Starrigger

'He's pacing us now. Knows he can't catch you.'

'Yeah, but he can catch you, Sam. Dump the load. Unhook the trailer.'

'Not on your life, son. We're paid to deliver goods, not leave 'em strewn over a hundred klicks of road. Besides, he's after.you now, not me.'

'Sam, I'm not so sure of that. If I had any sort of priceless artifact, especially a map, wouldn't I leave it with you? Why do you think they wanted to search you? Petrovsky might try to disable you and do just that.'

'Who the hell's Petrovsky?'

'Sorry. The guy nipping at our tail.'

'I can handle any cop who has a notion to breach my road rights.'

'Sam, you know you can't. So, cut the crap and dump it.' 'Is that any way to talk to your father? Moreover, my disrespectful son, you forget something. I'm still mostly machine ? in fact, let's face it ? I'm nothing but, or so they tell me. Machines must obey programming. And I can't circumvent your tricky anti-hijack program. Only you can detach the trailer with your thumbprint.'

He was right, and I had forgotten completely. 'Sorry, Dad.'

Alarms blared from somewhere inside the vehicle, startling everybody. We then watched goggle-eyed as strange things began to happen to the instrument panel. Magically, the funny dials and gauges metamorphosed into more conventional-looking readouts, melting and reshaping as if worked by the hand of an unseen sculptor. It took but a few seconds, and the final result was a complete portal-approach display.

'Remarkable,' John said beside me, his bony knees sticking up sharply.

'Roland, change places with John. Give me a hand with these readouts.' They did. John breathed easier and stretched out, glad to get off the hump that housed the drive train… at least I thought that was what it was.

I missed the warning signs, a blur beside the road. The cylinders split the sky ahead, towering columns of unknowable energy and substance. As we watched, a phthisic finger of lightning crackled down from a clear sky to touch the lead left cylinder. Branching secondary tendrils snaked from it to link the others in a fiery web, and for a second an eerie bloom of pale blue light grew around the whole portal array, then shrunk back on itself, vanished.

I had only seen it happen once before. You can divide your life into sections marked off by the event of witnessing a portal call down a bolt from the clear blue. Everyone exhaled.

'Seat belts?' I blurted. 'Any safety harnesses in here?'

'No,' Darla said. 'Don't see any, except for this funny hand strap hung between the windows.'

Strange. 'Well, grab it, or something. Anything.' And then I remembered what was on the other side of the portal. 'Windows? Are all the windows shut?'

Are all the windows shut? I couldn't believe I was saying it. Could it be that this contraption wasn't vacuum-worthy? But no. Its rightful owner had passed us on the Skyway, and

he could only have come from Groombridge, the only portal leading to Goliath. Unless he'd been out on the plains punking around. But there was nothing out there but hoplite crabs and misery. The possibility lingered, but surely the windows weren't glass….

'All shut, Jake,' Darla said. 'As a matter of fact, the back window on Susan's side was open just a slit, and I happened to catch it closing by itself when the needle went over one hundred. Now my window handle won't budge.'

Things were happening too fast, and I was disoriented. The commit marker streaked past, and the guide lane skittered beneath us. We were streaking across a perilously thin edge of safety at a speed that was too fast for reaction, almost. But through the wheel I felt another controlling force, an assisting hand ? an automatic system of some sort. The instrument panel was lit up in reassuring green, and things seemed to be going fine.

The cylinders whizzed by in a flickering blur, and we were through the aperture.

We arrived smoothly on a world of mirror-flat ice plains, broken by low outcroppings of dark rock and occasional fracture rills. The road cut straight ahead to a deceptively close horizon. It was dead night, but a million stars gave the ice a sheen by which you could pick out features of the landscape. And almost directly overhead there hung a chandelier of seven bright stars, brighter by far than any seen on most planets. I pressed my face against the window and looked up for a second or two.

There had been no surge of speed when the car had hit vacuum. I checked the machometer. Yes, only a slight increase. The car had some remarkable aerodynamic properties.

I tried calling Sam, but there was no answer. Too early. I had no idea how far behind he had been, and now I was worried.

Alarms sounded again. The sound was different this time. A scanner screen appeared on the panel, showing traffic ahead, and I slowed down. Soon we were down below Mach point three, and decelerating. I didn't want to get too far ahead of Sam. There was now a decision to make: where to go? Seven Suns offered three portals, with three separate ingress points feeding into them: one from Goliath, two from other interstellar routes. One portal led back to the heart of the Terran Maze by a many-light-year jump, another to Ryxx territory. The third was potluck, so there were really only two choices, unless we felt very lucky.

'Sam, come in. Are you okay?'

'I'm fine. Captain. I've got a cop on my tail, though.'

I made a decision and braked. 'I'm slowing down.'

'Negative! Get your butt through that Ryxx portal! Get out of T-Maze. It's your only chance.'

'I think I can handle him. This car is some kind of fused-up alien buggy with all kinds of surprises in it. Haven't found the armaments yet, but I've a feeling I may be able to outshoot an interceptor. Whereas you?'

'Son, think a moment. What can this Petrovsky character do to me? If he pulls me over, so what? If he searches, what'II he find? Meanwhile, you can get away.'

'He may impound you.'

'Again, so what? I'll cool my rollers for a while till you get back.'

It did make sense. 'Okay. I guess.' I didn't like it.

'In fact, I'm kind of hoping he does pull me over. Maybe a Roadbug'lt come along and ? Hold on.'

The key was silent for half a minute. Then I said, 'Sam? What's going on?'

'He passed me. I said he was after you.'

'Yeah.' I upped our speed as much as the traffic would allow. I was weaving in and out of lanes now, passing rigs, roadsters, alien conveyances of every sort and description. 'One problem about ducking into Ryxx Maze, though. One of those blips you painted was a Ryxx vehicle.'

'They sprung you, now they're chasing you. Logical.'

'I've learned through the Teelies here that it wasn't the Ryxx who got me out.'

'Who did? I'm confused.'

'That makes three of us. I'm twice as confused as you. I think it was the Reticulans.'

'Oh, well, that explains everything.'

'Clear as shit, isn't it?' Something occurred to me. 'The thing that really puzzles me is how the Rikkis traced us to the Teelies' farm. The Militia did it by making inquiries in town, but the Rikkis couldn't have done that. And Petrovsky told me that he was following them.' I realized that Sam was in the dark about all of that. 'Sorry, Sam. I'll fill you in when we have time.'

'Oh no, go ahead. I'm writing this all down. What about Wilkes?'

'No idea. As far as I know, he's out of this whole mess.' 'Well, that's one less fly on the pile.' A pause. 'Jake, you'd better see about what guns you can bring to bear on the cop.'

'It'll be hard, on the run like this, but as I said, you wouldn't believe what this buggy's capable of.'

The tumoff for the T-Maze portal came up. The Skyway split into one branch that curved gradually to the left and one that continued straight. Most of the traffic veered left, but I kept our bow pointed dead ahead. 'Okay, there goes one option. Now it's either Ryxx country or oblivion.'

'Are you sure the Ryxx are in on this snipe hunt?' 'I have it on good authority that they are.' 'Uh-huh. Beats me what you should do, then. Maybe you should've taken that