Starrigger

'And it's not a reaction-drive vehicle?'

'Negative. I'm at Mach point three five and holding. Sam, how's the Skyway up ahead for high-speed travel?'

'It's all straightaway to the portal, but be careful. You know what they say. No ground vehicle is safe anywhere at over Mach point five.'

'Right, but let 'em eat my dust for a while back there.'

'They're still gaining.'

'They are? Sam, get moving!'

'Say again?'

'Get rolling now. If they're still gaining, it's a Militia interceptor, and I know exactly who's driving it.' The ambush hadn't been Petrovsky's doing. That had been Elmo reasserting his authority. But Petrovsky was on his own now, that wide Slavic nose pushed to the scent. 'No chance of us meeting anywhere on Goliath. Get moving toward Seven Suns and we'll play it by ear from there.'

'Hold on, now, I'm getting more than one blip. There's the fast-moving one, and then there're two behind him, a little slower.'

The Reticulans, with a backup vehicle?

'And tailing them at a fairly good clip is another one.'

The Ryxx, maybe.

'And behind them…'

'More?' Well, hell. 'Move it out, Sam. You'll have a lot

more speed on the other side. Vacuum.'

'You don't know what Stinky did to me. Feel like a new man. I haven't opened it up yet, but my cruising speed's up by at least thirty percent. Stinky outdid himself this time.'

'Good, but get rolling!'

'Okay, okay!'

In no time we reached the old Skyway, pointing straight and true toward a limitless horizon. The machometer crept upward ? but what about aerodynamics? The vehicle's shape was rounded, 'streamlined' was the word that came to mind, but the surface didn't look capable of slicing an air mass at Mach one. There were no stabilizer foils, no GE flange, nothing. There'd be heavy turbulence ahead if I kept pushing, and possible disaster. But how was the car staying on the road at the speed we were doing now? And in Goliath's soupy air to boot? To say there was more to this vehicle than met the eye was an understatement by several degrees.

'Sam, are you grabbing slab?'

'That I am, son. I'm tracking you at Mach point four. Where's the fire?'

'Up my kazoo. By the way, what happened at Stinky's?'

'Well, it's a long story.'

'Edit it severely.'

'Right. Stinky worked on me all day yesterday, then into evening. He said it was a challenge. It was 'way after dark when he finished, and I insisted he rehook me to the trailer and let me squeeze into the garage. I hadn't heard from you, and I thought it best. He balked at that, but gave in. It was a tight fit. Anyway, about an hour later I hear somebody breaking into the place. So I took off, not bothering to open doors. Stinky's garage is now naturally air-conditioned.'

I winced. Stinky would go for the jugular next time he clapped eyes on me. 'Got you. Then what?'

'Then nothing. I took off in the general direction John had said his farm was in, but couldn't find anything. I had half a mind to give you a buzz, but it just didn't seem like a good idea.'

'You were right. Would've given you away. Besides, I had the beeper turned off. God knows why, but I thought it'd take them a while to trace us to John's place, thought we were safe. But, go on.'

'Well, there isn't much more. Wandered all night in the bush. Spotted a couple blips once, powered down and made like a rock. Airborne bandits, and they passed right overhead The cops? '

'The same. Sam, you were nearer than you thought. But if that's true, I can't understand why I had trouble reading you.'

'Probably because I hid in a deep arroyo. Had a hell of a time getting out of there. What's more, you called on FM.'

'Merte. Remind me to have the key redesigned so that the AM and FM select tabs are on opposite sides.'

The silence in the car was getting me down. 'Anyone for Twenty Questions?' I asked, and felt immediately inappropriate. I glanced around to find Susan glowering at me. 'Sorry,' I said lamely.

'Now you tell me your life story.'

'That is much too long a tale, Sam. Later.' 'Damn it, you never tell me anything.'

'Okay, a synopsis. The cops nabbed me, then someone sprang me. Don't know who, but I think it was the Ryxx.' 'The Ryxx? What the hell do they have to do with this?'

'Don't know that either, exactly, but I have an idea. As I said, later.' '

Roland surprised me by asking, 'Jake, how did you get… uh, sprung?'

I told him about the neural-scrambler field. 'Then someone tickled me with something to bring me around, and I got out.'

'Can you describe the symptoms?'

Darla and Winnie began talking in the back seat as I told him.

Roland smacked fist into palm. 'Then, I didn't fall asleep on watch!'

'Yeah?'

'I knew it! I've never done that, and I've stood watch more than most soldiers.'

'You're telling me the same thing hit us last night?'

'No question. I remember sitting there by the fire, feeling a headache coming on. Then a buzzing sound… and then there was a strange interlude there. I wasn't asleep. It was like an extended daydream. A reverie. And the next-thing I knew you were kicking me and the flitters were on us.'

Which meant that it had been the Reticuians who had en-' gineered my escape from the station. One more unfittable piece in an ever-growing puzzle.

Darla leaned over the seat. 'Jake, from what Winnie tells me, Roland's right. She wasn't affected by the field, or the effect, or whatever it was.'

'Most likely it was attuned to human neural patterns,' I ventured. 'I'll buy that. What else did she say?'

'She said she heard someone walk up to the house. She got frightened, tried to wake us, but we were out cold. Then she ran outside and hid in the bush.'

'Did she see anything?'

'No, but she says she knows that two humans came into the house, and one nonhuman. She says the nonhuman frightened her a great deal. The smell was bad.'

'Does she have any idea what they did?'

Darla asked her. I realized then that, while I couldn't understand Winnie most of the time, Darla never seemed to have any trouble.

'She doesn't know,' Darla reported. She looked over my shoulder and then said, 'Jake, how fast are we going?'

I looked. The needle had just edged past Mach point five. 'Wow,' was all I could say.

'Jesus Christ!' John shouted.

I looked up. Sam was ahead. I swerved to the left and we passed him like he was painted on the road.

'Slow down, speed demon!' Sam's voice came from the dashboard under the windscreen, where I had thrown the key. 'Crazy kids! No sense of responsibility.' He chuckled. 'You're right. That buggy is a blast from the past. Look's like a middle-twentieth-century Chevrolet to me. I'm no expert, though, on these things.'

I eased up on the pedal, and the needle fell off to saner speeds. 'How's our pursuit doing?'