The Warlock Wandering

PART II OTRANTO

Gwen released her shock webbing with a bemused frown. "Why, that was naught! Or, at least, 'twas naught when I liken it to the terror of that devil's ride from the planet to the moon." She turned to Rod, anxiety shadowing her eyes. "Be we truly in the sky, my lord?"

"We be," Rod assured her.

"And that bare, great hall that we came into from the ship—that was truly on the moon? Truly perched upon that circle of light within the nighttime sky?"

"It really was, dear. Of course, that 'circle of light' was actually a ball of rock, five hundred miles thick."

She sank back into her seat, shaking her head. "Tis wondrous!" Then she looked down at the chair beneath her. "As is this throne! How marvelously soft it is, and how wondrous is this cloth that covers it!" She looked up at Rod. "And they are not for nobility alone?"

"Well, technically, no." Rod frowned. "Though I suppose anyone who can afford space travel has to be as rich as an aristocrat."

"Or a criminal," Yorick added, from across the aisle. "In which case, he doesn't have to pay anything at all."

"Yeah, but the accommodations aren't quite this classy. And he doesn't really want to be going where he's headed, either."

"True," Yorick said judiciously. "Of course, if you're going away from prison, you're not too picky about the service."

"This isn't really all that fancy," Rod explained to Gwen.

"This whole room is just a little blip on the side of a great, big freight-carrier, so they can carry passengers if they have to."

"Or get a chance to," Yorick added. "We bring in a lot more money per cubic meter than cargo does."

"That is somewhat reassuring." Gwen looked up at Rod. "But explain to me again the nature of this moment of strangeness that we but now suffered, when it seemed that up was down and, for a moment, I had thought we were on the outside of this ship of the skies."

Rod shook his head. "Don't know if I really can, dear. I know the words for it, but I'm not sure what they mean."

"Then say them to me," she urged.

"Okay. The fastest anything can go is the speed of light— about 186,280 miles per second, remember? But the only reason light goes that fast is because it's made of infinitesimal little motes called photons…"

"There's nothing to it," Yorick confided.

Rod nodded. "Right. Nothing at all. Photons don't weigh anything, don't have any substance, any 'mass.' If you or I climbed into a spaceship and tried to go faster and faster until we got to the speed of light, our ship would get shorter and shorter, and heavier and heavier, and more and more massive. And the more mass it would have, the more power it would take to make it go faster."

"So there doth come a point at which each mite more of power, doth make so much more 'mass,' that the ship doth go no faster?"

"Right!" Rod beamed at her, delighted again by her quickness of understanding. But a chill passed through his belly—how could she understand so quickly, when her culture didn't give her the necessary background concepts? "Technically, we would be going just a fraction faster; we'd always be getting a tiny bit closer to the speed of light, and a tiny bit more, and a tiny bit more, but we'd never quite reach it."

"I cannot truly understand it," she sighed, sinking back.

"Yet an thou dost say it, my lord, I will credit it."

"Well, that helps a little. But you'll understand it thoroughly soon enough, dear, or I quite mistake you. Then you can decide for yourself whether you believe it or not."

"Yet what is this 'other space' thou, and Yorick and Chomoi, did say we have passed into?"

"Oh." Rod rolled his eyes to the side, pursing his lips for a moment. "Well, you see, dear… uh… Otranto, the planet we're going to, is about forty-five light-years from Wolmar. The distance that light can travel in a year is about five billion, eight hundred eighty million miles—and forty-five times that is something like 265 trillion. And that's roughly how far it is from Wolmar to Otranto."

She turned her head from side to side, wide-eyed. "'Tis inconceivable."

"Totally. We can't even imagine a distance that great, not really. It's just a string of numbers."

"But we do get the main point," said Yorick, "which is that even if we could go almost as fast as light does, it'd still take us fifty years to get to Otranto."

"And I don't know about you," Chornoi added, "but for myself, I have a lot of better things to do, than just sit around aboard a ship playing checkers for that long a time."

"I assure thee, so have I." Gwen shivered.

"But we can't go any faster," Yorick reminded her. "Not if we want to stay solid. No faster than the speed of light."

"So we go around it," Rod explained.

Gwen squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head. "I cannot comprehend that."

"Neither can I," Rod admitted. "But there's a gadget in the back of the ship called an 'isomorpher,' and when the pilot turns it on, it makes us isomorphic with H-space. I'm not sure what H-space is, but I gather it's a kind of space that isn't quite part of this universe."

Gwen frowned. "And we are part of that H-space?"

"Well, no, not part of it, really." Rod sat back, staring at the corner of the ceiling, pursing his lips. "Just identified with it—point for point, atom for atom. Which is what we are right now." He looked around at the interior of the cabin.

"But I feel no differently—," she cried, "nor doth aught appear transformed!"

"We aren't." Rod shook his head. "We aren't different, at all—relative to this ship, and relative to each other— because we're all isomorphic with H-space right now. But when the ship's computer pulls out the pattern for what normal space is like, near Otranto, and when it identifies that pattern, it'll turn off the isomorpher, and we'll go back to being ordinary parts of the regular universe."

"Tis magic," Gwen said firmly.

"Personally, I agree," Rod sighed, "but the man who explained it to me, assured me it was all perfectly natural, and thoroughly understandable."

"So," said Gwen, "are my witch-powers."

"Only on Gramarye, my dear." Rod squeezed her hand. "And I suppose all this isomorphism and H-space is normal and understandable out here." He turned to Yorick. "I don't suppose it's possible for Dr. McAran to shoot you the pieces of the time machine while we're in this condition, is it?"

Yorick shook his head. "He can't lock onto us, Major. However his time machines work, it ain't through H-space."

"I thought not," Rod sighed, "which is too bad, because this is going to be at least half the trip—two days, at least. But he can do it once we're back into normal space."

"Well, he can try." Yorick frowned. "But that's what I was trying to signal you about back there at Cholly's, when you were talking to the General-Governor. Locking onto a moving object that's any smaller than a planet, is an awfully tricky operation. If Doc Angus misses, the components he's trying to throw at us are lost for good, and time machine parts cost enough to make even him wince."

Rod just stared at Yorick for a moment. Then he said, "You're telling me that, even though we have a good day or two between our break out point and Otranto, forty-eight perfectly usable hours without any interruptions, you're not going to be able to build us a time machine?"

Yorick shook his head. "Sorry, Major. 'It ain't in the state of the art.'"

"And probably never will be," Rod sighed. "But inside a shed back on Wolmar would have been a moving target, too—and you were so sure you could manage it there!"

"Yeah, but it was a stationary target, relative to the huge mass it was sitting on. It was only the planet that was moving—and all that planetary mass is easy enough to lock onto. Then it's just a matter of aiming at a small target that stays put, relative to the large one." Yorick shrugged. "You know what a planet's gravitational field does to space-time, Major. It makes space curve, so it does most of the focusing for you. All you have to do is lock onto the planet's rotation, and as soon as you have that rate figured out, it's no problem. But here…" He spread his hands, a gesture taking in the whole cabin and the vast ship outside it. "I mean, this whole freighter can't be more than half a kilometer long!"

"Well, what do you expect?" Chornoi snapped. "Bush-league planets don't get the big ships, you know."

Yorick ignored her. "Half a kilometer, two kilometers, what difference does it make? That's just a dust-mote on the planetary scale. It just ain't big enough to have enough mass to have any major effect on the curvature of space!" He shook his head, looking doleful. "Sorry, but I can't get you out of this mess while we're in transit."

"Oh, well, I should have known better," Rod sighed. "All right, if we can't get a portable time machine here, we'll just have to find some quiet place on Otranto where we can set one up."

Yorick nodded. "Shouldn't be any problem, Major."

"It shouldn't have been any problem on Wolmar, either." Rod gave Yorick a jaundiced glance. "I don't suppose there'd happen to be a permanent time machine somewhere on Otranto, all ready and waiting, would there?"

Yorick shook his head. "Not that I know of. In fact, the only permanent installation that I know about, at this point in history…" He frowned. "Well, I can't say I know about it, damn it!"

"Where is it?" Rod exploded.

"All right, all right!" Yorick held up both palms, shielding himself. "Not so loud, okay? We're pretty sure that the LORDS party, the ones who are running the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra, had some Futurian help in engineering their coup d'etat—and they've probably stayed in contact, all the way through their regime. I mean, PEST could have figured out which planet was going to rebel, when—but it is kind of odd that they just happened to always have a naval squadron right nearby."

"Very odd," Rod agreed. "So you're pretty sure there's a permanent time machine somewhere in PEST headquarters on Terra?"

"Yeah." Yorick gave him a bleak smile. "But good luck getting to it. It belongs to the opposition, and it's guaranteed to be very tightly guarded."

"Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained," Rod sighed. "I always did want to visit humanity's ancestral home, anyway."

"Well, that's great! I mean, you'll love it there, Major, it's…" Suddenly the Neanderthal's eyes widened in horror. "My lord! Chornoi! We shouldn't be talking about this with her around!"

"So I thought," Gwen agreed. "The poor lass was overly wearied. I thought it best that she slumber awhile."

Yorick turned around, craning his neck over the back of the seat, and saw Chornoi slumped in her recliner, head rolled to the side, breathing deeply and evenly. "Well, that's a relief! Thank you, Lady Gallowglass! I really gotta keep a better eye on my tongue!" He frowned. "That didn't sound right…"

"We catch your meaning," Rod assured him.

"Thou hast yet to tell me of this 'Terra' of thine," Gwen reminded.

"Earth," Rod answered. "The place where your ultimate ancestors came from—and mine, too, of course. And everybody's. It's the planet where humanity evolved, the only planet where our bodies really feel at home."

"Not anymore, they don't." Yorick shook his head. "The whole place is concrete and steel now." He frowned. "Well, there are a few parks…"

"Are we to go there, then?"

"We can't. This freighter is going to Otranto. But maybe, there, we can find a ship that's going to Terra."

"Of course, we may not need to," Yorick said. "If we can just find a quiet place for a little while, Doc Angus can shoot me the spare parts I need to make a time machine." He sighed. "Of course, there is another little problem…"

Rod felt the familiar cold chill spread over his back. "Oh? What problem?"

"The Futurians. I mean, they kidnapped you in the first place. Then they set up an elaborate little plot that had almost everybody on Wolmar cooperating in an attempt to assassinate you."

"Yeah, but that was Wolmar," Rod said. "And the people of this time haven't invented faster-than-light radio yet, so their communication is still limited to couriers riding FTL ships, like this one."

Yorick nodded. "But VETO and SPITE have time machines. So they can send a message from Wolmar to Otranto, and get it there the next day." He frowned. "Or the day before, if it comes to that."

Rod stared.

"So it's quite possible, Major, that we might find a reception committee waiting for us."

Rod leaned back, trying to relax. "Give me a little while to get used to the idea."

"Sure." Yorick leaned back, too, and twiddled his thumbs. "You've got time. A couple of days, at least."

"The waiting is driving me crazy," Chornoi growled. "Anticipay-hay-hay-shun," Yorick sang.

The world twisted inside out.

Then it twisted right-side-out again, leaving Gwen holding her stomach. Rod clapped a hand over his mouth. They both swallowed, hard, then looked across the cabin. Chornoi was a delicate shade of green, and Yorick was gulping air. "Yes," he said finally, "Well—the wonders of modern travel, right?"

Rod nodded. "The price you pay for speed, and all that."

The Neanderthal heaved himself to his feet and waddled down the aisle to the viewscreen. "As long as we're back where there's something to see, let's look at the outside, instead of this saccharine melodrama that nobody's been watching anyway." He punched a button, and a vast vista of unwinking stars replaced the 3DT program.

"Hey!" yelped Chornoi. "How'll I find out whether or not Chuck will stop Allison from marrying Tony, because she's about to have Tommy's baby, but doesn't want Karen to have Tony, even though she really wants to marry Chuck?"

Then she fell silent, awed by the majesty of the panorama before her. The computer had dimmed the brightness of the sun, of course, or they wouldn't have been able to look directly at it, even though it was only a very small disk in the center of the huge screen. Blips that were planets floated around it, brightened and colorized electronically—and the net impression was gorgeous. Gwen caught her breath with delight. "Eh, my lord! Be this truly how a sun and its worlds do appear?"

Rod nodded. "This is the real thing, darling. Of course, if you saw it with your naked eye, the sun would be a lot brighter, and the planets would be lost in its glare. They aren't lined up so neatly that you can count them, but you can ferret 'em out. Let's see—there's one, that little dot near the sun, that's probably a planet. And, yes, there's number two, a little further away, and number three…"

"Yet what is that one that doth grow?"

Rod frowned. "Yeah, that is kind of funny."

"Not humorous at all!" Yorick whirled and scuttled back to his seat. "That swelling dot is growing knobs and fins! Web in, everybody—we're about to be intercepted!"

Rod stared. Then he whipped about to Gwen, but her webbing was still secure from break out. So was his, for that matter.

"What's the trouble?" Chornoi looked around at them, frowning. "So they're intercepting us. They're not going to shoot us down, you know."

"No," Rod grated, "we don't know. They tried to kill us twice already, remember?"

Chornoi stared at the screen, her eyes growing huge.

Gwen frowned up at Rod. "What is it, mine husband?"

"Another ship," Rod explained, "and there's no way to tell who's steering it."

Across the aisle, Yorick looked nervous. "I'm sure the captain is busy trying to find out that very datum."

The glowing dot had swelled into the form of a spaceship, seen head-on. It spat a bolt of light that washed the screen with searing brightness. The ship lurched about them, and somewhere, a huge gong chimed.

"Yoicks!" Yorick bleated. "What a way to answer a hail! Doesn't his radio work?"

Rod felt his stomach sliding over toward his left kidney. "Everybody hold on! Our pilot isn't waiting for a second sentence!"

On the screen, the attacking ship slid up to the upper right-hand corner. Another bolt of energy shot out from it— and off the screen.

"Missed!" Rod squeezed his fist tight. "Way to go, skipper! Zig your zags!"

His stomach dropped back toward his coccyx. Gwen gasped, and Chornoi moaned. On the screen, the attacker veered toward the lower left-hand corner, and the stars wheeled behind it. The sun slipped toward the left, too.

"Be brave, dear." Rod clasped her hand. "It has to end some time." Hopefully, the right way…

"Tis not… entirely… unpleasant," Gwen gasped. "I

shall become accustomed to it, my lord."

"I hope you won't have time…"

The enemy ship fired another bolt that lit up the upper right-hand corner of the screen. The sun-disc drifted off the screen to the left.

"Missed again." Rod nodded. "Have we got a good pilot!"

"Or a good computer," Yorick added. "No human being could react this fast. So just punch the buttons for 'evasive action.'"

Rod glowered at him. "Just had to make a point of it, didn't you?"

Yorick grinned. "What can I tell you? Homo sapiens has its limits, too."

"You don't have to be so happy about it, though… Whoa! Hold on!"

The other ship veered into the center of the screen; the sun-disc disappeared entirely.

"What is that maniac doing?" Chornoi gasped.

"Trying to get between the ship and the planet." Rod put out an arm as Gwen leaned over against him—or tried to, but the webbing held her tightly.

"Smart!" Chornoi's eyes glowed. "If he can get close enough to the planet's surface, the bandit won't dare shoot, for fear he'll fry innocent people."

"I… don't… really think that would make him hesitate." Rod scowled. "But he might attract the attention of the local constabulary."

"You mean I'm supposed to cheer for the cops?" Chomoi asked.

"Why not? You were one…"

On the screen, the pirate spat another bolt. It mushroomed out to fill the screen with glaring whiteness, and the whole cabin sang as though they were inside a piano string. Stars glared through a ragged hole in the ceiling.

"Abandon ship!" Yorick howled. "Or is it the other way around?"

But Rod didn't answer. His eyes lost focus as, frantically, he concentrated on his psi powers, seeing the passenger blister not as it really was, but as he wanted it to be. In his mind's eye, he saw the little bulge falling away from the main freight ship. He pictured a thin membrane sliding over the open side, where the ship had been.

Yorick looked around, flabbergasted. "Hey! I can still breathe! How come we're not drinking vacuum? How come our blood isn't boiling out our noses, from sheer lack of air pressure?"

Chornoi saw Rod's abstracted gaze. "Major, what are you doing?"

To Rod, her words seemed to come thinly from a great distance. Carefully, he answered, "I'm… holding the air… in… with us."

Chornoi stared. White showed around the irises of her eyes.

"Gwen?"

"Aye, my lord."

"We're… falling."

"Our ship was heading toward the planet when the pirate shot our cabin off the freighter's side," Yorick explained, "so we're still going toward the planet, too."

Gwen looked from the one to the other. "Is that not where we wish to go?"

"Yeah, but… not so fast…" Rod answered. "Take us down… darling… slowly…"

Gwen looked about them, and finally thought to look up. She gasped. "But… there is no 'down,' my lord. There is only some great bulge above us, a curving wall of blue, with swirls of white!"

"That's… Otranto," Rod grated.

"We're not close enough for it to seem like 'down' yet," Yorick explained, "but we're moving toward it, right enough. It's just that we're moving toward what you call 'up,' just now."

Gwen stared. "But how can one fall upward?"

"Gravity," Yorick explained.

Gwen's eyes opened wide. "That's to say that when I toss a ball into the air and it falls, 'tis the earth that pulls it down."

Yorick nodded. "Yeah, that's most of it. Of course, the ball pulls, too."

Gwen smiled. "Though so small a pull, could scarce be more than a wish."

"I suppose that's one way of looking at it." Yorick sucked in one cheek. "The ball wants to come down."

"And so… do… we," Rod grated.

"The closer we get to each other, the planet and us," Yorick explained, "the stronger the pull."

Gwen stared. Then her mouth opened in a silent "O."

Yorick nodded. "So the closer we get to the planet, milady, the faster we're gonna be going."

"Very… fast… already," Rod reminded him.

"Yeah." Yorick gave a bleak smile. "We're already traveling a thousand miles per second."

"And we will gain speed as we fall?"

Yorick nodded. "Unless you can do something about it."

"Well… mayhap I can." Gwen leaned back, gazing thoughtfully up at the bulge of the planet above them.

"Do it… soon," Rod begged.

"Uh, yeah." Yorick scratched at his ear. "That's the other thing I forgot to mention, Lady Gallowglass. It's called 'friction.' You know how when you rub your hands together, they start feeling hot?"

Gwen nodded, not taking her eyes off the planet above.

"Well, we're going so fast that just our hull pushing through the air can be friction enough to cause a lot of heat," Yorick explained. "Enough to kill us."

"So," Gwen mused, "I must slow us and cool us."

Beside her, Rod nodded. "Molecules… slow 'em down…"

"Thou hast explained that to me oft enow, my lord," Gwen said, with some asperity. "I must own, 'twas thou who didst teach me what my mind did when I did stare at a branch, and made it burst into flame. Nay, I ken the slowing of these 'molecules,' as thou dost term them. And, I think, I can slow our descent enow so that we may land gently." She frowned up at the planet. "Let us begin by putting the world where it doth belong."

Slowly, the huge curve moved off to the side. There was no sensation of movement, but the sun-disc slowly slewed into the center of the hole in the ceiling.

Yorick exhaled sharply. "Yes. Everyday occurrence. Right."

Gwen nodded, satisfied. "Now we fall downward."

Across the aisle, Chornoi stared, aghast. "What are they?"

"A witch and a warlock," Yorick informed her. "But that's just the local term, where they come from."

"This isn't really magic?" Chornoi said hopefully.

Yorick shook his head. "Just psionics. These are two very high-powered espers."

Chornoi sat back, going limp. "I'm glad to hear that's all it is."

"Right." Yorick's smile soured. "It's so much less scary when you can give it a name, isn't it?"

"The pirate is gone now," Gwen informed them.

"Huh?" Yorick looked up and saw a clear sky. "Well. Guess once he saw he'd shot off our cabin, he figured we were dead."

"He had every right to," Chornoi said devoutly.

"Well." Yorick laced his fingers across his midriff and settled back into his acceleration couch. "Might as well relax and enjoy the ride."

"It may be rough," Gwen warned.

"'S okay! That's just fine, Lady Gallowglass!" Yorick held up a palm. "No matter how you slice it, it's going to be a hell of a lot better than I thought it was."

Actually, it was rather boring from that point on. Gwen was very good at slowing them down, but she had a lot of speed to kill, so it did take a little while. Every now and then, things did begin to get a little too warm, and Gwen had to frown in deep concentration until they cooled off. Yorick did some exploring, and found a couple of emergency oxygen generators, but even so, Rod was worried that he might have to try to precipitate the carbon out of the carbon dioxide in the air, and he wasn't exactly burning to have black dust all over the glowing brocade of his new doublet.

At one point, Rod said, "Dear… the planet… is turning… under us. Match… velocities…"

"That means matching the spin of the planet," Yorick explained. "'Velocity' is how fast something's going in any given direction. Just make sure we're moving at the same speed as the world's surface."

"How am I to do that?" Gwen asked.

"Find some landmark," Yorick explained. He glanced at the viewscreen. "Can't do much with that, the power cut off as soon as we broke away from the ship. All we've got is a little emergency power for lights, air, and heat, nothing left over for sight-seeing."

Gwen frowned at the screen, and it burst into life. A landscape reeled across it, blurred by speed, obscured by darkness.

Yorick stared. "How did you do that?" Then he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "Never mind—I don't think I want to know. But try to pick out some big landmark, Lady Gallowglass, and slow us down until it stays put in the middle of the screen."

The landscape began to slow. Moonlight outlined ridges that were chains of hills, showing a groove that must have been a valley.

In its center, pricks of light glittered.

"Civilization!" Chomoi cried. "That's gotta be a city! Only people make that kind of light! Quick, Lady Gallowglass, put us down there!"

Gwen concentrated harder on the screen. "I will essay it…"

Chornoi leaned over to Yorick. "How come she can talk while she's doing it, and he can't?"

'"Cause she's better at it than he is." Yorick spread his hands. "What can I tell you? She's been practicing since she was born, and he only found out he had power three years ago."

Chornoi reared her head back, looking askance at him. "How come you know so much about them?"

"Friend of the family," Yorick assured her, "and if you met their kids, you'd want to be friendly, too."

"There." Sweat beaded Gwen's brow. "Master Yorick, is that as thou didst wish it?"

"Beautiful," Rod mumbled.

Yorick looked at the screen. It was as rock-still as though someone had hung a map at the front of the cabin. He blinked. "How the hell did you do that? I didn't feel a thing!"

"I slowed us folk as I slowed the vessel."

Yorick stared at her. "Right." He shook himself. "Sure. Inertia—what's that? just a frame of reference, right?"

"Then refer to that frame." Gwen pointed at the screen. "That square of darkness in the center'—what is it?"

Yorick leaned forward, squinting. Then he shook his head. "Can't tell yet, Lady Gallowglass. When we're closer, maybe."

The tiny square started growing. It swelled until it filled the screen. Moonlight silvered the dark square, revealing textures.

"Treetops!" Chomoi exclaimed.

Yorick stared. "Did you drop us lower, or did you just make the picture get bigger?"

Chornoi pointed. "See that silver thread straggling kitty-corner across it? Has to be a stream."

"I think it's a park, Lady Gallowglass."

"Then there should be few folk about," Gwen said, with growing excitement. "'Twill make a good landing field."

The park swelled in the screen. They could see individual trees, which moved off to the edges of the screen as they grew.

Gwen concentrated all of her attention on the screen.

The stream grew broader and broader, filling the center of the screen. Then it drifted off to the right and out of the screen entirely.

Chornoi and Yorick stared for a few seconds, holding their breath. The wreck jolted violently, slamming everybody back against their acceleration couches. They all sat still for a few minutes.

Then Gwen spoke, her voice soft in the dimness of the emergency lights. "My apologies. I had not meant to strike with such force."

"Oh, that's fine!" Chornoi held up a palm.

"Wonderful." Yorick nodded, with great enthusiasm. "Believe me, Lady Gallowglass, that's a much softer landing than we were expecting."

"Any landing is just great," Chornoi added.

Yorick loosed his webbing and stood up. "Here, let me give you a hand." He helped Gwen disengage her webbing. She caught his arm as she stood. "Gramercy, Master Yorick."

"Oh, it's nothing. It's… Hey! The major! Is he all right?"

Rod was leaning back in his couch, his eyes closed, chest heaving.

"Aye, he is well."

Rod pried an eyelid open. "Yeah." The other eyelid opened, too, and he rolled both eyeballs over toward Yorick. "Just a little tired."

"He did aid me in the moving of the vessel," Gwen explained.

"A little tired." Yorick nodded. "Sure, Major. Uh—before we do anything else—how about a little nap?"

Rod shook his head, loosening his webbing and struggling to his feet. "Haven't got time. We've got to get out of here before dawn."

Yorick reached out to stop him, saying, "No, Major. You're not…" But Rod was already past him, tottering toward the hatch.

Yorick shoved himself to his feet with a shrug. "Well, he's got a point. We landed pretty close to the terminator, as I remember my last glimpse of the viewscreen."

Chomoi hurried after Rod, bleating, "But how do we know the air is even breathable here!"

"Because approximately two million colonists are already breathing it." Yorick swung into step beside her. "And, of course, there's always the hole in our own roof. Nice try, lady, but you're not going to stop him with cobblestones for roadblocks."

Rod threw his weight against the locking lever and shoved. The door swung open, and he went with it. He half fell, half jumped, and felt as though he were dropping through molasses. As his feet touched the ground, Gwen was beside him, holding onto his elbow. "Gently, I prithee, my lord!"

"Why, with you there to cushion my falls? Thanks, though, darling."

Gwen smiled, and shook her head. "Wilt thou not rest, my lord?… Nay, 'tis even as thou sayest, we must be gone—yet favor thine own weakness, I prithee!"

Rod smiled gently at her. "You can always float me, if I collapse, dear. After all, I won't be able to float alone…" He looked around. "Hey! Not bad."

One moon was high in the sky, and another just above the horizon. Between them, they gave just enough light to show manicured lawns and sculpted trees all about them. Flowers rustled in formal beds, their petals closed against the night, and a small pond gleamed like a mirror a few hundred yards away.

"Why… 'tis beautiful," Gwen breathed, looking about.

Yorick sidled up next to Rod and nudged him with an elbow, pointing toward Chornoi. She was silent, her face strained and eyes haunted, drinking in the lush beauty around her.

Rod looked and nodded. "Yeah. Glad we got her off that prison planet."

"Aye, the poor lass!" Gwen said. "To have so much of beauty, after years of such bleakness…"

"We may have it again, if we don't get out of here." Rod scanned the trees and shrubbery, feeling his fatigue shoved into the background as adrenaline spiked him. "No way to tell which inviting piece of topiary is hiding a vision pickup. Maybe even sound."

Yorick nodded. "Somebody's got to have noticed we dropped in on them."

"Well, then, let's see if we can disappear before they send a welcoming committee." Rod turned away. "See if you can't wake up Chornoi, will you?"

Yorick reached out carefully, touching Chornoi's arm. Her head jerked around, eyes wide, and Yorick stepped back fast, just as a precaution. "I really hate to interrupt your reverie, Ms., but we gotta get going, or we're going to have company."

Chornoi whirled, staring about her, wild-eyed.

"Right." Yorick nodded. "No telling where from. Only that they're on their way."

"We can't be sure of that." Chornoi swung back to him. "But we'd be fools to take the chance. Which way did the Major go?"

Yorick pointed, and Chornoi set off after Rod and Gwen at a pace that made Yorick hustle.

They came out onto cobblestones as dawn was lightening the sky, permeating everything with a dim, sourceless light, punctuated by slivers of late moonlight. It was the time when night had died and day hadn't been born, a time between realities, when nothing is definite and everything is possible—a time of fantasy when anything can happen.

And the landscape was right for it. Mist rose about their knees, and its tendrils wisped up to veil a row of half-timbered houses, their second stories overhanging the street. Shop signs creaked in the breeze. Far away, something barked.

"Why, 'tis like home," Gwen said, wide-eyed.

"Yeah." Rod frowned. "Wonder what's wrong?"

"Why're we talking so softly?" Chornoi whispered.

"Who could be loud in a place like this?" Yorick murmured.

"Besides, we might wake the neighbors." Rod shouldered his fatigue and mustered his resolution. "And we don't want them to see us—just yet."

"Wherefore not?"

"Because they're going to find that capsule that brought us here, and we don't want some idle bystander with a high sense of drama telling the authorities that they saw us near the park this morning."

"I get the point," Yorick said. "Some enthusiastic soul might jump to the conclusion that we came in on that ship."

"But wherefore ought we wish him not to?" Gwen looked from man to man, puzzled. "We were aboard it."

"Yeah, dear, but whoever tried to shoot us down thinks we're dead. We wouldn't want to disillusion him, would we?"

"Or her," Chornoi put in.

"But when they find the empty ship, they will know we do live!"

"Yes, but they won't know what we look like!"

"Camouflage, Lady Gallowglass," Yorick explained. "Odds are that our attacker doesn't know what we look like, aside from a general description. He'll know we escaped, but nothing more since nobody on Otranto has seen us. But if he can get a detailed description from an eyewitness…"

"Hold on!" Chornoi held her hands up like a football referee. "Time out! You're both assuming that pirate was out to get us! He could have just been after the ship!"

Rod looked at Yorick. Yorick looked at Rod.

"All right, all right! I get the point!" Chornoi snarled, yanking her hands down. "Come on, let's go!" She set off down the street, walking fast.

Rod followed after her. "Can I help it if I'm a cynic?"

"Dost thou wish to?" Gwen murmured.

Four blocks later, Rod came to a sudden halt. "Would you look at that! You'd think a surveyor had drawn a line and a town board had declared a zone."

"Probably did," Chornoi declared.

"There goes the neighborhood," Yorick sighed.

"And the business district begins." Rod agreed.

"But what manner of business isn't?" Gwen wondered.

"Woman's oldest," Chornoi stated.

"Oh, they're not that exclusive." Rod pursed his lips. "I see at least three gambling halls in there, and five saloons."

"And five feelie theaters, three dance parlors, two opium dens, and a pawnshop." Yorick looked up and down the street. "Have I missed anything?"

"Yes. But they haven't."

As far as they could see, the street was one mass of blinking, scrambling, writhing holographic displays in garish colors, advertising every form of pleasure conceived by mortal man and woman.

"Wonder what the buildings look like?" Yorick mused.

"Who can tell?" Rod shrugged. "Even if you could see one, you couldn't be sure it was real."

Chornoi nodded. "That about sums up this whole planet, from what I've heard."

"I thought it was a resort."

"It is. And it's amazing what people will resort to, if they can find the money."

"Otranto," Rod said, remembering the planet's reputation, stronger than ever in his own time, five hundred years later. "Isn't their motto, 'It's been a business doing pleasure with you'?"

"No, but it will be," Yorick assured him. He took a deep breath. "Well, folks—we gotta get through it, right?"

"Right." Rod squared his shoulders and stepped manfully in. "Breathe every five steps, friends."

That wasn't as easy as it sounded. The signs weren't just visual—most of them were aural and olfactory, too. And, occasionally, tactile. The company waded through a melange of sounds and smells, their senses assaulted by every glamour in the state of the art. Erotic images gyrated and beckoned, male and female; delectable aromas wafted out to envelop them; images of riches and luxury flashed before their eyes. Holographic hucksters stepped out to entice them, as real as life and twice as pungent. They gritted their teeth and forced themselves to keep going, wading through every distraction they had ever desired.

A sleek, unbelievably handsome young man stepped out of a doorway, muscles rippling underneath his evening clothes, one arm full of long-stemmed roses, the other dangling a diamond necklace. Chornoi swerved after him like a needle to a magnet.

"Hold it, sister." Yorick caught her arm. "Just illusion, remember? Besides, he costs money."

Chornoi shook herself, coming out of her trance with a gasp. "Thanks. They almost got me with that one."

"Close," Yorick agreed. "Courage, lady. You're almost out of it."

"How do you know?" Chornoi wondered.

"I don't—but this kind of thing can't go on forever!"

"Optimist," she snorted.

However, the colony was young yet; the cheapside didn't last more than a quarter mile. They came up out of aromas and sensations with huge, rasping gasps, into clear, quiet air.

"I don't think I could have taken much more." Rod sagged against a lamp post.

"And you didn't even have any money." Yorick finally took his hand off his hip pocket and flexed it. "I think I've got cramps."

Cramps in your soul, friend? Does this mortal world pain you, with its plethora of Philistines?"

They looked up, startled.

A monk stood before them—the real, genuine article, in a brown robe and rope belt. No tonsure, though.

"Why, he is quite like those at home," Gwen cried.

"Uh, well, no, not really, dear." Rod scratched the tip of his nose. "Just looks like it."

"Nay! He doth wear the badge! Dost'a not see?"

Gwen pointed, and Rod looked. The robe had a breast pocket, and in it was a small yellow-handled screwdriver. "You're a Cathodean."

The monk bowed his head in greeting. "Brother Joseph Fumble, though my acquaintances generally call me Brother Joey. And yourselves?"

"Gwen and Rod Gallowglass." Rod pointed at his wife. "She's Gwen." He gestured toward the other two. "He's Yorick, and she's Chornoi."

"Pleased to meet you," Brother Joey said, with a small bow. "I don't suppose any of you would be interested in taking up religion?"

"Uhhhh…" Rod glanced uncomfortably at Gwen. "We're, ah, pretty well set along that line, thanks. I take it you're a priest?"

"No, but I'm working on it."

Rod eyed the man; he wasn't all that young. "But you are a deacon."

"Oh, yes, everything set except final vows." Brother Joey sighed and shook his head. "It's just that I'm not really sure I'm cut out for this sort of thing."

"For what? The priesthood?"

Brother Joey nodded. "I've got the drive, mind you; I've visited nine planets so far, but I've had spectacularly little success as a missionary. Only two converts so far, and they were both religious recidivists." He brightened. "I'm an excellent engineer, though."

"I see the problem," Rod agreed. "But isn't Otranto a rather odd place to be preaching?"

"Apparently it is, but I thought it would be an excellent, ah, 'hunting-ground,' if you follow me. Sort of a virgin wilderness of the spirit. I mean, if there's any planet where people need religion, it's Otranto!"

"Yes, but considering how much money most of them have spent to come here to wallow in pleasure, and how much more the rest are making from giving it to them, it's the last place I'd expect to find people in remorse."

"And, apparently, your expectations are sharper than mine," the monk sighed. "But it seemed such an excellent idea!"

"Yet not all clergymen must needs be missionaries," Gwen said gently. "Mayhap thou wouldst be more suited to a village church."

"Uh, if you two are gonna talk about it…" Rod glanced nervously along their back trail. "Would you mind if you keep walking while you do? I admit it'd take a genius of a bloodhound to track us through that aroma heaven back there, but we did kind of stand out, being live people in the vapor-light district at this hour of the morning. I need room."

"Well, you'll find it in this neighborhood, I assure you." Brother Joey fell into step beside them, gesturing about him.

Rod had to agree with him. The houses, if you could call them that, were far apart and far back from the road, each one sitting centered on several acres of ground, with flawless lawns rolling down to the walkway. The nearest was a gloomy old Tudor manor house, but right next to it was a Gothic castle. A rambling Georgian mansion glowered across from it, and the lot after that held a medieval ruin.

"Odd notion of housing developments they have here." Rod frowned, looking about him, and sniffing the air. "Smells like rain."

"It always does, here," Brother Joey assured him, "and it's always overcast, except for the first half-hour after dawn each day. Just enough so that those who like sunrises, can have them."

"They're doing such wonderful things with weather control these days." Rod shook his head in wonder. "But why?"

"To make Otranto stand out," Brother Joey explained. "There are only a half-dozen of these pleasure-planets so far, but that's already enough to make the competition strong—after all, there are just so many really wealthy citizens in the Terran Sphere."

Chomoi nodded. "And most of them want to go to Orlando."

"Orlando does seem to have the general tourist trade locked up—'something for everyone,' and all that. I understand they have a separate continent for each amusement theme."

"More like very large islands," Chornoi said, "but there are a lot of them, yes."

Brother Joey nodded. "So the other pleasure-planets have to specialize. They draw only a small percentage of the customers, but that small percentage comes to a billion a year. They attract those customers by doing only one theme, but doing it in all the variations that a whole planet has room for."

"Oh." Rod looked around at the ruined castle and the gloomy manor houses, with the heavy gray sky brooding over it all. "I take it Otranto opted for Gothic romance."

Brother Joey nodded. "They even renamed the planet for the purpose. It used to be Zane's Star IV."

Chomoi said, "They've filled it with haunted houses, gloomy moors, and the most elaborate graveyards ever to bear bodies. The tourists get to live out their fantasies, dressing up in full costume and stalking around their borrowed family mansions, listening for clanking chains or moaning ghosts."

"So," Rod said, "I can expect to see a whole pack of decadent aristocrats haunted by family spectres?"

Chornoi nodded. "And a bevy of penurious governesses, a host of crochety country squires fairly overflowing with Weltschmerz, and a veritable zooful of assorted monsters."

"But the biggest attractions, of course," said Brother Joey, "are the dreamhouses."

"Yeah." Chomoi gazed off into space with a dreamy smile. "You lie down, take a drug that puts you into a trance…"

Rod jerked to a halt, staring in horror. "A zombie-drug?!!?"

"No, no! It just deadens bodily sensations, and heightens suggestibility. A zombie-drug would totally knock out the forebrain, leave the customer without any freedom of choice! And choice plays a big part in it—the customer actually gets to react! Of course, he reacts pretty much in keeping with the plot line, unless he's a real maverick…"

"Plot?" Rod frowned. "I thought he just dreamed!"

"Well, she does, but it's a dream coming out of a computer directly into the customer's brain. Completely pre-scripted, of course—and the customer plays the hero or heroine. I hear it's the ultimate entertainment—exciting, emotion-stirring, full color, total sound-surround, full range of aromas and tastes—and the full sensation of touch." She shivered. "Bodice-rippers cost extra."

Gwen was staring in disbelief.

"I understand," said Brother Joey, "that it's all considerably more vivid than reality."

"Oh, no!" Rod squeezed his eyes shut. "Why do I suddenly feel sorry for anyone who's been through one of those?"

"Possibly because most of their customers are never able to be satisfied with actual life, after they've been through one such dream. As a result, they constantly crave another dream, and another." Brother Joey shuddered. "Under such circumstances, to claim they're not addictive, just because they don't build physical dependence, is simply weaseling with the meaning of the term."

"Never," Gwen said, with total determination, "shall I ever essay such."

"Oh, but they're not dangerous!" Chornoi cried. "They can't be, or the dreamhouses would lose customers."

Rod shook his head. "Forget about the dream itself. You're lying there, out cold, for a few hours, right?"

Chornoi shook her head. "Just a few minutes, real time. An hour, at the most."

"An hour?" Yorick turned to her, frowning. "Just how much does this emotional candy cost, anyway?"

"Only a couple of hundred kwahers…"

"A couple of hundred? For less than an hour?"

"That's real time," Chornoi protested. "But while you're dreaming, it seems to go on and on for weeks—maybe even months!"

"So you're really paying for weeks of entertainment." Rod nodded, his mouth wry. "But it only costs the house a few minutes' use of its facilities. Talk about high turnover…"

"The overnight vacation," Yorick mused, gazing off into space. "Fun, excitement, and romance, all in an evening's sleep…"

Rod shook himself. "What are we, the dreamhouses' advertising bureau? The fact remains that while your mind is enjoying this total illusion, your body is lying there, totally vulnerable!"

Chornoi nodded. "That's why the dreamhouses guarantee your safety."

"How can they do that? I mean, while you're asleep, they could…" Rod stared in horror. "My lord! They could just channel indoctrination into your brain, along with the entertainment!"

"No, they couldn't," Chornoi said quickly. "I mean, they could, but it's totally illegal. The laws safeguarding dream-house patrons are very rigid."

"Rather elaborate, too," Brother Joey agreed.

Rod shrugged. "So? As I believe I pointed out not too long ago, murder is illegal, but people get killed anyway."

"But these laws get enforced! Very tightly!"

"So do the laws against murder. It doesn't help the corpse much."

Chornoi's jaw set. "Say what you like—the dreams are safe. Not even the police are allowed to disturb a dreamer."

"Oh!" Rod smiled brightly. "So a dreamhouse is the perfect hiding-place for a crook on the lam!"

"As long as his money holds out," Yorick qualified.

"The Church used to be able to offer a better deal than that," Brother Joey sighed.

"You can't deny we could use a good place to rest." Chornoi stabbed a finger at Rod.

Rod parried. "And you can't deny we're short on cash. In fact, we're going to have trouble scrounging fare to Terra."

"Of course…" Yorick pursed his lips. "… we might be able to persuade the local government to want to get rid of us, really badly, again…"

"Not too badly," Rod said quickly.

"I must ask your pardon," said tall, dark, and bloodless as he brushed past them and hurried away, muttering to the man beside him, "We will be late for our call."

"Aren't you getting into character a little bit early?" his partner asked.

Chornoi's head swiveled, tracking him. "Wasn't that guy a little long in the tooth?"

"I do get the feeling I've seen him before," Yorick agreed.

"Count Dracula?" Rod stared. "And who was that guy with him?"

"The one with the shaggy face?" Yorick asked. "For a minute, I thought he was a relative."

"Twas a werewolf," Gwen gasped.

"More like one who got stuck halfway." Rod had vivid memories of the werewolf he'd had to fight once. "Didn't you say the customers like to dress up in costumes here?"

"Yeah, but they wouldn't be up this early in the morning!"

"Especially if the guy pretending to be the vampire was really going to try to get into character," Yorick agreed. "After all, we might get sunshine any minute now."

"I gotta see where they're going." Rod started after the pair. "Go ahead, call me gullible, but I gotta see!"

Gwen and Chornoi exchanged glances, then shrugs. "Wherefore not?"

"Can't think of a reason."

"One direction's as good as another when you don't know where you're going," Yorick agreed.

"I'll come along, if you don't mind," Brother Joey said. "After all, I'm not doing much good where I am…"

"Who among us is?" Yorick sighed.

They came out into a village square, surrounded by half-timbered shops on three sides, the fourth open to a gloomy castle atop an artificial crag, several hundred yards away. A rough hillside with picturesque, stunted trees led up to its walls.

"Good landscape architect," Rod noted.

"Or set designer." Yorick pointed. "Look."

"My lord, what be these folk?" Gwen asked.

"A group of arcane specialists, dear," Rod answered. "I think they're making a story."

The square was littered with people, most of them in Bavarian peasant costumes, one or two in nineteenth century business suits. Right in among them were people in up-to-date coveralls. Most of them were gathered around a long table fairly groaning with food.

A woman in her early twenties, with a focal headband low on her forehead and her hair tied up in a kerchief, hurried past them. The headband had thickened the air in front of her eyes with twin forcefields, suggesting how she would have looked if she were wearing spectacles, which is what the forcefields were—energy lenses. She carried a computer pad in her left hand. As she passed, she glanced up at them, then jerked to a halt, frowning at Rod and Gwen. "How did the costumer get you into those rigs? You're at least three hundred years out of period! Those outfits are Elizabethan, if they're anything. Go back to Wardrobe and tell them you want nineteenth century Bavarian." She turned to Brother Joey, looking him up and down. "You'll do, but if you've seen one monk, you've seen 'em all." Brother Joey started to protest, but she held up a hand. "No, don't tell me—'Monk, he see; monk, he do.' I've heard it already. I don't remember ordering you, though."

"Maybe somebody else…?" Yorick suggested, grinning hugely.

The young woman threw up her hands. "Producers! What do they expect production secretaries to do, if they keep bypassing 'em and ordering things on their own? Strogan-off!" and she was off, careening through the crowd.

"Stroganoff?" Yorick looked at the table. "Little odd, for breakfast."

"I think it's somebody's name." Brother Joey pointed at someone. "See the plump fellow she's talking to? The one in the gray flannel coverall?"

Yorick nodded. "Probably giving him what-for, about sending for a monk when the script didn't call for it."

"You're enjoying this," Chornoi accused.

"Why not?" Yorick couldn't stifle a chuckle. "I just love other people's mistakes!"

"Do you get the feeling we've wandered into a 3DT set?" Rod asked Brother Joey.

"Oh, of course," the monk confirmed. "Where else would so many weird people seem so normal?"

"What is a '3DT set'?" Gwen asked.

"An absurdity based on a fantasy derived from a reality that never existed," Rod answered. "The abbreviation stands for 'Three-Dimensional Television'—pictures that look and move like real people, but are absolutely artificial. The folk you see there, use 3DT for telling stories. Well, no," he said, correcting himself instantly, "not telling, really— showing. They show a story, as though you were right there, watching it happen."

"Yes, but this story is much more interesting." Brother Joey beamed, watching the actors mill about. "I've been watching these people for three or four days now. They're fascinating, they take so much time to do something that seems so simple!"

"Well, if they're making it look simple, they must be doing it really well." Rod had enough experience trying to run an army, to be sure that managing even a hundred people had to be a minor nightmare.

"My lord," said Gwen, "who are those men with those devices strapped on their shoulders?"

"Camera operators, darling. Those little plastic bulges are 3DT cameras. When they're recording, the men will wear special goggles that sense every movement of their eye muscles, and transmit them to the cameras. Then the camfiras will automatically 'look' wherever the men do."

Chornoi frowned. "I thought they made all these 3DT epics on Luna."

Brother Joey looked up in surprise. "Oh, no! Not since the PEST regime took over Terra and cut off the unprofitable planets. The ones that still had trade operating, adapted— quickly, too! And while they were at it, they developed ways of making their own entertainment. You really didn't know about this?"

"I've been out of circulation for a while," Chornoi said, flustered.

"Cloistered, you might say," Rod put in.

Chornoi glared daggers at him, but Brother Joey nodded with full understanding. "Oh, a retreat? Well, let me explain it to you, then. You see, some of these people were nice enough to explain it all to me. Not the young lady in the kerchief and computer tablet, of course—she's always busy, and she never remembers me from one day to the next. But the 'extras' do—the ones who just dress up like peasants and lurk in the background, bystanding."

"They get paid for that?"

Brother Joey nodded. "So they always have a great deal of time on their hands, and they're glad to talk."

"But how can the company afford it?" Rod looked around, frowning. "This looks like a pretty expensive operation."

"Oh, yes, it certainly is! So when PEST cut them off, they had to work out ways of cutting costs. The main one seems to be specialization: Each 3DT company works in just one genre, and settles down on whichever pleasure-planet has its kind of settings."

"So this company is making a Gothic epic—a horror story," Rod observed. "But didn't PEST want to keep the resort planets?"

"No. Pleasure costs money, so it isn't profitable."

"For the customers, at least." Rod gave him a dry smile. "Never mind how much money it makes for the sellers."

"PEST doesn't. They're rather puritanical."

"Most dictatorships are, during their early years."

"All PEST could see was the amount of money Terran citizens were spending on those 'foreign' planets, so they cut off trade with the resorts. They reasoned that if the dissolute couldn't go to the pleasure-planets, the money would stay at home."

Rod's smile gained real warmth. "I take it that only drove up the price of transportation?"

"Correct. Which did rather hold down the number of people who could come here from Terra."

"Let me guess—most of the ones who do are in the PEST bureaucracy."

"Why, how did you know? You're right, of course—the really wealthy will keep their privileges, no matter who sits on the throne. But it has been hard on the people who live here; they're experiencing some rather lean times."

"But not starving," Rod noted.

Brother Joey shook his head. "No. They're managing, on the handful of Terran patrons, and the few who come in from each of the frontier planets."

"Which makes them a nexus," Rod said softly, "one of the few surviving links between the outlying planets and the shrunken Terran Sphere."

"Yes." Brother Joey looked directly into his eyes. "Some trade survives. Only a trickle, perhaps, but it's there. In both directions."

Yorick grinned. "No wonder our freighter was bound for Otranto."

"The resorts become trade centers." Rod nodded slowly, as understanding dawned. He'd always thought the resort planets of his own time had become Sin Cities to service the merchants. He'd never realized it could have begun the other way.

"And that," Yorick went on, "is why we're here."

"Oh." Brother Joey looked up in surprise. "Did you want to go to Terra?"

Rod opened his mouth, but a short, lean man with white hair and a face with a few wrinkles bawled, "Mirane!"

"Over here, Whitey!" the girl with the computer-pad called back. She dived into the crowd and plowed toward him.

As she came up to him, he said, "About time to roll, isn't it?"

"Eight o'clock," Mirane confirmed. "And all present or accounted for."

'"Accounted for'?" Whitey's eyebrows lifted. "How many are we missing?"

"Only a couple of extras." Mirane touched a few keys on her pad. "A middle-aged peasant and a matron in a babushka."

"Nobody we can't shoot without." Whitey scowled up at the sky. "But we can't start until the clouds cooperate. What is it with that weatherman? He promised us a low overcast, with threatening thunderheads, and all we've got is a high haze!"

"We paid enough for it." Stroganoff, the plump man, joined them, scowling. "Check and find out what happened to it, will you, Mirane?"

The young woman punched buttons on her computer-pad, then pulled a handset from a pouch at her belt and talked into it, frowning at the sky.

The plump man paced. "Hang it, we've got three stars, five supporting actors, and a hundred extras tied up here! We can't afford to waste time on a weatherman who can't deliver!"

"So sue him." Whitey lounged back against a shopfront, hands in his jacket pockets. "You worry too much, Dave."

"Somebody's got to." Dave pinned him with a glare. "It's okay for you to talk, you're just the director!"

"Also the backer," Whitey reminded him. "It's my money we're wasting. Come off it, Dave, relax."

Dave heaved a sigh. "You make it sound good, Whitey. But blast it, we've got a schedule to keep! If we get behind a little every day, pretty soon we'll need an extra day's shooting—and that'll cost you a couple of therms! Besides, we lose Gawain after the twenty-seventh."

"So what's a leading man?" Whitey shrugged. "We'll just have to make sure we get all his scenes shot before then."

"All right, all right! So make sure of it, will you?"

"Oh, all right." Whitey heaved himself up with a sigh and stepped over to a fiftyish woman behind a complicated-looking console. He talked quietly with her a moment, then turned to call out, "Okay, Gawain, Herman, and Clyde! As long as we're waiting, let's run the first part of the scene, before the mob jumps the vampire."

"Where I throw the handkerchief?" asked a little man in a dark blue robe and pointed cap sprinkled with signs of the zodiac.

Whitey nodded. "Let's take it back a bit, to where Gawain has just come out of the inn and seen Herman waiting for him across the plaza."

"Right." A blond young man in a tweed suit stepped up beside Whitey. "I just woke up and found out breakfast wasn't even made yet, right?"

"That's it, Gawain. And a nice young guy like Dr. Vailin wouldn't even dream of waking somebody up just to get him a cup of coffee."

"So I'm stepping out into the false dawn to let the chill wake me up."

Whitey nodded again. "That's right. You enter from camera left, take a deep breath, look around, and see Count Dracula."

"Over there." The young man pointed at the vampire— and frowned. "Aw, come on, Herman! You had all night with that script!"

"Just making sure, lad." The vampire closed the cover on a small computer-pad and handed it to a coveralled brunette. He turned back toward Gawain and straightened his collar. "Now, then: 'It is pleasant, is it not? The air of my Transylvania.'"

"The approach of dawn clears the air," Gawain agreed. "But aren't you becoming careless, my lord? The first rays of the rising sun will touch you quite soon."

"What is existence without risk?" the vampire asked. "Only a dull, endless round of absurdity. Still, I do not hazard greatly; I have yet a little time."

"Thirteen and a half minutes," snapped the little man in the blue gown.

"Ah, my colleague is always precise," Dracula purred. "You have not been introduced, I believe. Dr. Vailin, allow me to present the esteemed sorcerer, Vaneskin Plochayet."

Gawain gave a slight bow. "Charmed."

"Not yet," the sorcerer chuckled, "not yet."

"Not ever," Gawain's face became stern. "The words of Aristotle will preserve me from your illusions, Master Plochayet."

The little sorcerer cackled, and Dracula sneered, "Surely you do not believe that your puny science can avail against our might, young man! You are not now in your native Germany, so far to the north and west! Nor are you in Italy, the Land of Faith; nor Greece, the Land of Reason! Nay, both are…" He broke off, turning to the director. "Damn it, Whitey! Am I supposed to make that sound realistic?"

"Of course not," Whitey retorted, "it's a fantasy. Just make it believable. Come on, come on! 'Greece, the Land of Reason…'"

Herman sighed and turned back to Gawain. "'Nay! Both are my neighbors—and uneasy neighbors they are. For you bide now in Transylvania, home of witchcraft and horror! Southeast of Austria, southwest of Russia we bide, poised between the lands of Reason and the land of feudal darkness, where your Science can have no sway!"

"Not so," Dr. Vailin smiled, almost amused. "Science rules the universe, even this small, forgotten corner—for science is the description of Order, and Order proceeds from the Good. No creature of Evil can stand against its symbol!" He slipped a crucifix from his breast pocket and brandished it. The Count shrieked and cowered, hands raised to ward him from the sight of holiness. But his sorcerer-ally leaped in front of him, hurling something as he shouted an incantation.

It was a silk scarf, and it fluttered to the pavement at his feet.

"Cut!" Whitey bawled, and he turned to the woman behind the console. "Well! That was a majestic flop. What happened, Hilda? The kerchief was supposed to fly across to drape itself over the crucifix!"

Hilda was punching buttons, looking miffed. "Sorry, Whitey. It's the static-charge generator. It was working ten minutes ago, I swear!"

"Don't," Whitey advised, "it's not nice. Get the gremlins out of it, will you?"

"Clouds!" Dave slapped Whitey on the shoulder, pointing at the sky.

Ominous charcoal-colored thunderheads were drifting toward them in full majesty.

Whitey turned to Mirane, beaming. "You got through!"

She nodded. "Just a clerk's foul-up. They promised it'll be nicely ominous within fifteen minutes."

"Awright!" Whitey grinned. "Now we can get to work!" He turned to Hilda. "How soon can you have that static generator fixed?"

Hilda's jaw set. "I'm a special-effects operator, Whitey, not a repairman!"

"Specialists!" Whitey rolled his eyes up. "Preserve me from 'em, Lord—or David. You're closer. Talk to her, will you?" He turned back to Mirane. "What else can we shoot?"

Dave heaved a sigh and rolled over to Hilda. "Don't you know how the gadget works?"

She stared at him for a moment, then blushed and shook her head. "Sorry, Dave. I just push the buttons."

Whitey turned away from Mirane, bawling, "Places for Scene 123!"

Dave stepped up to Mirane. "Where's the nearest electronics tech?"

"They're all kinds of them on this planet," she answered. "Somebody has to keep all those holo effects working. But they're all on salary, Dave, and they've all got regular rounds. I don't think we could get one on less than a day's notice."

"Blast!" Dave scowled. "And I was hoping we could finish up with Clyde and Herman today. Well, no help for it. We'll just have to scratch the scene and pick it up tomorrow. "

Mirane punched keys, and frowned at her pad. "Another day of Clyde and Herman will cost you a therm and a half each. And the minimum crew for an extra day is 843 kwahers."

Dave paled. "That'll put us over budget."

"Uh, your pardon, please." Brother Joey stepped up. "I'm afraid I eavesdropped."

"Not hard," Dave grunted. "We haven't exactly been tiptoeing."

"Perhaps I could help." Brother Joey slipped his screwdriver out. "I'm very good with gadgets and gizindigees."

Dave stared a moment, then smiled with tolerant patience. "This isn't exactly a job for a hobbyist, fella."

"I made a living at it," Brother Joey said, poker-faced. "I used to fix holo gear on spaceliners."

Dave really stared now, his lips parting toward a grin.

"But you're not in the union!" Hilda howled.

"He doesn't have to be; we aren't on Luna now." Dave grinned wickedly. "Or anywhere within the Terran Sphere, for that matter—so we don't have unions yet."

"Well, we ought to," Hilda grumbled.

"Why, Hildie?" one of the camera ops said. "If we had, you couldn't've gotten in—or any of us, except Harve, here. He's the only one who had an uncle in the union."

Harve nodded. "Besides, union max was twenty kwahers a day below what they're paying us here."

"Bribery," Hilda snipped. "Lousy union-busters."

"No, victims." Harve grinned wickedly. "There ain't too many of us out here, Hilda. We can call down top money."

"It's right here, I think," Brother Joey called, his head and shoulders inside an access hatch. "The trouble, I mean. A weak chip."

"How canst thou tell?" Gwen knelt beside the hatch, peering in with avid interest.

Rod listened with growing trepidation as Brother Joey explained about test meters. Gwen's infatuation with technology was really beginning to be depressing.

"Paranoid?" Chornoi asked at his shoulder.

"Always," Rod assured her.

"Turn it off, please." Brother Joey pulled himself out of the hatch and looked up at Hilda. "Let it cool down."

Tight-lipped, she stabbed at a button, and the telltale lights died.

Brother Joey stood up, dusting off his hands, and turned to the producer. "That chip quits when it overheats. Just get it to a circuit-doctor, and have him put in a new one."

Dave pressed a hand to his forehead. "You mean we have to scrap the scene, after all?"

"No, of course not. Just have somebody run over to the multi-shop and pick up a freezer. You know, one of the little plug-in sticks for cooling down martinis? I'll frost that chip for you just before you run the scene. That'll get you through the day."

"My savior!" Dave grabbed him by the shoulders.

"No, that's my boss." Brother Joey held up a cautioning forefinger. "But I get paid, you know. In my business, we have to pull our own weight. The chapter house is too far away to send me a salary."

"Union rates plus!" Dave turned to Mirane. "Send a gopher for a freezer, will you?"

"He's on his way."

"That's my girl!" Dave spun away too fast to see Mirane blush. "We just have to wait for this scene, Whitey."

"I was going to, anyway." Whitey surveyed the ersatz peasant mob. "Hey, wait a minute—who put the monk in with the farmers?"

Mirane stepped up beside him, frowning. "He's in costume. And that outfit goes with any period—after 1100 ad., of course."

"Yeah, but the poor vampire wouldn't stand a chance with a priest in the crowd. Besides, look at that little yellow screwdriver in his pocket. They never had those in nineteenth century Transylvania." He turned to Dave. "Who hired him for this scene?"

Dave opened his mouth, but Brother Joey answered, "Nobody."

Mirane was touching computer keys again. "He's right. I checked off all the extras, and he's not included." She looked up at Rod, frowning. "None of you are."

"Never claimed to be," Rod confirmed.

Dave was frowning. "Uh, come over here a second, would you?"

Rod and Gwen exchanged glances, then stepped over to the producer.

"I hate to seem rude," Dave muttered, "but if you weren't hired for this scene, what're you doing here?"

Rod shrugged. "Just watching."

"Tourists!" Dave heaved a martyred sigh. "How do you keep 'em out? Look, folks, I appreciate your interest, but we can't have you mixing in with the cast. Just too many legal problems."

"Well, that's show biz," Yorick sighed.

"Very short career," Rod agreed.

"'Twas pleasant, whilst it endured," Gwen concurred.

"Urn, I don't mean to give you the bum's rush, especially since we just hired your friend, here, below-the-line." Dave nodded toward Brother Joey. "You're welcome to watch, if you want to. Just stand way behind the camera ops, okay?"

"I shall surely watch!" Gwen stepped over to Brother Joey and knelt down to study what he was doing. Apprehension prickled Rod's spine.

"Figure it out?" Whitey asked, stepping up.

"Yeah—and I appointed them guests." Dave waved toward Whitey. "This is the director, folks. His name's Tod Tambourin."

Chornoi stared. So did Rod. Even Yorick looked impressed.

"Yes," Dave sighed, "the Tod Tambourin."

"The poet laureate of the Terran Sphere?" Chornoi gasped.

"Not anymore," Whitey assured her. "PEST took the laurels away. They didn't like my verses—decided I favored individualism too much. Horrible, immoral concepts, you know, such as 'freedom' and 'human rights.'"

Chornoi paled. "PEST did that?"

"Hey!" Yorick clasped her shoulder. "Don't take it personally. It's not as though you did it."

"But I did," she breathed, "I did."

"So did every person who voted extra power to the Executive Secretary," Whitey snorted, "but I'm not about to blame each one of 'em." He shrugged. "Besides, they're paying for it now, anyway. Just a bunch of poor suckers, that's all."

"Yes," Chornoi whispered, "we were."

"Hey, don't let it bog you down! Spend too much time cursing yourself for what you did yesterday, and you'll hamstring yourself for tomorrow! Besides…" Whitey shrugged. "I never was too comfortable being 'Tod Tambourin,' anyway. Always preferred being 'Whitey the Wino.'"

Chornoi stared. Then she straightened, and her mouth finned with resolution.

"Well! Always glad to have admirers around." Whitey turned to pump Rod's hand. "What do you think of my show?"

"Uh…" Rod cast a look of appeal to Gwen. "You wrote the script for this epic?"

"Yeah, me." Whitey frowned. "What is it? What don't you like?"

Rod took a deep breath and plunged. "Little on the wordy side, isn't it?"

"Hm." Whitey gazed at him, scowling.

Then he turned to Mirane. "Call Gawain over here, will you? And Clyde and Herman." He gazed off into space, abstracted.

Rod turned to Dave with a word of apology on his lips, but Dave held up a palm. "Shh! He's working."

The actors came up, and Whitey said, "Herman, take it from, 'You are not now in your native Germany,' will you?"

Herman frowned. '"You are not now in your native Germany, so far to the north and west! Nor are you in…'"

"All right, cut!" Whitey chopped down with his hand. "Condense it, Herman. How would your character say it?"

Herman stared at him for a moment, then smiled and said, '"Surely you do not believe that puny science can prevail against me, young man!'"

Mirane stared up at him, her finger keying the dictation mode on her keypad.

"'You are in my Transylvania now, not in your native Germany, where logic prevails!'" Herman went on. "'No, you are caught between Faith and Reason to the west, and witchcraft and superstition to the east…'"

"That's enough." Whitey chopped crosswise with his hand. "I get the point; I tried to work in too much geography at one blow. Okay, let's try it this way: Uh… 'You are trapped here, young man—trapped in Transylvania, trapped between the logic of Germany, to the west, and the superstition of Russia, to the east.'"

"Dracula would keep the 'my Transylvania,'" Herman said softly.

Whitey nodded. "Right. Yeah, he would." He flashed a glare at Rod. "Always listen to the actors, because they know the characters better than the writer does."

"But the writer created those characters!" Chornoi objected.

"But the actor re-creates the character his own way," Whitey corrected her. "If I get an actor to portray my character, it ceases to be just mine anymore. It becomes that actor's character, even more than mine, or the actor will do a lousy job." He turned back to Herman with a grin. "But I get the final say."

"Only because you hired the producer," Clyde snorted. "It's immoral, young man—the Executive Producer doing his own directing."

"It's my money, and I'll spend it as I like, old-timer. Now—'You are trapped in Transylvania, my Transylvania, the land of superstition… no… the land of Superstition and Sorcery… no, Superstition and Black Magic… where Science can have no sway!'"

They went on, overhauling the section of dialogue. When they were done, Mirane reminded, "We were going to shoot the scene with the peasants."

"Of course!" Whitey struck his forehead with the heel of his hand. "How much time have we wasted?"

"Not a second," Dave assured him. "We'll make it all back, because it'll be a better epic. But we should shoot all the day's scenes, Whitey."

"Right! Back to your places!" Whitey spun to the camera ops. "George, you go over by the south wall. Harve, over here, next to me!"

"That's one disadvantage of the writer doing his own directing," Dave confided to Rod. "A separate director could have been shooting a different scene, while he was overhauling this one."

"But how can he?" Chornoi cried. "How can he allow his deathless prose to be violated this way?"

Whitey heard her, and turned back, raising a hand. "Guilty. I hereby confess to writing deathless prose, on occasion— and even immortal verse, now and then. But when I do, I do it alone, with only a split of vin ordinaire for company, and I do it for me, myself, only. It's pure self-indulgence, of course—'art for art's sake' really means 'art for the artist's sake.' It's the sheer personal gratification of doing something as well as I can possibly do it, of expressing my feelings, my view of existence, my self—and it's for me, alone. Oh, I don't mind if other people read it, and it's nice if they like it. Sure, I enjoy praise; I'm human, too. But that's just a by-product, a side issue." He looked around at the crowd of actors and technicians. "This—this is another matter. It's another thing entirely. This script, I wrote for other people, and I make it with a host of other people. If no one else ever hears it or sees it, it will have failed. Worse, it'll be absurd, without purpose. Without an audience, it's incomplete."

He turned back to Herman and Gawain. "Okay, Mirane'll tidy that up and get hard copies for you. But let's tape it with the script the way it is first, just in case."

The vampire and the hero nodded happily and went back to their places. The little sorcerer followed, grumbling contentedly.

"Places!" Mirane spoke into a ring on her index finger, and her voice boomed out of a loudspeaker. "Quiet on the set."

"Mist," Whitey said quietly.

Fog seemed to grow out of the ground, rising up to obscure Herman and Clyde.

"Lights," Whitey commanded.

High in the air, light suddenly glared from six spots. The two camera operators sauntered out to the side and turned toward the actors. Everyone was silent for a moment, then Harve said, "Balanced."

"Ditto," George called.

Whitey nodded. "Roll."

"Rolling," the camera ops responded.

"Confirm," said a man at a console behind Whitey.

"Action," Whitey called.

The set was quiet a moment longer. Then Gawain came out of the hotel, looked around him with a bemused smile, and inhaled deeply.

"It is pleasant, is it not?" said a sepulchral voice with a heavy accent. "The air of my Transylvania."

The mist thinned, gradually revealing the tall, cloaked figure and the stooped, gnarled silhouette behind him.

"The approach of dawn clears the air," Gawain agreed, and the scene went on.

Whitey stood by, approving, at peace.

Finally, Clyde stepped forward, hurling the silk kerchief. Hilda watched, alert, pushing sliders and twisting a knob, and the kerchief fluttered straight at Gawain, settling over the crucifix. Herman grinned, showing his fangs, but this time everyone froze. Silence enveloped the set again.

Then Whitey sighed, and called, "Cut."

Everyone relaxed, and Herman came striding out of the mist, grinning and chatting with Clyde. Gawain grinned and turned away to have a word with a young lady. Noise swelled up, as everyone started chattering, released from the thralldom of silence.

Whitey turned to Rod with a raised eyebrow. "Little better that time?"

"Uh… yeah!" Rod stared, astounded. "It, uh… it helps to do it for real, huh?"

"Yeah, it does." Whitey turned and looked around. "But the new dialogue will make it work better." He turned back to Rod with a smile. "It only seems natural if you don't break the spell, you see."

Rod gazed at him for a moment, then said, "No, I don't think I do. You mean the old dialogue might make the audience realize they were just watching a show?"

"It might," Whitey said. "If it stood out for you, it might distract them. Then we might as well have never come to this place. Our work here would have been wasted." He smiled suddenly. "But I don't think the new version will distract anybody. No. It'll hold their attention."

Rod frowned. "Why do you care about that so much? Isn't it enough just to know you did the job right?"

Whitey shook his head. "If the audience is bored, they'll spread the word, and nobody'll buy the cube to view, and if nobody buys a copy, we won't make money. If we don't make money, we can't make any more epics."

"But that's not the main reason."

"No, of course not." Whitey grinned. "Let's get down to basics—if nobody watches it, there was no point in making it."

"What point?" Rod demanded. "You've been the top poet of your time! Your place in history is guaranteed, and so is your bankroll, if you can afford to make an epic like this! Why should you sully your reputation by making 3DT epics?"

"Because people need to learn things," Whitey said, "or they'll let themselves fall prey to slavemasters—the way the Terrans actually voted in the PEST regime. And that hurts me, because I want everybody to be free to read what I write. I don't want to take a chance that some censor might lock up my manuscript and not let anyone read it. So I'm going to teach them what they need to know, to insist on staying free."

"With a horror story? A Dracula spectacula?" Rod exclaimed.

"You've got it," Whitey affirmed. "Even this, just a cheap work of entertainment, can do it. What'll they learn? Oh, just a few random bits about Terran geography. After all, most people don't know where Transylvania was, or how the Dracula legend came to be, so we give them just a few facts about that. And along with it, just a touch of the history of Terra's Europe—and the peasants' struggle out of the chains of feudalism. Just a few facts, mind you; just a dozen, in a whole two hours. But if they watch two hours and twelve facts every day of their lives, they can learn enough to yell 'No!' when the next man on horseback comes riding in."

"You're a teacher!" Rod exploded. "On the sly! This is covert action! Subversive education!"

"I'll plead guilty again." Whitey grinned. "But I can't claim all the credit. Most of these techniques, I picked up from a cheery old reprobate on a frontier planet."

"Cholly!"

"Oh, you've met him?" Whitey grinned again. "Charles T. Barman, officially."

"I, uh, did hear something of the, uh, sort…"

"The rogue educator," Whitey said, "the only professor living who doesn't worry about tenure. Business, maybe, but not tenure. Strog and I spent a year with him out on Wolmar. Quite a chap, that. Couldn't believe how much he taught me—and at my age!" He grinned. "Not that I didn't throw him a curve or two. Dave and I thought up some techniques between us that he'd never dreamed of."

But his words had suddenly moved away from Rod, become remote. He was remembering that Whitey the Wino had been the creative force behind the DDT's mass-education movement. It had culminated in the coup d'etat that eliminated PEST, and brought in the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal of his own times. But the history books hadn't exactly stressed the fact that Whitey the Wino was the same person as the revered, austere poet, Tod Tambourin.

He'd been quiet too long; Whitey's attention had strayed.

He turned away to call the extras, bustling around to set them up in a rough semicircle, facing toward the cameras. A portly man in a tan coverall moved among them, passing out flails and pitchforks.

"And you two lounge out here in the middle for your dialogue." Whitey waved, shooing two actors into place. "Come on, now, hit your marks! You know, ninety degrees to each other! Upstage man sets up the over-the-shoulder! Okay, let's run through the lines."

"I don't know… maybe we shouldn't try it," the innkeeper said through his walrus mustache.

"We got to try it," the old farmer answered, testing one of his pitchfork points with a finger. "Ow! Ya, that's sharp enough."

"To do what?" the innkeeper was irritated. "To poke him in his zitsfleisch? What good is that going to do with a vampire, hanh?"

"You talk like an old woman," the farmer snorted. "The pitchfork is just to hold him off while we get a rope around him."

"He'll just go to bat," the innkeeper warned.

The farmer shrugged. "So? We'll have Lugorf standing by with his butterfly net. Sooner or later, we slam the stake through his heart."

"And then what?" The innkeeper spread his hands. "So he lies there in his coffin for twenty, thirty years. Sooner or later, some young idiot who's looking for a reputation will go down there and pull out the stake, and where will we be? Right where we are now."

"We've done it before," the farmer maintained, "and we'll do it again."

"Again, and again, and again," the innkeeper moaned. "How many times do we have to go through it?"

"How many times did our ancestors have to?" the fanner growled. "Five hundred years they've been cleaning up his messes!"

"Five hundred years?" The innkeeper frowned. "That was the first of them—back when 'Dracula' was a title, not a name."

"That's right. It meant 'dragon,' didn't it? Shame on them, giving dragons a bad name like that!"

"At least dragons didn't hurt people for the fun of it," the innkeeper agreed. "At least, that's what they say about the first one."

"His name was 'Vlad.' They called him 'the Impaler.'"

The innkeeper nodded. "I remember. This mountain country was just a bunch of tiny kingdoms then, wasn't it?"

"Ya. No Kingdom bigger than a hundred miles each way, but their rulers called themselves kings." The farmer shook his head. "What a life for our poor ancestors! Trying to scratch a living out of scraps of level ground, whenever they weren't busy dodging whichever petty king had a war going at the moment!"

"Always fighting," the innkeeper grumbled, "always a battle. It wasn't any better the first time they woke him, a hundred years later…"

Rod listened, amazed, as the two men gossiped through a three-minute history of the Balkans, as seen through the eyes of a couple of Transylvanian peasants. It was ridiculous, it was asinine—and it was working.

"So stick a stake in his sternum… and, at least, we get twenty years of peace," the farmer reminded the innkeeper. "Maybe that doesn't mean much to you, but my cattle start looking pale when there aren't enough gullible people around."

"Where do you think the gullible people stay away from?" the innkeeper retorted. "My inn! Maybe you've got a point. No matter how you bite it, the Count's bad for business."

"So we nail him down again," the farmer sighed, hefting his pitchfork, "and twenty years from now, our sons take their turn. So? You do what you have to do to make a living, right?"

"Right." The innkeeper nodded. "Each generation has to kill its own vampire. You don't stop planting crops just because there's a drought."

"Right," the farmer agreed, "and you don't…"

Out of the corner of his eye, Rod saw the arm whirl, saw the pitchfork fly. "Down!" he bellowed, and leaped into a dive at Chornoi. His shoulder slammed into her as she howled in anger. She chopped at him as he tried to untangle himself enough to stand up, then managed to get a one-handed choke hold—and froze, staring at the pitchfork sticking in the ground, its handle still vibrating.

Rod knocked her hand loose, bawling, "Stop him!" He leaped to his feet, whirling toward the mob of extras, just in time to see the ersatz peasant disappear into the crowd. Rod bellowed and leaped after him.

The crowd parted, giving him plenty of room.

It made a nice lane—just in time. At its far end, Rod saw the "peasant" disappearing into an alley.

Gwen caught a broomstick out of the hands of a stunned extra, leaped on it, and shot off after the "peasant."

Hilda stared after her, then gave her head a quick shake and scowled down at her console. "Now, how the hell did I do that?"

Rod sped down the lane and into the alley. He was just in time to see the "peasant" disappearing around a corner. Rod kicked into overdrive and pelted after him.

The "peasant" dashed back out. Rod stared, then launched himself into a flying tackle. But the "peasant" saw him coming and jumped forward, and Rod smashed into the pavement with a howl of rage. He landed judo-fashion, but pain seared his side.

"Down!" Gwen cried.

Rod did a good imitation of a pancake, just in time for Gwen to flash by directly above him on the broomstick.

He rolled to his feet, shaking his head, and hobbled after her with a limping run.

A block later, he saw Gwen coming toward him, carrying her broomstick. "What's the matter?" he called. "Isn't this backwards? I thought it was supposed to be carrying you."

"I had no wish to scandalize those who live here," she explained.

"Honey, this is the one planet in the whole Terran Sphere where they wouldn't think much of it. They might ask you how you did the effect, though. I take it our man got away?"

Gwen nodded. "There is a town square. From it doth open many streets."

"Here, let me see." Rod limped on past her. The street curved and ended in a plaza, where five narrow, crooked streets fanned out amid tottering houses. The lanes twisted away out of sight.

Rod stood in the center, looking about him and shaking his head. "Right, lady. He could have gone down any one of them."

"Aye," Gwen agreed. "We have lost him."

Rod glowered from one street to another, remembering the pitchfork sticking in the ground. "The bastard almost got Chornoi. Didn't take them long to find us, did it?"

"Peace, husband." Gwen laid a gentle hand on his arm. "The man himself is of no consequence. E'en an thou wert to slay him, a dozen more like to him would spring up."

"Like dragon's teeth," Rod agreed. "The one we need to get is the one who's sending them out. But we don't even know what outfit he works for!"

"Is he not of our old enemies from tomorrow?"

"SPITE or VETO? I'd thought so, but that ersatz extra was after Chornoi, not us."

"Gwen's eyes widened. "Her erstwhile employers?"

"The PEST secret police." Rod nodded. "Probably. I was right when I said we'd be a marked crew if we took her along."

Gwen's hand tightened on his arm. "We cannot desert her."

"No," Rod agreed, "we can't. Besides, we still need a native of this era to guide us. Okay, so we could probably find one who isn't as big a potential liability as Chornoi, but we'd still have GRIPE and/or VETO after us."

"Thou dost but seek to discover reasons," Gwen accused. "When all's said and done, thou'lt not abandon a companion."

"Probably," Rod admitted. "Sometimes I wish I had as high an opinion of me as you do."

Gwen smiled, and slipped her arm through his. "That is my province, my lord. Thou mayest entrust it to me."

"Then I will." Rod smiled down at her. "And try to perform the same function for you."

"Not too well," she murmured, as his face came closer. "'Tis drafty, placed up so high."

"Oh, come down off your pedestal for a moment!" Rod muttered. Then his lips brushed, touched, and claimed hers.

A minute or two later, she murmured, "We must preserve those poor folk from Yorick."

"Yeah," Rod sighed, clasping her hand around his arm as he turned back. "We must save those poor, innocent city folks from our Stone Age country slicker."

As they came back to the shooting site, they heard a voice protesting, "But we weren't really planning it that way…"

"Darn straight you weren't." Whitey's voice was grim. "In fact, this whole elaborate explanation has the definite ring of an ad-lib. Now, what say we try it again—with the truth?"

"If you say so," Yorick sighed, "but you're not going to believe this."

"So what else is new?"

"We are… or at least, two of my friends are. They were born about five hundred years from now. And there's an interstellar organization out to get them. It kidnapped them and dumped them back here."

Whitey just stared at him for a moment, then said, "You're right. I don't believe you."

"Then try this," Chornoi snapped. "I used to be a spy for the LORDS. That's right, I'm one of the ones who got us all into this mess! But after the coup, I realized what an amoral, calloused cadre they were, and tried to quit, so they sent me to Wolmar. Gwen Gallowglass and her husband got me out of there, and I'm trying to guide them to Terra."

Whitey stared at her while the slight remaining amount of color drained out of his albino face. Then he said, "That, I believe." He turned to Stroganoff. "Take over, Dave. I suddenly got hit with a yen for a stroll."

"Sounds good to me, too." Stroganoff was pale as a skid row bum with an air conditioned bar available. He turned to Mirane. "Tell 'em to go home."

"Home?" Mirane yelped. "Are you crazy? They each have to be paid for the full day; it's in their contracts!"

"Do it," Whitey said grimly. "It's cheaper than a coffin."

Mirane stared at him for a moment, then threw her computer-pad up in despair. She turned to the cast and crew, stretching out a hand to catch the pad. "Okay, that's it for the day! Strike the setup and go home!"

One or two of the extras cheered, but the principal actors and the technicians stared at her, then scowled and started packing up.

Mirane watched them for a moment, then turned to Whitey. "You run a good company. This is the first time I've ever seen a crew who'd rather finish the shoot than have the day off."

"They're good kids," Whitey agreed, "but I'd rather be shooting with them tomorrow, than having them come to my funeral." He turned to Rod, Gwen, Yorick, Chornoi, and Brother Joey. "I think you'd better come with me."

"I'm not sure whether it's safer with us, or away from us," Stroganoff explained to Mirane.

"Neither am I, but I don't feel safe alone."

Dave nodded. "Let's go, then."

They hurried to catch up with the cortege.

As they came up, Rod was saying, "Why a casino?"

"Safest place," Whitey explained, "except for a dream-house. I mean, you're out there in public, where plenty of people are watching you, and the management doesn't want any unpleasant scenes for the patrons."

"I like the dreamhouse idea better." Chornoi had a happy, faraway look.

"So do I," Whitey grunted. "Whether it's a PEST agent who's after you or not, he's on a free planet now, and he has to adhere to local laws. And the dreamhouses are very good at keeping unwanted clients out." He turned to Rod. "Stroganoff and I aren't exactly popular with PEST, either."

Dave nodded. "They know about our epics. And they know that education is the dictator's enemy."

"And the easiest way to stop your epics is to stop you?"

"Like a dropped watch." Whitey nodded. "If there's an agent after your friend Chornoi, he might decide to bump us off, too."

Chornoi screeched to a halt. "Bye-bye." She turned away.

"Come back here." Yorick put out a hand to catch her, then snatched it back as she whirled, chopping out. "See? I knew I could stop you."

"There's not much point in going off by yourself, Miz," Whitey said. "If there's an assassin on the planet, we're in danger. The only difference in having you with us is that we have some idea of where the bastard is."

Chornoi hesitated.

Stroganoff nodded. "It's easier to duck when you know where the knives are coming from."

"There speaks a true organization man," Yorick muttered.

"But a dreamhouse is out." Whitey started walking again. "There's the little matter of cash; I don't have enough of it."

Stroganoff nodded. "Every penny's tied up in this epic."

"We're a little short ourselves," Rod said.

"When PEST took over Terra," Whitey went on, "they also took over my royalties. Oh, not that they've attached my earnings, or anything, but they're censoring the mail, and they won't let my agent send me a check. So the royalties are there, piling up nicely in a trust fund on Terra, and no doubt they'll do my heirs all kinds of good, five hundred years from now—but that doesn't help much, at the moment."

Rod had a faraway look in his eyes. "You say we're going to a casino?"

"Take your choice." Whitey turned to him with a dry smile. "The planet's lousy with 'em. Every pleasure-planet is." But he frowned at the look in Rod's eye, then suddenly grinned and slapped his thigh. "Of course! If your ecclesiastical friend can fix a static generator, he can gimmick a roulette wheel as easy as pi!"

Brother Joey went pale. "Rig a roulette wheel? My heavens, that would be stealing!"

"So what do you think the house is doing?" Whitey demanded. "Come on, Brother, all we're asking is that you make the machines shave a few percentage points in our favor."

"No." Brother Joey's jaw firmed. "I couldn't possibly do anything so immoral."

"That's right, preserve your integrity," Whitey sighed, "and more power to you. Brother, for sticking to your principles. But that still leaves us without admission to a dream-house."

"Oh, not necessarily." Rod was gazing at his wife. "That wasn't exactly what I had in mind, anyway."

Gwen had gained an abstracted, dreamy, fascinated gaze. "'Twould be but a matter of having some whirling wheel come to stop where we wished it to, would it not? Or causing a pair of dice to fall as we chose?"

"That's right, nothing heavy-duty. Think you can handle it, dear?"

"I will be delighted to essay it," Gwen answered, with a smile that made Rod shiver. After all, he knew what she could do when she put her mind to it.

Whitey frowned. "What is she—a telekinetic?"

"Among other things," Yorick muttered.

"Well, well!" Whitey offered Gwen his arm. "Allow me to escort you, Ms. Gallowglass!"

"Lady," she corrected.

"Would I be seen with anything else? Where a reporter can see me, anyway. Shall we go?"

They sauntered off toward the nearest casino, with Rod, Chornoi, Yorick and Brother Joey in tow. Dave and Mirane exchanged glances and followed.

"Lesjeux sontfaits," the croupier pronounced. He wore a satin dressing gown, muttonchop whiskers, and a stuffed raven on his shoulder. At least, Rod thought it was stuffed, but it kept turning its head to regard him with a beady ruby eye. A robot, no doubt, but was its eye really a lens for a surveillance camera?

"Les jeux sontfaits," the croupier said again, "the bets are made."

"The die is cast?" Rod suggested.

"Non, monsieur," the croupier said primly. "We play roulette at this table, not hazard."

"Oh! My apologies." Rod bit his lip in consternation; the last thing he wanted was to stand out enough for the croupier to recognize him.

The wheel spun, and Rod gazed at it, fascinated. He had lost most of the 10-therm stake Yorick had given him, before he had begun to get the knack of just how hard to think at the hopping ball. But he'd picked it up, bit by bit, and was now winning seven games out of thirteen. That was enough; he'd made back his stake, and his profits were rising slowly but steadily. On the other hand, he wasn't winning so flagrantly as to attract notice.

Since this was his turn to lose, he glanced around the room, seeking out his companions. They were easy to find in the midst of all these mock werewolves, vampires, ancestral ghosts, and decadent aristocrats. Especially the decadent aristocrats; they seemed to be in fashion this year. Rod couldn't decide whether it was the 'aristocrat' part, or the 'decadent,' that made those disguises so attractive to the tourists.

But Rod's people were dressed in ordinary coveralls or, in Gwen's case, in Renaissance peasant garb. They were definitely conspicuous—and that worried Rod, but there was nothing he could do about it.

They seemed to be doing a good job of keeping a low profile in other ways, though. Whitey had given them a brief lecture on how to win and get away with it. "Lose a lot. But make the odd win bigger than all the little losses, so that you make an overall profit. Don't make any fortunes, though, just a dozen therms or so. When we pool our winnings, we'll have enough to buy safe hiding."

They'd paid attention, and seemed to be doing well. Gwen was just one of many at the craps table; and, if her pile of chips was growing steadily larger than those of the other players, nobody seemed to be taking any particular notice of it. Yorick was building up large stacks of chips at the poker table; Whitey was busy demonstrating that he was a better whist player than the dealer. Stroganoff and Mirane were making a valiant try at contract bridge, but doing their part for the overall image of the group by losing—and Brother Joey was walking around in a daze.

Rod turned back to the table, satisfied—everything was going according to plan.

"Red twenty-one," the dealer called, and Rod stared as a pile of chips slid over in front of him. Then he shrugged, scooped them into his palm, and turned away.

"Monsieur?" the croupier inquired politely.

"I'm going to quit while I'm ahead," Rod explained. "That last win wasn't supposed to happen." And he sauntered away from the table, leaving the croupier staring after him. "Red twenty-one," he murmured, and that reminded him; he ambled over to the blackjack table. He'd always wondered if the casino version was really an honest game, and this was his chance to find out. Who better to play blackjack against the house than a mind reader?

Behind the bar at the far end of the hall, the huge 3DT tank suddenly went black, drawing bleats of protest from the loyal few who'd been watching a particularly obnoxious melodrama. Then it lit up again to show a benign, handsome face three feet high, with steel-gray hair turning white at the temples. "Fellow citizens." The face looked stern. "And you, honored guests. The Government of Otranto has just been notified that four dangerous criminals landed their spacer illegally on the surface of our fair planet, during the darkest hours of last night."

Rod's head snapped up. He stared at the screen, then covered and turned back to fix his gaze on the blackjack jle. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that his companions had done the same thing, except for Gwen and Whitey, who were so wrapped up in their games that they didn't seem to have noticed.

"These criminals are convicts, who have escaped from the prison-planet Wolmar," the voice went on. "The High Vampire has just confirmed the report, and believes the criminals are at large on Otranto."

The screen dissolved to a picture of Rod. It was an atrocious likeness, really, obviously a candid, taken while Rod was running somewhere, and he'd never really looked best from his left profile—but he had to admit, with a sinking heart, that it was recognizable.

"This man is their ringleader," the unseen announcer went on, "currently traveling under the name of Gallowglass."

The picture dissolved to a shot of Gwen. Even in a mug shot, she was beautiful.

"These are his accomplices," the announcer went on, "a woman, posing as his wife…"

Rod sneaked a quick peek, and was relieved to see that the other patrons were all staring avidly at their games— well, almost all. And none of the croupiers were looking; his own dealer had a clamped and rigid jaw, but he was staring firmly at the cards. No doubt they'd been warned about such distractions, and about what unscrupulous but light-fingered customers do while a dealer's back was turned.

Chornoi's picture was on the screen. "… a young woman," the announcer went on, "no doubt unaware of the company into which she has strayed…"

"Twenty-one," the dealer admitted, as he laid a black jack onto the top of Rod's hand.

"Uh—thanks." Rod slid the chips into his purse and stood up. "Think I need a drink."

"… and a very burly man of particularly repellent aspect," the announcer finished, as a picture of Yorick appeared in the tank. "He even looks like a brute."

"He's talking about you, you know," Rod muttered into Yorick's ear.

"Not a word of truth in it," the caveman said automatically. He looked up. "I don't mean to gripe, Major, but I've got a hell of a hand going, here, and… HUH?"

"These convicts are presumed armed, and are highly dangerous." The announcer was back on the screen, gazing somberly out at the customers. "Please, if you are a right-minded citizen who values your personal safety, and the safety of your beloved Otranto—if you see any one or more of these criminals, notify a Public Safety official immediately."

He droned on, but Yorick said grimly, "I think I got the gist of it."

"So does he," Rod pointed out. "In fact, he's got the gist of both of us. Not to mention…"

"So don't." Yorick's glance flicked around the room. He sat up a little straighter, and the grim set of his mouth actually seemed to be curving in a slight smile.

"Damn it," Rod hissed, "you're enjoying this!"

"No, but I get a thrill out of it. If I didn't, I'd go into another line of work." Yorick looked up at Rod, his eyes narrowed. "Look, my face was on the screen; they might recognize me. Or you, for that matter—or Chornoi, or Lady Gallowglass. We'll have to depend on our local friends for a way out of this."

Rod looked furtively over his head at Whitey. "Think we can trust him?"

"You know his history as well as I do, Major. And, as they've pointed out, they're in kind of the same class of pickle jar as ourselves."

"So we can trust them—as much as we can trust anybody here." Rod slapped Yorick's shoulder. "You might think about cashing in your chips."

Yorick nodded. "At the end of the play. I don't want to look conspicuous."

This was analogous to a wolf claiming he didn't want to stand out in a flock of sheep, but Rod let it pass. He sauntered over to the whist table where Whitey was holding away, the gleam of battle in his eye. Rod leaned down and murmured, "The party's over."

"You're out of your mind," Whitey snorted. "I'm on a roll."

"The ones who're going to be rolling you, are the neighborhood police. Their local hallucination was just on the screen, identifying me and my three companions as dangerous criminals. He even showed the nice people our pictures."

"I fold." Whitey laid down his cards, raked in his chips, and stood up. The dealer looked up in surprise, but Whitey was already on his way over to the cashier's cage. "You'd better round up your crew. I'll get Dave and Mirane moving."

Rod nodded. "Meet you at the exit." He turned away toward the craps table and sidled up to a comely woman who was staring at the dice in fascination, lower lip caught between her teeth, a damp strand of hair straggling loose at the side of her forehead. "Sorry to interrupt, dear, but I think you'd better wrap it up."

"Tis what I'm attempting, yet they have so cursedly much money that I nearly despair of gaining it all."

"Spoken like a true housewife." Rod glanced at the mountain of chips in front of her, then stared in horror. "My lord! They'll never let us out of here with all that!"

"Assuredly thou canst make it to disappear, and appear again where we may find it." Gwen shook the dice in her hand.

"No!" Rod hissed. "Don't you remember what Whitey said? If we win too much, they'll steal it back!"

"Not whiles I've breath in my body!"

"They can fix that. Not that they'll have to; the whole casino just got the message that the four of us are on the lam. Showed everyone our pictures, too."

Gwen froze, paling. "Wherefore did I not hear this message?"

"You were a little preoccupied."

Gwen held still a moment longer, then nodded once. "True."

With her free hand, she shoved about half her pile of chips out. The croupier stared at the mound, astonished. Then Gwen's arm flashed down, and the dice sprang out, bounced up against the board, and fell back onto the baize, two gleaming ivories with single black dots in the center.

The croupier released his breath with a hiss. "Snake eyes!"

"Oh!" Gwen clenched her fists in exasperation. "I've lost!" She stooped to scoop her chips into her apron. "Well, I've wisdom enough to quit while I may."

"Naw, you can get it back. Come on, double or nothing," the croupier urged.

Gwen shook her head with decision. "I thank thee, but I've wanted to try my skill at that little hopping ball within the wheel."

The croupier relaxed, with only a slight smile. "Right, lady. Roulette. Yeah, go ahead." And he smiled, showing fangs.

Gwen hurried away with Rod. "Wherefore did that man not recognize me from this picture thou sayest all did see?"

"The house personnel were careful not to look. They figured it might be part of a swindle—somebody putting a fake squawk on the tank to distract them, while their partners cleaned up the tables." Rod saw Yorick heading away from the cage, sliding a billfold back inside his tunic. "Just hand your chips to the man inside the wire net, dear. He'll give you bills for them."

"But wherefore is he gaoled?"

"The wire's to keep us out, not to keep him in. When you have your money, go over by the doorway; I'll meet you there. Right now, I have to go pry Chornoi loose." He steered her toward the cage and left her there. Then Rod turned away toward the fourth member of his crew, but saw Yorick bending over, muttering into her ear. She sat very still, then deliberately set about finishing the hand. Rod approved; she wasn't going to look suspicious, no matter how much it hurt. He turned to find Whitey chatting with Mirane, who was growing paler by the syllable, and saw Dave saunter around the perimeter of the room, admiring the wallpaper—no doubt looking for the back door.

Then, across the big room, Brother Joey waved, catching Stroganoff's attention. The monk must have found an "Authorized Personnel Only" door. Rod turned toward Gwen just as she came up beside him, shaking her head as she held up a wad of bills. "I still cannot believe, my lord, that mere ink on paper can have such worth."

"Don't worry, we'll spend it before the rest of them catch on." Rod tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. "Let's meander on over toward Brother Joey, dear. He seems to have found a bolthole."

Gwen frowned. "Wherefore might we not go out as we came in?"

"What, broke? Oh, you mean the main entrance! No, there is a chance it might be guarded. Besides, you remember the doorman? You know, the one wearing the ghost makeup and the shroud, who looked so bored? Odds are he was watching the tank, even if nobody else was. No, I think we'd better settle for what our good Brother has found."

Ten feet from the door, someone behind them gasped and yelled, "That's them! The people who were on the tank! Stop them!"

"Somebody would have to be observant!" Rod groaned.

A dozen or so ersatz Rochesters and Janes looked up, staring at them, then nudged their neighbors, nodding toward Rod and Gwen (they were too polite to point). Their neighbors—several score languid Byrons and Wollstone-crofts—looked up and stared. Then they all started grins that turned into hungry leers, and voices began to call, "Who are they?"

"Convicts! We just saw their pictures on the tank!"

"On the tank?"

"Convicts?"

"Quick! Don't let them get away!"

"Catch them!"

"There they go!"

And in two seconds, the crowd of cultured, refined patrons had turned into a howling mob, boiling toward Rod and his companions.

"I might have known," Rod groaned. "Boredom—and we're something to do!"

Gwen hung back. "They could not stand against us, my lord! There cannot be but an hundred of them!"

"That's too many to be sure we won't kill somebody! And besides, while we're mowing them down, they could maul these people who've been trying to help us!"

He could see her hesitate. "I mislike to run from such as these, my lord."

"I know what you mean, but in this case, discretion is definitely the better part of valor. Fly, dear!"

Fortunately, Gwen didn't take him literally, but they were at the door almost as quickly as though she had. They jammed in between Chornoi and Mirane, just as Brother Joey slammed into the pressure-plate lettered, "Authorized Personnel Only."

"I never expected to be that right!" Rod waved Chornoi through first, then Mirane.

"But I'm not authorized," she protested.

"Yes, you are," said Whitey. "You're one of my personnel, and I'm an author. Git!"

Mirane stopped, gazing up at the dreamhouse facade with foreboding. "I don't like it, Whitey."

"I thought it was a little too rococo, myself." Whitey frowned up at the front of the building. "And all those chubby little angels are definitely declasse. But it's their services we're buying, not their decor."

"You're right; I don't care a fig how it looks. It's just the idea, Whitey. I can't stand the thought of being so helpless!"

"Yeah," the old man said grimly, "I know what you mean. But there isn't much choice."

"There isn't really any danger, either!" Chornoi glared daggers at Whitey. "The dreamhouse will guard you as though you were one of their own, Miz—which you will be, in a way."

"Why does that idea make me shudder?"

"Because you think of being absorbed." Stroganoff laid a hand on her shoulder. "It's a fear we all have, from time to time. But in this case, it's foolish. The laws that guard dreamhouse patients are very strict, Mirane, and they're very tightly enforced."

"I'm sorry you got caught up in this," Whitey said, his face hard. "But if PEST actually does try anything against us, they're likely to catch you in the overflow."

"You're worrying about nothing, really!" Chornoi smiled brightly. "And it'll be fun. If only half the things I've heard are true, it'll be more fun than you've ever had."

Mirane still looked doubtful, but she clutched her computer-pad tightly and followed them in.

The thinclad attendant just inside the front door smiled brightly, ran a practiced eye over them, added in the fact that they'd come in a batch, and asked, "Single dream, or group?"

Yorick frowned. "What's a group dream?"

"You'd all be tied into the same computer," the hostess explained, "and you'd share the same dream. Only two of you would be the protagonists, of course, but you'd all be characters in it."

Whitey gave his companions a jaundiced glance. "How does the computer decide who's going to be the hero, and who's going to be the heroine? Chance?"

"No, it matches character to personality type. And it's less expensive, on a per person basis."

"Less expensive?" Mirane pounced. "How does the billing work?"

"For individual dreams, you'd each be charged 937 kwahers," the hostess explained. She ignored Rod's gulp and went on, "that's about 7500 kwahers for all of you. But a group dream only costs 3000 for any number of persons up to thirteen."

"There're eight of us," Mirane muttered to Stroganoff. "The group dream might even leave our fugitives enough cash for passage to Terra."

"Don't worry about us," Rod hissed.

"Thank you, Don Quixote," Whitey snorted. "Don't forget, the faster you're off Otranto, the safer we are."

"Why do they say that, everywhere I go?" Rod sighed.

"Speculation later." Whitey nodded to the hostess. "We'll take the group dream, Miz."

She took their money, then took them to a wide, low-ceilinged room with ten couches upholstered in varying degrees of opulence, and invited them to lie down. They did, casting wary glances at the headboards full of electronic gear.

"Hold very still," the hostess cooed. "This won't hurt a bit."

They were each ramrod stiff as she fitted skull caps over their heads. "Nothing penetrates the skull," she assured them. "The electrodes just fit against your scalps and induce the dream through the bone."

That wasn't exactly reassuring, but they submitted with good grace, and all took their medicine like good boys and girls. It was thick and syrupy, and tasted like pomegranates. "Now just relax," the hostess soothed, but the drug flowed through their veins so fast that they were very relaxed indeed, before she finished the sentence. Delicious languor enveloped them, and they drifted off into a sleep that was so welcome, it was positively sybaritic.

The young woman glanced about to make sure no one was watching, then quickly stepped into the shadow of a huge old tree and fumbled with something behind her back. "There! Darn bosom-binder keeps coming unfastened!" She stepped back out, with her mammary measurements drastically dwindled. "Golly whillikers, Deviz, it's really unfair to have to put up with so much out in front, when some lucky girls scarcely have any!"

Her Scots terrier looked up at her and yapped in agreement.

The young woman glanced about nervously. "Golly whillikers, Deviz, maybe we shoulda stayed on the street where we live! I don't think I like this gloomy old neighborhood!" She swallowed heavily. "Maybe I wouldn't be so scared if I weren't still a virgin. But all those spooky old houses set back so far from the sidewalk… And all those bony old trees, with the brown and sere leaves dropping off and drifting to the ground like the ghosts of sorrows worn out with grieving." She frowned, jogging the side of her head with the heel of her hand. "What's the matter with me? I don't speak like that!"

There was a sudden flurry of yaps, and her head snapped up, just in time to see Deviz go bounding away after a dim and spectral squirrel. "Deviz!" she yelped, and leaped to follow him, the skirts of her jumper billowing in the breeze. "No, Deviz! Not in there!"

But the dog dashed right after the bounding rodent as it leaped through the rusty grillwork of the ancient fence and sprinted up the rotting flagstones of the curving path, all the way up the hill to the gaunt old house that brooded over the scene.

"No, Deviz!" The girl struggled with the rusty gate, then climbed over the fence. Her skirt caught on one of the iron points, but she yanked it loose and leaped down to follow her dog.

She almost caught up with him on the porch, but the door suddenly opened, and the squirrel shot through with Deviz hot on its heels. The girl bolted after them, but skidded to a halt as she saw the lady who stood in the doorway.

"Good afternoon, my dear." She was tall, slender, and pale, with just a touch too much rouge, and glossy black hair that swept down to her shoulders in a straight fall, turned up just a little on the ends. The girl stared, then squeezed her eyes shut, opened them, and looked again. She couldn't be sure, but she thought the woman's eyeteeth were much longer than usual. And very sharply pointed.

"Do come in," the lady purred, stepping back from the doorway.

Dread rose up in the young girl, but her beloved dog was in that house, so she hadn't much choice. With reluctance weighing down her dainty feet, she stepped across the threshold.

Her hostess closed the door with unseemly speed. "My name is L'Age D'or. What is yours?"

"Petty," the girl stammered, "Petty Pure." She stared around her. "Golly! You've got an awful lot of real old things… YIKE! One of them moved!"

"Why, yes, that's my uncle." L'Age took the arm of the old gnarled man with the yellowed straggling hair and the shiny black suit. "Petty Pure, allow me to introduce Sucar Blutstein."

The old man stared at Petty, his eyes wide and round, his mouth stretched wide in a grin. A drop of moisture dripped from one pointed fang. Petty shuddered.

"Ah, I see you've noticed his dentition." L'Age smiled, revealing her own fangs. "It runs in the family."

"Puh… pleased to meet you, I'm sure," Petty stammered.

"And I," Sucar Blutstein chuckled, "and I."

"Keep a lid on it, you old fool," L'Age muttered to him, "or you'll scare her off." Aloud, she said to Petty, "Won't you sit down and make yourself comfortable? I'll ring for tea." She stepped over to the corner to pull on a bell-rope. A moment later, the butler shambled in, and Petty gasped in horror. He was a giant, seven feet at least, and all his clothes were way too small for him. His feet were too large, and his face was seamed with scars and was squarish, with a ragged hairline. His eyelids drooped, and an electrical contact protruded from each side of his neck. He hooted sullenly.

"Tea," L'Age snapped, then beamed at Petty. "Cream or lemon, my dear?"

"Uh… cream, if you please. And sugar." Petty scrunched back against the high back of her wing-chair in terror.

"And, um, tomato juice for me," L'Age finished. "And some teacakes, of course. Yes, that will be all, Frank."

The butler growled and shambled from the room.

Petty slowly uncurled. "What… what is he?"

"Oh, just some tinkering I did in an idle moment." L'Age waved the issue away. "Now, my dear, tell me about yourself. Have you any family?"

The butler shambled into the kitchen, grunting. Auntie Diluvian, a fat, sweaty old woman in a floor-length gaudy dress, looked up from the pot she was stirring. "She wants what?… Tea? Whatever for?… Company? A virgin? Oh, yes, I'm sure they welcomed her with open arms—first real food they've seen in years. Been living on that son of hers, she has—and what he's been living on, I hate to think… Roderick!"

Uncle Roderick, an aging hunchback, looked up from the tomatoes he was squeezing. "Eh?"

"Run upstairs and drain me two ounces," Auntie Dil called.

"But he already gave today," Uncle Roderick protested.

"It's a special occasion," Auntie Dil snapped. "He'll just have to pump up some more."

"Bleed him white, that's what she'll do," Roderick grumbled, but he picked up a small beaker and trudged up the back stairs.

On the first floor landing, he limped past the sumptuous mistress bedroom and turned into the adjoining chamber. It was spare and Spartan—only a bare wooden floor, blank beige walls, and, in a corner, an old, forgotten, dried-up Christmas tree, its balls cracked and broken, its tinsel sadly tarnished.

In the center of the room stood a dusty old canopied bed, and on it lay a bronzed body, eyelids closed, chest rising and falling gently.

"The poor lad," Uncle Roderick sighed as he hobbled over and sat in the straight chair beside the bed. "The poor lad." He took the young man's unresisting hand, propped it over the edge of the bed, held the beaker under the wrist, and turned the little spigot set into the vein. Dark ruby fluid welled out and into the beaker. When it had risen to the "2 oz." line etched in the glass, Uncle Roderick turned off the little faucet, wiped it with a hanky, and laid the hand gently back on the bed. "There, there," he soothed, even though he knew McChurch couldn't hear him. "There, there."

He stood up with a creak of old bones and a sigh, and turned away to leave, but stopped in the doorway to look back at the incredibly handsome young man, his muscular shoulders and chest bulging up from under the sheets, his eyes closed. Uncle Roderick sighed and shook his head, and shut the door behind him.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs, Sucar Blutstein fairly pounced on him, eyes glittering. "Did you get it? Do you have it?"

"Oh, yes, Master Blutstein," Roderick sighed.

"Oh, bliss! Oh, rapture!" Sucar Blutstein poised clawed fingers, drooling only a little. "Let me see it! Let me taste…" He broke off as Roderick held up the beaker, showing the two inches of dark red fluid. Blutstein stared at it, lips writhing back in terror. "Aieeeee!" He squeezed his eyes shut, raising his hands to block out the sight. "Take it away! Take it away!" He staggered off toward the drawing room, shuddering.

"Ah, the poor man," Roderick sighed. "How horrible to be a vampire, but feel your stomach turn at the sight of blood." Shaking his head, he limped on into the kitchen.

"Did you get it?" called Auntie Dil.

"Of course I got it," Roderick grumbled as he hobbled over to his wife. "What was he to do—leap up and fight me off? When he's been in a coma these two years now? The poor lad!"

"Poor lad, my great toenail!" Auntie cried. "Who gave him the blow that first laid him cold, eh? Yourself!"

"Well, yes—but who'd have thought he'd never waken? Besides, what would you have had me do, when his mother and his uncle were stepping in through our front door without so much as a by-your-leave, to tell us this was their house now, and we'd have to serve them forevermore, or serve as entrees?"

"So, of course, you smashed your club into the only one who wasn't threatening us!"

"But he was the only one who looked strong enough to do any damage," Roderick protested. He pulled the step-stool over to the doorway and climbed up with two boards and a string.

"And what are you doing now, you old fool? You know your traps never work!"

"Well, we must keep trying, mustn't we?" Roderick glared pointedly at her steaming cauldron. "Or do you intend to give over stirring up witch's brews?"

Auntie stepped in front of the cauldron as though to defend it. "What else should I do? I'm a witch, aren't I?"

"No. You're a fortune-teller." Roderick used the one board to prop up the other. "Only an old Gypsy fortuneteller. Which might be why none of your brews ever work. But if you don't deride my traps, I'll say nothing of your potions. What's the secret ingredient this time?"

"Silver salts," Auntie Dil snapped. "What's in the bucket?"

"Water." Roderick climbed back up the step stool and hefted a pail up onto his impromptu shelf. "Only water."

"What good will that do?"

"Probably none, but I've tried everything else." Roderick tied the string to the bucket handle and led it over to a thumbtack in the door-corner. "Besides, I read a story when I was a boy…"

"That was a witch, you idiot, not a vampire!"

"Oh, that's why the salts! But doesn't it have to be pure silver?"

"Look out!" Auntie Dil cried, but the door crashed open, and Roderick went flying. So did the bucket, but it only flipped over once and clanged down over the head of the monster coming through. He froze for a second in stunned astonishment, then tore the bucket off with a roar.

"Now, now, nephew." Auntie Dil slipped between the giant and Roderick. "I know it's nasty to be drenched like that, Frank, but it was just an accident. He meant it for that old biddy and her uncle."

The monster grumbled and growled, rubbing the contacts in his neck.

"Yes, I know it could have short-circuited you, and I'm sure he's sorry." Auntie Dil turned to glare over her shoulder. "Aren't you, Roderick?"

"Oh, indubitably," Roderick moaned, pulling himself to his feet and rubbing his back.

The monster glowered at him, grumbling something deep in its throat. Then it turned back to Auntie Dil and grunted a question.

"The tomato juice? Yes, it's ready." Auntie Dil poured the contents of the beaker into a small glass and set it on a tray with the tea service. She took down a shaker and started to sprinkle something into the glass, but Frank caught her hand and shook his head, rumbling negatives.

"Oh, all right, I'll leave out the arsenic," Auntie Dil grumbled. "But we do need some lemon slices. Be a dear and fetch them from the icebox, won't you, Frank?"

The monster turned away, and Auntie Dil whirled to snatch up a pharmacist's toottte. "Now! Just a pinch of the her brow. "Nay! Wherefore do I such deeds? 'Tis naught that I would ever consider…"

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Roderick squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. "I get the feeling that I'm not really Roderick. Some name like that, maybe, but…"

"Oh, we all get these feelings from time to time," said a smooth, urbane voice. "Nothing to worry about, really— just a trick our neurons are playing on us, like dejti vu."

"Oh, no!" Roderick recoiled in horror. "It's Old Nick!"

"Not old at all." The suave, debonair devil stroked his goatee. "And not Old Nick, just Old Nick's son. But you can call me 'Buzzabeez.'"

"Well, that's just fine for you," Roderick said, with a truculent frown, "but what do I call myself?"

"Roderick," the devil said, with steel in his tone, "and don't you dare try to be anything different!" Then he smiled, softening his approach. "I know how it is—you keep having these flashes, snatches of feeling that you're really someone else. Don't let it bother you; it's just a symptom of an internal conflict. I have them myself. You wouldn't believe it, but every now and then I find myself muttering in Church Latin!"

"You're right," Roderick growled, "I don't believe it."

"Whether you believe it or not, you'll do it!" Buzzabeez glared around at the three of them. "I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear: You're under my power, and you'll damned well do as you're told!"

"'Damned' is right," Roderick snorted.

"And that'll be enough out of you!" Buzzabeez stabbed a finger at Roderick, and a half-dozen little red dots blossomed on his cheeks and forehead. He howled with pain, bowing away and covering his face with his hands, and Buzzabeez chuckled. "Phantom hornets—gets 'em every time. Don't worry, though; a little vinegar and some ice cubes will get you through it… Uh, uh. there!" He whirled to stab a finger at Auntie Dil, who'd been trying to sneak xtve staaket vtfto 'tY'te mslebasYsX. '"NovC S&'t& 'tS't't17k'tKftL, "sprinVte it 'tnV He moved his finger slowly, and Auntie Dil's hand tracked with it, back to the juice glass, upending the shaker and sprinkling. Buzzabeez nodded, satisfied. "That's a good old girl. Now then, you!" He pointed to Frank. "Take the tray back out to the ladies, right away!" Frank shuffled over, muttering and groaning, but he picked up the tray and turned toward the door.

"Better," Buzzabeez nodded. "Much better. All right, you just do as you're told from now on. And no more of this subversive individualism, do you hear? Because I'll be watching!" He waved a hand over himself and disappeared. For a moment, the kitchen was filled with the faint sound of distant buzzing; then that faded, too, and Frank went on out the door.

Roderick groaned and finished dabbing his face with little plasters. Then he turned to set the step stool against the doorframe again, and hobbled back up with his two boards and bucket.

"You forgot to refill it," Auntie Dil snapped. Roderick groaned again, and started back down.

Frank shuffled into the drawing room and set the tray on the little table between L'Age and Petty.

"That'll do," L'Age snapped. "You can go now."

Grumbling, Frank went.

Uncle Sucar leaned forward, smacking his lips.

"Patience, Uncle," L'Age said sternly, "you'll have your refreshment. But our young guest first."

"But of course," Sucar breathed, "of course."

"What a beautiful service," Petty murmured. "Pewter, isn't it?"

"Why, thank you, my dear." L'Age added cream to Petty's cup. "Yes, it is pewter. Silver is so terribly flamboyant, really… There." She handed Petty a fragile china cup and saucer. "Feel free to sip. You'll excuse me if I don't, though."

"She has to drink her tomato juice before it clots," Uncle Sucar explained.

"Oh, of course," Petty agreed, then frowned. "What?"

"Uh, Frank!" L'Age called quickly.

The butler shambled forward, grumbling again.

"My cigarette." L'Age flourished a 100 mm Russian at the end of an immense ebony holder.

Snarling, Frank fumbled out an archaic tinder box and struck flint against steel. The spark fell into a mound of lycopodium, and a gout of flame shot up, out-flaring magnesium.

The light hit the silver salts in the tomato juice and developed a quick portrait—of a muscular form in an upstairs room, in a bed. Petty gazed on the face of Adonis, and gasped. "Urn—if you'll excuse me, I think I'll just run upstairs to the power room." She set down her teacup and rose.

"Oh, but we've one down here," L'Age informed her.

"I'm sure the one upstairs is much nicer." Petty tripped away toward the wide, curving staircase beyond the drawing room archway.

"Quickly, Frank! Fetch!" L'Age cried.

Frank roared and whirled about, crashing heavy-footed after Petty. Very heavy-footed, and he had a doubtful look on his face. But Petty glanced back, gasped in horror, and fled.

L'Age, however, felt no compunction. She dashed past the slow-footed Frank and grabbed a lever just inside the hallway. As Petty hit the first step, L'Age hauled on the lever, and the first three stairs fell away as a hidden panel opened. Petty's scream faded away as she dropped into the cellar.

"Down!" L'Age commanded, glaring at Frank and pointing into the hole.

Muttering protest, Frank sat down on the edge of the hole, one foot at a time.

"Faster, monstrosity! Faster!"

Frank grumbled something that sounded like, "Not right."

"Don't you dare preach to me!" L'Age screamed, and slammed a kick into his fundament. Frank bellowed as he dropped into the cellar.

He picked himself up just in time to see Petty pelting madly up the cellar stairs. Frank heaved 1) a sigh, and 2) himself (to his feet). He thudded over to the steps just as Petty reached the top. She pounded on the door, rattling the latch, screaming. Frank waited for her to take a breath, then rumbled, "Turn."

"What?" Petty looked down at her hand, saw it shaking the knob back and forth. "Oh! Yes! Thanks." She turned the knob and burst out into the foyer just as Frank pounded up to the halfway mark.

"Catch her, Frank! Catch her!" L'Age screamed, but Petty had rounded the turn and was vaulting over the hole in the staircase. "Can't anybody around here do something right?" L'Age howled, and yanked on another lever.

With a rumble, the stairs started moving—downward, of course. Petty cried out in frustration and ran harder, but the escalator picked up speed, and she just barely managed to stay in place.

"Catch her, Frank! Catch her!" L'Age screamed.

Frank plowed his way out of the cellar with a rumble of disgust and veered around the corner to the stairway. He leaped the open trapdoor—and hit the escalator. Even his huge, galumphing strides couldn't make headway, though admittedly, he wasn't trying very hard.

"Incompetents!" L'Age screamed. "All I get in this script are incompetents!" She glared up at the ornate brass-armed chandelier that hung over the stairway, then tore open a black panel in the foyer wall. With a snarl, she threw a power key, then thrust her hands into two metallic gloves. Current began to hum through servomotors, and the brass arms of the chandelier curved downward into two huge hands. They swung down on their lengthening chain, groping toward Petty. Suddenly, they plunged and snatched. Petty leaped aside with a scream, and the giant hands closed on empty air. The shock gave Petty a boost, and she made it two more stairs. The giant hands groped after her.

Out in the kitchen, the Scots terrier came bounding up to Roderick, yapping and growling. Roderick frowned down at it. "What's that? What did you say?… Logical inconsistencies? What, for example?"

The dog snarled and barked sharply.

"Yes…" Roderick nodded, lower lip thrusting out. "Now that you mention it, I had noticed that…"

The dog yapped three times and growled.

"Frank couldn't expend all this energy without a recharge, that's true," Roderick agreed. "And it is rather odd that a couple of vampires wouldn't have drained Auntie Dil and myself when they commandeered our house…"

Deviz yapped frantically, angrily.

"'Wake up?'" Roderick frowned, shaking his head. "What are you talking about? We are awake."

The terrier nearly went frantic.

"What do you mean, we're just dreaming?" Roderick shook his head again. "I don't understand."

"Nay, but I do!" Auntie Dil cried. She swept out the kitchen door with Deviz at her heels, yapping triumphantly.

Auntie Dil sailed into the foyer, crying, "Frank! Frank! Whoever thou truly art. Thou must waken! Dost'a hear me? Then hearken! Frank, waken!"

"You meddling busybody! What do you think you're doing?" L'Age cried.

Frank only grunted and kept running.

"He's a very primitive android," Buzzabeez explained as he appeared. "He can't take more than one order at a time. But you can! Now get back to the kitchen—that's your place!" He stabbed a finger at the swinging door.

"My place? Only for that I'm a woman? Nay! For I'll have thee know I'm a lady of power!" Auntie Dil drew back her hand, cupping invisible energy.

"Just my luck—an activist housekeeper," Buzzabeez snorted. "All right, go ahead. Try it!"

"Croak and hop!" Auntie Dil cried, throwing a whammy.

Blue sparks coruscated around Buzzabeez. He stood against it, letting the sparks dissipate. Then he advanced on her, seeming to swell and grow taller, and infinitely more menacing.

"But… how? Wherefore?" Auntie Dil cried, as she backed through the swinging door into the kitchen.

"Why, because you're only…"

The swinging door swung.

"Yeowtch!" cried Buzzabeez, as it slammed into his face. He pushed through, rubbing his nose and glowering at Auntie Dil. "It's because you're only a witch, you old bat!"

"I resent that!" L'Age's voice cried on the other side of the door.

"Only a witch," Buzzabeez snarled again, "and I'm a devil. A full-fledged, high-powered, hundred-percent devil— and much more evil than any mere witch…" He suddenly closed his eyes, pressing his hand to his forehead and swaying. "What am I saying? I can't be evil; I mustn't be! I mustn't give in to it… No, I must! If I don't enforce some disorder here, who will?" He lowered his hand, glaring at Gwen. "Where was I?… Oh, yes." Buzzabeez grinned his most oily. "A devil's more evil than any witch—so I'm much more powerful. That's the hell of it."

But Auntie Dil straightened, glaring in fury. "Nay! Evil's not the source of power—not of my sort of power, at all accounts! For I am no Auntie Diluvian, but Gwendylon Gallowglass, most powerful witch of Gramarye!"

Roderick stiffened, staring. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, and gave his head a quick shake.

"I am Gwen Gallowglass," the old fortune-teller cried, "and I will not tolerate such deceptions and…"

"Be quiet, you fool!" Buzzabeez shrieked. "You'll ruin the whole selection!" And he stretched his hand backward to throw, as a fireball exploded into existence between his fingertips.

"Look out, Gwen!" the old hunchback cried, and he threw himself at her. His shoulder slammed into her a split second before the fireball hissed through the air where she'd been, and she tumbled head over heels into the dumbwaiter.

Roderick hauled 1) himself to his feet, then 2) on the dumbwaiter rope. The compartment lifted up out of sight.

"I'll take that rope!" Buzzabeez snarled, but the bell chimed, and Roderick cried, "Second floor! Linens and bedroom furniture! All out!"

"Out of the way!" Buzzabeez howled. "Let me at that dumbwaiter!"

Roderick slammed the panel shut and whirled around to face the devil, leaning back and folding his arms. "What dumbwaiter?"

"That dumbwaiter you're leaning against!"

Roderick shook his head. "Never was such a thing. Just a figment of your imagination."

"What are you talking about?" Buzzabeez cried. "I saw it with my own eyes!"

"Yes, but can you really believe the evidence of your senses? That might have been a hallucination, you know."

"Ridiculous," the devil scoffed. "Claim that, and next you'll be saying the whole universe is maya, illusion."

"Well, isn't it?" Roderick demanded. "At least, if you're a good Hindu."

"But I'm not—I'm a good Catholic!" Buzzabeez went rigid, shocked at his own words. "What am I saying?"

"That you're a good Catholic," Roderick answered obligingly.

"Yes, yes! I'm a good Catholic… No! I mean, I'm a bad Catholic! No! I mean…"

"You mean, nothing exists," Roderick prompted.

"That's right! Nothing exists! None of you! You're all just figments of my imagination! This is all just a dream… NO! I can't be saying that!"

"See? Even your words don't exist!" Roderick jabbed a forefinger. "Come to that, even you don't exist!"

"What are you saying? Of course I exist!"

"Ah, but how do you know you exist?"

"Why, because I think! Cogito, ergo sum!" Buzzabeez clapped his hands over his mouth. "Iyuch! Latin!"

"Bite your tongue!" Roderick reproved. "Wash your mouth out!"

"Yes! With brimstone! And hot coals! Even as the angel cleansed the lips of the prophet Isaiah with… Oh, hell! Hel-1-l-l-l-p!" And Buzzabeez fled screaming, and faded into thin air.

"Thick air, really." Roderick sniffed, and wrinkled his nose. "Phew! Now I know why religions use incense… Well! Back to work." And he limped merrily out into the foyer, where the escalator was still running, with Frank galumphing along after Petty, who was sprinting flat-out for all she was worth, and dodging the claws of the erstwhile chandelier, which still somehow hadn't managed to catch her.

Roderick limped over to the stairway, pulled open a panel underneath it, yanked off his wooden shoe, and shouted, "Down with the bosses!" as he threw it into the gearbox. He slammed the door shut just as something inside cracked like a cannon shot, and the escalator jerked to a halt.

Petty shot on up the stairway and catapulted into the room at the top.

Frank crashed down flat on his face.

Inside the bedroom, Petty slammed the door shut. There was a hasp with a broken safety pin hanging by a thread; she slapped it shut and jammed the pin through.

Outside, L'Age screamed, "After her, iceberg bait!"

Frank scrambled to his feet and slogged on up the stairs, rumbling curses.

"Break down the door!" L'Age howled. "Get her out of there!"

Obediently, Frank hammered at the door with his fist.

The safety pin held.

Petty whirled about and sagged back against the door, gasping for breath, chest heaving.

The light of the oil lamp glowed on Sucar's face. He knelt beside the cot, rubbing McChurch's hand and moaning, "Wake up, wake up! Oh, I know it's no use; I've been trying for years, but if I keep on, maybe someday you'll open your eyes. Wake up, McChurch! Surely your name will protect you. Though I admit, it didn't do you much good when I shoved you in front of me at that crazy little hunchback. Oh, I never dreamed he'd render you insensible! I didn't mean it to happen, and I promise you, I've never tasted a drop. I never really wanted to be a vampire, anyway—but my mother would have her way! It's not really my natural role, you know; it's not my identity, it's not the real me! Not that I've anything against that kind of person, you understand—I just can't stand the sight of blood! At least, not the blood of people I like." He cocked his head. "Now, there's a thought! How about the blood of people I don't like? Take L'Age, now—could I acquire a taste for her? Could I lust for some of her blood? How would I feel if I had a chance to drain her? Ah, now that would be another matter!"

Petty stared at the handsome, muscular, unconscious young man, and gasped in wonder. The extra strain was just a little too much for steel hooks and eyes; with a muted ripping, her bosom expanded, lifting and mushrooming outward with a whoosh of displaced air.

McChurch frowned and turned his head a little, as though listening.

Petty didn't even notice; she was lost in gazing at her ideal of male beauty.

McChurch looked up at her, blinking, frowning. Then the sight of her registered, and he rolled out of bed with his eyes glowing. He was completely naked, and Petty did notice that, but a second later, she was wrapped in his embrace, and wasn't seeing much of anything, because her eyes were closed for her first, and very long, kiss.

In the wall, a panel slammed open, and Auntie Dil jumped out. She ran to McChurch and Petty and began to shake them, crying, "Waken! Thou must needs waken! Dost thou not know thou dost slumber? And this weak and idle theme is no more yielding but a dream!"

"If this is a dream, let me sleep forever," Petty murmured, and went back into the clinch.

"Nay! Now I say na_y/"Auntie Dil seized McChurch's arm and threw her weight back against it, trying to pull them apart, but McChurch stood like the rock of Gibraltar, as though he'd traded a horizontal coma for a vertical one. "Nay, nay!" Auntie Dil cried, tears in her eyes. "Dosta not know we come dreadfully close to the moment when the monster, Frank, shall come crashing through the door?"

"All right, that's enough of that!" Buzzabeez snapped as he climbed out of the dumbwaiter. "Let go of that body!"

Auntie Dil whirled to face him, arms outspread to protect the couple. "How didst thou come to be in that chamber?"

"I materialized there, to make sure your husband wasn't around." Buzzabeez advanced on her with a tiger's tread, glowering. "Now go to the kitchen, where you belong!"

"Go to hell," Auntie Dil retorted, "where thou dost belong!"

"Uh-h-h-h-h… End of scene!" Buzzabeez waved his hands back in front of his face, then whirled and stabbed a finger at the door. "Next scene!"

The broken safety pin gave way and the door crashed down. Frank stumbled in over it, and L'Age leaped past him, took one look at Petty and McChurch, and sprang at

Petty, shrieking. Her talons dug into Petty's arm as she yanked the girl away from McChurch, and her fangs flashed down at the virgin's fair, unprotected throat.

Her chin jarred against McChurch's arm as he raised it to fend her off. "Please, Mother! I'd rather do it myself." And his head descended down over Petty's again as he folded her back into his embrace.

"Ah, young love!" Roderick sighed, peeking in through the doorway. Then he frowned. "But that seems to remind me of something. I just wish I could remember what…"

"Don't let it bother you," Buzzabeez said quickly, "just a momentary aberration."

Roderick's roving gaze fell on Auntie Dil. He shook his head in wonder. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but I really want to be with that old slattern right now." And he started into the room, just as L'Age howled in rage and frustration, pulling out a dagger and charging at Petty.

Deviz scampered in between her feet.

L'Age tripped and crashed to the floor with a shriek that would have wakened bats.

Roderick, hurrying toward Auntie Dil, bumped into the ancient Christmas tree. It swayed and tottered.

"No!" Buzzabeez cried in anguish. "Catch it!" And he sprang forward, but the tree crashed down onto L'Age. Her head jerked up, eyes staring in agony, mouth gaping for a scream—and froze.

"Well, what do you know," Roderick murmured into the sudden hush, "the tinsel was real silver."

"Food!" Sucar screamed, and he pounced on L'Age with wild joy. "At last! Something I can really sink my teeth into!" He lifted L'Age by the shoulders and reared his head back, fangs springing out as he bared her throat—then froze. Puzzlement clouded his features. "How did I used to do this? It's been so long that I can't remember!"

"Just the way you're doing," Roderick prompted. "Bare her throat, then bite!"

"Don't give him any help!" Buzzabeez clapped a horny hand over Roderick's mouth, and Roderick recoiled at the stench. "You can't do it," the devil assured Sucar. "Not without condiments."

"Condiments! Of course! Now I remember!" Sucar dug in his coat pocket and pulled out a saltshaker with a triumphant flourish. "I always carry it with me, for my tomato juice!"

"No!" Buzzabeez screamed. "Don't you dare touch her with that!"

"Why not?" Roderick asked.

"Because… because…" Buzzabeez was trembling. "Why, because it isn't in the script!"

"What is a 'script'?" Auntie Dil asked, frowning.

"Only a prediction," Roderick assured her. "Nothing that can't be changed."

"You can't change it!" Buzzabeez howled. "It is written!"

"But I don't have to follow it. We are the masters of our own actions."

"Heresy!" Buzzabeez screamed.

Deviz yapped up at Roderick.

"What?… He's afraid? Yes, I can see that… That means what? He shouldn't be? Why?… Because if he really had power over us, there wouldn't be any reason for fear? Hm! Good point, that!" Roderick looked up brightly.

Buzzabeez could see his brain working, and shuddered. "I order you not to think! It's immoral! I'll do the thinking around here!"

"No you won't," Roderick said reasonably, "you'll just follow a script." He frowned at the devil. "What makes you so tense, anyway?"

"I don't know." Buzzabeez stood rigid, trembling. "I really don't know."

Roderick pursed his lips. "Could it be you really want Sucar to use that salt?"

"I prefer saltpeter," Buzzabeez corrected. "After all, I'm a devil."

"Don't worry," Roderick assured him, "I'll figure it out."

"That's what I'm afraid of!"

"What? People doing their own thinking?" Roderick nodded. "Makes sense. You never can tell what'll happen then. Makes life totally unpredictable. And I am thinking, now."

Buzzabeez nodded, still trembling. "Becoming pretty willful, too."

"Yes, I am, aren't I?"

"Thou art near to wakening," Auntie Dil advised him.

"Yeah." Roderick frowned. "I just can't remember who I really am."

"Roderick," Buzzabeez said quickly. "Just ordinary old Roderick."

"Close." Roderick nodded. "Close. But maybe just a little too much."

Sucar pressed a hand to his forehead. "Come to think of it… I used to be somebody, too…"

"You still are," Buzzabeez snapped.

"No," Roderick contradicted, "right now, he's who you want him to be. And doing what you want him to do. We all are—just taking your orders, without resisting much. Between you and the script, you've had all of us just meekly accepting your orders."

"Yes! Wonderful way to live, isn't it? So peaceful! So harmonious!"

"For you, maybe. Not for the rest of us."

"But isn't it better this way?" Buzzabeez pleaded.

"NO!" said everybody, all at once—except L'Age, who was frozen, and Petty and McChurch, whose lips weren't free at the moment.

Buzzabeez's face wrinkled with disgust. "What a revolting development!"

"Good idea!" Sucar cried. "Let's have a revolution!"

"Shut up," Buzzabeez snapped.

But Sucar went on. "Myself, I'm beginning to remember that I'm not really me—not Sucar Blutstein, anyway."

"Shut up," Buzzabeez snapped again.

"I was once someone else," Sucar cried, "but somebody did something to me, fed me something, that made me into what I am now!"

"Shut up!" Buzzabeez shouted.

"No, you shut up!" Roderick commanded. "Sucar has the floor."

"Who appointed you chairman?" Buzzabeez snarled.

"I did, myself!"

"And I impeach Buzzabeez!" Sucar cried. "I move that Buzzabeez be deposed!"

Deviz yapped.

"He says, 'I second the motion,'" Roderick explained. "All in favor?"

"Aye!" shouted Auntie Dil, Roderick, and Sucar. Deviz barked.

"The vote is unanimous," Roderick confirmed, "except for L'Age, who's incapacitated, and McChurch and Petty, who're oblivious. The motion passes, and so does Buzzabeez."

"You can't do this!" Buzzabeez shouted.

"We just did, as I remember."

"And I remember something else!" Sucar cried. "I remember that what whoever-it-was fed me, was only supposed to put me to sleep and make me more amenable to suggestion! But it did more—it made me willing to do whatever this deposed dumbkopf dictated!"

"Watch the pejoratives," Buzzabeez snarled, but Auntie Dil cried, "I too," and Roderick said, "Same here."

Deviz yapped and snarled.

"He says, 'The drug that produces those effects is commonly known as the zombie drug,'" Roderick translated.

"I deny it!" Buzzabeez ranted, waving his hands. "I deny everything! I didn't do it! I didn't give orders for it to be done! Nobody told me…"

"That, I believe." Roderick nodded. "You're probably just another poor zombie like the rest of us—but for some reason, you were much more apt to do what the script said."

"But that means he's the one who's acting as the voice of the script!" Sucar cried.

"Aye," Auntie Dil said, frowning. 'T truth, we know not what this 'script' doth say, save what he doth tell us."

"So," Sucar said, with a bright smile, "if we can just wake up Buzzabeez, we won't have to listen to any nonsense about this 'script' anymore!"

"No!" Buzzabeez was beginning to foam at the mouth. "You can't! That'd destroy any semblance of order! It'll shred sensibility! It'll play dice with the universe!"

"But we'll be able to do as we think right," Roderick said.

"See? Rampant chaos!"

"But we'll all wake up, and quit being zombies," Sucar pointed out.

"Anarchy!"

"Grab him!"

They all pounced on Buzzabeez, who realized what was happening just a second too late to dodge. He thrashed about, howling and trying to break free, but Sucar and Roderick wrestled him to the ground, and Auntie Dil sat on his legs while Roderick pinned his arms and Sucar pulled out his saltshaker.

"You can't do this!" Buzzabeez shouted. "It's immoral! It's unethical! It's against all… GACK!"

"Helped that he had his mouth open," Roderick commented.

"I couldn't miss," Sucar agreed.

Buzzabeez swallowed convulsively, and his eyes bulged, staring, his whole body rigid. He began to tremble, and as he shook, he faded away and was gone.

Auntie Dil landed with a thump on her rump, and stared at the empty floor in astonishment. "Forsooth! Wither went he?"

Deviz yapped happily.

"He says, 'Wherever he came from,'" Roderick translated.

"But where is that?" Auntie Dil asked.

"None of us know," Sucar told her. He turned to Roderick. "Do you know where you came from?"

Roderick stared up at the ceiling, frowning, then shook his head. "Not quite. I can almost remember…"

Deviz yapped, barked, and growled.

"He says he does," Roderick explained. "He says, 'I know who I am—I am Notem-Modem 409, a computerized notepad—and I know where I came from. But where did all you zombies come from?'"

Sucar shrugged. "I don't know, to tell the truth."

"Neither do I," Roderick confessed.

"Nor I," Auntie Diluvian said, "yet I do know that we must waken."

"Good point." Roderick held up a finger, then used it to point to L'Age's mouth, frozen open. "Maestro, if you please?"

"Glad to." Sucar turned to sprinkle a little salt into L'Age's mouth. Instantly, she faded away, and they found themselves staring at a very dusty oaken floor.

"Success!" Roderick said, elated. "Now for the hard job. You grab him, Auntie, and I'll grab her."

"I mislike the sound of that, somehow," Auntie Dil said, but she took hold of McChurch's biceps while Roderick caught Petty's shoulder. "Now," he said, "Sucar, you stand ready to sprinkle. All right, now, on the count of three— One! Two! Three!"

He and Auntie Dil heaved. With a smacking like a huge suction cup coming unglued. Petty and McChurch peeled apart and stared in total bewilderment, mouths still wide open.

"Gotcha!" Sucar cried, sprinkling salt in each one's mouth.

Startled, they closed their mouths and swallowed with twin gulps, then stared at each other, appalled, as they faded.

Petty gave a mew of distress, reaching out toward the vanishing McChurch, but she faded too, and was gone.

"Success!" Sucar crowed. "Okay, you three—line up! Shoulders back! Stomachs in! Mouths open!"

Roderick and Auntie Dil snapped to attention, side by side, and Deviz sat up on his hind legs next to Auntie Dil. Sucar walked down the line, sprinkling salt on each tongue, and, one by one, they faded. Sucar halted, appalled, as he looked around at the bare, empty room and, for the first time, became aware of the wind's muted moaning around the corners of the huge old house. Left to himself, Sucar sniffed, wiped away a tear of loneliness, and said, "I miss you very much."

Then he tilted his head back, opened his mouth, sprinkled salt on his own tongue, and disappeared.

One by one, the dreamers wakened. They opened their eyes, frowning, squinting against the light, and began to struggle up from their couches.

The hostess stared at them, horrified, then turned and ran from the room, crying, "Get the manager! These patrons just woke up—before the dream ended!"

Rod groaned, and swung his legs over the side of the couch. "I feel as though I've just been hit by a meteor!"

Mirane slid off her sofa blinking, and tried to stand up. Her knees gave way, and she caught at the cushions. Stroganoff leaped off his couch with a cry, but she called, "No, I'm all right. But… but thanks, Dave." And she blushed.

Rod frowned, wondering what the red face was about. Then he hauled his mind back to the immediate problem. "Hold on, everybody! Remember, take the helmets off carefully! I don't think they could do any harm if we yanked 'em off, but I'd rather not find out the hard way."

Brother Joey lifted his helmet off with caution, then held it out, staring at it and blinking, then pushed it away with revulsion.

Chornoi took hers off with regret. "Well, it was fun while it lasted."

Rod looked up in surprise. "You must have been L'Age d'Or."

A short, stocky man in a business coverall bustled into the room. "All right, what's going on here?"

Rod felt his hackles rise. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Roksa, the manager. How the hell did you wake up before the dream was over?"

"Oh, that's easy enough to answer," Brother Joey said. "According to the traditional superstitions, you see, you can break the spell that holds a zombie, by filling his mouth with salt. Of course, you have to sew his lips shut so he can't spit it out, and when he comes out of the spell, he may try to kill you. But after that, he'll go back to where he came from—his grave—as fast as he can."

Roksa frowned. "What's that got to do with you waking up from the dream?"

Brother Joey shrugged. "Dreams are fantasies, so the symbols of superstition work, within the structure of the dream-universe. When our dream selves realized we'd been fed zombie drugs, they sprinkled salt on each other's tongues—and the symbol worked; we went back to where we'd come from—here."

"Zombie drugs?" The manager darted glances from one face to another. "Who said anything about zombie drugs?"

"I did."

They all turned, astonished. The tinny voice was coming from Mirane's couch, where her computer-notepad lay. "I am a Notem-Modem 409, and I have wireless capabilities for connection to larger computers—and for interfacing with the human brain. I have become symbiotic with my operator."

Mirane paled. Her eyes were huge.

Stroganoff clasped her around the shoulders. "Take it easy, kid. I know it's hard to take, but any artist has to develop a feel for her tools."

Mirane snatched up the notepad and clutched it to her.

"Consequently, when my operator entered into the dream-state, I participated in it with her," the notepad went on. "However, being electronic, I was immune to the drug, and was able to realize that the dream was not the safe and pleasant refuge these patrons had anticipated."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Chornoi muttered.

Stroganoff shook his head. "Lousy plot. Not to mention the characterization."

Roksa's head lifted, eyes narrowing. "You don't like my dreams, citizen, you can make your own."

"I just might."

"The zombie drug isn't terribly legal," Rod pointed out. "And there are supposed to be certain guarantees of safety, for patrons experiencing a dream."

Roksa shrugged impatiently. "All right, so I bent a few rules."

"Bent!" Yorick snorted. "How about 'mangled'?"

But Whitey held up a hand. "Hold on, you two. The laws he broke don't really matter."

"Don't matter?"

"Not compared to what that dream was doing, all by itself." Whitey faced Roksa squarely, head lowered a little, glowering. "That plot just took it for granted that people should take orders and not think about them. If we'd stayed in it long enough, we'd have waked up conditioned to just accept whatever Authority said, without question, without even a notion of resisting!" Yorick whistled. "Wow! The ideal brainwashing system—with the victims footing the bill!"

Roksa paled and took a step back. "You can't prove that."

"Oh, I think I could," Whitey said with a shark's grin. "A semiotic analysis of the plot, and a neurological analysis of the choice-alternatives… yes, I think I could prove it very thoroughly." very thoi

"So what?" Roksa's jaw thrust out a little. "There's nothing illegal about it."

"Only because nobody's thought of it yet. Tell me—do all your dreams do that?"

"I don't have to answer that question!"

Yorick grinned and stepped forward, massaging his fist. "Why not?"

"Because of them!" Roksa stepped back and yanked the door open. A dozen big, muscular men slouched into the room. Only eight of them carried clubs. The other four carried blasters.

Rod stabbed a finger at the leader. "You're the peasant! The one with the pitchfork!"

The leader gave a mock bow. "Wirlin Eaves, at your service."

"He's too modest," Roksa chuckled. "That's Wirlin Eaves, Ph.D."

"Ph.D.?" Rod frowned. "What're you doing leading a bunch of assassins?"

"I couldn't get a job teaching. Besides, this pays better."

"What's your area," Rod snorted, "political science?"

"Naw." Eaves grinned wickedly. "I'm the real thing—a Ph.D. in philosophy."

Rod stared. "You're a certified philosopher?"

"What's so strange about that?"

"But—you kill people!"

"You noticed."

"How can a philosopher justify doing such horrible things?"

"What else is philosophy for, these days?"

"But what kind of reasons could philosophy give you for killing people!"

"The best." Eaves grinned. "It's profitable."

"I thought philosophy was supposed to be ethical."

"Haven't you ever heard of existentialism?" Eaves shrugged. "Besides, it is ethical; it's just that you don't agree with this ethic." He turned serious for a moment. "But if you really want to know, before I burn your brains out, I'll tell you. It's a way of exercising power over my subjective universe."

"A solipsist," Rod groaned. "I thought you were supposed to be a philosopher, not a hatchet man. No, one last question!" He held up a hand as Eaves started forward, and the thug stopped."What would have happened if we'd slept through the whole dream?"

"Oh, you would've waked up, same as usual." Eaves shrugged. "You just would've found yourselves surrounded, that's all—and wearing straitjackets."

"But the inmates took over the asylum, eh?"

"Management's about to reassert itself," Eaves informed him. "Take 'em!"

He lifted his blaster.

Gwen concentrated all of her attention on the weapon.

Eaves pressed the trigger with an ecstatic grin. Then the grin faded into horrified shock. He pressed the trigger again— and again, and again.

His three sidekicks lifted their blasters and pressed their triggers, too, with the same lack of result.

"What'd you do to them?" Eaves growled.

"You really don't want to know," Rod assured him. "It might upset your philosophical system."

Eaves' eyes narrowed. "All right, we'll do it the old-fashioned way. Now.'"

He and his men waded in, swinging their blasters as clubs. Their mates fanned out fast around the company and started in with their truncheons.

Whitey shouted and lashed a kick at a thug. The man howled and dropped his club, as Chomoi barked and chopped at another one. He blocked and snapped his club down, but she twisted aside and bounced a chop off another man's neck. As he dropped, she slashed a kick at the first one, ducked under a swing from a third and stabbed him in the solar plexus with a shout, then blocked a swing from the first attacker and followed it with a kick in the chin. He slammed back into the wall, and she spun to a fourth thug.

Yorick was much more conservative. He dodged as an attacker swung a club at him, caught the man's wrist and whipped it around and up behind his back—way up. The thug howled as Yorick twisted the club out of his hand and cracked it down on his skull. Then he shoved the man into an oncoming assassin, grabbed a third by the neck and rammed his head into the wall, then turned back just as the second was picking himself up, and slammed a haymaker into his jaw.

Rod's head was ringing; Eaves had connected. But so had Rod, and the lead thug had dropped his blaster. He circled to Rod's left, guard tight, shaking his head. Rod jabbed at his belly, his head, his belly again, and caught him with a right cross. Eaves staggered back, and Rod followed with a kick that sent him crashing into the wall.

Gwen glared at three other thugs who were crowding back together, trying to fend off a cloud of dream-helmets and fallen clubs that whirled at them. Every now and then, one got through.

Mirane crouched behind Stroganoff, frantically punching keys on her computer-pad. He stood between her and the thugs, arms outstretched to shield her as he watched, dazed and muttering, "I gotta remember this! For my next fight sequence! Gotta remember!"

"Not quite!" Rod yanked Roksa and the hostess back into the room and kicked the door shut. He sent the girl spinning over to Chornoi, who advanced on her, eyes steely. The hostess backed against the wall, terrified. Roksa tried to twist to swing at Rod, but Rod had him by the coverall collar at the end of a very long arm, and Roksa's eyes bulged as the collar tightened around his neck. He turned back, quickly—and stared at twelve unconscious men littering the floor of his dream-room.

"Don't take it so hard," Rod soothed. "Only one of them is dead." He raised his voice. "A little careless there, Chornoi."

She shrugged impatiently. "I was in a rush."

"I wasn't complaining."

Yorick shook his head slowly, clucking his tongue. "Messy, messy! What'll we do with them?"

"We could hook them up to the dream-machines," Chornoi suggested.

"No!" Roksa cried. The hostess's terror turned to horror.

"It won't be that bad." Mirane stepped out from behind Stroganoff. "I've been doing a little reprogramming on your computer."

Roksa and the hostess stared, white showing all around their eyes.

"I changed it to stop conditioning people," Mirane explained.

"But that's impossible!"

"Not at all; I just told it to insert new plot-alternatives that stress individuality and skepticism."

Roksa didn't exactly look reassured. "We'll wake up totally confused!"

"No, just curious. You'll question authority—and you'll keep questioning, until you find answers you can prove."

"But there won't be time to enjoy life!" the hostess wailed.

"Learning can be fun," Yorick assured her.

"Would you rather not have a life?" Chornoi watched her, taut and alert.

"I… think I'll take the dream," the young woman said slowly.

Rod nodded. "Very wise." He turned to Roksa. "You'll take it, too. The only question is whether or not you'll do it willingly."

Roksa stared at him.

Then his fist slammed into Rod's belly.

Rod doubled over in agony, and Roksa started to turn to the door, so he was at just the right angle as Yorick's fist crashed into his jaw. The manager folded, very neatly.

"Courage, husband." Gwen was beside him, massaging his back, soothing. "Tis but pain, and 'twill pass."

Yeah, but so will I. Rod couldn't say it aloud, due to a temporary malfunction of the diaphragm. He fought to breathe in. Finally, air came in a long, shuddering gasp. He straightened slowly, turning to Mirane. "Can you make it a nightmare?"

"We don't stock any," the hostess said quickly.

Stroganoff gave her the jaundiced eye. "That makes me think I ought to check through your whole catalog."

"We don't have time," Mirane said quickly.

Rod nodded. "I'm afraid she's right. We've got to hook them up for the longest time the computer will manage, and get out of here." He turned to the hostess. "We need something that will handle a dozen men."

The hostess thought a moment. "How about The Flying Dutchman?"

Rod nodded. "The very thing. I hope Eaves hates Wagner."

They wrestled Eaves up onto one of the couches and set the helmet on his head. Mirane found one of the injectors, pressed it against his wrist, and squeezed. She turned to press the "start" button, but Rod held up a hand. "Just a sec. He should be very suggestible right now." He slapped Eaves' cheek gently. "Come on, wake up, old man! Debriefing time. Report!"

Eaves' eyes fluttered and opened, but they were glazed.

Rod stepped back out of sight. "So. You followed the Gallowglass party from Wolmar in your own ship, and intercepted them on the resort-planet Otranto. What measures did you take to secure them?"

Eaves nodded slowly. "They took refuge in a dream-house. I bribed and coerced the manager into giving them the zombie drug."

The rest of the company stared at Rod, amazed. He nodded, grim-faced. "Where did you leave your scoutship?"

Eaves frowned at the strangeness of the question, but answered, "In the Palazzo of Montressor."

"What password did you use?"

Eaves' frown deepened, but he answered,"Excelsior."

"Send out the St. Bernards," Whitey muttered.

Eaves' eyes closed, and a gentle smile curved his lips.

"When did you become a double agent?" Rod said softly. "When did you begin working for GRIPE?"

Eaves raised his eyebrows. "Never. I am loyal to VETO." Then his face smoothed out, and his breathing deepened.

"A Totalitarian," Rod muttered. "I might've known. They come in batches."

"What's VETO?" Whitey demanded.

"A secret society that works for PEST." Rod turned away to the litter of unconscious bodies. "Come on, let's get these bozos off to dreamland."

Whitey frowned, but he turned to help David heave a thug up onto a couch.

A few minutes later, the whole dozen were drugged and dreaming.

Rod turned to the hostess, and she shrank back at the look in his eye. "Any preferences?" he asked.

The girl just stared at him for a moment. Then, reassured, she gazed off into space, and a reverent look came over her face. "Jane Eyre," she murmured. "I always wanted to be Jane Eyre."

"With him as Rochester?"

The hostess' gaze focused again; she turned to look down at Roksa. Then she implored, "Can't you manage separate dreams?"

Rod and Gwen exchanged glances, and her thoughts said, Grant what mercy thou canst, I prithee.

Rod nodded. "Yeah, why not? You set up the couches and the dreams."

The hostess stared at him for a moment, then slowly smiled. She turned away to punch some buttons on the computer console. Mirane stepped over to watch her closely, and her eyes widened.

The hostess turned away with a bright smile. "I'm ready. Shall we try it?" And she stretched out on one of the couches, pulling the helmet on and pressing the injector against her arm. Then she tossed it aside, stretched luxuriously, and closed her eyes.

Rod gazed at her, chewing at the inside of his lip. "Well, the quality of our mercy sure isn't strained. Give me a hand with this hulk, will you, Yorick?"

As they left the dreamhouse a few minutes later, Rod asked Mirane, "What dream did she give him?"

"The Dunwich Horror."

"Hurry, will you?" Yorick demanded. "That dream will buy us time, but not a lot of it. We need to get off-planet, and fast! I don't think even Whitey, Stroganoff and Mirane will be welcome here after this number."

Whitey's face set. "No. I'm afraid you're right."

Stroganoff stared. "You don't mean it! What about Dracula Rises Again?"

"We'll send back orders for the company to finish it."

"But they'll destroy it!" Stroganoff wailed. "They'll ruin it! It won't even pull a decent box office!"

Mirane was pale. "That'd be money down the drain, Whitey, without you there—750,000 therms!"

"Graves are even more expensive," Whitey answered, "especially on Otranto. And for myself, I don't plan to go on working after I'm dead."

Mirane and Stroganoff paled, and followed.

Rod clenched his jaw. "It's all because of us. You wouldn't be in this bind, if we hadn't crashed your set. I'm sorry, Whitey—very."

"Don't worry about it," the poet growled. "I had a hunch you were worth it."

The tour guide held up a hand to stop them, and pointed down a narrow, winding stair. "We're about to go down into the dungeons—and beyond them. You see, Palazzo Montressor was built on top of the catacombs."

"Which were built especially for Palazzo Montressor," Whitey muttered under his breath.

"Take note of the niter on the walls." The guide smiled cheerfully. "Farther on, you'll notice a pile of bones. We'll move a few of them aside, and you'll notice a brand-new brick wall. Fortunato's behind it, of course. All set? Here we go!"

He set off down the stairway, holding his torch high. The tourists followed him, single file, with the eight fugitives in their midst. The walls quickly dampened and darkened; patches of moss appeared here and there.

Whitey leaned forward and muttered into Rod's ear, "If only Poe could've collected the royalties while he was still alive!"

Rod nodded. "He would've lived longer."

Whitey frowned. "Yeah… Maybe it's just as well…"

They trooped down a long and winding stairway. The tourists began to mutter in excitement over the decrepitude of their surroundings, but Gwen pressed close to Rod, for which he was infinitely grateful. "My lord, 'tis eldritch."

"Yeah." Chornoi glanced up at the dripping walls. "This place gives me the creeps."

"That's what it's supposed to do," Stroganoff explained.

"You mean people pay to feel so lousy?"

They came out into a low stone hallway. The guide sauntered away ahead of them, carrying the torch and whistling. They followed the wavering flames, as masonry gave way to bedrock. They passed by a niche in the wall, with something in it that was wrapped in old, brittle cloth.

Gwen stared. "What is that?"

"A fake corpse, dear. We're in the 'catacombs.'"

The rest of the tour group oohed and aahed at the sight. One lady giggled.

Rod scowled. "Now, if I were Wirlin Eaves, where would

I have hidden my scoutship?"

The tunnel broadened out into an open space, about ten feet on a side. Three tunnels branched off from it. There was a pile of very realistic-looking skeletons stacked up to the ceiling against one wall.

One lady stared at it, her face a fascinating blend of disgust, loathing, and delight. "Is that…"

"Yes, ma'am." The guide gave her a solemn nod. "That's Fortunato's personal crypt."

Rod lifted his head, a gleam coming into his eye.

"What do you scent, O peerless leader?" Yorick whispered.

"Look," Rod said, "if you were Wirlin, you'd want your ship stashed out of sight, but in a place where you could get at it any time you wanted it, right?"

"They're moving on without us." Chornoi sounded nervous.

"Let 'em." Rod waved a hand. "I find this particular exhibit fascinating."

Yorick was running his hands over the wall by the pile of bones. "Here's the button."

Rod nodded. "Press it."

Machinery purred, and the whole wall-full of bones swung outward. The space behind it was huge and unlit.

"Got a match?" Rod said softly.

"Not since Shakespeare," Whitey grunted, but he lifted out a lighter, struck a flame, and held it aloft. "Sometimes it's handy, having vices."

The flickering glow revealed unused maintenance robots lined up against the walls, a pile of construction material— and the nose of a sleek spaceship, streamlined for atmospheric flight.

"Pay dirt," Rod breathed.

They stepped forward, awed by the bulk of the ship. It wasn't really all that big, but in an enclosed space, it seemed gigantic.

"Excelsior," Rod called softly.

Lights brightened around the craft. With a grunt of satisfaction, Whitey let his lighter snap closed and slipped it into a pocket.

"You are not Wirlin Eaves," stated a voice from the ship.

Rod nodded. "Eaves couldn't make it. In fact, he may not be able to get loose if we don't go get help."

Silence hung for a moment, then the ship said, "Ready to transmit."

Rod stared, strapped for a moment.

"Code," Chornoi suggested. "The renegades broke it."

Rod nodded, with a grin of relief. "That's right. We can't send word; it would be intercepted, and so would we. We have to get back to base to call for help."

The ship was silent.

"Excelsior," Rod said again. "Eaves told us that word. How else would we have known it?"

Slowly, an iris opened in the ship's side.

With a sigh of relief, Rod beckoned his people aboard.