I turned on the microcam and panned the room for him. "As you can see, charming. How're you?"

"I think I'm taking root. Seriously. I might need a little more camouflage around my back end. Can you see me from up there?"

I went to the window. Behind the shutters it was glazed with nonglare material. The cabin was completely sealed from the outside, and many degrees cooler.

"I can't see anything but vegetables."

"How's this? I have my hi-intensities on."

I saw a glimmer. "There you are. Fine."

"Maybe I'll be all right if I'm that hard to spot."

"What about the hole you left in the scenery back in the parking lot? Suspicious, no? And it leads right to you."

"I was watching the rear view. The stuff seemed to bound back up after we passed. Right now I can't tell the view ahead from the one behind. This jungle is alive, believe me."

"Bit of luck. Okay. Now, what about our situation? I'm having second thoughts. Should we have made a break for it on the Skyway?"

"Negative, son. Much, much too easy to follow."

"Right, just thought I'd ask. What next?"

"Well, we know they picked up our trail from the restaurant pretty quickly. I expected that. Not too hard to tail a rig. And we're pretty sure we lost them downtown."

"How sure?"

"Reasonably sure."

"Sam, how did you know about that dirt road that followed the edge of the marsh? I didn't think you knew Mach City that well."

"Used to spend a lot of time here. There were these two women I knew, mother and daughter, and I… well, that's neither here nor there. Anyway, the city council's been squabbling about draining that swamp for years. I knew the idiots hadn't gotten around to it yet."

"Another piece of luck. However, we are stuck here."

"For the moment. But if we can sneak over to Ali's Garage, we've got a chance. He's an old friend of mine. We hole up at his place, I get that new emulsicoat you've been promising me, plus some other cosmetic changes. Then, with luck, we slip out."

"Risky. We could be spotted going there."

"Sure, but I can't see another way. Would've gone directly there, except we would have had to double-back through town to do it. They would've picked us up again easily."

"So we sit here… for how long?"

"Until they get tired of looking, or until they're convinced we got through their net. Four Eri days."

"That's also risky."

"Sure. Wilkes is connected here. Hell, he might even own this place. But, have any better ideas?"

"Not at the moment."

Cheetah returned men with Darla's tissue paper. Darla struck up a conversation with her, and they sat down on one of the double beds to chat.

"Well," I said, "I'll let you know if I get a brainstorm."

"Right. Leave the key open."

"Really, Dad."

"Huh? Oh, sorry. Forgot about Darla."

I hadn't.

Despite my disinclination to believe in such things, the possibility of a real paradox here loomed large; in fact, if Darla wasn't faking, the paradox was a fact as cold and adamantine as the roadmetal that had caused it. Will have caused it. But it was hard for me to swallow. On the Skyway, you hear wild stories every day. I've met people who will swear ― on any amount of Holy Writ you'd care to put in front of them ― that one day, out on some lonely stretch of road, they saw themselves coming the other way… or that they were vouchsafed the paradoxical apparition of a relative who'd passed on the year before… or that the skywayman who held up the Stop-N-Shop off Interstellar 95 last week was in fact their time-tripping doppelganger, not them. Sometimes, reports such as these make the news feeds ― as silly-season fillers. Up till now, I had thought this was all the credence they deserved. But now I was confronted with the possible reality of a situation which, according to the commonly accepted version of The Way Things Are Supposed to Work, was an out-and-out impossibility. My choices were either to accept it as a fact, or to try resolving the contradiction with every measure of rationality at my disposal. But there were problems with the latter option. Aside from waiting until I could catch Darla in a lie, there was little I could ''do to assure myself she was telling the truth. What were the alternatives? Chinese water-torture? Tickle her mercilessly until she 'fessed up? And just how does one go about tripping up a liar when one has no facts to throw in her path?

It seemed I really had but one choice: to accept the paradox as real… until proven otherwise. I was hearing a reprise of a love theme that should have been very familiar. But it was strange and new. Bassackwards is not the way I like to do things, but Paradox does not grant dispensation from its crazy laws. 'Nor does Skyway. If you ply her paths, you take the risk. You pay the toll. The Roadbuilders, whoever or whatever they were, must have realized the consequences of a hyper-spatial highway that spans enormous distances instantaneously. They were excellent physicists, consummate engineers, but whether they could have avoided the "pathological" aspects (interesting, the way scientists choose their words) of such a device is a matter for conjecture, since our knowledge of these matters needs jacking up a quantum or two before we could begin to understand.

My task, then, was to find a causal lever to move objects around to my liking in a deterministic system. Estimated chances of accomplishing objective: those of fart in monsoon.

But volition is a delusion we sorely need, a habit we can break. I had to act. It was necessary for me to lose Darla now in order to gain her "later," lest two Darlas appear where one had gone before. Or something like that. Deadly possibilities loomed. A knock at the door.

My squib was out more quickly this time, even though Wilkes would not bother to knock.

It was a small Oriental man who wore a crisp straw planter's hat and a loosely fitting vanilla tropical suit. He didn't look friendly, but acted it.

"Excuse me, sir. Have you seen…? Ai, there you are! What are you doing here. Cheetah? Guests! Guests! Excuse me, sir. She is lazy, always going off somewhere."

Cheetah got off the bed and scampered toward us, slowed and slunk past her master, then broke across the small balcony to the rope bridge.

"Pardon me, sir. She is harmless, but she will take advantage."

"No problem. Mister…?"

"Perez."

"Perez. She just got back from an errand for my LC."

"Ah. Enjoy your stay. Sir, Madam."

A tip of the hat, and he was gone. I went to the window and watched him cross the bridge. He yelled for Cheetah cursed her in Spanish. She did not look back, disappearing in the foliage.

Darla was behind me, watching over my shoulder. "What did you two talk about?" I asked.

"Quite a lot. Your question about why she worked here intrigued me. So I asked her."

"And?"

"She stays here because she doesn't have a home. Read 'space,' 'territory,' or what you will. From what I could get out of her, her home was destroyed. There's a jungle-clearing project near here, it seems, and what was once her home is now bare earth."

"She couldn't move? Find a new spot? There are millions of square kilometers of jungle left. Most of the planet is virgin still."

"No, she couldn't move, nor could her clan, tribe, or whatever. Once such a group, an extended family sort of thing, loses its stamping grounds, it has no life. Extreme territoriality, attachment to one traditional area, probably passed down for generations. Most of the displaced cheetahs work in the city. Not for long, though. They die off very quickly."

"You got all this from her?"

"No, she was very reticent. I've heard about the problem. The Colonials are very touchy about it." She walked back toward the bed, sat down. "Funny thing. She's very sensitive ― receptive. She asked me if the people who were chasing us were near."

"What?" The notion that the animal could have known gave me an odd feeling. I sat down on the Empire chair. "How?"

"She said she could smell the fear on us."

Odder still was to realize that Cheetah had been right. At the root of all actions taken for the sake of survival lies fear unvarnished, the basic component of the mechanism. "Did she think they were near?"

"She said no, not now."

"Reassuring."

"I'm tired. I think I'll go freshen up." She got up, took her pack and walked toward the bathroom.

Before she got to the door, I said, "By the way, I didn't get a chance to thank you… for a well-timed, beautifully placed shot. Where the hell were you hiding that cannon?"

"I'll never tell," she said craftily, over her shoulder. "I did it for old times' sake." She went in and closed the door.

I buzzed Sam.

"Yeah?"

"Something Wilkes said. He said a lot of strange things. But there was something about stories. Stories about me, and I guess about you, circulating around."

"Stories?" "Rumors. I don't know. How does it strike you?"

"Leaves me cold." "We need information."

"That we do. But how? Dare we risk the skyband?" "I'm going to take a stroll down to the lounge, see if anyone's there."

"Be careful. By the way, any way of getting down here from that birdhouse?"

"Yes. There's a rope ladder rolled up on the porch. Fire escape, I guess. Wouldn't have taken the place if there had been no way down."

I knocked on the bathroom door and told Darla where I was going.

"I still have Brown Bess," she said.

And she could use it. It was a risk to separate, but I thought I had spotted a familiar rig in the parking lot.

Outside, a patch of sky peeking through the jungle canopy was turning silver, spraying beams of sunlight downward. The air was thick, moist, gravid with a million scents. Something chittered in the branches above me as I crossed the first bridge, scolding, warning me.

Before I got to the lounge it occurred to me that I should ask about the clearing project ― where, how near ― thinking of it as a possible means of escape. There were usually logging roads around such an endeavor.

No one was at the desk. I waited for a few minutes, then went around behind to a door. I opened it.

Perez had his back to me, holding a long, thin wooden rod raised toward Cheetah, who cowered pitifully in a comer of the office. Perez's head snapped around. He turned quickly and held the rod behind his back.

"Yes?"

"Excuse me. My lifecompanion wishes another errand run. Could you send someone up?"

"Yes. Yes, right away."

"She's taken a particular liking to Cheetah here. Loves animals, you know. Could Cheetah go?"

Perez was reluctant. "Yes, of course." He motioned to her without taking his eyes from me.

When she had left, I said, "Unless you desire a totally new look and a fresh approach to life, you'll not abuse that creature while I am a guest here."

Perez bristled. "Mr. Snerd, is it? This is none of your affair. I must ask you to―" I closed the door.

The lounge was very big, with shaman fright-masks looming from the walls, shrunken heads dangling from the open-beam ' ceiling, potted fronds growing everywhere, a striped native animal hide nailed above the bar. It was a crazy concatenation of Micronesian, African, and native motifs. Memories of Terra grow more blurred with the years. There were few customers, but Jeny Spacks was in a comer booth with an attractive young woman. I ordered an elaborate, improbable drink that was all fruit and little paper umbrellas, and walked over to them sipping noisily.

"Jake? Jesus."

"Hi, Jerry."

"Uh… Andromeda, this is Jake McGraw. Friend of mine."

"Hello."

"Hello. Jerry, could I speak with you for a moment?"

Jerry hesitated, looked away. "Yeah, sure."

The girl made a good excuse and left. I sat down.

"Goddamn, Jake, you show up at the most―"

"Sorry. This won't take but a minute. By the way, are you still a Guild member? Haven't seen the lists recently."

"You know damn well my dues are a year behind. But that's moot ― I own three rigs now. Pretty soon I won't have to drive at all."

"Moving up to employer status, eh? Good for you." I let

him puff and preen for a while, then said, "Jerry, this question may sound strange… but what have you heard about me recently?"

Jerry laughed. "Who hasn't heard about the shoot-out at Sonny's? It's all over the skyband. What're you still doing here?"

"That's not what I meant. What have you heard in the way of strange stories about me?"

Apparently he knew what I meant. He settled back, lit a cigarette, looked at me, and said frankly, "Jake, I don't believe ninety percent of the road yams I hear. Who does? Someone claims to've sighted a Roadbuilder vehicle, you hear someone's stumbled onto a backtime route and winds up being his own grandfather, that sort of thing. I've also heard some things about you, just as wild."

"Such as." He was skeptical. "Oh well, it seems you and Sam found a way out of the Expanded Confinement Maze and followed the Skyway all the way out to the end."

It was crazy. You could go only so far on the Skyway before the known routes were exhausted. Of course, you could take a chance and go through one of the many unexplored portals… and end up anywhere in the universe. If the planet on the other side had a double-back portal ― like the one leading from here back to Tau Ceti ― you were in luck. If not, you'd "be stuck with the option of shooting the next aperture, which could lead anywhere. The reason why all of the above is fairly certain is that no one has ever made a convincing case for having come back from a "potluck portal."

I popped a chunk of sour fruit into my mouth. "I can tell you for a fact that we've done no such thing."

"Hell, I know that. But I've also heard that you're going to do it. I've heard the tale both ways."

"Going to?" I mulled that over. "How are we supposed to accomplish this amazing feat?"

I chanced to turn my head. Perez was looking into the room, and our eyes met. He quickly ducked back. A little too quickly.

"With a roadmap."

I turned back to Jerry. "Roadmap?"

"Yeah. A genuine Roadbuilder artifact. How you managed to get hold of one is covered in the next episode, I guess."

What was remarkable to me was how the Skyway breeds these tall tales. The Skyway is half legend, half reality itself. Nevertheless, evidence abounds that the Skyway extends to other regions of the galaxy. Alien vehicles are seen every day on the road, coming from parts unknown, going to ― only the occupants know where. Most don't stop. Every once in a while, one does, and we meet a new race: Zeta Reticulans, Beta Hydrans, Gliese 59ers; races like the Ryxx, the Kwaa'jheen, and the beings who call themselves The People of the Iron Sun, whose home stars can't be found on any Terran catalogues; many, many more. All in all, there are about sixty races whose Confinement Mazes, the routes that lead from their home system to nearby colonizable planets, are known and mapped. Put all these known areas together, and you get one big Confinement Maze, little sections of which are strewn out over a sizable portion of several spiral arms. But there certainly is more to discover. Every once in a while, a new race drops into this neck of the woods and stops to be sociable. More information is then acquired ― but the process is slow.

'Tell me. Where does the Skyway end?" I asked.

"At the beginning of the universe."

I drained the last of my sickly sweet drink. "Is there a good motel there?"

Jerry laughed. "Jake, you know how these whoppers get started. Alien booze in human stomachs. Accidental chemically induced insanity."

We talked for a while longer, about five more minutes. Jerry told me what he knew about the jungle-clearing project. All the while something nagged at me from the back of my mind: the way Perez had eyeballed me.

"Jerry, thanks a lot. Good luck in your new business."

"Okay, Jake. Let me know what it's like at the Big Bang."

"I'll write."

I went out into the lobby.

Perez was behind the desk, smiling at me strangely, and three sleek roadsters were pulling into the lot.

I dashed for the elevator, and while waiting for the accursed sluggish thing, buzzed Sam.

"Sam, old man, condition puce. Get ready to roll."

"Where to, for God's sake?"

"Look for two roads and a yellow wood that we can diverge into. Otherwise, it's all over."

There was a house intercom by the elevator. I punched our cabin number.

"Yes?"

"Darla, pack up. Now. Drop that ladder and get down to Sam. Make it fast, and use Bess on the rope bridge. Bum it!"

"Right!"

Three men, one of Wilkes' gunsels and two unknowns, were approaching the transparent entrance doors. I looked around and saw double doors that probably led to a kitchen.

I was right, and three cooks, one of them alien, a Thoth, looked up from their dirty work. I didn't stop, and banged out a rear door. It opened onto a hallway that led into the restaurant. A separate entrance provided access from the parking lot. The room was dark and empty. From behind a partition by the waiters' station came the clattering of dishes. I crossed the floor quietly, crouched against the front wall, and looked out a window.

Five more men were running toward the restaurant door. I dived under the nearest table and froze just in time to hear the door thump open and feet pound across the floor. The heavy tablecloth prevented me from seeing. I waited until they left, then got up and risked another look. Three more men waited in the lot, standing by the side of one vehicle, hands thrust under their tropical shirts.

Trapped like a rodentoid.

I needed to get out the door and to the right, toward the end of the parking lot where the footpath came out of the woods; but as I watched, two men came out of the front entrance and ran past my vantage point, no doubt going to cover that very route. The alternative now was to somehow make it across the lot in the other direction and duck into the woods using Sam's swath as an entry point. The three lookouts were still there.

Something was moving in the lot; by the sound, a rig. Then I saw it as it backed up between me and the gunsels. It was Jerry, clearing out in a hurry. Wherever I was, he didn't care to be.

When the gunsels' view of the side door was completely blocked, I sprinted out, mounted the rig's running board, and knocked on the side port about three inches from Jerry's head. He jumped.

He slid back the port. "Hey, Jake. Don't do that!"

"Sorry, Jerry. Hello, Andromeda. Can you give me a lift to the far end of the lot?"

"Jake, those guys there… Never mind."

Resigned, Jerry eased the rig forward. I watched as we passed the main entrance. Nobody showed.

"Far enough?" Jerry hoped.

"Yeah. Stay here until I can get into the woods, okay?"

"Sure."

Sam was right. The undergrowth had rebounded to the point where I could barely distinguish Sam's trail. It was horrendous going. Bent grasses snared my feet, thorny tendrils leeched at my clothing. I stumbled into hidden holes, tripped over submerged rocks, doing it for about two minutes and getting nowhere.

It got worse. I wasn't sure if I had lost the trace. It appeared as if I had.

"Sam! Come in!"

"Where the hell are you?"

"I don't know. Somewhere behind you. Is Darla ―?"

"Fine mess. Yes, she's here. I'm going to start the engine. Follow the sound."

"Fine. No, wait!" I smelled smoke ― the rope bridge. Now, if I could only follow my nose. But I couldn't see a damn thing. "Forget it. Start up."

Sam did so, and the muffled whine came from my right. I thrashed my way toward it.

"Can you come back toward the lot?"

"Trying to. For some reason, it's harder getting out than getting in."

"Yeah, well see if you can―" Something was on my leg, something warm, wet, and rubbery. I looked down.

A hairless, many-legged beastie with a central body about as big as a grapefruit was hugging my calf. I let out a yell, smashed the thing with a fist, grabbed it with both hands, and pulled. A sharp pain lanced through my leg. I yanked, managed to pull one slippery leg free, and it coiled about my hand, throbbing. I pulled. The tentacle stretched like taffy, then grew resilient and tugged back. I fell, tumbled in the springy brush, writhing, while the pain crescendoed. I beat and tore and cursed at the thing, but it wouldn't give me up. Great scarlet waves of pain coursed up my leg, pulsed in my side. For a frozen eternity there was only the pain and a separate universe to kick and scream in, little else.

The next thing I knew I somehow had a stick in my hand and I was whacking the animal as hard as I could, oblivious to the damage. I was doing to my leg. Finally, the thing squealed ― the sound of chalk against a blackboard ― let go, and burrowed back into the grass.

I lay there for a moment. Presently, I got to my feet. The leg was numb and loath to obey my commands, but I could walk. I paused to look around for the key, which I had dropped, but it was nowhere around.

Movement behind me, the sound of thrashing. I regretted having yelled, but when it comes to creepy-crawlies I immediately lose my gonads, become all hoopskirts and fluster. Definitely phobic reaction.

No time to search for the key.

Sam sounded nearer, at least, but now I had no way of communicating. I groped through the eternal green miasma, flailing at my leafy tormentors, suddenly getting a wild, desperate notion to go back to the main building, ask Mr. Perez for his machete, and pay the rooted bastards back in kind. They did not relent. I hacked at them with what I had, stiffened forearms, my good leg, hate. Tiny insects hummed about me in a swirling cloud, lit on my face and swam on the surface of my cornea, and had pity enough not to bite.

I heard the crackling of a gun. Someone was burning a path off to my left.

Crashing came from directly ahead. Sam. I lurched forward and fell, squelched a curse, and struggled onward again. Sam was near, but I still couldn't see him. My ankle turned in a depression, and for an agonizing few seconds I sucked air and screamed inwardly as bolts of white heat shot through me. But soon I was plunging ahead, throwing my body against the foliage, ramming myself through toward what I took to be the rig's engine sounds. Progress came in bits of eternity.

Finally, I gave up. The throbbing had returned in my leg, neatly phasing with pulses of fire from my ankle. I collapsed backward from the heat, the exertion, the pain. I dug out my squib and waited, letting wriggly wet things lave my face. I didn't care, just lay there, defocusing my eyes on an overarching canopy of dark green. Sam was getting nearer, nearer. I tried to sit up, found that I could, then looked around.

Something whooshed out of the jungle directly behind me. I turned around and found myself sitting beside Sam's left front roller. It had stopped on the exact spot where my head had been. The engine whined again, the roller moved, and I pounded frantically against the ground-effect vane with all my strength.

"Jake?" Sam's voice on the external speaker.

"Yo!"

The hatch popped open, and I painfully hauled myself up and in.

I fell to the deck behind the shotgun seat.

"Oh, my God," I heard Darla say.

I rolled over and saw her face, one of the most deftly executed of God's pastel drawings. "Hello."

"Where the hell you been, boy?" Sam chastised.

"Out weeding the garden. Let me get… ahhhh!"

"Careful," Darla said. "Oh, your leg…."

With a little help, I got up and slumped into the seat. Sam was turning to the left, steamrollering through the green-capped swells.

"There's a stream around here. Yeah, the ground's dipping. Should be―"

We didn't see the man, one of our pursuers, until we were on top of him. He had time to turn his head and register the beginnings of alarm before we ran straight over him. He didn't have time to scream. Darla gave a tiny squeak and put her hand over her mouth.

After an interlude, Sam said, "Here we go."

We clunked over an embankment, slid, and splashed into a shallow running brook strewn with polished stones. Sam eased the back end down. I heard the forward accordian-joint between cab and trailer go scrunch as it bent to its limits. Sam turned hard left and trundled down the stream bed bumpingly, jarring our teeth and bones to jelly.

"We'll make time this way," Sam said.

"Where are we going?"

"This stream parallels a dirt road farther down. The road should take us down to the clearing project, where we'll pick up another trail that'll get us to the Skyway. We hope."

"How do you know all this?"

"Just following Cheetah's directions. Ask her yourself."

I looked around. In a pile of soft dark hair huddled in a comer of the rear seat, two big wet eyes awaited my approval.