The band went fi?rst, instruments blaring, closely followed by a column of colorfully dressed acrobats, jugglers, and clowns, who, with the single exception of the dourlooking individual with blue hair, tumbled, cavorted, and generally made fools of themselves as the rest of the circus brought up the rear. All of which was by way of an impromptu advertisement for the troupe’s fi?rst performance in New Wimmura, and proved to be so distracting that not a single rock was thrown until all the passengers were well clear of the ship, and it was beginning to lift. That was when a priest remembered his duty, called upon his followers to rebuke evil, and threw the fi?rst stone. Meanwhile, having observed the landing from his vantage point high on the hill above, Shaz smiled as he peered through an ancient pair of binoculars. Having been warned about the likelihood of disguises, the combat variant had been able to pick the blue-haired clown, the oversized strongman, and the slender acrobat out of the crowd within a matter of seconds. And since any one of the threesome could have been wearing the highly mutable computer, it seemed safe to assume that Logos had survived the journey as well. Satisfi?ed that everything was going according to plan, Shaz lowered the binoculars and returned the proscribed device to the nondescript bag slung alongside of the angen’s saddle. Then, having wrenched the animal back toward the trail, the variant spurred it forward. It would take the newly arrived passengers a good three hours to reach the city, and the variant intended to arrive there fi?rst. The trail followed the contour of the hill downward, past the shattered observatory, and onto the remains of a paved road. The cold air nipped at his skin—and it felt good to be alive. Having successfully made it off the shuttle without being injured by the stone-throwing mob, and followed by a group of merchants into the suburbs of New Wimmura, the travelers paused long enough to shed their costumes at an outlying tavern and buy the troupe a round of drinks before paying the city’s gate tax and passing between a pair of largely symbolic stone pillars. New Wimmura was a fairly typical city for the most part, other than for the fact that it had been established on the site of an open-pit mine, and unlike many of the cities Rebo was familiar with, seemed to eschew all technology beyond the lever, wheel, and pulley. All of which seemed to make it an unlikely place for the Techno Society to recruit new adherents, but the techies had never been shy and no doubt felt a need to preserve and protect the local star gate.
Eventually, having followed a road down into the bottom of the pit, the travelers passed a noisome stockyard, wandered along the edge of a fabric-covered marketplace, and strolled into the shadow cast by the mine’s western rim. That was when they spotted the huge box-shaped construct that squatted atop a pair of twenty-foot-high treads. The crawler had been used to process ore at one time. But that was back before the original city had been nuked—and the huge machine had been repurposed as the Ore Box Inn. Or that’s what a hand-lettered sign claimed—and the offworlders were in need of a place to spend the night. “What do you think?” Rebo inquired as he eyed the ramp that led up through an ancient hatch.
Norr shrugged. “It looks okay to me. . . . Besides, it’s getting dark, and it would be nice to fi?nd a place to stay before the sun goes down.”
“I agree,” Hoggles rumbled. “Let’s give it a try.”
So Rebo led the way up the ramp, entered a cramped lobby, and shrugged the pack off his back. The desk clerk was a balding, middle-aged man who had the look of a weight lifter. “Yeah?” the proprietor inquired. “What can I do for ya?”
“We’d like a couple of rooms,” Rebo answered.
“Where ya from?” the innkeeper demanded suspiciously.
“We came in on the shuttle,” Norr answered cryptically.
“Oh, ya did, did ya?” the man asked rhetorically. “Well, let me tell ya something right now. . . . I run a clean inn!
That means no machines, no gadgets, and no gizmos.” The proprietor looked down toward the Hogger. “How ’bout that pistol you’re packin’ son? Is that a muzzle-loader?
Cause if it’s a breechloader, then we got us a problem.”
“Yes, of course it is,” Rebo lied, knowing full well that Logos probably qualifi?ed as a machine, a gadget, and a gizmo.
“All right then,” the inn keeper said pompously, “but be warned! The penalty for possessing techno contraband is death.”
“As it should be,” the runner agreed. “So, how ’bout those rooms? Have you got any vacancies?”
The proprietor did, and half an hour later Norr pulled Logos on over her clothes, and ordered the AI to be very circumspect about what he said and when he said it. With that out of the way, she followed the others along a lamplit hallway and through the cramped lobby. It was dark by then, or would have been had it not been for the thousands of torches and oil-fed lamps that kept the night at least partially at bay. Meanwhile, even though Logos knew that the biologicals were hungry and focused on fi?nding something to eat, the AI’s priorities were considerably different. Unbeknownst to them there was a task that the computer needed to accomplish before he could safely seize control of Socket, which explained why he wanted to reach the Planet Haafa as quickly as possible. “New Wimmura has a star gate,” Logos whispered urgently. “I can feel it. . . . The old city had a gate, too, a commercial portal that was destroyed by the nuke that Kane sent through it, but this one was the property of the mining company, and it survived.”
Rebo, who was close enough to hear, frowned. “First,” he said sotto voce, “shut the hell up! Second, what we want is something to eat. . . . The gate can wait until tomorrow.”
“No,” the AI countered emphatically, “it can’t. We should scout it tonight—and use it tomorrow. Or would you like to walk the thousand-plus miles to the city of Feda instead?”
“All right, all right,” the runner grumbled. “Point us in the right direction and shut whatever it is that you talk through.”
Logos gave the humans some basic directions and let the biologicals fi?nd their way across the pit to a bank of ladders that carried them up to the appropriate bench. Once there, the threesome soon discovered that, unlike any other planet they had been on, the Techno Society’s local headquarters constituted a very popular destination. Not because the local population supported the organization’s goals—but because they opposed them. So much so that hundreds of people turned out each evening to parade back and forth in front of the much-abused building, hurl rocks at it, and shout antitechnic slogans. Such activities were tolerated it seemed—
so long as the crowd didn’t venture too close. Having been absorbed by the angry crowd, the offworlders found themselves pushed about like chips of wood on an angry sea. It was diffi?cult to hold a conversation due to the chaotic nature of the situation—but Norr managed a brief interchange with a friendly antitechnic priest. “Hi there!” she said, as the two of them bumped shoulders and were pushed along. “My friends and I just arrived. . . . Is it always like this?”
“No,” the young man replied. “No one comes here in the mornings. . . . The faithful have to work. We gather at night, to rebuke the techno devils and prevent them from polluting the minds of our children.”