CHAPTER SEVEN

We walked the better part of the night before we dozed fitfully under our sarapes. We had gone north for a few miles and then made an eastward turn to intercept the highway. That was the long leg of the journey. It would be early afternoon before we reached the highway itself. By that time the day had grown fairly hot. We sat under the shade of a spiny narrow-leafed tree at the side of the road and watched the occasional small truck roll by.

Another hour passed before a bus appeared. It was an ancient vehicle, much of it painted by hand in a variety of gaudy colors, with a chrome horse as a hood ornament. This coach had obviously been designed for city transit; its bench seats and sturdy unstreamlined design were not well suited for long passages or very high speed, but none of us was going to complain; it was a relief just to be aboard looking out the windows at a landscape of gently rolling green hills overlain by a multitude of squat, dark trees.

Aquas Podridas was not much to look at. It had perhaps 5000 inhabitants and was in essence a miniature version of Tecolote. The bus pulled up to a crumbling brick building -- the station -- and we disembarked.

Everyone wanted to grab a room in whatever fleabag motel we could find, but I forbade it. When the police in Desbocado failed to find their fugitives aboard the train, there would be some disappointed frowns all around and a measure of collective befuddlement and unhappy brow-knitting. Investigation would eventually disclose the fact that a goodly part of the train and its other passengers had not arrived either. Then, it would occur to someone to backtrack and the balance of the cars and riders would be found minus the twelve passengers originally sought. This would further vex the police, and the search would widen to towns and cities along the highway. A call would go out to Aquas Podridas, hotel registers would be examined, and if the quarry were still not found, there would be other searches made in cities farther along. Then, the frustrated police would lose interest and forget about it completely.

I saw no need to wait for things to cool off. There would never be any heat in the tiny villages where there was little traffic and possibly no organized local law enforcement. And that is where I intended to go without so much as a pause in Aguas Podridas.

Hardiman took exception to this. "I been walking half the night and most of the day," he declared. "Now, there's a chance to put my dogs up on a footstool an' maybe have a drink, and you say I gotta keep walking."

"There will be time to rest your feet and have that drink," I assured him. "But I suspect that there are few footstools in the local pokey and no liquor at all."

"How far are we goin'?" he wanted to know.

"It's a ways in that direction," I admitted, pointing west. "But griping doesn't make any sense. You can't stay in this town, so you should be happy that I'm paying you to leave it -- pretty good wages, too. And all just for getting some exercise and taking in the sights."

The others also grumbled, but obediently followed Lourdes and me as we walked out of town, crossing the single stone bridge that spanned a slow flowing red river. A sign on the bridge said, Arroyo Moribundo -- Deadman Wash. That did not seem aspicious, and I did not translate it for Lourdes.

The town I sought, Chiquitito, was obscure and isolated to the extreme. Only by primitive footpaths could it be reached from outlying unpaved roads -- roads which themselves did not really seem to connect to any true highways. I doubted that we need fear the police in such a place -- at least not for the simple battery Biffer and Nils had committed in Tecolote. I assumed that the brown-suited patrolmen did not work out there. I wondered what kind of constabulary existed in the rural areas. Perhaps a kindly marshall -- or a gang of hooligans. I looked over at my sour-faced escort. I was ready for hooligans.

The Helioxans were a sight. Kroin, hardly limping anymore, was too dumb to have any complaints and Biffer seemed somewhat smug and content; he, after all, had tasted blood within recent memory. But an aura of bad humor seemed to radiate from the rest. These men were not cut out to be the hardy campers that I had hoped they might be. I'd have to remember to loosen the leesh a bit when we got to Chiquitito. I just hoped they wouldn't attempt a sacking of the town and turn the populous against us.

The dirt road which we followed veered north and we had to take to some primitive trails to maintain our westward heading. The trails were winding and it was only by constantly checking my compass that I could determine that we were headed in the right general direction. The sky darkened and there began a fairly heavy and constant drizzle. We now traveled parallel to the river, whose tortuous course had intercepted us some miles ago. The rain-pelleted Moribundo lay to the east and the trail alternately followed its bank and drifted well off its floodplain before returning again to the water's edge. We wore our sarapes and covered them with waterproof plastic.

We finally viewed Chiquitito in the dark of night. It was a town of dirt streets and crumbling squalor. The windows of the buildings shone with the oily yellow light of kerosene lamps and, indeed, the very austerity of the place made even the plain flashlights that had illuminated our way along the path seem out of place technologically.

In the shadows, leaning against the wall, was a figure. I trained my light on it to reveal a thin, hungry-looking man dressed in kakki. He had an ammunition belt wrapped across his chest. He also shouldered a heavy bolt-action carbine. "Viva la causa," he said quietly with a toothless grin. "Viva la revolución."

"Good evening," I said in Spanglo.

The soldier grinned and replied: "You look for the posada, no? A place to stay on a rainy night. There are few soldiers in Chiquitito tonight."

"Where is the posada?"

"I walk with you, mano , and show you," was the reply. He hefted his gun and motioned with one hand. "This way."

We followed a bit cautiously. When an armed stranger is showing the way, one tends be be cautious.

The town itself seemed peaceful enough. The local villagers were out in small numbers, walking along the unlighted cobble and dirt streets and standing in small groups chatting in dimly lit doorways and other gathering spots.

The posada was a large unadorned building, and there appeared to be no charge for staying there. A proprietor simply led us inside and showed us a large barracks-like room and a number of smaller sparsely-furnished alcoves. In addition to our escort, there were only two rather scrawny men staying in the barracks. They, too, were dressed in kakki and observed us with a decided lack of curiosity.

"Lourdes and I are going to take one of the upstairs rooms and get some rest," I told the Helioxans. "Hardiman, it's time for that drink you wanted. Check out the local nightlife. Have fun. But stay out of trouble. We'll be leaving early tomorrow morning."

Lourdes and I were awakened in the pitch black hours of early morning by the obnoxious voices of ten drunken cons from Heliox. There was some unmelodious singing and protracted oaths and boasting and finally a dearly bought silence as the inebriated men fell unconscious on their bunks downstairs.

So, there was a nightlife in Chiquitito.

The next morning, their high spirits were abridged somewhat by nagging, twelfth-magnitude hangovers. Most of the boys wandered back to the drinking hall to pick up some more of the liquid that had corrupted them the night before. They needed something to kill the pain, and the hair of the dog that had bitten them was the only thing available.

The drink was a milky fluid called pulque and had the potency of a strong ale. I tried a little myself -- just a taste. I knew I'd be tempted to take the day off if I had any more than that. I was somewhat a connoisseur of fermented beverages, but knew my limitations -- or at least I knew them when I did not drink. When I did, I could be a holy terror.

"Stay away from that," Lourdes scolded. I was standing in the barracks leaning over a wooden shelf protruding from the plaster wall. Biffer stood at my side measuring out a portion of the pulque into a cup from a gourd pitcher. "You can drink after the revolution is over for whatever good it'll do you."

"Over?" came a loud voice in fluent Galactellano. "That kind of talk is not appreciated here."

Behind us stood a man in his early forties wearing a red bandana and a necklace with various symbols and talismans hanging from it. He wore no uniform, but was dressed in a plain white shirt and dark trousers. He stuck out his hand. "Al Rawson," he said.

I shook the hand. "Jaime Loro."

The other man smirked. He didn't believe for a minute that that was my name. It was ill-advised of me to use it, particularly while speaking Galactellano, but I had no other name ready except my own, which for some time I had been reluctant to use even under the best of circumstances.

"I don't take your group to be one of Guglielmo's detachments," he said, the benign smirk still on his face. "Nor one of Baldonado's."

"We're neither," I affirmed wondering just who in the hell Guglielmo and Baldonado were. "We are.... free merchants, here to assess the marketing conditions for interplanetary commer...."

"That's crap and you know it," he interrrupted.

I was learning slowly. This Rawson fellow wasn't buying anything I said, a sensible policy since I was doing my best to lie through my teeth. My problem was getting caught at it.

"If there is anything like a free agent on Ancho, I'm him," he said, poking his thumb into his breastbone arrogantly. He leaned close. "You guys stand out like a whore in a church. You crazy? What in the hell are you doing here?"

I thought for a moment, and realized I had no story to tell him but the truth, which I wasn't about to talk about. I think he took my silence for surliness. "Speak Spanglo?" he asked, puffing on a cigarette. He offered one to me, and I took it. Lourdes frowned.

"Some," I replied, accepting a light and taking what I hoped looked like an unconcerned pull at the white, filterless tube.

"That's good. It's also bad if you use that language to say the revolution will ever end. Someone could overhear you. Hell, around here that's heresy. Revolution is all these people has got; it's what makes the place run."

"I was referring to our own revolution," Lourdes interjected.

Rawson looked at Lourdes, nodded, and turned back to me. "Oh, you have your very own, do you? Funny; you don't look the type -- none of you does. Listen, there is only one revolution in Ancho and it goes on all the time. Here in el campo, you're either in it or you just aren't here at all."

"So you're in it?"

"Up to my ears." He tossed the cigarette to the ground, and lighted another while waiting for a man in kakki who was passing to move out of earshot. "See that guy?" he said. "He's a bum. I mean really. That's no soldier. He just dresses that way. Bullets are fakes. The gun doesn't even shoot or he wouldn't be allowed to carry it around. Someone would just take it away from him. Probably hit him over the head with it, too. Chiquitito is hardly a boom town, so what else does he have to do but play soldier and maybe get enough crumbs from their table to make life a bit more comfortable?"

"I notice you don't want him to overhear you."

"Perhaps he can get some choice crumbs if he tells someone what he hears," replied Rawson. "I don't know. But that should concern you more than it does me."

I just stared, and took another drag off the cigarette. Rawson motioned to us all to move outside. We followed him into the street.

Outside he began his lecture again with more fervor. It was clear we didn't know enough about Anchoan history.

It seemed that some forty years ago the Anchoan federal government and the rebels got tired of fighting. All the feds wanted was a hefty tribute in the form of agricultural goods. All the rebels wanted, in reality, was to be the ones in power over los campesinos , the peasants. The rebels made a two-party system: the groups of soldiers under the leadership of Generalisimos Baldonado and Guglielmo. They only pretended to duke it out. The fiction of a continuing struggle kept the revolutionary zeal alive -- even though they pretended to fight each other instead of the state.

Lourdes said, "I take it we were not to have been in there with the soldiers."

"God, no," Rawson said, wincing. "And you weren't; there was nothing but bums in there last night.

"That's the truth," Lourdes replied, looking at me.

"I'm Grangorian. I'd rather not say just why I left Grangor. But I know exactly what you're doing here, so I don't mind telling you why I'm here; your knowing is the least of my problems." He took a long drag off his cigarette. "The Anchoan feds have to be paid to let the revolutionaries rule here in el campo. The campesinos carry their tribute up to the highways and load it onto trucks right out of the bush. There ain't but dirt for roads connecting the two sides now."

"What's the tribute?"

"Dope. What else?"

"So where do you fit in?"

"That's simple. I've arranged for the truckers to bump."

"Ah," I said, eyebrows raised knowingly. "They alter the cargo manifest for you," I said. "Part of the difference is your cut."

Rawson slowly shook his head, with a wry smile. "You catch on fast," he said. He took another slow pull from his cigarette. "There is a slight problem, though. My little business undermines the very essence of the social order here. Should the Anchoan government become discontent with the way the tribute is being doled out, it could decide to reestablish itself as the controlling body. Los señores Baldonado and Guglielmo would not like that."

I whistled. "Brother, you've got your nerve to tell me how to conduct my affairs. You're living right on the edge yourself."

"That's true," Rawson admitted, seeming to become slightly nervous at the thought. "But a well greased palm is a poor instrument for strangulation, as I've always said. I've done my best to apply the grease widely and liberally. And I still think I can offer you some worthwhile advice."

"Please do," Lourdes said.

"All right. Get the hell out of here. That's simple enough, isn't it? Just go back the way you came and abandon any little dope smuggling project you had planned out here."

"Dope smuggling!" Lourdes blurted out. "You're the big drug dealer and you said so yourself."

"Wrong! My trade is strictly graft. Wholesome and virtuous. Do I look suicidal?"

"What makes you think we're interested in narco-bucks?" I asked.

"Don't make me laugh. Everyone is. And I've seen enough of you small-time offworlders come in here for a piece of the pie. I'll tell you something else, too: I never saw any of them leave, either. Not walking anyway." He stared at me. "Christ! I just can't stand it. "Look at those dingleballs hanging there. No campesino would be caught dead wearing that."

"You don't look much like a Anchoan yourself," I returned.

"You are missing the point," said Rawson. "You want those kakki-clad dopers to take you for a cityslicker? The urbanites and the campesinos are supposed to be isolated. When it even looks like they are mixing, people, get uncomfortable -- very uncomfortable. Hell, I look fine compared to you. I sound fine, too. Got a real off-world growl when I speak Spanglo."

"What would you do if you were us?" I was digging in my pocket for my jackknife. I was going to cut off that dingleball.

"Friend, if I were you, I would be somewhere else -- probably having my head examined." He glanced at the dingleball that now lay on the floor. His face looked pained. "Oh, I just can't bear it! For Christ's sake, throw the whole damned hat away, and if you insist on staying here, then at least keep clear of the posadas and soldiers."

"How?"

"Jesus, for starters you could stay out of the towns entirely. If you need provisions, send in a pair who can keep their mouths shut, get what is needed and get out -- " He glanced over at the Helioxans who were vociferously arguing over the portioning out of pulque. Hardiman was standing with his face about an inch from Biffer's. Both looked ready to go for their blades. "Well...." he continued, "with the crowd you've got, you might have to take care of that yourself. Which direction are you headed -- or have you even decided that?"

"Directly west."

Rawson rubbed his chin. "Might not be so bad to the west." He paused a moment and then went on, "Don't take any high traffic paths. Usually, there are several running in more or less the same direction. Take the least used of these -- you'll meet fewer soldiers that way."

"What happens if we do meet the soldiers?"

"If I were you, I'd drop the campesino ruse like a bad habit. It just won't wash. Tell 'em you are here from off planet to visit your grandmother -- anything! -- and use your worst Spanglo when you do it. Also -- " He broke off, listening intently with a wave at me to remain silent. "Soldiers coming. I hear their boots. " He directed us across the street. "Now here's some advice I hope you will take. There's no percentage in staying here. If I were you I would leave. Just split."

I wasn't going to argue. The Helioxans were in no condition to fight anybody today. A loud noise would destroy them, and the idea of any kind of fracus was unthinkable. They retrieved their packs and we started out of town.

"Go on up the butte there," Rawson suggested. "Good path. Soldiers never take it. Plenty of cover."

"How about you?" I asked.

"Rawson grinned nervously. "Another day, another palm to grease. Don't worry about me. I probably know the guys. If not -- " He patted his wallet.

Rawson had been right about the path going up the hill. The plants overgrowing it made it practically a tunnel. We reached the top of the butte in a matter of minutes and sat at the summit well hidden in tall grass. The soldiers had arrived in the street in front of the posada . I wondered what they were doing. "Lourdes, where's that pair of field glasses?"

"In your pack."

I dug into my knapsack and found the binoculars. They were no bigger than a pair of opera glasses, but had advanced optics and were powerful. I trained them on the scene below. I could see clearly all that was taking place below. In a moment, I put the binoculars away. I motioned to the others to follow me over the summit and down the butte's opposite side.

I said nothing as we made our way to the west. But I was careful to take deep breaths and concentrate on not being sick. I hadn't told the others that I had seen Al Rawson through the binoculars with a bayonette sticking out of his chest.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I enforced a four-day march straight to the west. We had little in the way of provisions. Lourdes and I took Rawson's advice and risked entering a village by day and securing some salted meat, dried beans, and parched corn. These foods were compact enough to last us a while and the piquant spices that were sold along with them made the resulting meals fairly palatable.

The Helioxans were not pleased with the general turn of events, however. I was forced to brighten their spirits some by offering bonuses from the plentiful supply of money I carried with me. I did a lot of "This'll break me, you bastards" just in case they took it into their heads that I had more than was good for me .

On the fifth day, I saw some signs that suggested we had begun to walk beneath Seek's ship. The sun was only a dully glaring orb through a dreary thousand-foot ceiling. The overcast sky and cloud-cowled sun would be an convenient illusion for someone in Seek's position; it would be easy to manufacture and maintain and would fit in well with the weather consistent with a low pressure zone.

It was then that I began to do some fine tuning with my compass. I had no stars at night to navigate by, so the best I could do was to follow the adjusted westerly magnetic heading exactly from now on. I wished I had been more careful before; the roughness of the trails we followed did not lend themselves to a well-tracked course. Up to now, any inaccuracies were small enough to be insignificant for my purposes. All I needed to do was to meet the central hub of the P-657 to verify its existence. That column standing in the earth was several miles in circumference, yet I knew I could still miss it. I had no sectional map at all and my deadreckoning was crude to say the least.

We were once again in a land of rolling green hills interspersed with short, heavy trees. We had practically forgotten the danger of the soldiers; this area was much too wild and off the beaten tract to worry unduly about them. We set up camp and waited for night to close in, and as expected no star pierced the cloud cover. It somehow seemed more and more likely that what we saw above was an artificial view manufactured by Colonel Seek for the benefit of any who might wander below.

The night was just cool enough for us to really need the sarapes. I was sleeping soundly, Lourdes at my side, when I awakened without apparent cause. Then I heard it -- or rather I both felt and heard it -- or thought I did. It was the faintest rumbling sound mixed with an almost imperceptible high-pitched hum. I didn't know if I was imagining these sounds.

BOOM! Now, I was really awake. So were the others. There was a burst of nervous chatter: "What the hell was that?" "Who took my knife?" "I'll get you for that, Kroin!"

"Quiet!" I hissed. "You dopes want to give yourselves away? That's probably the army -- or a dinosaur with very large feet -- so shut up."

"Where did that noise come from?" whispered Hardiman from the darkness some yards away. Then, a bit too eagerly: "If you don't know how to use that pistol, I can...."

I threw a handful of dirt in his direction. There was a cough and some spitting, then the sound of someone lurching to his feet. "You..."

"I've got the pistol all right," I said quickly. "And I'm sitting to the west of you with the barrel pointed east. How do you like that? Sit down, hot shot."

I heard a curse and the sound of Hardiman sitting down. Everyone knew that I had got the jump on Kroin, and I was sure they all imagined they could fare better if tested against me. But Hardiman wasn't going to argue with a gun.

"That's better," I said soothingly. "You've earned another bonus -- cash money in return for a little dirt in the face plus a bit more for the insult." I was overdoing the bonuses.

Lourdes said, "Will you throw anything if I ask a question?"

"I would never dream of...."

"Shut up, yourself, then," she said acidly. "This time I want to know exactly what you plan to do. I don't intend to follow around blindly while you walk right into Colonel Seek's clutches. Can't you recognize that sound?"

I didn't want to admit that I couldn't. "It will take but a moment to clear my head of cobwebs. Then, I shall surely...."

"Think! The Brine River on Marion."

"The Brine?"

"Yes, of course! Your very own gravel works under the employ of Cooley Construction Company."

It was Seek. There was no longer any doubt in my mind. "He's cracking pebbles," I said quietly. "The guy is mining on the flood plain of the Moribundo." The sound was diagnostic. There was nothing quite like the crashing explosion of a hundred tons of shattering river boulders. Seek was processing a lot of dirt, and the boulders were getting sucked in with all the rest. The battleship was old, and like the equipment we had used on Marion, his machines combined the hardness of thick steel and the power of hydraulics with the force of good old gravity to break even the most durable quartzite megaliths into fragments. The result was invariably gravel and noise -- and plenty of both.

"I think you had better call Cardip -- now," Lourdes said emphatically.

It took only a few seconds to pull the O-X from my pack and begin to set it up.

A light stabbed across the camp and I shouted, "Turn that damned thing off, you!" The flashlight glowed orangely under a sarape and then went out. I connected the thin wire leads to the battery hook-up and put the headset in place. The single green indicator light twinkled and I heard the electronic squeal of the O-X.

There was no return signal from the master unit aboard the Seychelles. I didn't even have to try again; I knew what had happened. The O-X was working perfectly. And Seek was blocking the transmission.

I waited for a few moments before telling Lourdes my plan. There was nothing left for me to do. It was obvious that Seek was here and didn't care if we knew it. He could easily have muted the sound of his work but chose not to. And that he had blocked the O-X transmission plainly showed that he would not let us simply return the way we had come.

He was waiting for us.

Lourdes agreed with me. That is not to say that she was happy. No one likes to be caught in a trap. But the fact remained that there was little for us to do except go and see what Seek wanted.

We packed and waited for sunrise. It never came. The hours of the night passed and if the sun had indeed risen, it was so shrouded under the cover of clouds real or manufactured that it was as dark as night. Twice more during this time we heard the characteristic crash of stone. The Helioxans were somewhat unnerved by this and I had nothing to comfort them with. I had overdone the bonus business and they were forced to solace themselves by bickering. I broke up two fist fights before I ordered a westward march in the darkness.

I no longer had any compunctions about using the flashlights. Seek appeared to be well aware of us now anyway -- and I didn't particularly like the idea of accidentally falling over some cliff in the dark. I mused somewhat unhappily that I preferred to walk over one in broad daylight and on purpose. You were born lucky! Cardip had said. Sure, just look at me now. Lucky me! And this lucky fellow has brought his wife and some of his dearest friends along with him. Lucky ducky.

The occasional crashing boom of the mining operation was a far better navigational aid than any compass. We walked in single file across the rolling land for an hour or more and heard the sound of disintegrating stone every fifteen minutes. It was getting louder. Then, there was a half hour break in the pattern. When we next heard the sound, it was as though it were taking place in our heads. The Helioxans fell prone, holding their palms to their ears. I fell, too -- to my knees, but quickly rose and walked forward. I collided with a thump against something unseen. I knew I had reached the hub.

"Lourdes," I whispered.

Lourdes came to my side and grasped my arm. With her free hand she reached forward and touched the slightly curving wall of the mining tube. "The ship," was all she said.

The Helioxans regained their feet and also collided with the wall. They fell back, perplexed and uncertain.

I pointed my flashlight before me and saw a dizzying void. The beam was powerful, but could not reveal the opposite side of the tube. What it did reveal was a vast blackness that extended deep down into the earth of Ancho. Almost instinctively we all drew back a step. It is virtually impossible for a person to stand at the brink of such an abyss even with the knowledge that an invisible metal wall stands between him and the depths.

The sudden ear-splitting burst of noise that sounded now was even louder than the last. The sight of the gaping crater had awoken a primordial fear of heights in all of us. This, coupled with a terror of the unknown and punctuated by the nerve-shattering explosion, completely unhinged the Helioxans. A couple of them broke and ran, and I directed the beam of my flashlight at them. "Come back here, you chicken livered, no good...." They stopped -- but not voluntarily; they had crashed headlong into something unyielding. At first they fell back hollering. But in an instant they were back on their feet and trying to get past whatever was blocking their way.

It was no use. Seek had put a second wall around us -- this one made not of invisible metal but of some simple invisible force through which nothing could pass. The men combatting this force did not let up, however. They screamed and clawed against it even as it began to push them-- inward toward Lourdes and me and the edge of the void.

Now, they were really screaming. They thought they were going over the side. They didn't. They were bulldozed to no more than ten feet from the edge where Lourdes and I stood.

We were ringed in.

There was still another BOOM! But by now our nerves were so shot that we hardly noticed. The next thing we knew the whole world came ablaze with light. I nearly closed my eyes then, for I could now clearly see the size of the hole in front of us. It was miles across, capped by a crown of river sediments, and layered below with thick Anchoan strata: limestone, sandstone, and and rock injected with sills and dikes of basalt and ancient pegmatite surrounded by marbled bands of gneiss and schist.

It was at least a mile in depth.