'Sweet sixteen at the very most. I just can't take the responsibility of letting you come with us. We don't exactly know where we're going, and we really don't have the vaguest idea of how to get there. I have enough worries, honey, and I'm simply not going to?'
'Jake, please take me along. Please? I won't be any trouble. I promise! I can take care of myself, and I won't?'
'Lori, darling, it's not a question of that. Listen to me. You should be in school and going to proms and having boys pick you up in their roadsters… all that sort of stuff. Now, I don't know what Schlagwasser's like?right off, the name doesn't recommend it?but the fact that you had a foster family there speaks of at least a… Lori? Are you listening?'
Over the two-way hookup, I could hear her crying.
'Oh, great. Typical female tactics.'
'Jake!' Susan was indignant. 'That was uncalled for, and not true. She's a child. You said so yourself.'
'Sorry. Sorry. Looks like I'm offending every sex and gender today. Lori, honey? Don't cry, please.'
'You're forgetting the Reticulans, Jake,' Roland said.
'No,' I said. 'If those nightmares pick up the trail again, they'll be after me. I can't believe they'd waste time and effort going after Lori.'
'But wasn't she strapped to their cutting table? Doesn't that make her sacred quarry? They'll be after her, Jake.'
'They're after me. It's hard to believe they'd want to hunt rabbit when there's bigger game.'
'I agree with Roland,' John said. 'We don't know enough about the Reticulans' habits and customs to take the chance. They seem to be driven by these ceremonial obligations. It seems hideous to us, but in the context of their culture… after all, they're not human.'
'Yeah, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, they're after me. And if she stays with me, it'll be more of a risk than if she hides out on her home planet, where her family can protect her. Reticulans won't go snooping around on a human world.'
'They've been known to,' Roland countered.
I had to admit to myself that Roland was right. And that knocked a few props out from under my argument.
'Jake?' It was Carl.
'Yeah.'
'Lori can't go back there, to her foster parents.'
'Why not?'
'I'd rather not say just now. She just can't.'
'I want to know, Carl.'
A pause. 'Lori says to tell you.' I heard him take a breath. 'Her foster father raped her.'
After a moment, I said, 'Right. Um… Lori? I'm very sorry.'
'It's okay.'
'Yeah. Uh… over and out.'
Rape seemed to be the national pastime of the Outworlds. Charming.
I replaced the headset in its rack on the dash. 'Sam, take over for me, will you?'
'Sure, son. Don't feel too bad. You couldn't have known.'
'I should have known that when a child cries, it usually means something hurts. I'm going into the aft-cabin. Raise the seat up for me. Hard for a two-inch-tall driver to see out the Port.'
I went back and dumped myself, pile of rags that I was, into the bunk.
As it happened, we wound up stopping on Schlagwasser so Sean and Liam could fuel up. Sam was showing three-quarters of a tank, but we topped off anyway. This could be the last service station till the Big Bang, for all we knew.
'Don't need any gas,' Carl averred. 'I'm okay.'
'Gas?' I said.
'I mean, whaddycallit. Deuterium.'
'What's this thing run on, air?'
Sitting at the wheel of his 1957 Chevrolet Impala, Carl knitted his brow and shook his head. 'Y'know, to tell the honest-to-God truth, I really don't know what the hell it runs on.'
'Then what are all those fusion-monitoring readouts-the ones under the dash board?'
'Oh, those? They're dummies.'
All I could do was grunt and scratch my face. Carl and Lori got out and walked over with me to the edge of the lot, where everyone was stretching their legs. Schlagwasser?this part of it?was a planet of marshlands and swamp, over which the starslab was borne by a causeway. The sky was a dome of slate. The world smelled of brackish water and wet, fetid things. In a pond of goo a few meters away, something sucked and gurgled. The undergrowth was a jumble of orange and purple, overhung by great brooding, purple-leaved trees.
'These planets are getting less and less Earthlike,' I said. 'And what happens when we get out of human- occupied territory?'
'According to Winnie,' Darla said, 'there'll always be earthnormal planets along the way. There may be stretches where they'll be few and far between, but we'll be able to get out every now and then to move around a bit. Maybe even camp.'
'But we should be prepared for hostile enviornments. Sean, did you guys pack full-pressure suits?'
'Yes, they're in the trailer.'
'Fine. Now, I have two… Carl?'
'Yeah, I got one in the trunk.'
'The what?' John asked.
'Storage compartment, in the rear, there.'
'Oh, the boot.'
'Boot?'
'Boot.'
'Boot,' Carl repeated. 'You people sure talk funny.'
Everyone looked at Carl for a moment.
'Okay,' I said. 'Maybe we can make do with five. And if you guys have to exit your vehicles in an airless environment, we can use the trailer as an air lock.'
'Maybe we should blow all our cash and outfit everybody,' Carl suggested, 'just to be safe.'
'A good idea,' Roland seconded.
'How're you fixed for money, Carl?'
'Me? I got plenty of consols left. Might as well shoot the whole wad, since they won't be worth anything outside the Outworlds.'
''Well,' I said, 'you could convert them back to gold.'
'Oh, I've got loads of that, too. Really, I'm bankrolled pretty well. Let's get everyone outfitted and squared away, so there won't be any problems downroad.'
'Well, maybe we should look for a general store, just to make sure we haven't forgotten?'
Sam's key was beeping in my pocket.
'Yeah, Sam?'
'Jake, I' m painting three fast-moving objects coming from uproad.'
'Aren't you getting too much ground clutter? Oh, I see.'
I hadn't noticed, but Sam had launched an earlybird. It was hovering about a hundred meters above.
'I don't like the looks of 'em. Maybe it's best we skedaddled.'
The service people were finishing up with the vehicles. The station sat on a slender finger of dry land in the middle of a vast marsh. There was no possibility of going off road and hiding.
'Right, Sam. Let's move.' I turned around and faced my fellow voyagers. 'You heard 'im, people. We scramble.'
We scrambled. We had the attendants disconnect immediately, and to save time, I paid Sean's minuscule bill
