Salazar said: "Perhaps Yaamo and Dumfries each figures he can double-cross the other in time to save his own program. Like those dictators from the Massacre Era—what were their names?"
"Hitler and Stalin?" said Suzette Ritter.
"I guess so; my Terran history isn't—"
"Tickets, prease!" said a Kookish voice. The conductor appeared at the end of the car. The Terrans brought out little red rectangles of stiff Kukulcanian paper, while Choku produced a yellow rectangle from one of his pouches.
"What is this?" said the conductor in loud Sungao. "This is no ticket for soft class! Get you back where you belong!"
"Honorable Zuiha!" protested Choku. "I did but enter the car at the command of this Terran, whom I have contracted to serve."
"It is nonetheless wrong, and well you know it!" shouted the conductor. "Now get you hence."
"Pardon, honorable conductor," said Salazar. "I will pay the extra fare my assistant requires."
"Very well, very well," grumbled the conductor. "You Terrans are never satisfied to do things in an orderly way. It is irregular, and I must needs write a note in the log to account for it. Does none of you other Terrans object to this human being's presence? Very well, then."
Salazar brought out his small change—a set of copper polygons with holes for stringing—and peeled off the requisite number. Conductor Zuiha, still grumbling, passed on through the car. Choku said:
"Zuiha is in a bad humor because his application for a change of caste status has been rejected."
The locomotive blew a shrill whistle and shuddered into motion. It swerved right and left as the train passed clicking over switches, then rumbled out the yard and along a street.
The train slowed and screeched to a halt. Looking around, Salazar saw the conductor straining at a hand brake at the end of the car. The breathing sounds of the idling steam locomotive wafted back, along with sounds of altercation in hissing, guttural Sungao.
"See what it is, please," said Salazar to Choku.
Choku went to the end of the car and with effortless ease swung himself up onto the roof. When he returned, he said in his version of English:
"Some person tie kyuumei to ray. Rook for owner. If not find, conductor cut rope."
At length the train moved on, though Salazar never learned whether the owner of the rail-tethered buffalo-lizard was found. They puffed and pounded on past dwindling houses, through the remains of the obsolete defensive wall, past more houses that shrank to mere shacks, and out into farmland.
"Ow!" said Miss Kingsby. "I've got a cinder in my eye!"
"Let me get it out," said Mr. Antonelli.
As speed increased, so did the rocking and shaking. The train became so noisy that passengers had to raise their voices to converse. Among the Patelians, Mrs. Eagleton became carsick. Miss Axelson, on her way to the toilet, was thrown by a lurch of the car into Salazar's lap.
"Oh, Kirk!" she cooed. "I'm so-o-o sorry!"
"That's all right," muttered Salazar. Too embarrassed to exploit the incident to further his acquaintance with Miss Axelson, he set her back on her feet.
They clanked and rattled on. A shift of wind filled the car with smoke. Passengers coughed, grumbled, and wiped off soot. Choku said in Sungao:
"Honorable Sarasara, are there railroads on Terra?"
"So I am told. My father rode upon them ere he came to Kukulcan. He says they are much bigger than these. For a century or two most travelers drove automobiles or rode in flying machines instead of traveling on trains. But then the Terran mineral oil called petroleum, which furnished fuel for these machines, became scarce, and people perforce went back to trains. Most, however, get their power from electricity, which does not smoke but which your folk would forbid."
"It is no wonder," said Choku, "that Terrans know naught about their ancestral spirits. With all those electrical machines whereof I hear, your spirits have probably all been destroyed."
"You may be right," said Salazar, who had been taught to avoid arguments. A passenger complained:
"If this is the express, I'd sure hate to have to ride the local! We can't be doing over thirty kph."
"With their bumpy track and rickety rolling stock," said another, "you'd better be glad they don't try to go faster."
"Locals stop on signal at every crossing," said still another. "The express stops only at towns."
After a while the train slowed and screeched to a halt, as Conductor Zuiha and his trainkooks heaved on the brakes. They were at a small town or large village announced as Torimas. Houses were simple gray cubical blocks of wood, stone, and concrete, unadorned save for the symbols, painted in a kaleidoscope of colors, indicating the clan, caste, occupational, and familial identities of the owners.
"Antics! Buy antics!" cried a young Kook, holding a tray of glittery merchandise up from the station platform.
A couple of Patelians paid for bits of glitter. Tchitchagov grumbled: "I warned them they would get only what you call junk, not real antiques. But some people simply must buy; some sort of neurotic compulsion."
The whistle blew, the gong bonged, the train started with a jangle of couplings and chains. Passengers opened their luncheon packages.
In the early afternoon, some zuta watchers were dozing as best they could on the cushionless seats. The train climbed a long incline, weaving through a country of rolling, rocky hills. In low gear it moved no faster than a brisk jog. Salazar watched the broken country wind past. The vegetation was sparser than along the coast, with bare earth showing among the shrubs, boulders, and occasional trees. Hilbert Ritter said:
"I think the sun is low enough to break out some personal lubricant. Will you get it out, darling?"
Suzette dug into her bag and produced a bottle and a stack of paper cups. She poured a slug of Kukulcanian "whiskey" into each and asked: "Water, anybody?"
Choku declined a drink, but the other four were served. Ritter raised his cup. "Here's to—"
The train screeched to a halt so abruptly that half the drinks went flying. From the rest of the car rose cries of pain and outrage, especially from dozers spilled from their seats.
"Tchyort!" said Tchitchagov. "Choku, will you see what it is?"
Choku went out and soon returned, saying: "Iss pi' of rocks on track."
"Natural or artificial?" asked Salazar.
"Some individuar put zere, sir."
Tchitchagov said: "I think this is an ambush. If I had my gun ... Choku, do you know where my bag is on the baggage car?"
"Iss in midder, on right side."
"You will show me where, and I will get the gun—"
A gunshot cut through the babble. Then came a fusillade, with the rattle of small arms and the impact of bullets against the sides of the car. Shrieks arose from the passengers.
"Get down!" shouted Tchitchagov, rising. "Everybody down! Is anyone hit?"
None claimed that distinction, but every passenger shouted a question at once. Tchitchagov kept shouting "Down! Down! Vniz! Xia dī!" until all save him were sitting or kneeling on the floor.
Salazar, crouching with the rest, heard more shots. He was thankful that Kukulcanian technology had not yet come up with plywood; hence, the sides of the car were of good stout timber, which stopped small-arms projectiles. But the car's bright red color made it an obvious target.
"Pomogitye!" shouted Tchitchagov, clutching his right arm with his left hand. "Now I am hit!"
"Get down yourself!" said Salazar.
"Get the first aid out of the carryall, Suzette," said Hilbert Ritter.
A bullet had drilled a hole in the director's bicep, missing the bone. While Suzette busied herself with disinfecting and bandaging, Tchitchagov said: "Kirk, did you bring a gun in your baggage?"