"Urn… spooky. Yes."
The others were waiting for us on me other side of the road. It had been a long trek, and we still had a piece to go until we made the harbor, or so we'd been told.
"Trouble, ja?" one elderly woman with a German accent had asked us. "Vehicle break down?"
"Uh, yes. Tell me, is it true mat there's no way back to the Terran Maze from here?"
She laughed, showing a gold incisor. The sight of it threw me until I figured out what it was. When had dentists given up that peculiar technique? A century ago? Two?
"Oh, nein, nein, new, kamrada, no, no, no." Apparently it was a damn silly question. "Gott, no," she said, still laughing. "Impossible. You take wrong portal, ja? Make mistake."
"Yeah, I guess we did. Thanks."
"You go down zere," she said, pointing south. "Zey vill haf boat comink, ja? Ferryboat."
"Thanks. Are you taking the ferry also?"
"Ja, ve alzo." She anticipated my next question. "Ve stay up here till boat is comink," she went on, waving with disdain toward the lower end of the island. 'Too much people. Aliens."
Her lifecompanion smiled at me. He was a little older, bald, and wore eye-lenses… glasses, spectacles. We left them chuckling to each other, as if they'd now heard everything. Walking away, I reflected on the fact that there seemed to be a lot of middle-aged and older types around. Antigeronics hard to get here? Gold teeth, spectacles ― okay, things were primitive, but what about the vehicles?
"Jake!" It was John, calling to me across the road. "The women want a privy call. Must find some cover, you know."
"Right."
"Someone's coming," Roland said, pointing to the western causeway.
"Sam!"
"No, a roadster… two."
I shaded my eyes and looked. Two green dots were heading toward us. Reticulans, right on schedule.
I practically threw Roland across the road. We needed cover fast, but there was nothing in sight but a slight rise a good minute's run down the sand. I yelled for everyone to run like hell, and they did with no questions asked. They were learning.
Flattened in the sand just over the top of the rise, I watched two insect-green roadsters cruise across the island and come to a stop at the edge of the eastern beach. The lead vehicle was the one with the trailer, and the backup was more like a limo, bigger, with an extra rear seat, plus plenty of aft storage. The shadowy figures behind the tinted ports in the rear didn't look like Reticulans, but I couldn't tell if they were humans or not. Both vehicles pulled off the road, probably to talk things over. After a minute or so, they crossed the Skyway and headed north, perhaps following our distinctive tire tracks. Were they? No, that trail skirting the beach was well-traveled. Our trace should have been obscured by then. When they saw the submerged roadway, it was fifty-fifty that they'd head north. Still…
When they were out of sight, I got up and brushed the sand from my chest. I was now shiftless and jackedess, having left my brown leather second skin in the Chevy, along with Pe-trovsky's pistol. Force of habit had saved Sam's key for me, since I don't usually leave it lying around. I had whatever gods who were on my side to thank for the presence of mind to have put it in my pants pocket.
I walked down the other side of the hill and had a mild temper tantrum. Darla watched me kick sand, pick up a stick, and beat a poor patch of land-weed into pulp, then fling the stick away.
She walked over to me. "Finally getting to you?"
"Merte!" I said. "Shit! Piss!" I kicked more sand. "Hell and goddamn," I finished, done with it.
She thought it was very amusing. I did too, after a moment. I looked at her. She was in briefs and halter, wearing her knee-high boots, carrying the jumpsuit in a roll under her arm. Roland was carrying her backpack. If my mind had been less occupied, I would have had trouble not staring at her. Roland was staring, not that I blamed him. The briefs were very sheer. Susan was topless and was by any standard an eyeful as well, but she wasn't drawing a glance from him. But then, Susan was a known quantity, so to speak.
"Darla, how are those damn bugs following us?"
"I don't know. It's very strange, but they are a Snatchgang, aren't they?"
The others pricked up their ears. I wished Darla hadn't said it, but now they knew, if they hadn't before. Snatchgangs go after one quarry, and one only, so the Teelies weren't in danger, unless the Rikkis had a mind to use them to get to me ― which, when I thought about it, was indeed a possibility.
"Okay, they're a Gang, but how did they trail us through a potluck… and why?"
"Could they have scanned us?"
"They were behind Sam, and even he might have lost us. And Sam didn't shoot the portal, so they didn't follow him through. No, they're using some exotic tracking technique, known only to Gangers. But what is it?"
Darla considered it. "Chemical trace? Pheromones?"
"Possibly. But can they detect minute quantities of the stuff over hundreds of kilometers of airless void?"
"Some Terran insects can be sensitive to a few molecules in a cubic klick of air, so maybe―"
"Yeah, but Rikkis aren't insects; they're highly evolved life forms. Even bear their young live, like us."
"I was going to say that with the aid of technology, maybe they could do the same through vacuum."
I stroked her shoulder. "Sorry, love. I'm being testy, I know. Your point's well-taken. But…" I looked up at the sky and massaged the back of my neck. "God, am I tired." I yawned and got hung up in the middle of it, couldn't stop. "Excuse me," I said, finally recovering. "One thing, though. When did they tag me?"
"At the restaurant? Sonny's?"
I'd been thinking about that for quite a while. "Yeah, the restaurant. But I never got near the Rikki. If they were spraying the stuff at me, it would have landed on other people too. Muddled the trace."
Darla bit her lip, shook her head. "I dunno, but they must've done it somehow, Jake. We know it wasn't Sam they tagged. It was you, your person, somehow."
"What were they doing at the farm, retagging me because the first one didn't take, or wore off?"
"Sounds plausible. Maybe they were just looking for the map. You asked why they followed us through a potluck. It could only be because now they're sure you have the map, or know where you can get it."
"Yeah, everyone must be absolutely convinced of that now. I guess it did look like we deliberately ducked through that portal, with Petrovsky literally trying to drag us back. Okay, so maybe nobody saw that part of it, but we sure didn't hesitate any."
"No, we didn't. And now the Roadmap myth is reality."
I nodded. It was, and I had made it so by trying to debunk it. I sighed. "Let's get moving."
"Good. I'm going to wet my pants if we don't."
Roland came down from the crest of the knoll, where he'd been watching the road. "Another vehicle went by," he reported.
"Ryxx?" I asked.
"No, a human driving, a man. Strange, the buggy looked familiar. I think I saw it back on Goliath, but I don't know where." He scratched his head. "Oh, I remember. It was in the dealership lot. An old piece of merte. The dealer tried to dump it on us, cash sale, instead of a rental."
"One man, you say?" Now who the blazes could that be?
"Oh, the hell with it," Darla said suddenly, and squatted in the weeds. "I can't wait. Gentlemen, please…?"
I said, "Huh? Oh." I turned to John and Roland. "Okay, troops, eyes front."
"God, men are so lucky," Susan said, taking her station near Darla.
Lucky? Okay, so we can write our names in the sand. It's not exactly an art form.
As we neared the harbor we found more aliens, most of them sealed up inside their vehicles, unable to step out on this planet without technological aid. Through the viewports we saw squidlike things swimming in a^ watery medium, blobs of gelatin sitting comfortably in a fog of yellow gas, many more forms mat we couldn't make out at all. Some beings motioned enigmatically to us as we passed, raising tentacles, claws. Others followed us with conical eyestalks, observing. From most there was no reaction.