CHAPTER FIVE

Both Lourdes and I recognized the necessity of ridding ourselves of better than half the roughnecks I had gathered together. Many of them fell short in the intelligence category, while others simply could not be trusted under any circumstances. We only needed about eight of them, but we figured with the group we had, we would have to take on ten. If we took any fewer, long standing buddies and cronies would be parted, and these partnerships were important in maintaining morale.

As for the purpose of the trip, I at first considered concocting some story of gold and looting on Ancho. That would keep the boys interested and loyal enough. But it would also involve a lot of interruptions and lawbreaking along the way, neither of which was particularly desireable. In addition, sneaking up on Seek on some third world planet without his getting suspicious would be hard enough without the constant pressure of maintaining the trappings of a farcical mission. Instead, I decided to pay them outright, with added bonuses in cash for meritorious service as well as promised shares of whatever treasure or booty was to be divied out.

No, I wouldn't stop talking about looting or racketeering around this group. They were pirates and would only be happy if pirating were a part of the activities to come. But if they asked what I was doing on Ancho, they would be told to mind their own business. In exchange for money, I felt sure they would lose their curiousity.

That I was paying cash would not sour them on the project either. And it was fine with me. Cardip had opened the Seychelles vaults and every penny requested was being granted for the purpose of apprehending Colonel Seek. I had enough money to finance just about anything and didn't feel guilty about it either; after all, a tremendous amount of that wealth was actually mine.

Lourdes reviewed my analysis of Seek's wild-eyed publication record and agreed with me that Ancho was the place to look for him. She had another concern, however.

We were in our upstairs apartment packing, which was not a difficult job. The computer would simply be abandoned and the kind of clothes we would need for Ancho would have to be bought elsewhere. Most of what I was putting in my suitcase was money. "Jenkins," Lourdes said seriously. "I assume you have notified the agency of this Ancho business. After thinking about it, I have to admit that it is not as completely crazy a notion as I first thought."

"I've had that feeling all along," I told her. "For that reason, I went directly to Cardip himself before we even came here and showed him everything I had on Seek."

"And?"

"He didn't agree with me," I said. "It's that simple."

"But surely this is better than the hit-and-miss strategy the Agency is pursuing now. We at least have some reasons for believing Seek could be on Ancho. What is the Agency's game plan? All I see now is an organization with an army of mavericks chasing down leads with no direction at all."

"I'm not sure," I replied. "Cardip wouldn't tell me. There is an Agency strategy, however; I know that for a fact. Cardip didn't want me in on it. He let me know in no uncertain terms that I was to have nothing to do with it."

Lourdes let out a sigh. "The evidence we have is not strong," she said after a pause. "But it is interesting. It's smart to look into it. And Cardip is too smart to ignore it."

"Oh, but he's not ignoring it," I stated, trying to clarify. "He's got me -- and now you -- on the project. Get this: we're to report in by O-X radio, apparently the only restriction on us. I've got an O-X packed in some of the luggage we haven't bothered to open."

"Cardip offered just the radio and no personnel?"

"I tried to get Agency back-up logistical support, but he scoffed. Others high up didn't think much of my ideas either, though they were less derisive."

"So for manpower we've got nothing but your gorillas."

"Yeah," I said. "These guys are perfect. They know how to run from a fight without making it look like running. Yet, they are also quite willing and able to slug it out if they have to. Their most important asset, however, is their look."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Simply that if and when we run into the Ancho version of the Heliox hooligan, the two groups will instantly recognize their off-world counterparts. Instead of an outright attack, there will be a bit of he-buck strutting and positioning and raised hair-- it's the same on every world. Usually harmless enough. Some headbutting at the least and maybe a little knifeplay, but the heat will be off you and me whatever happens. That's important; Ancho is a rough world in many places, and I intend to do some traveling right out in the open."

"That's good as far as it goes," said Lourdes. "But I wish we had some Agency support. I still can't understand the administration's inability to anticipate Seek. Can't they see what that schiz is likely to do?"

"Perhaps they would be able to if not for the religious element," I offered. "They come from modern worlds where one does not see much of the old-style fundamentalist zeal."

"That could explain it," Lourdes admitted. "Now, however, you and I are stuck with the job of going to Ancho. We'd better keep our fingers crossed."

"That Seek is or is not there?" I asked.

"I haven't decided that," she answered.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dumping the twenty-odd ruffians whom I didn't need was child's play. I began by telling them that I intended to ditch the others. Then, I pulled a switcheroo. I'll never forget their faces as they watched the shuttle bus to the starport rumble by without them. They stood stupidly at the curbside, bags in hand, gaping at the twelve grinning faces pressed against the windows of the bus. I tossed them the tiniest wave just before the shuttle rounded the corner out of sight.

Among the ten from Heliox were: Biffer, the wiry thin huckster with a face so evil that his own mother must have feared him; Marlow, a transplanted Grangorian who was on Heliox simply to escape his creditors; Nils, a tall blondish chap whose penchant for liquor made him fairly unusable for stretches of time; Hardiman, good with engines and better with his fists -- a temper to match, too; and a variety of other more featureless alleycats among whom was the giant Kroin, who bore me no malice for the thrashing I had given him; he was more like a dog whose master has beaten it and relented: all waggy tail and eager to please. Kroin had not taken my advice and consulted a dentist and could now spit and whistle simultaneously through the new gap in the front of his mouth, a fact that seemed to give him joy. It is easy to amuse a simple mind. He still possessed the limp I had predicted, and I hoped that that wouldn't prove to be a problem; I planned to do some hiking before we saw the last of Ancho.

When the twelve of us boarded the commercial liner to Draconis, we looked more like nursery school conventioneers than anything else. I had instructed the boys in how to dress. They were spiffed up in the latest three-piece suits, complete with diamond cufflinks and gold tie clasps. We had some very expensive forged passports that could pass muster anywhere, but I wanted no overly officious customs officer to have any reason to give us as much as a second glance. There was no telling what crimes these gentlemen were presently wanted for. And aiding and abetting a criminal on Heliox was just as bad as committing the crime yourself. I mean that quite literally. King Caleb had blurred the distinctions normally made among differing crimes on most civilized worlds. The penalty for shoplifting, for instance, was the same as that for first degree murder. It was mandatory execution by firing squad whether you lifted a pack of cigarettes or assassinated the local magistrate.

The liner was nothing like the cruisers that low level businessmen could rent. It was strictly first class and was equipped with ultradrive. In other words, it got us where we wanted to go in a couple of days instead of a few weeks. The ship was also comfortably furnished. Each of us had a tiny sleeper. During waking hours there was room to move about and there was even a quiet lounge where the lot of us would retire daily for a drink or two. I was surprised at how the roughnecks held their liquor and refrained from bullying or arguing with the other passengers. These boys were barely housebroken, but with those expensive suits, no one would have suspected it.

Draconis was a hub world. Flights to a large number of little-known planets originated here. Ancho was one such destination. In the urban areas surrounding the starport were hundreds of different commercial neighborhoods, each vying to the indigene of a particular planet. Our party headed for "Little Ancho." It was a place of rank smells and urban squalor. Ear-splitting blasts from the horns of busses and groundcars sounded everywhere. Vendors hawked their wares screeching with strident voices, while in hundreds of streetside cafes, busy cusiniers grilled, boiled, and fried an amazing assortment of items, some not generally considered edible elsewhere.

Here, the litter bag was an invention of the distant future. Smoke from the cooking fires rolled over the shops and diners, and rumbling diesel-powered busses pumped out petroleum fumes into the streets. And as the traffic passed, discarded wrappers and papers whirled in the dusty alleyways, settled, and whirled again.

It would not be a comfortable place to live, but we didn't mind visiting at all.

For a reasonable price, we got outfitted in the latest Ancho fashions, which were pretty primitive. For men, the attire consisted of a pair of old-fashioned trousers and an unpressed white shirt. These items were effectively concealed by a large multicolored blanket with a hole cut in its center. The wearer's head protruded from the hole. We were told by the salesman that it was customary to use the sarape, as this garment was called, as one might use a regular blanket for sleeping in the wilds. For shoes we were offered huaraches , a kind of jury-rigged sandal with tire tread as a sole. They were not particularly comfortable, but I doubted that we'd wear them out in a hurry. Hats also came with the package. They were large and round and woven of straw with a single dingleball hanging from the rear brim of each. They would also be quite useful; Ancho was known to be a hot world.

Lourdes did not at first fare as well as the men in our party. She quickly found herself wearing a hideous black and banana yellow dress with razor sharp pleats over every inch of it. It was a sartorial nightmare. A series of solidly starched peticoats rustled noisily underneath and flared the garment out like some huge open umbrella. And the shoes she was given were high-heels, which made her look as though she were trying to climb out of the dress -- which I guess she was. "Don't say a word," she warned frostily, her raised fist clenched in my face. "If you so much as open your mouth, I'll kill you with my bare hands."

I bit my lip. It took a tremendous effort not to laugh, but somehow I managed it. Soon Lourdes was being fitted for something a bit -- well different. It was a low-cut, deep maroon dress which barely covered her knees and clung to her like honey. The high heels remained a part of the ensemble and were adorned by a pair of black nylon stockings that glistened like silk. The effect of this against the backdrop of her black hair and dark brown eyes was striking.

"That's a definite improvement," I said with a hungry leer. "But there's a name for the kind of woman you look like now, sweetie."

We didn't have to change her attire much to fix things; I confess that I didn't really want to change it all that much. We simply added a ladies' version of the sarape which concealed enough of the dress to keep the wolf whistles under control.

The purpose of the clothing was to thwart any arrangements Colonel Seek might have made to intercept Federal or Agency busibodies. The last thing I wanted was for us to show up in some dusty port on Ancho decked out in those three-piece suits. If Seek had effected surveillance of the major points of ingress to Ancho, which he might very well have done, twelve well-dressed off-world strangers would be exceedingly conspicuous. I wanted us to look like a gang of backwoods Anchoan entrepreneurs who had been moderately successful in something or other and were well-to-do enough to be taking the occasional interstellar flight.

The only problem was a linguistic one; none of us spoke Spanglo well enough to pass as native. In the University of Rigel IV, I had studied the language along with a half dozen others for an undergraduate degree. I spoke it fluently enough, yet my accent, while not bad, would never fool anyone. Aside from that one problem, however, I thought we fit the part well enough to proceed.

We outfitted ourselves with a few Ancho-made knapsacks. Afterwards, we rented rooms in a medium-priced hotel in Little Ancho. The boys from Heliox went out to carouse around the town while Lourdes and I stayed in the hotel and caught up on some long neglected true gravity sleep.

In the morning, I visited the public library. They had a pretty good one here on Draconis, and it was close enough to Ancho to have some current data on the place. I wasn't really sure of what I was looking for. Things had progressed so rapidly on the Seychelles and on Heliox, that I never really had the chance to do the background work that was needed.

There was quite a lot on Ancho in the library: tourist brochures, coffee table books, and histories. I needed up-to-date geological surveys, and there were plenty of them as well. They gave me a pretty good idea of where Seek might want to mine.

His ship, of course, would not be visible. Miles across, the battlesled could never hide behind anything smaller than a planet or large asteroid. For this reason, it possessed cloaking devices that would make it completely invisible. I believed that somewhere on Ancho that great ship sat, its mining tubes buried in the earth beneath it, digging, tunneling, and processing, and concealing the project from all the world. I knew that a magnetic survey or even mass detecters would not reveal the presence of the ship; its stealth technology was too far advanced to permit that. But I also felt that there had to be a way to pinpoint its location.

I evaluated everything I could on the geology of Ancho and found the planet so loaded with likely carnotite mining sites that to investigate them all would take a lifetime. Just the same, I continued research in the library, waiting for inspiration to strike. It did, but only after two days of reading and thinking. I had made my way through half the important historical works on Ancho when I picked up one of the coffee table volumes for a little break. It was a lavishly illustrated tome which dealt with the popular sport of small craft aviation on Ancho. I perused in relaxation, my mission and the revolution completely forgotten, and suddenly it dawned on me how I could locate George Seek.

Five days later, we were already aboard a slow cruiser to Ancho.

CHAPTER SIX

It was a large ship and definitely a budget spaceliner. Most of the passengers were small-time Anchoan businessmen who dressed and cursed like nineteenth century sheepherders and quarreled in loud voices over trifles. They tried to direct some of their complaints to us, but after Biffer gave them an evil stare that was full of menace, they confined their reproaches to members of their own party.

Taking these boys along was already beginning to pay off.

We had more room to move around on this ship, but the week-and-a- half journey to Ancho under standard drive seemed twice as long.

The starport was in a large city called Tecolote. It was one of half a dozen cities with interstellar commerce, but I chose it because I had reasons to believe it might be closest to George Seek. On arrival at Ancho Starport III, we breezed through the crowds and found a cheap hotel where we could all stretch out and relax.

The rooms were clean enough but only because they were hosed out after each vacancy. The floors were cement and each room possessed a drain to aid in mopping up or in the event of accidental flooding. When I looked at the plumbing fixtures, I realized why things were set up this way. Each hosebib, inside and out of the building, was caked with rust and dripped and drizzled away unchecked. This condition was by no means restricted to our low class lodgings; even the swankest hotels were stained red by the oxidizing iron of dilapidated airconditioners and leaky swamp boxes. The faucets in our bathroom were no different. They sat in the centers of large, rusty rings and resembled two lumps of pumice. And when I ran a test on the water in the pipes, I rushed to warn even the iron-stomached Helioxians.

But it wasn't just the plumbing that was substandard. Each time a bus passed on the street below, the entire building quaked and the bedsprings groaned -- and the food and service were atrocious. I found the whole place fascinating; the entire city seemed stricken by the same malady. High and low class alike shared most aspects of this squalor: the unsanitary streets, the crumbling sidewalks, the polluted air, the noise, and the general disorder. Ancho was much like its fascimile on Draconis.

The real thing, however, was bigger and dirtier, and in addition there were many brown-uniformed police in the streets. This, of course, was very much an unsettling difference. The cops gave us the once over whenever we passed, and I felt that they were looking for some pretext to extort some of our cash. Lourdes and I conjectured that we were perhaps too well-dressed for such treatment. Our clothes, though plain, were quite new, and the slightly higher class usually enjoyed some kind of priviledge on planets like this.

Lourdes and I took in most of what sights interested us in about two hours and then returned to our room. I hung my hat on the rack inside the door and began unpacking some papers, which I spread out on the floor. Lourdes came over and kneeled down with me on the cement. "This," I said, "is the reason we have come to Ancho via Starport III here in Tecolote."

What lay before me was a series of weather maps printed on nearly transparent onion skin paper so that the daily changing isoglosses could be viewed. It was an odd weather pattern for Ancho. What seemed to be a solid low pressure area had remained over the same geographical area ever since Colonel Seek had disappeared from sight. "This could be the battlesled," I told Lourdes, indicating a roughly circular area some three-hundred miles in diameter. It was an impressively illustrated collection of papers with plenty of overlapping colors and numbers. I had jazzed it up some on the library's color graphics computer.

Lourdes simply leafed through the papers frowning. I did not have the impression that she was deeply impressed. Finally, she sighed, turned the last page, and looked up at me. "It's clear why you insisted on waiting to show me this," she stated tiredly. "I could easily find anomalies more convincing than these. Of course, they would be equally meaningless. About all these papers prove is that you have found a stationary low that is roughly the size of Seek's ship."

"You forget that I have found this anomaly on Ancho," I responded. "And I've found it above a rich layer of carnotite overlying a deposit of the hottest uranium ore on the planet."

Lourdes was not overawed. "If it is the hottest deposit, then it is merely a coincidence," she said, undaunted. "I don't dismiss your ideas without cause; there is a compelling reason to doubt the significance of your observations. It is this: Seek would disguise any weather that could reveal his presence to anyone."

"Would he?" I asked. "I folded my papers up and tucked them back in my suitcase. "Do you honestly think anyone would attribute a stubborn low pressure zone to the presence of a P-657?"

"Yes," Lourdes answered, with a smile. "You would. So, there's your answer. Seek would leave no traces of his position. Why would he if he didn't have to?"

I took a folder from the suitcase and opened it. It contained several pages photocopied from the coffee table volume on small aircraft. I handed it to her. She looked at the documents for a few moments without joy and handed them back. "Tell," she finally replied.

"What do you remember about the weather maps you just viewed?" I inquired. I motioned toward my suitcase. "Tell me from a small aircraft pilot's point of view."

Lourdes began counting off on her fingers. "Winds 55 knots, with conditions prime for airframe icing, not to mention carburator ice. Instrument flight rules every inch of the way, wind shear, too, and the density altitude around that low would give a small plane all the flying characteristics of a grand piano. In all, I'd say really delightful."

"Fine. What would happen if a private airplane tried to navigate through weather like that on Marion? Assuming, of course, that private aviation is still permitted under the present Federal occupation." I asked.

Lourdes shrugged, obviously getting bored. "It could easily turn up missing. A civil patrol would be sent out to investigate. The regular full investigation would insue."

"Aha!" I shouted. "That's exactly what George Seek would want, isn't it?"

"Don't be sarcastic," Lourdes replied, annoyed. Clearly, that is the exact opposite of what he would want -- but that won't happen because..." She broke off, realizing what she was about to say.

I grinned. "If you don't mind, I'll finish that: because no pilot in his right mind would fly into such a mess." I put the photocopies in the suitcase with the other papers. "Seek has made himself vunerable in a way that no one could ever have foreseen. A battleship like his is usually highly mobile. If someone comes by, it simply moves somewhere else. That makes the ship next to impossible to locate. With his mining project in operation, however, Seek is rooted solid, and his presence open to betrayal in the most inadvertant and uncomplicated way: someone could run into him!"

I knew the dimensions of Seek's ship. It was roughly saucer-shaped and one hundred and fifty miles in radius. If reduced to the size of a coin, it would be an almost wafer-thin disk, but on Ancho, its uppermost point would still top 30,000 feet and perhaps be covered with a thick layer of snow. It would present a terrible navigation hazard for aircraft of any kind. The presence of that huge ship would also directly affect the weather, and George Seek could make any alterations he felt were necessary to discourage flight through the area. He could even, I imagined, quietly blow an errant aviator out of the vicinity by creating headwinds too strong for a plane to drive against.

At the same time, I knew that a man or party of men could walk beneath the ship unobstructed. I had read the specs on the mining equipment Seek possessed and knew the ship would be supported (figuratively only) by a single column jutting from its hub. This column contained mining tubes, drills, and refining equipment and was anchored in the earth.

I don't think Lourdes was sold, but at least she didn't find my ideas completely idiotic. I radioed Cardip that evening and told him what we were doing. He was very businesslike and simply said to keep him posted. I was somewhat disappointed that he didn't seem as excited about my hunches as I was, but I knew he had a lot more on his mind than what I had to say.

The O-X radio itself was a miracle to say nothing more. Its transmissions were instantaneous and secure and only wealthy governments could afford them. The tiny transmitter I carried with me was not expensive, of course, but the receiving equipment aboard the Seychelles put the Agency at an even par with the Feds communications-wise. It just so happened that an O-X master unit was being transported aboard the Seychelles when the Agency requisitioned her. Without that bit of luck, the Agency would be fighting for unsecured subspace channels along with every third world inhabitant of the galaxy -- and waiting anywhere from ten minutes to an hour between transmissions.

The O-X was tiny as well; I'd have no problem packing it into any place I wanted to go. Other supplies, however, were not so readily available on Ancho as I would have liked. There were no outfitter's stores specializing in what I needed, so I was forced to put together our provisions piecemeal. I kept things as simple as I could: first, a better pair of shoes for Lourdes and canteens all around. A good coffee pot, coffee and sugar. There were a lot of smaller items that I needed to buy and pack: flashlights, matches, water purification tablets, rope, a good camp knife and compass. We wouldn't need to carry much food; it was simple for me to plot a course that crossed through tiny peasant settlements where we could barter for our evening meal. The line on my map didn't even zigzag much. Just the same, the less hiking the better. I had the twelve of us board a single diesel-powered bus to the train station. We'd take the train, get off at a place called "Desbocado," and travel over land by foot after that.

The station was located in the direct center of Tecolote, not far from Starport III. I made sure we arrived in plenty of time to pick up the tickets before they were sold out. Things didn't work out very well however, for although I was the very first in line and had my money and the correct words in Spanglo ready, I was not able to get a single ticket. The people crowding in behind me, arms outstretched and faces straining with insistance were simply served the tickets over my shoulders and head until the last seat on the train had been taken. I hollered and bleated red-faced while this was happening -- but it made no difference. I was thoroughly outclassed by this street-smart mob.

It was already dark when I came back with the rest of the crew. I didn't intend to be culturally sensitive. I needed those tickets. There was another train arriving in fifteen minutes and there was not much time to get them. If I lacked the necessary assertiveness, I doubted I these apes from Heliox did.

Lourdes and I pushed our way to the front of the line -- or mob; it really wasn't any kind of line you'd ever seen. Biffer and Nils came up behind, and turned, arms folded, facing backward. The crowd was taken aback by this and showed the desired signs of intimidation.

Old habits die hard, however, and when the ticket window rattled open, there was an eager surge and an attempt by some to squeeze in front of Lourdes and me.

Nils would have none of it. He gave the first to reach him a powerful block that set the interloper back on his heels. Many of the others also took a step backward. Nils was not as big as Kroin, who stood nearby, but he was certainly a head taller and a hand width broader than anybody else in the crowd. He was now leveling an ugly stare at the people before him.

I turned to the window with my money. The cashier appeared at first somewhat mystified. He must never have seen a quiet face alone in the window. He had also likely never seen money over the counter that was not clutched in a waving half fist -- much less money on the counter laid out in twelve neat piles. "Doce boletos a Desbocado." I told him. My accent was not bad at all, I decided.

There was a long beat as the cashier tried to make sense out of what he was seeing. Then, he came awake and handed over the tickets. Nodding, with a smile, I said, "Mil gracias, cuñado." I turned to the others "¡Vámanos muchachos!"

But that was not the end of it. Biffer, guarding the left flank, was set upon by a tall man who was not very much like the others in the crowd. This was what one might call in Spanglo "un pachuco." He wore a kind of flat, low-lying hat with only the tiniest visor in place of the sun-blocking brims the rest of us wore. Dark glasses covered his eyes. His face was lined with deep creases that may not have been worry lines but real scars and his build was wiry like Biffer's. He looked dangerous.

Biffer did not possess the simple imposing bulk that Nils did. He was shorter even than I. Now he was being challenged by the approaching Anchoan.

Nils himself was a good three paces away.

"I've got the tickets, boys." I said loudly. "Side step him, Biffer. No need to get rough."

Biffer tried once to obey. Yet while stepping around the other, he was shouldered once hard. There was nothing I could do. Biffer reacted as expected: he returned the man's offense with a forceful open-handed push. "¡Pendejo!" he hissed. Spanglo -- interesting, I thought.

Nils acted then, too late, taking the beginnings of a step to back up Biffer. But the Anchoan had already pulled out a weapon. It was a black spring-loaded folding knife that snapped suddenly open to reveal a gleaming six-inch blade. Biffer only sneered, whipped out a bone handled straight razor and cut open the man's head in a curving incision following the scalpline from widow's peak to ear.

It was a painful wound. I knew this by the horrific screams of agony that escaped the Anchoan. He clutched his head as blood spurted between his fingers and over the knife that he held forgotten in his hand. Nils was on hand then to act -- and he did so prudently; instead of beating the man over the head, he only snatched the knife and pocketed it. The wounded pachuco was now kneeling on the train station floor, still holding his head.

"¡No se muevan!" I turned to see an approaching constable. He was a brown-uniformed policeman, middled-aged and overweight. At his side he carried an immense silver-plated automatic, which he was desperately tugging from its holster.

"Beautiful," Lourdes snarled. "Just beautiful."

"¡No se muevan!" the cop repeated, puffing mightily as he trotted belaboredly toward us. The pistol was halfway out of the holster now. "¡Manos arribas, o cuelgo los pellejos en.......uhn!"

Nils had moved faster this time. The policeman lay unconscious on the floor, his nose bleeding slightly and one eye socket rapidly swelling shut. Nils stooped to pick up the pistol and looked up at the now gaping crowd. Evidently they irritated him. "Get outta here!" he snapped ferociously, waving the pistol in their faces. The crowd vanished -- instantly; one minute they were there and the next they were just gone.

"Get his amunition belt, while you're at it." I told Nils.

Lourdes glowered at me. "Now what, bigshot?"

I pointed toward the platform. "The train."

Lourdes grasped my arm fiercely. "Are you completely out of your mind? The police will simply be waiting for us in Desbocado."

"Let 'em wait," I answered, as I took the pistol and amunition from Nils and stuffed them in my pack.

There was an approaching rumble followed by a high-pitch screech of brakes and a drawn-out wheezing hiss that ended with the single blast of a locomotive's horn. "Come on!" I yelled.

In the distance, at the platform, the train waited silently.

We ran to the platform. The conductor appeared to be nothing more than mildly pleased at the relatively small number of boarders. He took one last look down the station walkway, saw nothing more than what appeared to be a couple of drunks lying in stupor, shrugged his shoulders, and cried "¡Viajeros al tren!"

As I passed, he remarked happily in Spanglo, "Tonight we arrive early in Despocado!" I did not understand his joy. I had heard about planets like this one, and the conductor must have known as well as I that the train would simply continue to make its rounds for the next week or so, arriving a little earlier at every stop each day until finally it would be late again as usual.

Inside, Lourdes slumped into a vacant seat with a moan. The train lurched once and then rolled into motion, picking up speed. "Oh, brother are we in for it now." She took off her back pack and set it on the seat next to her.

I sat behind her, leaned forward and said, "You worry too much."

Lourdes glanced back. She looked more tired than angry. "Bringing your Heliox roughnecks has really begun to pay off."

"Hey, we got the tickets, didn't we?"

"Yeah, except they are now stamped with the words, 'Free Passage to Ancho Federal Prison.' I'm sure that'll be delightful."

"Nobody's going to prison." I assured her. "Desbocado is not the only town on Ancho. I have plenty of alternate routes."

"Great," Lourdes muttered. "Tell that to the police when you step off the train in Desbocado and they pounce on you."

I sighed. "Lourdes, do you honestly think that I'm going to show up within fifty miles of Desbocado? I'm going to avoid that burg like the plague."

"This train is an express. Plan to jump out the window?"

I smiled. "Is that all that's bothering you? Yes, this train is an express. It also just so happens that it has a whistlestop in thirty minutes. The place is called Ratón, and it's too small and poor to have any paying customers. There's an inspection station there manned by a couple of bookish clerks who will hardly be inclined to rumble with the Helioxans. A highway runs along the tracks and turns north at Ratón. We'll catch a bus to Aquas Podridas. From there we'll go over land as planned."

I timed our passage with my wristwatch. Time seemed to drag. I wondered if they'd radio the engineer and call some train security team to manacle us before we reached Desbocado. It seemed doubtful. Why should they bother? By now a call had undoubtably already been made ahead of us and the police in Desbocado were surely licking their chops in anticipation of our arrival.

Lourdes and I waited patiently, noted when the thirty-minutes had passed, and watched in sudden dismay as the few lights of Ratón flashed by the window and disappeared in the darkness.

The train had not even slowed down.

Lourdes stared at me in consternation. Her eyes were questioning. I touched the sleeve of a passing conductor. "¿Por qué no paramos en Ratón?" I asked.

"The conductor gave me a surprised glance. He shook his head. "Este no es un tren de mercancías," he said and walked on.

"Only the freight trains have to stop in Ratón," I told Lourdes. "But don't worry; I still have another plan, slightly more drastic -- " And in mid-sentence I stood up and grasped the emergency brakeline. I gave it a terrific jerk, and the train lurched once mightily and then seemed to gain momentum. I looked down at my hand to see that the frayed cord had been pulled completely free of its mounting. Cheap construction.

"Try the other side," Lourdes suggested, resigned to her fate.

I spun. There -- above the opposite row of windows -- another cord.

To the right, I could also see the conductor charging furiously between the seats directly at me. He evidently didn't appreciate what I doing and looked ready to kill me. He never got the chance, however; Hardiman stuck a foot out in the ailse and he fell on his face. I got hold of the cord and yanked, hard -- but not hard enough to break anything.

This time the train really jumped. There was a tremendous bang! and everyone was thrown practically to the ceiling. The car seemed filled with bodies and flying luggage. The screams of fear and pain were hardly heard over the shreiking wheels -- wheels which were trying to fuse to the very tracks they rode upon but couldn't for the sheer power of a one-hundred mile-an-hour velocity multiplied by one half the mass squared of a one-hundred-car passenger train. Outside the windows, the air was thick with a shower of blinding white sparks.

"Wow," I managed to say in a nervous croak.

The car in front of ours began an explosive bucking, and I looked in astonishment as the doors connecting the two cars ripped completely away revealing the departing front three quarters of the train.

Somehow our brakes were still holding while the rest of the train had broken free and surged forward. The locomotive horn sounded once long and eerily far ahead of us as the better part of the train rumbled away in the shadowy distance.

Meanwhile, those of us left behind continued our high speed deceleration. It didn't take much longer. For a few moments the wheels screeched and squealed deafeningly against the tracks raising a solid curtain of brilliant sparks, and then we came to a shuddering halt. I looked at Lourdes, who was picking herself up from the floor. She didn't appear to be hurt. She was giving me one of her looks.

"I had no idea that train was going so fast," I explained quickly and apologetically.

"You might have guessed that the safety devices on an Anchoan train were nothing to fool with."

I nodded wryly. "I wonder if the engineer even noticed what happened. I'll bet he's now happily driving on to Desbocado pulling half a train."

"Who can say?" Lourdes shrugged. "He knew enough to blow the horn."

The lights inside the car had flickered out and it was difficult to locate our gear. It was hard to see, but I took a quick head count and found all twelve of us to be present. The other passengers still seemed dazed and (luckily) unsure of whom to blame for the accident. None was badly hurt.

We found all our packs, and Lourdes, myself, and the Helioxans stepped off the train into the twilighted countryside.

On the tracks, there was a pronounced hush -- a stark contrast to the pandemonium we had just witnessed. The only thing to disturb the quiet was the stir of a hot wind blowing along the tracks. The air smelled of coal tar from the railroad's crossties.

I motioned to the others and we started out across the bush-studded land. We would head north for a time and then turn east hoping to meet the highway to Aquas Podridas.