Starrigger

his temples. His communicator began beeping inside his pocket, but he ignored it. 'I've got to get out of here. I'm needed on the bridge.' There was a distant look in his eyes, as if none of us were present. 'Winds must have changed,' he mumbled, then walked unsteadily out of the room.

'Jimmy, close the door,' Wilkes said. He went to the coffee table and picked up Sam's key. 'Sorry, Sam. He probably won't remember your threat, not for a while anyway.'

'Corey, sometimes I have trouble understanding how you could be the same person who founded TATOO with me.'

'We all change, friend.'

'It's all unraveling, Corey.'

'Not just yet,' Wilkes said tightly, and shut the key off. 'Tell Twrrrll to release the girl,' he told Jimmy. 'And the other one, too.'

'Is it true, Corey?'

Wilkes turned to face Vance. 'Is what true?'

'That you'll sell the map to the highest bidder?'

'No.' Wilkes sat in the armchair. 'Not to the highest bidder. I'd be a fool to sell it to nonhumans. What do you think homo sap's chances would be in a galaxy dominated by some alien race that got hold of the Roadbuilders' technology? What if, for instance, they' ? he pointed toward the adjoining stateroom?'got hold of it? No, I'll give it to the Authority.'

'I think your Rikki friends got the idea of going after the map a long time ago,' I said.

'No doubt they did,' Wilkes conceded.

Vance was struggling to understand. 'But… you realize that to return with the map you'll have to travel through twelve thousand kilometers of Reticulan maze?'

'I'm not going back that way.'

Vance was baffled. 'How?'

'I'll go back by Ryxx starship.'

'What?'

'Yes, they've got the time dilation down to three years, ship time. A long haul, but they have cold-sleep technology. Surprised? Didn't you know that the Ryxx don't mind taking

human passengers? It's expensive, and they don't get many takers, but…'

'Yes, I knew. But the Ryxx want the map too!'

'Yes, but they don't know I have it ? or will have it. They're after Jake, not me. They don't know me from Human One. And as far as I can tell, they don't know about Winnie either. How could they, if what Darla says is true?'

'What makes you think you can sell anything to the Authority?' Vance asked, disbelieving. 'The Authority takes, it doesn't buy.'

'It'll buy from me. You must know that yours isn't the only friendship I've cultivated in high places. Some of them are your friends, or were before you became an unperson. The transaction has already been arranged. And part of the price will be immunity from prosecution.'

Vance paled. 'What?'

Wilkes spoke to me. 'You may remember that I mentioned something about your queering deals I had set up. I got word that our drug operation had been compromised. I really don't know who was responsible. As Sam said, things tend to unravel. Van, you didn't get wind of it for obvious reasons. But the deal was null and void long before any of this.'

'So the Authority does know about the Roadmap,' I said.

'Of course they do, and they've given up trying to get it from the dissidents ? or rather, they're having a hard time. I told them I could get it for them.'

'But you'll be gone for twelve years!' Vance said. 'More!'

'Think again. Most people never consider the backward time displacement you undergo when you shoot a portal. But when you go back through normal space, you eat all that time back up. I should get back to T-Maze almost exactly at the same time I left. No Paradox, and it all works out very neatly.' Wilkes licked his lips, his eyes focused somewhere in the air, 'Or…' he went on abstractedly, '.. or I just might try to find that backtime route. You did, Jake ? or will, or shall… damn it, these verb tenses give me a headache! Anyway, if you can, I can, once I have the map.'

'What about the Reticulans?' I asked.

Wilkes' face split into a gray-toothed grin. 'We'll part company in Seaborne, where I'll rent a long-distance vehicle and floor it for the planet where the Ryxx launch their ships. You can be sure I'll scour the buggy for mrrrllowharrr. I'll fumigate the punking thing.'

Silence.

Vance was deeply depressed. Finally, he said, 'Pendergast is going to be very interested in hearing this.'

'But you won't be telling him. Van.' Wilkes took out Darla's gun from under his jerkin. 'Sorry, but until your last dose wears off, this will be necessary. Darla? You'd better come over here and sit with your dad.'

Darla got up and began to walk over, but stopped when a knock came on the hatch.

'Get it,' Wilkes told her.

Just then Jimmy came through the connecting hatch, shoving a sleepwalking Lori before him. He pushed her onto the bed, where she sprawled, naked and still out cold.

Darla threw the door open. It was John.

'Darla! Are you all right? You vanished… oh, dear.' He saw Lori and stood there gawking.

'Come in!' Wilkes called brightly.

John averted his eyes from Lori, then smiled nervously. 'Mr. Wilkes, I presume. I've heard a great deal?'

Jimmy reached out, grabbed'him by the collar, and yanked him into the room. He checked the corridor and closed the hatch.

'And you are…?'

'John Sukuma-Tayler. A friend of Jake's.'

Wilkes rose. 'John, it's a pleasure, but you caught us at a bad time. Won't you join your friends there on the bed? Jimmy, check him over.'

Jimmy patted him down and pushed him toward the bed, made sure his boss was covering everybody, then went back into the Rikkis' stateroom. A moment later he returned, herding another zombie. It was the Chevy kid. Jimmy sat him down, and the kid keeled over onto a pillow.

'Couldn't you have dressed her?' Wilkes scolded his bodyguard.

'Ever try dressing a corpse?' Jimmy retorted.

'Check out the hall one more time, then go get her clothes, for God's sake.'

'Right.'

The pills Darla had dissolved in the coffeepot were taking full effect, but I couldn't be sure if I was free of the wand completely. Nevertheless, I was ready to make my move when Jimmy left ? but a split second after Jimmy cracked the hatch, Vance stood up suddenly, pointing the revolver shakily at Wilkes' back.

'Drop the gun, Corey.'

'Van, sit down,' Wilkes said irritably over his shoulder. 'You'll hurt yourself with that old… Van!'

Wilkes' jaw dropped as Vance's finger jerked against the trigger. Vance clenched his teeth, finding it harder than he had thought to bring the hammer back without cocking it first. His left hand came up to help.

Surprised, Wilkes was slow to bring his pistol around, but Jimmy was quick. His shot sent a bolt scorching through Vance's skull, the mass of white hair exploding into flame. But the hammer came down. A thunderous explosion shook the room, and a weird dance of bodies began. Wilkes was spun around and yanked up and back like a puppet on strings, went lurching back toward the table. Vance's body marched backward like a ghost with a fiery head, hit the wall and rebounded, then teetered over. I was on the floor going for the dropped.44, trying to get furniture between me and Jimmy, but by the time I got to the gun he and Roland ? who had come bursting through the hatch ? were waltzing arm-in-arm into the room, each holding the other's gun arm, until Darla cut in with a chop to the back of Jimmy's neck, sending him down. Wilkes hit the table and the top part of it flipped up from the