journey from Thara, the shuttle would arrive soon. And then, as if in response to the combat variant’s thoughts, a white contrail marked the sky, artifi?cial thunder rolled across the land, and the past was brought back to life.
The shuttle was crowded, very crowded, and some of the passengers were spacesick. But given what they had managed to survive, and the prospect of putting down safely, most were in an excellent mood. Except for Jak Rebo, that is, and the source of his unhappiness was plain to see. The travelers had no reason to believe that Techno Society operatives would be waiting for them on the ground, but they knew it was possible, especially given the fact that Kane was in league with the technologists. That was why Rebo had suggested that both he and his companions wear disguises. What the runner failed to anticipate, however, was that Norr would turn to the Circus Solara for help. And that was how he wound up dressed as a clown. And not just any clown, but a particularly absurd creature with a head of curly blue hair, white cheeks, and a bulbous nose. His loose-fi?tting gown was white with red polka dots and came with fl?oppy shoes that he categorically refused to wear. The outfi?t smelled musty, made Rebo want to scratch, and was the subject of crude jokes by other passengers. It was an affront to the runner’s dignity and something that had begun to wear on him.
There was no way to conceal the fact that Hoggles was a heavy, but by placing a leather hood over the giant’s head and dressing the variant to look like a strongman, Norr hoped to disguise his identity if not his genotype. By chance, or by design, the sensitive’s outfi?t was a good deal more becoming than those worn by her companions. It consisted of a feathery headdress, a lime green skin-suit, and slippers. And so it was that after the shuttle put down, and the ramp hit the ground, the crowd that had assembled to witness the ultimate manifestation of evil, was confronted by a completely unexpected sight as thirty-plus fully costumed members of the Circus Solara marched off the ship and onto the surface of Derius.
The band went fi?rst, instruments blaring, closely followed by a column of colorfully dressed acrobats, jugglers, and clowns, who, with the single exception of the dourlooking individual with blue hair, tumbled, cavorted, and generally made fools of themselves as the rest of the circus brought up the rear. All of which was by way of an impromptu advertisement for the troupe’s fi?rst performance in New Wimmura, and proved to be so distracting that not a single rock was thrown until all the passengers were well clear of the ship, and it was beginning to lift. That was when a priest remembered his duty, called upon his followers to rebuke evil, and threw the fi?rst stone. Meanwhile, having observed the landing from his vantage point high on the hill above, Shaz smiled as he peered through an ancient pair of binoculars. Having been warned about the likelihood of disguises, the combat variant had been able to pick the blue-haired clown, the oversized strongman, and the slender acrobat out of the crowd within a matter of seconds. And since any one of the threesome could have been wearing the highly mutable computer, it seemed safe to assume that Logos had survived the journey as well. Satisfi?ed that everything was going according to plan, Shaz lowered the binoculars and returned the proscribed device to the nondescript bag slung alongside of the angen’s saddle. Then, having wrenched the animal back toward the trail, the variant spurred it forward. It would take the newly arrived passengers a good three hours to reach the city, and the variant intended to arrive there fi? rst. The trail followed the contour of the hill downward, past the shattered observatory, and onto the remains of a paved road. The cold air nipped at his skin—and it felt good to be alive. Having successfully made it off the shuttle without being injured by the stone-throwing mob, and followed by a group of merchants into the suburbs of New Wimmura, the travelers paused long enough to shed their costumes at an outlying tavern and buy the troupe a round of drinks before paying the city’s gate tax and passing between a pair of largely symbolic stone pillars. New Wimmura was a fairly typical city for the most part, other than for the fact that it had been established on the site of an open-pit mine, and unlike many of the cities Rebo was familiar with, seemed to eschew all technology beyond the lever, wheel, and pulley. All of which seemed to make it an unlikely place for the Techno Society to recruit new adherents, but the techies had never been shy and no doubt felt a need to preserve and protect the local star gate.
Eventually, having followed a road down into the bottom of the pit, the travelers passed a noisome stockyard, wandered along the edge of a fabric-covered marketplace, and strolled into the shadow cast by the mine’s western rim. That was when they spotted the huge box-shaped construct that squatted atop a pair of twenty-foot-high treads. The crawler had been used to process ore at one time. But that was back before the original city had been nuked—and the huge machine had been repurposed as the Ore Box Inn. Or that’s what a hand-lettered sign claimed—and the offworlders were in need of a place to spend the night. “What do you think?” Rebo inquired as he eyed the ramp that led up through an ancient hatch.
Norr shrugged. “It looks okay to me. . . . Besides, it’s getting dark, and it would be nice to fi?nd a place to stay before the sun goes down.”
“I agree,” Hoggles rumbled. “Let’s give it a try.”
So Rebo led the way up the ramp, entered a cramped lobby, and shrugged the pack off his back. The desk clerk was a balding, middle-aged man who had the look of a weight lifter. “Yeah?” the proprietor inquired. “What can I do for ya?”
“We’d like a couple of rooms,” Rebo answered.
“Where ya from?” the innkeeper demanded suspiciously.
“We came in on the shuttle,” Norr answered cryptically.
“Oh, ya did, did ya?” the man asked rhetorically. “Well, let me tell ya something right now. . . . I run a clean inn!
That means no machines, no gadgets, and no gizmos.” The proprietor looked down toward the Hogger. “How ’bout that pistol you’re packin’ son? Is that a muzzle-loader?
Cause if it’s a breechloader, then we got us a problem.”
“Yes, of course it is,” Rebo lied, knowing full well that Logos probably qualifi?ed as a machine, a gadget, and a gizmo.
“All right then,” the inn keeper said pompously, “but be warned! The penalty for possessing techno contraband is death.”
“As it should be,” the runner agreed. “So, how ’bout those rooms? Have you got any vacancies?”
The proprietor did, and half an hour later Norr pulled Logos on over her clothes, and ordered the AI to be very circumspect about what he said and when he said it. With that out of the way, she followed the others along a lamplit hallway and through the cramped lobby. It was dark by then, or would have been had it not been for the thousands of torches and oil-fed lamps that kept the night at least partially at bay. Meanwhile, even though Logos knew that the biologicals were hungry and focused on fi?nding something to eat, the AI’s priorities were considerably different. Unbeknownst to them there was a task that the computer needed to accomplish before he could safely seize control of Socket, which explained why he wanted to reach the Planet Haafa as quickly as possible. “New Wimmura has a star gate,” Logos whispered urgently. “I can feel it. . . . The old city had a gate, too, a commercial portal that was destroyed by the nuke that Kane sent through it, but this one was the property of the mining company, and it survived.”
Rebo, who was close enough to hear, frowned. “First,” he said sotto voce, “shut the hell up! Second, what we
