"And where is that?" John asked.
"Winnie?" I asked. "Where are we going?"
"Home."
"Yes, she keeps saying that." Roland frowned and crossed his arms. "What could she possibly mean?"
We left at dawn.
But not before I had the shock of seeing what Sean and Liam had been referring to as their "Skyway-worthy vehicle." Liam towed it out of a shed with the tractor.
It was a tiny roadster, beaten, dented, splotched with emulsicoat patching, and looking for all the world like an overgrown child's toy.
"Where's the key to wind it up?" I said.
"Very funny," Sean sneered. "But not very original."
"And what color is that?"
"Magenta."
I rolled my eyes heavenward.
It took a half-hour to start the thing. Then it ran at 25 percent of its rated power. Liam fiddled with the engine for another twenty minutes and coaxed it up to seventy-five.
"Good enough," Sean said. "We can stop somewhere and have it looked at."
"Yeah," I said.
Finally, we got going. It felt good to get back on the Skyway again. Give me the road any day, I thought. That black band rolling under me was freedom. I wanted no fetters, no encumbrances, no obligations. But of course I had them. My present situation was a trap, and the more I struggled, the more ensnared I became. I was acquiring people like an old wool sweater picks up lint. What did they want of me? What was my irresistible appeal? I didn't know about anyone else, but I was looking for a way home. I wanted to do nothing more than deliver my load and go back to the farm. Wouldn't see a soul for a year. I'd even sell my flat in town. Contrary to popular opinion, this starrigger had absolutely no intention to drive to the "beginning" of the universe or to the "end" of it either equally absurd notions. I wanted to tear up Winnie's maps, chuck the Black Cube out the port, and say to hell with it all. Then I'd go my own way, just me and Sam. Leave everyone to starhike it home.
Sure. Sure, Jake. You go ahead and do that.
I swore under my breath for two kilometers and felt better.
So preoccupied with my thoughts was I that I didn't notice the forest had given way to rolling plains in rather short order. The tops of the cylinders were edging over the horizon.
Suddenly, I thought of something, and slammed on the brakes. I pulled off the road and came to a sudden stop. The Chevy overshot me, pulling off to the shoulder a good distance ahead. As I climbed out of the cab, much to everyone's puzzlement, I saw Carl sticking his head out the window and looking back, equally baffled.
I walked back to the roaster, into which our beefy logger friends were packed like… like… well, like two beefy loggers inside a ridiculously small vehicle.
Sean slid back the dubiously air-tight port. "Trouble, Jake?"
"I have to ask this before I repress the event entirely. Just what the hell was that thing I saw in the woods… that Boojum or whatever you call it?"
Sean tugged at his anfractuous mustache. "Hard to say. Did it talk to you?"
"Yeah, it―" I straightened up. "Yeah, it sure did!"
"What did it say?"
"Well… it said, 'Good Gracious, dearie me!' Then it took off into the woods."
"I see." He stroked his beard, ruminating. Shaking his head slowly, he said, "Then that was no Boojum."
I would have strangled him right then if I had thought my hands would've fit around his fat neck.
Chapter 8
When climbed back into the cab, a yellow warning light leered at me from the instrumentation.
"The spare," I said. "Right?"
"Right," Sam said.
I expressed my displeasure in colorful terms. At some length.
"Curb your tongue, lad. There're ladies present."
"My apologies, Suzie, Darla." I looked back. "Winnie," I added.
"Oh, you should be proud," Susan said. "That approached the status of a work of art."
"Thank you."
I felt even better than I had after the previous tirade. I goosed the plasma flow and peeled out onto the Skyway.
The next few planets were wasteballs, barely habitable, but even here, human settlements clung, like lichen, to the rocks. Various odd-colored suns hung in lowering skies. On the third mudball, I decided we needed a palaver.
"Sam, see if you can raise Sean and Carl."
"Right."
I put on the headset while Sam put out a call on the special frequency we had decided upon beforehand. I prefer an old fashioned headset; why, I don't know, but I've always had this odd affinity for outmoded technology. Besides, I keep losing those 'stickum things you put on your earlobe and throat. I considered the bone-conduction transducer, implanted in my mastoid bone, a necessity despite my aversion to biointerface gadgets. I never used it for general communications; it was reserved for the hush frequency alone.
"Fitzgore here. Can you read me, Jake?"
"Sure enough. Carl?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, we're going to take the left fork up ahead. Right?"
"Affirmative."
"Roger-dodger."
"Roger-dodger?" I echoed.
"Affirmative, " Carl amended.
"Right. The next planet up is Schlagwasser. Carl, can you ask Lori―"
"I'm here, Jake. And I told you I don't want to see those people again."
"Lori, what you do after I drop you off is your business. It would've been dangerous to send you back to Seahome, and in good conscience I couldn't have put you out on that planet of alcoholic perverts-present company excluded, Sean and Liam-"
"On behalf of all perverts, alcoholic or not, I thank you."
"Sorry. Lori, you're much too young, and―"
"punk you!"
"―and I… Lori? Lorelei, honey, listen to me, please. I know you're not more than fifteen years old"
"I'm eighteen!"
"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.