along with my own.
'Thanks, Jake.'
'You owe me a couple beers. Whoa, there!'
I caught Lori by the sleeve of her pretty, but rumpled, redstriped sailor suit.
'Jake, please let me go with Carl.'
'Into the cab, hon,' I said firmly.
Her attitude seemed to have changed. She gave me no lip, and started clambering up the ladder to the cab. But suddenly I remembered the Chevy's astonishing capacity to absorb punishment and its stunning ability to inflict it. I grabbed Lori and yanked her down.
'Sorry, hon. You were right. Go with Carl.' I swatted her skinny rump (though as rumps go, it was coming along rather nicely) and sent her on her way.
'What made you send up the bird, Sam?' I asked when I was inside the cab.
'Oh, a hunch. Thought I saw something sneaking around back there for the last hour or so. Seemed to be deliberately staying out of ground-scanner range. I'm painting a tiny airborne blip that could be their drone.'
'Good work. Certainly sounds suspicious.' I put on the headset as I vectored the rig out onto the Skyway.
'Carl, I'll take the bow and you take the stern.'
'Check.'
'Sean? You get in the lifeboat.'
'Affirmative, and it's a damn good thing I know a bit of starrigger's lingo. 'Lifeboat,' indeed.'
I kept one eye on the rearview screens as Sean and Carl configured themselves correctly.
'Okay, here's more starrigger's lingo for you. We're gonna squeeze hydrogen and let the neutrinos fly.'
'We're going to 'grab slab,' is that it?'
'Right you are. Translation: let's get the hell moving.'
'Well, the spirit is willing, Jake, but Ariadne's not herself today.'
'Well, do the best you can.'
'Affirmative.'
Ariadne, I thought. Oh, my.
I eased the pedal down and watched the groundspeed readout until it showed 240 km/hr. A good clip, but still on the sane side. Sean began to drift back, so I feathered back to 210. I could see that Ariadne would hobble us until she was overhauled or until I could talk Sean and Liam into stashing her in the trailer. And now that we were about to leave human-occupied territory, opportunities for accomplishing the former would soon reduced to zero. I doubted that I could persuade two proud loggers to demote themselves to the status of starhikers. Our only hope was that the approaching blips weren't hostile.
But they were.
'They've recovered the first drone and put up another,' Sam announced. 'Which reminds me, I have to do the same thing.'
Recovering a drone on the fly was a difficult proposition, and we had lost our share of them trying it. Damn little things were expensive.
'Sounds like they're very interested in what's going on downroad,' I said.
'Oh, they're tracking us, all right. We're getting scanned with everything in the spectrum.'
'Pendergast's cops, you think?'
'Probably, though it could be anybody back there. We stepped on a lot of toes.'
'Right.'
The Skyway continued straight for a few kilometers, gliding over marsh and meadow, occasionally cutting across patches of dry land. The water in the swampy areas was a dark bluegreen, mottled with rainbowed oil slicks. The tall trees weren't really trees. The trunks were masses of intertwined separate filaments, looking like a tangle of battling snakes. From the waters rose pink and purple grasses. Oval pads bearing evil yellow flowers floated on the surface.
'Hey, Carl? Ask Lori what it was like living here.'
'Ask her yourself. She can hear you.'
'Lori?'
'It bit the big kishko.'
'I see.'
'Jake?'?Carl again?'That's an Intersystem word I've never heard before. Does it mean what I think it means?'
'Yeah.
'Oh.'
Behind me, Susan said, 'I never understood what's so wrong with biting the big kishko.'
Darla had to laugh.
I said, 'Sam, what're they doing now?'
'I'm sure their drone spotted our drone. They've gained a little on us, but they're still hanging back. Probably waiting till we get on firm ground to make their move.'
'Right, on the next planet up, which is supposed to be another desert world. Right, Darla?'
'Yes. And remember, Jake, you're to bear right at the fork.'
'Got you. Should be coming up pretty soon.'
A red light began blinking on the instrument banks.
'Son of a mother-punking bitch! Sam, it's that spare roller!'
'Yep.'
'Dammit, I didn't know it was that bad.'
'Well, I hate to say I told you so?'
'So don't say it!'
'?but I told you to spring for the new one. But nooo, you can get a better price down the road. Plenty of time, you said.'
'Well, I could have gotten a better deal, dammit, if only ?'
'Out in the middle of nowhere, and you have to go windowshopping.'
'Oh, for Christ's sake, Sam, get off my back!'
'Son, it's just that you forget sometimes?'
'Sam, it would have cleaned us out! Look what that backwoods barracuda charged us for fixing the stabilizer foil.'
'Well, we can't spend consols where we're going.'
'I'm talking about our gold reserves! I could've bought half a new rig for what he wanted on that pair of newbies!'
'That right-front roller isn't in the best shape, either, you know. Ever think of what happens down the road if that one goes, too?'
'Ohhh, the hell with it.'
'Very intelligent reply.'
'Can it Sam!'
'Okay, I'll can it. That's what canned-up people do best.' I felt horrible. I hadn't argued with Sam in… I didn't know how long. Recent events were definitely getting the better of me. I exhaled slowly and tried to absorb the adrenaline.
'Jesus, Sam, I'm sorry.'
'So am I, son. My fault. This is no time for petty recriminations.'
'No, no, you're programmed to advise on those decisions, and you were right. Should've sprung for the new pair-only thing, if we'd gone to a new size, it would've left us with no spare, and I didn't…' I scratched my head, remembering. 'Oh, that's right. He said he'd thrown in a spare, the relayered one in the back. Merte. Sam, you were totally right.'
'Forget it, Jake. You had a good point about the gold, and if people would stop chasing us all over the known universe, maybe we'd have time to think these things out. Actually, I thought for sure we'd be able to stop and shop
