FALLEN ANGELS

Larry Niven
Jerry Pournelle
Michael Flynn

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book
are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely
coincidental.

Copyright © 2000 by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flyn

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-671-72052-X

Cover art by Bob Eggleton

First printing, December 1992

Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America
 CHAPTER ONE

"Aspiring to Be Gods . . ."

High over the northern hemisphere the scoopship's
hull began to sing. The cabin was a sounding box for
vibrations far below the threshold of hearing. Alex
MacLeod could feel his bones singing in sympathy.
Piranha was kissing high atmosphere.
Planet Earth was shrouded in pearl white. There
was no break anywhere. There were mountain ranges of
fluff, looming cliffs, vast plains that stretched to
a far distant convex horizon, a cloud cover that
looked firm enough to walk on. An illusion; a
geography of vapors as insubstantial as the dreams
of youth. If he were to set foot upon them . . . The
clouds did not float in free fall, as was proper,
but in an acceleration frame that could hurl the
scoopship headlong into an enormous ball of rock and
iron and smash it like any dream.
Falling, they called it.
Alex felt the melancholy stealing over him again.
Nostalgia? For that germ-infested ball of mud? Not
possible. He could barely remember Earth. Snapshots
from childhood; a chaotic montage of memories. He
had fallen down the cellar steps once in a childhood
home he scarcely recalled. Tumbling, arms flailing,
head thumping hard against the concrete floor. He
hadn't been hurt; not really. He'd been too small to
mass up enough kinetic energy. But he recalled the
terror vividly. Now he was a lot bigger, and he
would fall a lot farther.
His parents had once taken him atop the Sears
Tower and another time to the edge of the Mesa Verde
cliffs; and each time he had thought what an awful
long way down it was. Then, they had taken him so
far up that down ceased to mean anything at all.
Alex stared out of Piranha's windscreen at the
cloud deck, trying to conjure that feeling of
height; trying to feel that the clouds were down and
he was up. But it had all been too many years ago,
in another world. All he could see was distance.
Living in the habitats did that to you. It stole
height from your senses and left you only with
distance.
He glanced covertly at Gordon Tanner in the
copilot's seat. If you were born in the habitats,
you never knew height at all. There were no memories
to steal. Was Gordon luckier than he, or not?
The ship sang. He was beginning to hear it now.
And Alex MacLeod was back behind a stick, where
God had meant him to be, flying a spaceship again.
Melancholy was plain ingratitude! He had plotted and
schemed his way into this assignment. He had
pestered Mary and pestered Mary until she had
relented and bumped his name to the top of the list
just to be rid of him. He had won.
Of course, there was a cost. Victories are always
bittersweet. Sweet because . . . He touched the
stick and felt nothing. They were still in
vacuum . . . thicker vacuum, that was heating up. If
there wasn't enough air to give bite to the control
surfaces, a pilot must call it vacuum.
How could you explain the sweetness to someone who
had never conned a ship? You couldn't. He relaxed in
the acceleration chair, feeling the tingling in his
hands and feet. The itching anticipation. Oh, to be
useful again, even if for a moment.
But bitter because . . . That part he did not want
to think about. Just enjoy the moment; become one
with it. If this was to be his last trip, he would
enjoy it while he could. If everything went A-OK,
he'd be back upstairs in a few hours, playing the
hero for the minute or so that people would care. A
real hero, not a retired hero. Then back in the day-
care center wiping snotty noses. It would be years
before another dip trip was needed. He'd never be on
the list again.
Which meant that Alex MacLeod, pilot and engineer,
wasn't needed any longer. So what do you do with a
pilot when pilots aren't needed? What do the
habitats do with a man who can't work outside,
because one more episode of explosive decompression
will bring on a fatal stroke?
Day care. Snotty noses. Work at learning to be a
teacher, a job he didn't much like.
Look on the bright side, Alex, my boy. Maybe you
won't make it back at all.
Sure, he could always go out the way Mish Lykonov
had in Moon Rat, auguring in to Mare Tranquilitatis.
They'd have a ceremony-—and they'd miss the ship
more than him. Even Mary. Maybe especially Mary,
since she'd got him the mission.
He straightened in his seat and touched the
controls again. Maybe just a touch of resistance . .
.
"Chto delayet? Alex!"
Something had prodded Gordon awake. Alex glanced
to the right. "What is it?"
"I'm getting a reading on the air temperature
gauge!"
 "Right. There's enough air outside now to have a
temperature."
Gordon nodded, still unbelieving.
Gordon had read the book. Come to that, Gordon
read a lot of books, but books don't mean much. No
one ever learned anything out of a book, anyway.
This was why they always teamed a newbie with an old
pro. Hands-on learning. The problem with on-the-job
training for this job was that there was not a hell
of a lot of room for trial and error. Alex moved the
stick gently, and felt the ship respond. Not vacuum
anymore! He banked and brought them up level,
feeling the air rushing past just outside the skin.
His eyes danced across the gauges. Here. There. Not
reading them. Just a glance to see if something was
wrong, or if something had changed since the last
glance. Dynamic air temperature. Stagnation air
temperature. The Mach number needle sprang to life,
leaped from zero to absurdity, then hunted across
the dial. A grin stretched itself across his face.
No blues now. He hadn't forgotten at all; not a
damned thing.
"What is funny?" Gordon demanded.
"Old war-horse heard the trumpet again. Now it's
your turn. Take the stick." Fun was fun, but it was
time for the kid to wrap his hands around the real
thing. There was only so much you could do in a
simulator. "There. Feel it?"
"Uh . . ." Gordon pulled back slightly on the
copilot's stick. He looked uncertain.
He hadn't felt anything. "Take over," Alex
growled. "You're flying the ship now. Can't you
tell?"
"Well . . ." Another tentative move at the
controls.
Piranha wobbled. "Hey! Yeah!"
 "Good. Look, it's hard to describe, but the ship
will tell you how she's doing if you really listen.
I don't mean you should forget the gauges. Keep
scanning them; they're your eyes and ears. But
you've got to listen with your hands and feet and
ass, too. Make the ship an extension of your entire
body. Do you feel it? That rush? That's air moving
past us at five miles per second. Newton's not
flying us anymore. You are."
Gordon flashed a nervous grin, like he'd just
discovered sex.
"What's our flight path?" Alex asked.
"Uh . . ." A quick glance at the map rollout.
"Greenland upcoming."
"Good. Hate to be over Norway."
"Why?"
Why. Didn't the kid listen to the downside news
broadcasts? Gordon, this is your planet! Don't you
care? No, he probably didn't. It was his
grandparents planet.
"There's war in Norway. If we flew over, somebody
would cruise a missile at us sure as moonquakes, and
we'd never even know which side did it."
The new tiling was wonderful. In the old days, the
ship's skin would be glowing; but now . . . Four
thousand degrees and no visible sign at all. Still,
they'd be glowing like a madman's dream on an IR
screen, new tiles or no, and that was all the
Downers would need to vector in on.
"Which side?" Gordon mused. "What are the sides?"
Alex laughed. "That's one of the reasons we can't
be sure. When it started, it was what was left of
NATO defending the Baltics." Non-nuclear, but it
just went on and on and on. Alex didn't really care
who won any more than Gordon did. "After a while,
the Scandinavians and the Russians took a nervous
look over their shoulders at the glaciers, and East
versus West became North versus South."
"Silly bastards. Nye kulturni."
"Da." It didn't surprise him anymore. All the
younger Floaters spoke Russian as automatically as
English. Russlish? Ever since Peace and Freedom had
pooled their resources, everyone was supposed to
learn each other's language; but Alex hadn't gotten
past "Ya tebye lyublyu." Hello was "zdravstvuitye."
Alex thought there was something masochistic about
speaking a language that strung so many consonants
together. "Be fair, Gordon. If you had ice growing a
mile thick in your backyard, wouldn't you want to
move south?"
Gordon mulled it. "Why south?"
He couldn't help the grin. "Never mind. Let me
take her again. Hang on, while I kill some velocity.
Watch what I do and follow me." He stroked the stick
gently.
Here we go, baby. You'll love this. Drop the scoop
face-on to the wind. Open wide. That's right. Spread
your tail, just for a moment ... Alex realized that
his lips were moving and clamped them shut. The
younger ones didn't understand when he talked to the
ship. Gordon was having enough trouble feeling the
ship. "Okay," he said finally, "that's done. Take
over, again."
Gordon did, more smoothly than before. Alex
watched him from the corner of his eye while
pretending to study the instruments. Piranha was a
sweet little ship. Alex had flown her once, years
before, and considered her the best of the three
remaining scoopers. Maybe that was just Final Trip
nostalgia. Maybe he would have felt the same about
whichever ship he flew on his last dip; but he would
shed a special tear for Piranha when they retired
her. The scoopers were twenty-two years old already
and, while there was not much wear and tear parked
in a vacuum, screaming through the Earth's
atmosphere like a white hot banshee did tend to age
the gals a bit. Jaws was already retired. Here was
Gordon at nineteen, just getting started; and the
ships at twenty-two were ready to pack it in. Life
was funny.
Alex ran a hand lightly across the instrument
panel. Scoopships were pretty in an ugly sort of
way: lifting bodies with gaping scoops that made
them look like early jet airplanes. They could not
land-—no landing gear-—but they didn't dip into the
atmosphere deeply enough for that to matter. But
they were the hottest ships around.
Piranha skimmed above the glare-white earth as hot
as any meteor, but never too hot at any point.
Humming, vibrating, functional.
Gordon was functional too. Alert, but not tense;
holding her nose just right while flame-hot air
piled through the scoop and bled into the holding
tank. The velocity dropped below optimum on the dial
and Gordon bled some of the air into the scramjet
and added hydrogen until the velocity rose again. He
did it casually, as if he did this sort of thing
every day. Alex nodded to himself. The kid had it.
He just needed it coaxed out of him.
"Alex?" Gordon said suddenly. "Why not Greenland?"
"Hmm?"
"Why isn't anyone in Greenland shooting missiles?"
Alex grinned. That was good. Gordon was flying a
scoopship on a dip trip, sucking air at five miles
per, and trying to make casual conversation. That's
right, Gordo. You can't do this sort of thing all
tensed up; you've got to be relaxed.
"Nobody there but Eskimos," he explained. "An Ice
Age doesn't bother them any. Hell, they probably
think they've all died and gone to Inuit Heaven."
"Eskimos I do not know. Gogol once wrote good
story that speaks of Laplanders but I did not
understand-—" The sky had turned from black to navy
blue. Wouldn't want to get any lower. Gordon glanced
out the windscreen and said, "Shouldn't we be seeing
land by now?"
Alex shook his head, realized Gordon wasn't
looking at him and answered. "No, the cloud-deck off
the pole . . ." He stopped. The white below them
wasn't the cloud shroud any more. They must have
gone past the southern edge or hit a hole in it.
White on white. Cloud or ice. If you didn't actually
look you, might not notice. "Damn, damn. The ice is
still growing."
Gordon didn't say anything. Alex watched him a
moment longer then turned his attention to the
gauges. Gordon was nineteen. There had always been
an Ice Age, so it did not surprise him that the
glaciers had crept farther south. Alex thought he
remembered a different world-—green, not white-—
before his parents brought him upstairs. He wasn't
sure how much of it was genuine childhood memories
and how much was movies or photographs in books. The
habitats had a fair number of books on tape, brought
up when they still got along with the Downers.
The green hills of earth, he thought. Now the
glaciers-—not rivers of ice, but vast oceans of ice-
—were spreading south at tens of miles a year.
Hundreds of miles in some places. In the dictionary,
"glacial" meant slow; but Ice Ages came on fast. Ten
thousand years ago the glaciers had covered England
and most of Europe in less than a century. They'd
known that since the sixties . . . though no one had
ever seen fit to revise his schoolbooks. But what
did that matter? To a school kid a century was
forever anyway.
 As for Gordon . . . He glanced again at his
copilot. Well, what the world is like in our
lifetimes is what it should be like forever. As it
was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. It
was funny to think of groundside environmentalists
desperately struggling against Nature, trying to
preserve forever the temporary conditions and mayfly
species of a brief interglacial. Alex looked again
through the cockpit windscreen and sighed.
"We could have stopped it," he said abruptly.
"Eh?" Gordon gave him a puzzled glance.
"The Ice Age. Big orbiting solar mirrors. More
microwave power stations. Sunlight is free. We could
have beamed down enough power to stop the ice. Look
what one little SUNSAT has done for Winnipeg."
Gordon studied the frozen planet outside. He shook
his head. "Ya nye ponimál," he admitted. "I faked
the examiners, but I never did get it. The what-did-
they-call-it, polar ice cap? It stayed put for
thousands of years. Then, of a sudden it reaches out
like vast white amoeba."
All of a sudden, Alex's earphones warbled. He
touched a hand to his ear. "Piranha here."
"Alex!" It was Mary Hopkins's voice. She was
sitting mission control for this dip. Alex wondered
if he should be flattered . . . And if Lonny was
there with her. "We've got a bogey rising," said
Mary. "Looks like he's vectoring in on you."
So, they don't shoot missiles out of Greenland?
Find another line of work, Alex—boy; you'll never
make it as a soothsayer. "Roger, Big Momma." He spun
to Gordon. "Taking over," he barked. "Close the
scoop. Seal her up. Countermeasures!"
"Da!" He said something else, too rapid to follow.
"English, damn your eyes!"
"Oh. Yeah. Roger. Scoops closed."
 Piranha felt better. Under control. "Close your
faceplate." Alex pulled his own shut and sealed it.
"Alex, I have something." Gordon's voice sounded
tinny over the radio, or maybe a wee bit stressed.
"Aft and to the left and below," he said.
Seven o'clock low.
"Constant bearing and closing."
"Drop flares." That wouldn't do any good. Piranha
was the hottest thing in the sky right now. But like
the lady said, while spooning chicken soup to the
dead man, it couldn't hurt. "How are they seeing
us?"
"K-band."
"Jam it."
"Am."
He sure enough was. Alex grunted. At least Gordo
had read that book. Alex squinted at his radar.
There was the bogey, sure enough. Small. Constant
bearing and closing. "Hang on." He peeled off to
starboard and watched the heat gauge rise. Piranha
didn't have wings for a near miss to tear off. Just
small, fat fins and a big, broad, flat belly to be
melted, evaporated or pierced. Alex bit his lip.
Don't think about that. Concentrate on what you can
do.
The sharp turn pushed him against the corner of
his seat. Alex relaxed to the extra weight and
prayed that his Earth-born bones would remember how
to take it. Decades of falling had turned him soft.
The acceleration felt like a ton of sand covering
him. He felt the blood start in his sinuses. But he
could take it. He could take it because he had to.
Gordon sat gripping the arms of the copilot's
seat. His cheeks sagged. His head bowed. Gordon had
been born in free fall and thrust was new to him. He
looked frightened. It must feel like he'd taken
sick.
The turn seemed to go on forever. Alex watched the
bogey on the scope. Each sweep of the arm brought
the blip closer to the center. Closer. He pulled
harder against the stick. The next blip was left of
center. Then it arced away. Alex knew that was an
illusion. The missile had gone straight; Piranha had
banked.
"You lost it!" Gordon shouted. He turned and
looked at Alex with a grin that nearly split his
face in two.
Alex smiled back. "Scared?"
"Hell, no."
"Yeah. Me, too. Anyone flying at Mach 26 while a
heatseeking cruise missile tries to fly up his ass
is entitled to be scared." He toggled the radio. It
was Management Decision time. "Big Momma, we have
lost the bogey. Do you have instructions?"
There was a pause; short, but significant. "We
need that nitrogen," said Mary's voice.
Alex waited for her to finish, then realized that
she had. We need that nitrogen. That was all she was
going to say, leaving the ball in his octant.
Of course we need the nitrogen, he thought.
Recycling wasn't perfect. Gas molecules outgassed
right through the walls of the stations. Every now
and then someone had to take the bucket to the well
and get some more. The question was when. When
someone with an itchy finger was sitting in a
missile farm somewhere below?
He could pack it home and be the goat; his last
trip a failure. Delta vee thrown away for no gain.
Or he could fly heroically into the jaws of death
and suck air. Either way, it was going to be his
decision.
He sensed Lonny Hopkins's spidery hand behind
things. If Mary was performing plausible deniability
on his bones, it must be because her husband was
floating right behind her at the comm console, one
hand gentle on her shoulder, while she downlinked to
the stud who had . . .
Jesus, but some people had long memories.
Well, Mary was a free citizen, wasn't she? If the
wife of the station commander wants a little
extracurricular, it's her choice. She had never
pushed him away; not until that last night together.
We're hanging on up here by our fingernails, she had
said then. We've got to all pull together; stand
behind the station commander.
Right.
Nobody could stand behind Lonny Hopkins because he
never turned his back on anyone. With good reason.
Maybe he's right. He is good at the goddam job, and
maybe our position is so precarious that there's no
room for democratic debate. That doesn't mean I have
to like it.
And it's decision time.
"Understood, Big Momma. We'll get your air." Take
that, Commander Lonny Hopkins. He clicked off and
turned to Gordon. "Open the scoops, but bleed half
of it to the scramjets."
"Alex . . ." Gordon frowned and bit his lip.
"They say they need the air."
"Yeah-da." Gordon's fingers flipped toggled
switches back up.
Alex felt the drag as the big scoop doors opened
again. The doors had just completed their cycle when
Gordon bean shouting. "Ekho! Ekho priblizháyetsya!"
"English!"
Something exploded aft of the cabin and Alex felt
his suit pop out. His ears tried to pop, and Alex
MacLeod whined deep in his throat.
 He'd forgotten, but his nerves remembered. It
wasn't falling he feared, it was air tearing through
his throat, daggers in his ears, pressure trying to
rip his chest apart. Five times his suit had leaked
air while they worked to save Freedom Station. He
wore the scars in ruptured veins and arteries,
everywhere on his body, as if Lonny Hopkins had
given him to a mad tattoo artist. There were more
scars in his lungs and in his sinus cavities. A
sixth exposure to vacuum would have his brains
spewing through his nose. Alex couldn't come out to
play; they had to keep him in the day-care center.
His fists clenched on the controls in a rigor
mortis grip. He heard his own whine of terror, and
Gordon's shout, and felt Piranha falling off hard to
port. And his suit was holding, holding.
He fought the stick hard when he tried to steady
her. Had he recovered too late? "Hold fast, baby,"
he said through clenched teeth. "Hold fast." Hold
Fast was the ancient motto of the MacLeod. Alex
wished fleetingly that he had the Fairy Flag that
Clan MacLeod unfurled only in the gravest peril.
Piranha vibrated and shuddered. Something snapped
with the sound of piano wire. "Come on, baby. Steady
down."
Incredibly, she did. "Good girl," he muttered,
then tongued the uplink on his suit radio. "Big
Momma, Big Momma. We've been hit." There was nothing
for it now but use up all the air they'd scooped,
and anything else, to light off the jets. Get back
in orbit; out of the Well. When you're in orbit
you're halfway to anywhere! Get in orbit and pickup
would be easy. He toggled the switches.
The rocket wouldn't light. The rocket wouldn't
light. Air speed was dropping steadily. The rocket
wouldn't light. He suppressed the knot of panic that
twisted itself in his gut. Time enough afterward, if
there was an afterward. The scramjet alone was not
enough to reach orbit again. It wouldn't be long
before Piranha would be moving too slowly to keep
the jet lit. She would become a glider.
And not a terribly good glider.
Alex swallowed. It looked awfully cold down below.
And the rocket wouldn't light.
"Mayday," he said. "Mayday. Piranha has a
problem." A part of his mind was detached, admiring
the cool way he reacted after that one moment of
terror.
"This is Big Momma. What is your status?"
Well, I'm just fine, Mary; and how are you? "We're
going in, Mary. Tell my family. It's all in my file
directory. Access code word is dunvegan." He glanced
over at Gordon, but the teenager just shook his
head. His face was white through the plexiglass face
shield. "And the Tanner family, too." Gordon didn't
have any children yet. He was the child. Damned near
unwanted child at that: a stilyagi, a JayDee on
parole. Some parole! "Watch where we land and get
the message out. Tightbeam."
The phones hissed for long seconds. "Sure, Alex.
We have friends on Earth. Maybe not many, but . . .
We'll tell them. They'll take care of you. Can you-—
can you get her down?"
"I may not be good for anything else, but, by God,
you paint stripes on a brick and I can fly her."
"Then that's two things you do well."
He felt warmth spreading outward from his belly.
Was Lonny still there? Would he understand that
message? Alex almost hoped he could. Mary said
something else but he was too busy with the ship to
hear her. Airspeed had dropped to near Mach 2, and
he tilted her nose down to keep the scramjet lit and
tried to turn south. Ice. Ice all around and the
cloud deck closing in again. Piranha was shaped like
the bastard daughter of an airplane and a cement
mixer. The slower she flew, the more she acted like
a cement mixer.
Not on the ice, baby. Not on the ice. Hang in
there . . .
"Do you really fly that well?" Gordon asked
tightly.
"I landed on Earth once before, Gordon. Who else
do you know who can say that?" Tom Corbett, Space
Cadet. That's me. Disguised as a washed-up day-care
gopher, he is in reality Alex MacLeod, Hot Pilot.
Lord, just let me get us down in one piece.
Fifteen miles up and the air was thick. Mach 3.5.
The clouds below were puffy with turbulence. Piranha
was diving into a storm. He wondered whether North
Dakota was flat or mountainous.
Naybe an ice landing would be all right. Ice was
smooth, wasn't it? Or was that only true in free
fall? Piranha was hot from friction. She'd melt her
own runway across the glacier.
Sure, but step outside afterward. Your eyeballs
will freeze so cold they'll shatter when you blink .
. .
The clouds closed in and he was flying by radar.
Dropping. Dropping. Lose velocity in the turns. Mach
2.5 and falling.
Gordon couldn't lift his head against the
acceleration. "At least we'll have life support," he
said suddenly. "Life support for four billion
people, my teacher told me. And it doesn't get
really cold, right? Cold enough to freeze water, but
not carbon dioxide."
Alex grunted. Cold enough to freeze water. Gordo,
what is the human body made of? Another turn.
"Right," he said. Gordon wasn't a distraction. He
was just a voice. The last thing Alex wanted during
his last moments was dead silence. There would be
enough of that afterward.
Think positive, Alex boy. You'll live through the
landing, so you can freeze to death on the ice.
Piranha shuddered as she dropped below Mach 1. The
missile must have left some holes, creating
turbulence in the airstream. Then the scramjet quit
and she was diving at the ground. Ice crystals
impacting on the skin created a rustling sound. When
radar read a thousand feet up, Alex lifted the nose
and waited.
Piranha didn't have wheels.
Friends on Earth, Mary had said. He wondered who
she had meant. Earth's four billion hated the Peace
and Freedom space stations with a passion. A dozen
nations had declared war when the nitrogen dipping
started; but they had no space capabilities, so it
never meant anything but noise. Now Piranha was
diving into their hands.
Two hundred feet up and slowing. He dropped the
nose, trading altitude for speed, and pretended that
the scoopship had wheels. Wind battered the ship.
She yawed and Alex fought with the stick. Once the
ship dipped suddenly and Alex fought a moment of
pure panic. Don't lose it now! Don't lose it now!
The ground looked smooth on the radar. Gordon's
hands were on the dash, his elbows locked. It won't
be too cold, Gordo. Not cold enough to freeze carbon
dioxide.
It was the second best landing he had ever made.
Second by a long, long margin. Piranha hit the ice
and skipped like a schoolgirl hit and skipped again.
There was probably a third or fourth skip, too; but
Alex never knew.
 * * *

Soren Haroldsson had watched the flame from his

steading. He was wrapped in his fur parka, heavy
boots, mittens like bowling balls, but still he
shivered. His breath was frosty steam in the evening
air. He always took a turn around the house before
they battened down for the night checking the gate,
the wolf-traps, making sure none of the animals had
been accidentally left outside.
It came just at dusk, a fiery stream low across
the sky still large and burning as it touched the
ice and sent up clouds of steam. Not a shooting
star. Not a sky stone like he'd heard of. It had
come in too shallow, too controlled. A ship of some
sort.
Ah, surely it was Angels.
He shook his swaddled fist at the sky. "Be damned,
you air thieves! We've got you now. Heh!" His breath
froze on his graying blond mustache and beard.
Tomorrow he would saddle up Ozzie and ride into
Casselton to notify the authorities. They were
probably hunting the Angels already; but only a fool
went riding at night, and Ozzie, at least, was no
fool.
Inside, bundled in the warmth of family and
livestock, he told Lisbet what he had seen and
guessed. Haughty, technomaniac Angels down on the
Great Ice. Poetic justice, he said. Poetic, she
replied and, smiling, quoted from memory:

"In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error

lies;
All quit their sphere and rush into the
skies!
Aspiring to be Gods if Angels fell,
Aspiring to be Angels men rebel."
 CHAPTER TWO

"One Moment in Childhood. . . "

The phone warbled and Sherrine Hartley pulled a
pillow over her head, even though she knew it would
do no good. She'd been allocated a phone precisely
because they might want to call her in the middle of
the night. Neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor cold
of night shall keep the programmers from being
rousted out of bed to untangle every little glitch
in operations. Didn't anyone know how to run
programs anymore?
The phone warbled.
It was warm in bed, buried beneath the down
comforter. The thermostat was turned down to 55, as
the law required, and the last thing she wanted was
to get out into the chilly air. Her arm snaked out
from beneath the comforter, groped for the phone set
and pulled it under the covers with her. The plastic
was cold, but she was bundled in flannel and felt it
only in her hands.
"Dr. Hartley here." She winced. It was like
holding an ice cube to her ear.
"Sherrine?"
Not the University, after all. That really ticked
her off. The 'danes who signed her paycheck bought
the right to wake her up, sometimes and for some
things; but ex-boyfriends did not. "Bob," she said,
"do you know what time it is?"
"Certainly. Two-forty-three. Plus or minus three
sigma."
She sighed. Never ask a physicist a question like
that. "What do you want, Bob? And why can't it wait
until morning?"
"I need you, Sherrine. Now."
"What? Look, Bob, that's all over." And why
couldn't some men ever believe that?
"I'll be there in five minutes."
"Bob!" But she was talking into a dead phone.
She thought about staying put under the comforter.
It wouldn't help. Bob Needleton was persistent. He
was quite capable of standing on her doorstep all
night, banging on the door until she opened.
Sometimes that sort of persistence was invaluable.
In the lab, for instance. Other times it was just a
pain in the ass.
Damn him. She was wearing heavy flannel socks, and
she kept a pair of wooly slippers under the sheets
with her. She played contortionist for a while
finding them and putting them on. Then she slipped
out of bed, leaving the covers carefully in place so
the bed would stay warm. A heavy housecoat hung over
the back of the chair next to the bed. She snuggled
into it and shivered her way to the bathroom.
When she flipped the switch on the bulb glowed at
about quarter-strength. Sometimes a brownout could
be convenient. Real light would have blinded her
just then. She brushed her teeth to get the
nighttime fuzzies out. The water in the basin wasn't
quite frozen, but it shocked her teeth when she
rinsed. She spat out into the commode, because there
was no sense in wasting the rest of the water in the
sink.
 "Conservation will see us through," the posters
said. And when there's nothing left to conserve? She
ran a comb through her hair. It needed brushing, but
she was too cold.
"So what does Bob Needleton see in you," she asked
her reflection, "that he's coming out in the dead of
night?" The beanpole in the mirror did not answer.
Big nose. Big mouth. Not quite pretty. She could
explain why Jake left; but not why Bob wouldn't.

She opened the door on the first knock and stood

out of the way. The wind was whipping the ground
snow in swirling circles. Some of it blew in the
door as Bob entered. She slammed the door behind
him. The snow on the floor decided to wait a while
before melting. "Okay. You're here," she snapped.
"There's no fire and no place to sit. The bed's the
only warm place and you know it. I didn't know you
were this hard up. And, by the way, I don't have any
company, thanks for asking." If Bob couldn't figure
out from that speech that she was pissed, he'd never
win the prize as Mr. Perception.
"I am that hard up," he said, moving closer.
"Let's get it on."
"Say what?" Bob had never been one for subtle
technique, but this was pushing it. She tried to
step back but his hands gripped her arms. They were
cold as ice, even through the housecoat. "Bob!" He
pulled her to him and buried his face in her hair.
"It's not what you think," he whispered. "We don't
have time for this, worse luck."
"Bob!"
"No, just bear with me. Let's go to your bedroom.
I don't want you to freeze."
He led her to the back of the house and she slid
under the covers without inviting him in. He lay on
top, still wearing his thick leather coat. Whatever
he had in mind, she realized, it wasn't sex. Not
with her housecoat, the comforter and his greatcoat
playing chaperone.
He kissed her hard and was whispering hoarsely in
her ear before she had a chance to react. "Angels
down. A scoopship. It crashed."
"Angels?" Was he crazy?
He kissed her neck. "Not so loud. I don't think
the 'danes are listening, but why take chances?
Angels. Spacemen. Peace and Freedom."
She'd been away too long. She'd never heard
spacemen called Angels. And-— "Crashed?" She kept it
to a whisper. "Where?"
"Just over the border in North Dakota. Near
Mapleton."
"Great Ghu, Bob. That's on the Ice!"
He whispered, "Yeah. But they're not too far in."
"How do you know about it?"
He snuggled closer and kissed her on the neck
again. Maybe sex made a great cover for his visit,
but she didn't think he had to lay it on so thick.
"We know."
"We?"
"The Worldcon's in Minneapolis-St. Paul this year-
—"
The World Science Fiction Convention. "I got, the
invitation, but I didn't dare go. If anyone saw me-
—"
"-—And it was just getting started when the call
came down from Freedom. Sherrine, they couldn't have
picked a better time or place to crash their
scoopship. That's why I came to you. Your
grandparents live near the crash site."
She wondered if there was a good time for crashing
scoopships. "So?"
"We're going to rescue them."
"We? Who's we?"
"The Con Committee, some of the fans-—"
"But why tell me, Bob? I'm fafiated. It's been
years since I've dared associate with fen."
Too many years, she thought. She had discovered
science fiction in childhood, at her neighborhood
branch library. She still remembered that first
book: Star Man's Son, by Andre Norton. Fors had been
persecuted because he was different; but he nurtured
a secret, a mutant power. Just the sort of hero to
appeal to an ugly-duckling little girl who would not
act like other little girls.
SF had opened a whole new world to her. A galaxy,
a universe of new worlds. While the other little
girls had played with Barbie dolls, Sherrine played
with Lummox and Poddy and Arkady and Susan Calvin.
While they went to the malls, she went to Trantor
and the Witch World. While they wondered what Look
was In, she wondered about resource depletion and
nuclear war and genetic engineering. Escape
literature, they called it. She missed it terribly.
"There is always one moment in childhood," Graham
Greene had written in The Power and the Glory, "when
the door opens and lets the future in." For some
people, that door never closed. She thought that
Peter Pan had had the right idea all along.
"Why tell you? Sherrine, we want you with us. Your
grandparents live near the crash site. They've got
all sorts of gear we can borrow for the rescue."
"Me?" A tiny trickle of electric current ran up
her spine. But . . . Nah. "Bob, I don't dare. If my
bosses thought I was associating with fen, I'd lose
my job."
He grinned. "Yeah. Me, too." And she saw that he
had never considered that she might not go.
'Tis a Proud and Lonely Thing to Be a Fan, they
used to say, laughing. It had become a very lonely
thing. The Establishment had always been hard on
science fiction. The government-funded Arts Councils
would pass out tax money to write obscure poetry for
"little" magazines, but not to write speculative
fiction. "Sci-fi isn't literature." That wasn't
censorship.
Perversely, people went on buying science fiction
without grants. Writers even got rich without
government funding. They couldn't kill us that way!
Then the Luddites and the Greens had come to
power. She had watched science fiction books slowly
disappear from the library shelves, beginning with
the children's departments. (That wasn't censorship
either. Libraries couldn't buy every book, now could
they? So they bought "realistic" children's books
funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, books
about death and divorce, and really important things
like being overweight or fitting in with the right
school crowd.)
Then came paper shortages, and paper allocations.
The science fiction sections in the chain stores
grew smaller. ("You can't expect us to stock books
that aren't selling." And they can't sell if you
don't stock them.)
Fantasy wasn't hurt so bad. Fantasy was about
wizards and elves, and being kind to the Earth, and
harmony with nature, all things the Greens loved.
But science fiction was about science.
Science fiction wasn't exactly outlawed. There was
still Freedom of Speech; still a Bill of Rights,
even if it wasn't taught much in the schools-—even
if most kids graduated unable to read well enough to
understand it. But a person could get into a lot of
unofficial trouble for reading SF or for associating
with known fen. She could lose her job, say. Not
through government persecution-—of course not-—but
because of "reduction in work force" or "poor job
performance" or "uncooperative attitude" or
"politically incorrect" or a hundred other phrases.
And if the neighbors shunned her, and tradesmen
wouldn't deal with her, and stores wouldn't give her
credit, who could blame them? Science fiction
involved science; and science was a conspiracy to
pollute the environment, "to bring back technology."
Damn right! she thought savagely. We do conspire
to bring back technology. Some of us are crazy
enough to think that there are alternatives to
freezing in the dark. And some of us are even crazy
enough to try to rescue marooned spacemen before
they freeze, or disappear into protective custody.
Which could be dangerous. The government might
declare you mentally ill, and help you.
She shuddered at that thought. She pushed and
rolled Bob aside. She sat up and pulled the
comforter up tight around herself. "Do you know what
it was that attracted me to science fiction?"
He raised himself on one elbow, blinked at her
change of subject, and looked quickly around the
room, as if suspecting bugs. "No, what?"
"Not Fandom. I was reading the true quill long
before I knew about Fandom and cons and such. No, it
was the feeling of hope."
"Hope?"
"Even in the most depressing dystopia, there's
still the notion that the future is something we
build. It doesn't just happen. You can't predict the
future, but you can invent it. Build it. That is a
hopeful idea, even when the building collapses."
Bob was silent for a moment. Then he nodded.
"Yeah. Nobody's building the future anymore, 'We
live in an Age of Limited Choices.' " He quoted the
government line without cracking a smile. "Hell, you
don't take choices off a list. You make choices and
add them to the list. Speaking of which have you
made your choice?"
That electric tickle . . . "Are they even alive?"
"So far. I understand it was some kind of miracle
that they landed at all. They're unconscious but not
hurt bad. They're hooked up to some sort of magical
medical widget and the Angels overhead are
monitoring. But if we don't get them out soon,
they'll freeze to death."
She bit her lip. "And you think we can reach them
in time?"
Bob shrugged.
"You want me to risk my life on the Ice, defy the
government and probably lose my job in a crazy,
amateur effort to rescue two spacemen who might
easily be dead by the time we reach them."
He scratched his beard. "Is that quixotic, or
what?"
"Quixotic. Give me four minutes."

She found five more fen waiting outside by Bob's

van. Three she knew from an earlier life. She smiled
and waved and they nodded warily.
That griped her, but she could see their point of
view. She had been out of Fandom for a long time and
they weren't quite sure about her.
Bob's van had less than half a tank of alcohol, so
they topped it with the fuel from her car. She
rolled her eyes up watching them. Typical fanac, she
thought. Six people trying to work a syphon at the
same time. Finally Thor took over the whole thing
and Sherrine retired gratefully to the van with the
rest and shivered while she waited.
 Thor was outside, but he wasn't shivering.
Sherrine watched him through the window. He was
built like the god whose name he used, and nothing
about him had changed since she had known him except
for the beard.
Even with the last drop of alkey sucked from the
car's tank, the van had less than a full tank. Thor
climbed into the van and slid the door closed. He
still had the syphon. Sherrine poked her nose out of
her coat.
"Keeping the syphon?"
His grin was lopsided and too wide. Siphoning
alcohol . . . He held the rubber hose up like an
Appalachian snake handler. "We can't make it to
Mapleton and back on one tank. Might not be too
smart to gas up at a public station. 'Specially
after we collect Rafe and Cabe."
"Who?"
"The Angels."
"Oh. You know their names?"
"Those are code names." That was Mike Glider,
grinning on her right. "Gotta have code names on a
clandestine operation."
"Sure you do; there are standards to keep up."
She shook her head. Mike knew everything there was
to know and had opinions on the rest. He'd been a
county agricultural agent since quitting the IRS;
but that was just cover for his true identity as
Oral Historian of Fandom. He was "tall and round and
three hundred pound," in his own words. If they
froze on the Ice, he'd freeze last.
Bob started the van and Sherrine felt that
electric thrill surging deep and strong. Real
spacemen. Oh, God, to talk to them! Space stations.
Moon base. Angels down; fans to the rescue!
She looked around at her companions. "Thor, you
look like a Mormon patriarch."
"The beard's for warmth. I shave the mustache off
so snot won't freeze in it. Ever wonder why Eskimos
don't grow more hair? Evolution in action."
"Hunh. No." Fans were a wellspring of minutiae, a
peculiar mix of the trivial and the practical. Try
asking about Inuit tonsorial practices in a group of
mundanes! She tried to banish snot-encrusted
mustaches from her thoughts.
"Welcome back, Sherrine." Bruce Hyde was riding
shotgun. He twisted around in his seat to look at
her. "We heard you'd gafiated."
"Fafiated." She looked him straight in the eye,
daring him to disagree. She hadn't gotten away from
it all; she'd been forced away from it all. She
resented Bruce's probing. "The jobs I wanted I
couldn't get if I were a known fan. My thesis
advisor kept dropping subtle hints about getting
down to earth and being realistic. So Jake and I
went mundane."
Bruce was overweight, but not in Mike's league;
and his bulk was more muscle than fat. He was
stronger than he looked. His black beard was wild
and bushy, wildly unlike Thor's silken, Nordic god
look. "How is Jake these days?" he asked.
She dropped her eyes. "I wouldn't know."
Bob put in his two cents. "Jake left her for a New
Cookie five years ago."
Thanks, Bob. You could hand out flyers! "Jake
really did gafiate," she explained. "I became a
'dane because I had to; but he really wanted to. He
kept making digs about 'sci-fi' and 'Buck Rogers
stuff.' Trying to yank my chain. So . . ." A shrug.
"We drifted apart." And in the end they couldn't
even talk about it. The teasing turned into
arguments; the arguments into fights. Eventually she
had to watch what she said around him because she
couldn't be sure that he wouldn't denounce her for
fannishness to the University. And wasn't that a
hell of a basis for a marriage?
Besides, that was certainly a better explanation
for why he left than the one she saw in the mirror
every morning.
"That's okay," said Bruce. "We couldn't have used
him anyway."
She pulled her parka hood tighter around her face.
That was like Bruce, to evaluate everything, even
her personal life, in terms of its utility to the
current fanac. "You never did like Jake, did you?"
He shook his head. "That's not right. But he had
his chance, and he went mundane."
"So did I."
Bruce wasn't embarrassed at all. "Like you said,
it was different with him."
She let it drop and looked at the two strange
faces. "Hi. I'm Sherrine Hartley."
"I know." The man sitting to her left was
massively built and had a shaggy mane of white hair
circling his face. He looked like an elderly lion,
or an Old Testament patriarch. "Will Waxman, from
L.A. Bob told us we were stopping to pick you up."
He dropped his hand onto the shoulder of the man
next to him. "And this is Steve Mews. He's a Mean
Dude."
Steve was sitting lotus position on the floor of
the van. He was five-nine, black, and about the most
perfect physical specimen she had ever seen. A
moment ago he d been perfectly still, completely
relaxed; but his name turned him on like a switch.
He grinned up at her, a wide white grin in a dark
face. "Will exaggerates, as usual. I haven't maimed
anyone in years." He reached up a heavily mittened
hand that engulfed hers. A strong grip, but not
overpowering. She had the feeling that, had he
wanted to, he could have crushed the bones in her
hand.
The van walls were insulated with blankets and
comforters. Sherrine settled back into one. She
loved car heaters. They were like blowtorches for
warming up. The alcohol they burned would have been
burned anyway, to move the car. In ten minutes she
was warm and could stop huddling.
"I've been fafiated for years," she said by way of
conversation, "but I keep hearing about the
conventions. Weird ways. Cryptic notes in electronic
bulletin boards, things like that. I think you guys
really love playing undercover."
Mike grinned. "The word do get around."
"How's Worldcon?"
"It's Minicon. That's a pun. Minne-sota; but also
'mini-' because there's only fifty-four in
attendance."
"Forty-eight," she corrected him. "You guys are
here."
Mike couldn't just be clever; he had to know that
you knew he was clever. A grin and a raised
forefinger: "Wrong! This is a special Con Committee
meeting, so we are still officially in attendance.
In fact, counting you, there are now fifty-five."
"Anyhow," said Thor, "the Cruzcon was smaller.
Only twelve people showed up in 2008. We camped out
in pup tents on the lawn of the old Heinlein estate.
So, if any con deserves the title Minicon—"
"Oh, sure, if you want to be numerical about it.
But 'mini—' wouldn't pun with 'Santa Cruz' . . ."
Sherrine laughed. They were heading for the Dakota
Glacier with less than a full tank of alcohol to
rescue two downed spacemen from the clutches of the
government. All of them but Thor were putting their
mundane jobs on the line. And . . . and they were
arguing about what to name the convention! She had
forgotten what it was like to be among fans. Her gut
relaxed like a fist unclenching after many years.
"Who showed up?" she asked. "At the con. Anybody I
knew?"
Thor cocked his head. "It's been a while since
you've been around. Let's see. You know Chuck Umber.
He's there; but he's not in on this. Too much risk
he might let something slip into his fanzine. You
know Tom Degler and Crazy Eddie. Wade Curtis is
supposed to show. There are even rumors that
Cordwainer Bird is in town."
"Real pros?"
"Yeah, I know. They try to keep a low Pro-file."
He grinned and nudged Mike with his elbow. "Ever
since Archcon in '06. Somebody on the Con Committee
forgot to tell the Pro Guest of Honor that it was
cancelled. You know Nat Reynolds, he showed up
anyway and said the hell with it, let's have a
party, and the police nabbed him. So the
professionals have been staying clear of cons."
"Now, there," said Mike, "is the real Minicon. It
was cancelled. You can't have less than zero
attendance." Sherrine guessed he had forgotten which
side of the argument he was on.
Thor shook his head. "I think there were twenty or
so at the party in his hotel room-—"
"That was a con party, not the con itself-—"
"-—before the cops busted us."
"Minicon is still going," Bruce said, breaking in.
"It has to be going. The last thing we need is for
the cops to find a broken convention and wonder
where we all went."
"Hmm, yes." It was starting to hit her. She'd
never been underground before. Now . . . One hint
and her job was done. A couple of slips and she'd be
a wanted woman. "Thor, you've been hiding out for a
while-—"
"Eight years." He sounded proud.
"What's it like?"
A shrug. "Not too bad, if you have friends. And if
the 'danes aren't hunting you too hard. There are
folks in the midwest, farm country, who are only too
glad for a hand with the chores; room and board and
no questions asked. You try not to spend too much
time in one place, though."
"No," she said. "I suppose not."
Bob glanced over his shoulder. "Having second
thoughts?" he asked, turning back to his driving.
"Sure. And third and fourth." She took her mittens
off and rubbed her hands together. "So. What are the
plans once we get there?"
They all looked at her. "Plans?" said Mike in a
simulated Mexican accent. "We don' need no stinking
plans."
Sherrine snorted. Fans.

They sailed west on I-94, headed for the Dakota

Glacier. Bob drove carefully, trading speed for
certainty. On clear sections of the highway, he
floored it; where roadside clutter and shrubbery
provided cover for police cars, he slowed to a
respectable sixty. After a while, the chatter died
down and everyone settled into their own thoughts.
Sherrine tried to imagine what they would need for a
short trip onto the Ice. Her grandparents kept a lot
of equipment in their barn.
Thor carried an Irish tin whistle because, as he
put it, you never knew when you might need one.
After a few miles had passed and the talk had died
down, he pulled it from his pocket and began
playing. His fingers fluttered through a few
traditional tunes: jigs and reels and such; then he
started in on some serious filking. Sherrine joined
in the singing. Thor played "The Friggin' Falcon,"
"Banned from Argo," and the classic "Carmen
Miranda's Ghost Is Haunting Space Station Three."
Just past St. Joseph, Sherrine stopped singing and
stared north through the van's side window. One by
one the others dropped out, their voices dying in
mid-chorus, until Mike was singing alone.
" 'I wrote Dying Inside and you snubbed it! Son of
Man's out of print totally! You'll be sorry you
didn't buy Nightwings! No more damn science fiction
for me!"
Mike trailed off. Following their gaze, he twisted
and looked over his shoulder. "Great Ghu!" he said.
"Yeah," Sherrine said quietly.
The northern horizon glowed a pale, phosphorescent
white, as if an artist had drawn a chalk line across
a blackboard.
Steve hopped to the other side of the van and
peered through the window. "I didn't know it was
this far south," he said.
Mike peered out. "The Ice Line runs northwest from
Milwaukee to Regina. It doesn't come as close to the
big cities because of the waste heat."
The California fans had never seen the Ice. They
stared in respectful silence.
Sherrine spoke up. "You can't live in the Twin
Cities without feeling the weight of the Great Ice
somewhere over the horizon, flowing toward you like
crystal lava."
"Three years ago," said Bob, "you couldn't see it
from the highway."
"And last year," she added, "you could only see it
in midwinter." The Ice ebbed and flowed with the
seasons, like tides on a hard, white ocean. But some
of the snow that fell each winter failed to melt the
next summer. The weight in the center of the pack
forced the edges to flow outward, and the Line moved
a few more miles toward civilization. She began to
shiver uncontrollably, even though she was wearing a
thick down coat and the car heater was running full
blast.
Thor noticed and smiled. He blew a few plaintive
notes on his whistle; then declaimed:

"Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire."

Everyone chuckled. "That's from 'Fire and Ice,' "

Thor said. "By Robert Frost."
"Frost," said "Mike. "That's appropriate."
Will Waxman grunted. "Finish the stanza," he said.
Thor stopped smiling and looked out the side
window at the shimmering horizon. After a while, he
continued in a voice so soft she had to strain to
hear him.

"But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice."

The farther west they drove, the closer the Ice

came to the highway. What had begun as a distant
white smear on the horizon crawled closer and
closer. She knew that the movement was an illusion,
that the Ice was not actually moving toward them. It
was only that the highway and the Ice Line were
converging. Still, it was creepy to watch that slow,
implacable approach. Mike started singing "The White
Cliffs of Dover," but no one joined in, and he soon
fell silent.
 CHAPTER THREE

"The Ice Was Here, the Ice Was There, the Ice Was
All Around . . ."

Bob noticed the lights of a General Mills gasohol

station shining like a baby's smile just off the
highway. A barely legible sign proclaimed the town
of Brandon. He turned onto the exit ramp and drove
into town. Twenty-four-hour gas stations were on the
endangered species list. The van was down to a
quarter tank and he didn't want to pass up the
opportunity.
The snow on the state road was a foot deep and
unplowed. The van with its oversized tires was an
ice breaker on a frozen sea. The snow made eerie
crackling sounds in the night as the van drove
through it.
Brandon was deserted. Everything in town was dark,
except the few streetlights. The moon reflecting off
the crusted snow cast a dim, pearly light over the
blank houses. There was not so much as a porch light
on. Sherrine didn't suppose that Brandon had ever
been very lively at four-thirty in the morning, but
this felt different. Not just sleepy, but empty.
Bob pulled into the General Mills station and
honked the horn, but no one responded. After a
minute or so, Thor said the hell with it and climbed
outside. His boots broke through the crust and he
sank into the snow to his knees. He waded through
the snow to the row of pumps. "Premium okay?" he
asked. He unhooked the hose and flipped the switch.
"Power's still on." When he squeezed the pump handle
nothing happened.
"Mechanism's frozen," he called out. He unscrewed
the gas cap and stuck the nozzle in. Then he stood
there squeezing and releasing, squeezing and
releasing until the gasohol began to flow into the
tank. Mike gave a huzzah and he and Bruce slapped
each other's hand.
"Sherrine," Bob said, "there's a two-gallon Jerry
can back there somewhere. Pass it up, would you? We
might as well get as much gas as we can."
She rummaged around under the greasy blanket and
tool kit and came up with a sturdy, red plastic
container. She passed it up and Bob rolled down the
window and gave it to Thor.
Thor climbed back inside a few minutes later. He
handed the gas can to Steve, who stowed it in the
back.
"Shouldn't we pay for the alcohol?" she asked.
"Pay who?" said Thor, clapping his hands together.
"This town is dead. Everyone's gone. The Ice chased
'em out."
"There's still power," she pointed out.
"Yeah." He pulled his gloves off with his teeth
and stuffed his hands under his armpits. "Ghu, but
that pump handle was cold! I wonder how close the
Edge is to town?"
Bruce turned around in his seat. "I think we
should see if there are anymore gas cans inside the
station. We should fill them up, too. We mightn't
get another chance like this."
 That was Bruce; a take-charge kind of guy,
although she noticed that he didn't leap out into
the snow himself. Thor gave him a disgusted look.
Why think of it after he had gotten back into the
van? Thor didn't volunteer, either; he had done his
stint.
Steve shrugged and untwisted himself from his
lotus position. Like Thor, he opened the sliding van
door only wide enough to squeeze through. There was
plenty of residual heat inside the van from the
heater and from their bodies, and no need to waste
it.
She watched him try the door to the station. It
was open. Steve hesitated and glanced back at the
van. Then he shrugged and disappeared inside. A few
minutes later he emerged juggling five more gas
cans, which he filled at the pump that Thor had
unfrozen.

When everyone was back inside and the cans

strapped in place, Bob started the engine and pulled
back out onto the state road. Steve held his hands
palm out over the car heater vent. "Thor was right,"
he said. "The town is abandoned. The gas station was
stripped. All of the tools and most of the stock is
gone." Steve bounced as he talked, rocking on the
balls of his feet. "I found a couple of packing
crates that had broken open. Empty; contents
salvaged. When folks left here, they left in good
order. No panic. No looting. I'll bet there's not a
U-Haul or rental truck left in town."
"Good." Will Waxman crossed his arms over his
chest and settled back against the quilted wall of
the van. "That's the way it should be. A fighting
retreat, not a rout. I'll bet the station owner left
the lights and pumps running on purpose. For
travelers like us."
 Sherrine didn't say anything. She stared out the
back window as the night swallowed the town. It was
only Labor Day and already there was a foot of snow
on the ground. By midwinter Brandon would be half-
buried. By next winter it would be gone; and the
shared memories that had given it life would be gone
with it. No more bake sales. No more Harvest Queens
or church socials. In a generation, its very name
would be forgotten. As gone as if it had never been,
more forgotten than Lake Woebegon . . .
"They took all their stuff with them," Steve
continued. "But they didn't bother to lock things up
or turn things off."
Bob shifted the van into high and pulled off the
ramp onto the interstate. "They knew they'd never be
back," he said.

The Edge was a faerieland sculpted by winds and

summer meltings and the inexorable, constant
pressure of the Great Ice behind it. For miles it
ran along parallel to the highway, as abrupt and
high as the Great Wall of China, glowing faintly
with trapped moonlight. Then it would recede once
more into the night. Sherrine saw great ice slides,
where the vertical wall had buckled and collapsed to
strew giant white boulders onto the desiccating
prairie lands ahead. Landbergs, they were called.
Those that were big enough would survive the summer
and grow back into the glacier come winter, as if
the Ice were a living organism casting its seeds
abroad.
At Evansville, the Edge loomed close by the
Interstate and she could see the caverns and
crevasses that made up the wall of ice. A playground
of the imagination. There were castles with
battlements of crenels and merlons; cathedrals of
buttresses and spires. Wormholes bored by fantastic
creatures. Faerie pillars of gleaming crystal
standing isolated like sentinels on the prairie,
yards in front of the tidal wave of ice. In other
places, the Edge was a gradual sloping ramp leading
up to the frozen plateau above.
Steve and Will were entranced by the sight; and
even Sherrine and the other hardened Northerners
gazed in awe. It was one thing to live near the Ice,
to see it in pictures and photographs. It was
another thing to look upon it in all its cold and
terrible beauty.
"I never thought it would be like this," said
Steve. "I expected-—I don't know. A solid wall. A
slab of ice a mile thick sliding south. The boulder
fields I can understand; but why does it slope
upwards like a ramp in places?"
"The Edge is only two, three hundred feet high,"
Mike told him. "But it gets thicker toward the
northeast. It's easily a mile thick over Ontario.
Ice melts under pressure. There's actually a thin
film of pressurized water underneath the ice. Acts
like a lubricant. The bottom layers of the ice are
less rigid than the upper layers; so they crack and
slide along sheer planes. The top layers usually
raft on the bottom layers; but if there's rotten
snow in between, the weight of the top layers can
extrude the bottom layers like toothpaste." He
grinned.
Sherrine listened to the byplay. Mike so loved
playing the expert; but she supposed most of what he
said was nearly enough true to rely on. Rotten snow.
The Eskimos had dozens of different words for snow
and ice to describe its many different phases and
properties. We'll have to learn them all by and by.

Just past the Fergus Falls exit, Bob grunted and

hit the brakes. The van fishtailed and slewed across
the road. There was a confusion of arms and legs and
a great deal of shouting as Sherrine and everyone
else tumbled around in the back. When the van had
stopped, she untangled herself and gave Mike a dirty
look. He spread his hands.
"Hey, I just grabbed something to keep from
bouncing around."
She gave him another look to suggest he should be
careful of what he grabbed in the future. "Bob, what
happened?" she called.
"Take a look at this, you guys." Bob reached under
the dash and flipped the switch for his outside
flood lights. Sherrine crowded forward with the
others and stared through the windshield. She sucked
in her breath, and even Mike was
uncharacteristically silent.
A great half-completed arch of ice was poised over
the westbound lanes, like a tremendous wave frozen
in the moment of breaking. "Shit," said Steve. It
sounded like a prayer.
"Sometimes," said Mike, finding his voice at last,
"the upper layers slide out over the bottom layers."
Bob kept the engine running, but he opened the cab
and stepped outside. Sherrine followed. She pulled
her parka hood closed as tightly as she could and
stood in the glare of the van's floods. The others
huddled around her. Beneath the hum of the engine
the silence of the night was broken by muted sounds.
The ice snapped; it creaked like an ancient door. A
subsonic groan surrounded them, wrenched at their
teeth. " 'The ice was here, the ice was there, the
ice was all around—' "
"Onk?" Mike asked.
Bob said, "The Ancient Mariner. Do you think the
road to Fargo is still open?"
"Looks bad," Mike said.
 "What do you think?" asked Bruce, scowling at this
latest obstacle to his plans. "Can we make it
through? How far does it go?"
Bob whirled on him. "How far? All the way to
Regina! How the hell should I know? The people at
AAA told me the road was open, but their last report
was a week old."
A week old! Sherrine looked up at the star-studded
night sky. The last weather satellite had reentered
years ago. She remembered sneaking outside her
parents' house in the middle of the night, bundled
up against the chill (oh, to be that warm again!)
and watching for the spark that marked its fall. The
newsreaders played it up: the final remnant of
discredited Big Technology was no more. The fact
that all low orbits decayed from atmospheric
friction and that all such satellites were temporary
was somehow supposed to prove the folly of "spending
money in outer space." Better to spend the money
here on Earth relocating the people of Newfoundland,
made homeless by "an unusually severe winter."
She remembered feeling as if the world had lost an
eye. Time was, a celestial pickup truck could have
climbed skyward on a pillar of fire and put the
satellite back where it belonged. No longer.
Bruce scowled and pulled at his beard. "Do you
want to take a chance driving under that, Bob? It
looks strong enough."
Drive underneath several tons of unsupported ice?
She thought only Crazy Eddie came up with notions
like that.
And Bob was shaking his head. "Too chancy."
As if to punctuate his remarks, the ice moaned and
the sound of far-off thunder rolled in their ears. A
cloud of ice crystals as fine as mist billowed
toward them out of the darkness. Somewhere farther
down the road a part of the frozen wave had broken
off.
She was starting to feel the cold. She gazed
longingly at the van. The others stood around,
shuffling their feet and looking at each other. She
waited a moment longer. This has gone on long
enough. "The eastbound lanes are clear," she pointed
out.
Bruce looked shocked. "You want us to turn back?"
She rolled her eyes up. "For Ghu's sake, no!" It
took them a moment longer to catch on, then Will
began chuckling.
"For a gang of taboo-shattering imagineers," he
said, "we sure do let the Accepted Customs of our
tribe blinker us. Drive on the left side of the
road? What a revolutionary notion!"

They drove more cautiously headed west in the

eastbound lanes. Bob put the flood lights on blinker
so oncoming traffic would notice. Not that he
expected much oncoming traffic at six in the morning
in rural Minnesota, not along the edge of the
glacier, but it never hurt to be careful. A few
miles farther on, Steve pointed silently out the
side window at the westbound lanes and they saw
where the ice had collapsed across the roadway,
blocking it completely with landbergs. Bob and Bruce
exchanged glances and Bob hunched his shoulders over
the steering wheel. Sherrine's fingernails dug into
her palms. Two Angels had been down on the Ice now
for four and a half hours.
Past Elizabeth, the glacier had flowed entirely
across the road, and the Army Corps of Engineers had
blasted and dug a channel right through it.
Fargo Gap. Sherrine's heart beat slightly faster.
A name of romance and bravery and determination.
Fargo Gap;. Minneapolis's last link to the ice-free
West. Arc lights staged around the worksite made the
area almost as bright as daylight. Portable
generators chugged and men and women with picks and
airhammers fought the encroaching ice. They didn't
look heroic; they only looked tired. But wasn't that
how heroes always looked? She saw a cadre wearing
Army Corps of Engineer uniforms, but most of the
workers were civilians, with only a brassard on the
left arm to show that they had been drafted into the
corveé.
A state trooper stopped them well short of the
work area. He walked toward the van and Bob rolled
down the window and waited. The trooper wore
sunglasses even though it was dark. For the glare of
the arc lights, she supposed. Or for the macho look.
He pulled a pad of traffic tickets from under his
parka.
"Where do you think you re going," he said without
preamble.
"Fargo, officer." Bob could be very sincere and
submissive when he wanted to be. "Our friends here
from California have never seen the Ice, so we drove
them up here from Minneapolis."
Sherrine thought it was a pretty good story for
having been made up on the spot; but the trooper
just shook his head. "Ice tourists. Now I've heard
everything." His face, what they could see of it,
showed what he thought of Californians who drove to
the Ice for kicks. "You're driving on the wrong side
of the highway," he said. She wondered if he thought
they didn't know that, and saw Mike bite his tongue
to keep from making a smartass remark.
Bob explained about the ice wave that had broken
over the westbound lanes and the trooper lowered his
pad. "Ah, shit," he said without feeling. He turned
and called over his shoulder. "Captain!"
A short, stocky man in an Engineer uniform broke
away from a small knot of people and trotted over.
His name tag read Scithers, and he was wearing a
headset with a throat mike. The trooper had Bob
repeat the story. The captain listened carefully and
nodded. Then he keyed his mike and barked orders.
Within minutes, a tank outfitted with a plow and
carrying a work gang on its skirts had rumbled east.
A conscripted civilian pickup truck followed,
pulling a portable generator and work lights.
Scithers watched them out of sight. Then he sighed.
"We've kept the Gap open all summer," he said to no
one in particular, "but this winter will kill the
road for good."
The trooper didn't respond. He laid a hand on the
door of the van. "You might as well turn around," he
said. "We're going to be evacuating Fargo in the
next couple weeks anyway."
Sherrine felt her stomach go into free fall. We
can't turn around. We can't! The Angels were
depending on them. But they couldn't tell the
trooper that.
"Oh, let them through, trooper," said Scithers.
"What the hell's the point of keeping the Gap clear
if we don't let people through?"
The trooper shrugged. "Suit yourself. But stay on
the right side of the road from here on. There's
two-way traffic. And try not to freeze to death."
Sherrine couldn't tell if his request was sincere or
pro forma.
Mike, of course, couldn't leave well enough alone.
"We heard that a spaceship crashed on the Ice
earlier tonight. Do you know where that was?" She
wanted to kick him, but he was out of reach. The
trooper adjusted his sunglasses and Scithers, who
had been turning away, stopped to listen.
"Where did you hear that?" the trooper asked.
Since Mike couldn't exactly mention a tightbeam
downlink from Freedom, he was at a temporary loss
for words. And while normally Sherrine might have
enjoyed that, she didn't think a long, strained
silence would be too smart. So she spoke up. "My
grandparents live near Fargo," she said. "They saw a
fireball go down on the Ice and called me and told
me about it. As long as these guys were coming this
way to sightsee, I thought I'd tag along and see if
I could pick up some souvenirs."
The trooper rubbed a heavily gloved hand across
his chin, and she wondered why he didn't wear a
beard like most men did these days. Dress policy?
"Yeah, we heard about it, too, at the barracks.
Goddam Angels. A couple of planes from Ellsworth
flew over a few hours back; though I don't know what
they hoped to see at night. IR, maybe. Come daylight
the glacier'll be crawling with helicopters and
search parties. No rush. Those Angels will be froze
dead by then."
"Froze," she repeated.
"And serves them right, too."
She noticed Mikes jaw twitch an instant before he
spoke. "Why?"
Mike, she thought, don't let your mouth talk us
into trouble. So far, they were just a van load of
jerks out joyriding. If the trooper began to suspect
that they were "Angel-loving technophiliacs," they
would be in serious shit.
"Why?" The trooper waved his arm at the glacier.
"Because they started this, asshole! They did it to
us. Stealing our air until the Protective Blanket
was too thin to keep us warm."
Captain Scithers nodded. "Damn right," he said.
"All that air they took, hundreds of tons-—" His
voice was serious.
Sherrine nodded her head as if she agreed. So did
Steve and Will. Thor said nothing, but he twisted
his finger in his right ear as if to unplug it. She
prayed to Ghu that Mike would take the hint and keep
quiet.
Bob decided not to trust in Ghu. He put the van in
gear. "We better get going," he said over his
shoulder, "if we're going to reach your
grandparents' house in time for breakfast. Thanks
for your help, officer." He gave a wave that was
half-salute.
The trooper turned away, but Captain Scithers
lingered. He leaned an elbow on the frame so Bob
couldn't roll the window up. "Thought you might be
interested," he said. "The Red River is pretty much
frozen solid north of Perley. Bad news for Winnipeg,
but I heard you could drive a truck across without
falling through." He straightened and nodded to
them. "Good luck," he said.
Bob rolled the window up and pulled through the
break in the median into the westbound lanes. Mike
frowned and looked out the rear window, where the
engineer captain was deep in conversation with his
lieutenants. "Why the hell should we care about
Winnipeg and the Red River of the North?"
"The Corps has been fighting a losing battle
trying to keep I-94 and I-29 open," Bruce responded.
"He probably hasn't thought about anything else but
ice conditions for the last five years."
Thor ran his fingers through his beard. "Must be
one hell of a dinner conversationalist."
"I don't know," said Bob. "Some of the strange
stories I've heard about conditions on the Ice, he
must have some weird tales to tell."
And with that they entered Fargo Gap, the ice on
both sides of the highway rearing straight and high
as canyon walls and sparkling with the reflections
of the work lights behind them.
 CHAPTER FOUR

Eliza Crossing the Ice

He woke up hard, tried to move, and thought better
of it. Memories flowed back slowly.
Consciousness was a mixed blessing, thought Alex
MacLeod. It meant that he was alive; but it also
meant that he hurt. His left arm throbbed with a
dull ache. To draw breath took immense, frightening
effort, and his rib cage burned every time he
succeeded.
Groggily, he took inventory. He figured that if a
bodily part hurt, he still had it. By that criterion
he had at least come down in one piece.
He tried to lift his head to see how Gordon was
doing.
He couldn't move. Paralyzed? A moment of panic
washed over him as he imagined himself lying here
slowly freezing to death, unable to do anything but
wait. But, of course, it was only gravity. When he
realized that, he laughed out loud, which was a
mistake, because his ribs hurt worse than ever.
What difference did it make why he was unable to
move? Helpless was helpless.
He tried the suit radio. "Gordon?"
Static for answer. Gordon must be dead or
unconscious. In either case, there was nothing he
could do for him. Come to that, there wasn't much he
could do for himself. He tongued the uplink on his
radio.
"Big Momma? Piranha here."
Hiss and crackle. Maybe the radio was broken. He
tried again. "Big Momma, do you read me?"
Mary's voice came through the noise. "Alex? Is
that you?"
Who did she think it was? . . . Churlish. "Big
Momma, this is MacLeod, I am conscious. I do not
appear to be seriously injured except that I cannot
move. This must be due to gravity. Tanner does not
respond, I say again, Gordon does not respond. Can
you give me a reading on Gordon?"
"Roger your situation report, MacLeod. Alex, I'm
glad to hear your voice. Stand by one for report on
Tanner."
Alex waited while she scanned the medical
monitors. Medi-probes were a pain in the ass-—
literally-—but they had their uses. He wondered if
Mary had been standing by in Mission Control the
whole time he was unconscious, and whether it had
been from duty or something else. That's right,
Alex. Build yourself a few fantasies. You've got
nothing else to do.
"Tanner is all right I say again, no serious
injuries," she said. "He's all right, Alex.
Unconscious, but his vital signs look good. I can't
tell you about broken bones or such. Your readouts
are okay, too. That was one hell of a landing, Alex.
The book says you can't land a scoopship."
"The book's not far wrong. Where are we, Mary?"
"On what our contacts call the Ice. Not the Great
Ice, but the vanguard glaciers. You're only a few
hundred meters from the Edge. If the ship hadn't
stopped, you'd have gone over a ninety meter ice
cliff. Do you want your latitude and longitude?"
"Sure, but I don't see how that will help."
"Sorry. We're feeding the Navstar data to your
rescue party, so-—Oh, I forgot, you don't know."
"Rescue party?" He started to sit up, but gravity
and his ribs kept him flat. He stifled a groan. "You
mean you're coming to get us?"
"No," said Mary. "You know better than that." He
heard the chill embarrassment in her voice. Some
things weren't talked about. There was an etiquette
to being marooned.
So much for fantasy, Alex thought. They say Love
Conquers All; but it doesn't conquer the fuel-to-
thrust ratio or the law of diminishing returns.
Peace and Freedom were barely hanging on. There was
nothing that could be spared; least of all the
rocket fuel needed to land and take off again, even
if there had been a ship capable of doing it. "I
understand." He tried to keep the bitterness out of
his voice. It wasn't her fault he was here.
It was not that they wouldn't come that bothered
him. They wouldn't come to get him if he were Lonny
Hopkins himself. But Station Chief Hopkins would
never have been on a dip trip in the first place.
You don't send indispensable personnel on
potentially one-way missions. Dippers were folks the
station could afford to lose. Good at what they did,
but not particularly useful at anything else.
Janitors, gophers, day-care fathers, stilyagi like
Gordon. A brotherhood of mediocrity, he thought. The
habitats would still function without him. Even the
variety of the gene pool, small as it was, was
unthreatened. Gordon and he had already made their
deposits at the sperm bank.
"Then who is coming to get us?" he asked.
"I told you we have friends on Earth. There's a
team heading for you right now. They have an illegal
Navstar link, so they know your precise bearing. The
government search parties are still wandering around
on the Ice thirty kilometers to the northwest. They
don't have you located, yet. From what we can
overhear of their radio traffic, they got a bum
steer from a local peasant who couldn't estimate
distances properly. But it won't be long before they
expand their search pattern. With any kind of luck,
we'll get you out of there before they read your
position."
Alex grunted. Not with any kind of luck, he
thought. It had to be good luck, currently in short
supply. "How long before this rescue party arrives?"
"Make it half an hour. They got a late start onto
the Ice. It took them a while to find enough
bedsheets. Watch for them to the south of you. The
team leader is code-named Robert."
Code name? Alex snorted. "Roger. I'll let you know
when they arrive."
He saw no point in asking which way was south. He
couldn't move, and all he could see through the
windshield was a white wall of ice. They would get
here when they got here. Staring southward would not
make them come faster.
He closed his eyes. Maybe if he slept, he could
forget how much he hurt. And how cold the cabin was
growing. The space suit's heater ran on batteries. A
half hour wouldn't exhaust them; but he wasn't sure
how long he would need them. He decided to keep the
heater on low. Just warm enough to remind him how
chilly it was.
Lying there, he had the oddest sensation that
Piranha was accelerating, hard; but that her engines
were located under the deck rather than aft. It was
gravity, of course. Gravity was acceleration and his
body interpreted it as movement because one kind of
acceleration felt like any other.
He reminded himself that Downers would say "up,"
not "forward." Crazy planet. Still, he remembered
what gravity had been like. He would get used to it
again. It would just take a little time.
His eyes jerked open. Bedsheets?

The second time, he was wakened by the muted sound

of motors outside the hull. Alex listened carefully,
holding his breath. Yes, definitely motors. He
tongued the radio. "Big Momma?"
"I'm here, Alex." Her voice came faintly through
the spitting and crackle. There was definitely
something wrong with the radio. He prayed that the
comm would not fail.
"I hear noises outside. Friendlies or government?"
"It's the rescue party. I think they just spotted
you. Look, Alex, one thing.
"What?"
"Your rescuers. They may seem, well, a little
strange at first. Just bear with them. They're good
folks. Considering how things stand on Earth these
days, they're risking a lot to help you."
And beggars can't be choosers. He hadn't known the
space dwellers had, any friends on Earth; let alone
strange ones. "Roger. Out."
He waited and listened uneasily to the sounds of
feet moving around atop the scoopship. Strange. What
had Mary meant by that? Sure, Downers were a
different breed. Yet, how strange could they
possibly be? People were people, right?
A face appeared upside down in the windshield and
stared at him. Alex blinked. Someone atop the
scoopship had leaned over the cockpit and looked in.
A hand appeared by the face. It waved.
 Alex raised his right hand as much as he could and
wiggled his fingers. Greetings, Earthling. Take one
to your leader.
The face turned away and he heard a faint voice
shouting, "Told you so. They're half-buried in the
ice!" It turned back and waved again. It was an
effort to return the gesture, and after a moment
Alex lay back and waited for them to open the hatch.
There was more banging and stomping over his head.
Strange, Mary had said. So far they didn't seem
strange. No stranger than anyone who could move
about freely in this horrible gravity.

Scoopship cabins were built for two people and

Alex marvelled that so many more had managed to
crowd inside. It seemed as if they all wanted to
talk at once. They asked questions about the ship,
about the habitats and Luna City, about space
travel. About everything. Finally, an older man with
bushy white hair and beard hollered and drove them
out.
"Let me apologize for my friends," he said as he
crouched by Alex's side. "They're a little excited
at the idea of meeting you."
"Me?" Alex was surprised. "Why should that excite
anyone?"
The other man raised his shaggy eyebrows. "Not
many spacemen stop here these days."
"Spaceman. I was born on Earth. Kansas."
The white-haired man grunted. "I don't think
you're in Kansas anymore, Toto. He set a black bag
on the deck and opened it. Alex twisted his head to
look inside.
"Are you a doctor?"
"No, I'm a plumber. Lie still. Of course, I'm a
doctor. Will Waxman, M.D. We're not irresponsible,
you know. We knew you might be hurt; so I came
along."
"Sorry."
"It was the house call that probably fooled you,"
he said, unfastening the space suit.
Alex watched him reach inside the bag and pull out
a stethoscope. The black bag didn't float away like
Newton said it should. It stayed put. Gravity field.
He would have to remember that. Things wouldn't
behave naturally groundside. His reflexes would be
all wrong. He wondered how Earthlings could teach
physics properly, hampered by gravity that way; then
he remembered that they probably didn't bother
anymore.
"Breathe slow and deep."
He did, and gritted his teeth at sudden pain.
Waxman listened to whatever it was that doctors
listened to when they did that. Alex had heard all
the jokes about the cold feel of stethoscopes. This
one had been carried across a glacier.
"Hurts when you breathe?"
"Yes." He tried to sound blasé.
"Couple cracked ribs." Waxman put the stethoscope
away. "Don't worry, though. Lungs aren't punctured.
Well tape you up, and in a few weeks you ought to be
good as new."
Alex grunted. Good news from all over. What the
hell; he was due for some good news. "Doc, how's
Gordon? Have you looked at him yet?" The stilyagi
was his responsibility. He was the captain; and if
it hadn't been for his stupid pride, Gordon would be
sitting warm and snug and conscious back in Freedom.
"Gordon? Ah, your copilot. I checked him first.
Concussion. No broken bones, no bleeding, no shock.
Your people upstairs say there's nothing wrong
internally, but we'll be careful until we can get
you to a clinic. How does the arm feel?"
"What? Oh, a little numb. Is it broken?"
Waxman ran his hands down the left arm, squeezing
gently. When he reached the wrist, Alex sucked his
breath in. Waxman nodded. "Sprain, I'd say. We'll
tape that, up, too. Sherrine, could you help me here
with his ribs?"
A woman came around from behind the pilot's seat.
Her parka was unzipped and its hood was thrown back,
revealing the loveliest woman Alex had ever seen.
Tall and thin, even under layers of sweaters, with
prominent, fragile bones. "Hi. Sherrine Hartley,"
she said in a low, throaty voice.
"Alex MacLeod." He managed to reach up to take her
hand despite the gravity. It was a hell of an
effort, but worth it; but he couldn't hold it up
long. She patted his hand with a firm but gentle
touch.
"Welcome to Earth."
"Meeting you makes it almost worth the trip."
She blushed, as if unused to hearing such
compliments. How could that be, Alex wondered? A
woman as tall and gangly as Sherrine must hear them
every day. He studied her as she helped the Doc tape
him up. She leaned close into his face as she ran
the tape behind his back. How did men and women do
it in a gravity field, he wondered? They probably
did not need to use Velcro. Gravity would keep
everything aligned.

When they lifted him out of the scoopship Alex saw

what had happened. Piranha had come in hot, melting
an ever deeper trough across the Ice as she slowed
to a halt. In the end, she had sunk into the glacier
like a hot iron and rested now half-buried in a cave
of snow and ice. The giant they called Thor was
using a snow blower to put a light covering of ice
on top of the scoopship.
Nearby were two sledges rigged to snowmobiles.
That accounted for the motors he had heard earlier.
Both sledges and snowmobiles were festooned with
miscellaneous items of equipment and jerry cans
exuding a chemical smell.
Sherrine was suited up now, hiding her figure.
"That was a piece of luck, wasn't it?" she said,
pointing to the half-buried ship. "Thor figured
you'd be melted into the Ice; that's why we brought
Pop—pop's snow blower. The 'danes will never spot
your ship unless they're right on top of it. Even
the landing path blends into the glare of the Ice if
you're not looking for it."
"Danes?" Alex was startled. "We were nowhere near
Greenland!"
"No, not Danes. Apostrophe—danes, as in
'mundanes.' People with no imagination. People who
couldn't imagine space travel even after it had
happened. The 'danes have inherited the Earth."
He sensed bitterness in her voice and gave her an
appraising look while her friends strapped him into
a sledge. He was already wearing her grandfather's
parka. Now they wrapped him in blankets and covered
him over with a white bedsheet. A pair of wrap-
around sunglasses cut the intensely white glare.
"What now?" Thor said. "Those suits. You going to
wear them?"
"No way," Bruce said. "One look at those and the
dumbest cop would know where we got them."
"They're not easy to get out of," Alex said.
"They are if we cut you out." Thor had a huge
knife in his hand.
Alex felt a moment of panic. His suit was not
replaceable. Nor was Gordon's. When the suits were
gone they weren't space pilots any more.
And so what? You can't go to space without a
spaceship. We're not going back, not now, not ever,
so we don't need pressure suits.
"All right. Be careful with Gordon-—"
"We will," Doc said. "You worry about the gear.
What are we taking, what do we leave?"
"Antenna," Alex said. He pointed to something that
looked like a megaphone. "Directional. Not too well
focussed, but good enough. Otherwise they'll hear
us. When you cut Gordon out of his suit, be sure to
get the radio system out of his helmet. And leave it
turned off. Should I explain? The suit-to-suit
radios broadcast all around; anyone listening will
hear and can lock in to trace us. The suit-to-ship
radio can be hooked up through the directional
antenna so you'd have to be more or less in front of
it to catch the signal-—"
"Gotcha," Mike said. "Well get the stuff. You
relax."
Relax while a giant named Thor cuts me out of my
suit. Sure.

They wrapped them in blankets. Sherrine and Thor

had to carry him to the sled. He couldn't walk, and
could barely stand. Gordon was still out. They
carried him over as well. Sherrine settled him onto
the sled and put on more blankets, then a white
sheet. "Should I?" she asked.
"Should you what?"
"Like the way the 'danes run things."
Alex tried to shrug under the blankets. "It's not
my world; but they did try to shoot me down."
Mike Glider-—he called himself "Mycroft"-—loomed
over him. "They did more than try, Gabe—boy," he
said. "They did it."
 "That they did." If I'd turned back, after the
first missile-— But damn all, we needed the
nitrogen. "My name's Alex, not 'Gabe.' " Talking
wasn't easy. The air was cold, horribly cold.
The fat man spread his arms out. "Code names.
You're Gabriel; the kid is Raphael. Two angels. Get
it?" He took his place on the sledge runners.
Alex wondered how any human being could become as
fat as Mike. Perhaps it was an adaptation to the ice
age. Heat loss was proportional to surface area; and
the sphere had the lowest surface area to volume
ratio of any solid.
"Saint Michael was an angel, too," he pointed out.
Mike brightened. "Hey, that's right. Do you think
I could go up with you guys when they come to get
you?"
Alex didn't say anything. MacLeod's First Rule of
Wilderness Survival: Don't piss off your rescuers.
But Lonny would never take someone like Mike aboard.
Whatever Mike's intellect and training, he was just
too damn big. It would take too many resources to
fuel that much mass.
They're not corning down for us anyway. We are
here for keeps, and Mike is a hell of a lot better
adapted to local conditions than I am. "Where to
now?" he asked.
"Back to my grandparents' place," Sherrine
answered. "So we can return the equipment they
loaned us. Bob's waiting for us there with the van."
She shook out a bedsheet and hauled it over her
head. A slit cut in the middle let her wear it like
a poncho. Alex saw that the others were doing the
same. But the sheets were too thin to give much
warmth, so why-—
"To hide yourselves," he said. "Right?"
She paused and grinned at him. "It was my idea,"
she said. "Camouflage. Not even Bruce thought of it.
This way, if a search plane flies over, we'll be
hard to spot. Gran said it would be worth the work
sewing the sheets back up if it meant getting you
two safely off the Ice."
"Your grandparents sound like good folks."
"They are. Gran was a plant geneticist before they
outlawed it. Pop—pop was a farmer. They still do a
little bootleg bioengineering in their basement.
Developed a cold-resistant strain of wheat that let
them bring in a crop for three years after their
neighbors went under. They had to stop last year,
though. Gran seeded a rust virus that killed off
their crop."
"What? Why? If they'd continued-—Sherrine, it's
going to get a lot colder before it ever gets
warmer."
She looked away; beat her mittens together.
"Hungrier, too." Her voice was hard and angry. "But
their neighbors-—their good, kindly, salt-of-the-
earth neighbors were starting to talk about
witchcraft. They couldn't imagine any other reason
why my grandparents' wheat thrived while theirs
died. Peasants always believe in witchcraft." She
seated herself on the snowmobile attached to his
sledge. Her back was turned and he could not see her
face.
Bruce Hyde, code-named "Robert," planted himself
behind the other sledge. "Everybody ready?" he
asked. Doc Waxman took the second snowmobile. Thor
and Steve Mews, the black man, were on cross-country
skis. They adjusted their sunglasses and waved.
Bruce checked his Navstar transponder and circled
his arm above his head. "Warp factor five, Mr.
Sulu!"
The snowmobiles started with a roar. Searchers
might find us hard to see, Alex thought, but we sure
as hell would be easy to hear.
And, dammit, they would stick out for sure on an
IR screen. Eight warm-bodied needles in a very cold
haystack. And the two snowmobile engines would glow
like spotlights.
Alex tried to scan the skies for search planes,
but found himself oddly disoriented. The sky was
white and the ground was white, and it was hard to
tell which was which. "White-out," Mike had called
it. "Sky" was "forward," the direction along the
acceleration vector. Yet, the visual cues-—the ice
sliding past the sledge-—were at right angles to his
sense of acceleration. He began to feel dizzy. He
closed his eyes. Give it time, he thought. Let the
reflexes catch up to his intellectual awareness. The
old-time astronauts had always readjusted quickly to
gravity.
Except they hadn't been in free fall as many years
as he had. The stations had drugs to compensate for
calcium losses, and two tethered ships that spun to
make a quarter gee, but it wasn't the real thing.
Besides, everyone hated it.
Alex looked at his watch. "Aim this thing south."
He indicated the antenna. "South and up. It's not
too directional, just get it aimed in the right
general direction. We have a relay in geosynch."
Sherrine nodded. None of them wanted to talk. It
was too cold.
He tongued his uplink. "Big Momma, this is
Piranha." More hiss and crackle. "Big Momma, this is
Piranha." Sherrine looked the question at him. He
shook his head. "Big Momma, this is Piranha."
"Piranha, da. Eto Mir. We relay you. Please to be
standink by."
He waited. Freedom would be below the horizon.
Fortunately, there was always something in the sky.
The RCA communications satellites, capable of
relaying half the long-distance calls of the world,
only the world didn't want them anymore. Now this
splendid system, capable of thousands of
simultaneous calls, served the space stations and
the few people on Earth who wanted to talk to them.
"Alex, this is Mary. What is it?" Alex thought she
sounded tired, and who could blame her? She had been
standing by in Mission Control ever since the
launch. She must have been catnapping right at the
console. Quickly and concisely, he told her of their
IR visibility.
"I don't know what we can do about that, Alex,
except to keep you posted on troop movements so you
can avoid them. Their search planes have been
quartering steadily southeast toward your position."
"Give them decoys."
"Say again?"
"Give them bogeys. I've got it scoped out. Have
SUNSAT beam down a few hotspots here and there
around the glacier. If they're, looking for IR
targets, let's give 'em their heart's desire."
Mary fell silent and Alex could sense her working
through the calculations. Power was the one thing
besides people that the habitats could spare. Space
was full of power, supplied by a friendly, all-
natural nuclear fusion generator. All you had to do
was catch it . . .
SUNSAT did that. The U.S. government had nearly
completed a demonstration power satellite before the
Congress changed their minds and proxmired it.
They'd needed the money for dairy farm subsidies or
corporate bailouts or something else real useful.
The entire space budget, start to finish, was less
than what HEW had spent in a decade, less than the
cost overruns at the Defense Department; but space
was "frills," so they always cut there first. The
station had floated in orbit, nickels and dimes away
from being operational, until the crunch came and
the habitats decided to cut loose from Earth.
Peace and Freedom had pooled their resources and
finished SUNSAT, so light, heat and power were the
few things that Mary never worried about. The space
habitats might starve, or asphyxiate, or die in a
solar flare; but they would have power.
"Roger, Piranha," Mary said finally. "I will check
with Winnipeg Rectenna Farm on power demand and see
how much we can divert."
Alex could tell when Lonny entered the comm room
from the way Mary talked. When she was alone, he was
Alex. When Lonny was there, he was Piranha. Piranha
non grata.
"Winnipeg Rectenna is down, I say again, Winnipeg
Rectenna will not be operational for three days."
Knocked out by an eco-terrorist bomb thirty hours
before Alex took the scoopship down. He'd read about
it and wondered if that was significant to his
mission. It wouldn't be operational yet. The bomb
had done in some of the electronics.
Winnipeg was the only human habitation still
functioning that far north, except along the ice-
free Alaska Corridor. It had held out so long
because of the powersat ground station, built by the
Canadian end of the original staging corporation.
They had heat and power in plenty, but they couldn't
hold the Ice at bay forever; there were too many
tons encircling them. And when Winnipe finally went
under, would the U.S. take in the survivors. It was
well known in orbit that the Last of the Canadians
were also the last friends of the habitats, which
did not make them popular in the U.S.A.
"Understood, Piranha. I will let you know."
Alex cut contact. So far, Lonny Hopkins, Grand El
Jefe and Lord High Naff-naff of Freedom Station had
not deigned to speak to him directly, which was fine
by Alex. Lonny had a grudge against him and, in all
fairness, if Mary had been his wife he might have
felt the same way. But Lonny had no quarrel with
Gordon, nor with Gordon's family, who had powerful
connections on Peace; nor with the Earthlings who
were helping out. So, while Lonny might not go out
of his way to help, he would not stand in the way,
either. Alex sighed. It wasn't so much that you
could depend on him to do the right thing; but Lonny
was very careful not to do the wrong thing.
Good old Lon. No wonder he loved him so much.

The first search planes broke the southwestern

horizon to the right a half hour later. Tiny black
specks in the white sky drifted slowly back and
forth as they circled. Sherrine throttled back on
the snowmobile and watched them.
They look like vultures," she said.
Alex wasn't sure what a vulture was, but it
sounded unpleasant. "Are they coming this way?" He
asked in a whisper, not because he thought the
search planes could overhear, but because the cold
air had made his throat hoarse.
"No," said Mike, the sledge driver. "But that's
the good news."
"What's the bad news?" Alex asked.
"The search planes are moving west," said
Sherrine. "Whether they know it or not, they've cut
us off from Pop—pop's farm. Damn! Another half hour
and we'd have been home."
"Can we go around them somehow? Or head somewhere
else?"
She shook her head. "Bob and the van are waiting
at the farm. If we go somewhere else, how will he
know where to find us?"
 Oh, that part is easy," Alex said. "Pick some
coordinates-—does Bob have a Navstar link too? No?
Then pick a place that he'll know how to find. I'll
tell Big Momma; and Big Momma can tightbeam the
contact person-—"
"The Oregon Ghost."
Whatever that meant. "And then this ghost can call
Bob at your grandparents' place."
"That's easy?"
Alex grinned. "Sure. Maybe not straightforward,
but easy. There's a difference."
"All right. I'll tell the others." She pointed to
the other sledge. "Your friend's awake."
Gordon was watching Alex from within his cocoon of
blankets on the other edge. Alex tried to grin, but
his face was nearly frozen.
"We live," Gordon said.
"Da. How're you feeling?"
"Not good," Gordon said. "These are droogs?"
"Da. Good friends." And they can hear anything I
say, so I can't tell him Mission Control says they
may be a trifle weird.
"It was-—almost good landing," Gordon said. "I
read once that any landing you walk away from is
good. But we do not walk."
"Not just yet."
"It is cold. I see why you laugh when I think that
because it only freezes water it is not cold. It is
very cold." With an effort Gordon pulled a scarf
over his face.
"I didn't mean to laugh-—" No response. Alex drew
his own scarf over his mouth so that only his eyes,
protected by sunglasses, were exposed, and turned
his head away from the wind. Can't blame him if he's
a bit surly. All my goddam fault we're here. But we
needed the goddam nitrogen.
So what about the nitrogen that was already in the
tanks? Eh, Lonny?
"Is difficult to move," Gordon said. Alex could
barely hear him. "How do people live in this? I try
to sleep now."
He didn't, though. Alex could see that. Gordon
wrapped himself up, but he watched everything.

The conference ended and Mike and Sherrine

returned to the sledge.
"Problem?" he asked.
"We have a place. I don't like it," Sherrine said.
"But it's the only possible one."
Steve Mews and Thor set their goggles, dug their
poles into the ice, and whisked forth. Their job was
to scout ahead for crevasses and other obstacles.
"So where to?" Alex asked Sherrine when she resumed
her seat.
"Brandon."
"How far is that?"
"About a hundred fifty kilometers across the Ice."
Alex didn't say anything for a while, doing some
arithmetic in his head. About ten hours' travel,
assuming a reasonable pace. He glanced at the sun,
wondering how many hours of daylight were left. It
was already high in the sky, and the earth seemed to
be spinning awfully fast. When was sunset for this
latitude and season? He closed his eyes and tried to
picture the globe as he was used to seeing it. What
was it like on the Ice at night? Cold. Colder than
it was already. "Don't fret," he said aloud. "It's
only water ice."

When Alex reestablished the link, Mary wasn't at

the comm anymore. It was a woman he did not know.
Well, Mary had to crash sooner or later. Lonny might
have suggested that she was spending too much time
downlinking.
Talk was cheap. The delta vee might cost too much
for a rescue trip; but the solar power for the comm
links was practically free. He and Mary could talk
until Hell froze over; which, judging by his
surroundings, would be real soon now.
He let Gordo handle the comm. Not that he was
sulking over Mary's absence, but he felt it was
about time that the kid took a hand in his own
rescue. Alex listened in.
"Skazhitye, Big Momma," he heard him say. "Team
Leader 'Robert' points out that, uh, Fargo Gap is
uzkiy-—is a choke point, and sure to be roadblocked
by now. He requests that you contact their driver,
code-named 'Pins,' by secure channel and tell him to
'meet us at the gas station.' Tell 'The Ghost' that
'Pins' can be reached at 'FemmeFan's Gramp.' Katya,
did any of that make sense to you?"
"Obkhodimiy, Gordon. As long as makes sense to you
and to contact. We are letting you know transponder
frequency soon."
Mike told Alex that "Pins" was Bob Needleton.
"Pins and Needles get it? just like 'Robert is 'the
Bruce.' "
Alex wondered what the point was of having code
names if Mike kept explaining what they meant. Don't
mean anything. It's a game to Mike. High stakes, but
still just a game.
The decision to head for Brandon obviously pleased
no one, but there was little choice in the matter.
As Bruce explained it, they could not return to
Mapleton; they could not risk running the road block
at Fargo Gap; and they could not easily set up a
rendezvous with Bob Needleton short of a landmark
they all knew about. From the glum expressions, they
must know they'd still be on the Ice after sunset.
Alex wondered if they were having second thoughts
about the rescue.

Alex knew that rivers were free-flowing streams of

water propelled by gravity rather than pressure. He
had seen pictures. He could even close his eyes and
remember them. He had swum in one once, a
majestically slow stream with banks choked by trees,
as close to weightlessness as he had come in those
days. But memory did not prepare him for the sight
of the Red River from atop the Dakota Glacier.
Sherrine stopped the sledge at the head of a vast
ramp of ice while Thor and Steve probed ahead for
crevasses. Mike pointed downward. "There she is," he
said. "The Red River of the North. It carries warmer
water from the south into New Lake Aggaziz. If it
weren't for the river and the rectenna farm,
Winnipeg would be under the Ice by now."
Alex looked where he pointed. The valley was
partially filled in, with ice and snow forming a
broad shallow U. The river itself gleamed a perfect
silver, the sunlight dancing on it where it showed
between the choking ice floes. At first the river
seemed merely large; but the nearby hills and ice
banks gradually brought it into scale in his mind.
The largest free-flowing stream he had seen in
recent years was when the laundry basin in the
daycare center had plugged up and the rinse water
overflowed. He'd gotten three kinds of hell over it
and spent a day and a half sponging loose globules
out of the air. What he saw now was vast beyond
belief. Hundreds of liters of water, at the very
least!
He shivered, and not from the cold. Even the trip
across the glacier had not prepared him for this
sight. The white sky and white land had blended
together, destroying all sense of distance. He had
halfway convinced himself that he was in a small,
sterile room. Now an immense vista opened below him,
and-—oddly-—he felt more dwarfed than during an EVA.
Sherrine must have seen him studying the river
because she asked him what he thought.
Alex shook his head. "I've never seen anything so
big." He laughed nervously. "In fact, I'm feeling a
touch of agoraphobia."
"You're kidding," said Mike. "You live in orbit.
You should be used to wide open spaces."
"Well, yes and no," Alex answered him. He kept his
gaze fixed on the panorama below him, forcing his
mind to accept it. "Inside the habitats, everything
is cramped; outside, everything is so vast you can't
even relate to it. Life consists of things you can
reach out and touch and things you could never touch
in a lifetime of reaching. Somehow this intermediate
scale seems much bigger.
Sherrine laughed. "You should see the
Mississippi."
"He may," said Mike. "When the Great Ice builds up
enough weight, it'll tip the North American Plate
and the Mississippi'll start running north. I'd hate
to be in California when that happens. The whole
tectonic boundary'll go at once." He dismounted from
the sledge and trudged across the Ice to where Bruce
Hyde stood watching the skiers through a pair of
binoculars.
Alex turned to Sherrine. "Is he always like that?"
he asked.
"Mike? Sure. We call him the 'Round Mound of
Profound.' " She was perched tailor-fashion atop the
snowmobile engine housing, taking advantage of the
break to warm herself from the engine heat. "He'll
talk about anything and everything. Sometimes he
even knows what he's talking about."
Alex shook his head. "Why do you put up with it?"
She gave him a look of surprise. "Fen are a
tolerant bunch. You'd be shocked at some of what we
put up with. Besides, every now and then he comes up
with something useful."
"So, were to now?" he asked. It was irritating to
sit bundled in the sledge while others took charge.
He knew he should be used to that. MacLeod do this.
MacLeod do that. Don't forget to clean up. Help the
kids put their toys away. Try to be useful for a
change. But piloting Piranha had wakened something.
For a short time he had been making the decisions.
Poor ones maybe; but his decisions.
Sherrine twisted and faced the river valley.
Directly east was the sheer wall of another glacier,
higher than the one they were on. "Over there," she
said, pointing. "The Minnesota Glacier." For a time
she stared silently into the valley. Then, "When I
was a little girl, the Red was a 'mean and
cantankerous river.' It was either too high or too
low. Mostly too low. Filled with sandbars and
driftwood. And, oh God, the mosquitoes! They were
this big!" She held her hands out an improbable
length. "The riverbanks were lined with thick
strands of chokeberry and pussywillow, some box
elder and elm, even a little cottonwood here and
there." She sighed. "It's all gone now. Living in
the Minneapolis heat sink, it's easy to forget how
much has already been swallowed up under tons of
ice. The trees, the fish, even the damn mosquitoes.
Whole environments. Soon, the river will be gone,
too. It'll freeze and become just another tongue of
the glacier."
"So fast," she said. "It came on so fast. Positive
feedback. Once it gets started, it runs away before
you know it's begun." She turned and looked at him
over her shoulder; gave a little shrug. "Sometimes
it gets me down, you know what I mean?"
Bruce and Mike were walking back to the sledges,
waving their arms. Sherrine and Doc resumed their
seats in the snowmobiles. "It's ironic, don't you
think," she asked him before starting the engine,
"that the biggest environmental disaster in history
was caused by environmentalism?"
* * *
The Valley was as quiet as a Christmas postcard
scene. Everything was shrouded in a blanket of light
powdery snow. There were ghostly hummocks from which
protruded the odd chimney or tree branch. Steve
spotted an automobile embedded in the side wall of
the glacier itself, its tail end protruding several
meters past ground level.
Alex remembered reading about the mammoths found
frozen in the Siberian glaciers of an earlier ice
age and wondered what future generations would make
of this relic when and if the Ice released its grip.
Thor shucked his skis, climbed the ice wall, and
pierced the car's gas tank from underneath with an
ice pick. Using a funnel attached to a syphon hose,
he refilled one of the depleted jerry cans with what
gasohol remained in the tank.
So easy. With gravity to help, the fuel didn't
have to be pumped; it just streamed toward the
Earth's center. But why were Sherrine's fists
clenched into tight balls while she watched Thor
work?
He asked. She said, "If he slips, he could break
his neck."
Right. It was just as well that he was strapped
into the sledge. Free to help, he'd be worse than
useless. He'd be an embarrassment. Thirty years of
conditioned reflexes could not be forgotten
overnight. If it had been him scavenging the
gasohol, he would have tried to jump over to the car
and stand on the ice wall. You can't stand on walls
in a gravity field, Alex. The car didn't just drift
there, it must have been lifted and held by the ice.
And, if Thor lost his grip, he would not simply
float away in a slow spin; he would accelerate to
the ground. It did not seem a terribly long way to
fall, but what did he know about falling?
When they set forth again, Thor lagged behind a
bit as if reluctant to leave. He kept glancing back
over his shoulder. Then he set his poles and pushed
off hard, racing past Steve Mews, who had taken the
point. Steve gave him a curious glance as he slid
past, but did not quicken his own deliberate pace to
catch up.
I-29 was poorly maintained. It had been plowed in
places, but long stretches had been engulfed by the
Dakota Glacier just as the car had been. Alex could
see where another highway-—US 83-—had been cleared
as an alternate route wherever the interstate was
impassable.
"They don't spend as much effort on this road as
they do on I-94, "Mike explained. "There are only a
couple of towns in the Valley still open"-—he wave a
mittened hand north-—"and only Winnipeg at the dead
end."
They halted at the riverbank. Sherrine turned off
the snowmobile's engine and stared at the turgid
water choked with "pancake ice and slush-—an open
expanse of water even vaster than Alex had imagined
from the glacier overlook. The scale of the planet
was just beginning to hit him. It was huge;
everything in it was immense. And it was convex. He
held on tightly to his boyhood memories. At one time
he had regarded all this as normal.
He wondered how Gordon was taking it. The gravity
and the scale were completely new to him. When Alex
glanced over at the other sledge, he saw Doc Waxman
was bent over Gordon. "Gordo?" Alex fumbled for a
moment with the tongue switch, then thought better
of it. No point in sending a beacon for someone to
home in on. "Are you all right, Gordon?" he shouted.
"Nye khorosho, Alex. Leave me alone." He moaned.
"Doc," Alex called out. "What's wrong with
Gordon?"
Waxman turned his bushy, white patriarch's beard
toward him. "Motion sickness," he said. "He threw up
and it froze all over him. He'll be fine once he
gets used to things down here." He shook his head.
"I've heard of people getting motion sickness in
free fall. First time I ever saw it work the other
way."
No one ever died from motion sickness; they only
wished they could. Yes, Gordon would get over it,
just as Alex already had. It was a matter of
synchronizing the sense of balance with visual
perception. Gordon was born in free fall and a
constant acceleration frame screwed up his motion
cues a lot worse than it did Alex's. Like everyone
else, he'd gone to "Spinning Kiddies." The
centrifuge sessions were required for children-—for
bone development, Alex thought. But stilyagi like
Gordon generally dropped out, and most adults
avoided spin exercises when they could. Alex
considered his own condition. Gone to flab, with
bones of rubber, and he'd been born down here.
"There's no way across that," said Mike, pointing
toward the river of slush. "We'll have to turn
south."
"Can't do that," said Bruce from the other sledge.
"South takes us to the interchange at Fargo Gap.
There's a police barricade there now. Besides, Bob
is waiting for us at Brandon."
 "Pins," Mike corrected him. "Use the code names,
like we agreed."
Bruce gave him a look. "There ain't nobody here
but us tribbles; so who gives a-—"
"And Gabe can call Big Momma and change the
rendez-—"
"The code name idea was stupid, anyway-—"
Doe Waxman stepped between them. "This isn't
helping us cross the Red," he said.
They both fell silent. Thor and Steve shuffled
their skis back and forth across the ice. "We can't
stay here," Thor said. "We'll freeze." He looked
back the way we had come.
Mike studied the river. "Maybe we could leap from
floe to floe. You know. Like Eliza crossing the ice
in Uncle Tom's Cabin."
"Why, Mike," said Bruce, "what a wonderful idea.
Did you hear that, Alex? You can leap from floe to
floe."
Alex smiled weakly. "I'm game, but I don't think
the snowmobiles are up to it."
"Well, now, wait," said Mike. "Sure the plan has a
hole in it, but-—"
Sherrine: "Not just a hole, Mike. A black hole."
Thor: "Yeah, the plan sucks."
Mike stuck his chin out. "You have a better plan,
maybe?"
Steve Mews interrupted. "I do. Head north."
They all looked at one another. "North," said
Bruce. "You mean go to Winnipeg? But that's a dead
end."
Steve clapped his mittens together. "Hey, maybe
I'm wrong. I don't know the local geography. But
didn't that Engineer captain at Fargo tell us that
the Red was frozen north of Perley? Well, that's
gotta be north of here, right?"
Alex never saw so many mouths hang open at once.

Crossing the Red was easy Alex thought, if you

didn't count holding your breath while doing it. The
river was frozen; but the ice was ragged and
cracked. A rough ride, and if the ice had given way-
—
Well, he didn't want to think about that. He
supposed he was in less danger than he had been in
Piranha. A hot ship, miles high, hypersonic speeds.
Even without a missile up the arse, there were a
million things that could have gone wrong. But it
was one thing to face danger with your hands around
the stick. It was another thing to face it while
bundled into a sledge, dependent on another's
skills. It was the impotence, he decided; not the
danger.
The glaciers on both sides of the river growled
and popped as they flowed south-—an odd and
disconcerting sound. Every snap made him jerk,
thinking it was the river ice breaking up beneath
them. He had not expected sounds. But then, he
didn't suppose a mountain range of ice could slide
across the landscape in silence. He wondered
whether, if the glacier sounds were recorded and
played back at high speed, they would sound like a
rushing river.
 CHAPTER FIVE

"In the Hands of Crazy People"

Bruce called a rest break atop the Minnesota
glacier. Satellite recon had located a path up the
side, but it had been an arduous climb. Thor and
Steve were winded. The others stood around the two
snowmobiles, slapping themselves with their arms,
warming themselves with the meager engine heat.
Everyone seemed drawn and introspective.
"I tell you," said Bruce, "that Engineer captain
had to be a closet fan. Why else would he have told
us about the river being frozen?"
"That doesn't make sense," Mike said. "How would
he have known what we were up to?"
"He might have guessed from your questions about
the Angels. One fan knows another."
Warmly wrapped and trundled by sledge, Alex chafed
at his helplessness while others did the work of
rescue. "I'm just not used to being so useless," he
told Sherrline. Actually, I'm here because I was
expendable. He thought of telling her that, but he
didn't want to.
Sherrine laughed. "Alex, sitting in that sledge,
you've done more to help us than anyone standing
up."
The Angel flushed. "I'm a link to Freedom, that's
all. They do the work."
Sherrine shook her head. "Don't be modest." Was
Alex serious, she wondered, or was it just the usual
macho self-deprecation? It seemed as if the older
space pilot never missed a chance to put himself
down, since putting himself down on Earth. And the
kid spent most of his time in a kind of sullen
silence. And these were space heroes?
Be fair, she chided herself. They were injured and
in shock. Give them time to recover.
She said, "Who had Big Momma beam down the IR
decoys? Who arranged the rendezvous with Bob when we
couldn't go back to Mapleton? Who had the old Hubble
pinpoint the best route up onto this glacier?"
"It was a rough climb anyhow. Almost too steep for
the snowmobiles."
"It would have been rougher if we'd had to find
our own way up, or just climb straight up the sheer
wall."
Alex grunted. "We also serve who only lie and
wait."
She patted him on his shoulder. "That's the
spirit. Don't worry. Steve will have you on your
feet in no time once we et off the Ice."
"Steve?"
"Steve's a bodybuilder. Didn't you notice his
muscles?"
He had. Steve seemed grotesque, thick and bulging,
like a creature from another world; but they all
looked like that, more or less. "What's he going to
do? Lend us a few?"
He liked the sound of her laugh. "You'll have to
ask him."
"Hey!"
"What?"
 "You're breathing rainbows!"
"I'm what?"
"Breathing rainbows!" She was. Sparkling circles
of color came out of her mouth every time she
exhaled. They reminded him of radar pulses. He said,
"You're magical."
"So are you!" She bent closer to his face. "Hey,
guys, look at this! Rainbow smoke rings."
Soon, everyone was laughing and puffing rainbows
into the air. Even Gordon was smiling, for the first
time since the crash. Steve tried to make patterns
in the air by moving his head around.
"We're a lot higher here than on the Dakota," Mike
announced. "Its so cold that the moisture in our
breath freezes as soon as we exhale. That creates a
cloud of millions of tiny ice particles." His own
beard glistened with frost as he spoke.
Bruce made a snowball and threw it at Mike.
Sherrine grinned and made a rainbow ring. "A lot of
my mundane friends," she said to Alex, "think that
explaining a phenomenon 'ruins the magic.' I think
the explanations just make it more magical than
before. 'Danes live in a world where everything
happens on the surface; where everything is a
symptom-—like the rainbows. But a cloud of
microscopic crystal prisms is as magical as an
unexplained rainbow any day."

When they set out again, Bruce and Mike took the
skis to give Steve and Thor a rest. The tall, brawny
Thor took over as Alex's sledge driver. He seemed
drawn and introspective. He was the only one who had
not joined in the rainbow making. His breath
sparkled with colors the same as everyone else's,
but it didn't seem to delight him.
After a few minutes of riding, Alex leaned his
head back and studied Thor's face. "Do you want to
tell me what's wrong?" he asked.
"Wrong?" Thor wouldn't meet his eyes.
"You've been acting distracted ever since we left
the Valley."
The hum of the snowmobile motor and the hiss of
the sledge runners over the ice were the only,
sounds, until Thor said, "There was a family in that
car."
Alex remembered tail fins protruding from an ice
wall. "People? Dead?"
"Sure, dead. I got a look in while the tank was
draining. The front seats had filled in with snow
and ice, but I could see the shoulders and the backs
of the parents' heads. The back seats-—" He paused
and swallowed.
"The back seats were clear. There were two kids
there. A boy and a girl; maybe six and four. I don't
know. They were lying there with their eyes wide
open, as white as parchment, coated with frost.
There was ice around their eyes where they'd been
crying."
"Nothing decays in this endless cold. If it
weren't for the frozen tears, I might have thought
they were staring back at me."
Alex glanced at Sherrine driving the snowmobile.
She did not seem to be listening. He remembered
thinking about mammoths earlier. He pitched his
voice low. "You didn't tell the others."
"No. Would you a have?"
"We should have done something."
Thor nodded thoughtfully. "See if you can describe
it."
"I don't know. Dig them out. Bury them?" On Earth,
he'd heard they buried their dead. It seemed a waste
of organics to Alex, but "custom is king of all."
 "The glacier will bury them," said Thor. "The
job's half done."
"It doesn't seem right to just leave them there."
"No, it doesn't. But what could we have done?
Broken our necks trying to et them out? What would
we have dug the graves with inside the car, at least
they're safe from wolves. You know what bothers me
the most?"
"No, what?"
"The accident must have happened ten, twelve years
ago, when most of these towns were evacuated.
Hundreds of cars must have driven past. My mother
told me that this country once spent millions of
dollars to free two whales trapped in the Arctic
ice. Why didn't anyone stop to help those people
back then? Those children might have still been
alive!"
Alex couldn't think of any way to answer him. It
wasn't his planet. He hadn't been there. He wondered
what the evacuation had been like. A panicked
flight? A black, depressing recessional? A car skids
off the gassy roadway and plows into a snowbank. No
one stops. No one cares enough to stop. The country
has turned its back on technology. Small is
beautiful but small is also poor; and the country
could no longer afford to care.

As the sun dropped toward the horizon, a curious

green tint came over everything. The ice and the
clouds, perfect white but moments before, glowed
like emeralds. To the right, the sky itself was
green from the horizon halfway to the zenith.
Sherrine and Doc stopped their snowmobiles and
everyone stared.
"The sky looks like a lawn in spring," said
Sherrine.
 "Yeah," said Thor. "And the clouds look like bushy
summer treetops. It's a floating forest."
Green was not a color Alex was used to seeing.
Black, white, silver, yes. But green was the color
of control panel lights; of shoulder patches; the
plant rooms, of course, and the spider plants in
every compartment; and a few corridor walls here and
there. Still, of all the places he had thought to
see green, the heart of a glacier was not one.
He asked Sherrine, "Is sunset always like this?"
She turned in her saddle. "No. Sunsets are normal,
red. I'd heard it was different when you got far
enough onto the Ice. Nobody knows why."
Mike was uncharacteristically silent. He muttered
something about static discharge, but neither too
loudly nor too confidently. Finally, Bruce shouted.
"Come on! This isn't getting us any closer to
Brandon." His voice was harsh and had a ragged edge
to it. When the others looked at him, he turned his
head and looked abruptly away.
"Right," said Steve. "Doc, rev it up. It'll be
dark soon." The other sledge pulled out ahead and
Sherrine fell into line behind.
"Alex?"
For a moment, Alex could not figure who had called
him. Then he realized that it was Gordon on the comm
link. The kid was finally communicating. He tongued
his radio. "Yeah?"
"How much farther must we go?"
Alex shook his head; but Gordon couldn't see him
from his sledge. "I don't know. I've lost track.
Should we be broadcasting?"
"Is low power. Carries how far?"
"Don't know. I guess it's all right. We're a long
way from anything."
"I think the one they call Robert is worried."
 "Yeah." Alex thought he knew why. Bruce had been
keeping track of their progress. The others might
get distracted by rainbows and green skies, but
Bruce always kept the goal firmly in mind.
"I'm cold," said Gordon. "But my readouts tell me
it's only minus fifteen degrees Celsius. That
doesn't make any sense. Neg fifteen isn't very
cold."
"Ever hear of wind chill, Gordo?"
"Wind chill. No, what is?"
Oh, Gordo, Gordo. Of course he didn't know. The
only wind in Freedom was Lonny Hopkins making a
speech. "Gordon, the human body cools by convection,
right? We dump excess heat into the surrounding
air."
"Yes? Is why we need radiators on the station."
"Uh-huh." The main problem in the habitats was to
keep from roasting. No one ever heard of too cold.
"Well, what if the air around your body was
constantly moved away and replaced by fresh,
unheated air. It would seem colder, wouldn't it?"
Gordon thought that one over. "I guess so."
"Look, as your body heat warms the surrounding
air, it reduces the heat fall and the rate of heat
loss slows. So you feel warmer. But keep the cold
air coming in and you'll dump your excess calories
faster. It's-—What did you say, minus fifteen
degrees Celsius? The wind is enough to lift granular
ice particles. Call it forty kilometers per hour. So
the temperature feels as if it were, oh, minus
thirty seven degrees Celsius."
"Alex."
"What?"
"Well, it doesn't help me feel any warmer, but at
least when I freeze to death, I'll know why."
Okay, Gordo, be a snot. But he's right. We are not
going to make it. It was too cold, and Brandon was
too far. The space suits, with their heaters, had
been left behind with the scoopship. They would have
been incriminating, too hard to dispose of; and the
trip was supposed to have been a short one. The
suits wouldn't have saved them anyway. Sherrine and
the others would freeze; Gordon and Alex could wait
on their backs until the batteries gave out. Better
that they all go together.
It was getting colder and the wind was picking up.
And it wasn't just Gordo depending on him. There
were these Downers as well. It was his fault they
were out here. Sure, he was going to freeze along
with them; but do passengers really feel better
because the captain went down with his ship? Soon
enough, he and his friends would be frozen as solid
as those children in the car.
"It's not a bad way to go," Thor said softly.
Alex looked up. Thor knew. He had the most
experience with the Ice, and he knew.
"You get sleepier and sleepier. Then you don't
wake up," Thor said. "They say it's even easier if
you don't fight it."
"And do you give up?"
Thor shrugged. "I probably won't. But I won't last
much longer than you do."
The glacier at night was as dark as the leeside of
Freedom Station. But Freedom Station could turn on
the spotlights for EVA work. Alex didn't think any
of the rescue party had realized how dark it would
be. They hadn't expected to still be on the Ice come
nightfall; so he couldn't blame them for not brining
any flashlights. They had only the two that
Sherrine's grandfather kept in the kits strapped to
each sledge, and a small trouble light salvaged from
Piranha. They didn't make much light; but, with them
and with ropes tying everyone together, Bruce could
hope that no one would get lost in the dark. If only
there were some way to turn on the spotlights.
Spotlights. By God!
"Something interesting?" Thor asked.
"Damn right, if I can raise the ship. You don't
need the Sun to get heat from the sky."
"Onk?"
"You'll see. I hope. Aim the antenna for me, due
south. Big Momma. Big Momma, Big Momma, this is
Piranha. Priority One. Mayday."
Sherrine looked around with a frown.
"Alex-—"
"Shut up, Gordon! Big Momma, Big Momma, this is
Piranha. Mayday."
* * *
Captain Lee Arteria relaxed in a chair well to the
side of the meeting room, the better to watch the
proceedings. One should always have a clear field of
fire, just in case. Several of the other attendees
threw repeated glances in that direction. Arteria,
returning their gazes, could almost read their
minds. Slim and fine-featured, pointed chin; short-
cropped red hair; noncommittal first name, and a
grip like a Junkyard dog. Gay man or butch woman?
They couldn't tell. It made them uneasy.
Arteria parted her lips in a thin faint smile.
They were bothered less by the thought that she
might be skew than by not knowing the direction of
skew. They liked to put people in categories, even
unorthodox categories. It was more comfortable than
dealing with individuals and their idiosyncrasies.
Deny them that and you put them at a disadvantage.
Arteria liked to leave it like that. It was always
sound tactics to leave your opponents at a
disadvantage.
"Can we take it then," said Ike Redden, "that the
subjects have died on the Ice?" Redden represented
the INS on the Special Task Force. He was also the
chair. Inter-service wrangling and high-level
compromise had left the Immigration and
Naturalization Service in nominal charge of the
search. The space stations had declared their
independence almost a generation ago; so their
residents were, ipso facto, aliens. And illegal
immigration was, according to counsel, the most
impeccable grounds for apprehension of the stranded
astronauts. Still, Arteria was sure that all the
task force members were looking for ways to bend the
mission to their own advantages.
The State Police captain shook his head. "I don't
see how they could have gotten off the Ice before
nightfall without being apprehended."
Arteria could think of three or four ways. She
kept her peace. The others were paid to do the
thinking.
"There was no one aboard the spacecraft when we
found it." Air Force was reluctant to mention
finding the craft; no doubt because it had taken so
long to do so. Never mind that the shuttle was
painted a reflective silver; that it blended into
the surrounding ice; that it had apparently been
deliberately buried. The failure to achieve instant
results was always ammunition for one's opponents.
"We assume that the astronauts wandered out onto the
Ice and froze. We've done IR scans of the immediate
area and found no trace of them. So their bodies
must have cooled to ambient. We may never find
them."
"They are not dead."
Captain Arteria sighed quietly. Staff meetings
were always tedious, especially to the worker bees;
but even tedium was better than listening to Shirley
Johnson. Redden sucked on his lips and exchanged
glances with the State Police and Air Force
representatives. "Why do you say that, Johnson?" he
asked.
"Ice is a crystal, and crystals focus the life
power. Yes, yes, I know people have frozen on the
Ice in spite of that; but all sickness comes from
negative thinking. One must be open to the life-
affirming powers of the crystal."
"The aliens are technophiles, pointed out Jheri
Moorkith, the Green representative, and therefore
life-denying. However, I agree that they have
escaped. Why else would the techno-scientific elite
in their artificial worlds have beamed their death
rays at the search teams?"
"There were tracks in the snow," State Police
admitted, "weren't there, Captain Arteria?"
"There certainly were." Arteria's voice was a
husky contralto. No sexual clues there, either. Nor
clues of any sort. Arteria intended to participate
as little as possible in the conference. The Angels
weren't any threat to the United States, and
tracking them down was using resources better
employed for something else.
"The tracks came to the spaceship from the south.
We lost them on the hard ice," State Police
continued. "But they were headed toward the
interior. There's no chance of finding tracks at
night, but come morning we'll start a search pattern
around the projected route. The tracks looked like
dogsleds, though.
Air Force spoke up. "One of our IR searches turned
up a bogey to the east, on the Minnesota Glacier;
but close overflight positively identified it as an
Eskimo band. Those dogsled tracks are probably
another band that saw the ship come down and mushed
over to investigate."
State Police: "There have been a number of Eskimo
sightings around here over the last few months.
There was a fight over poaching out by Anamoose. The
white folks chased them off."
"Eskimos," said Moorkith, rubbing his chin. "Good.
Native Americans live close to nature. They respect
the other lifeforms with which we share this fragile
planet. I'm sure they will help us locate the
polluting technocrats."
The Angels had help, thought Arteria. Someone came
up from the south and took them away to the east.
Probably not Eskimos, if they came from the south.
That should be obvious, even to this crowd. So. If
not Eskimos, who? Given the timing involved, it had
to have been impromptu. And, if they had been
caught-—
People who would risk anything to rescue spacemen,
instantly, knowing the government would be
searching, too. People who could head straight for
the spacecraft without aerial spotters. People who
could call down power beams from the stations.
People who thought they could improvise a rescue
on the Ice on the spur of the moment and pull it off
without getting caught.
Fanac! It had to be fanac.
And if you could think like a fan again, Arteria
thought, you might figure out where they'd show up
next. She smiled wolfishly.
* * *
The response was faint, almost lost in the hiss of
static. "Da, we readink, Piranha. Chto khochesh?
What want?"
"Thank God. Big Momma, it's cold here. We're going
to freeze, all of us. We need heat. Can you give us
a microwave spotlight? Have SUNSAT lock one of its
projectors onto our transponder frequency and track
us across the ice."
 "Skazhite. One moment." Alex waited while Big
Momma conferred-—probably with the Peace Station
chief and the SUNSAT engineer. Sherrine asked him
what he was doing and he told her. She and Thor
exchanged glances.
"Is that possible?" she asked. "To beam enough
microwave energy down to keep us from freezing?"
"Sure."
"It won't be, uh, too much, will it?"
Alex grinned. "I'll have them set it for thaw, not
bake. Seriously, the beam density is only twenty-
three milliwatts per square centimeter at the center
of the rectenna farm. I figure if we keep it to a
couple of milliwatts, it will take the edge off the
cold without cooking us. We'll have to take off
whatever rings or jewelry we're wearing, wrap them
in cloth maybe pack them in snow. Belt buckles.
Anything metal. Microwaves penetrate meat, wood or
plastic, but metal absorbs them. If you kept your
ring on, Sherrine, it would probably burn your
finger.
Thor grinned. "I'm not sure I'd mind-—if it did
cook us." He looked over his shoulder. "Ever since
we found that car. When Bruce raised this
expedition, it sounded like good fanac. The ultimate
sercon. A quick dash onto the ice and, back off.
They'd be filking about it for generations."
Alex made a mental note to find out later what
language Thor was speaking.
"The trouble was, we didn't make any contingency
plans. Heck. We didn't make any plans." Thor
grinned. Well, Ghu takes care of idiots, small
children, and fen. Who knows what the Great Roscoe
has in store for us next?"
"Roscoe?" Alex asked, but they didn't hear him.
Alex barely managed to confirm the beam density
with the Angels before losing contact completely.
They must have been at the very fringe of the
scoopship relay's range. When he had completed the
message, Alex sighed and spat out the tongue switch.
"Well, that's that, he said.
"Do you think they got the message?" Sherrine
asked. "About the microwaves?"
Alex's eyes were dull with exhaustion and the
endless acceleration. "I hope so. They're supposed
to lock onto the transponder location and track it
all the way to Brandon. We should be warm as toast
in a while. If not-—" Shrugging would be too much
effort.
As they picked their way across the ice, Sherrine
waited for evidence of microwave warming. She
worried about their equipment. The sledges contained
little metal. Her grandfather had made them of wood
poles and hide lashings. The two snowmobiles were
largely fiberglass, but she wondered what microwave
heating would do to the metal engines. Probably
nothing. Engines run at high temperatures anyway.
But suppose they can't take it? Better than
freezing. . .
After a while, began to feel warm. Was it the
microwaves? Or was it only her anxiety? Or just the
heat from the snowmobile engine? She saw a crevasse
that Mike had flagged and steered around it. Cans of
gasohol. What will microwave heat do to those?
The moon rose, half full, over the eastern
horizon, creating a startling amount of light on the
icy landscape. The crust of snow, reflecting the
moonlight, seemed to glow from within itself. She
breathed out slowly and saw the flickering rainbow
of her breath. She was happy. Even if they died
here, it had still been worth the attempt.
Astronauts down. Crashed. She loosened the collar
on her parka. Hunted by the government. What else
would a trufan have done? Fen loved their bickering
and fannish politics. Pohl and Sykora still wouldn't
talk to each other; but take a few years off them
and they would both have been here on the Ice
together, because it was the right thing to do.
Fandom, after all, was a Way of Life.
She unzipped her parka. 'Tis a proud and lonely
thing to be a fan. She was glad to be back. When she
thought of all the years she had wasted in the
"danelaw" . . .
"Sherrine?"
"Yes. Alex?" She kept her eye glued on Mike's back
where he broke trail ahead of her.
"Could you take a blanket or two off me?"
She turned around. "What? Oh!" Alex's face was
damp with sweat. She realized that she was
perspiring heavily herself. She brought her
snowmobile to a halt just as Will stopped his and
jumped off into the snow and began stuffing ice in
his mouth. Now what?
"Fillings," Will mumbled. "Gold caps, teef." He
settled back on his heels and breathed a sigh of
relief.
"I'm sorry," Alex said. "The calculations must
have been off slightly."
"Can you do something about it?" Will asked. "It's
like using hot coffee for mouthwash."
Thor rubbed his jaw and agreed. Mike, who had
returned from the point and overheard, grinned.
"Makes me glad I have, plastic fillings. No metal in
my mouth."
"Me neither," Sherrine agreed. "But I'm glad I'm
not wearing braces anymore." The others laughed.
"Very funny," said Doc, chewing on a snowball.
Thor and Bruce were sucking in cold air. Sherrine
winced. Whenever she did that, it hurt her teeth.
 "No good," said Alex, spitting out his
communicator once more. "Damn thing's hot. I can't
raise them. Either we're out of range or the radio
finally went kaput."
"No big deal,' said Doc. "I'll just keep a mouth
full of snow." He took off his parka. "Meanwhile,"
he said, "it's a little warm for this."
The layered look, Sherrine reflected as she
removed her own parka had its advantages. She
unstrapped Alex and pulled a blanket off him.
Microwaves created heat by friction. They agitated
the molecules of an object, penetrating to a certain
depth, depending on the material. When the
microwaves were shut off, the object continued to
heat by conduction to greater depths. She suspected
that she would be removing another sweater or two as
the night went on.
"Say," said Mike, "you know what we forgot to
bring?"
Thor gave him a suspicious look. "What?"
"Beach umbrellas. Aluminum beach umbrellas. In
case it gets too hot."
Doc studied the snowball in his hand, looked at
Mike, shook his head and stuck the snowball back in
his mouth. Sherrine grinned. Mike had a point.
Later, they might wish they had a means of
reflecting the microwaves. They laughed and moved
on.

"Hey, guys," said Bruce. "Don't look now, but we

got company."
Sherrine looked to the sky. "Oh, God-—"
"No," said Bruce. "Not up there. Over here."
She looked. Eskimos.
In retrospect, it was probably something she
should have expected. Eskimos lived on the ice and
the ice was flowing south, so why shouldn't there be
Inuit in Minnesota? She said as much to Mike about
the small, ragged band that had appeared suddenly in
the ghost-light created by the flashlights and the
ice-reflected stars and moon. Mike shrugged,
scratched his beard and dug into his limitless store
of miscellany.
"Maybe," he said. "But the Inuit are a coastal
folk. Except for the caribou-hunting bands, they
don't live inland. If anything, the Ice should have
driven them west along the coast into Alaska, not
south into the heart of the glacier."

Krumangapik's face was a deep copper, creased into

a permanent squint. He had thrown back the hood of
his parka showing straight-cropped black hair. His
own sledge and dog team waited nearby with his
partner and their families. Krumangapik grinned,
showing the gaps in his teeth.
He smiled at Bruce and the others. The Angels, he
wasn't sure of. He kept giving them quick glances
from the corners of his eyes.
He said, "You must not thank for the meat. It is
bad manners to thank."
Bruce seemed flustered. "I didn't mean to give
offense," he said.
"It is our people's custom to thank for gifts,"
said Sherrine.
Krumangapik did not look at her. Sherrine thought
he wasn't sure if she was a woman or not. By his
standards, she was too thin to be female; but he
evidently had no wish to take chances. Bruce had
facial hair and was obvious the leader, so he spoke
exclusively to Bruce.
"We do not give gifts. I know that it is different
among the upernatleet; but in this land, no one
wishes to be dependent upon another. 'With gifts you
make slaves; as with whips you make dogs.' "
"Then why," asked Mike, "have you shared your
meat?"
The old inuk seemed puzzled by the question. "You
have shared your magical heat so that we are all
wonderously warm." His breath made frosty clouds in
the icy darkness, so Sherrine guessed that warm
depended on what you were used to. "What could I
offer in return but these poor scraps of meat. Offal
that has been dirtied by the dogsled. I am ashamed
to offer it to such excellent guests."
Mike and Steve looked thoughtfully at the skewers
in their hands. Sherrine hissed at them. "Not
literally! If gift-giving makes slaves, you have to
disparage the gift." They looked relieved and Steve
took a bite and chewed.
"It is really very good meat," he said. "Tasty.
What is it, walrus?"
"Dog," said Krumanepik. "But it was a very sick
dog," he added hastily. "Mangy. We have lost most of
our team on this journey."
Steve gave a journeyman grin. "Delicious," he
said.

Krumangapik's band had intended to camp, but when

Bruce told them that he was going to press on to
Brandon, they elected to join up. "It is safer to
travel together," he said. "You carry the warmth
with you; and the sooner we get off this wretched
ice, the better."
"Get off the Ice?" Steve seemed surprised. "This
is your world isn't it? The land at the top of the
world."
Mala, the other hunter, laughed and the old man
shook his head. "It is ours because neither the
Indians nor the whites want it. The legends say that
when we first came into this country, many ages ago,
it was already inhabited by those you call Indians.
In the white man's school, we learned that these
folk were called the Athabascans and the Crees. We
fought mightily to take the land from them. The
grass ran red with their gore. Ah, there were
massacres to whet even the wildest fancy! Even
today, to cry! 'Indians!' among the Greenlanders is
enough to throw everyone into a panic; even though
the word has long lost its meaning there. But the
Indians were crueler and wiser in the ways of war
than we; and, even though the forests were spreading
north, there was not room in them for both peoples,
and we retreated before them. Soon we came to a
strange, white land where the Indian would not
follow. Life here became a contest with death, but
we learned that if we followed the proper customs,
we could live. Later, we found that Sila had
arranged all this to harden us against the day of
our vengeance. Now, the ice is bringing us back
again into the land that was ours." The old man
scratched his chin and asked in a perfectly matter-
of-fact voice, "You have not seen any Cree, have
you?"
Sherrine could not be sure whether old Krumangapik
was putting them on. By his own admission, he had
been to the white schools. He would have learned
there about the ice ages and about ancient folkways.
How much of his tale was genuine Inuit legend and
how much embellishment to entertain guests? "Why did
you say it would be safer if we traveled together?"
she asked.
Once again, the old man spoke to Bruce and not to
her. It was irritating. "Because of the cannibals,"
said Krumangapik.
Even Mike was speechless.
 "Cannibals?" asked Bruce in a strained voice.
"Yes. Two hunters named Minik and Mattak who
accompanied us at first from Baffinland. They were
the strongest, so they always took bigger portions
of the food than they were entitled to. Every day as
we crossed the ice they grew more savage. Several
days ago, while we were hunting, Minik and Mattak
returned to the camp and attacked the women and
children. Oomiliak, my son, fought well and lost an
eye." He put an arm around a small boy with an empty
eyesocket who stood beside him. "But his sister and
mother were stabbed to death and dragged away to be
eaten. When Mala and I returned to camp and learned
what had happened, we tried to take vengeance, but
the dogs were too weak to chase them across the
ice."
Bruce swallowed and looked out into the
surrounding night. "Where are they now?"
The old man shrugged. "Somewhere out there.
Perhaps they are following us. Or perhaps they have
gone elsewhere." His face closed up and he looked
away, into the night.
For a man, one of whose wives had been killed and
eaten along with his daughter, Sherrine thought
Krumangapik was taking his loss remarkably well. She
wondered if Eskimos felt tragedy differently than
other folk.
And the Angels? Alex did not appear shocked at
Krumangapik's casual attitude. Why not?

Bruce let the Eskimos take the point. They knew

more about traveling on the Ice and would be more
aware of dangerous conditions, especially in the
dark. Sherrine thought Bruce was more than a little
glad to have someone else shoulder the
responsibility for a while. Now and then he
consulted the transponder and sent word to
Krumangapik to alter course. The old Eskimo never
revealed what he thought of these directions; but
Sherrine suspected that if he ever disagreed with
them, he and his band would simply strike out on
their own.
Two hours later, they stopped again to shed
clothes. The heat, mild as it was, was working its
way through their bodies. Sherrine tried to balance
the heat and the clothing against the windchill and
found, much to her surprise, that she was dressed
for a walk on a brisk spring day.
We're in the heart of the Minnesota glacier, she
thought, and I'm dressed lighter than in my own
home. If only there were more SUNSATs in orbit.
When Krumangapik and his band began stripping,
Sherrine's jaw dropped. The Eskimos shed their
parkas and even their undergarments. She noticed
that all of them, hunters and women, wore long johns
from Sears. Krumangapik was not the unspoiled savage
he liked to pretend. Soon they were standing in the
buff.
The two women strung a clothesline between two
light poles and hung the discarded clothing to it
with pins made of walrus bone. Sherrine had to admit
that the younger hunter, Mala, was rather well-hung.
Naterk, his wife, was-—Well, round. She had curves
in places where other women did not have places.
Sherrine saw Alex and Gordon staring at the woman
and turned away. Sooner or later, she knew, they
would run into a woman who was not a stick; but they
did not have to make such a spectacle of their
interest.
Krumangapik invited them to air out their own
clothing as well. 'Normally, we do this only in the
igloo. It is usually not warm enough outside. But
with this wonderful heat-—" He raised his arms and
turned slowly, as if basking in the sun on Miami
Beach.
"Aren't you even a little chilly?" she asked.
Krumangapik grinned his gap-toothed grin again.
"Better to be chilly," he quote "and also be alone
inside one's clothing."
Then she noticed that the women were picking
through the furs for lice. It figured. There
wouldn't be too many opportunities to change on the
glacier. They must spend a great many days wearing
the same clothes.
Sherrine looked at Thor, who looked at Mike, who
looked at Steve, who looked at Doc, who looked at
Bruce. No one moved. Then Steve grinned and pulled
his sweater over his head. He cried, "Gentlebeings
and sapients all, how can you resist? How often do
you get a chance to sunbathe on a glacier?"
They stripped down practically to the buff.
Sherrine and Doc both drew the line at shucking
their underwear.
Thor and Steve did not; but looking at them they
seemed less a pair of naked males than a pair of
Greek statues, one in ivory, one in ebony. Nude, not
naked. Naterk kept throwing glances at them, like
she was inspecting livestock. Thor gave her a look
back and ran his fingers through his beard.
"Don't even think it," Mike told him.
Thor raised his eyebrows and leered. "Think what?"
You know. Adultery is the major cause of murders
among Eskimos. He jerked his head at Mala, who had
watched the byplay with no expression.
"All the cartoons-—"
"This isn't the suburbs. They don't give gifts,
remember? Wife-swapping is the way they seal
bargains. If Mala makes the offer-—and remember that
he has to make the offer-—then you have to help him
when he goes hunting. Either that or you have to
offer him your wife."
Sherrine was arranging Alex atop a pile of
discarded clothing. Alex was trying to smile hard
enough to mask the winces caused by the pain in his
ribs. She pulled the strap snug, but not tight.
"Thor," she said, "don't even think it." And she
whipped around with a snowball in her hand and
blasted him on the chest.
Then all fandom was plunged into war. Even the
Eskimos joined in. It was such a relief to know that
they would not freeze! Sherrine wondered if she
might even get a tan out of it. She was laughing and
dancing and dodging snowballs when the spotlight
from the helicopter caught them dead center.
* * *
Lieutenant Gil Magruder studied the shapes dancing
in the spotlight below. There were two sleds piled
high with clothing and blankets. Nestled in the
clothing, he saw two naked corpses, long dead of
starvation by the looks of them. Cavorting around
them in some sort of ritualistic dance were a dozen
naked and near naked men and women, including at
least two children. When the light hit them, they
froze in place and stared up at the helicopter.
Magruder pivoted the copter, keeping the beam
centered.
"Sergeant. What do you see down there?"
Staff Sergeant Emil Poulenc looked and swallowed
his gum. "It looks like some kind of funeral, sir,"
he said in a Louisiana drawl. "Those are Eskimos,
aren't they? But-—"
"But they're naked, aren't they, Sergeant. They're
on the Ice at thirty below and they're naked."
"Well, that lady there, she has a brassiere and
panties on."
Magruder gave him a stare.
 "I mean, she's not completely naked." Poulenc's
voice sounded wistful.
"Sergeant, what possible difference can a pair of
pink panties make at thirty degrees below zero?"
Poulenc scratched his chin. "Well, sir, since you
put it that way."
Magruder stared at the group on the ground. "HQ
ain't never gonna believe this," he muttered. He
straightened and adjusted the rotor. "You know what
I think we saw, Sergeant?"
"Sir, I can't imagine."
Magruder turned off the spotlight and banked the
copter away to the west. "Nothing, Sergeant. I think
we saw absolutely nothing at all."
* * *
The General Mills station at Brandon was a
gleaming beacon in the dark for the last few miles
of the trip. Alex sighed. The madcap trip across the
Ice was nearly over. Sherrine drove the snowmobile
down the state highway toward the station, where
Alex saw a man-—presumably Bob Needleton-—sitting in
a lawn chair reading a magazine beside a blazing
fire he had built in an oil drum. When he heard them
coming, he folded the magazine and stood up.
"It's about time you got here," he said. If he
thought there was something extraordinary about a
procession of naked people coming off the glacier,
he did not say. Instead he gave directions for
loading the van.
Alex and Gordon were trundled into the back of the
van and laid out flat on a pair of old mattresses.
The last sight Alex saw before they slid the door
closed was a bunch of naked Eskimos dancing around
the blazing oil drum. It was probably a measure of
how accustomed he had already become to Earth, that
the sight seemed perfectly natural. So far, all the
Earthlings he had met had behaved oddly.
Maybe gravity pulled blood from the brain . . .
Bob climbed into the pilot's seat. "That's that,"
he said. "Sherrine, honey, your grandparents stayed
behind in Mapleton just in case you managed to get
back there after all. As soon as we find a working
telephone we'll call and tell them you're okay and
where to find their equipment. Your pal Krumangapik
agreed to wait here until they came by, if I would
let him have the fire I built in the oil drum." He
started the engine. "I guess that takes care of
everything."
"Not quite everything," Alex said. "It's going to
get cold. We told SUNSAT to turn off the beam when
we got to Brandon."
"Sigh," Thor said. "I suppose we'd be too easy to
locate if we kept it. But it was nice to be warm."
There was a mad scramble in the back of the van as
everyone hastened to don clothes. Conditions were
crowded with seven people in the back of the van.
Alex didn't mind the occasional elbow or knee as the
others pulled on sweaters and pants, because their
body heat warmed the place nicely. He supposed that
was how Krumangapik and his friends could sit around
naked in a house made of snow bricks. Besides,
Sherrine took charge of dressing him, and he rather
enjoyed it.
* * *
Alex relaxed to the rhythm of the van over the
highway. He closed his eyes. The rescue was over.
For the first time since he'd seen the missile on
the radar, he knew he would live for one more day.
A couple miles farther on, he felt a hand shake
his shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw Steve's
dark face above him.
Steve grinned. "It's too close in here to run
through any asanas; and you're not up to it
physically yet. So let's begin your conditioning
with some pranayama. I want you to practice
breathing."
Alex wondered what it was that his lungs had been
doing all his life. "I already know how to breathe,"
he told him.
"I don't want you to breathe from your diaphragm.
I want you to breathe from your little potbelly." He
set his hand on Alex's stomach. "Make your stomach
go in and out, not your chest."
Steve wasn't kidding. Alex looked at Gordon and
Gordon looked at him and he shrugged with his
eyebrows. Didn't everyone breathe from their
stomachs? He studied the Earthlings surrounding him
and, yes, it was indeed their chests that rose and
fell. He watched Sherrine's chest more closely, just
to make sure. Maybe their rib muscles were better
developed. Gravity again, he supposed.
"That's very good!" Steve seemed genuinely
surprised and delighted. "Now I want you to breath
using only your left nostril."
He still wasn't kidding. Alex looked around the
van, but Mike and Sherrine and even Doc Waxman
showed no reaction to Steve's bizarre request; and
Thor was trying to follow his directions.
"Come on," Steve said in an encouraging voice.
"Practice along with me. In through the left
nostril. Out through the mouth." When he breathed
out he chanted, "Om mane padme om."
Hot damn! thought Alex. We're in the hands of
crazy people. He had never felt safer.
 CHAPTER SIX

" . . . . A Way of Life"

Where in hell was the Con Committee?
Tradition told that a convention committee could
win the bid and then vanish. The Worldcon would
happen anyway. Chuck Umber believed it. He'd seen
conventions, like Nolacon in New Orleans, where the
committee's disappearance would have saved the
convention. But he didn't believe that this
committee could hide in a crowd of less than sixty!
The Con was ready to go. Fans had been arriving
for several days and the official program had
already started . . . but Bruce Hyde and the rest of
the Con Committee seemed to have vanished into thin
air, all but one or two and they weren't talking.
Something was up . . . and even Crazy Eddie seemed
to be in on it.
Chuck Umber had published fandom's most successful
news magazine for more than twenty years, in formats
growing gradually more cryptic and secretive for an
audience growing gradually smaller. He'd always kept
secrets that had to be kept. He smuggled copies of
Hocus to closet fans with mundane jobs. He knew were
Thor hid out.
He was even pretty sure he knew where the Oregon
Ghost was hiding. What kind of secret was it that
Edward Two Bats could be trusted with it and Chuck
Umber couldn't?
He stalked down the first-floor hallway of the
Fielding Mansion, counting the doors as he went.
Crazy Eddie had said to try the third door on the
right in the west wing. Ordinarily he rated Crazy
Eddies reliability as no better than that of a
network newsreader; but so far he was the only
person who allowed as how he might have seen Bruce
Hyde around the mansion.
He opened the third door and stepped inside.
"Bruce?"
A semicircle of femmefans twisted in their chairs
to stare at him. They were variously dressed in
gossamer robes and chain mail bikinis, a sight in
which he might ordinarily have shown more interest.
Instead, he looked left and right around the room.
He stuck his goatee out. "Is Bruce Hyde here?"
The panel moderator, with her short-cropped hair
and 15th century breast-and-back plate armor, looked
like Joan of Arc as played by Ingrid Bergman. She
shook her head. "You want the Con Suite I think it's
on the third floor, south wing. This is a panel on
medieval and barbarian costuming. You're welcome to
join us, if you want."
"Uh, no, thank you." Chuck apologized for
interrupting. He was revising his estimate of Crazy
Eddie's reliability.
When he left the room he noticed Fang lounging
against the opposite wall of the corridor. Five-
eleven, muscular, tough as old leather, Fang was
batting a rubber ball tethered to a wooden paddle.
He wore a small propeller beanie on his head.

At last, Chuck thought. Someone reliable. "Fang!"

"Hey, Chuck." The ball was a blur of motion. Fang
frowned at it in concentration.
"Have you seen anybody on the Con Committee?"
"Saw Crazy Eddie."
Arrgh. "How about Bruce? He's the Chair. He's
gotta be around someplace."
"Think I saw him. North wing. Second floor." Fang
missed a swat on his paddle and the tether ball
Zigzagged crazily. He fumbled with it for a moment,
then tucked paddle and ball into the back pocket of
his jeans. "Library? Yeah, the library. I'm sure
that was him."
"Thanks, Fang. I owe you one." Chuck turned and
strode off toward the stairwell. Fang watched him
walk out of sight. When Chuck was gone, Fang rapped
three times on the door beside him. Crazy Eddie
stuck his head out.
Edward Two Bats was a lean, hawk-faced old man, at
least part Indian-—although from what tribe he had
never said. He had been writing science fiction
forever, and movie scripts before that. He wore a
yellow nylon jacket and a red bandanna tied around
one leg just above the knee. His beard was stringy
like a Chinese mandarin's.
His voice was gentle. "Where d you send him?"
"Library. North wing."
Crazy Eddie ran his hand across his jaw. He had
odd hands. The fingers were bigger at the tips than
at the knuckles. "Good," he said. "Good. Who's
waiting up there?"
"Rowland Shew."
Eddie gave Fang a sham look. "You didn't tell Shew
about this, did you. He isn't very reliable."
Fang shrugged. "He's kept Throop hidden for
donkey's years . . . I didn't tell him anything. Too
many in on it already. Shew's helping out because
Chuck gave him a bad review once."
 Crazy Eddie gazed toward the stairwell. "How long
can we keep this going?"
"Not much longer. You know how sharp this crowd
is. I feel bad about giving Chuck the runaround. He
should be in on it."
Eddie clapped him on the shoulder. "Sure, he
should. And Wade Curtis and Dick Wolfson and 3MJ and
everyone else, including fen who couldn't make it to
the con. It's just until the committee decides what
to do. More than three people can't keep a secret
for very long."
Fang sighed. "There's ten of us already."
* * *
Chuck Umber stepped aside to let the tall, lanky
femmefan past. She pushed a wheelchair bearing an
even more gaunt-looking fan, a thin young man with a
vaguely Swedish look. Chuck wondered briefly if the
poor kid had myasthenia gravis, like Waldo in
Heinlein's story. Then he looked again at the femme
and wondered if they were brother and sister. Who
was she?
He searched through the back of his mind. Ah. A
computer programmer, hiding out, gafiated years ago,
even dropped her subscription to Hocus. He'd
remember her name presently.
As he turned to continue his mission, his arm was
grasped by Chuck. a thin man with long, wild brown
hair.
"Hi, Chuck. I'm Anthony J. Horowitz the Third,"
the man said. "Remember me? I I've got two books out
on the samizdat network. My latest is a volume of
critical essays, Vampire Unicorns from Planet
Thraxisp. And I have a novel, Living lnside. About
the first spaceship to Venus. Would you like to
interview me for Hocus? I do wonderful interviews.
And I did Trash World. It's the ultimate synthesis
between science fiction, cyberpunk, and horror."
 The book or the interviews? Chuck shook his head.
"Not now, Tony. I don't have time."
Horowitz said, not too forcefully, "Anthony,
please. I gave up trying to write as Tony . . ."
Umber left Horowitz and entered the foyer by the
main entrance. The foyer had a floor of Mexican tile
and was brightly lit through the tall windows that
flanked the front door. A great crystal chandelier
hung from the two-story cathedral ceiling. A three-
foot model of the space shuttle hung from the
chandelier, and below that, an antique tin Buck
Rogers spaceship. Chuck smiled when he saw that
touch. Sometimes dreams did come true. If you made
them.
Three hallways branched off into the three wings
of the mansion and a grand staircase curved up to
the balcony on the second floor. No question about
it, Chuck thought, the Tre-house was a fantastic
place.
Without Tremont J. Fielding-—3MJ as he was known
to all trufans-—and his sprawling mansion, Minicon
might not have come off at all. A public venue was
naturally out of the question; and very few fen
owned homes large enough to house even a small con.
Chuck marvelled, as he often did, that the Fantasy
Fund had ever had enough equity to help buy this
place. It didn't hurt that 3MJ had inherited some
money. Maybe a lot of money.
The Tre-house often served as a station on the
Underground Fanway. It was stuffed with SF and
fantasy memorabilia, usually hidden in secret vaults
in the sub-basement, but they'd brought out a lot of
it for the Con. The walls were hung with paintings:
the usual ones of dryads and wood elves and other
fantasy scenes, but now many of them sported a
second picture hung to cover the First. There were
prints of old Astounding covers, suns and starwisp
nebulas in wild colors spaceships, men in fishbowl
helmets and women in brass brassieres menaced by
bugeyed monsters. It was so beautiful Chuck wanted
to cry.
Much of the mansions treasure had been reduced to
holograms. Without a projector, they were not
incriminating. What was on display here were prints;
but Chuck knew that Tremont would never have thrown
away the originals. He remembered what the place had
been like in its glory days, when everything was
out, when you couldn't look anywhere without seeing
another marvel. Original paintings. Movie posters
for long-forgotten B pictures. The little
paperweight made from one of George Pal's models for
War of the Worlds. The Lensman costume. George Pal's
pen.
And once-—once Chuck had seen the original
typewritten manuscript for Fahrenheit 451. That
would be well hidden now! He looked around, but they
hadn't put out the movie poster. Too dangerous-—but
sometime over the weekend they'd certainly show the
film. Could that be the big secret? But nobody would
cause Chuck to miss that. Chuck was Heinlein's
Stranger in a Strange Land! He had two-thirds of the
book memorized perfectly, and could recite most of
the rest.
In that far corner had been the original Gort
robot from The Day the Earth Stood Still. A
tyrannosaur model from King Kong was there now.
There had been so much. Now-—now they did their
best, but the walls and alcoves seemed empty and
forlorn.
And Thor was coming down the east wing, pushing a
wheelchair. Another crippled stranger. What was
going on?
Hey, Thor!" Chuck moved to intercept them.
Thor froze in mid-stride. "Hi, Chuck."
 "Where have you been?"
A blank look. "Here and there."
"Haven't seen you."
A shrug. "You know how it is. The Tre-house is a
big place."
"Yeah. It reminds me of a scaled down Noreascon
III. Remember that one? Seven thousand fen rattling
around a convention center bigger than the
Ringworld." He extended his hand to the man in the
wheelchair. "Hi. I'm Chuck Umber. I publish Hocus."
"Gabe," said the other. "Gabe dell'Angelo."
Gabe's arm was coming up in a help less jerky
wobble. Chuck dropped his own hand. "Sorry," he
said. "I didn't know-—" He coughed to hide his
embarrassment. "Er. . . dell'Angelo, you say. You
don't look Italian." In fact, this Gabe looked kind
of Swedish, despite the dark hair. Gaunt and thin,
with prominent facial bones. Like Max von Sydow
without the beard. "Where are you from?"
"I came here from North Dakota."
That explained the Swede look, Chuck thought. A
lot of Scandinavians had settled the upper Midwest.
"I saw another guy in a wheelchair a few minutes
ado. Younger. Looked enough like you to be your
brother."
Gabe looked uncomfortable. He seemed to be
breathin&, funny. "That was Rafe. We were in a
flying accident."
"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."
Gabe shrugged philosophically. "With a little
therapy, they tell me we should be up and walking in
no time."
Chuck nodded. "That's good. So, you're a friend of
Thor's, are you? I haven't seen you around before.
At cons, I mean. Fandom is a small world these
days."
 "It seems like a big world to me. I just dropped
in recently."
A neofan, then. Chuck grinned and gestured
broadly. "And how do you like things so far?"
"Everything is very heavy."
Chuck laughed. "Sercon," he explained. " 'Serious
and constructive activities.' Not 'heavy.' You'll
have to learn the language if you're going to stay
with us. Don't worry. You'll find plenty to
entertain you. Not every fan activity is sercon."
Chuck looked the question at Thor. Is this guy all
right? There had been a time when fandom had few
secrets, but no more. Can we trust him?
"Gabe and his brother haven't been able to get to
cons," Thor said. "Too close to high tech. But
they've lived in the future."
Chuck smiled. Thor was an undergrounder. Thor knew
a lot of people who couldn't let fan sympathies
show. And dell' Angelo wouldn't be their real names,
either. "You've known them a long time, then?"
It was Thor's turn to grin. "Long enough."
"Great." He put his hand on Gabe's shoulder.
"Really good to meet you. Have you met 3MJ yet?"
Gabe looked puzzled. "Not yet. Thor told me that
this is his house."
"We call it the Tre-house. Wait'll you see his
collection. Movie posters. Props. Costumes. Books.
Original manuscripts. You know what 3MJ's greatest
attribute is? He's got no taste at all."
The man in the wheelchair blinked his eyes rapidly
and said, like a good straight man, "That's good?"
"Yes." Chuck waved an arm down the hallway. "See,
he saves anything and everything. He doesn't pick
and choose what suits one particular clique or
literary style. His whole life is dedicated to SF."
Thor nodded agreement. "Maybe we'll have time to
look at some of the collection." His grin faded.
"Hope you don't have to, though."
"Uh?" Gabe grunted.
"Vaults. Hidden places," Thor said. "High tech
priest holes."
These guys must be as hot as Thor! Wish I"-—Chuck
suppressed his curiosity. It was hard to remember
that there were some things he really didn't need to
know. He knew he'd never tell, but-—
If the Feds could declare you homeless, they could
help you. Help included all kinds of things:
psychotherapy, drugs, electrical brain stimulus.
Chuck had seen Henry Stiren after the Department of
Welfare caught him hitchhiking with a half-done
manuscript in his day pack. He'd been a hell of a
promising writer before they helped him. Now he read
what he'd once written and asked people if they
liked it, and when they said they did, he cried.
Chuck shuddered. "Well, I hope you don't have to
see it, but if you do get a chance to visit the
collection, you'll see cyberpunk next to space
opera; hard core next to New Wave. Science fiction,
fantasy and horror. This is as close to its
`national archives' as the Imagi-Nation comes. Thor,
have you seen Bruce Hyde around anywhere?"
Thor stroked his beard. "Not lately. But I'm sure
he's around someplace."
"Then I better be going. Someone thought he saw
him upstairs in the library. Glad to have met you,
Gabe." He patted the invalid on the shoulder. "Not
many neofans drop in on us these days." And he
hurried off.
* * *
Alex watched Chuck climb the stairs. "Can't we
trust him?" he asked Thor. The roly-poly man looked
like a baby-faced Mephistopheles, complete with
goatee; but he had seemed pleasant enough.
"Sure, we can trust him," said Thor. "But it's one
more risk. He runs Hocus Pocus, the biggest fanzine
around. The authorities tolerate it because it's
focused on fantasy, but Chuck manages to slip in
some good old, technophile SF propaganda now and
then."
"So, he's on our side, is he?"
Thor twisted a strand of his beard around his
finger. "As much as anybody here. But you guys are
Big News, and the Library Advisory Boards all read
Hocus. Thor's face turned ugly. "I don't know how
they get copies. Somebody sold out. But the fewer
who know, the better. That minimizes the risk. Not
Just to us but to Chuck Umber." He chuckled. "One
day he'll realize that you answered his every
question literally and kick himself."
"What did he mean by the `Imagi-Nation'?"
Thor released the brake on the wheelchair. "The
danelaw is where the mundanes rule. Downers, you
called them. The Imagi-Nation is us."
"I see." A small group, persecuted by its
government, forced to hide its treasures and meet in
secret. Arguably crazy, every one of them he'd seen,
except for Sherrine. And they had risked everything,
all their treasures, to rescue him from the Ice. It
would hardly be polite to let them know that they
were Downers, too.
Alex said, "I'm starting to realize what Mary
meant."
"Eh?"
"Mission control told us we had strange friends on
Earth."
"None stranger," Thor agreed.
"Now I see what you're up against. It's like David
facing Goliath."
 Thor grunted, disparagingly. "Big deal. Remember
who won that fight?"
"But why-—" He wanted to ask, why would someone
like Sherrine do it? These others he could
understand. Thor, running away, looking for some way
to hit back. The others, some losers, none of them
ding anything important-—but Sherrine with her looks
and brains could do anything. He couldn't say any of
that. "Why do you do it?"
Thor shrugged his massive shoulders. What else can
we do? We believe in the future. We don't turn our
backs on it, like the 'danes, and pretend that
everything will always be the way it is today. Have
you ever read science fiction?"
Alex shook his head. "A little."
"Well, you can see it in our stories. Mainstream
literature is about Being. For character studies,
it's probably the best genre around; but nothing
happens, nothing changes. Imaginative literature is
about Doing. About making the future, not just
bemoaning it. We'll all be living in the future by
and by. Some of us like to scout ahead."
"You make it sound like more than just a hobby."
"FIAWOL. Fandom is a way of life."
Alex opened his mouth to say something, but at
that moment a small crowd of people emerged into the
foyer from the west wing. They were pushing a large
cardboard carton on a handcart. Inside the carton
sat a burly, bearded man wearing a snorkle. He was
grinnning while the others poured styrofoam packing
chips into the carton, chanting, "Kill Seth! Kill
Seth!"
The parade circled the base of the staircase,
flowing around both sides of the wheelchair, and
disappeared down the east wing. Silence descended.
Alex had trouble finding his voice for several
seconds. Finally, he croaked, "Er, Thor?"
"Hmm?"
He turned around and looked at the Nordic god.
"What was that?"
Thor checked his watch. "They must be getting
ready for the book auction. Hunh. I didn't think
they'd scheduled it this early in the program."
"Book auction? Who were those lunatics?"
They turned right, into the north wing. Thor said,
"No no no. Lunarians. A New York fan club. They
raffle off books at the auction. Seth always wins,
so now they kill him at every con so he can't buy
any tickets. Last year, they made him `The Wicker
Man.' "
Alex didn't ask him what "The Wicker Man" was. He
wasn't sure he wanted to know.

When they arrived at the meeting room, Alex saw

Sherrine evicting a group of young women dressed in
outlandish robes and armor. "Costumers," Thor told
him, "preparing for the Masquerade." Neither the
fabric nor the chain mail concealed very much and he
noticed Gordon staring at the women with
considerable interest. Alex stared, too.
The women were not grotesquely fat; but they may
have massed as much as 60 kilos each. Parts of them
bulged and hung in unusual ways. Gravity, he
supposed. Their breasts and hips were nearly as
rounded as those of the Eskimo women. They needed
special clothing to hold their breasts in place.
Some wore their hair so long that it hung to their
waists in back.
Only one, a woman dressed in armor, wore hers
sensibly short. In fact, if he pretended the armor
was a space suit, she looked halfway normal. All in
all, he admitted, Earth women did have a vague,
exotic appeal. But true beauties like Sherrine were
apparently rare down in the Well.
"I'm sorry," Sherrine told the costumers. "There's
been a program change. Didn't you get the update?
All costuming panels have been moved to the north
wing, third floor."
"Third floor! No, we weren't told," the panel
leader said. "How disorganized is this Con Committee
an anyway? People have been looking for them all
day. If they're hiding, I don't blame them!"
"I'm sorry," Sherrine said again. She pointed to
Gordon and Alex. "It's a question of handicapped
access. If you'd like to help keep the programming
on course, I'll pass your names on to Ops-—"
"No thanks. We didn't come here to run errands for
Bruce Hyde and his elitist gang." The costumers
gathered themselves together and left in a billow of
robes.
They settled into the meeting room and waited. The
others dribbled in by ones and twos. Everyone
behaved so furtively that Alex was sure they would
draw attention to themselves. Bruce arrived
grinning. "This is the one room," he announced,
"where Chuck won't look for us."
Soon most of the rescue party was present. Doc
(Sherrine told him) was a costumer himself and was
busy on one of the panels; and Bob had to make a
guest appearance at his mundane job at the
University. Two strangers had joined them; Sherrine
introduced them as Fang and Crazy Eddie.
Bruce rapped his chair arm with his knuckles.
"Let's get this show on the road. First order of
business is: What do we do with our guests, now that
they are here?"
Fang tilted his head back. "Excuse me, Bruce; but
let's follow form. I'm Con-Guest-of-Honor Chair, so
I'd better lead this discussion."
"Find your egoboo on your own time," said Bruce.
"The Con Committee rescued the Angels; so the Con
Committee is in charge."
Crazy Eddie frowned. He turned to Fang. "Besides,
the Angels aren't Guests of Honor, so your
subcommittee's jurisdiction-—"
"Sure they're GoH's," Mike interjected. "Who could
be more honored at a Worldcon than a pair of
spacemen? And they are our guests, Ergo: Guests of
Honor."
"Spoken like a faaan, said Edward Two Bats. "Can't
you understand? This is big. Bigger than Worldcon."
His eyes lit up, as if he had had a vision of the
Holy Grail. There was a moment of hushed silence.
Alex spoke into it. "Excuse me. Do Gordon and I
have any say in this?"
No, Fang replied after a moment's thought. "You
aren't convention members. You don't get a vote."
"Say, that's right," said Mike. "They haven't paid
the membership fee."
`That's silly," said Thor. "I'll lend them the ten
bucks."
"We could DUFF them," Bruce suggested. "Plenty of
money in the Down Under Fan Fund.
Fang shook his head. "No, that's to help
Australians come to Worldcon. You guys aren't
Australians, are you?"
Gordon looked bewildered. Alex shook his head.
Mike tried to look serious. "Well, but at the
moment they are Down Under."
This announcement was greeted with respectful
silence. Bruce nodded his head slowly. "I like it. I
like it." He rapped the arm of his chair. "They are
officially the DUFF members of this convention. As
Con Chair, I so rule."
Three people spoke at once. "You can't do that! We
have to take a vote."
Alex sighed and closed his eyes. Do they ever
settle anything? He breathed in through his left
nostril and out through-his right. It didn't help,
but he was fascinated to learn he could do it, and
it seemed at least as constructive as anything he
was watching.
"Look," Crazy Eddie said, "this is serious!"
And yet-—things were being settled. It was always
a pleasure to watch a master craftsman at his job.
Alex began to enjoy the way Bruce ran the meeting.
Bruce played the committee the way a jazzman played
his sax.
He played Mike and Fang against Eddie Two Bats and
against each other. He worked subtly and indirectly,
only rarely resorting to direct action. Bruce ran
the show. Crazy Eddie tended to forget this every
now and then, but nobody made an issue of it. Alex
made a whispered comment to Sherrine.
"Bruce is good at this."
She said, Bruce is SMOF-Three."
"A what?"
"A SMOF is a Secret Master of Fandom. Fen are a
quirky and individual bunch and there aren't many
who can handle them. Bruce is one. Benjamin Orange
is another. Thank goodness he isn't here. Could you
imagine two SMOFs at one con?"
Incredibly enough, he could. My God, he thought. I
actually understood her.

"The first order of business," said Bruce for the

fourth time in an hour, "is what do we do with the
Angels."
 Alex seized the opportunity. "Now that we re
members of this committee-—"
Fang cut him off. "Only of the Convention, not the
committee. But of course as guests you can-—"
"This is serious," Crazy Eddie protested. His big
eyes were nearly filled with tears. "Can't you
understand that?"
"You have a suggestion?" Bruce prompted.
Alex looked around helplessly. I guess not. We
can't really do anything for ourselves until we can
move around better."
"Steve's helping them," Sherrine said. "Teaching
them asanas. For older people."
"Appropriate," Alex said. "We feel old."
It is an ancient mariner, he stoppeth one of
three-—" Gordon said.
"Lousy fielding average," Mike said. "No long gray
beards, either."
"You have read it!" Gordon exclaimed. "Coleridge
and Pushkin, no one reads any more. You have-—"
Bruce bellowed, "QUIET!" For an instant the room
was shocked silent.
"What's the problem anyway?" Thor asked. "We just
keep them hidden until the other Angels send a ship.
Then we whisk them off to the rendezvous."
"Well, sure," said Steve. "But how do we keep them
hidden? And where? Here in Minneapolis? What if the
pickup ship has to land in Arizona? Can we get them
there in time?"
Alex glanced at Gordon, who bit his lip and
lowered his eyes. No point putting this off he
thought. He took a deep breath-from the stoma and
through the left nostril. "There won't be a pickup
ship," he told the committee.
Sherrine nodded to herself. Bruce's expression
didn't change.
"Why not?" Fang demanded.
"They won't come down the Well."
Everyone spoke at once. "Gravity well, Earth is
deep in it." "Niven's Belters called planets
'holes."' "Come off it, they'll come, these are
ANGELS'!' "I knew we needed contingency plans-—"
Bruce made a whistle of his fingers. Into the
silence that followed he asked, "What do you mean?
The Angels won't come to get you?"
Alex looked around the circle of faces. Angels. A
sulky adolescent stilyagin and a construction worker
who can't go Out anymore. Maybe I should have said
to hell with it, work EVA until my brains pour out
through my nose. Why not?
"It's impossible," he said.
Sherrine nodded again, a tiny movement. "I thought
so. Jesus, I'm sorry."
"But you're space pilots," Crazy Eddie said. "They
need you-—"
Gordon laughed. Everyone looked at him. "What's
funny?" Fang demanded.
"Alex is hero. They would come for him, but there
is no way."
"They don't need me," Alex said. "And it doesn't
matter anyway. There is no way for them to come get
us."
"Coming down is no problem," Mike said. His voice
lost the bantering tone. "Going back up-—"
"Exactly," Alex said. "Going back up. We don't
have any ships that will land and take off again. We
never did."
Sherrine was looking at him strangely. "You knew
it all along."
"There here never was a time to tell you."
 "Why is Alex a hero?" Edward Two Bats demanded.
"Eddie-—"
"I'm a novelist, damn it! I'm not sure I ever met
a hero before. Gordon?"
"Flare time," Gordon said. "Solar flares expand
atmosphere. Mir became unstable. Major MacLeod
brought a crew from Freedom . . ." He sensed
incomprehension in the background murmur and the
twisted frowns. "I start over.
"Flare on the sun. Too much energy floods day side
of Earth. Top of air becomes hot. Atmosphere
inflates like vast balloon, reaches far into space,
wraps ghostly tendrils around Mir. Mir Space
Station, made to fall free through vacuum, begins to
slow and drift closer to Earth.
"Major MacLeod brought a crew from Freedom. They
attached booster rockets to lift Mir to higher orbit
without disruption. With Mir safe, he had to return
to bolt rockets onto Freedom, because Freedom was
dangered, too. His suit blew out. Had to patch it
and use it again. Pressure suit, it must fit more
closely than wife. Cannot borrow someone else's."
Alex choked back a laugh. Gordon never noticed.
"Once, twice, five times his suit spewed air. One
can live through that, but not many times.
"Now he cannot go outside again. Alex MacLeod
cannot live in vacuum, even short time will kill
him."
"But you flew the scoopship!"
"Dipping takes a good pilot," Alex said. "I'm
that. Paint stripes on a brick, I can fly it." He
liked the look that Sherrine gave him. But-—
"Dipping wants an expendable pilot. I'm that, too.
Look, everyone knew we might not come back."
"So you're here for the duration," Bruce said.
"Looks that way."
 Everyone was quiet. Alex looked from face to face.
It was beginning to sink in: This wasn't just a
short jaunt. These . . . fans hadn't signed on for a
long haul. Pretty soon the novelty would wear off.
Some already had second thoughts. And I can't blame
them.
Sherrine put her hand on his arm. "So you
volunteered knowing it might be one way."
He shook his head. "No, this is the first time
like this. Usually nothing happens to dippers."
"Except sometimes they don't come back," Mike
said. "Yeah, I can see it."
Sherrine hugged them, first Alex, then Gordon.
"Orphans of creation," she said. "At least you're
stuck among friends." Steve put a hand on each of
their shoulders and squeezed gently but didn't say
anything. Alex could feel the impression of
Sherrine's ribs an cheekbones where she had pressed
against him. Careful, he cautioned himself. Sherri
is Bob's girl, like Mary was Lonny's. Like borrowing
another man's space suit. Look where it got you.
Bruce looked thoughtful. "This changes things."
"Sure does," Crazy Eddie said.
"Look, I don't blame you," Alex started to say.
Bruce cut him off. "We'll have to find you both a
niche here on Earth. Not going to be easy on you. We
all read Heinlein's story."
" 'It's Great to Be Back,' " Sherrine said. "Yes.
It must be that way. Living among the stars and then
stranded on Earth."
Mike said, "First thing you need is Social
Security and driver's license."
Gordon looked puzzled. "Driver license? For what,
mass driver? Disk drive?"
Mike sighed. "Never mind."
 "Identity papers," Alex said.
"Why do we need identity papers?" Gordon asked.
"We are all droogs here, no?"
How they knew that "droog" meant "friend," Alex
couldn't guess; but Mike actually, smiled. "Sure,
we're all droogs," he said. "Illegal droogs."
"You need an ID," said Thor, "because 'the Land of
the Free and the Home of the Brave' has become 'the
Land of the Fee and the Home of the Slave.' "
"Do you have ID?" Alex asked him.
He smiled. "Sure. Three or four."
"Phony?"
"Free enterprise. They're the best kind."
"Sherrine?" Bruce asked.
"Risky. It was easier when I set things up for
Thor. Now they have programs to watch for hackers."
"You probably wrote them," Steve said.
"Well, Ted Marshall and I worked on the Bytehound
program, and we left a backdoor in, so I can
probably manage it-—Sure. We can do it, maybe, but
it's going to take some time at my terminal and I
have to get hold of Ted."
"He's not coming," Bruce said. "Thinks he's being
watched."
"It's important we don't give him away," Crazy
Eddie said.
"So we make do until then," Fang said.
"Tricky, though," Thor said.
"What is this Eye Dee?" Gordon asked. "May I see?"
Fang took out a driver's license and handed it to
him. Gordon looked at it carefully, turning it over
and over in his hands. He read the form on the back.
"It says here consent to have organs recycled. You
can refuse, then? Very rich place." He held the card
up to the light. "Does not look difficult if you
have photograph. You do not have scanner and laser
printer?"
"No, we have those," Mike said. "Just making a
card isn't the problem. Everything's cross-linked
now. If we make a bogus drivers license for Alex or
Gordon, the IRS computer looks into the DMV computer
and wonders why they never paid taxes before." He
looked at Alex.
"But it can be done," Bruce said. "Just not easy
anymore."
Alex frowned. "Computers are high technology. I
thought everyone down here-—except you-—I thought
most Downers hated technology."
Thor laughed. "They hate it all right. Computers,
too. But they still use them."
"For themselves," Steve said. "They don't like
others having them."
"Is illegal to own computer?" Gordon frowned.
"How do-—how can people read what you write? Like
poetry? Stories?"
"It's illegal to own an unlicensed computer,"
Sherrine said. "But there are a lot of licensed
ones, and-—well, the licensing laws are hard to
enforce. So there are networks, and some private
boards "
""There are still publishers," Bruce said. "A few
good books get out. And like Sherrine says, there
are private boards-—"
"Boards?"
"Computer bulletin boards," Thor said.
"People exchange files. Not so common as they used
to be, now that the phone system keeps crashing. But
FAPA is still going," Sherrine said.
"I was in line for full membership in the Cult
until I had to drop for missing deadlines," Fang
said. "But Bruce is-—"
And disks are harder to get," Mike said. "But I
still manage to publish File 880. . . "
"He's won twelve Hugos," Fang said.
For one glorious minute I thought I understood
them-—
Crazy Eddie raised his hand and waved it. "I've
got an idea."
Bruce looked worried, but nodded at him. "The
Chair recognizes Eddie Two Bats."
Crazy Eddie stood and looked across his blade-like
nose. "There are still technophiles in Southern
California," he said. "Enclaves clustered around the
old, defunct aerospace centers. I say we take the
Angels there."
There were nods of agreement. "Makes sense," said
Steve. "Angels would be welcomed there. Some
places."
"That's right, you still live down there," Fang
said. "Do you ever get to the Denny's on-—"
Bruce tapped his ring on the desk. "Edward Two
Bats has the floor."
"I bet it would work!" Sherrine said.
Crazy Eddie nodded vigorously. "Damned straight!
Then, after building our strength, we stage a coup!
Take over in Sacramento, install the Angels as
symbolic governors, and devote the State's resources
to building a space shuttle to take them home
again."
"So the question is how to get them to
California," Bruce said.
"The Angels have to go underground," Fang said.
"Work off the books. Doesn't pay so well as out
front, but with no taxes you keep more, and nobody
checks ID and credit cards." He and Thor exchanged
glances. "It ain't so bad."
For a moment Alex felt panic. Then he realized
that they took the good parts of Crazy Eddie's ideas
and simply ignored the rest. And we don't have many
choices anyway. "You're used to living underground,"
Sherrine said. "They're not. Look at them! No, I'll
do something-—"
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago," Mike
said carefully. "Last month, but I think the boy's
still hanging from the old Water Tower. Of course
you know that."
"That was Flash. Flash couldn't resist letting his
friends know what he did. So I'm more careful,
that's all," Sherrine said.
"No, we can't let you risk that," Alex said. " I
mean-—"
"Work underground, off books," Mike said. "Great.
What can you do?"
Alex grunted. "I fly spaceships."
Bruce grinned. "Right. We'll send out your resume.
But what did you do between flights?"
"I write poetry," Gordon said. "I would like to
write science fiction."
"So would everyone here," Steve said. "Do you know
how many people make a living writing science
fiction? There weren't thirty in the whole country,
at peak. Now, none."
"There's Harry Bean-—" someone said.
"He's a whore. He writes for the Greens," Bruce
said. "Odd jobs. Alex? What can you do besides fly
ships?"
"Construction engineer." He looked at his
emaciated limbs. "And if Steve's right, I'll be able
to do that again in about nine years."
"He is also teacher," Gordon said.
 "Kindergarten. I was a day-care father," Alex
admitted. The main advantage of the truth was that
you didn't have to remember a lot of details. There
were other advantages, too, he supposed.
Sherrine looked at him closely. Now she knows.
Thor shook his head. "Too bad. They do background
checks on day-care workers, ever since the witch
hunts. Even the centers who pay 'off the books' have
to be careful. Lot of work for Sherrine, and you
sure can't do that until she sets it up."
In the lengthy silence that followed, everyone
looked at each other, but no one said anything.
Finally Sherrine sighed.
"I'm not sure I can do it," she said. "Thor's
right, they're paranoid about child molesters. I'd
have to build you a whole history, everything,
traffic tickets, education-—Look, it won't work. We
can't fit them in, and we can't hide them." Fan and
Thor started to object, but Sherrine overrode them.
"We've just been over that. Short term, sure; but
sooner or later they'd be discovered. No, there's
only one option, and it took Crazy Eddie to find it.
We've got to find a way to get them back into
space."
"We?" said Bruce.
"Sure, Fandom!"
Mike beamed. "Of course. We'll get them high with
illegal droogs."
 CHAPTER SEVEN

"Black Powder and Alcohol . . ."

"You're going to send us back to space," Alex
said.
"Perhaps I don't wish to go," Gordon said.
"Shut up. Look, with all great respect, how do you
propose to do this? As far as I know, the only
rockets left on Earth are military missiles." And I
can't see sticking one up my arse and riding it out-
—
"Exactly! We hide out until we build strength and
take over in Sacramento. Then-—"
"There's a Saturn Five in Houston." Fang asked,
"Will that do?"
Alex blinked and tried to sit up. "Saturn? Damn
right." With a Saturn we could reach the moon. But-—
I didn't know there were any left."
"There aren't," Bruce said. "NASA took a full man-
rated Saturn and laid it down as a monument. Alex,
that bird will never fly again."
"Oh."
"It's right in front of the old Manned Space
Center," Mike said. "Leetle hard to work on without
attracting attention."
"Could steal it," Crazy Eddie said.
 Bruce closed his eyes. "Steal it, Eddie? Do you
know how big those suckers were?"
"Three hundred and sixty three feet high. Weighed
three kilotons."
Bruce spoke patiently. "And you say we should
steal it?"
"If we could round up enough pickup trucks," Eddie
Two Bats said thoughtfully. "Of course it will be
hard to stand it up again. I think we need an
engineer."
"I see how it works," Alex said quietly to
Sherrine.
"How?"
"It's Crazy Eddie's job to come up with nutty
ideas, and Bruce's job to chop him down. Do any of
Eddie's notions ever work?"
She shrugged.
"I could cry."
She frowned. "Over Crazy Eddie?"
"No, the rocket. The Saturn Five was the most
powerful rocket ever built-—Sherrine, it was the
most powerful machine ever made!"
"A fire in the sky," she said. "I know the song."
"And now it's a lawn ornament."
"I'm sorry," she said. "Monument! They didn't want
competition for the shuttle. They even tried to burn
the blueprints-—"
"It wasn't your fault."
"I know that, but I'm sorry. Sorry that anyone
could ever have been so stupid. And that was NASA!
We gave the space program to NASA, and they, and . .
. Damn."
"Does anyone else have an idea?" Bruce asked. "No?
Then we carry on as before. The fewer who know about
the Angels, the safer they'll be. Don't tell anyone
without consulting me. The cover is that they're
closet fans from North Dakota, people Fang and Thor
have known for years. All agreed? Good. So ordered.
Do I hear a motion to adjourn? Meeting is adjourned.
Next meeting is in Hawkeye's room about nine. Now
it's time to enjoy the convention."
* * *
The room had perhaps been a small ballroom when
the house was new. Now it looked crowded despite its
size. There were windows along one wall, with
couches under them. The window sills were covered
with brick-a-brack, photos of people in odd
costumes, strangely painted coffee mugs, vases that
held improbable plants. That fur rug, patterned in
yellow and orange, was neither the shape nor the
colors of any of Earth's life forms. A grand piano
stood down at one end of the room. It was covered
with photographs and paintings and drawings and
plastic objects. Books lined two of the walls, and
the spaces between the large archways set into the
fourth wall.
A large bear of a man with a sunburst of hair
encircling his face stood next to the grand piano,
one hand resting on it. He was making a speech, and
his free hand waved in time with his words. Other
people were talking, too, which seemed impolite.
The man stopped in midsentence when Sherrine and
Thor wheeled the Angels into the room. People looked
around and opened a path, some of those on the floor
moving aside, some standing to move chairs, until
Alex and Gordon were moved right up front near the
speaker. The others moved back again. It looked
choreographed.
"See you," Thor said. He seemed in a hurry to
leave.
The speaker was in no hurry at all. He struck a
pose, as if waiting for something.
 Ritual? Alex wondered. Whatever. Pavana mukthvsan
could be practiced as easily in a wheelchair as
elsewhere. Alex used both hands to bend his right
leg and tuck it into his crotch against the pubic
bone. Then he folded his left leg and laid it atop
the right. He made circles of his thumbs and index
fingers and rested his hands on his knees. He
breathed in slowly through his left nostril,
repeating the syllable yam six times. He wondered
when Steve would graduate him to siddhasan, or even
padmasan. Anything was better than the savasam
"corpse position" he had practiced in the van during
the ride across Minnesota. He hadn't known that
relaxing was such hard work; but according to Steve,
the first order of business was to make his muscles
stop fighting the gravity.
Gregor Lutenist cleared his throat. "The Thirty-
Sixth Ice Age," he said formally. His voice was
strong, easily heard throughout the room.
Alex breathed in. Yam, he thought to himself.
Yammm.
"We live in an ice age-—" began Gregory Lutenist.
When he got to the words "ice age" three people had
joined him, speaking in unison with him. Then came a
voice from the crowd: "No shit!"
"-—and we always have," he continued,
imperturbably adjusting his glasses. "During the
last seven hundred thousand years there have been
eight cycles of cooling and warming. The glaciers
retreat, but always they come back; and the warm,
interglacial interludes last for only about ten
thousand years. Since Ice Age Thirty-Five ended
fourteen thousand years ago, the next one must have
started four thousand years ago. Most of human
history has been lived in an ice age. So why did no
one notice?"
"It was too warm!" someone suggested.
 Lutenist beamed at him. "Just so. It's hard to
convince a man in Bermuda shorts that he's living in
an ice age. But consider the halcyon, interglacial
world of 4500 BC!" He waved a forefinger in the air.
"In Scandinavia the tree line was above 8000
feet." Three voices again joined him, speaking in
unison, as Lutenist continued. "And deciduous trees
grew all the way to the Arctic circle. The Sahara
was a rain-watered, grassy savannah crossed by
mighty rivers and even mightier hunters. We remember
that age dimly as a Garden in Eden." Lutenist paused
and removed his glasses. He polished the lenses and
set them back upon his nose. He paused, sighed, and
said, slowly, so that everyone in the room could
join in, "But then the sun went out."
Gordon looked to Alex. "Shto govorit"? The man is
mad, the sun has not gone out."
Lutenist beamed at Gordon. "Ah-—"
"Fresh meat!" someone yelled.
"Tell me, my young friend," Lutenist said. "What
lights up the sun?"
"Is trick? Fusion. Hydrogen to helium."
"And when the fusion ends, what then?" Lutenist
asked.
"Uh-—but how can fusion end? There is plenty of
hydrogen."
"But it did end," Lutenist said. "And no one
noticed." Bob Needleton stuck his head in between
Alex and Gordon. "Where have all the neutrinos gone?
Long time passing . . ." He gave Sherrine a quick
kiss on the neck.
"Hi, Pins," Alex said. "Welcome back."
"I didn't want to miss Greg's spiel." Bob cupped
his hands around his mouth. "There'll be a neutrino
scavenger hunt tonight after the program," he
announced. "Bring your snipe bags and your Chlorine-
37 tanks." The audience responded with boos and
catcalls. Lutenist waved to him and Bob waved back.
"Hi, Greg. Still thumping the same old drum, I see."
"Excuse me," Gordon said, "but what means spiel
about neutrinos?"
Bob pulled a chair up and set it beside Sherrine
between the two wheelchairs. He straddled it
backwards. "It's simple really."
Alex braced himself. When a physicist says, "it's
simple," it usually meant it was time to duck.
"You see, when two protons fuse into a deuterium
nucleus they yield a neutrino. There are two ways
that can happen, but. . . Well, the details don't
matter. Sometimes the deuterium hip-hops through
beryllium into lithium and spits out another
neutrino, and there are a couple of other reactions
that also produce neutrinos; but that's about the
gist of it. Fusion spits neutrinos. Get it?"
Gordon looked puzzled. "I get. So?"
Bob held his hands out palms up. "The problem is
we never found the neutrinos. A Chlorine-37 detector
should register a neutrino flux of eight snew, but
all they ever get is two snew."
Gordon's frown deepened. "What's 'snew'?"
Sherrine hid her face in her hands. Bob said, "I
dunno, not much. What's snew with you?"
"Thank you for sharing that with us-—"
"Sorry, I've never been able to resist that one.
Snew is SNU, Solar Neutrino Units. One snew is one
neutrino event per 1036 atoms per second."
There was a commotion at the other end of the
room. A dozen fans, maybe more, came in. "Is this
the pro party?"
Lutenist said. "I'm not through."
A large man in a bush jacket waved a salute with a
bottle beer. "Go right ahead, Greg. Don't mind us."
"What's up?" Lutenist demanded.
The man shruged "Con Committee said to come here,
this will be the 'Meet the Pros' party."
"Aw crap," Lutenist said. "This is my lecture!"
"What's to lecture?" Needleton demanded. "It was
all simple, and known before 1980. The sun is not
producing enough neutrinos. Ergo, it is not fusing.
Yet, according to the technetium levels in deep
molybdenum mines there were plenty of neutrinos
passing through the Earth during interglacial and
preglacial periods."
"Excuse me, Bob," said Gregory Lutenist, "are you
leading this discussion or am I?"
Bob waved a hand. "Sorry, Greg. Go ahead." In a
near-whisper, "Gordon, it's a cycle. Fusion stops,
the sun cools a bit, shrinks a bit, the core gets
denser and hotter, fusion starts again, the new
warmth inflates the sun. See? Is that a relief, or
what?"
"Maunder Minimum!" someone shouted.
Lutenist beamed. "The sun goes through sunspot
cycles. Lots of sunspots, it gets warm here. Few
sunspots, colder weather. An astronomer named
Maunder recorded sunspots and found that the last
time there weren't any the planet went through what
was known as the Little Ice Age, the Maunder
Minimum." He paused dramatically. "And in the 1980s
it became certain that the planet was going into a
new Maunder Minimum period."
"Yes, yes, we know this," Gordon said. "Sunspots
are important to us. But if so important to Earth,
why do they not know cold is coming?"
"Bastards did," the man in the bush jacket
growled. "But they said Global Warming."
"Grants," Bob said. "There's money in climate
studies. All the Ph.D. theses. All that would go if
things were so simple-—"
A short blond woman, slender by local standards,
came in with a large tray. She carried it up to the
piano as if thinking to set it down there, looked at
the clutter, turned helplessly-— "Ah. You're Gabe?"
He smiled and nodded. She said, "Laurie. Hold this
while we get a table." She set the tray across the
arms of his wheelchair and was gone.
It was covered with small dishes, each with a
couple of slices of vegetables. Cucumber, carrot, a
bit of lettuce, some cabbage. A stalk of broccoli.
Alex felt his mouth begin to water. Fresh
vegetables! Of course the people here would be used
to them-—
Bob Needleton stopped talking about neutrinos and
stared at the tray. He gave a long, low whistle.
"Dibs on a carrot stick!"
Gregory Lutenist said, "Broccoli for me. Now. It
is important to realize that the sun has always
burned hotter or cooler during different eras of our
planet's history. Greenhouse or Icehouse."
A fan spoke up. "Carrot for me, too. The dinosaurs
lived during a greenhouse era, didn't they?"
A voice spoke from the doorway. "Pros get first
choice. This is the Meet the Readers Party, right?"
Lutenist nodded as if there had been no
interruption. "Dinosaurs, and the Great Mammals,
too. In fact, prior to the Pleistocene the world was
quite warm. Hippopotami wallowed in the Thames."
He paused a moment. When he continued, half a
dozen voices spoke in unison with him. "Then, in the
blink of a geological eye, they were replaced by
polar bears."
Lutenist beamed.
Alex looked to Sherrine. "What-—"
 She laughed. "Some of us have heard Gregory
before."
Cucumbers, celery, carrots, luxuries beyond his
wildest dreams were cradled in Alex's arms. He
couldn't eat; he had to share this with the whole
room; and he couldn't get his hands on any of it
without dropping the tray. Little dark red spheres,
little bright red spheres with white inside, were
displayed on big green leaves. Where were they with
that damn table?
Badges were showing on various chests. Here were
tiny oil paintings of alien creatures and landscapes
and starscapes, or wheel-shaped and band-shaped
artificial habitats infinitely more sophisticated
than Mir and Freedom. A few badges bore angular
cartoon faces and elegant calligraphy: CLOSET
MUNDANE. KNOWS HARLAN ELLISON (evil smirk. HAS READ
MUCH OF DHALGREN (bewilderment).
Lutenist continued. "Human history is so short
that, living between the hippopotamus and the polar
bear, we thought those conditions were 'normal.'
"After the sun went out, the interglacial ended
and the world grew colder and drier. The Saraha
rivers dried up, one by one, until only the Nile was
left. By 1500 BC, the Scandinavian tree line had
dropped to six thousand feet, and broad-leaf trees
had disappeared from the Arctic.
"The weather changed. The North African coast was
the breadbasket of the Roman Empire. It began to dry
up. Great migrations began, Huns, Arabs, Navajos,
Mongols. There were Viking colonies on Greenland,
but the Greenland Glacier began to move south, until
it covered them all."
"Tell you another one," the man in the bush jacket
said.
"Go ahead, Wade," Lutenist said.
 Sherrine looked around. "Wade Curtis. A pro."
"Writer?" Gordon asked. She nodded.
Curtis's voice boomed even in the large room. "In
the American Revolutionary War, Colonel Alexander
Hamilton brought cannon captured by Ethan Allen at
Ticonderoga down to assist General Washington in
Haarlem Heights. He brought them across the ice on
the frozen Hudson River. By the twentieth century,
the Hudson didn't freeze at all, let alone hard
enough to carry cannon on!"
Lutenist smiled agreement. "Right! The Little Ice
Age was coming to an end! In fact, a warming trend
had started around 1200, and lasted for eight
centuries. Anyone know why?"
"Hey, let's eat!" someone called.
"Let him finish," Curtis growled. He drained his
beer. A bearded man behind him silently handed him
another.
Lutenist stabbed a hand into the air. "Why?"
Someone in the audience responded. "Because a
farmer doesn't give up his land."
"That's right, Beth. Farmers! Hunters run, which
is what our ancestors did during the Thirty-Fifth
Ice Age. But the five hundred million settled and
civilized humans of the thirteenth century were not
going to pull up stakes and move elsewhere. London,
Copenhagen, even Moscow were too valuable to
abandon. So what did they do?" He used and stared
around the audience.
Several responded in unison. "They threw another
log on the fire!"
Lutenist beamed. "Exactly! They fought the cold
with heat, soot and CO2. Air pollution!"
"Smudge pots," Curtis growled.
Right, Lutenist shouted. "Smudge pots! Greenhouse
effect!"
"Pollution, poll-ooo-tion," someone sang.
Everyone shouted. "Jenny! And Harry!"
"The moonbeam's here!"
Alex painfully twisted around to see. The two
people who came in through the archway were matched
in clothes and height, but in nothing else. The man
was enormous, broad of shoulders, large of chest,
and much larger of belly. He wore a battered slouch
hat, and an oil-stained denim jacket. His boots
clumped on the floor. Over one shoulder was slung a
huge guitar case. In his hands he carried two nylon
bags that clinked as he walked. He set the bags down
and opened one, took out a jar, opened it and sipped
at the clear liquid. "Finest corn squeezin's Kansas
ever produced!" He handed the jar to Curtis.
The woman called Jenny was as tall as Harry, but
thin. Her skin might have been leather. Her hair was
long and straight, and dead silver-gray. The eyes
burned brightly out of the wrinkles. She carried a
guitar, but she wasn't playing it. "Don't drink the
water, and don't breathe the air!" she sang.
Mike got up from his place on the floor. "We'd
given upon you two," he said.
"Bike broke down in Wyoming," Jenny said. "Had to
sing for our suppers. Some things you can't sing,
though . . ."
Harry struck a chord. "It's minus ten and
counting, and time is passing fast, it's minus ten
and counting-—"
"O God, don't," Curtis said. The room was still
for a moment.
"Yeah," Jenny said. "And you can't sing 'A Fire in
the Sky'-—"
An older man went over to her and eyed her
belligerently. "I know you. Jenny Trout."
 "We do NOT use real names," Jenny said.
"You're a goddamned feminist," the man insisted.
"What the hell are you doing here-—"
He was interrupted by Wade Curtis, who roared with
laughter. "Adams, you know Jenny! Sure, the
feminists won, they're running the government along
with-—God almighty. But think about it, she's too
damn much anarchist to be inside the government! Any
government. Even a Green-Feminist government."
"I'm no goddam Green," Jenny said.
"Sorry." Curtis actually sounded apologetic.
"Anyway-—"
"Anyway, Adams," Harry said, "she knows who her
friends are. So do I. Have a jug of corn. Real
moonbeams."
"Jenny likes to feel wanted," Fang said. "She's
not comfortable unless she's wanted by the law."
Jenny grinned, and sang,

"Wanted fan in Luna City, wanted fan on Dune and

Down,
Wanted fan at Ophiuchus, wanted fan in Dydeetown.
All across the sky they want me, am I flattered?
Yes I am!
If I could just reach orbit, then I'd be a wanted
fan."

". . . and in the midst of the Thirty-Sixth Ice

Age, we were lighting global smudge pots. Wood-
burning during the Middle Ages was so intensive that
the forests of Europe were actually smaller than in
the twentieth century. Coalburning, which began in
the fifteenth century, saved the forests and put
even more gunk into the air. By the late nineteenth
century, most homes were heated by coal furnaces."
Lutenist paused and rubbed his hands together, as if
imagining heat vents and radiators.
A line had formed. Veggies disappeared as they
moved past Alex. Almost everyone who passed put
something in Alex's mouth. Dark red was miniature
tomatoes; Alex feared the implications. The red-and-
white spheroid burned.
Jenny sang,

"Wanted fan for mining coal and wanted fan

for drilling oil,
I went very fast through Portland, hunted
hard like Gully Foyle.
Built reactors in Seattle against every
man's advice,
Couldn't do that in Alaska, Fonda says it
isn't nice."

"Nice touch, Jenny. They'll be expecting you to

rhyme it with 'ice.' "
"You don't really think the nukes could have saved
Alaska, do you Jenny?"
Alaska had been beneath the Ice for fifteen years.
". . . Then, beginning in the 1950s, we began to
clean up our environment. Household coal furnaces
gave way to centralized electric heating; and
pollution was confined to the power plant areas,
instead of belching from every chimney in the city.
The famous pea-soup fogs of London disappeared."
Lutenist smiled wanly. "But so did the warm, rainy
British winters. Heavy winters became the norm. In
1984 and '85 several campers froze to death when a
blizzard struck the Riviera. Atlanta, Georgia, had a
week of zero temperatures. Winter snow became common
in the southlands. Meanwhile, the Sahara resumed its
southward march and Ukrainian grain harvests became
less and less reliable. Raindrops need tiny
particles around which to condense. So, when you
eliminate air pollution, what happens?"
"Less rain!" cried the audience.
"And less cloud cover means the ground loses heat
faster. And that means?"
"The Great Ice!"
"Ice day is a'comin'," Jenny and Harry sang
softly. "Hey sinner man, where you gonna run to-—"
It made a nice background, now, for Gregory's
litany.
"Yes, my friends." Lutenist was walking back and
forth in front of the piano. "The elimination of air
pollution did not start with the Greens. It started
with the Big Power Companies back in the fifties-—as
a by-product of their program of clean, centralized
electrical power generation. But it accelerated with
the environmentalist movement. Soon, we were not
allowed to burn the leaves we raked off our yards.
We had to bag them, in plastic bags, of course! And
have them hauled away by trucks to landfills
hundreds of miles away. The Green Laws became more
and more stringent at the same time that interest in
and support for science was waning-—not a
coincidence, I might add. Even today, with the Great
Ice and the Sahara both sliding south, we are not
allowed to throw another log on the fire!"
"Damned good thing!" Jenny Trout shouted.
Everyone looked at her.
"It's got to fall," she said. "All the way. We
don't like this world we made! Bring it down! Bring
it down!"
Harry had taken out his guitar. He struck a chord.
"Black powder and alcohol, when your states and
cities fall, when your back's against the wall-—"
Alex shuddered.
 CHAPTER EIGHT

". . . Someone's Daydream"

The Phantom of the Paradise leaped out of the TV
screen, as the audience, as always, made helpful
comments. Sherrine pretended to watch as her
thoughts leaped more wildly than the masked phantom.
Sending the Angels home wouldn't be simple even if
they had a ship. Some of it she could do. With Bob
to analyze the ballistics she ought to be able to
write the code. Some would be tougher. Fuel. They'd
have to steal that.
First things first. Without a ship, everything
else was moot.
Bob came into the lounge. Had he followed her?
When he waved at her and headed in her direction,
she sighed.
He was wearing his Rotsler badge. A cartoon face
studied the SS ROBERT K. NEEDLETON and thought,
"Pretentious." The sharp nose partly covered the
letters. Bob dropped beside her on the sofa, just
close enough to be within her personal space, and
put an arm on the back of the sofa behind her. He
leaned close to her ear. "Any ideas yet?"
He certainly had ideas. A couple of fen sitting
nearby grinned at her. Oh, Ghu! she thought. After
tonight, everyone will think we're back together.
 To some men, "no" meant "maybe" and "maybe" meant
"yes." She hadn't seen Bob in two months; now she
couldn't get rid of him. He was cheerfully
impervious to her rebuffs; as if he were not
programmed to accept the data. Like Halley's Comet,
no matter how shaken up he was at each encounter, he
kept coming back. Only he didn't wait seventy-six
years.
Not that he was unattractive. He had been among
her better lovers, back in the days when she hung
out with the spa set. And maybe she only needed to
get used to him again. He had known how to do things
in a hot tub that . . . For that matter, he knew how
to talk with a woman, not simply at her. He had been
as interested in hearing about her computer work-—
about LISP and LAN's and baud rates-—as he was in
telling her about his physics. There was only one
thing he seemed incapable of understanding.
And that was endings.
Bob was a romantic. Most men were. They thought
that a relationship had a beginning and a middle,
but no end. Danny, the time traveler in The Man Who
Folded Himself, had made that mistake. He kept going
back and going back, trying to rekindle the romance
with Donna; until finally he had kindled disgust and
revulsion in her. The secret was to quit while you
were at the top go out like a champion and not fade
into an object of pity like a has-been fighter who
couldn't quit the ring.
She didn't want that to happen between her and
Bob. She liked him too much. So keep it neutral.
Keep it professional.
"You know, that Gordon is kind of cute," she said.
And how was that for a neutral, professional remark?
His arm made an aborted move toward her shoulder.
"Oh?"
"Yes." She spoke in a whisper. "Not just his
background-—a space pilot, by Ghu!-—but the way he
looks. His facial bones and his little potbelly. And
his puppy-dog eyes. He always seems so sad and
withdrawn, it makes me want to cuddle him and cheer
him up."
"Umm. I'm feeling a little sad and withdrawn
myself," Bob said hopefully.
She slapped him backfingered on the arm. "Oh, you
know what I mean. He seems so lonely, cut off
forever from his home and his friends."
"It was his fault they were marooned, you know."
"What?" She had raised her voice slightly and
someone sitting in a nearby chair shushed her. She
lowered her voice and leaned closer to Bob. Bob
helped her do that. "What do you mean?"
"He told me so himself." Bob whispered into her
ear as if they were necking; and she flashed back to
three nights ago, when he had woken her from the
sleep of the innocent to recruit her into the Rescue
Party. A good cover, he had said, in case anyone was
listening. Yeah, a damned good cover. He probably
thought of it himself. "This morning, when I brought
them breakfast . . . Doc had taken 'Gabe' into the
washroom to, uh, well, help him . . . you know."
"Yeah. Go on."
"Well, once we were alone, the kid let it all
spill out. It seems that during the missile attack,
he shouted out a warning in Russian and Alex didn't
understand until too late; and that's why they were
hit."
"Oh, no! It must be terrible to have to live with
that."
Bob shrugged. "He's young. He'll get over it.
That's the wonderful thing about being young. The
point is, the kid-—"
She never learned what Bob's point was. Chuck
Umber burst into the room waving a folded-up
newspaper in the air. "Angels down!" he announced
and flipped the lights on. "A scoopship went down on
the Ice yesterday!" He shut off the VCR player.
"Hey!" someone shouted. "Turn the Phantom back
on."
"No, wait! Look at this." Chuck opened the paper
to the front page and held it up. AIR THIEVES CRASH
ON ICE, screamed the headline. He had a bundle of
newspapers under his arm and began passing them out.
A storm of voices greeted him. "What? Where?"
"How'd it happen?" "Are the Angels okay?" "How come
we're just hearing about it?" "Turn the Phantom back
on."
Bob leaned into her ear. "That tears it," he
whispered. "How long before someone figures things
out?" Sherrine grabbed a copy of the paper from
Chuck as he went by and flipped it open. She and Bob
huddled over it. She scanned the story quickly, as
much to learn what hadn't been said as to learn what
had. It wouldn't do to show too much familiarity
with the story.
The newspaper report was reasonably
straightforward, a bit long on loaded adjectives and
short on detail, but not much worse than the usual
news. There was no mention of what had happened to
the Angels. A sidebar, entitled DEATH RAYS FROM
OUTER SPACE, told of "beams of deadly microwaves
aimed at the search parties" and cautioned the
reader that "microwaves are a form of radiation,
which causes cancer."
Sherrine pointed. "Nice placement on the comma."
Bob just shook his head. "You'd think they'd know
the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing
radiation. They can't tell one type of asbestos from
the other, either."
 "Why do you think they don't know the difference?"
He looked at her for a moment. Then he grunted,
"You're a worse pessimist than I am," and turned
back to the reading. "The 'danes really think the
microwaves were aimed at the search parties," he
said. "They don't see it as a decoy maneuver."
A shadow fell across the paper. "What makes you
think the microwaves were decoys?"
Sherrine looked up and saw Chuck Umber. Bob opened
his mouth to speak and thought better of it.
Sherrine said, "Just listen, Chuck." She shook the
paper and folded it. " 'As is so often the case when
people rely on computers, none of the death rays
actually struck the search parties.' " She gave
Chuck a twisted smile. "Chuck, they tell the public
that computers are unreliable-—"
"Trust the Farce, Luke," Bob interjected.
"-—but do you swallow that? If the Angels didn't
hit anyone, it means they weren't aiming at anyone.
Can you think of any other reason why they'd divert
part of the power beam from Winnipeg?"
Chuck pursed his lips and presently nodded. "If
the targeting system snafued . . . No, you're
probably right. The microwaves were meant to hide
the scoopship's IR footprint. Damnation!" He ground
one fist into his palm. "I wish some of us had been
there. We'd've gotten the Angels off the Ice before
the Government grabbed 'em."
It was a moment before Sherrine found her voice.
"Yeah, Chuck. Too bad." She ducked back behind the
newspaper.
More people were pouring into the lounge. Dick
Wolfson ejected the video cartridge and turned on
the all-news channel. "C'mon," someone cried, "it
was just getting to the good part, where Beef gets
electrocuted." Sherrine thought it must be Dennis,
the comics artist who had created The Niki Birds. It
was said that you could play a contraband copy of
The Phantom of the Paradise anywhere in the country
and Dennis would be there in time for the ending.
"Settle down, everyone!" roared a bull voice.
"Let's hear what the 'danes have to say."
The lounge quieted as the fans concentrated on the
tube. The impeccably groomed newsreader recited
several items of war news. Swedish marines had
forced a landing on the Pomeranian coast; but their
Russo-Lithuanian allies had suffered a stunning
defeat at Ukranian hands. No one had used nukes,
yet; but the world was holding its breath.
Must be near the beginning of the headline cycle,
Sherrine thought. She felt mildly offended that the
Angels were not the top story. Let's get to the
Angels. When the next story turned out to be a
presidential photo opportunity, she almost screamed.
Finally, the screen displayed a shot of Piranha
embedded in the ice. "This update on the forced
landing of the air scooper from the space habitats.
Scoopships are built to steal air from the Earth and
take it to the space stations. Many experts blame
the cold weather we are having on the loss of this
air. Air Defense forced the latest scoopship to land
in North Dakota."
The scene moved past the anchorman to a long shot
of the glacier looking down the landing path toward
the ship. "Experts now believe that the spacemen
escaped from the glacier using inappropriate
technology."
Bob snorted. "Inappropriate? It worked!"
"Hush, and listen," said Sherrine.
". . . the efforts of the space stations to stop
the search with death rays. Meanwhile, the public
should be on the lookout for possibly two illegal
aliens believed to be on the loose."
Sherrine blinked at the artist's conception of
spacemen. The spectrally thin creatures in the
sketch looked like famine victims who had been
stretched upon a rack. Someone in the room
snickered. Others applauded.
"The aliens are believed to be very tall because
of the unnatural environment they live in. But,
because they live in zero gravity-—"
"Free fall, damn it; not zero gravity!" That
sounded like Wade Curtis.
"-—must be extremely strong, as well . . ."
Onscreen, stock footage from the construction of
SUNSAT showed an astronaut handling an enormous
solar collector panel. ". . . so citizens are
advised to be cautious."
Sherrine did not know who was advising the
government searchers, but they could not have helped
the Angels more if they had tried. The exaggerated
height and leanness, the misinterpretation of the
effect of free fall on body strength . . .
The ruling coalition of proxmires, rifkins,
falwells and maclaines scorned "the materialist
science story." As if there were another kind of
science; as if it were some thing invented, like
myth, to be discarded when a better 'story' came
along. It was hardly surprising that the government
had not sought out scientific opinion.
Or had they? Hah! What if they'd asked a closet
fan? For that matter the scientists themselves, the
pariahs of academe, might not volunteer to educate
the very people who shunned them. Sometimes you want
an opponent to go on sounding like a fool.
S-s-sooo . . . She grinned and hugged Bob, who
seemed surprised and not unpleased. Why, the Angels
were nearly home free! If people were looking for
emaciated supermen, they wouldn't look twice at Gabe
and Rafe.
Harry and Jenny began a song.

"In a tower of flame in Capsule Twelve,

I was there.
I know not where they laid my bones,
it could be anywhere,
but when fire and smoke had faded,
the darkness left my sight,
I found my soul in a spaceship's soul
riding home on a trail of light.

"For my wings are made of tungsten,

and my flesh is glass and steel,
I am the joy of Terra for the power that I
wield.
Once upon a lifetime, I died a pioneer,
Now I sing within a spaceship's heart,
Does anybody hear?"

"Anyone having knowledge of the whereabouts of the

air pirates should call the police. Do not approach
them, they are armed and dangerous."
"We have to do something." A man's voice. Crying.
"What?"
"I don't know, I don't know, but we have to do
something-—"
"It's too late, by twenty years."

"My thunder rends the morning sky,

yes, I am here.
The loss to flame when I was man,
now I ride her without fear,
for I am more than man now,
 and man built me with pride,
I led the way and I lead the way
to man's future in the sky.

"For my wings are made of tungsten,

my flesh of glass and steel,
I am the joy of Terra for the power that I
wield.
Once upon a lifetime, I died a pioneer,
Now I sing within a spaceship's heart,
Does anybody hear? Does anybody hear?"

The song faded out, and the room was quiet, except
for Curtis, who stared at the wall and muttered over
and over, "God damn them. We were so near. God damn
them all."

The room spouted a geyser of talk when the

newsreader finished. Most of the fen chattered
excitedly to each other; but Sherrine noticed a few
thoughtful faces. Chuck Umber was busily scribbling
in a pocket notebook. Wade Curtis was sunk into
himself, elbows on knees and chin in hands, mouth
slack, eyes hooded . . . eyes touched Sherrine's,
wandered away, wandered back. . .
Drunk. Can't say I blame him.
"Come on," said Bob, rising from the sofa and
tugging her arm. "We've got to tell the others."
She pulled him back down. "I think they already
know. Quiet. I want to hear what gets said here."
"This crowd? Why?"
"Ideas. That's what fen are for."
Someone in the room spoke through the din. "What
are we going to do about it?"
The chatter died down. "Do? What can we do?"
 Chuck Umber took center stage. "Look," he said,
"the 'danes say that the Angels escaped. Well, they
sure didn't escape on their own. They had to have
had help. We've got to find out who's got them and
offer to help."
"Maybe the Eskimos have them," Horowitz suggested.
"The paper says that there were tracks around the
scooper. "
"It doesn't matter," Chuck replied. "Well find out
who has them, sooner or later."
Bob tried to sink down lower in the sofa.
Sherrine's pressure on his elbow stopped him.
"Maybe we shouldn't try to contact them, Chuck,"
said Dick Wolfson. "Whoever's got the Angels might
have to hide them for a long time. The fewer people
who know who and where, the better."
Chuck shook his head. "Not when the people are
fen. I'm going to try and reach the Oregon Ghost. He
must know something."
"Sure, Chuck. The Ghost runs his own fanzine. You
think he'd let a competitor in on whatever scoop he
has?"
Chuck stood up taller. "He will. Because this is
the-—biggest thing to hit fandom since Star Wars . .
. or Apollo Thirteen. We've, got to transcend
factions and feuds and pull together."
Harry and Jenny had started a song, singing softly
as background as the others talked. ". . . and he
knew he might not make it, for it's never hard to
die, but he rode her into history, on a fire in the
sky!"
Wade Curtis uncurled and stretched and said, "They
can't hide them."
There was an instant hush when the writer spoke.
Drunk or sober, the hard science fiction writers
were supposed to know everything. Fans laughed at
them when they made mistakes, but always
listened . . . and Wade Curtis had a voice that
filled every corner.
"Whoever it is, they can't hide the Angels
forever. Think it through. No, there's only one
thing to do, get the Angels back where they belong.
God damn NASA. Where we all belong. God damn them,
they ate the dream. For money. For money. The Angels
belong up there. We have to send them back."
"That's crazy." "No Wades right." "Hell, he's
drunk." "Wouldn't you be?" "But how?" "They'll need
a rocket." "Where can you find a rocket these days?"
Sherrine clenched Bob's upper arm so hard he
winced. Yes! Yes, where can you find a rocket? She
leaned forward, to hear better.
Wade laughed. "The nearest rocket I know of is Ron
Cole's Titan."
Chuck and some of the other older fen laughed,
too. A younger fan spoke up. "What Titan is that?"
Wade flipped a hand. Someone put a drink in it.
"Old fannish legend has it that Ron once cobbled a
Titan Two together from spare parts he bought from
government surplus sales. Cost him less than a
thousand dollars, too. He was on the Board of
Trustees for the Metropolitan Museum of Boston. He
wanted it for an exhibit, of course. The Boston
papers caught him trying to get the motors through
the doors. They ran an article calling him 'the
world's sixth nuclear power.' "
Sherrine clenched and unclenched her fists. But
where is it now? She dared not draw attention to
herself. But a Titan! Titans had lifted the Gemini
capsules into orbit.
Chuck laughed. "I remember that article, Wade.
Boy, was Ron mad! He tried to tell the papers that
he did not have a nuclear warhead; but you know how
'danes are. Rockets equals missiles equals weapons
equals nukes. Sometimes I wonder if Ron didn't go
ahead and build a bomb just for the hell of it. As
long as everyone thought he had one . . . "
"Building a warhead isn't as easy as the 'danes
think. I don't care how many TV movies they show
with terrorists and mad scientists whipping 'em up
in their garage. Uranium hexafloride isn't just
radioactive, it's toxic as hell. Refining U-235 is
not something you can do in your garage; not without
an ample supply of disposable terrorists," Wade said
wistfully.
Chuck ran his fingers through his goatee. "Still,
if anyone could do it, Cole could. He always had
something wonderful in his pocket. A laboratory
opal, a big chunk of artificial sapphire for armor,
a couple of strips of platinum-—"
"Platinum?"
"I never knew why. Some failed project. And once
he typed a guy a check on a sheet of soft gold. The
first check bounced, see-—"
"Not Ron," Wade insisted. "Not a bomb. He knows
better. But I did hear that he squirreled away a
couple of tank cars of RP-1 and LOX. Just in case he
decided to take a trip." He shook his head. "Poor
guy is mad as a hatter these days. They kept booting
him out of one museum after another. Didn't like his
technophile leanings. Is it still paranoia when they
really are out to get you?"
"Where is he now?" asked Wolfson. Sherrine held
her breath.
Wade pursed his lips. "Ron and his Titan wound up
in Chicago at the Museum of Science and Industry.
Don't know where his fuel trucks went, maybe there.
The LOX is long gone anyway, of course, but that's
not so hard to make . . ."
 Sherrine's heart pounded. Chicago! Why, that was
just a short drive across Wisconsin. So close! She
tugged on Bob's arm. "Let's get up to the room.
We've got to tell the others."
* * *
Wade Curtis listened with half an ear while Chuck
and Dick debated the wisdom of searching for the
Angels.
Someone had to know something. Any two people in
the country were connected by a chain of no more
than two intermediate acquaintances. That was
elementary probability. So, he knew someone who knew
someone who knew the people who had the Angels. The
question was who? He knew a lot of someones.
Reason it the other way. Start with the people who
had the Angels. Figure out who they had to
be.Government? Possible . . . but then the
government would be bragging, the ACLU would be
protecting their rights . . .
Inuit? Maybe, but not for long. The Inuits lived a
physical life, and the Angels weren't going to be
ready for that.
Some third group. Someone with medical resources,
because if they didn't have medical resources the
Angels would be dead already. Maybe they were.
Assume they weren't, see where that got you. Like in
playing bridge, decide what it takes to make the
contract; then assume the cards did fall that way,
and go for it.
Probably somebody here in this room knows. So
close! But no, they'd have told me, Wade thought.
No. You're a goddam drunk, and sober you wouldn't
trust a drunk with anything this big. Why should
they?
He was distracted momentarily by two fans winding
their way through the crowd. Bob Needleton, he
recognized. Physicist at U-Minn. The other he
recalled as a fafiated femmefan he had known years
ago. Computer whiz. "What's their big hurry?" he
asked, nodding toward the two.
Dick Wolfson grinned. "If you'd've seen them
earlier, you wouldn't have to ask. I didn't know
Sherrine and Bob were back together. Haven't seen
her in years. "
Dr. Sherrine Hartley, only Hartley wasn't really
her name, it was her first husband's. She'd been
active in fandom once.
"Hunh." Chuck Umber seemed miffed. "There are more
important issues at hand than that."
"Yeah," said another fan. "Like how to let the
Angels know about the Titan."
Wade fell silent while the other fen debated. It
was all moot anyway. Until they knew who had the
Angels and how to contact them there was no point in
composing a message. Someone handed him a drink, and
he swallowed mechanically. Besides-—" It's the wrong
message," he said, but nobody heard.
If the Angels did want to get back upstairs-—and
Wade could not see where they had any other option-—
then it was silly to try setting up Ron Cole's old
terror weapon. There were better ways anyhow. He
narrowed his eyes in thought. Yes, sir. Much better
ways. But his head hurt. Someone handed him another
drink.
* * *
Alex stared at the two-headed creature with the
nubbled lips. Doc had wheeled him upstairs for the
meeting, opened the door, and there it was.
"It" was a smallish skeleton. The heads, set at
the ends of long, flexible necks, were flat and
triangular. Each contained what Alex took for a
mouth and an eye socket. Between the necks was a
thick bulge of bone. The creature stood on three
legs ending in clawed hooves, with the rear leg
attached to the spine by a complex hip joint. There
was a small plaque attached to it.
Alex gripped the wheels of his chair and rolled
himself across the room. He squinted at the plaque.

SIMPSON: RESEARCH AND DESIGN

Contents: ONE MODEL OF PUPPETEER SKELETON

(SPECIMEN A)

THIS MODEL, BASED ON A RARE SPECIMEN TRADED

FROM THE KZIN, SHOWS THE PUPPETEER JUST BEFORE
THE EXTENDED PHASE OF A HIGH-SPEED LOPE . . .

Alex shook his head. He could just imagine the

consternation if, after the fall of civilization,
paleontologists of the future were to unearth this .
. . um . . . sculpture.
"Do you like him?" Doc Waxman wheeled Gordon into
the room and parked him beside Alex. He was a gift
from Speaker-to-Seafood."
Alex thought he should be used to this sort of
thing by now. "Whom?"
"Nat Reynolds, the writer. It's a long story,
involving a drunken conversation with a lobster
Savannah. I'll tell you about it someday." He
whistled cheerfully while he set up a tray with
glasses and an ice bucket. Alex couldn't help
grinning. Doc was the most determinedly cheerful man
he had ever met. He was easily sixty; yet he had not
hesitated to dash out onto the glaciers with the
younger fans, on what might easily have become a
fatal mission-of-mercy for two strangers. You had to
like a man like that.
"You should see my collection . . . Hi, Fang,
Bruce. Come on in. You should see my collection of
fannish art. Or rather, you should have seen it.
Statues, paintings. Worlds of the imagination. Kelly
Freas . . . I have Hraani Interpreter. Bonestell.
Jainschigg's 'Eifelheim' original. Aulisio's 'Mammy
Morgan.' Pat Davis. Her 'Well-springs of Wonder' can
bring tears to my eyes. She's here at the Con, Davis
is. You saw her mermaid costume at the Meet the
Pros?" He shook his head. "A lot of it's gone now;
confiscated at busted cons. Now I only bring one
object with me when I come. We keep the rest hidden
in the bilge."
"What's a bilge?"
You could see the gears adjust in Waxman's head.
"My wife and I live on a houseboat in the Marina.
We've sealed everything into watertight containers
and hid 'em in the, ah, bottom of the boat." He
chortled. "Won't help in a thorough search; but it
discourages the casual pest, now that we're not
supposed to treat the sewage anymore . . . Stop by
when you get the chance and we'll haul some pieces
out to display."
Alex grinned. "How can I turn down such an
invitation?"
"Easy," said Fang opening a can of beer with one
hand. "We're sending you back upstairs, remember? On
a fire in the sky."
Sure, thought Alex. "Have you found a rocket yet?"
Fang scowled at his drink. "No, but . . ."
"But we will," Bruce insisted. "Fen are nothing if
not persistent. There are stories. Rumors. We'll
trace 'em down. One or another's bound to be
authentic. The Ghost may know something."
The others came in by ones and twos. Mike. Edward
Two Bats. Steve was glowing, as if he had just
finished a heavy workout, which Alex thought was
rather likely. Thor was wearing faded jeans, with
his tin whistle protruding from a back pocket. He
had pulled his long, golden hair back into a
ponytail. Not too long ago, Alex knew, such
hairstyles on men were regarded as outré. Now they
were becoming the norm. He wondered if the sudden
advent of long hair and beards during the sixties
had been an instinctive ecological response to the
imminent ice age; like animals growing heavier pelts
just before a severe winter.
"Got it," Mike announced. He searched the
refreshment tray and came up with a wine bottle.
"Got what?" asked Bruce warily.
"A way to get the Angels upstairs."
The others waited. "Well?"
"Bang Bang." He opened the bottle.
Edward Two Bats looked at him. "Bang Bang?" Light
dawned in his ekes. "Oh, no. No."
"Excuse me," said Alex, "but what the hell is Bang
Bang?"
Crazy Eddies hands came up like a fence. "You're
crazy, Mike! Orion is fucking radioactive! The whole
world made a treaty-—"
Mike overrode him. "It's simple. You get a big,
thick metal plate. Real thick. You put an H-bomb
underneath and set it off. Believe me, that sucker
will move." He smiled broadly. Edward Two Bats
snarled.
Alex looked at Bruce. "He's not serious, is he?"
"Before you can come down again," Mike continued,
"you throw another bomb underneath." He held his
hand out, palm down, and jerked it upward in steps.
"Bang, bang, bang. Get the picture?"
Alex got the picture. He liked his earlier idea
about sticking a missile up his ass better. "I think
there may be some difficulties with your plan," he
said.
"Oh, sure. Details." Detail work, Alex could tell,
was not Mike's forté.
Bob and Sherrine arrived, out of breath and
flushed. They paused in the doorway, breathing,
heavily and grinning from ear to ear. "We have a
ship," Bob gasped.
Alex felt a shiver run through him. The others
stiffened. A rocket ship? They'd found one? But a
ship was only half the battle. There was fueling and
guidance and . . . It was madness. So why should he
be shaking?
It was a fragile thing, this imaginary spacecraft,
and Alex feared to touch it. He asked, "What sort of
bird is it? What kind of shape is it in?"
"We overheard Wade Curtis down in the movie
lounge." Sherrine sank into a chair. "Thanks." She
took the tea that Doc handed her. "They were
listening to the news and jabbering about it and ol'
Wade, Ghu bless him, he cut right to the heart of
it. The Angels can't hide out indefinitely. And he
mentioned that Ron Cole had a rocket, and-—"
Bruce snapped his fingers. "Cole! That's right!
There were stories, years and years ago. I didn't
think they were true, though. Isn't he in
Washington, at the Smithsonian?"
Sherrine shook her head. "No. The rocket is at the
Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. And get
this. Wade says Cole has fuel for it!"
They all whooped except Alex. "How much fuel?" he
insisted. "And what kind of bird is it? It won't do
us any good if it just farts on the launch pad."
Sherrine looked at him. "I don't know how much
fuel. Wade said it was a Titan Two. Does it matter?"
 "A Titan?" He exchanged glances with Bob and
Bruce. "Titans were smaller than the Saturns,
weren't they?"
Bob nodded. "A two-stage rocket with a thrust of .
. . well, enough oomph to put a Gemini into orbit. A
Gemini held two men. Freedom's what . . . two
hundred fifty miles up? One of the Geminis reached
seven hundred, didn't it?"
"A Titan Two has more than enough lift," said
Bruce, "if there's enough fuel."
"Meet them halfway," suggested Thor.
"Halfway?" said Alex.
Thor had his tin whistle out and was playing an
imaginary tune with his fingers. "Seems to me that
if we could just get enough fuel to put you on a
decent suborbital, the Angels could rendezvous and
pick you up. What did Sheppard reach in the first
Mercury-Redstone? A hundred fifteen miles or so,
wasn't it? That should be doable from Freedom."
"That's a good idea, Thor," said Sherrine.
The muscular blond smiled. "Baseball," he said.
"Baseball?"
"The Angels can't handle grounders; but I figured
anybody can catch a pop fly."
Mike laughed and shook his head.
"What's so funny?" asked Bruce.
"Certainly not Thor's joke," said Fang.
Mike wiped his eyes. "It just hit me. Freedom
orbits two hundred fifty miles straight up, right?
That's less than the distance from here to Chicago!
We have to travel farther to, get the rocket than we
would travel in the rocket itself."
"There's a little more to it than that," Alex
said. "Velocity matching is tricky."
"It's not the distance," Bob said. "It's the
energy."
Mike sobered instantly. "I know that." He stuffed
his hands in his pants pockets and wandered to the
window. The blinds were open; and, outside, stars
dusted the icy sky. He stared at the twinkling
lights. "I know that," he said softly.
With the pollution gone, the stars were so clear.
You'd think that was the point of the exercise.
Bruce turned to Alex. "How about it? If Cole
doesn't have enough fuel to reach orbit, could the
Angels at least rendezvous with a suborbital?"
"They could," Alex agreed reluctantly, "if it were
high enough and on the right vector. It's trickier
than just flinging it up, and it would cost fuel-—
but yeah. They can do it."
He exchanged glances with Gordon. Would Lonny even
bother: Good ol' Lonny would weigh the cost of the
fuel for the rendezvous versus the benefit of
getting two duds back; and, no matter how you sliced
it, twice zero did not make for a respectable return
on investment.
Gordon looked worried. He was probably imagining
the trip. Arcing up on a nice smooth parabolic
trajectory. Hitting the top. Earth curves away
below, waiting . . . Sorry, we just couldn't afford
to meet you. And then an equally smooth parabolic
trajectory down.
Alex gave him a nod. Don't worry, Gordo. It'll
never come off. So what's to worry? Gordon twitched
a smile.
Mike frowned and half-sat on the window sill. Alex
could see the stars over his shoulder; and damn if
one of them wasn't moving!
Somebody's home, once his own, was tracing a curve
across the lack sky. Navstar? Mir? Freedom herself?
Without an ephemeris, he couldn't tell-— looking up
from Earth's surface disoriented him-—but he was
surprised at how much the sight of it ached.
He would have to go back. Have to. Or die trying.
And no one was going to come and fetch him. So he
would have to do it himself.
He looked at Gordon and saw the hope there. Gordon
couldn't guess how many hurdles remained. Just find
the bird and light it.
All right, he thought. Torch it off and I'll fly
it. I owe it to the kid to take him back.
Bruce scowled. "We're just spinning our wheels
here. We need a plan of action." He ticked points
off on his fingers. "Number One, is the Titan for
real? You know how fannish legends can build. For
all we know, all Cole ever had were the components."
"Could still use those," said Edward Two Bats.
Bruce blinked at him.
"If we have to, we'll assemble the damned thing
ourselves," he explained.
Bruce started to say something, then shrugged.
"Second, we need fuel. Does Ron actually have any,
or is that just story, too? If so, how much of it
does he have and where is it and how do we load it
aboard?"
Thor grinned. He pulled a rubber hose from his
pocket. "Same way we fueled Bob's van."
Alex had a mental picture: Crazy Eddie with a
giant syphon drawing off LOX from a convenient tank.
Don't suck too hard on that hose . . .
"Third," continued Bruce, "we need a launch site
where we can erect the Titan. And fourth, we need to
get the Angels there, fuel the bird, and then light
it off without being noticed or caught by the
authorities."
Crazy Eddie rubbed his hands together. "Piece of
cake," he said.
 * * *
Bed-time exercises, Alex thought. He bent way back
with his arms stretched out above his head so that
his body formed a perfect bow. He could see the
ceiling of the third-floor room he and Gordon shared
in the mansion. His legs felt like rubber. Steve
supported him with a hand beneath his shoulders.
"There, you see?" said Steve. "The muscles are
there. It just takes some getting used to. Even
falling free, you use your muscles to move things
around; you still have to overcome the inertia. The
difference down here is your legs have to learn to
keep your body upright all the time, without
conscious thought."
"If you say so," Alex responded.
"Think of it as bench-pressing one hundred eighty
pounds all day long."
"Piece of cake." Alex suddenly realized that Steve
was not supporting his shoulders anymore. He wobbled
and semaphored with his arms.
"Steady," said Steve again putting a hand behind
his shoulder blades. "Now, I'm going to take you
through a simplified soorya namaskar. You let me
know if anything overtaxes you. Now, exhale and bend
all the way forward until your hands touch the
floor. It's okay if you bend your knees. You, too,
Gordon. That's right. No, in line with the feet.
Good. Ordinarily, I'd have you tuck your head
between your knees, but . . . Now, hold that
position."
"I think I'm being overtaxed," said Alex. His arms
and legs felt like bands of fire. His thigh muscles
quivered.
"No, not yet. You're fooling yourself. You're
working out, and your body says, 'That's enough, I
can't take anymore.' But it's just trying to con
you. If you quit, the rest of the day you'll hear
your body laughing at you."
Alex's muscles were on fire, and the speech wasn't
helping. He looked at Gordon. The kid was holding
the pose and grinning. Smart-ass. just because he
was younger . . . Alex kept staring at him until he
saw the leg muscles tremble. Then he gave Gordon a
smirk in return.
Steve took them through a series of twelve poses.
Each one forced Alex to extend a muscle group that
he was unaccustomed to using. Getting around at the
bottom of the Well was certainly different from
getting around in orbit. Upstairs, when he kicked
off a wall surface, or flexed to a landing on
another, he used those same leg muscles to oppose
the same body mass. But here he had to do so
constantly, not just at kickoff and touchdown. Just
as if he were in the centrifuge or aboard an
accelerating ship.
It was uncomfortable, but not exactly unpleasant.
In fact, living in an acceleration frame had its
advantages. Drinking was easier, for one thing.
Objects stayed where you put them. And he always
woke up in the same place he went to sleep, even
without using straps.
That's the spirit! I'm a stranger in a strange
land full of wonders and delights. What was the
point of being marooned if you couldn't enjoy it? He
needed to embrace Doc Waxman's attitude; or Steve's,
or even Mike's. The Round Mound paraded his
seemingly inexhaustible store of knowledge with the
same sort of delight as the kids Alex knew in the
day-care center. Gee, Mister MacLeod, look what I
found! Mister Mac! Mister Mac, look at this! Isn't
it neat! That was Mike. Each nugget of information
was fascinating. The world was full of new-found
marvels and he wanted to share the excitement with
everybody. They all did. They had a certain sense.
It wasn't a sense of ennui or cynicism. It was . . .
A sense of wonder.
That was it. A sense of wonder, in the fine old
original meaning of the word. They wondered at their
world. Because when you did that, everything was
wonder-full.

Later, after Steve had gone, Alex lay abed in the

dark, breathing slowly and naturally, imagining the
prana from the air streaming into his body,
strengthening it. Prana was the universal energy,
manifesting itself in gravitation, electricity,
nerve currents, thought. A kind of Hindu unified
field theory. It was nonsense, of course. There was
no such energy, and Steve knew it as well as Alex
did.
Still, the mind-body interface was a funny thing
and nobody really knew how it worked. As a metaphor,
a mental focus, prana worked quite well. He tried to
imagine a ball of light in his body, with glowing
strands coming from his mouth and nostrils
connecting with the sun and distant stars. Images
were the tools of the mind, and a practical person
used whatever tools came to hand. Sometimes what was
important was not what was true, but what you
believed was true.
Like cobbling together a spaceship and flying into
space.
Believing wouldn't make it happen; but not
believing would make it not happen. Everything
starts as somebody's daydream.
"Alex?"
"What?" He turned his head. In the dark he could
not see Gordon, but he could sense the youngster's
presence in the other bed.
"About . . . About the dip trip . . ."
 "What? That again?" Couldn't the kid let it be?
I'd like to have seen him do better. "What about
it?" he snapped.
"I'm sorry I didn't speak English."
". . . When?"
Gordon twisted around, painfully, to look at him.
"When? In final innocent carefree moment before
missile shred Piranha's fin!"
Idiot. "Gordon, it was too late. The missile must
have been in flight before I, before, hell. I should
have torched off and gone home. They'd found us. We
knew it."
Silence.
"Maybe we could have made another orbit. Only, we
don't carry all that much oxygen. And we needed the
nitrogen, we did, that's not . . . not just Lonny
talking."
"Then it wasn't what I said. Or didn't."
It had really been bothering Gordon. The stilyagin
must have flunked some math courses. "What do you
picture me doing about anything, with a couple of
seconds to work with? What kind of acceleration is
that to move a mass like Piranha, with three tiny
embarrassed fins and the scoop dragging us, too?"
Silence filled the blackness between them.
Finally, Gordon spoke again. "Alex, do you think
this Titan business will work?"
Alex crossed his arms behind his head and stared
at the ceiling. Blackness should have stars in it,
he thought. "I don't know. If there is a ship and if
we can find fuel . . . What do you think?"
He heard a heavy sigh in the darkness. "If we can
rendezvous, no problem. If they have to come and
snatch us as we go past . . . They will not do it."
"No, I don't think they would."
 Gordon hesitated. "Maybe my family can . . ."
"Maybe they could what? Overrule Lonny or Sergei?
Not a chance. They can count as well as we can.
They've got enough fingers. Hell, you know it's not
the personal anger. Not a Floater in orbit would
hesitate to risk his life to save another. But when
we use common resources, the entire station is at
risk, and we have to draw the line. Start making
exceptions and where do you stop? When everyone is
dying because too much has been used up?"
He was beginning to sound unpleasantly like Lonny
Hopkins. "No, your folks will cry as you arc past"-—
Which is more than anyone will do for me-—" and
they'll curse God that they can't come out and snag
you; but they won't jeopardize the station for no
other gain than two more mouths to feed."
Alex remembered the old Eskimo on the glacier
describing how his wife and daughter had been killed
and eaten by his erstwhile comrades. And he hadn't
chased after the cannibals and he hadn't wasted any
tears. Old Krumangapik hadn't been cruel or
heartless. Alex had seen the pain in the old man's
eyes. But when you lived on the edge, you learned to
cut your losses. Krumangapik had never heard of
cost-benefit ratios, but he knew that in his milieu
he could waste nothing, not even tears.
Eskimos abandoned their aged and infirm to the
Ice. Krumangapik had done it. During their nighttime
trek across the Ice, warmed by that invisible beam
of prana from SUNSAT, he had told of building his
mother's Final Igloo.
She was old and frail and she had insisted. She
even picked the spot. When it was completed they had
hugged each other and said good-bye; and Krumangapik
had sealed the entryway to keep the wolves out and
left her there and never looked back.
Alex shivered as he remembered. "A duty to die."
 How long would it be before elderly Floaters took
themselves to the airlocks out of a similar sense of
duty? Yes. That was how they would do it. No
injections, because they had to conserve the
medicines. No slashed wrists, no blood droplets to
purge from the air system. They would climb into the
airlock, nude, so as not to lose the fabric of their
clothing. They would just turn on the pumps to
evacuate the chamber. Alex remembered dying such a
death. Later, a detail would reenter the airlock and
salvage the valuable organics.
Perhaps that was the most unfortunate consequence
of the new era of shortages, both in Orbit and down
in the Well. That it forced them all, Downer and
Floater alike, to be unkind.
"Is it right to string them along?"
Alex jumped. He'd thought Gordon was asleep. "What
do you mean, Gordo?"
"These Downers. Fandom. They're risking a lot to
help us, aren't they? Shouldn't we tell them they're
wasting their time?"
"Don't burn bridges, Gordo. There might be enough
fuel to reach orbit on our own."
"Or no fuel at all. Meanwhile, she puts her neck
at risk for us. Maybe we should contact Big Momma
for instructions."
"No!" Alex spoke sharply. "No," he repeated more
softly. "We'd have to make contact through this
Oregon Ghost character. If we do, the fans will know
how iffy the whole scheme is and then . . ."
"And then?"
"And then they might give the effort up. Do you
want to be stuck down here the rest of your life?"
"No, but-—"
"Look. They're already in deep enough for what
they've already done. We'll just let things go long
enough to see if there is any chance at all.
Then . . . Then, we'll decide."
"All right, Alex," Gordon said doubtfully. "You're
the boss."
Alex relaxed into the pillow and closed his eyes.
The room did not become any darker. He listened to
his pulse pushing the blood through his arteries.
"Gordon?"
"Yeah?"
"She's too old for you."
Gordon didn't answer right away. "She's younger
than she looks, Alex," he said after a moment.
"Gravity."
"Go to sleep, Gordo." Alex tried to roll over on
his side. He almost made it. Good news from all
over.
 CHAPTER NINE

"Please, Sir, May I Have Some More?"

Alex dreamed he had been strapped down in a
runaway centrifuge. The module spun faster and
faster. G-forces sat on his bones like mountains.
Under the steady pull his face dripped away and
pooled around his naked skull. He kept trying to cry
out that he wanted off now; but he couldn't speak.
Then he heard drapes slithering, and sunlight
warmed his face. "Wake up!" a cheerful voice
insisted. "Time for soorya narnaskar!" Alex kept his
eyes closed and practiced the savasam pose. Go away,
Steve, I'm dead.
But the man would not be put off. He shook Alex by
the shoulder. "Come on, you two. Discipline is the
key. You've got to work at this every day."
Alex opened one eye. Steve stood between the two
beds, legs akimbo and hands balled on his hips. He
reminded Alex of a coiled spring. If the Downers
could only find a way to tap Steve's energy, they
could use it to melt the glaciers.
Beyond him, Alex saw Doc setting up two trays.
Tall glasses of milk. A high-calcium diet. "Whatever
happened to privacy?" he asked.
"Alex," said Gordon. "It snowed last night."
He opened both eyes and turned to see Gordon
standing (standing!) with his hands braced on the
window sill. His breath made little clouds in the
air and steamed the glass. Alex stifled a groan. If
Gordon could do it . . . He pushed the comforter and
the blankets off his body. With that much weight
removed he felt as if he could float out of bed.
Careful, Alex. Watch those reflexes. Slowly, he
swung his legs out over the edge of the bed and
pushed himself to a sitting position.
"That's very good," said Steve, and Alex felt like
one of his day-care charges who had just gotten a
star on his forehead.
"They tell me it snows a little every night up
here," said Doc. He brought the milk over. Even
during the summer. It's colder in California than it
used to be; but L.A. only gets snow a couple times a
year. Here, drink this. It's good for you."
Alex took the glass with both hands and drank.
Milk was good stuff. Too bad they didn't have milk
in the habitats. That mix-it-with-water powder
didn't count, and they would run out of it sooner or
later. Sooner or later they would run out of
everything, including time. He clenched his fists
around the glass. He was probably better off on
Earth. You could still run out of things on Earth,
you could still die; but the margin for error was
not nearly so thin.
There was a knock on the door. "Come on in," Alex
called. "Everybody else has."
It was Mike Gilder. He waved. "Good morning, all."
He found the most comfortable chair in the room and
sank into it. "Bad news," he announced. "Bruce tried
to contact Ron Cole last night through the Oregon
Ghost. No go. The Ghost says Cole is reachable only
through the Museum switchboard and no one wants to
say anything over a line where there might be
listeners. The Ghost says he can't vouch for the
Titan, either. He says he heard the stories, too,
back in the old days; but he doesn't know how close
to the truth they were."
Doc looked up. "What are we going to do, then?"
Mike shrugged. "Bruce wants to take Bob and me
down to Chi to check things out in person."
Alex grunted and noticed how his breath smoked. It
was not cold, exactly; not like it had been on the
glacier. But it was chilly. Pleasantly cool,
actually. More comfortable than the shirtsleeve warm
habitats. There was no problem dumping waste heat on
this habitat! "Is it always this nippy in the
morning?" he asked. Yesterday, he had been too
groggy from the van ride to notice.
Steve struck a pose. " 'To conserve, we all should
strive. Thermostats at fifty-five,' " he quoted.
"It'll warm up later. Body heat from fifty-odd
fans."
"Some of them very odd," said Mike. "Steve, who
was that fellow who used the thermostat law to
commit murder? What was it . . . two, three years
ago?"
"Don't recall his name anymore. Papers on the
Coast didn't play it, up very big. Massachusetts?"
"Hyannis."
"What are you two talking about?" Gordon demanded.
"There was a rich old man and an impatient young
heir," Mike explained. "The old man had pneumonia.
EPA said to turn our thermostats down; so the nephew
did it. He was just being a good citizen." He
scratched his beard thoughtfully. "He must have
inherited enough money to hire a good lawyer,
because it never came to trial."
"Government wouldn't want it to come to trial,"
said Steve. "Good-intentioned laws aren't allowed to
have bad spin-offs."
 Mike shrugged. "Whichever. The DA was really
frosted, though."

Steve led them through their asanas. Stretch.

Bend. Rest. Stretch. Bend. Rest. "I am your
transcendental drill sergeant," Steve declaimed.
"Meditate, you slugs! Yam, two, three, four!" As
Alex came out of the Eight-Pointed Repose, he
noticed that Doc was performing the asanas along
with them.
He had to admit that he felt much better
afterward. However, he and Gordon were so exhausted
by the mild workout that they took refuge once more
in their wheelchairs. "Don't worry about it," Steve
told them. "Each day you'll be able to stay on your
feet a little longer."
"That's right," said Doc. "You should have seen me
before Steve took me in hand." He squeezed his left
bicep with his right hand. "Muscles had gone soft. I
tired easily. Now, I've never felt better."
Steve looked at him. "There's more to yoga than
physical conditioning."
"Breakfast time," said Sherrine. She pushed her
way through the door backward, her hands griping a
tray stacked with steaming dishes. Alex admire the
view. Then he noticed Gordon watching and scowled.
Neither of them were up to that sort of exercise;
but Gordon would beat him to it.
Sherrine set the tray on the lamp table. Mike
tried to look over her shoulder to see what she had
brought. "The kitchen is a madhouse," she said. "Ol'
3MJ is down there flipping flapjacks himself. But
Shew and Wolfson and Curtis and a couple of others
are helping out, too.
"Damn," Sherrine said.
"What?" Steve asked.
 "Just remembering. Nat Reynolds used to make Irish
coffee at conventions. Long time ago. What happened
to him?"
"Exiled," Steve said. "After he got busted and
they were all set to charge him with subversion-—"
"Subversion how" Alex asked. "I thought-—isn't the
Constitution still in effect?"
"For most things," Mike said dryly. "There's
freedom of speech for politics and so forth. But no
one has the right to deceive people. Back in the
'90s one of the Green organizations sued the
publisher of a science fiction book and won. Didn't
cost the publisher much, but the author was held
liable as well. So after Reynolds wrote The Sun
Guns-—
"I read this," Gordon said. "About satellite power
plants to stop the Ice?"
"Yep, that's it," Mike said. "Well, Friends of Man
and the Earth sued him. Class action suit for fifty
million bucks for deceiving the people. Got a
preliminary judgment suppressing publication of the
book. Reynolds wouldn't take that and let the book
be published anyway and that was contempt of court,
so then they wanted him on criminal charges."
Sherrine shuddered. "And once you're a criminal,
they can do anything to you. Reeducation. Community
service."
"Well, they caught him, but he and his lawyers
worked out a deal. Reynolds gave up U.S. citizenship
and was deported to Australia. The Aussies always
did like him. He didn't want to go, but he didn't
really have much choice."
"Things are pretty rough down there, too," Doc
said. "But better than here. Hell, everywhere is
better than here."
They were quiet for a moment, then Mike said, "The
important thing is, is anybody making waffles?"
Sherrine held a plate out to him. "Here. I brought
you some." She gave plates to Alex and Gordon. Alex
studied his meal and nearly wept. These people had
no idea how wealthy and fortunate they were. Eggs.
Real eggs from a real hen. And porridge made from
cereal grain. None of it powdered or freeze dried or
reconstituted or resurrected or derived from a vat
of green slime. He savored a spoonful of oatmeal.
"That's one of the things I missed while I was
fafiated," Sherrine continued.
Mike looked puzzled. "What? Crowded kitchens?"
"No, it's the way fans pitch in and help
spontaneously. 3MJ didn't have to ask a single
person for assistance."
Doc nodded. "They seen their duty and they done
it."
"Out in the danelaw, nobody helps out unless
there's something in it for them. I always had to
watch my back at the University. You wouldn't
believe the bureaucratic in-fighting that goes on
there, and the goddam union laws-—"
"I would," said Mike, wagging an impaled fragment
of waffle. "That's why I left the IRS. The grunts at
the P.O.D.'s were okay. They were just trying to do
their jobs-—almost impossible, considering how
convoluted the law is-—but the political
hacks . . ." He shook his head.
Alex could sympathize with him. Lonny Hopkins was
a son of a bitch; but, to give the devil his due, he
was a perfectly sincere son of a bitch. And up
there, you did your part or you died. If you screwed
up, maybe you killed someone whose relatives
resented it, maybe you killed yourself, maybe
something else, but the margins were too thin for
drones.
 Down here they were rich enough to support useless
people, but there were so many! All concerned about
their own careers and perks in the midst of the
struggle for survival.
"Fen are different," Doc said. "At least since the
fringe fans gafiated. That was one benefit of
government intimidation. A lot of the cuttle fish
are gone." His voice took on an edge. "You know the
ones I mean. The exhibitionists. And the so-called
fans who abused 3MJ's hospitality by stealing his
memorabilia. Nowadays the camaraderie is more like
it was during First Fandom. It's a smaller group,
but closer knit."
"The Few, the Proud, the Fen," said Mike.
Steve nodded. "FIAWOL," he agreed.
Alex held up his bowl. "More gruel, please."
Gordon laughed. "No, no, it is 'Please sir, may I
have some more?' "
Mike roared. "You like that stuff? Don't you have
'gruel' where you come from?"
"Oh, sure," Alex retorted. "We make it from the
wheat we harvest on our limitless acres."
"Well, if it's cereal you want," said Sherrine,
"you've come to the right place. What Wall Street is
to junk bonds, Minneapolis is to cereal grain."
Mike scratched his beard again. "Take some home
with you, why don't you? I'm sure we could stick a
case of Quaker Oats or Cream of Wheat into the Titan
with you. A gift from Earth."
"Hey!" said Sherrine. They all looked at her and
she spread her arms apart. "Why not?"
"Why not what?"
She stood up and bounced to the center of the
room. "If we're going to loft a rocket we should
pack it with gifts. As much as it will take. Not
just oatmeal, but . . . Oh, everything. Anything!
Anything we've got down here that the Angels need!"
Doc raised his eyebrows. "That's a great idea,
Sherri. It'll show the Angels that they've still got
a few friends down here. What sort of stuff do your
folks need, Alex?"
"What do we need? What don't we need?" Alex
wondered how well-informed the fans were about
conditions in the habitats. Not very, he suspected.
"Bacon and eggs. Meats of any sort. Milk. Carrots,
broccoli, everything you were serving at the Meet
the Readers Party Hell, any vegetable. You have
foodstuffs down here that some of our folks have
never seen, let alone eaten."
"Chitlins and collard greens?" asked Steve.
"Sure."
"You guys must really be desperate."
"Have you ever lived on a diet of lettuce and
mustard greens? Zucchini, sometimes. We do grow
vegetables, but there are never enough. You can't
eat spider plants! And some of our plant species
have died off. We synthesize a lot of vitamins, but
nutritional deficiencies are one of our biggest
worries." Along with solar flares, nitrogen
outgassing, shortages of metals and plastics, and
you name it. But let's not disillusion anyone.
"Food, then," said Mike. "Geez, we should name the
ship The Flying Greengrocer."
"Seeds, Mike," said Sherrine. "Not live plants.
Call it Johnny Appleseed." She went to the small
lamp table and rummaged in its drawer, emerging with
a pencil and a small pad of note paper.
Mike scowled. "I knew that. I am the county ag
agent, you know. Not that I know a damn thing about
it-—"
"Then how the hell did you get the job?" Doc
demanded. "As if I didn't know."
 "Seniority, of course. I was able to bump out
someone else. Helps that I can claim minority
ancestry."
"What kind of minority, white man?" Steve asked.
"Yes, just so. Native American," Mike said.
"Doesn't show, does it?" He shrugged. "But we can
claim it, so I do. The point is, I may be able to
get stuff, and I can sure get access to the library
records."
He pushed himself out of his armchair and paced
the room, rubbing his fist with his hand. "You'll
want plants to satisfy three needs," he continued,
thinking aloud. "Hot damn! Who would ever have
thought that a county agent and the space
program . . . Well, okay, nutrition is one. You want
maximum food value for minimum energy input. Oxygen
production and CO2 scrubbing is another. And
radiation hardening. So . . ." He paused and rubbed
his face. "I should sit down and put together a
list, balancing all three needs. But for a start . .
. Sherrine, write these down: green leafy vegetables
and yellow vegetables. Sweet potatoes, carrots,
spinach."
"Why them?" asked Gordon.
"They're great sources of vitamin A," Doc told
him. "Important for bone growth, and radiation
resistance."
"Tocopherol, vitamin E. That's good for radiation,
too," said Steve.
"Sure. We can include a couple of bulk bottles of
concentrated multivitamins."
"And tomatoes," Mike added. "Rich in vitamin A and
they're easy to grow hydroponically."
"We have some of those," Alex said. "But they went
bad. Started making people sick. We still grow
tomatoes, but we make fertilizer out of them, mulch
for the moon rock soil."
"Tomato seeds. Several varieties." Sherrine wrote
rapidly. "You must need hydroponic chemicals, too.
Even with closed loop recovery, there have to be
losses. What do you need for that?"
"Nitrogen, for one thing," Alex said.
"Potassium nitrate," said Gordon. They all looked
at him in surprise. "Potassium nitrate," he
repeated. "You know. Saltpeter."
"Flower seeds," said Steve.
Alex looked at him in surprise. "Can't eat
flowers," he said.
Steve shook his head. "Not for food. But as long
as you need plants to produce oxygen, some of them
might as well be pretty."
"Pretty is fine," Gordon said. "But pretty takes
time, too." He shrugged. "Here you are rich. So much
to eat. Not made of algae."
"Green slime," Alex said. "Good stuff. Bubble
waste water through a vat of green slime. Takes out
the ketones. Dissolve the carbon dioxide. It grows,
and you can bake it into bread . . ."
"Okay," said Steve. "We send up everything we can
get, though. Why not? Seeds are small. They weigh
next to nothing; and they'll keep practically
forever."
"Is good," Gordon said. "When we know how much
mass we can take up, we can ask station commander
what is needed. I think is not proper to ask until-
—"
The room fell silent. "Until you believe in this,"
Sherrine said. "Don't get their hopes up."
"Something like that," Alex said. "I mean-—we're
grateful, and you're risking everything, and-—"
"But it's pretty mad to talk about finding an old
Titan, fueling it up, and lighting it off," Doe
said. "Of course it is. But-—" He held up a finger.
The others joined in unison as he said, "It's the
Only Game in Town." Doc's eyes lit. "Spices. Pepper.
Thyme. Savory. Oregano. Sweet Basil. Dill-—parsley,
sage, rosemary, and thyme . . ."
Alex's mouth watered. Mythical flavors from
childhood. "Ketchup," he remembered. "And mustard.
Peanuts. Gordon, you have never tasted peanut
butter. And not just foodstuffs, either." As long as
he was daydreaming, why not daydream big. "We could
use all sorts of materials. Machine tools, too."
"Plastics," said Gordon. "They can be shredded and
remolded. Could always use more."
Alex shook his head. "Plastics would be too bulky
to lift in useful quantities. We need things that
are small and valuable."
"Don't rule anything out, yet," said Sherrine.
"We're brainstorming."
"Too bad you can't grow plastic from seeds," said
Doe. "Like you can plants."
"But you can!" Mike said suddenly.
"What?"
"Well, not quite; but . . . There was an
experimental field-—in Iowa?-—where they grew
plastic corn. Alcaligenes eutrophus is a bacterium
that produces a brittle polymer. Eighty percent of
its dry weight is a naturally grown plastic: PHB,
poly-beta-hydroxybutyrate . . ."
"Contains only natural ingredients!" declared
Steve with a grin.
"Researchers found they could coax the bug into
producing a more flexible plastic by adding a few
organic acids to the glucose 'soup.' They cloned the
polymer producing enzymes-—oh, 1987 or so-—and
spliced them into E. coli. Later, they spliced them
into turnips, and finally corn. That was the
bonanza. The mother lode of plastic. The corn grew
plastic kernels. Think of it: plastic corn on the
cob," he chuckled. "Shuck the cobs and you get
pellets. Perfect for melting in a forming machine
hopper."
Doc frowned. "And you plant some of the plastic
seed corn and grow more? That doesn't sound right."
Mike shook his head. "No, that was the problem,
plastic seeds don't germinate. So you'd still need
the original bugs, but you can breed them in vats
and harvest the polymers directly Not as efficient
as the corn, but. . . They were this close to
cracking the sterility problem when the National
Scientific Research Advisory Board halted all
testing."
"It sounds fantastic," said Alex. "Where can you
find this bug?"
"A. eutrophus? In the hold of the Flying Dutchman.
It's just a story that agents pass around. The test
plot was abandoned when genetic engineering "was
outlawed. Later, it was burned by a Green hit
squad."
Doc grunted. "Hunh. Burning plastic corn? I'll bet
it released a toxic smoke cloud."
"Sure. But that was the fault of the scientists,
not the arsonists. They burned one of the
scientists, too."
"My grandmother would know," said Sherrine.
Heads turned.
"My grandmother. She's a genetic engineer,
remember? If anyone knows where we could lay hands
on a culture of this A. eutrophus, she would."
Alex felt a tingle in his limbs. They weren't just
joking around any more. They could make it work.
Foodstuff. Seeds. Vitamins. Spices. Plasi-facient
bacteria, for crying out loud! They could actually
make it happen. They knew where to find the stuff.
Or they knew people who knew. He glanced at Gordon,
who was looking straight at him, reading the hope in
his eyes.
Sure. Make the payload valuable enough and Lonny
Hopkins himself would fly out and grab it, Alex
MacLeod and all.
"How would you handle meat, though?" asked Doc.
"No seeds. No pills."
"Small animals. Rabbits. They breed fast and
they're relatively meaty for their size."
"Guinea pigs? The Incas used those."
"Chickens."
"Hold it. Hold it. This rocket is starting to
sound like a Central American bus."
"Forget the chickens," said Mike. "Take fertilized
eggs. They take up less space. Hatch 'em in an
incubator. Use the hens for egg production. Keep a
rooster or two for breeding stock and use the rest
for meat."
"But we don't have a chicken incubator," said
Gordon.
"Build one. We can put the design and operating
manual on a disc."
"Hell's bells," interjected Doc. "Give 'em a whole
library on disc. SF, too, of course. They must be
getting tired of reading the same books over and
over. As for the rabbits and guinea pigs, just take
the germ plasm. You have a sperm bank, don't you?"
"Well, uh, yes. For humans."
"Good. Frozen sperm, then. Frozen ova, too. Mix
'em in vitro. Though you'll still want to take a few
females along, just in case. Ova are more delicate
than sperm."
 "Is diversity problem in sperm bank," said Gordon
thoughtfully. "Gene pool is limited."
"Mars Needs Women!" shouted Mike. Sherrine looked
up from her notepad and blushed a deep crimson.
Before she could say anything, Bruce Hyde spoke from
the doorway.
"Do I want to know what this discussion is about?"
Sherrine and the others told him, all talking at
once. He looked at Alex. "Will it work?"
Alex shrugged. "Why fly an empty truck? As long as
we have enough fuel to lift the mass." And that
would be a pretty problem! Trading altitude for
cargo. There had to enough cargo to make a
rendezvous cost-effective. The more, the better. But
more cargo, less altitude; and Lonny would have to
use more fuel to match orbits, and . . . Where was
the break-even point? It was a question of
minimizing the rendezvous costs while maximizing the
cargo value. A minimax problem. But it wouldn't do
any good to try and calculate an answer. Too many
indeterminates-—Lonny would be making his own
decisions anyway.
"Alex?" Steve was waving a hand at him.
"I'm sorry. What did you say?"
"I asked about spare parts and fittings," said
Steve.
"We can fabricate most of what we need," Alex told
him, "if we have the materials and the machine
tools." Maintenance was the one activity in the
habitats that was absolutely crucial. "We can
scavenge and salvage most materials, although we're
always short and more would always be welcome; but
machine tools and dies for the machine shop are
essential. Some of our blades and drill bits and
molds have been reground or resharpened until
they're useless."
 "Machine tools would be small," said Mike, "but
heavy."
"No critiques, yet," Sherrine reminded him as she
wrote. "What else?"
"Surgical implements," said Doc. "I'm sure people
up there still suffer injury and illness." He
shuddered. "I'm trying to imagine resharpened
scalpels and hypodermics."
Alex nodded. "You're right. I'd forgotten. Shots
hurt."
"And medicines," continued Doc. "All sorts. You
must have to ration what medicines you have mighty
close."
Doc might as well have pierced him with one of his
scalpels. Rationing . . . In a society of scarcity
there was always rationing; and some people were on
top of the rationing list and others were at the
bottom. If Lonny or Mary or hydroponics chief Ginjer
Hu fell sick, there would be medicine available.
"Essential personnel." If Alex MacLeod fell sick . .
.
And if he did climb back into orbit with a
rocketful of goodies, would his name move up the
list? More to the point, how much could they
realistically take with them in a Titan, anyway?
Brooding, Alex dropped out of the brainstorming
session.
"Not only medicines," said Sherrine, "but other
chemicals, too. 3MJ has chlorine for his pool right
here. He might let us have some."
"Metals, too," said Gordon ". . . Nah. Too heavy.
We would not lift enough metal to matter."
Bruce laughed. "What do you suppose the Titan is
made of? If we can loft it hard enough, we can put
the booster into a recoverable orbit. Then your
people can mine it to their heart's content."
 Later, when they were alone for a few minutes,
Gordon looked at him with widened eyes. "It cannot
work, but they believe-—do you believe, too?"
Alex arranged the blanket around his legs. He
smoothed the green paid cloth, tucking the folds out
of sight. Experimentally, he pulled on the chair's
wheels and was pleased to see that he could roll
himself across the room. As Doc had told him, the
upper body strength would come first. It was the
muscles needed for standing and walking that needed
the training. That and replenishing the bone
calcium. He looked at Gordon.
"I think it could work. The essence of trade is
'Cheap here; dear there.' Make the cargo valuable
enough and get the rocket close enough and, yes, it
damn well could work." Gordon's blanket was a dull
monochrome, which secretly pleased Alex.
"But, there are so many things that could go wrong
. . ."
Alex slashed the air with his hand. "Of course
there are! Don't teach your grandmother to suck
eggs-—"
"Sorry, Alex."
"-—We don't even know if we have a ship. Or
whether we can fuel it. Or a thousand other things.
We don't know how much cargo we can load; or what
kind and how much will convince the station to bring
us in. It's got to be the right stuff. And we can't
ask Big Momma without tipping our hand and maybe
losing the fans' help. There are a thousand details,
and if any one of them fails, the whole idea
collapses like a burnt-out star. So what do you want
to do? Give up and stay down here in the Well for
the rest of your life?"
"No, but you don't have to prove-—"
 "What do you know what I have to prove?"
Gordon pressed his lips together and looked away.
"Nichevo."
"Damn right." Alex turned his wheelchair away. So,
why was he being so hard on the kid? Deep down, he
knew that they were cut off from home forever. This
business with the Titan was just half-baked wish
fulfillment. What did the shrinks call it? Denial?
Crash a scoopship, did you? Stupid dipper fell into
the Well? Hey, no problem. We'll just patch together
an old derelict missile; stuff it with a cornucopia
of wonderful goods, and sail home to triumph. Lonny
Hopkins will be humiliated, and Mary will be so
enchanted that she will finally leave him and we
will all live happily ever after.
"Ah, cheer up, Gordo," he said. "The damned rocket
will probably blow up on the launch pad anyway."
"Blankets."
He turned his head. "Hunh?"
Gordon tugged at his lap warmer. "Blankets. Cloth.
How many times can you repatch worn-out shorts or
halters?"
"Oh. Sure, sure. Tell Sherrine when she comes
back."
"Alex?"
"What?"
"I didn't want to ask before, but what is corn on
the cob?"
A flicker of images like an old silent movie.
Golden corn glistening with melted butter. Picnic
table spread on a bright summer's day. The merest of
chills in the air, the distant kiss of infant
glaciers. Hot dogs on the barbecue. Mom and Dad
laughing to each other across the picnic table. The
tangy smell of baked beans.
"Don't worry about it. We'll have a picnic and
you'll see for yourself. Spread a blanket and . . ."
He stopped suddenly and studied his lap blanket. Not
just plaid. Light and dark green, with yellow and
red pinstripes. It was the MacLeod tartan. And
Gordon Tanner's blanket was ... a solid tan.
He laughed suddenly and Gordon gave him an odd
look. So, launching them back into orbit involved
thousands of details, did it? He felt a sudden
illogical surge of optimism. These fans were people
who cared about details. "Gordo," he said, "we've
got to approach this whole thing in a more positive
frame."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, there are a thousand things that could go
right!"
 CHAPTER TEN

" . . . . One of the Forces of Nature"

Sherrine held the door of the van open while Bob
rolled the tub of powdered chlorine inside. He put
it in place against the wall and mopped his head
with a kerchief, glancing back over his shoulder at
the tarp-shrouded swimming pool. "This is stupid."
"Tremont said we could take as much as we wanted.
He doesn't think it will ever be warm enough to use
the pool again." She followed his gaze to the pool.
A layer of ice encrusted the tarp. One day soon, it
would never melt. It was sad, knowing that the pool
was doomed, that no one would ever laugh and splash
in it again.
"That wasn't what I meant."
Sherrine folded her arms against the chill. "So?"
"Lugging this crap all the way to Chicago. It's
the kind of thing Crazy Eddie would come up with."
"Alex told us that the Angels need all sorts of
chemicals. The space stations aren't perfectly
closed systems. You know that. They were never
designed for permanent, isolated habitation-—and
there's no chlorine on the moon. You're just jealous
because you weren't there and you didn't think of
it." And why did Bob have to throw cold water on her
idea? He himself had pulled her into this.
 He leaned back against the van and stuffed his
hands in his jacket dockets. "We don't know yet if
Cole even has a rocket," he said. "And if he does,
we can't just climb aboard and take off from
downtown Chicago with a bucket of chlorine powder
aboard. So, we don't have to load up-—on chlorine or
anything else-—right now."
She shrugged. "Where's the harm?"
Bob rubbed his shoulders. "It's heavy."
She didn't answer him. She huddled deeper in her
coat, squinting at the snow flurries stirred up by
the wind. The breeze hummed like a tenor pipe where
it blew across the archway between the main building
and the garage and parking apron. Like a ghost, she
thought. The Ghost of Minneapolis Past.
"Cold?" asked Bob.
"No," she said.
His mouth twitched and he stuck his hand back in
his pocket. "Me neither." After a few beats, he
spoke again. "Is Bruce going to tell the rest of the
Con what's going on? I had to teach a thermo class
this morning, so I missed whatever you decided at
the meeting. The traffic was tied up around the
fraternity houses. They're getting ready for some
sort of Greekfest."
"Call in sick, like I did."
He shook his head. "I owe them."
"Who, the University?"
"No, my students. It takes a lot of guts to sign
up for a science course these days. To put up with
the taunts and harassment. As long as they show up,
I'll show up."
"I'm glad I'm staff, not faculty."
"The Dean insists that we add creationism and
crystal theory and spiritualism to the curriculum."
 "They already have those-—"
"Not as equal time in the physics and chemistry
departments."
Sherrine whistled low.
"Yep," Bob said. "The science departments are
resisting-—we had a meeting after my class-—but it's
a question of marketing and sales. Of putting warm
bodies behind desks. We told the Dean that there was
no objective evidence for any of that crap. You know
what he said?"
The sky was a slate gray; the cloud deck, low and
oppressive. Sherrine stared up into the gloom. "No.
What?"
"He said that the alleged objectivity of
materialist science was an invention of
heterosexual, white males, so we shouldn't use that
as a basis for judgment."
She looked sharply into his face. For a change, he
was not laughing. "What did you tell him?"
"Nothing."
All the fire had done out of him, even the anger.
Ominous. She said, "And?"
"I said nothing. It was like I'd been caught
explaining something to a door, or a telephone
recording. I felt like such a fool."
"That's why I love working with computers. They're
logical. Rational. They do exactly what you program
them to do. And that forces you to be logical, too."
She shook her head. "But the anthropomorphic
nonsense I have to put up with from users . . ."
"I thought you were happy in your little niche."
She gave him a fierce look. "I was, damn you. I
was happy! Thank you, Robert K. Needleton, for
prying me out into this cold, mean, miserable
world."
 "Do you want to go back?"
She shook her head. "You can never go back. As
long as you keep your eyes shut tight, you can
pretend whatever you like. But once you open them,
all your pretenses are gone. Even if you shut them
again, you know. I was getting along, day by day.
Nothing was too right; but nothing was too wrong,
either. Now, you and your Angels and-—" She waved an
arm at the Tre-house. "—all this. It's reminded me
how gray and awful things have become. People ask me
what my 'sign' is. It used to be a joke; but they're
serious. We have a Supreme Court justice now who
consults the stars instead of the Constitution. And
the Luddites. Anytime someone suggests doing
anything, it's 'this might happen' and 'that might
happen' and 'think of the risks involved.' But you
can't do nothing, either. Oh, sometimes I just want
to shuck it all. Go somewhere else."
"Where?"
She looked back up into the sky and hummed softly.
"And that was one small step, and afire in the sky .
. . "
"Sorry, all those trains have been cancelled."
"Except one."
"Maybe." He placed one mittened hand on her
shoulder. "Sherrine. People like us, we should stay
here and fight."
"And lose."
"Losing is better than running."
She jerked her shoulder away from him. "I wasn't
talking about running." Yes, you were. "I'm not like
you. I can't laugh about it. I can't make jokes. It
depresses me. You'll be making wisecracks about
crystal-heads and proxmires until the day they hang
you for technophilia-—"
"They don't hang you for that. They send you to
reeducation camps."
"Whatever. But, for me . . . I can't go back; so
I've got to go on."
He nudged her with his elbow. "Here comes Chuck.
You never did tell me what you guys decided this
morning. What do we tell the others?"
"Oh. It's still a secret. Just us and the Ghost.
What they don't know can't get them in trouble." She
straightened and stepped away from the van. "Hi,
Chuck."
Chuck Umber was agitated. His beard jutted out.
"The Con is busted," he said. "The cops are on their
way."
Sherrine stiffened. The police were coming? They
would catch her here, among fans. She would lose her
job. She would . . . "How do you know?" she asked.
"Secret source."
A closet fan in the police department. She
remembered a civilian analyst who'd been active
before. Probably a secret Hocus subscriber-—
"Look, you've got to leave now," Umber said.
"There's still time before they get here."
She turned to climb in the van. Bob grabbed her
arm."Wait! Gabe and Rafe!" She looked into his eyes.
"We've got to find them," he said.
"They're with Thor and Steve," she told him.
"They'll get them out."
"Gabe and Rafe," Chuck said. "Dell 'Angelo. A pair
of angels?"
"Chuck-—"
"Don't worry," Chuck said. "I didn't hear a thing.
We'll get them out. Now go! The fewer people in your
van, the less suspicious you'll look at the
roadblocks."
"Roadblocks?"
 "Yeah. This isn't any ordinary bust. The 'danes
are out in force. They're looking for something.
This isn't just the cops, the Air Force is in it."
Again she traded looks with Bob.
"But I still don't know how the Air Force knew
where to look," Umber said. "Hey, get going! Now.
And get the badge off, Bob!"
The Rotsler cartoon badge. Bob dropped it in a
pocket. "Don't have it on you," Chuck said.
Sherrine said, "How will we find our friends?"
"I said don't worry," Chuck told her. "I've got it
all scoped out. Always map escape routes first
thing. Head for River Road just south of the big
curve near the Bell Museum. Your friends will meet
you there."
"Can you get them out in time?"
Chuck grinned. "Did I ever fail to get Hocus out
on time? Then I won't fail to get this issue out,
either."
She climbed into the passenger seat and Chuck
slammed the door on her. Bob started the van and
they pulled out of the parking apron. "Sherrine,
where's your badge?"
"My-—? Back at the apartment."
"Good thing," Bob said. He pulled on the radio
panel. It opened, and he dropped his badge into the
cluttered cavity.
SHERRINE HARTLEY, her badge said, and the little
William Rotsler figure looked fondly up at the
letters, thinking, "Infatuation Object." It wasn't
hidden in her apartment. She'd thought it too
dangerous. She'd thrown it away.
The chlorine buckets in back rolled and thumped.
Sherrine twisted in her seat and looked out the
back window at Chuck. He was already running back
toward the Tre-house. She straightened and stare
through the windshield. Her hands were clenched in
her lap.
"What is it?" Bob asked.
"Nothing," she said. She was thinking of all the
times her issue of Hocus had come late.
* * *
The Tre-house was in confusion. Fans grasping
duffel bags and knapsacks scampered up one corridor
and down another. Tremont J. Fielding stood in the
tiled foyer giving directions, dividing the flow of
fannish refugees so that they did not bottleneck at
any one exit. He wore a long, flowing cape-—his
trademark-—and indicated one corridor or another
with his malacca walking stick. Wolfson was at the
far end of the west hallway, near the carport
entrance, hustling them along. Some of the fans were
still in their hall costumes: elves, warriors,
ancient gods, aliens and spacemen.
3MJ allowed himself a moment to appreciate Pat
Davis's mermaid. The tail was split so she could
walk. She seemed to swim along the corridor. Much
skin was showing, and much more implied. Her fine
blond hair bobbed and waved almost as if she were
underwater.
Priorities. Who had to run, who could stay? The
nature people were safe. The Greens didn't hate
them, except for their association with
technophiles. The kids were all right, too young to
worry the cops. Students would get lectures, maybe
some remedial reading on Ecodisasters, but students
could get away with a lot.
People with mundane jobs were in trouble. Get them
out first, since even if they weren't arrested, they
could lose their jobs. And the pros. Most of them
had judgments hanging over their heads. They could
be sentenced to "community service" for not paying
their debts.
Wolfson raised a circled thumb and forefinger.
Good. All the pros were hidden in the vaults below.
So far no one had ever found those. Of course,
there's a first time for anything.
OK. The people are safe. Now our treasures. Most
of the high tech posters were already gone, leaving
the paintings of wizards and elves and witches and
fairies. Over there! A medal, stamped in aluminum
from the original Apollo 11 capsule and given to
people who had worked on the program! Priceless. He
plucked it and put it in his pocket. None of this
stuff was worth dying for, but this-—The bell rang
insistently. 3MJ took a deep breath and opened it.
There were at least a dozen cops, eight blues and
several greens. Behind them was a squad of Air
Police at parade rest, and behind them were more
airmen with rifles. An Air Force captain was
pointing to a group of students who had run away.
"Catch them and check their ID. You know what we're
looking for." The sergeant nodded grimly and led
four men at double time.
Tremont pretended not to notice the Air Force and
Greens and turned to the leader of the local police.
"Yes, Officer?" he said politely. The name badge
read Sergeant Pyle.
"Sorry to bother you, sir. Are you the
householder?"
Tremont smiled grimly. "You know who I am,
Sergeant. Yes, I'm Tremont Fielding."
"Yes, sir. Mr. Fielding, we're serving a
complaint."
He pulled a warrant from his jacket pocket and
handed it over. "Public nuisance. One of your
neighbors complained about the noise from the
party."
 Tremont studied the warrant. "I see. Yes, this is
all in order. But, Sergeant, I know the noise wasn't
loud enough to disturb my neighbors."
Pyle exchanged looks with his Green partner, a
Sergeant Zaftig. ` And how do you 'know' that, sir?"
asked Zaftig.
3MJ spread his hands guilelessly. "I throw a great
many parties, officer. Charity affairs. All those
bodies, it's an easy way to warm the house. As you
know, I'm a firm supporter of the Patrolman's
Benevolent Association. Hope you liked the party
last month-—"
"Yes, sir." Pyle frowned. "So?"
"Like everyone else, I am concerned about
pollution; especially noise pollution from my many
affairs. So the edge of my property is ringed with
sound meters that record the noise levels. I checked
them earlier tonight, and the decibel readings have
been no higher than normal background noise.
Certainly not as high as they were during the PBA
benefit last month."
"Sound meters," said Zaftig. The Green looked
triumphant.
"Yes. I rent them from the EPA through the local
Nader franchise. I have them calibrated there every
two months." He turned to Pyle. "I'll be glad to
apologize to any neighbor who has been offended, but
really, any disturbance must have come from
somewhere else. Is there anything else, Sergeant?"
Pyle sighed. "Yes, sir-—" He fished in his uniform
pocket and pulled out a second warrant and unfolded
it carefully, then held it out for Tremont to read.
"All right, then. Suspicion of harboring dangerous
fugitives."
"Fugitives. May I ask who these fugitives are?"
"Read it."
 Tremont adjusted his glasses. He took hold of the
warrant in one hand but the policeman refused to
relinquish it. Tremont raised an eyebrow, Spock-
fashion.
"Sorry, Mr. Fielding," Pyle muttered. "I've got to
show it to you, but I can't let you have it."
"I see." Tremont took his time reading the
warrant. The longer he stalled, the better for
everyone. "There's nothing about who the fugitives
are."
"Classified."
"Oh. And the space for the judge's signature is
blank," he observed. "Just an X."
"The judge's name is classified, too." Zaftig
looked triumphant. "The mark on the warrant is
witnessed," the Green sergeant said, "and the
signature is on file at the courthouse."
"I knew we had literacy problems-—"
Pyle looked uncomfortable. "There's precedent," he
explained.
Tremont nodded. "The Steve Jackson affair. Yes, I
understand." Jackson's game company had been seized
by the Secret Service under just such an unsigned
warrant. His computers, modems, files. Even his
printers. Suspicion of hacking. And private
ownership of unregistered modems had been legal back
then.
"Move aside," Zaftig said. "We'll be searching
this place."
Pyle looked at him. "He knows that."
Tremont knew he had stalled long enough. He
stepped away from the door. "Very well, Officers.
But please be careful. As you know, I have a number
of valuable and fragile objects d'art about the
house."
Zaftig smirked. "Yeah. I heard."
 Tremont sighed and resigned himself. There would
certainly be vandalism and pilferage. It was grand
larceny that worried him. Fortunately, most of the
things he considered valuable would be thought trash
by the Greens.
The Greens never had liked him, but then they
didn't like anybody; they reserved their affection
for animals and birds and plants, constituencies
that couldn't vote them out of office. They'd steal
what they could, and destroy other stuff on general
principles. The local police would try not to cause
much damage unless they found something truly
criminal going on. Tremont J. Fielding had worked
for years to raise his standing in the community.
His charity balls and fund-raisers helped a lot.
Still, he was a known technophile. So were some of
the police. But not the Greens, and they had seized
control of much of the bureaucracy.
It was the Air Force that worried him. Why were
they here? Just who were these fugitives they
wanted? He had a pretty good guess. The dell 'Angelo
brothers. Wheel chairs, neofans made into instant
guests: it had to be them. What were they wanted
for? He edged closer to the Air Force people.
It was clear that they were really in charge.
They'd let the local cops speak for them, but when
it came to giving orders-—The Air Force captain
stepped forward.
The name tag said ARTERIA. The officer was tall,
thin, with long muscles. The helmet strap was
buckled, hiding part of the face. The hands were
gloved. The grips on the holstered pistol had been
customized, and the weapon seemed well worn.
Arteria faced the troops. "We'll conduct this
search systematically." The voice was a slightly
fruity contralto. "Start on the third floor and work
your way down. Remember what the description flyer
says: 'spectrally tall supermen.' So be careful."
Arteria handed out sketches which Tremont recognized
from the television broadcast the night before. "And
remember, the Government wants them intact and
unharmed."
Spacemen. Dell 'Angelo. Angels. Of course. For a
moment Tremont felt hurt that the Con Committee
hadn't told him. What difference would it have made?
They were welcome here, whatever the cost.
The soldiers clattered up the stairs and fanned
down the three wings. Tremont could hear them
stamping about overhead. He sighed, but did not
leave the foyer. The head cops-—Air Force blue,
darker police blue, and green-—huddled together and
argued in fierce whispers. Tremont shook his head as
he watched them. Probably arguing about
jurisdiction. He could not overhear and did not want
to appear nosy.
Wolfson approached and, tugging at his sleeve,
drew him aside. Tremont bowed his head so Wolfson
could whisper into his ear. "They're all gone or in
the hideaway, except, for the Lunarians and the two
neos in the wheelchairs. There wasn't enough room
down below."
Tremont raised his head and blinked rapidly. "Oh,
dear." The Angels! And no one had known to put them
below first.
"Shew and Curtis volunteered to give up their
slots in the vault; but, hell, Tremont, those guys
are published. The cops have their names and
pictures on their list."
Tremont touched his arm. "Don't worry. Tell the
Lunarians to execute Plan Two. They'll know what to
do. Chuck Umber laid it all out before he left."
Wolfson licked his lips. He watched the police
barking into their wrist coms. "All right," he said.
"I won't worry."
 * * *
When they hauled out the Pierson's puppeteer
skeleton, Tremont kept his face stoically composed;
but inwardly his heart cracked as he wondered what
he would say to Will Waxman. The puppeteer was his
prize possession. Tremont pulled his cape closed and
changed his grip on his walking stick. Will knew the
risks involved in attending a con. He would buy Doc
a drink the next time their paths crossed and they
would both shake their heads over their losses.
"Look at that crap," said one of the cops,
pointing to the puppeteer.
And that really was too much. He turned to the
policeman. "Crap, sir? Crap? Do you comprehend the
creativity and art that went into the fashioning of
that artifact? An anatomically correct and self-
consistent realization of an imaginary beast."
Careful, he told himself. It's a Monster, not an
Alien. Fantasy was still marginally acceptable; but
just barely so. He hoped the policeman would not
read the provenance plaque. Maybe Will had managed
to pocket it.
"Art," the cop grunted. "I don't see no NEA
sticker."
"It was made before-—before NEA approval was
necessary. Even today not all art is government
subsidized." And the National Endowment for the Arts
had never given a grant to fantasy or science
fiction art.
"Some of the stuff you got here glorifies
technology," the Green cop insisted. As if Tremont
did not already know it. "You don't want to glorify
technology, do you?"
"Maybe he needs some education," another Green
said. "Community service."
"Mr. Fielding is all right," a policeman said.
"Good law and order man. Come on, lay off."
 And I should leave it at that-—He couldn't. "Do
you dislike all technology? Such as the technology
that made the cloth for your uniforms, or developed
the electric cars you drove here?"
The Green looked surprised. "That's appropriate
technology," he said.
* * *
The foyer was empty again, except for the three
head cops, when the Lunarians made their move. Most
of the searchers were still scattered across the two
upper floors, but Arteria and the two sergeants
stood in a cluster at the foot of the grand
staircase taking reports from their squads over
their wrist coms. Those, too, were "appropriate." As
were the guns they carried.
The rumble of casters caught their attention, and
they turned just as Hal Blandings and three other
Lunarians emerged from the north wing pushing a
handcart with a large cardboard box on it. They
headed straight across the-—foyer toward the front
door. Tremont was stunned. The sheer audacity of it!
Lunarian fanac always inspired a certain amount of
awe among the more circumspect fen. But this . . .
He realized that his fingers were crossed and
quickly uncrossed them. When he saw the tip of the
snorkel protruding from the styrofoam, he held his
breath. Did they have both Angels in there?
The three cops stared for a moment, then Zaftig
shouted. "Hey, you four!"
The Lunarians halted just at the front door.
Zaftig grabbed Hal by the arm. "Got you, you
technomaniac." He pointed at the cardboard box.
"That there's styrofoam," he announced. "You know
better than that. Wasting valuable resources." He
grinned. "Or maybe you don't know better. You will,
though."
"Sergeant Zaftig," said Arteria, "that is not why
we are here."The Green turned to the Air Force
captain. "You stay out of this, Captain.
Environmental laws are my jurisdiction. Anyplace,
anytime." He faced Blandings. "What've you got to
say for yourself, techie?"
The west hallway door opened on cue. Pat Davis
emerged into the foyer crossed to the east hallway.
Since she was still wearing her mermaid costume,
every male eye in the foyer followed her progress-—
except Zaftig, who was reading the Lunarians their
rights, and Arteria, who evidently did not care for
that sort of thing. Pyle took after her.
"Sergeant Pyle!" Arteria snapped.
Pyle muttered something about the Helms Law and
kept going. Tremont smiled thinly. Enforcing the
obscenity statutes was tricky business. The courts
had imposed intricate guidelines. Pyle would no
doubt have to study the costume for a considerable
time and from many angles before he could decide
what to do.
Meanwhile, back at the front door, one of the
Lunarians was showing Zaftig a certificate
proclaiming that the styrofoam in the box was 100
percent recycled material. So was the box.
"Recycling! It's important! The paper they use in
some of those fast-food places, that's from trees!
They cut down trees for that! And we can recycle
styrofoam. You know how much energy it takes to
recycle styrofoam? Not much. But trees, it takes a
long time to grow trees! Owls roost in trees! Trees
are important. Sergeant, aren't you for ecology?"
The tip of the snorkel sank deeper into the chips.
Zaftig sprang. "There's someone hiding in this
box."
Arteria stiffened and looked at Tremont.
"Smuggling out a fugitive, are you? That was a
pretty clumsy maneuver."
 The way the AP captain said it, it sounded almost
like a rebuke and Tremont wanted to apologize. We
didn't have time to be particularly clever. Arteria
walked to the carton just as Zaftig grabbed the end
of the snorkel.
Wolfson tapped his arm and pointed silently to the
top of the staircase. Tremont looked and saw Anthony
Horowitz tiptoeing down. He scowled. If there was no
room in the cellars for Harry and Jenny, there sure
wasn't for a neopro like Horowitz. He'd been left to
take his chances-—but Tony might just make it. He
must have evaded the AP's on the second floor. The
two cops in the foyer had their backs to the stairs
and the west wing.
Harry and Jenny. Where were they? Jenny was sure
the police were after her. She never quite said what
for. Tremont didn't know about Harry. No room for
them in the hiding holes, and their bike wouldn't
start. They'd gone toward the kitchen . . .
Horowitz made it to the bottom of the stairs. No
one had noticed. He'd never have a better chance.
Tremont shook his head. It was a helluva con. Better
than Nycon I.
Zaftig yanked on the snorkel and its wearer
emerged dripping plastic chips, a fish hoisted from
the styrofoamy sea. The burly bushy-haired Seth
looked around the foyer, wide-eyed. He took the
snorkel from his mouth. "Is the book auction over
already?"
Zaftig grabbed him by the wrist. "Is this one of
them?" he asked Arteria.
The AP captain scowled. "Does this look like a
'spectrally thin superman' to you?" A grunt of
disgust, but before Arteria could turn away,
Horowitz had blocked the way.
Horowitz stuck out his hand. "Hi, do you do
interviews? I'm Tony Horowitz. I'm an up-and-coming
pro science fiction writer. I've got several books
out already, but I need to boost my circulation."
"A sci-fi pro?" said Zaftig. He grinned. "I think
your circulation just dropped to zero. His eyes
dropped then, and the grin went away.
Horowitz smiled beatifically. "Yes, but think of
the notoriety. Jailed writers always sell more."
Zaftig's eyes were locked on Horowitz's badge. A
sly and dissolute cartoon face, and HAVE SEX OUTSIDE
MY SPECIES. The cop was unlikely to recognize a
literary reference and if he took it at face value .
. . the law wouldn't permit him to take it into
consideration.
With visible effort Zaftig wrenched his eyes off
the badge. "You ain't no writer. You do sci-fi."
"We'll let The New York Times decide."
Jenny and Harry came in from the kitchen. Jenny
had found the maid's uniform. When Tremont's wife
was still alive he'd employed a housekeeper who
liked wearing uniforms because that way Tremont paid
for her work clothes. Now Jenny was wearing it, a
conventional black and white pinafore that looked
ridiculous on someone of Jenny's age and bearing.
She'd even put on the silly bonnet.
Harry was wearing his own clothes, except they
were dirtier and more torn than Tremont remembered.
"I'm sorry, sir," Jenny said. "I'd let this poor
man out the back door, but the soldiers won't let
me. Here, it's this way-—" She led Harry toward the
front door.
"Where the hell are you going?" one of the
soldiers demanded. "Who is this dude?"
"He's homeless," Jenny said. "I gave him a hot
meal."
"A bum, you mean," the corporal said.
"Homeless! Are you a monster?" Jenny demanded. She
turned to Arteria. "Sir, how can you let your men
talk that way? I think there are laws. Don't the
racism laws cover this? They can't say such things-
—"
Pyle was off chasing mermaids. Arteria was
buttonholed by Horowitz. Jenny was screaming at the
Greens. Zaftig was encumbered with Seth and the
Lunarians. Everyone was shouting at the top of their
voices—and everyone but Tremont had their backs to
the foyer. The north wing door opened, and two
wheelchairs rolled swiftly and silently down the
ramp. Thor and Fang pushed them into the west wing.
Toward the carport.
3MJ saluted with his walking stick. Fang waved
back and vanished out the door with the others. Then
Tremont swung his stick up and rested it jauntingly
across his shoulder. He turned a military about-face
and watched the ruckus by the door. He smiled at the
back of Arteria's head. We had just enough time to
be just clever enough.
* * *
Sherrine rolled down the passenger window of the
van and looked behind, up River Road. From where the
van was parked she could see the Bell Museum of
Natural History. The University buildings lined the
left side of the road, while the Mississippi-—this
far upstream, a human-scale river-—curved past on
the right in a gentle crescent. Directly upstream,
she could see St. Anthony Falls. University
students, bundled against the chill, stood in knots
along the roadside laughing and talking and swigging
beer. Ice patches glistened in the afternoon sun.
"Roll the window up," said Bob. "You're wasting
heat."
"I don't see them yet." She faced forward and
rolled the window back up. Crossing her arms over
her chest, she stuck her hands under her armpits.
Bob had turned the motor off; there was no heat.
"It's not that cold, anyway," she said.
"Cold enough."
"Where I was, it was so cold our breath turned
colors." She cocked her head and watched the side
mirror. No one. The students were waiting for
something, but what? Not the Angels, surely.
"Sherrine, someone had to stay with the van. We
thought it would just be a short run on and off the
Ice. So-—"
"You don't have to make excuses."
"I'm not making excuses, dammit!"
"What if they can't find us?"
He paused and groped for the conversational tennis
ball. "They'll find us. Chuck arranged everything."
She turned and looked at him. "And who is Chuck
Umber that we should put our faith in him?"
Bob draped one arm across the steering wheel and
half turned in the seat. "What's bothering you,
Sherrine?"
"Nothing. I just don't know if this fanac is going
to come off."
"You don't like running off and leaving the Angels
behind."
"I noticed you jumped into the van mighty quick."
But it wasn't that way at all, she remembered. Not
at all. Chuck had come running out with the news and
her first thoughts had been for herself; and for her
job; and that she mustn't be found here, among fans.
It was Bob who had asked about the Angels, when she
was already halfway into the passenger's seat. And
now . . . What if she'd lost them? What if she'd
lost them?
Bob shrugged. "I trust Chuck. It's that
convoluted, intricate mind of his. He knew there
wouldn't be time to find Alex and Gordon and load
them and their wheelchairs in the van and leave
before the police arrived. It was a near thing as it
was. The roadblock on University Avenue would have
had them." He shook his head and looked stubborn.
"No, we could not and should not have taken them
with us. Chuck has something else in mind. Something
to disguise the Angels' feeble condition in a way
the police won't question."
"It's not that. It's . . ."
"What?"
She closed up. "Never mind." But it doesn't matter
what I could have done or should have done. It's
what I didn't even think of doing. Damn it all, when
Bob had called that night, she should have stayed in
bed.
Like those students coming down River Road.
She blinked and hunched forward, staring into the
side-view mirror. What the hell? She cranked down
the window once more.
"What is it?" asked Bob.
"Look behind us." She popped the passenger door
and jumped out. The students who had been waiting
along the roadside were lined up now, cheering and
clapping. Some of them were waving pennants with
gophers and Greek letters on them. Farther up the
road she saw a fleet of beds, a flotilla of four-
posters and brass rails weaving toward her, white
sheets flapping like spinnakers.
She went to the rear of the van for a better view.
Bob joined her there. "It's a bed race," he said.
The student crowd was growing thicker. Spectators
were running alongside the street to keep abreast of
the racers. They were yelling and shouting
encouragement. She could see now that each bed had a
passenger and was being pushed by a crew of three.
Did that make them triremes, she wondered? The
bedsheets flaunted more Greek letters than a math
convention.
"It must be a fraternity event," Bob decided.
"Why, Holmes, how clever of you!"
"Alimentary, my dear Watson. I had a gut feeling."
She stamped her feet. How would the Angels find
them in this crowd, local guide or no local guide?
Chuck was from the Bay Area, he wouldn't have known
about this. So, should she go looking for them or
should she stay put?
One of the beds hit an icy spot and skidded,
forcing the bed next to it to swerve. The other
racers shouted epithets and laughed as they sprinted
by. Sherrine imagined the beds cartwheeling and
bursting into flame like stock cars going out of
control. Then she realized that the two stray beds
were headed straight toward her. The students around
her parted and fled.
"Hey!" She grabbed Bob by the sleeve and yanked
him aside. They tumbled to the frosted grass
together, rolling tipsy-topsy in a snarl of arms and
legs, and Bob naturally contrived to wind up on top.
There was a crash of metal and a few shouts. Plastic
crunched and Bob leapt up, leaving her prone.
"That's my van!" he cried. "They smashed the tail
light!"
"Thanks for helping me up, Bob," she said.
"What? Oh. Sorry." He hoisted her to her feet and
watched while she brushed herself off. "I always
said I wanted to die jumping into bed with you; but
this wasn't quite what I had in mind. Damn, that
light's broken. Hey, you bloody vandals!"
She laughed. When he gave her a look, she said,
"I'm sorry. A hit-and-run accident with a brass bed?
What'll your insurance company say?"
 The race had passed by, with most of the
spectators; but the two wrecked beds and their crews
remained. They were hunched over the beds, tending
to the occupants. "All right," Bob said to them,
"what do you think you're up to?"
One of them turned around. It was Bruce. "We think
we're making a getaway. What do you think?"
Sherrine's knees almost gave way. Alex grinned up
from his place in one of the beds. "Hi, pretty
girl," he said. "Is that the way fraternity kids
talk?"
"We are all droogs here," Gordon said.
"Yep," Mike said. "We didn't have enough money to
bribe the cops. But droogs will get you through
times of no money much better than money will get
you through . . ."

They loaded the Angels into the van. "I was sure
they'd caught you," Sherrine said.
"Not a chance," said Bruce. "Chuck had it all
scoped out. I don't know how he knew about the race-
—"
"Fans are everywhere," Crazy Eddie said.
"Actually, it was fun. How'd you guys like the
race?"
Gordon smiled weakly. "I wish I was back in the
scoopship, where it is safer."
Alex grimaced. "We crashed that one, too,
remember?"
Gordon's smile flickered. "Third time lucky?"
"Come on," said Bruce. "Thor, Steve, Mike. Help me
load them into the van before someone comes back to
find out what's going on."
"You should have seen it," said Thor, as he and
Mike lifted Gordon into the side door. Fang and
Eddie were inside, helping. "It was the slickest
fanac you'd ever hopemto see. Dick Wolfson and 3MJ
orchestrated it like a goddam ballet. With a little
help from the Lunarians and Tony Horowitz and
Jenny."
Mike chuckled as he helped Alex into the van.
"It's like 3MJ always says. "You've got to use your
Imagi-Nation.' "
Bruce nodded. "Or like Wallace Stevens wrote. 'In
the world of words the imagination is one of the
forces of nature.' "
Fang and Eddie hopped out of the van. "All
secure," said Fang. "We figure to stay here and
dismantle the beds. Shlep the stuff back to the frat
house. You guys can put the Angels up for the night.
Tomorrow we'll head for Chi-town."
Bob shook his head. "Whatever. You know you could
have hurt Sherri and me, ramming into the van eke
that."
"Yeah," said Mike. "Didn't you see us coming?"
"Not until you were headed right for us."
"No. You mean you didn't read the frat logo on our
sail?"
Bob's eyes went round in horror, even as he
whipped around toward the beds.
Mike grabbed the edge of a sheet. He flapped it
("Olé!") and the breeze lifted it from the bed and
spread it out like a flag. Sherrine read the letters
and laughed. Of course, she should have known. Who
else would belong to the Psi Phi fraternity?
??
 CHAPTER ELEVEN

". . . The Lumber of the World"

Sherrine watched the brown, sere grasslands of
Wisconsin slide past the windows of the van. It
seemed as if she had spent half her life in Bob's
vehicle. First, the drive to Fargo; now this. The
gentle shaking of the suspension; the lullaby hum of
the tires. And another two days out of her life.
Bruce and Mike had flown to Chicago. She could
have gone with them. There were still flights from
Minneapolis to Chicago every Monday, Wednesday and
Friday; and the ticket prices were not completely
out of her range. But . . .
She turned and looked into the back, where Alex
and Gordon lay on air mattresses, practicing their
yoga under Steve's guidance. Flying the Angels on a
commercial flight would be risky. Eye-catching. Two
gaunt, skinny beanpoles who couldn't walk . . . Bob
had suggested splitting them up to make them less
conspicuous, but Gordon had gone into a panic at the
idea and Alex had said no, definitely not, out of
the question. Sherrine wondered at that. The Angels
hadn't seemed to be on friendly terms.
At least they were speaking to each other again.
But Gordon tended to slip into morose silences that
needed all of Steve's cheery prodding to dissipate.
Alex was no help there. Gordon's silences seemed to
disgust him. There was a hardness to Alex, a kind of
intolerance for failure that was almost Darwinian.
She turned forward and resumed her study of the
dreary Wisconsin countryside. Oh, well. At least
this time she got to sit in the shotgun seat; and
the van was not quite so crowded. Just Steve and the
Angels and Thor and Fang. And the running motor kept
them warm.
Wooden rail fences topped by barbed wire
paralleled both sides of the two-lane blacktop road.
Beyond the fences, a jumble of kames, eskers, and
moraines; and nine thousand lakes strewn carelessly
behind by yesteryear's glaciers; soon to be gathered
and scoured by today's. Sparse, wilted grass sagged
against the rolling dells of farm pastures. A
corporal's guard of bony cattle, rib-bound and
yellow-faced, chewed with half a heart. Someone had
brought in a strain of Highland cattle, more ox than
cow, hairy like the yak, with huge horns. Their fur
gave them advantages, but they didn't look happy
either. Their hooves kicked up dust from the bare
spots. Her eyes locked with one; and they stared at
each other, human to bovine, until the van had
rolled past.
The road was draftsman straight. The rural roads
of Wisconsin had been laid out by a maniac armed
with T squares and straight edges. It stretched
toward the vanishing point on the horizon, where it
converged with the fence lines on either side.
Sherrine had the sudden, disorienting notion that it
was the road that was fenced in, and they drove
along a long, thin, blacktopped pasture.
A weathered sign dangled at the roadside.
JUNCTION, COUNTY ROADS F AND CC. Wisconsin county
roads bore letters. A, B, C; AA, BB, CC. Steve had
joked that if they found Route KKK he'd just as soon
turn back.
 They came on the intersection, right-angled as she
had known it would be, and Bob spun the wheel and
they turned right, leaving the Interstate farther
behind.
It made sense to assume that the Interstate
Highways out of Minneapolis would be watched; sure
it made sense to take back roads. But she was tired
of watching the richest dairylands in the world
turning into desert; she was tired of watching
patiently starving milch cows convert the last of
the northern prairie into cow pats and methane.
Every year, more and more water was locked into the
Ice. The prairie lands at the foot of the glaciers
were becoming scrub desert. Like West Texas, only
cold.
"Cornish game hens," Fang said suddenly.
Her head came up. "What?"
"Alex! How about Cornish game hens? For the ship.
They're small, but they're great eating."
The Angel grunted. "They sound delicious."
"They taste like chicken."
Sherrine heard the wistful humor in the older
man's voice. "I'm sure they do."
"Say, Alex," said Thor. "Don't just take female
animals up with you. Take pregnant female animals.
Embryos don't weigh anything and you get two
critters for the mass of one."
Bob braked suddenly and Sherrine jerked into her
harness and then bounced against the headrest.
Steve, who had been sitting lotus-fashion in the
back, caught himself on the back of her seat. "What
the hell?"
"What happened?" asked Alex.
Sherrine turned. "Are you guys all right?"
"I'm sorry," said Bob. "The bridge is out."
 Sherrine followed his finger. The road bed crossed
a crumbling concrete slab. Holes gaped in the paving
and corroded reinforcing bars showed through. The
bridge abutments looked as if they had come loose
from the earth embankment. Off to the left the dirt
had been chewed into muddy ruts by truck tires.
Matching ruts corrugated the farther bank. "Doesn't
look like anyone has used that bridge for a while,"
Sherrine said.
Bob hopped from the van and walked to the edge of
the creek bank. "Ford over here. Doesn't look deep."
Sherrine left the van and joined Bob at the
bridge. Where was the county road crew? How bad had
the infrastructure gone that they hadn't had the
time or resources to fix this bridge? She ran her
glove along the crumbling masonry. Not for a long
time.
Thor and Fang joined them.
"I think the van can make it across," Bob said.
Fang walked out onto the bridge span. "Slab
bridge," he commented. He crouched with his hands on
his knees peering at the cracks and holes. Then he
jumped across one gaping hole to the other side, and
Sherrine held her breath, afraid that he might fall
through.
Thor said, "It looks bombed. Maybe we've driven
into a war?"
"No. Spalling," Fang called back. "Worst case of
spalling I ever saw."
"What causes it?"
"Water and salt get down cracks in the concrete.
The salt corrodes the steel reinforcing rods. Then
the water freezes and expands. Concrete chunks pop
right out of the road surface."
And the freezing season has grown a lot longer,
Sherrine thought, and they salt the roads a lot
more.
Fang danced back to the bank where Thor waited.
"So what do we do?" asked Thor. Fang looked at Bob.
Bob said, "Drive across the ford."
Fang ran one of his outsize fingers along his
nose. "Maybe. But if we try to cross and get stuck,
we won't be up the creek, we'll be in it."
Bob worked his lips; then he sighed. "Yeah, you're
right. Jesus, can you imagine being stuck out here
in, the middle of nowhere? It's so empty. I haven't
seen a soul for the last score of miles."
"Don't you believe it," said Thor. "There were
eyes in every one of those farmhouses watching us as
we went past. They don't like or trust strangers out
here. If you ain't white and Protestant, you ain't
shit. Sorry, Steve."
Stephen Mews was standing by the opened side door
of the van. He shrugged. "It isn't exactly news to
me."
Sherrine waited, shivering. It was worse than
that. This was Proxmire country. These were the
people who had elected and reelected the nation's
premier technophobe to the Senate, where he could
give his Golden Fleece Award every month to some
especially vulnerable example of scientific
research.
Most of the targets he had drawn bead on had cost
less than a single Washington bureaucrat. So how
would these people react to a band of technophiles
travelling in their midst? The Senator had always
voted for dairy price supports. Hundreds of millions
of taxpayer dollars. She supposed that if she had
been a Wisconsin farmer she might have voted for
him, too. Farm subsidies never won the Golden
Fleece.
Bob nodded. "Okay. We'll look for a detour. Maybe
the next road over goes across." He patted his
jacket. "At least we can't get lost while we have
the transponder. We know which way we want to go.
It's just a matter of finding a road that will
cooperate."
They trudged back toward the vehicle. "Sure hope
so," said Fang.
"Yeah," said Bob. "I'm tired of zigzagging all
over Pierce County."
Sherrine took hold of the handle to hoist herself
back into the van. Fang shook his head. "Ah,
sightseeing, I don't mind. It's the blizzard that
bothers me." He pointed skyward with his chin.
Sherrine jerked her eyes upward. Black clouds
huddled on the northern horizon. The wind blew cold
and from the north. There was a taste of ice in the
air.
Yeah, she thought. Thor and Fang have no jobs.
They didn't have to call in and take vacation days.
They could have trucked the Angels themselves, if
Bob would lend them his van. But that sunuvabitch,
Bob, he had to go and volunteer to do the driving.
She dropped into her seat and pulled the door shut
with a slam. Was she in a contest with Bob to see
who would take the most risks?
She stole another glance at the northern clouds
while Bob made a U-turn on the county road. Risky
business, she thought. I sure hope I'm back at my
desk next week. Not that she didn't have more
vacation days coming, but . . . Risky business, she
thought again, but at least they don't know I'm
involved with the Angels.
* * *
The INS was late for the meeting and Lee Arteria
spent the time waiting by doodling on the scratch
pad. All the seats around the table had scratch pads
and pencils in front of them. Arteria had never seen
anything useful recorded on one. The pencil traced a
light circle, slightly oblate. Arteria studied it,
grinned and added two smaller circles on the sides.
Chipmunk cheeks. A tiny pout of a mouth. Two large,
little kid eyes, with eyebrows twisted to give the
caricature a credulous look. Not too bad for a quick
sketch. Sometimes Arteria missed the art world.
"Not bad," said Jheri Moorkith over her shoulder.
He stole a glance at Shirley Johnson, then
whispered, "But maybe make her a trifle plumper."
And you're next. Moorkith was a good-looking man,
square-jawed, square-shouldered. Arteria would have
sketched him as a Flash Gordon-style hero . . . but
her sketches never came out flattering, somehow. She
changed her mind and tossed the pencil to the table.
"Where's Redden? I don't have time to waste in these
meetings."
Moorkith shrugged. "None of us do. But this is
INS's way of reminding us who's in charge." He
leaned closer and whispered, "I checked your Air
Force file."
"Ah. That is illegal, isn't it?"
Another shrug. "I was curious. I like to know who
I'm working with."
"Whom."
"Whatever. Didn't do any good, though. Couldn't
get access. You must have some good codesmiths on
your team. But I was able to look at your credit
report."
"That's illegal, too." But he wants me to know he
can do it.
"Yeah. The box where it asked for sex. You wrote
'Yes.' "
Arteria grunted and half-swiveled the chair to get
a better look at Moorkith. "So?"
"So, why didn't you put down the right answer?"
 "I did."
"You did."
"Think about it."
He frowned. "Oh. But did you mean Yes, I have a
sex. Or, Yes, I want sex?"
"Whichever way you want to take it."
Moorkith paused and stepped back. He licked his
lip. Arteria knew what he was thinking: Do I make
the pass? What if I guess wrong and she's a he? Or
he's a she. Arteia had no idea which way Moorkith
swung, and so had no idea which alternative
intimidated him.
Which way would he jump? Lee Arteria sent no
signals; but she never bluffed.
He hadn't made his move when INS arrived. Ah,
well. He who hesitates is lost.

"We don't even know if the spacemen were in

Minneapolis," Ike Redden insisted. "All you did
Captain Arteria, was bust a few sci-fi crazies
holding an illegal meeting."
"Strictly speaking, Mr. Redden," Arteria
responded, "the meeting itself was not illegal. The
warrant was for harboring fugitives."
"Sci-fi nuts," said Moorkith. "Technophiles. It
should be illegal."
"Nevertheless, there is the First Amendment."
"You tell him," said the Army rep.
"Maybe we need another exception. After all, Flag-
burning and disrespectful singing of the Anthem are
not covered by the First. The destruction of Mother
Earth is at least as important as those issues."
Moorkith smiled thinly. "Got a couple of
technophiles to volunteer for reeducation, anyway."
Arteria hid a wry smile. And from what I could see
of those two fans, its going to be interesting as to
who educates whom.
Redden rapped the table. "Please. That is not the
business of this task force." He ran a hand through
his hair. "We are searching for two aliens who
entered the country illegally. If we don't locate
them quickly, we will all look very foolish."
Translation, thought Arteria: You will look very
foolish.
What must it be like to mold your entire life
around bureaucratic ladder climbing? To interpret
every issue in terms of attaboys and awshits on your
performance appraisal? Couldn't Redden see that
there were principles at stake here? At least
Moorkith had principles. Wrongheaded, but
principles.
"The spacemen must be in Minneapolis," insisted
the State Police commander. "It's the only big city
reachable from the crash site. They had to head
there. They would be too conspicuous in a small
town. Our man at Fargo Gap told us that a van from
Minneapolis drove through there the night of the
crash, and they were asking about the air scooper."
Army frowned. "The same night? How did they know
about it?"
"There was a girl with them. She claimed that her
grandparents lived nearby. They'd seen it come down
and phoned her."
"You think they were technophile subversives going
to pick up the spacemen?"
State Police hesitated. "It seems likely," he
admitted and hastily added: "In hindsight."
"Got an ID on the girl?" Arteria asked.
"No. We might have, but it wasn't our detail. One
of your people was in charge."
"Who?"
 "An engineer captain named Scithers."
Scithers. That explains some things.
"Didn't you search the van," asked Moorkith, "when
they came back? You had roadblocks up by then,
surely."
State Police bristled at the implied insult. "Once
we were informed that the spacemen were not in their
vessel, we had to take that into account, yes. A
maroon van did leave North Dakota, but there was
just one man in it. It may not have been the same
van."
Redden looked at the ceiling. "Two maroon vans
travelling Fargo Gap in opposite directions the same
night," he said to no one in particular.
"Then the others in the van must have gone west,"
said Shirley Johnson. "Or north, to Winnipeg."
Army grunted. "The Winnies would shelter them, all
right."
"No," said State Police. "The tracks across the
glacier were headed east. That's why we checked out
all known technophiles in Minneapolis." He looked at
Arteria. "With that sci-fi outfit meeting it looked
good. Damn it, it still looks good."
"Agreed. We didn't find them though," Arteria
said. They were there, though. I wonder how they
worked it?
Redden waved a hand in dismissal. "The tracks were
Eskimos. Illegals who crossed over from Canada. We
found them in Brandon, looting." He turned to State
Police. "But this van. You claim that a whole load
of them went west through the Gap but only one came
back?"
"That's what the trooper remembers. He was almost
sure it was the same van."
"Almost sure," said Moorkith with a smirk.
Redden held up a hand to forestall any argument.
"And they asked about the air scooper. We should
follow up on it. Lord knows, we have few enough
leads. Have you identified the van, yet?"
The State Police captain shook his head. "Just the
color-—maroon. The license plate was a fake.
Belonged to a car registered in Brandon."
"Fake. Why didn't you arrest him, then?" Moorkith
demanded.
"The computer was down. No way to check it until
too late."
"Computer was down," Arteria mused. But lots of
citizens switched plates. Too many nitpicking
regulations, like an eternal swarm of mosquitos. The
police had nearly stopped noticing.
"What about the girl?" Redden asked.
"Okay, what about the girl?"
Redden gave an exasperated sigh, and looked again
at the ceiling, as if he expected to find allies
there. "Are you checking for grandparents near the
crash site?"
State Police set his jaw. "No, sir. That's in
North Dakota."
"Fuck North Dakota. What is this, a state's rights
convention? This is a national security matter. If
we don't show some results soon, the task will be
taken out of our hands."
And that won't look good on your record, will it?
Whoever found the downed spacemen would shine like a
star in this crowd.
Not the Minnesota State Police. The search would
be outside his balliwick. It probably was already,
but these fools didn't see it yet . . .
Wait, now. Army, across the table from Arteria,
was smiling like the cat that ate the 500 pound
canary. He's on to something; or he thinks he is.
And he's got a national writ, like the Air Force; so
state borders don't bother him. And Johnson, she
would try to track their quarries by channeling to
some two-million-year-old avatar.
Where was the FBI? Was Redden keeping them out for
jurisdictional reasons; or were they running their
own search? Or both. Wouldn't that be a hell of a
note, if the FBI found them first! There wouldn't be
any interdepartmental squabbles to hold them up.
"We can make a request to the North Dakota State
Police," said the state cop. "We can ask them to run
a cross-check of local residents against Minnesota
van owners. If we find a last name match . . ."
"Better check it, against all residents of
Minneapolis," said Moorkith. "Its a granddaughter,
remember And she wasn't driving the van."
Redden shook his head. "I've got a better idea.
Our people will cross-check Fargo residents against
the 'suspicious background' files."
"Why?"
He gave them a superior smile. "Someone passed the
word to Minneapolis about the air scooper crashing.
Why would a good citizen leak a national security
issue."
"Maybe they didn't know it was national security?"
suggested Army.
"It was out of the ordinary. It's always safest to
assume that such things involve national security
unless the government says otherwise."
"Say," State Police brightened. "Why not check
long-distance telephone calls between Fargo and
Minneapolis?"
Arteria listened passively and continued doodling.
Everyone had a channel to try. Everyone had an angle
that might give results. Hell, who knew? Maybe
Shirley Johnson's avatar would pass the word. They
would find out who had the spacemen. And everyone
would try to keep it a secret from everyone else, so
they would not have to share credit. That's what
teamwork was all about.
Redden would try to hunt from his desk. He would
wait for printouts and summaries to be brought to
him. No one ever found anything by tracking
paperwork but more paper. He would only find the
"Angels" by piggy-backing on someone else. Someone
who did the grunt work of questioning witnesses and
following clues.
That'll be me. Or the FBI.
The Worldcon had seemed a good bet. Hell, it was a
good bet. The spacemen were there; they were
smuggled out under our noses. That man, Tremont
Fielding, he knew. I could see it in the way he
looked at me. But where had they gone?
Not west; not back to the crash site. There was no
percentage in that. Not north, either. Fans were
bright, if feckless. So, east? Into Wisconsin?
Maybe. They'd have to take the back roads. The
Wisconsin Glacier had eaten the Interstate past Eau
Claire. So: where could they find shelter in
Wisconsin?
Arteria smiled. Of course.
* * *
The snowflakes impacting the windshield were no
longer melting. They built into fluffy white masses
shoved aside by the impatient, ice-encrusted wiper
blades. The blacktop ahead of them was turning as
gray as the heavens. Gravid snow clouds piled up
above them. Flickers of static electricity played
along and within them as they rubbed against the
sky. Bob was hunched over his wheel, peering into
the gathering gloom.
They were in the hill country below Prairie du
Chien now, after hours of racing the snow clouds
south. The snow clouds were winning. The roads in
this part of the state were twistier; the farms were
tucked into dells and hollows. Property values had
boomed after it became known that this corner of
Wisconsin had been free of glaciers the last time
around.
Steve and the Angels were staring delightedly out
the side window. Steve had never seen a storm like
this in California; and the Angels had never seen
snow falling. Sherrine chatted brightly with them,
as if there were nothing to worry about.
Thor leaned over the seat between her and Bob.
"Turn right up ahead," he said. "There's a farm down
that road where I did some work last spring."
"So what? You want to make a social call? The
Interstate's to the left."
"The hell with you, Bob. I want us to get to
shelter, now. "
"Shelter?"
"Yeah. It's snowing. Or haven't you noticed?"
"I noticed."
"So. Do you know what a plains blizzard can be
like when the black clouds roll down from the
northlands? They call it a 'norther' around here.
Temperatures can crash forty degrees in the blink of
an eye; snow drifts man-high in heartbeats. Damn it,
Bob, you know what a blizzard can be like in
Minneapolis; imagine what can happen out here in the
country, beyond the heat sink. I've heard tales
about cattle suffocated when the wind blew the snow
up their nostrils so hard and fast they couldn't
breathe. Farmers don't joke about shit like that."
Bob rubbed the steering wheel with his mittens. He
glanced at Sherrine. Then he looked back at Thor.
"Are you trying to scare me?"
"Yeah."
He nodded. "Which way is this farm? And how do you
know they'll take us in?"
Thor shrugged. "I don't. But it's our best chance.
Sherrine, let me take your seat so I can navigate."
Bob stopped the van while they exchanged seats.
Sherrine unbuckled. "You have the comm, Mr. Sulu."
She crawled into the back-—her familiar seat-—and
Bob put the van back in gear.
"Is it really as bad as Thor said?" asked Alex.
Sherrine twisted and looked at him. He looked
concerned; Gordon, frankly frightened. Steve,
sitting lotus between them, was using yoga
techniques to calm himself.
She nodded. "It could be." Never pull your
punches; never sugarcoat the truth. What you don't
know can hurt you bad. "It could blow over, too; but
it's better to play it safe and find a way station
where we can hole up."
"Is that safe? The authorities are hunting
Angels . . ."
"Look, Alex. Gordon. A blizzard can be fatal. We
used to have weather satellites that gave us advance
warning. Now, folks get caught by surprise. Like
Thor said, you don't want to get caught outdoors in
a norther. And neither do the cops!"
The snow began falling faster, piling up on the
windshield, melting from the heat of the van, and
freezing into an impenetrable slush faster than the
wipers could handle. The countryside was a blur in
the icy lens. Bob turned right and Sherrine felt the
wheels go off the road. Bob put a van into first and
recovered. He rolled down his window and scraped at
the ice with his glove. The wind spray-painted his
beard with snow.
If we can make it in time, she thought. And if
they'll take us in.
* * *
 Ike Redden held the telephone away from his head
and stared at it. Then he put it back against his
ear. "What do you mean, you can't get north of
Lancaster? A blizzard? Impossible. This is
September. How do you know? I see. A truck pulled
into Patch Grove with snow on its roof. No, you
can't argue with evidence like that." Wherever the
hell Patch Grove is. He glanced at the Air Force
Intelligence captain fiddling with a pen on the
other side of the desk and shrugged helplessly.
"Yes, I understand," he said into the phone. "But
we received a report about a maroon van with
Minnesota plates somewhere in your vicinity, and we
thought-—No, I'm afraid I can't. Yes, we're asking
all the counties, on both sides of the River.
Certainly. I'm sure you will do your best. Thank
you." He hung up and leaned back in his seat.
"County sheriffs," he said to no one in particular.
"Do you plan to check out every van in Minnesota
and Wisconsin?" Lee Arteria asked idly.
"I suppose you have a better lead, Captain?"
Arteria smiled but said nothing and Redden made a
steeple of his fingers. Does that mean the Air Force
has a lead and they're not going to tell me? Or does
it mean the Air Force wants me to think they have a
lead?
"You could wait for the information from the DMV,"
Arteria suggested. "At least, it would narrow the
list of vans."
Redden waved a disparaging hand. "Ahh. It's been
three days already. Some sort of bug in the
computer. They're still trying to straighten it out.
Goddamn DMV can't find its own asshole if they used
both hands."
Arteria considered that in silence, then nodded.
"Any word on possible contacts in the Fargo area?"
"Not yet. That moron, Moorkith, is supposed to be
running a cross-check through the technophile file .
. ." Reden blinked and looked puzzled. "Techno-—
phile-—file," he repeated slowly. "The Greens are
supposed to keep it up to date for the House Un-
American Activities Committee, but . . . It's just
an alphabetical listing of names. They have to re-
sort it by addresses and then merge it with another
file or something. I don't know anything about
computers." He waved his hand airily, as if he were
bragging about an accomplishment. "A team of GS-5's
could have gone through the list by hand by now." He
took another report from his in-basket and studied
it. Another goddamned van. This one on US 52 near
Rochester. But it was blue and its occupants had
checked out.
Arteria grunted humorlessly, stood and stretched.
The side wall of the office was taken up by a large-
scale map of the upper Midwest. Arteria studied it
carefully, running a finger from Fargo to
Minneapolis and beyond. "Where was that van
spotted?"
"Which one? We've had two dozen reports."
"The last one; where you put a bug up that badger
sheriff's ass."
"Oh. Crawford County."
Arteria traced a route. "And heading southeast?"
Redden frowned. "On 18. Is that significant?"
Arteria straightened. "Probably not."
Meaning it probably is, Redden thought. What was
Arteria's lead? Damn it, didn't the Air Force
believe in teamwork? Everyone was concerned about
getting credit for the arrest. That Army colonel, he
had something going on the side, too. Some
connection with Winnipeg. This was supposed to be a
Team effort; the Team would share the credit. And
Redden was chairman of the Team.
 Well, Ms. Arteria, we'll see just how smart you
think you are. "If they went that direction," he
said, "they drove straight into a blizzard. If we
can believe the hicks. Probably just a light
dusting. You know how the squareheads like to yank
our chains."
"I don't know. Weather is something farmers don't
joke about; especially nowadays. A blizzard, out in
the country; that's a life or death issue."
"Well, if the van Wilson spotted was our quarry,
there's no rush."
"Why not?"
"It's been three days since the blizzard hit.
They'll be froze dead by now."
* * *
Deputy Andy Atwood kicked at the back end of the
van with his snowshoe. The crusted, half-melted snow
slid off into a pile on the ground. "Minnesota
plates, all right," he said to his partner. He
straightened and looked around. There were several
vans and trucks clustered around the white,
clapboard church. St. Olaf in the Fields. He turned
up his fur collar. "Come on. Let's check this out."
The snow was two-, three-feet deep. Even with the
snowshoes he found it rough going. His feet broke
through the crust and he sank several inches into
the cold, wet powder beneath. It must have been a
hell of a storm this end of the county. It was
melting now; but it would never melt all the way.
Not 'till spring. If then. He glanced behind to see
his partner following in his footsteps.
They were met at the door of the church by a
crusty old man in a red-checkered lumberman's cap.
He was racking a pair of cross-country skis against
the side of the church. "Yes, deputies," he said.
"Can I help you?"
 "We'll see, old timer." Atwood nodded toward the
church. "What's going on in there? It isn't Sunday."
"Nope. Funeral. We hold a few of those after it
snows." He worked his jaws, as if he were chewing
tobacco and was wondering where to spit. "We don't
get much heating oil in these parts anymore," he
went on. "Not like you folks in the cities, where
the newspapers and teevee cameras are. So when it
freezes here . . ." And again there was a drawn out,
introspective silence and when he resumed speaking,
it was in a lower, quieter voice. "When it freezes
hereabouts, why we've all got to huddle right quick.
Some folks don't make it in time. This time it was a
feller did some chores for me. He and a couple of
his friends."
"I see. Do you mind if we check it out,
Mr . . . ?"
"Wallace. Enoch Wallace." The old man held out a
heavily bundled mitt and the deputy touched it
briefly with his own. "It's God's house, aina? All
are welcome." He held the door open for them.
The deputies stamped the snow off their snowshoes
in the narthex. There was a thin layer of snow on
the wooden floor, unmelted and trod hard by a great
many boots. They unstrapped their snowshoes and hung
them on pegs on the wall. Atwood noticed several
other pairs of snowshoes, as well as a few more
skis. One pair of skis he recognized as the high-
tech fiber glass Alpine type. A family heirloom, no
doubt, from the days when people skied for fun.
"Huddle," he said. It was not quite a question. He
had heard stories. In Grant County, you heard
stories.
Wallace tugged off his mittens and stuffed them in
his heavy wool jacket. "For the warmth, deputy. For
the warmth. Every farmstead hereabout has a huddle
room or a shut bed where folks can gather when the
cold hits. Folks lie in, under the blankets, hugging
each other until it gets warm again outdoors. Those
on the outside of the huddle are generally a bit
colder; and those on the inside have got to be
mighty tolerant of body odor. You don't get much
sleep, but you don't freeze, neither."
"Jesus Christ. What do you do during the winter?"
Atwood's partner was a young kid new to the force. A
town boy. He would see enough before the winter was
over.
Wallace seemed not to mind the swearing, even
standing in the narthex of a church. "We huddle all
winter, deputy," he said with flint in his voice.
"Every man-jack, woman and child in the township. We
come right here t' St. Olaf's and we huddle."
"Like hibernating bears?"
The old man's eyes were hard as coal. "We don't
quite hibernate. Come spring we're mighty thin. And
some of us are ready to do murder and some are ready
to get married, but mostly we're still alive." He
opened the door to the nave. "Mostly," he repeated.
"My handyman and some friends of his got caught in
the open by Friday's storm. They didn't all make
it."
Wallace preceded them into the church. Atwood
grabbed his partner's arm before following. "Look,
Bill. About huddling all winter. You don't have to
say anything back in town. It would only get folks
distressed. The townies complain about the
thermostat law; but these farm folk, they would be
glad to turn their thermostats up to fifty-five."
"But, Jesus, Andy. We should do something for
them."
"There's one thing we could do."
"What's that?"
"Drill for oil."
 Bill waited to see if he were joking. Then he
blurted, "But that's inappropriate technology."
Atwood followed Wallace into the church. "Yeah."

There were three coffins, one of them supported by

six bearers. A dozen or so mourners were scattered
through the pews. Atwood walked slowly up the aisle,
looking left, then right. He didn't see any seven-
foot supermen. Spectrally thin, the flyer had said.
No one present fit that description. There was one
woman, tall and skinny, though not seven feet by any
stretch. How did the government know if the aliens
were men or women?
The woman locked gazes with him. Her eyes were
red-rimmed and wet with tears. Her nose was running
and her cheeks were puffy. Embarrassed, Atwood let
his gaze drop. He turned to his partner. "Come on,
they aren't here."
"What about the van with the Minnesota plates?"
Bill whispered.
"Heh. The border isn't that far. You can see
Minnesota from the bluffs. Families have got
relatives on both sides of the river. You see
anybody here who's seven feet tall?"
Atwood winced as Bill gripped his arm tight. He
saw his partner pointing surreptitiously at belt
level so the mourners could not see. Pointing at the
coffins. Atwood sucked in his breath. One of the
coffins was easily long enough to hold a seven
footer. He stepped over to it and ran his hand along
the plain pine wood top. Looking up, he located
Wallace.
"Look, I really hate to ask you this, Mr. Wallace;
but I'm afraid you'll have to open this up. National
security."
"National security?" The old man seemed amused.
Atwood wondered if he would ask to see a warrant.
Folks seldom did anymore.
"I can't tell you any more than that, sir." He
smiled apologetically and scratched his beard. "They
didn't tell me much more. This one isn't your
handyman, is it?"
Wallace shook his head. "One of his friends, from
out of state."
Atwood nodded. "Then you can't vouch for his
identity."
Wallace gazed silently at the coffin. "The lumber
of the world," he said.
"Eh?"
The old man looked at him. "The dead are the
lumber of the world. Their bones are the ribbing and
shoring that hold it up."
Atwood waited while Wallace located a claw hammer.
He could feel the eyes of the mourners on his back.
Watching with a dull anger. Atwood gritted his
teeth. It was a lousy duty to pull.
The nails groaned as they came out of the coffin
lid. Atwood remembered tales of elaborate, plush-
lined coffins of shiny mahogany. There were special
people, funeral directors, whose sole job was to
manage an elaborate and impressive funeral display.
Today there were just too many funerals. Sometimes
the coffin was a canvas bag. Sometimes, not even
that.
The lid came off and Atwood gazed into the box.
The light was bad; the angle, wrong. He stood aside
to get a better view.
A tall man, but not seven feet. So thin he looked
almost wasted. He had the skin of a youngish man,
yet with the hint of age around the eyes. Atwood
glanced at the hands folded across the breast. Long,
bony fingers, blackened with frostbite at the end,
as were the nose and ears. He sniffed. The corpse
had been washed, but the smell of death was there.
Atwood stepped back. "All right." A wave of the
hand. "Nail it back up." He brushed his hands
vigorously, although he hadn't touched anything.
"Come on, Bill. We've bothered these people enough."
Wallace did not follow them out. In the narthex,
they pulled on their outdoor gear, strapped the
snowshoes to their feet. "Was that one of them?"
Bill asked. "The corpse?"
Atwood shrugged. "He was tall enough and skinny
enough to fit the profile."
"Aren't there supposed to be two of them? And what
about the people who are supposed to be helping them
escape?"
Escape to where? he wondered. "We'll pass the
van's VIN along and let Minnesota check it out. But
you heard what Wallace said. His handyman and a
couple of friends. You saw the frostbite, didn't
you? Jesus. No heating oil. No gas. They've been
written off by the government. They've got to move
south or die, and they're too stubborn to move. You
wanted to do something for them, Bill? Then let them
bury each other in peace."
* * *
The six pallbearers watched the deputies leave.
The whole time the long coffin had been searched,
they had held the shorter coffin aloft. Alex was
growing tired. His arms ached from hanging onto the
coffin handles and he was sure the four men holding
the corners were just as tired. After all, they were
bearing his weight and Gordon's and the coffin's,
too.
"They're gone," said Wallace's wife at the back of
the church.
Alex sighed and relaxed. He slumped gratefully to
the floor. Thor, Bob, Fang and Steve lowered the
coffin to its cart. Bob groaned and rubbed his
shoulders. "I thought they'd never leave."
Gordon, leaning on the middle handle on the other
side, had to be pried loose, his grip had grown so
tight. They led him to one of the pews and let him
stretch out.
Alex pushed himself to a crawling position.
Sherrine left her pew and helped him back upright.
Then he walked in slow, careful steps to the nearest
pew and dropped into the hard, wooden seat. He
kneaded his thigh muscles. One thing about being
snowed in for three days at Wallace's farm-—he and
Gordon could now stand upright and walk, at least
for short periods. Like Steve said, practice every
day. Still, what if the security officer had noticed
him hanging onto the coffin instead of lifting it?
Enoch leaned over him. "You all right, Gabe?"
"I'll be fine. That's the longest I've stood up in
. . ." In thirty-odd years, he realized.
Sherrine patted his shoulder. "Before you, know
it, you'll be walking across the room on your own."
Alex laughed. Who would have thought that walking
required the mastery of such complex skills? He had
walked as a child, but could not remember the
learning of it. He would look on pedestrians in the
future with a certain amount of awe.
"It was good of you to take us in like that," Alex
told the farmer.
Wallace grunted. "Seven warm bodies during a
norther? My wife and I would have froze to death
without you. Like poor Jed and his friends."
Alex glanced at the coffins. "Yeah."
Enoch had been waiting for the handyman and his
friends to come to his huddling place when Thor
appeared on his front porch. After the storm had
subsided, they had all gone out looking and found
the bodies only a few hundred meters from the
farmhouse. Judging from the tracks that had not
filled in with snow it appeared that the three had
been walking in a circle. "It happens," Enoch had
said. "When the wind blows the snow up, everything
whites out and you lose all your sense of direction.
Thor, who had known the handyman, had insisted on
staying for the funeral.
"What next?" asked Alex.
"On to Chicago," Bob told him.
Wallace shook his head. "That deputy copied down
your license plate. Just routine, I suppose. But, if
I were engaged in anything a shade less than
perfectly normal-—not that I am, mind you, or that I
suggest that anyone else is-—I might be a touch wary
of driving that vehicle over the roads. Folks don't
travel so much these days, what with fuel so hard to
get. So anyone far enough from home might strike the
government as suspicious."
Bob frowned and ran a hand though his beard.
"You're right." He looked at Sherrine, then back at
Wallace. "What should we do?"
Wallace smiled. "Why don't you folks follow me
over to Hiram's shop. We'll see if he can tinker
something up.
They followed him outside into the brut, frozen
sunlight. Alex found himself walking beside Wallace.
Sherri supported him on one side, but mostly he
carried his own mass. He walked like a two-year old
and felt like two hundred; but he was moving under
his own power. "Hiram's shop," he said. "Your friend
is not a farmer, then?"
"Heh. No, he's a tinker. He fixes things. It's a
knack he has. Snowblowers, radios, TV's." He gave
Alex a sly wink. "Maybe even a computer or two, if
anyone owned such a thing, which I'm not saying they
do."
Alex raised his eyebrows. He exchanged glances
with Sherri. "You don't tally like a technophobe,"
he ventured.
Wallace laughed without humor. "You ever try
farming without technology? It's a lot more charming
in those old woodcuts than it is in the flesh. In a
good year, we get nothing to eat but cheese and
beef. Cook the beef good. No antibiotics. If you
could lay your hands on a supply of good medicine
for cows it would be worth its weight in cheese."
Alex chuckled politely. But why would cheese be
valuable in Wisconsin? He would have felt stupid
asking. Instead he asked, "What do you do in a bad
year?"
Wallace grunted and his voice hardened. "In a bad
year we starve."
* * *
Sherrine found she could not let go of her
suspicions. Granted, Wallace had saved them from the
storm, and he had helped them fool the sheriff's
deputies, too; but that might have been from a sense
of duty. After all, their body heat had helped save
Wallace and his wife, as well; and the country folk
had no great love for a government that had
effectively abandoned them. Still . . .
They followed Wallace's pickup down the country
lanes behind Millville. Sherrine sat in the back
with Alex and the others. The road undulated through
the rumpled hills, whose trees, fooled by the
glaciers, were rusted and yellow. An oddly
disorienting layer of fallen leaves lay atop the
snow, as if the seasons had gotten jumbled by the
storm. Some trees stood blizzard-stripped, stark and
wintry against the sky. They came out onto a high
bluff from which she could see the confluence of the
Wisconsin and Mississippi. The rivers sparkled in
the sunlight. They flowed sluggishly, with so many
of their sources locked into ice.
It was only when Wallace honked and pointed to the
driveway of the ramshackle building that Sherrine
relaxed. There was a hand-painted sign nailed to a
post by the roadside. Bright red letters on a large
plywood panel:

BIG FRONT YARD SALE

HIRAM TAINE, TINKER

Of course, she thought. Of course. They were among

friends. She saw Fang grin and nudge Thor with his
elbow. Thor smiled quietly, as if at a well-
orchestrated surprise. Sherrine started to laugh,
earning an odd glance from Alex.
All that time she had been worried about being in
Proxmire country. She had forgotten they were in
Clifford Simak country, too.
 CHAPTER TWELVE

"The Best of All Physicians. . ."

The van was dark and cold and stank with a stale
pungency Alex MacLeod could never get used to. Worse
than a spaceship! He sat huddled under blankets with
the others in the back of the van, sharing his
warmth. The only light was the feeble glow of a
flashlight. Alex took a breath of damp, moldy air.
He wished Bob could start the engine so they could
warm up; but, of course, that was impossible.
Sherrine was a goblin face half-lit by the weary
flashlight. "This is cozy," she said. "I used to
read science fiction books like this-—under my
blankets with a light. Always with an ear cocked for
the sound of my parents coming."
"Did they ever catch you?" asked Gordon.
"Oh, sure. I got a lecture the first time. The
second time, they spanked me. They never caught me
again. Maybe they got tired of watching. I always
looked forward to the summers, though, when they'd
send me to Gram's farm. Pop-pop kept two cartons
full of old paperbacks hidden in a corner of the
root cellar. I could read them in daylight."
Gordon laughed. "It sounds like fun."
"Yeah, lots of fun," said Alex. "How long are we
going to be stuck here?"
 Bob shrugged and the blankets shrugged with him.
"I don't know."
"Relax," said Fang. "Here. It's cheddar."
It was a half-found wedge. Alex felt his throat
close. "No thanks," he said. I'm going to be
heartily sick of cheese by the time we get to
Chicago."
"Cheese is fermented milk curd," Fang volunteered.
"The Orientals think of it as 'rotten milk.' "
Sherrine turned to him. "Thank you for sharing
that thought with us."
"Well," said Thor. "Where there's a curd, there's
a whey."
"Seriously," Alex insisted. "How long will we be
stuck inside this trailer?" Surrounded by cheese.
Encastled by cheesy ramparts. Breathing cheese with
every breath. Sure, it saved gas on the van; sure,
it hid them from the sheriffs deputies; but it
seemed as if he had been buried in a tomb of . . .
of fermented curds.
Fang nibbled on the wedge, looking for all the
world like an oversized mouse. "How long?" he said.
"Hard to say. The trailer takes the back roads to
avoid the monties."
"The Mounties?"
"Monties . . . Montereys. They high jack cheese."
Gordon cocked his head. "High-jack cheese? Poche-—
Why would anyone do that?"
Fang held his wedge up and turned it so it caught
the pale light. "Supply and demand," he said. "South
and east of Chicago this stuff is rare.
Infrastructure collapsing. Bridges, culverts,
embankments. Roads are near impassible. Can't hardly
get gas anywhere in Wisconsin. So not much cheese
ever gets out of the state. Not until the farmers
can hoard enough fuel to make a run like this one.
Naturally, the monties are on the lookout. One
cheese truck taken to . . . oh, Pittsburgh or St.
Louis, could set you up for life."
"I've heard," said Sherrine, "that in some places
they stamp the cheese wheels with official seals and
use them for money."
Thor laughed. "I've heard that. What would you do
for a wallet?"
"No, no," said Fang. "You put the cheese in a
larder-—"
"Fort Cheddar!"
"-—and issue certificates—"
"Backed by the full faith and credit of-—"
"Issue certificates," Fang repeated more loudly.
"Pay to the bearer on demand, so many pounds of
cheese. Pound notes!"
"Would a Swiss cheese pound note be worth more
than a cheddar?"
"Sure, you know how reliable those Swiss cheese
bankers are . . ."
"How many Gorgonzolas to a Colby?" asked Steve.
"What's the exchange rate?"
"Excuse me, sir," said Sherrine to Thor, "but do
you have change for a Roquefort?"
"Keep your stinking money."
"Hey," said Bob laughing. "At least the money
would be backed by something."
"Maybe," Thor ventured, "they could use jellies
and jams . . . backed by the Federal Preserve Bank."
Alex simply could not believe it. Van and all they
were riding in a back of a cheese-filled eighteen-
wheeler trailer, rolling through territory infested
by highway bandits, and his companions made . . .
cheesy jokes. "It seems to me," he said, "that this
is an awfully risky way to escape Wisconsin."
 The others looked at him with their mouths half-
open in smiles, waiting for his punch line. Alex
plowed resolutely on. "I mean the montereys. They're
real?"
"Sure, but. . ."
"Alex," said Sherrine. "The police are looking for
a van."
"Hiram Taine gave us new plates and painted us
orange."
"All the more reason not to risk being stopped."
"Besides," interjected Thor, "there's something
I've always wanted to say."
Alex frowned at him. "What's that?"
"Cheese it! The cops!"
Everyone broke into laughter again. Alex scowled
and shifted his right foot to a more comfortable
siddhasan position. His companions couldn't seem to
take things seriously. They had to make jokes. Just
how dependable was this rescue? Was this to be his
fate, his punishment for screwing up that one last
time? To be shuttled aimlessly across the planet for
the rest of his life?
Sherrine touched his arm and leaned past Thor who
was cracking yet another joke to Steve. "Alex," she
said. "We could never have scrounged enough gas for
the van to drive out on our own. The farmers there
have been saving fuel for a long time to send just
this one truck out and back. They made a tremendous
sacrifice by putting us back here instead of the
same volume in cheese."
"It's not that, Sherrine. It's . . ."
"It's what?"
Alex sighed and she leaned closer. He could smell
the sweetness of her breath. "It's . . ." What was
bugging him? Was it that the optimism he had felt at
the Tre-house had leached out of him? That his
resolution to enjoy his exile had foundered against
huddling places and blizzards and crumbling roads
and funerals? He jerked his head toward the other
fans. "Don't they realize the gravity of our
situation?" he whispered to her.
She whispered back, "You fight gravity with
levity."

Later, as they dozed under the blankets, Alex was

jarred awake. He raised himself on his elbows,
momentarily delighted that he could raise himself on
his elbows, and looked around. Not that he could see
anything. Under a pile of blankets inside a van that
was chocked up inside a trailer. It gave the word
"dark" new meaning. He lay still and listened. The
familiar grumble of the motor and the gentle rocking
and bouncing were missing.
The truck had stopped.
"What is it?" Sherrine's voice sleepy beside him.
He flashed a momentary fancy that they shared a bunk
together, somewhere hidden from their five
chaperones.
"Nothing," he said. "The truck stopped, is all.
Rest break, maybe."
"Oh, good. I could use a rest break myself. Should
we get out, do you think?"
"Wait." Doors slammed and the engine roared to
life. "Changing drivers, I guess." First gear ground
and caught. "The two guys up front must have
switched seats."
"I hope we get there soon, or this van is going to
smell like a New York subway station."
"Please," said Bob, yawning in the darkness, "if
you have to go, go outside."
"On the cheese?"
"I really miss my space suit," said Alex.
 "Eh? Why?"
"It had a catheter," he said dreamily.
* * *
Lee Arteria studied the list that Moorkith had
passed around the table. It was several pages long.
Eight-by fourteen-inch computer pages. Names and
addresses ranked in severe columns. Not even
alphabetized! Maybe it was sorted by address? No,
there was no logical order to the sequence at all. A
random dump. Maybe no one on Moorkith's staff knew
how to run a sort.
That seemed likely. Computers might be necessary,
but they were a necessary evil. Learn too much about
them and you might be seduced into technophilia.
Besides, competency was elitist. It was easy to
imagine Moorkith's people gingerly pressing buttons
and leaping back lest they be defiled by the touch.
"This is a lot of subversives for a small area
like Fargo." The state policewoman was a new member
of the Team, representing North Dakota. Arteria
supposed that the various state jurisdictions had
decided to pool their resources so they would not be
left off the Team and miss out on the collar.
"I wouldn't know," said Moorkith. "But I believe
it would be wise to investigate each lead for
possible connections with Minneapolis technophiles."
Arteria stifled a grin. Pompous ass. They would be
a long time checking out some of these leads. Verne,
Jules. Gernsback, Hugo. Wells, Herbert George. Even
Jefferson, Tom and Carver, G.W. Technophiles, all.
Had Moorkith even looked at the printout before
distributing it? No, he simply assumed it was
correct. For someone who professed to disparage
technology, he had a naive and trusting attitude
toward it.
How long had Moorkith's database been compromised?
Arteria would dearly have loved to know. A hack
years old would have nothing to do with the current
mission. A recent hack might be intended to muddy
the search for the spacemen. In either case, the
choice of phony names pointed straight toward
fandom.
Arteria smiled. So far, no one else seemed to have
noticed a fannish flavor to this mission. They might
suspect sci-fi fans on general principle-—"
technophiles is technophiles"-—but their general
attitude was that fans were hare-brained and
ineffectual adolescent nerds. A dangerous
assumption, sometimes correct, but sometimes wildly
off. Heh. I can crack this one solo and keep all the
credit. Might even be good for a promotion.
* * *
The back door of the van was thrown open and raw
sunlight filtered into the back of the trailer. Alex
crouched with the others next to Bob's van, peering
through the pallets of cheese that screened them
from view. There were loud voices and shouted orders
and the sound of an engine.
Thor scratched his beard and frowned. "Enoch said
his friends would release us inside a warehouse
before they drove the trailer to the cheese market."
Bob scratched his beard. "Maybe there's been a
change in plans."
"Don't like it," said Fang shaking his head.
"What should we do?" asked Gordon.
"Can't run. Can't hide. Might as well enjoy the
view."
The forklift pulled the cheese pallet from in
front of them. A gang of men in heavy flannel shirts
was counting and stacking the cheese wheels. They
froze suddenly and stared at the trailer. The leader
of the stevedores looked up from his clipboard and
an unlit stogie fell from his lips. "Who the hell
are you?" he demanded.
Thor studied the skyline. Gray, sooty clouds
lowered over squat, blocky buildings. In the
distance, twin spires of black smoke twisted
skyward. He shook his head. "We're not in Chicago,
gang."

"Welcome to Kilbourntown, gentlemen and lady." The

Alderman graced them with a benign smile from atop
his fur-lined throne. He was nearly as wide as he
was tall. He wore a tawny-and-white cloak of fox
skins. Aides and servants hovered around him like
launch debris around a satellite. A number of the
men wore sidearms and crossed bandoleers, but Alex
also spotted swords here and there. A young girl,
scantily clad, lounged insolently on the steps below
the dais. Body odor was a miasma in the room.
Like a barbarian court, Alex thought. He stood
wobble-kneed with his friends, still unsure if they
were prisoners or not.
Thor gave him his elbow to hang onto. "Great Ghu,"
he whispered out of the side of his mouth, "we're in
Hyperborea. Where's Conan?"
The Alderman lifted a huge, carved stein toward
them. "Have a beer," he said formally.
It was a signal. His aides rushed to hand out
smaller steins to the travelers. Alex studied his
stein doubtfully. Scenes of Teutonic pastoralism
adorned the sides. A lid closed the top. Now, that
was familiar. Open-topped mugs still seemed a trifle
odd to him; but how do you drink from the damned
thing? There was no nipple.
Alex noticed a little thumb lever that flipped the
lid open. Aha. So, what was the point of the lid?
They had gravity here. They didn't have to worry
about the beer floating away.
 The Alderman waited and his ward heeler motioned
that they should drink. It was a thin, sour brew
with insufficient carbonation. Alex smiled and
pretended to drink some more. "It's very good," he
said. No point in offending your host; especially
one of an uncertain and barbaric temper.
The Alderman nodded his smiling head. "It tastes
like horse piss, doesn't it? Oh, one thing. You're
new here, so I'll let you get by just this once. But
please, do not speak to me unless first spoken to."
The voice twisted up at the end, almost like a
question. The smile was still there. The jolly eyes
still twinkled. Alex felt sweat in his armpits and
groin. I've never been threatened so politely.
Alex had already opened his jacket. Now he
loosened his shirt collar, as well. This was the
first time he had felt really warm since the trek
across the Ice. Was it really warm in the Alderman's
palace-—a.k.a. the old Federal Building on Wisconsin
Avenue-—or was he just nervous about their
circumstances? Then he remembered that the
stevedores at the loading dock had been working in
no more than flannel shirtsleeves.
Odd. Hadn't Thor told him that Milwaukee was
closer to the ice fields than any other major city,
save Winnipeg? Something about the Lake Effect and
the Jet Stream.
Setting his stein down on the tray proffered by
his butler, the Alderman gusted a huge sigh and
wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He made staccato
pointing motions with his hand and the other
servants collected the remaining steins. Alex
surrendered his willingly; but Fang held onto his
and took a second pull from it before releasing the
handle. The Alderman shook his head. "You're either
a brave old cuss or you got no taste at all." He
rubbed his hands together. "Now, to business. Who
the hell are you and what were you doing in the
cheeser?"
Sherrine exchanged lances with Bob and took a step
forward. "May I speak?"
The Alderman raised his eyebrows. "I asked a
question, didn't I?"
"I meant, may I make a request?"
The Alderman raised his chin and stroked it slowly
with his thumb. "Sure. Why not? I might even grant
it, even though you ain't registered voters."
"Two of my friends here are only recently out of
wheelchairs. They cannot stand up for long periods.
Would it be all right with you-—"
" 'Your honor' is the correct title."
"Thank you, your honor. Would it be all right with
your honor if they sat down?"
There was an audible gasp from the assembled
servants and courtiers. One of the waiters fumbled
her tray and nearly dropped the steins she carried.
The Alderman colored slightly; then he grinned.
"Hey, sure. This is a democracy, aina?"
Two chairs were brought. Two only, Alex noted. "I
can still stand," he told Sherrine.
"Don't be chivalric. Don't push yourself beyond
what Steve tells you."
Alex settled himself into the chair. He glanced at
Gordon. "Let them handle this," he said.
"I was planning to," Gordon responded.
The Alderman smiled his humors smile again. "Now.
About your presence in the cheeser."
"We-—" Sherrine glanced at Bob, who shrugged.
"Go ahead."
"We were stuck in western Wisconsin, your honor.
Some friends helped us save gas by letting us
piggyback on the cheese delivery."
 "That's a real expensive favor. I'm short a couple
hundred kilos American because of you."
"There was a blizzard, your honor," Thor
explained. "We saved the farmer's life."
"A square-head's life ain't worth his volume in
cheese. But he might not know that." He stroked his
chin again with his thumb. "You sure you ain't from
Juneautown? Nah, I guess not," he answered himself.
"If you was playing Trojan horse it woulda been a
stupid stunt; and stupid ain't one of Alderman
Wlodarczyck's sterling qualities." He shrugged his
arms out wide and slapped them down on the arms of
his throne.
"But I'm still out the cheese. So what do I do?"
Alex suspected the question was rhetorical; but
Thor spoke up anyway.
"I thought the shipment was going to Chicago. Your
honor. Did they put us on the wrong truck?"
The courtiers laughed. Even the waiters permitted
themselves a supercilious snigger. The Alderman's
smile turned tolerant.
"Did I say something funny, your honor?"
"Ah, those square-heads don't know nothing about
economics. Sure, they was sending their cheese by
Chi-town; but they coulda got a better deal here. So
we did 'em a favor."
"You!" Sherrine blurted. "You're behind the
monties!"
The Alderman turned a fierce glare on her. "You
watch your mouth there, lady. If you wasn't a lady,
you'd get six months hard for leeze majesty. We
don't steal cheese here. We need it to negotiate
with them gangsters in Chi ever since Juneautown cut
us off from the Port and the Marina. Chi's gonna get
their cheese sooner or later, don't you worry about
that; but it might as well do us some good along the
way."
Alex was having a hard time remaining seated.
Floaters didn't lose the strength in their hands.
Alex's hands were hard and sinewy; they could crush
the fat Alderman's throat, if he would hold still
for a moment.
An honest man beset by greedy neighbors. Was it
simply hypocrisy? Self-deception? Or the lack of any
moral code but relativity?
Or was it not so simple as that? The Alderman and
his cronies were arrogant bandits at their center of
power. But did the smiles seem forced? Did the eyes
glitter with a hint of fear? The Ice was sliding
down the west side of the Lake faster than anywhere
else on the planet. Places like Fox Point and Brown
Deer were already engulfed, according to Thor.
Then why was it so warm here?
Milwaukee was no longer a city: the two sides of
the river had become separate waning towns. Maybe
Alderman Strauss was just an old-time, city machine
politician desperately fending off disaster from his
bailiwick, knowing all the while that it was
hopeless. The pressure of that sort of burden could
deform a soul past its yield point, maybe even past
its breaking point.
Look what it's done to Lonny Hopkins. And that was
an odd notion, because it was the first sympathetic
thought he had had about the station commander in a
long, long time.
All right, Alex. What would you do if you were
sitting on a plundered restaurant chair, wearing a
cloak of animal skins, watching your beloved
community be swallowed slowly by glaciers? Anything
it took, right? There was nothing like disaster to
focus one's loyalties.
"But the farmers, your honor," Sherrine insisted.
 Back off, Sherri, he wanted to tell her. These are
desperate, ruthless men and women. They aren't
stealing cheese for fun. They are trying to save
themselves and their families.
"Hey," the Alderman shrugged magnanimously.
"They'll get their payment. We ain't thieves. They
got more cheese than they know what to do with it.
We got beer coming out our-—" He grinned. "Well,
coming out, anyway. So we'll load up their stinking
cheese wagon with enough barrels we figure equals
the cheese and send it back by them. Value for
value. We ain't got cheese here; they ain't got beer
there. They even get their trailer and their drivers
back."
"But, your honor, what can they do with a trailer
load of beer?"
"Throw a party. Get drunk. What else is there to
do in the sticks? The e should be happy we're
bartering at all. Meanwhile . . ." And he rubbed his
hands. "I figured out what to do with you folks. My
city clerk will calculate the value of the cheese
you displaced from the truck. Then we'll put you to
work at standard wage-—minus room and board of
course-—until you pay it off." He smiled an appeal
to them. "That's fair, aina?"
Alex, for one, was not going to tell him
otherwise.

The guard who took them to their new duties was

full of enthusiasm and civic pride. If it hadn't
been for the short sword at his belt and the
crossbow on his back, Alex would have thought him a
member of the chamber of commerce. Or maybe he was.
"Ain't the Alderman a piece of work?" he bragged.
"I was in the fight when Juneautown burned the
Clybourn Street bridge. He was all over the
battlefield, rallying the men, leading that last
charge to tear down the barricade. A damn shame we
lost the battle; but you can't say the Alderman lost
his nerve." The guard shook his head. "That harbor
belongs to all of Milwaukee, not just the east
siders. It ain't right that they keep us out. Same
goes for the old City Hall. Juneautown thinks
they're hot shit."
The horse cart pulled up at Zeidler Park and the
guard ordered them all out. The park was enclosed in
an immense plastic tent shored up by a wooden
framework. The plastic was translucent, and through
it Alex could make out the dim, distorted shapes of
people and plants. He climbed down from the cart
with the others and stumbled toward the tent.
Despite support from Thor and Fang on either arm,
each step sent a lance of fire up Alex's thighs.
"Hey Hobie!" the guard called out. "Got some new
temps for you!"
Glancing up, Alex noticed again how gray the cloud
deck was that hung over Milwaukee. And the twin
plumes of black smoke to the north. "Guard," he
asked, "are those fires?"
"Hunh? Oh, sure. That's how we get our steam heat.
We're burning buildings down. So does Juneautown;
but it was our idea first. Most everything north of
Capitol Avenue is one now."
"What do you do when you run out of city?"
The guard blinked at him. "There are other cities,
aina?"

Hobie was the head farmer for Zeidler Park Farm.

Once inside the huge, low tent, Alex was assaulted
by the warm, moist scent of compost and plant life.
The entire park had been turned over to crops. Rows
of corn and wheat were mixed with pea vines and bean
plants. The plastic sheeting acted as a greenhouse,
letting in the solar energy but trapping the ground-
reflected heat, which was supplemented by steam
hissing from radiators jury-rigged about the
grounds. Shorewood is burning to keep the corn warm,
Alex thought. It was actually warm inside the farm
and, for the first time since falling to Earth, Alex
saw men and women in shirt sleeves. They were bent
silently over the plants, tending them with hoes and
rakes. Some were kneeling, grubbing at the dirt with
hand claws and weeders. A few of the . . .
serfs? . . . glanced at the newcomers with a studied
lack of curiosity.
There had been a popular joke on Freedom, started
by a man named Calder. Looking down from space, he
had said, the dominant life forms on Earth were
obviously the cereals and other grasses. They
occupied all the most desirable and fertile land;
and they had tamed insects and animals to care for
them. In particular, they had domesticated the
bipeds to nurture and cultivate them and to save and
plant their seed. Now, watching the farmers, Alex
could easily imagine that they were worshiping and
genuflecting before their masters.
Hobie looked them over. "New temps," he said.
"Heh, heh."
"That's right," said Bob. "Just until we pay off
the fine."
"And what fine is that, sonny?"
"Well, we were in the back of a cheese truck and .
. ."
Hobie cackled. "Heh, heh, heh. In a cheeser, was
you? And you gotta pay the Boss back for the cheese
he couldn't steal because you, was back there
instead? Heh, heh."
Bob scowled. "What's funny?"
"Well, you may be here a while."
 "That's slavery," Bob pointed out without any real
surprise.
Hobie affected a look of astonishment. "Why, so it
is, sonny!" He leaned forward confidentially and
added, "You want we should go tell the Boss? Maybe
he'll stop it oncet he knows how illegal it all is.
Heh."
Bob's face sagged. He turned to Sherrine and put
his arm around her. "I'm sorry I got you mixed up in
this," he said. "I truly am."
Sherrine leaned against him. "I'm a big girl. I
make my own decisions. But come Monday when I don't
show up for work . . ."
"What?"
She shrugged. "They'll probably start looking for
me; but who would ever think to look here?"
Gordon said, "I would like to sit down."
"Ain't too much sitting down here, sonny," Hobie
told him. "Lots of bending and squatting though.
Heh." Fang and Steve helped Gordon hobble over to
the rude desk that was apparently Hobie's business
office. Gordon sat against it, taking the weight off
his legs. "Hey!" Hobie called, "you a farmer, too?"
Gordon's head hung down on his chest. He shook it
wearily from side to side. "No. No, I'm not a
farmer. I was, a hydroponic tech for a week; and I
screwed that up, too."
"If you ain't a farmer," Hobie insisted, "why'd
they lame you?"
"What?"
Hobie stooped and made a slitting motion with the
blade of his hand against the back of his leg "These
city boys don't know from soil and growin' things.
They're much better at burning stuff down. So any
farmers they catch they hamstring so we don't try to
run away." The telephone on the desk rang and, as if
to demonstrate his last remark, Hobie went to answer
it. He walked with a curious shuffling gait, almost
dragging his left foot. Sherrine shoved her fist in
her mouth and even Fang looked ill. Hobie picked up
the receiver. He looked at the group.
"Ah, don't look so sad. It don't bother me no
more. They just cut the one leg. They don't want us
to be cripples."
The milk of human kindness, thought Alex. Great
Ghu, he had just begun to gain the use of his legs.
Was this barbaric chieftain going to take them away
again?
"Yes, Edna?" Hobie spoke into the receiver. He
lowered himself into an old swivel chair. The
padding was old and ragged and the ticking stuck out
from ripped seams. "Okay, put 'er through . . . Hey,
Terri, you old bug stomper, what's up? Yeah. Yeah,
they're here; they just got here. You need to what?
Well, that's a new one on me. Naw, they don't look
lousy to me; but if you say so, I'll send 'em right
over." He hooked the phone and stared at it, pulling
his lip. "Terri says you gotta come over by her
place for delousing. Says she heard tell of the
typhus over by Greenfield and West Allis. Your truck
come through that way, so she's gotta check you out.
The drivers have already been dusted. Now it's your
turn."
And so back into the wagon. Go here; no, go there.
Autocrats usually gave "efficiency" as the reason
for centralizing the decision making. Good ol' Lonny
sure enough did; and Alex was sure that Alderman
Strauss did, too. But why did the underlings always
have to cut and paste to make things work?

Terri Whitehead ran a pest control operation from

a building alongside the Milwaukee River. As the
guard said driving them over, you could wave to the
guard on the Juneautown side and they could count
how many fingers you used. The guard let the horse
go at a walk. "You ain't in no hurry to start
weeding, are you?" he asked. He wasn't in any hurry,
either. He had pulled an easy duty and saw no reason
not to relax while he had the chance.
Alex lay on his back in the wagon and stared up at
the brown smudge of a sky. Bob, squatting beside
him, followed his gaze.
"Filthy, isn't it?" he said. "All that soot and
carbon from the fires. This may be the only city in
North America with a smog problem, worse luck."
"Worse luck? Why?"
"Because if everybody was lighting fires and
putting carbon dioxide into the air it would be a
damn sight warmer. Like it used to be before they
cleaned up the atmosphere."
Bob gestured with his head. "Take a look around
you," he whispered. "Wisconsin has been devastated
by the Ice more than any other state, except maybe
Michigan. Yet Milwaukee is almost a tropic oasis.
Why? Because, whether they admit it to themselves or
not, the locals are trying to restore the Greenhouse
Effect. They threw another log on the fire."
Steve had been listening quietly to Bob's
whispered lecture. He leaned over to Alex an said
sotto voce: Burn a log and see it through, with heat
and soot and CO2!"
"We're here," announced Sherrine. "And-—" She
stopped abruptly.
"And what?" Bob asked, twisting to his feet. He
stood silently for a moment, swallowing laughter.
Alex grabbed the side of the buckboard and pulled
himself to his knees. They were hitched before a
wide storefront with double-paned plate glass
windows. A wooden sign nailed above the entrance was
painted in bright red and gold letters:

YNGVI'S DE-LOUSING AND PEST CONTROL CENTER

The guard finished hitching the horse to the rail

and scowled at them. "All right, why's everyone
grinning?"
My question exactly, thought Alex.

Terri Whitehead was a short, muscular woman with

long, black hair and owlish glasses. She wore jeans
and a man's dress shirt with rolled up sleeves, and
elbow-length gloves. When she spoke, it was in a
husky contralto.
She took care of the guard first. "Because you may
have picked up lice from being around the new temps.
She made him take off all his clothing and dusted it
with malathion powder. Searched through his
underwear, and recoiled in horror.
"What?" he demanded.
She held up forceps. "Louse, aina? I'll have to
see if it's carrying anything." There was a
microscope by the window. She put the insect on a
slide and studied it. "You're lucky. This one's
healthy. Get back to barracks and take a hot shower.
Here's a prescription. Tell 'em I said hot water.
Use this stuff." She handed him a small bottle of
green liquid. "Use it good, all the hairy parts of
your body. Scrub like hell. You'll be all right."
"Uh, Doc-—"
"Typhus," she said. "Dehydration. Babbling. High
fever. After a while you dry up and die. You won't
like it."
"Jesus, Doc-—"
"You'll be all right. One thing, if you itch,
don't scratch. Don't crush lice. That's really bad.
Just wash them off. Then powder yourself. As for
your clothes, change clothes. Take your old ones
where they're doing a fire and get 'em good and hot,
then smoke them good. Real good.
"Yeah, I will, but, Doc-—"
"You're all right now. I can tell. You don't have
it. Get going before you do."
"What about them?"
She laughed and was suddenly holding a pistol,
quite casually. "No problem. Now get going."
"Yes, ma'am."
By this time Alex could feel tiny life forms
crawling over his body looking for blood to drink.
He kept his hands rigidly by his side. Life under
Lonny Hopkins had its drawbacks; but at least lice
wasn't one of them.
When Terri faced them, she was laughing. "Yngvi is
a louse," she said.
"FIAWOL," Bob replied.
"FIJAGH," she responded. Then she and Sherrine and
Bob and the other fans joined in a happy embrace.
Sherrine said, "A sensitive fannish face! I knew-
—"
"There isn't time," Terri told them. "We have
maybe an hour before they send another guard. Follow
me." She led them to the back of the building and
out the rear door. "Don't worry about the typhus,
she said. "That was just to get you over here. It's
a good thing you have that transponder, Bob. The
Ghost knew right were you were." She paused and
looked at them. "You guys must be awfully
important." No one said anything and she shrugged.
"None of my business, right? Come on, this way."
A path led across the ragged yard to the river
bank, where a small sailboat bobbed at a decaying,
wooden wharf. "Seamus will take you from here.
Seamus deBaol. You may remember him. He used to
publish a line of SF books in the old days. 'Books
by deBaol'? He'll take you down the river as soon as
he ties me up back in the shop."
Sherrine took her by the arm. "Aren't you coming
with us?"
Terri shook her head. "No, someone's got to stay
behind and give you an alibi. I can tell them how
you overpowered me and headed west out St. Paul
Avenue. My friend Allis Place belongs to Psi Phi
Fraternity over by the University. They'll report
some horses stolen, so the Alderman's stooges will
go chasing off that direction. I'll tell them you're
gonna die of typhus anyway. The Alderman will think
you're a blessing. Maybe you'll go to Juneautown and
start a plague."
"But-—you won't come, then?"
"This is my home," she said. "Such as it is. What
if other fen find themselves in need of help
someday?"
Sherrine hugged her. "It must be awful, living
life undercover like that. Aren't you afraid of
exposure?"
Terri grinned. "That's why I stay under the
covers. Being a fan was a lot simpler in the old
days; now we've all got new destinies to pursue.
Here." She handed them a paper sack. "You'll need
money. Take this. It's filled with cheese. Sorry, no
apple pie. 'The best of all physicians is apple pie
and cheese.' Quick, now. Into the boat. Seamus,
hurry! You've still got to tie me up."
The short, bearded man grinned at them as he
jogged past up to the house. "Some parts of this
job, I like."
 It was a gaff rigged catboat with plenty of room
aboard. The mast was stepped well forward and wore a
single quadrilateral sail.
The boat pushed off from shore, and the sail
caught the wind. It heeled dangerously, then settled
on course. They huddled in the bottom of the boat,
out of the chill wind, and Alex managed to be next
to Sherrine.
"How did you know she was a friend?"
"The sign. 'Yngvi is a louse'-well, it's a quote
from an old fantasy, and it got to be sort of a
catch phrase among fans. As soon as I saw 'Yngvi
DeLousing . . .' "
Alex nodded. "I see. FIAWOL I know, but what means
that other one?"
She grinned. "FIJAGH. Fandom Is Just A Goddamn
Hobby.
* * *
The Museum of Science and Industry was located on
the shore of Lake Michigan in Jackson Park on
Chicago's south side. Seamus maneuvered the catboat
to a spit of land just north of the museum and ran
the bow aground. "Are you sure you want off here?"
he asked.
"Yes," Sherrine told him. "We are supposed to meet
someone."
Seamus glanced up at the imposing building. He ran
a hand through his beard. "Well, be careful. It's
not the museum it used to be. Time was this was Chi-
Town's biggest tourist attraction. Four million
people a year came to look at Science and Technolo
exhibits. Like a damn city come to visit. A lot of
the displays have been changed over now. They only
left a few, and they don't keep the homeless out."
Alex wobbled as he stepped ashore. His legs felt
like rubber and he grabbed Thor's shoulders to stay
upright. "Sorry," he muttered. "I seem to have lost
it." The long, leisurely sail down the Milwaukee
River and then along the shore of Lake Michigan had,
with its gentle rolling motion, put him back into a
state of near weightlessness. Now the earth heaved
to and fro as if tossed by waves.
Seamus waved to them as he cast off. The wind was
off the lake, abeam to his course both coming and
going. "Sailor's wind," he called. "Good luck."
"FIAWOL," Alex said tentatively.
"Don't you just know it," Seamus called. He hauled
in the sheets and the boat moved rapidly away.

Bob and Sherrine disappeared and reappeared a

short while later with a pair of wheelchairs with
C.M.S.A.T. stenciled in yellow ink across the back.
"Here you go, guys," Sherrine said. "You wouldn't
believe what they wanted for a deposit on these
things."
Bob led the way to the front of the building. The
façade consisted of tall, fluted columns with
voluted capitals. Statues of the Muses gazed
serenely down. "It's a huge building," he said.
"Covers five and a half hectares. It was built
originally for the 1893 World Colombian Exposition;
then rebuilt in the 1930s as the museum."
"Where would this Cole character have his Titan?"
asked Alex.
"There used to be a wing, called the Henry Crown
Space Center. It had Schirra's Aurora Seven Mercury
capsule and the Apollo Eight, the first craft to
orbit the moon. The Titan is probably back there. I
figured maybe we could mount the Apollo on the Titan
somehow. It seats three."
"Which means," Sherrine interjected, "that you
could even take a friend with you. No, guess not.
Seeds and stuff-—"
"The Titan was rigged for a Gemini," said Bob,
"but I figured we should be able to . . ." His voice
trailed off. Alex suspected that Bob was just
beginning to appreciate the magnitude of the
proposed rescue. As long as it was blue sky dream,
there were no problems; but the closer they came,
the more the difficult details emerged.
People didn't really build spacecraft in their
backyards, or in museums. That was just science
fiction.
So far so good!

They went up the handicapped ramp to the left of

the main entrance. The mass of the building was
beginning to get to Alex. Peace and Freedom were
frail metal balloons next to this concrete habitat.
It was, he thought, like being in a hollowed-out
asteroid.
Bob secured a map of the museum and they huddled
over it. The logo read, "Chicago Museum of Science
and Appropriate Technology," with a footnote
explaining that "science" did not mean only
"materialist science."
Now, what might "non-materialist science" be? Alex
wondered. Plasma physics?
"Here it is." Bob pointed. "I'll be damned. It's
still in the same old spot. Henry Crown Space
Center. What does it say in the description?" He
bent closer. "This exhibit has been preserved as it
was in the past as an example of Big Technology.
Astonishing as it may seem, billions of dollars were
once spent in outer space rather than here on Earth.
See the actual capsules that were used to give a few
military pilots joyrides at taxpayer expense."
"I don't understand, Bob," Alex said. "How could
they spend money in space? There were no stores
there back in those days."
"That's not what they meant, Gabe," Bob replied.
Thor spoke gently. "They meant that the money was
spent on the space program rather than on Earthly
problems."
Sherrine burst out, "They got so much from the
space program! Fireproofing. Weather forecasting.
Dammit, these"-—she kicked Alex's wheelchair-—"
lightweight wheelchairs we're pushing around.
Sorry."
Alex started to laugh. Sherrine said, "Sorry. My
God, it's been so long since I could say this kind
of thing!"
"Did these chairs really-—"
"Waste-water treatments. Medical instruments. Most
people had no idea that any of that came out of the
space program. Or for that matter, that it even
existed. A new design lightweight wheelchair doesn't
make the kind of headlines that a scrubbed launch or
a flawed mirror makes, even if the structural
analysis techniques and composite materials used to
make the damn thing were aerospace from the
beginning. What is everyone grinning at?"
"Welcome back," Steve said.
"Thanks. Oh, Bob, there was nobody to talk to."
Steve said, "All that stuff was just 'spin-off,'
you know. Science happens because one day a
scientist wakes up and says, 'Today I'm going to
invent toothpaste.' If he didn't plan to invent a
better wheelchair, he can't take credit for it."
"Come on," said Bob. "We're wasting time here.
Let's get back to the Crown Center."
He led them through several exhibits on the way to
the back room where the space exhibit was stashed.
One was a Hall of Minerals that featured all sorts
of crystals, together with detailed descriptions of
the powers of each for " . . . clearing away
negative attitudes, centering personal energies,
enhancing communications, promoting healing, opening
the heart to love and courage, simplifying decision
making, balancing the spirit, focusing the mind,
tapping into psychic powers, and using chakras and
colors."
Another exhibit was entitled "Origins of the
Earth." There were seven panels, one for each day.
One large poster read "The Speed of Light: A Test of
Faith?" and explained how light created "already on
the way" could give the impression of a universe
much larger and older an it really was.
There was a Green exhibit on alternate energy
sources. Windmills, passive solar. Biomass.
"Biomass?"
Bob said, "Burn wheat and corn. Real efficient.
Well, at least they don't have an exhibit on
generating energy by squeezing crystals."
"Why the grin, Alex?" Thor asked as they entered a
stairwell and turned right into a dimly lit
corridor. A faded sign on the wall read, "This way
to Henry Crown Space Center."
Alex chuckled. "We grow perfect crystals in our
electronics lab in Freedom. I could be rich if I had
brought a handful with me."
The Crown Center was housed in a separate wing
that could be reached only through a long, narrow
corridor. A homeless pair huddled in a niche near
the doorway. They were bundled up in torn blankets
that covered everything but their eyes.
"Hey, man, you got any change?"
No one looked at them. Eye contact might humanize
them . . .
Half the lights in the hallway were out and the
edges at the floor and ceiling were thick with nitre
and cobwebs. This was a part of the building long-—
and deliberately-—neglected.
The center itself was dimly lit. The two space
capsules were shadowy shapes suspended from the
ceiling. A couple of teenaged boys who had found
their way in were standing beneath the Mercury
capsule. ". . . and all they ever brought back was a
bung of dumb moon rocks," Alex heard the one tell
his companion. He turned to them as he was wheeled
past.
"Did you ever ask what those rocks were made of?"
he asked.
The two kids gave him a wary look. "Rocks is
rocks," the older said.
"Right, kid," murmured Thor. "Aluminum, titanium,
zirconium, calcium. If we had mined the moon like
some people wanted, we wouldn't have to disturb
Mother Earth and ruin the environment here."
The younger kid stuck his chin out. "Yeah, but
then we woulda ruined the moon's ecology."
Thor smiled. "I can't argue with that," he said
mildly. "Mighty important, that lunar ecology."
One of the boys nodded solemnly. The other
muttered something under his breath.
The two teenagers left casting a few careful
glances behind. "You better be careful, you come
back here," the younger one called. "Or the spook'll
get you!"
"All right," said Bob when they were gone. "Let's
spread out and see if we can find Cole."
They split into groups and explored the corners of
the hall. Alex saw a shuttle simulator, now
padlocked. A sign told how much taxpayer money had
been spent so astronauts could play computer games."
"Over here!" Sherrine shouted. "The Titan!"
 They converged on her voice. A tall cylinder stood
in an ill-lit corner of the room, a majestic shadow
among the shadows. "I can't believe it," Bob said,
his head tilted back to seek its top. "We actually
found it!"
Fang approached the behemoth in awe and fear. He
ran his hand over its skin. He looked at his hand.
He studied the ill-lit surface a few moments more,
and said, "I'm going to be sick."
Alex yanked on his chair's wheels and rolled up to
the artifact. Closer now, he could see rust sots,
popped welds, holes where fittings should have been.
There were no main thrusters mounted at the base.
Alex noticed a dark horizontal line running across
the booster about halfway up. His own belly lurched
and tried to turn over. The bird had been cut in
half, he realized. Cut in half, to transport it or
to get it through a door. He remembered that Bob had
described Cole's rocket as a kind of Flying
Dutchman, wandering from museum to museum.
This ship would never fly. It never could have
flown.
I never thought it could. Never in a million
years. Then why was he so disappointed? Why was he
biting his lip so hard that he could taste blood? He
heard a sob to his right and turned in time to see
Gordon stagger out of his wheelchair and lean
against the Titan. His arms stretched out to embrace
it and he placed his cheek against its cool skin.
Tears had pooled in his eyes.
"It won't work, Alex, will it? It won't fly. We'll
be marooned down here forever. Crushed and tripping
and staggering like drunken fools until they finally
catch us. Never to see my semya again, never to
plavat in the old ESO module. Never rift my
broomstick on lazy orbit to Peace. If only-—" Gordon
sagged and Steve grabbed him under the armpits to
keep him from falling.
"If only what?" Alex snapped at him. "If only
what? I'd strangle fucking Lonny if my arms were
long enough, but it wouldn't change anything. If
only I'd waited another orbit! We could have scooped
our air on the next pass."
He tried to jerk his arm away from Thor, who was
trying to calm him down. If Thor noticed, he didn't
react. Sherrine stepped between them, saying
something that Alex refused to hear. "We are stuck
down here, Gordo," he persisted. "Stuck. Forever. It
doesn't matter whose fault-—"
"Quiet, there! Quiet, I say!"
The sudden voice came from above. Alex looked up
with the rest and saw wild hair and a long New
Englander face, party white in the uncertain
fluorescent light, staring down at them from an
opening high up in the Titan. The face showed
nothing. He said, "Get away from that. It's not
yours."
Nobody moved.
A knotted rope snaked down from above and the
tall, thin man came down hand over hand. He landed
too hard, staggered, recovered. He took his place
before the Titan, in no evident hurry.
"I bought the parts and put it together and held
it together for forty years. You're not going to
hurt it."
Thor stepped up to him and reached for his arm.
"Ron? Ron Cole? Is that you?" His hand stopped,
because that was a gun in Cole's hand.
The creature looked at him. "Yes." He squinted at
Thor's face. "I know you. Don't I?" His other hand
stroked the discolored flank of the Titan. He held
the gun with evident negligence, but it was still
pointed at Thor's belly.
 "They took away her boosters, they did. Her
boosters. Too dangerous, they said. Hah! What did
they know? Without the fuel . . ." His lips clamped
into a straight line.
Thor had backed away a bit. "What fuel is that,
Ron?"
Cole backed against the Titan, shaking his head.
"No, no. Things are seldom as they seem; skim milk
masque . . . masquerades as cream." He nodded his
head wisely. His gun hand drooped.
"Ron, what happened to you?" Thor demanded.
"Heh. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest-—"
"Electro shock," Fang said. "And drugs. They must
have helped him, in one of the mental health
centers."
When Thor turned back, Alex could see tears
staining his beard. "I knew Ron," he said. "I knew
Ron back in the old days, in Boston. We had dinner
together at a Thai restaurant there. He told me
stories, wonderful stories. About how the Boston
Globe made him the world's sixth nuclear power;
about Wade Curtis and the machete; and Reynolds and
the Great Duel . . . He was the brightest man I ever
knew, and look what they've done to him. Look what
they've done." He bowed his head and Steve stepped
to his side and put an arm around his shoulder.
It had all been in vain, Alex realized. The
harrowing trip across Wisconsin; the blizzard; the
narrow escape from slavery . . . All for nothing.
The shining vision of the old Titan had gone before
them like a pillar of fire in the desert night. And
at the end, they had found only junk and an old man
who had been helped by mental health professionals.
No one said anything. Bob studied the Titan,
checking out every part of it; as if he could will
it into flight worthiness, as if he could somehow
find something they had overlooked that would make
everything all right. Steve consoled Thor, while
Sherrine comforted a weeping Gordon. Even Fang
seemed bereft of ideas.
Alex watched Gordon cry. Thor had lost his friend.
Sherrine had lost her job; or would when she failed
to show up for work in the morning. Bob had lost his
van, and probably his job, too. But Gordon cried
uncontrollably. Okay, for Gordo this is a totally
alien planet. I could acclimate myself. I was born
here. I loved Kansas; I cried when my parents took
me up. I could learn to love it here again. I could
convince myself that I was only coming home again.
The Titan had given their sojourn a purpose. They
had had a goal, as quixotic as that goal had been.
Now, they had nothing.
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"See What Free Men Can Do. . ."

"She's dead, then," Bob said. "Goddam. The rumor
was right. Cole had a rocket. Maybe it was alive,
once."
"For all the good it does us," Sherrine said
bitterly. "Oh bloody hell, I'm, sorry. I'm really
sorry."
"Don't look now," Bob said. He jerked his thumb
toward the entrance. The homeless pair who had
claimed the corridor were now in the room, still
wearing their blankets. Sherrine wondered if they
had clothes on under them. The pair seemed to be
hustling a girl in her teens. The girl tried to move
away from them, but the pair followed, evidently
begging.
The pantomime dance was curving them toward the
rocket. Cole eyed the three warily and took a
tentative step to place himself between them and it.
One of the blanketed figures began to sing, very
softly. The other joined in, then the girl they had
been begging from. Even as close as they were, they
could barely be heard.

"Star fire! Star fire!

It's singing in my blood, I know it well!
 We can know the promise of the stars.
Star fire! Star fire!
The promise of the universe is ours-—"

"Harry?" Bob said quietly.

"Nobody else," Harry said. "Been waiting for you.
'Lo, Ron."
" 'Lo, Harry," Cole said. "Wade send you?"
"Yup. Says it's getting on for time to move on."
Some of the mad glint faded from Cole's eyes.
"Harry, what are you doing here?" Bob demanded.
"Better yet, what are you talking about?" Sherrine
said.
"Shh," Jenny said. "Come on where we can talk."
She eyed the two spacemen. "Huh. You're walking now!
You had me fooled."
"Not me," Harry said. "I guessed in Minneapolis.
Come on-—"
Thor looked at Harry and shook his head. "Same old
bullshit. Like hell you guessed." He looked
suspiciously at the girl who had come in with Harry
and Jenny. "Who's this?"
She had dark hair, soft brown eyes, exotic
features. Sherrine thought that with a little makeup
and some attention to her hair she would be
beautiful. As it was, she seemed to want to look
plain: no makeup at all, not even lipstick, hair
brushed severely back and tied in a bun. She wore a
skirt and sweater, both drab brown, with black
leggings and ugly leg warmers over those.
"Who's this?" Thor demanded again.
"Violetta Brown," Harry said. He looked around the
room, saw no one, and lowered his voice. "Oliver
Brown's daughter."
"Oh," Sherrine said. "Pleased to meet you,
Violetta. Is your father-—"
"Waiting for us," Violetta said. "Come on. Harry
has a lot to tell you."
"That I do," Harry said. He turned to Cole. "You,
too, Ron. Wade says it's time. Said you'd know what
I meant."
Ron Cole nodded slowly. "And past time. You'll be
back?"
"Tomorrow," Harry promised. "Maybe tonight."
"Let's get out of here," Thor said. Outside he
turned to Harry, "You get picked up as homeless-—"
"Lots," Harry said.
"But you're no crazier than you ever were. Why?"
He stabbed an arm back toward the dim lit space
center. "Why the hell did they do that to Ron? And
not you."
Harry shrugged. "He was interesting."
"Interesting?"
"Yeah," Jenny said. "The last thing you want to be
is different. Those mental health centers are filled
up with graduate students, all just alike, no
future, unless they can find an interesting case to
write a thesis about."
"Ron couldn't be ordinary, no matter how hard he
tried," Thor said. "Yeah. I see."
Harry said, "Some of us hide it better than
others."
* * *
Captain Lee Arteria opened the folder and removed
the single sheet of paper it contained. Do all files
start as innocuously as this? One sheet; but
destined to multiply, like a bacterial colony. Trees
die so that we may keep dossiers.
Arteria looked up and caught the eye of Captain
Machtley, the North Dakota liaison. The State Police
agencies, fearful of being left out in the cold in
the pursuit of the spacemen, had agreed to be
coordinated through Arteria's Air Police.
"Why don't you fill us in on what this says,
Captain?"
Machtley cleared her throat. "Her name is Sherrine
Hartley. She lives in Minneapolis, but her
grandparents live near the crash site; and the
telephone company's records show that she called
them the night of the crash."
"Well. That certainly sounds suspicious. Calling
your grandparents."
"In the middle of the night? Besides, there's
more," Machtley said happily.
Arteria replaced the sheet in the folder and
closed it. "Tell me."
Machtley looked around the table at the others.
That's right, thought Arteria. Share and share
alike.
"Dakota Bell's data banks were scrambled the next
day. If the off-line backup hadn't been done first
thing in the morning, there would have been no
record of Hartley contacting her grandparents. We
suspect that the Legion of Doom was involved."
Lee was unconvinced. "The Legion of Doom has been
sparring with the phone company since Day One. It
might not be related."
"We would never have found the grandparents,"
Machtley insisted, "if we hadn't gone door to door.
It was a neighbor who told us about the
granddaughter in Minneapolis."
Arteria smiled. "I've always said that good old-
fashioned police legwork beats these computerize
searches for useful results. Moorkith and his Green
Police are going nuts trying to straighten out their
records. They're too damn lazy to hit the bricks."
 "Don't forget the Motor Vehicle data banks," said
Captain Conte, the Minnesota liaison. "They were
scrambled, too. Remember when we tried to ID the
maroon van?"
Machtley nodded. "That's an interesting point.
Hartley's grandparents would have been on Moorkith's
un-Green list, too; if it hadn't been hacked up.
They are not the milk and cookie type at all. The
old lady is a former gene-tamperer."
There was a general stirring around the table.
"You're right," Arteria said. "Gene tampering does
not sound good at all."
"It violates God's law," put in Captain Traxler,
the Wisconsin liaison. "And it harms the ecology.
Satan's work."
"We've started checking up on the Hartley woman,"
said Conte. "She was once reported as active in the
science fiction underground."
Aha. "By whom?"
"Her ex-husband."
"Ex-husband. Was the report substantiated, or was
it just a messy divorce?"
Conte shook his head. "Nothing was proven; and the
records say she's kept her nose clean the last few
years. But still, where there's smoke, there's
usually fire."
Oh, well, thought Lee Artena, we never needed a
Fourth Amendment, anyway. Start making exceptions in
the need for probable cause and where did you stop?
Not at sobriety checkpoints. "Does anyone else have
anything concrete to add?"
Nobody spoke. After a moment, Arteria nodded.
"Very well, Captains. Scrambling three separate
databases relating to Hartley, her grandparents and
the van. Machtley, that was good work. It would be
one hell of a thick coincidence." And there is a
definite whiff of fannishness about Hartley.
Gafiated years ago, but still has connections.
"Hartley may have been the woman in the van at Fargo
Gap. It's worth following up. Captain Conte?"
"Yes?"
"I think we should pay this Sherrine Hartley a
visit, don't you? And . . ." Arteria leaned back in
the chair and contemplated the ceiling. "I don't
think there is any reason to let the Green Police or
the INS into this quite yet. Let's wait until we
have more to show before we let them share the
credit."
The grins of the other captains showed that they
knew quite well how to share credit.
* * *
Oliver Brown had the entire fourth floor of an
older apartment building. There was no elevator.
They carried the Angels up the stairs using sheets
for hammocks.
The building looked old and run down, but the
apartment was light and clean. Books were stacked
everywhere, in book cases, in piles on the floor, on
every flat surface.
Violetta introduced her father. He was a little
taller than Sherrine, portly, with dark hair and a
distracted expression. He tend to mutter to himself
when he wasn't talking. Like Samuel Johnson,
Sherrine thought. He ushered them through the living
room to another room piled high with even more
books.
Bruce and Mike were there.
"I see Harry found you," Bruce said.
"Yes. He said Wade Curtis sent him," Bob said.
"I work for Wade," Harry said.
"Doing what?"
"Gopher. Booklegger. Postman. Whatever needs
doing." Harry grinned. "He said go hang around Ron
Cole and see if anyone from Minicon shows up."
"But why-—"
"He guessed?" Sherrine asked.
"Suspected," Jenny said. "He said maybe someone
would come looking for a rocket ship."
"If somebody from Minicon comes looking for a
rocket ship, tell 'em where to find one. That's what
he told me to do. So here you are," said Harry.
"It doesn't work!" Sherrine said. She was near
tears. "It never would have worked!"
"That pile of junk? Naw."
"Until we got here you didn't know that any better
than the rest of us," Jenny said sharp.
Harry gave Jenny a pained look. "I knew it
wouldn't work. Anyway, we got here just ahead of
Bruce and Mike, and they said you were coming. Only
you didn't come, and they couldn't wait for you at
the museum."
Mike patted his ample bulk. "Too conspicuous."
"What happened to you?" Bruce asked.
"Long story," Fang said.
"So Jenny and I moved in," Harry said. He fished
into his pockets and held out a handful of change
and a couple of bills. "Not too bad a location. Some
people still care. A little."
They heard footsteps outside. Violetta opened the
apartment door. "Hi, Mom."
Mrs. Brown was bundled up against the cold so that
she looked larger than her husband. She looked at
the crowd sprawled around her living room and smiled
thinly. "More of your godfather's friends?" she
asked Violetta. "Glad to meet you, but I'm afraid I
can't feed you all. We-—!" She hesitated.
"Helga works at the university clinic," Oliver
Brown said. "And I write science fiction. She
doesn't get paid much but it's more than I make.
What she's too embarrassed to say is that we can't
afford to feed you."
"Will this help?" Sherrine handed her bag of
cheese to Helga Brown.
"Cheese? Wisconsin cheese? Ollie! It's real, the
real thing-But there's too much! I can trade this
for a lot-—"
"Go see what you can get for half of it," Oliver
said. "Violetta, go with your mother."
"Maybe I better go, too," Harry said. "Tough
neighborhood-—"
"You have to tell your story," Violetta said. "IT
get Roland. My boyfriend, he lives next door. He'll
come with us."
"Fan?" Bob asked.
Violetta laughed. "My father is Oliver Brown, my
mother is Helga Brown, my godfather is Wade Curtis.
You figure it out."

"All right," Thor said. "Just what the hell is

going on? We've chased all across Wisconsin. Lived
through a blizzard, almost got enslaved by a crazy
alderman, damn near caught by the cops, just so we
can find out that Ron Cole is mad as a hatter and
his rocket never was any good. Now you tell us-—what
in hell is it you want to tell us, Harry Czescu?"
"If you'll shut up for a minute, maybe he can say
it," Jenny said.
Thor glared at her.
"Wade says-—"
"Wade says," Thor said. "Look, Wade Curtis hasn't
been sober in ten years. Maybe he's not raving like
Cole, but he sent us here! He believed in Cole's
rocket, just like you did, and I did and-—Oh, God,
Damn, It."
"Got a letter," Harry said.
Bruce asked, "Letter for whom?"
"Maybe you." Harry took off his left boot. "Wade
said I should give it to-—I should give it to
somebody I thought he'd trust." The inner lining
wasn't properly sewn to the boot shell. Harry
reached between the two leathers and took out a
dirty envelope.
"What does it say."
Harry said, "It's sealed." The hurt barely showed.
"Wade said I should burn this if nobody from Minicon
showed up looking for Cole, but if anybody did, give
it to somebody with judgment." He looked around the
group. Finally he held the paper out to Oliver
Brown. "Reckon he trusts you."
Oliver took the paper. "What Harry is carefully
not saying is that Wade and I are still
collaborating on a book. Harry brought me two new
chapters yesterday."
He went over to his desk and got a letter opener.
He was maddeningly slow, and Sherrine wanted to
scream as he smoothed out the envelope's wrinkles,
then carefully inserted the letter opener and slit
the paper. There was a single sheet inside, and he
took it out slowly.
I haven't seen Wade, haven't seen Wade for years,"
Oliver muttered. "Afraid it will cost Helga her job.
If they knew. But they do know. They have to. May be
they don't, though." He spread the paper out and
began to read. "Ah. Hmm. Mmmh hmmmh. Yes. Yes."
"For God's sake!" Bob shouted. "What?"
"I'll read it," Oliver said. He cleared his
throat. " 'King David is in the high desert. It's a
Doherty project. My wings are made of tungsten, my
flesh of glass and steel.
Explorers-—' "
"That's a song," Sherrine said.
Brown looked up. In the silence Harry sang, "I am
the joy of Terra for the power that I wield-—"
Sherrine and Jenny were with him. "Once upon a
lifetime, I died a pioneer. Now I sing within a
space-ships's heart, does anybody hear?"
" 'The Phoenix,' " Harry said with just the trace
of a bow. "Julia Ecklar."
"Damn drunk," Thor said. "Told you he's just a
drunk. Doesn't make any sense at all."
" 'Explorers in the desert keep bottle shops,' "
Roland read. " 'Skim milk masquerades as cream. It
is time for the merry soul to move on, to see what
free men can do. What man has done, man can aspire
to. Love and plenty kisses. W. ' "
"That's it?" Sherrine asked.
Oliver nodded. "I hope it means something to you."
"We were hoping it would mean something to you,"
Mike said. "Harry, he thought we'd understand this"
"Thought it was important enough to send me here
with it," Harry said.
Which might mean he wanted you out of the way?
Sherrine rejected that with a violent headshake.
"Start with what we know. He thought someone from
the Con would be here. Why? Nobody's come here for
years. Because-—because he'd talked about Ron Cole's
Titan at the Con."
Mike: "Someone might have overheard-—"
Bruce: "-—and told the Angels!"
"So it's a message for us," Sherrine said. "Why in
code?"
"Drunk," Thor said.
"What if Harry got picked up?" Fang suggested.
 "No, I was carrying a manuscript for Oliver,"
Harry said. His big shoulders rolled, free of that
weight. "They'd have sent me to mental health for
that, letter or no."
"He wasn't protecting Harry and me," Jenny said.
"What, then?"
"Who the hell cares what he thinks?" Thor
demanded. He looked to Fang. "Maybe it's time to
move on."
"No, it's time for the merry soul to move on,"
Mike said. "That's Cole, of course. Not that it
would be so obvious if we hadn't just seen him."
"Skim milk-—Cole said that, too," Sherrine said.
"Harry, you had a message for Cole!"
"And what were you supposed to do once you'd found
us all and delivered the messages?" Bruce asked.
"I can tell you exactly what he said," Harry said.
He looked uncomfortable.
"What?" Bruce said.
Harry looked out the window.
"Want me to tell them?" Jenny asked.
"No. No, I'll do it." Harry stuffed his hands deep
into his jeans pockets. "Wade said, 'Harry, I trust
your honor with my life, but I don't trust your
judgment to go buy the beer. If nobody shows up,
forget all this and meet me in-—well, where we meet,
next month. If anybody from Minicon shows up, go
tell Oliver Brown, then deliver the messages, and
stand by to help people. I think they'll want help.'
"
"And that's all?"
Harry shrugged. "That's all."
"Where is Curtis now?" Mike asked.
Harry shook his head. "I don't know, and I guess I
wouldn't tell you if I did."
 "Great," Thor said. "So we have this nonsense from
a drunk writer, and a messenger he doesn't trust
with his drunken ravings, and we're supposed to get
all excited."
Fang said, "Thor, it's a puzzle."
"Wade always did drink a lot," Oliver Brown said.
"But he turned out the stories. He used to be in the
space program you know. Other things. Were you ever
in his study before they burned it down? Big place.
Books. And a signed picture of Voyager-—Hey!"
"What?" Bruce demanded.
" 'See what free men can do.' That was the
inscription on the photo. By, by the man who built
it-Dick Rhutan! Who flew Voyager around the world on
one tank of gas. That Voyager."
"Rhutan. Voyager. King David in the desert!" Mike
said.
"Mike?"
"King David's Spaceship! It's a book title. And
the Rhutan brothers were working on a spaceship. A
spaceship called-—" He paused dramatically, holding
a wide grin. "Wait for it. It was called Phoenix.
They were working on it in the Mojave desert."
"Be damned," Bruce muttered. "That was that thing
that looked like an inverted styrofoam cup-—"
"Single stage to orbit, vertical take off and
landing," Oliver Brown said. "SSTO VTOL."
Mike was frowning. "Sure, we all saw the briefing
at a Worldcon. Long time ago. Nolacon? Somewhere in
there. Wait a minute and I'll come up with the name
of the guy who was in charge of the Phoenix
project."
"Hudson," Oliver Brown said. "An old friend of
Wade's."
"Hudson. An explorer in the desert," Mike said.
"Yup. Well, there's no question what Wade was
talking about. Phoenix."
"A spaceship. Where have I heard this before?"
asked Alex. But his blood was beginning to sing .
Again.
"Yes, I know," Sherrine said. "But-—but Phoenix
was real! They spent tens of millions of dollars on
it. And Voyager was real, it flew around the world!"
Steve got up from the floor. As usual he seemed to
float up, as if-he could turn off the gravity.
"Phoenix is real, all right," he said. "I've seen
it. It's in a museum in Mojave."
"Another museum," Gordon said. "I think perhaps
this time we do not bother?"
"Suit yourself," Steve said. "But Phoenix flew
once. I saw it."
"Flew!" Alex tried to stand. Fang noticed and
helped him. "Flew?"
"Not to orbit," Steve said. "The Phoenix was just
too heavy. Hudson had to make too many compromises.
But it could have gone around the world, like
Voyager, if NASA hadn't stopped him."
Thor said, "Like the Spruce Goose? There's always
a reason why it didn't work."
Steve's muscles were bunching. Thor was getting to
him, though he may not have been aware of it. "NASA
said it had to do with flight safety. Gary Hudson
got to take the Phoenix straight up fifty miles and
dump most of his fuel and come straight back down.
Then the budget cuts came, and the Green Initiatives
passed, and the Greens got in control."
"So where is this Phoenix now?" Alex demanded.
"In a hangar on what used to be Edwards Air Force
Base in California. It's been preserved as a
reminder of Big Bad Science, just like the Space
Center here. Actually, I think the military may have
had ideas they could use it. They didn't have the
money to fix it, but they never throw anything away
either. It's out there 'as a monument.' People are
supposed to go out and be scandalized; but . . .
When I was there, a lot of the tourists had tears in
their eyes."
"Probably for all the money that was wasted," said
Fang sarcastically.
Steve nodded. "Truer than you think. I shed a few
myself at the waste. That's where I met Hudson.
They've got him conducting the tour."
Bruce jumped. "Himself? Why-—"
"I thought the Single Stage Experimental Lifter
was never finished," Thor said belligerently. "They
proxmired the whole space program. They even
outlawed private ventures, like Hudson's."
"That's what Gary said when I took the tour,"
Steve agreed. "SSX Phoenix was never finished. Just
flew the once. Never fly again, he said. Over and
over. One thing, though."
"What's that?" asked Bob.
Steve sighed and smiled dreamily. "It seats ten."
Sherrine felt her heart begin to pound. Seats ten,
she thought. Seats ten. "Never finished," she said.
"Phoenix is too big to hide. Hah!"
"Hah?" Mike said.
"Bottle shop," she said. " 'Explorers in the high
desert keep bottle shops.' "
Smiles began to form. Bruce said, "Ah. A bottle
shop sells miracles, and is not what it seems . . ."
"And the proprietor of a bottle shop usually lies.
So what do we have? A rocket ship, in plain sight,
and Gary Hudson who helped design the bird makes
sure he tells everyone that it can never fly again."
And it seats ten! It seats ten!
 "I do not believe it," Gordon said. "It is one
more goose to chase. A chimera."
"Me, either," Thor said. "People, it's been fun,
but I am not chasing off to California after another
rocket ship."
"So what do we do with the Angels?" Bruce asked.
Thor shrugged. "Not my problem. The Con's over.
You're Chairman. You take care of the pass-on. You
don't need Fang and me for that. Time for us to move
on-—"
Fang said, "Guests are my responsibility."
Thor shrugged. "Suit yourself."
"We all have places to be," Bruce said. "Except
you and Fang. Steve, how are you getting back to
California?"
"Amtrack. I have a ticket. Don't think I can get
anymore. Maybe they'll be watching the stations
anyway."
Harry had been uncharacteristically quiet. "Jenny
and me, were headed that way. Maybe we could steal
another bike-—"
"We have a little money," Bruce said.
"Yeah, but-—" Harry shook his head. "It's a rough
trip, riding double. Don't think the Angels would
make it."
Gordon laughed. "Nor do I, Harry!"
"It's all crazy anyway," Alex said. "You know
where there is a ship. Single stage to orbit, seats
ten. Assume it works, that unlike that ancient
Titan, it has been well maintained. I don't believe
it, but assume that. It will need-I'm guessing-half
a million pounds of fuel? Liquid oxygen and liquid
hydrogen. They don't leave that stuff lying around."
There was no answer.
"Fine. You don't have the foggiest notion of how
to get the fuel, or how to move it if you did-—"
"Details," Mike said.
"Dreams," Gordon said.
"I'm with Gordon," Alex said. "Look, we are very
grateful, but it is time to give up the dreams. We
have to look for ways we can hide. Forever, I
guess."
Silence descended within the Brown household.
Presently Mike Glider said, "We can get you ID, I
think. Permanent convention guests. God knows fans
will help."
"Given ID," Bruce said. "Sherrine?"
"If I lose my job-—and I will if I'm not back
tomorrow morning-—there won't be anything I can do."
It's just a dream. A dream that seats ten. Oh, damn-
—
"Then we have to get you back to Minneapolis.
Fast," Bruce said. "That needs working on.
Meanwhile, can they hide here? Oliver?"
Brown nodded eagerly. "I would be honored. I
suppose you won't mind telling me about life in
space?"
"OK," Bruce said.
But what if I don't want to go back? Oh, that's
crazy. Let them find a way. I go home, I go back to
my job. I get Ted on-line and we work out the ID.
And I go back to work, doing what I always did, my
neat career and I have some memories.
"Sherrine's not the only hacker in fandom," Steve
said conversationally.
They all looked at her. "Yes, of course," she
said. "There's Ted Marshall. And-—"
"And?" Mike demanded.
"RMS himself," Sherrine said. "Nobody knows
anything but his initials. Ever hear of emacs?"
 "The programmer's editor? Sure, I use it," Bob
said.
"He wrote it."
"Could he arrange fake ID for the Angels?" Bruce
asked.
Sherrine nodded. "If it can be hacked, he can hack
it."
"Would he?"
"For space pilots? Oh, yes."
"Why don't we know him?" Mike asked.
"Oh, RMS has been wanted forever," Sherrine said.
"Since before the Greens took over! He used to come
to Worldcons, but-—well, he doesn't stand out in a
crowd. Doesn't want to."
"So how do you contact this RMS?" Bruce asked.
Sherrine shrugged. "A million ways. It's just a
question of getting the word out on the net. The
Legion of Doom will see it and-—"
"I used to think I understood you people," Alex
said. "Legion of Doom-—"
"Super hackers. They-—well, they're pretty good,
and not always responsible. Some are fans, some
aren't. But they listen to RMS, and he's a fan-—
they'll let him know we want him. The question is,
will he believe us? Everyone's after RMS. Pick his
brains, jail him, reeducate him, study him in psych
labs, he's an odd fish and-—"
"Easy," Bob said.
She tried to smile. "Yes, we could get him to do
it. I don't know why I didn't think of it before.
RMS and Marshall, they can do it if anyone can." It
doesn't have to be me. I don't have to sticky my
neck out. I can crawl back under my covers.
"So what do we do now?" Bruce said.
"Don't know about you," Harry said. "I've got a
message for the merry soul."
"Then what?" Alex demanded. "Why should we care
what that crazy man says?"
"He was one hell of a man, once," Thor said.
"A hell of a man who got his brains burned out,"
Alex said. Strain in his muscles was making him
irritable. "So what happens? He tells us another
story, and we end up in another stupid chase across
the country, more crazy aldermen, cheese trucks,
people with guns-—"
"Alex, it was not so bad," Gordon said.
"What?"
Gordon shook his head. "Was not fun, then; but
think of the stories we tell now. Bed races. Dancing
on ice."
Oliver Brown chuckled. "Sure you're not a writer?"
"I wish to be. I have written . . . minor things.
But it was not survival-oriented task, so . . ."
Harry shrugged. "I don't know what will happen.
Not my job to know what will happen. I know what I
was told to do."
"Resent what Wade said, don't you?" Jenny said.
Harry glared at her.
"True, though," she said. "Everybody knows it.
Deep down, you do."
Harry tried to grin. "You didn't have to say it."
"Sure we did. I'm still with you, eh? You must do
something right-—" She caught herself. "Anyway, we
got our job straight. Go tell Cole it's time to see
what free men can do-—oops."
"Yes?" Bruce prompted.
"Without the Angels, why is it time?"
Bruce nodded to himself. "All right, we should all
go see Cole."
 "Not me," Thor said. "You guys carry them. I'm not
going back there."
"That does present a problem," Mike said.
"Maybe not," Bruce said. "Harry-—Harry, go find
Cole, and bring him here. Make sure you re not
followed."
"Maybe he won't come," Harry said.
"He'll come," Oliver Brown said. "He knows the
way."
"Oh. Yeah, of course he would," Mike said.
And that would be that, Sherrine thought. They'd
take the Angels to California, either to hide them
or to try again with Phoenix. But that wouldn't
matter to her. By tomorrow she would be back home in
Minneapolis, safe and snug and not quite warm.
* * *
The wind blew cold sleet into Captain Lee
Arteria's face, stinging her exposed skin with a
thousand tiny needles. The Minnesota troopers and
the Minneapolis police formed a cordon around the
small, one-bedroom house. Neighboring houses winked
in the dusk as their inhabitants pulled window
shades aside for a glimpse of the goings on. One or
two neighbors had bundled up and come out onto their
porches. They stood there with their arms thrust
under their armpits, bouncing up and down in nervous
anticipation.
Lee Arteria had never liked spectators.
A glance into the pulpy sky showed that the storm
had hours yet to run. Arteria called to the squad on
the Hartley porch. "No answer?"
A pantomime shake of the head.
"Then break the door in, Sergeant Pyle." The
policeman hesitated, and Arteria shouted, "Its
fucking cold out here."
Pyle nodded and raised a boot. Two well-aimed
kicks broke the latch and the door swung in and
banged against the back wall. Arteria crowded into
the hallway with the others.
"Shit," said one of the state troopers. "It ain't
that much warmer in here."
Conte stood by Arteria's elbow. "Are you
criticizing the thermostat law, Trooper?"
"Uh, no, Captain."
"All right. Spread out and search the place."
"What are we looking for?"
Arteria threw back the military parka's enormous,
furlined cowl and gave the trooper a grim smile.
"You'll know when you find it."

A search did not turn up much. One of the city

police located a photograph of Hartley and handed it
to Pyle, who showed it to Conte and Arteria. "Horsey
looking, ain't she? You'd want to brown bag a date
like that."
"That will be all, Sergeant," Arteria said in
severe tones. "Homeliness isn't a crime." Besides,
it isn't true. She's attractive enough.
"Good thing, or she'd be doing hard time." Pyle
barked at his own joke and resumed supervision of
the search.
Conte studied the picture over Arteria's shoulder.
"What do you think, Captain? Is it her?"
Arteria passed the photograph to him. "Probably.
Show it to some of those nosy neighbors hanging
around out there. Verify her identity. Find out if
they know the name of the man in the picture, too."
Conte called to a trooper and gave him the
instructions.
"Wait," said Arteria as the man turned to go. "If
it is Hartley, have him get copies of the photograph
made for distribution."
Lee went from room to room looking for
inspiration. Nothing was conspicuously missing from
the closet. The toothbrush still hung in its rack
above the sink. One toothbrush only. An ice-coated
pool of water stood in the sink. A housecoat thrown
across the bed. Wherever Sherrine Hartley had gone,
she had left in a hurry and had expected to return
soon.
That fits. Angels down. Fans to the rescue. She
picked up the housecoat. It was quilted; down-
filled. Whatever happened to flimsy negligees?
Arteria had always liked those. Now you couldn't
find them anywhere. Victims of the new, chillier
age. Besides, judging from her picture, Hartley had
never been the type to wear risqué nighties.
Or was she? Aah, who ever knew? Lee dropped the
housecoat onto the unmade bed. What are we doing
here, pawing through some poor woman's personal
things and laughing? The people at the University
had described her as a loner, a misfit. A talented
programmer, they granted, but, really, a nerdette,
lacking in the social graces.
And didn't I know a lot of those, boys and girls
both, once upon a time? This could be my room, if
I'd stayed where-—Bit late for that, now. Or is it?
How long before one of the searchers found-—
The thought was hardly born when a city
policewoman, her hands trust deep underneath the
mattress, shouted in triumph. She pulled out three
tattered, dog-eared paperback books, looked at the
covers, and handed them over to Pyle with a smirk.
"She's one of them, all right."
The books were The Sixth Winter, The Man Who
Awoke, and Fahrenheit 451.
"Look at this crap, would you," Conte said in
disgust. "With all the problems here on Earth, why
would anybody waste their time with this escapist
stuff? We oughta take these and throw them right
into the trash can."
"What're the stories about, anyway?" Arteria took
the dry, brittle volumes from Conte and read the
back covers. Won't do to let them know I know
already . . . "Get this. It says here that The Sixth
Winter is about the sudden onset of an ice age; and
The Man Who Awoke is about a scientist in 1933 who
goes to sleep and wakes up in a future of depleted
resources and ruined environments."
Conte took the books back. He scowled at them.
"Yeah? What's the third one about?"
"Burning books."
Conte looked uncomfortable and opened his mouth to
say something, but he was interrupted by the arrival
of Jheri Moorkith and the Green Police.

"Bureaucracy," said Moorkith, shaking his head.

"Would you believe it? I never received your memo
announcing this raid."
Arteria shrugged. Okay, let's play head games.
First you dribble crane around the floor; then I'll
dribble yours. "It's probably lost somewhere in the
interdepartmental mail. The courier will find it
stuck in the bottom of his pouch tomorrow."
"Well, no matter." Moorkith dismissed the breach
of protocol with a wave of the hand. "I'm here now.
What's going down?"
Arteria hated civilians who tried to talk like
cops. They always got it wrong anyway. Conte flashed
a sympathetic smirk. I'm glad he's your problem.
"We're checking on a possible lead. The details
were in the memo-—"
Arteria was interrupted by the return of the state
trooper with the photograph. "Good news, Captain,"
he said, reporting to Conte. "We've got a definite
make on Hartley. Neighbor lady on the west says the
fellow in the picture with her is an ex-boyfriend
named Robert Needle-—or something like that. A
university prof. Get this: he's a materialist
scientist. He used to hang out with her a lot. We're
running a make on him now. But, get this, the
neighbor says he drives a maroon van. And he showed
up here about two in the morning the night the air
thieves went down."
Moorkith sucked in his breath and traded
triumphant looks with Conte and Arteria. "I think
we're onto something here." He took the photograph
from the trooper and studied it.
We? "How can the witness be sure about that early
morning business?" Arteria asked.
"She says she sleeps light and the noise of the
van woke her up. Me, I think she's a nosy old biddy
who likes to spy on her neighbors. But what the
hell, a lead's a lead, night?"
Right. And the University said Hartley called in
later that morning and took an unscheduled week's
vacation. She's supposed to be back tomorrow. When
she does, we'll be waiting for her. And then what do
I do?
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"The Sister of Misfortune . . ."

"We'll get him," Harry said. "It may take a while.
Ron gets spooked easy."
Oliver Brown nodded. "Well he might. I'm not
overly anxious to have him seen here, for that
matter."
"We'll be careful." Harry and Jenny left, and
Oliver barred the door.
"Do authorities watch this house?" Gordon asked.
"We don't think so," Oliver said. "Helga and I are
better known for fantasy. And the SCA."
Alex shook his head. "SCA?"
"Sorry. Society for Creative Anachronism. The
Current Middle Ages. I was king, once."
"I think I will let Alex explain later," Gordon
said. "May I read now?"
"Certainly," Oliver said. "What would you like?"
Gordon grinned and swept his hand to indicate the
disorderly piles of books everywhere. "I think I
will find something-—I will remember where, and put
back there."
"Thank you. Use my big chair if you like, the
light's good there; very good, it's a comfortable
place. Alex, you look tired."
 "Heh. Considering that I weigh almost a hundred
kilos-—"
Oliver patted his ample bunk. "Alas, so do I. So
do I, but I am more accustomed to it. Perhaps you
would like to rest in the spare room?"
"Yes, please."
Oliver led the way. "I'm afraid it will be a bit
cold," he said. "We don't heat this room. Hydrogen
is scarce." He ushered Alex through the door.
"Hydrogen?"
"Yes, the Greens like to use hydrogen. They pipe
it through the old natural gas lines. Alas, much
leaks, and is wasted, and since they shut down most
of the power plants there is little electricity to
make hydrogen."
"But they do make it?"
"Oh, yes. Here we are. As I said, the room is
cold. I'll get you a blanket."
The room was cluttered as well as cold. In the
habitats, a space this cluttered would be a death
trap: masses could crush a man from any direction.
Here, gravity . . . then again, gravity was part of
the problem. Loose objects had to rest all against
the same surface.
There were the inevitable book cases, but here odd
tapestries hung on one wall. They showed scenes of
dogs chasing deer. Two large steel swords hung in
the corner, and below them were two almost identical
swords made of wood. A day couch near the window was
piled high with-—"Costumes?" Alex asked. "Armor?"
"Yes. I mentioned the SCA? We still meet, we still
hold tournaments. It is an allowable activity.
Indeed, many of the Greens come."
"But what do they-—you-—do?"
Oliver Brown grinned. "Why, we dress up in
medieval costumes and pretend we live in the Middle
Ages," he said. "What else? It used to be fun to
learn medieval skills, how to live on common, cheap
food, fight with swords and spears, and run a
civilization with low technology. Now-—"
"Yeah. I see."
Oliver piled the stuff from the couch onto a
chair. "We don't go often now," he said. "I am
afraid someone will get drunk and forget that the
Greens are listening." He handed Alex a heavy wool
cloak. "Use this as a blanket. I'll call you for
dinner."
The window looked out onto gray, mean streets.
Other apartment buildings, identical save for their
graffiti, lined both sides of the block. The cars
were old and in disrepair. One was up on blocks;
another, stripped. Street lights flickered
uncertainly, then brightened in the growing dusk.
Alex looked to the sky, but found it overcast with
low-hung, gray clouds. A solitary figure, heavily
bundled, walked quickly down the street on the
opposite side. He-—or she-—clutched a cane not
needed for walking, and glanced warily left, right,
behind.
Get used to it, Alex, my boy. From now on this is
home.
Maybe not. Phoenix! He remembered the program. A
low-cost system, not merely reusable but savable. It
could get to orbit even with one engine out. Ran on
liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
They make hydrogen. If they make hydrogen, they
must have oxygen as well. But-—
There was a tap at the door. "Come in."
Gordon came in, frowned at the costumes, swords,
and tapestries. "I thought perhaps you might want
company."
Gordon found a pair of cushions and lowered
himself to the floor, slowly, carefully. "It is
tiring, standing upright so long. But, every day
grows easier. Perhaps I will like it here. The
people are . . . interesting."
Alex smiled and sat on the bed beside Gordon.
"Remember what they do to interesting people."
"Is criminal. Alex, is no objective evidence for
the effectiveness of psychoanalysis. Just replaces
conscience, original sin and confessor with
superego, id and analyst. In Stalinist times, was
used in same way to deal with dissidents. Our way is
so obviously right and good that if you disagree you
must be crazy."
"I never heard you talk this way before, Gordo."
"I sound angry? I am angry. I like these people,
Alex. I am half-Russian. Mental health clinics . . .
I know what they are risking to help us. You saw
Cole. I don't wish that to happen to Sherrine, or
any of our friends."
"Neither do I. It's simple enough. We let them go
home, and we keep moving. No more dreams."
"You must always have dreams." Gordon craned his
neck and looked at him. "You do not wish to remain
down here, do you?"
Alex rose and walked to the window. He studied the
shrouded sky once more. "No."
"Yet, you were born here. This was your home."
A shrug. "That was a long time ago."
"And if we go back? Colonies are doomed. We all
know this."
Alex looked around the room.
"You think they listen?"
"No. If these people are listening without
permission it would be more than-—no. But don't say
that where they can hear, Gordon."
 "Is pravda, though. More than pravda. Is true."
Alex nodded slowly. "Yeah, I suppose it is, over
the long haul. We're running out of everything. The
resource base is too small." He laughed bitterly.
"Ninety percent of the resources available to the
human race, easily available, aren't on Earth, and
we have them. But the resource base is too small.
Not enough people, not enough chlorine, nitrogen-—"
"Dr. Lichinsky says give him few more years, he
will make chlorine and nitrogen."
"Fusion synthesis. Yeah. And his people have been
saying they'd have that Real Soon Now since before
you were born, Gordo. Face it, even with chlorine
and nitrogen and more genetic materials, there are
just too damn few of us!"
"Yet you are eager to return."
"Hell yes! I fought to make Freedom a home. Home
is the place you would die to save. And that's not
the bottom of the Well. Not that it matters. We
can't go back."
"I think this, too," Gordon said. "But-—is not so
bad."
"Yeah, yeah," Alex said. "But dammit, the Downers
are on a downward spiral, too. They turned their
back on the future, and now they've got no more
chance than the habitats! Every decade, every year,
they're less able to cope. It won't be long before
conditions will be like that song, 'Black powder and
alcohol. When your states and cities fall-—' "
"Orbital decay."
"Eh?"
"Is like Mir and Freedom, nye pravda? Spiralling
downward. Every decade atmosphere drag eats
velocity. But perhaps a timely boost can still save
them."
Alex scowled and looked away from him. "It's not
that easy. We're not talking about a space habitat
you can strap booster rockets to."
"No, trajectory of people is harder to change. So.
What do we do now? Do you believe in this Phoenix?"
Alex worked his lips. "No, but-—if there's even
the slightest chance."
"Why?"
"Why not? We have to go somewhere. Steve said
California was our best chance for going
underground, anyway."
"And when Phoenix fails to rise from her ashes,
you will chase after the next rumor and the next."
"At least I'll still be trying. What else is there
to do?"
* * *
Ron Cole sat in a large stuffed chair in the
oversized living room. He looked somehow out of
place, and kept casting nervous glances left and
right. Jerky movements, like a bird's. Then he
sprang from the chair and shoved it into a corner of
the wall. After that he sat slightly more at ease,
though he still seemed to twitch nervously.
"Is it still paranoia," Thor whispered to Alex,
"when they really are out to get you?"
Cole's eyes danced from face to face around the
room, lingering briefly on each. He frowned slightly
when he locked gazes with Alex; and nibbled on his
lower lip over Harry. "Oliver," he said plaintively,
"there are too many."
Helga and Violetta had already returned with
several bags of snack foods that they had bartered
from the grocery store for the Wisconsin cheese.
They broke open bags of chips and trail mix into
large bowls and hand them out. Alex raised his
eyebrows.
"So much in trade?" he asked her.
 "Oh, people will pay far more for the cheese than
it is worth," Helga explained. "I suppose that, as
long as a single slice can make it out of 'America's
Dairyland,' people can tell themselves that things,
aren't all that bad and they'll return to normal
someday."
"Nostalgia has value, doesn't it?" said Sherrine.
"Don't we have our own nostalgia? For the way the
future was."
" 'A Fire in the Sky'. . ." said Bob.
"And we all want a slice of that future, too,"
said Mike with a grin.
"The Phoenix," said Bruce.
Cole jerked and looked at him. "You're not
supposed to know about that. What do you know about
Phoenix? Oliver, I don't know these people."
"Take it easy, Ron. Nobody here but us chickens.
Alex and Gordon here are . . ."
"Angels. Yes, yes. That's obvious. Bone structure.
Height. Anyone can see that. And Thor. I know Thor.
I think. It's so hard to remember sometimes."
Alex exchanged looks with Gordon. Was their origin
that obvious? If so, how could they ever hope to
maintain a false ID? Or was it-—remembering the
other people they had encountered along the way-
obvious only to someone like Cole?
"You know Harry," said Oliver.
Cole made a face. "Yes. I knew Harry. Know Harry.
Oh, thank you."
Violetta had come by with a tray of glasses. Cole
took one and sipped it. "Oh my, yes. What is it?"
"Dandelion wine."
Cole licked his lips. He looked sly. "I know where
you can get some peach brandy."
"Yes, Ron," said Helga from the kitchen door. "We
know. You sell it to us. Harry?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Could you help me out in the kitchen for a
minute. I'm cutting up the rest of the cheese for
hors d'oeuvres."
Harry looked briefly angry, then looked sidelong
at Ron Cole. "Yeah, sure."
Jenny took his arm. "Come on. They don't need us
here." She led him from the room. At the doorway,
she turned. "It really does hurt his feelings, you
know. He's not as tough as he likes to act."
Oliver shifted in his seat. "Sure. But, Christ,
Jenny, you know him better than any of us. I sent
him out for beer once and . . ."
"And the store was closed, so Harry broke a
window. I know. He likes to tell that story."
Alex frowned. "He smashed a store window to steal
some beer? That doesn't sound-—"
"No, he left money for it."
Thor was sitting on the floor with his back to the
opposite wall. He rose smoothly and dusted himself.
"I guess I'll take a long walk."
Steve said, "Hey, Thor . . ." And Fang reached out
and touched the golden giant's arm.
"Sorry, Steve. Fang. But I haven't stayed loose
this long by hanging around a bull's-eye. Neither
have you."
Fang shook his head. "I'm seeing it through. I
finish what I start."
"Let me know what you decide."
When Thor had gone, Cole peered at the group from
Minneapolis. Oliver held out a hand. "I'll vouch for
them, Ron. You trust my judgment, don't you?"
Cole sucked in his lips and nodded.
"Harry delivered the message?"
 "Oh, yes. It's time to move on and see what free
men can do."
Silence lengthened. Faintly from the kitchen came
song:

"Nader's Raiders want my freedom, OSHA wants my

scalp and hair,
If I'm wanted in Wisconsin, be damned sure I
won't be there!
If the E-P-A still wants me, I'll avoid them if I
can.
They're burning down the cities, so I'll be a
wanted fan."

It twitched nerves. Oliver said, "Whatever

happened to escapist literature? Ron, tell us about
Phoenix!"
"Phoenix. A fire in the sky," Ron Cole said. "It
flew once, you know. I was there. Gary was sure it
could circle the Earth. They wouldn't let it fly all
the way, though. They kept her chained. Not everyone
wanted her chained, though." His voice had become
nearly normal, and Oliver leaned back, more relaxed
now.
"It was politics. NASA and the military," Cole
said. "The cost per pound of payload to low earth
orbit was five to ten kilobucks. Those were the
official numbers. The real cost-well! NASA got five
billion a year and they were lucky to get a launch
every two months. If Gary could fly to orbit for a
few million dollars instead of billions, NASA would
look ridiculous."
"I remember," Alex said.
"But the Air Force was going to build it, part of
the strategic defense system, but then the Russians
gave up their empire, and the Air Force wasn't
worried anymore that someone would seize the high
ground on them. So they killed the program, but they
hate to throw anything away. Pack rats, they are. So
they decommissioned her and set her up on a public
part of Edwards, so technically they still have some
jurisdiction."
Alex leaned forward. "How did they decommission
her?"
Cole chuckled. "They unplugged her. Heh, heh."
Bruce frowned. "What does that mean?"
Cole looked uncertain. "You're sure I can-—"
"You can tell us," Oliver assured him.
"They took her ROMs." Cole perked his head up and
beamed at them.
Steve cocked his head. "They took her ROMs?"
"It means," said Alex, "that they pulled all the
computer chips with the flight programming and
internal controls. Engines, life support. Everything
that made the bird alive."
Sherrine sat up straight. "Programming? Why, we
should be able to replace that! Bob and Gary can
work out the physics. And Tom Marshall and I can do
the coding."
Alex smiled thinly. "About 200,000 lines of code,
to judge by the birds I've flown? That's 100,000
lines apiece. At 100 lines a day, that would be
three years' work."
"That's right," said Mike. "ROM wasn't built in a
day."
Sherrine slumped. "Oh."
"Strike one," said Alex, holding up a finger. "Is
there anything else, Dr. Cole?"
"There's the IMU, of course. They took that out.
Couldn't leave that in."
 "What's an IMU?" asked Fang.
"It's an inertial platform," Bob explained. "It
would be about so big . . . His hands cut a figure
in the air. "Maybe a little bigger than a shoebox."
"I don't suppose you have one on you?" Alex asked
Cole.
Cole looked at his hands, as if he expected to
find an IMU there. "No. That I don't have."
"Strike two." Alex held up a second finger.
"And of course," Cole continued, "there's no
fuel."
"Strike three, and we're out." He turned to
Gordon. "All I asked for was a chance. But there's
no chance here."
Cole blinked rapidly. "Oh, but none of those are
insuperable obstacles. No, indeed. Not insuperable,
at all."
Oliver Brown nodded slowly. "You don't have the
IMU. What is it you have, Ron?"
Cole looked sly. "Well-—"
"ROMs. He gave you a copy. For safekeeping,"
Oliver insisted.
"Yes, yes, you know us both, of course you know
that. Yes. I have them, back at the museum. Wrapped
in foil. I have them, safe, safe. We thought we
thought once I would go with Gary, but not now, not
now. Now I would be a burden."
"Unstrike," Mike Glider said. He held up three
fingers, and folded one down. "Now what about the-—
IMU?"
"Oh, we know where that is. They put it in a safe
place." Cole nodded happily.
They waited while Cole continued to nod. A pained
look crossed Oliver's face. "Where is it, Ron?"
Cole became suddenly wary. "A very safe place."
His eyes slid left and right and he leaned forward
and whispered. "It's in the military security area
at Edwards AFB."
"Military security area. A safe?" Oliver asked.
"Something like that," Bob said. "We've got
security containers at the University. Surplus-——"
"That sounds simple enough," said Fang. "Just
straightforward B&E and a little burglary. Harry!"
he called.
Harry stuck his head in from the kitchen. "Yo."
"You know those things at Bob's university?"
"Look like file cabinets with a big combination
lock," Needleton said.
"Sure," Harry said.
"Can you open one?"
"Take about half an hour if you don't mind noise.
Couple of hours if any body's listening."
Mike Glider folded down another finger. Two." "And
the fuel?" Alex demanded. "Where are we going to
find a half million pounds of liquid oxygen and
liquid hydrogen?"
They quieted down. Sherrine seemed crestfallen.
Bob and Oliver, somber and thoughtful. Steve, folded
into a lotus on the floor, vibrated with nervous
energy. "Shit," said Fang. "That's a stopper all
right."
Cole looked puzzled. "But that's the easy part,"
he said. "You make the fuel."

Alex strained to hear Cole through the resulting

babble. The man kept talking in the same low tone of
voice despite the noise around him. Finally Bruce
put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.
" . . hydrogenation of fats; and of course,
there's the TV industry."
 Silence.
"Would you mind, repeating that, Ron?" said
Oliver. "We didn't get it all."
Cole squeezed up his face. "I was simply
explaining why, in spite of government craziness and
propaganda, there are still plants making hydrogen.
The Greens may not like industry, especially the
chemical industry; but hydrogen is politically
correct. When you burn it, the ash is water vapor.
There are things that they want to have-—that they
need to have. Like television. You can't make
television sets without hydrogen."
"Heating, too," Oliver said. "We have hydrogen
pipes in this building. It's not very pure, but it's
hydrogen."
All true, Alex thought. And the more Cole talked,
the saner he became, probably because in talking
science he was orbiting in his home module . . .
"Yes, indeed," Cole said. "All you need is methane
and electricity. And steam. Methane-CH4-is
everywhere. Natural gas. Swamp gas. You get some
when you crack petroleum or pyrolysize coal. And cow
farts."
Mike's jaw dropped. "You're going to make rocket
fuel from cow farts?"
"No, of course not. I only meant . . . methane is
common. There is hydrogen in the pipelines. There
will be a pipe to Phoenix."
"Wait a minute, " Alex said. "A hydrogen pipe?
Liquid hydrogen?"
"No, no," Cole said. "Just hydrogen. But you
compress it, and it will liquify. It is not that
difficult."
"And the oxygen? LOX?"
Cole shrugged. "Liquify air, and boil off
everything else. It is really very simple." He
spread his hang smiled at them. "And there you have
it."
In spreading his hands, Cole revealed two bright
glassy marbles. Go on pointed at them. "Shto eto?"
he asked.
"Hmm? Oh, my family jewels. I made them. A long
time ago-—carbon-12 diamonds." Cole stared at them
morosely. "It was my idea, but the big companies
took the idea away from me. They make good lasers,
you know; but I kept these because they were
beautiful."
"All right," said Alex, still not quite believing
it. "There are chemical plants operating that make
hydrogen-—"
"They're small, too. Ten to twenty people."
"And pipe it through the desert. And the LOX you
get by compressing air and letting the 02 boil off.
Fine. But a half million pounds-—"
Cole shook his head emphatically. "That's the
total, not all of that is hydrogen. What you need is
66,500 pounds of hydrogen. It's bulky, but well,
there are ways."
"And the oxygen?" Gordon asked.
"Most of the ship is oxygen," Alex said.
"All right, I bite," Fang said. "How do you
liquify air?"
"Turbo expander," Cole said. "Four hundred
thousand pounds of oxygen, make it on the spot."
"Where do we get a-—turbo expander?" Bruce asked.
Cole shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't cared
since they-—since they ruined my ship. But Gary will
know. Oh yes, Gary will know."
Mike Glider folded his index forger halfway. "Only
half a strike left."
Alex found himself nodding, nodding. Half a
strike. "Now I'm lost. A-—turbo expander. What
powers that?"
"It's like a jet engine," Cole said. "Very like, a
jet engine. In fact, it is a jet engine, but it
won't fly-—"
"So it needs-—"
"JP-4. Kerosene," Cole said.
"A lot of kerosene, I expect," Oliver Brown said.
Mike Glider held up one finger again. "Strike-—"
"Yes, a lot," Cole said. "But not more than we
have."
"What?" Bruce demanded.
Cole grinned widely. "Larry and Curly. You must
meet them. Alas, I sold Moe . . ."

The door on the abandoned warehouse bore a

stenciled sign reading Private Property-—Museum of
Science and Appropriate Technology. Rust speckled
the metal siding; grass and weeds had punched
through the cracks and edges of the concrete truck
apron. The shattered windows had been boarded over
and covered with graffiti boasting of long-vanished
gangs. The cold wind blew off the lake and crystal
patches of gray frost nestled unmelted in the
shadows.
Cole bent over the padlock and worried it with a
key. "This leads back into the bluff underneath the
museum. It forms a subbasement where they used to
bring exhibits in and out. Hardly used anymore. No
sir. Hardly used."
Alex, Bob, Sherrine and Oliver stood behind him,
casting occasional wary glances around the open area
by the lake and at the museum.
"Ah." Cole grunted in satisfaction and the chain
fell away. The doors pulled smoothly up and clicked
into place with a satisfying snap. Behind them, two
gleaming Peterbilt tractors reared high and proud.
The headlights and grillwork had been polished to a
sparkle that coruscated from the quiet sun overhead.
"There they are," Cole announced. "Larry and
Curly."
Alex stepped into the warehouse. He ran his hand
along the bright, cold grillwork. Each tractor was
hitched to a long, silver, cylindrical tanker. The
logo painted on the side read:

MILKHEIM
LOW-FAT MILK

"These will hold liquid gasses?"

Cole's head bobbed. "Twelve thousand gallons each.
I got them war surplus for practically nothing. For
peaches . . ." He laughed. "They are filled with RP-
4. Enough to power the air converters. Now all you
must do is get them to Thunder Ridge."
"Thunder Ridge."
"Edwards Air Force Base," Cole said. "The rocket
test stand. Get them there. Gary Hudson will do the
rest."
Cole approached the nearest truck-—Larry? -—and
laid his cheek against it. "I've been waiting for
this day forever." There were tears in his eyes.
"I don't get it," said Bob. "You've got the ship
and you've got Gary to pilot it. You've got the
backup ROMs-—maybe-—and know where to get the IMU.
You know where to find fuel and you've got the
trucks to move it. So, tell me one thing, Ron. Why
didn't Phoenix fly a long time ago?"
Good question, thought Alex.
Cole pointed to Alex. "Because we were waiting for
him."
"What?"
"How could you know our scoopship would-—"
"Wait!" Oliver held up his hands. "Wait. Ron? Ron,
it's all right. It's been years and years. Most of
us forgot Phoenix ever existed. How did you know
Alex was coming?"
"Know Alex was coming? No, that's silly. Alex?
Couldn't know. Couldn't know. But we needed Angels
to make it fly. Angels to bear her up into heaven,
lest she dash her foot upon a stone."
Alex rubbed a hand over his face. Oh, dear God . .
.
"You see, she won't reach orbit on her own. Gary
told me that. Long ago. Before. She's a heavy-duty
ship, designed for flight tests. And maybe Gary cut
the design too close. She can get to elliptical
orbit, but it won't be stable." He turned watery
eyes on Alex. "And up to now there's been no way to
change that. But you can."

"What in the world is this?" asked Sherrine. She

called from the back of the cavernous garage. Alex
and the others followed her voice to a dark corner
behind the trucks where an immense and convoluted
structure of piping stood hissing. Out of one end,
small dark droplets of liquid fell into a holding
tank. Oliver started to laugh.
"So this is it!" he said.
Cole bounced up and down from his knees, holding a
finger over his lips. "Shhhh!"
"What is it?" Sherrine repeated.
Bob frowned at the structure. "It looks familiar.
I've seen it somewhere." He started to hold his
finger under the dripping liquid, but pulled back.
Who knew what that stuff was?
 "It's the regenerative cooling system from the old
Titan up in the museum," Oliver explained. "Ron
stripped it out and used it to make his still. He
distills fruit brandies." He placed a finger under
the drip and stuck it in his mouth. "Blackberry.
Very tasty. The museum doesn't pay Ron squat."
"I pay them," Cole said. "Heh. Apple is best. The
trucks were bought with apples and peaches."
Bob started giggling. "Moonshining in the basement
of the Museum of Science and Industry? I love it!"
Alex smiled. "Yes, but back to the trucks. Is
there fuel? Can we get to California? Or is that
another detail?"
"Some details are important," Cole said. He
pointed to stacks of 55-gallon drums racked against
the far wall opposite the still. "Shemp."
Alex blinked. "Shemp?"
"Fourth truck," Cole told him. "Sold it before I
sold Moe. Full of JP-4. Kerosene. Heating oil-—"
Oliver nodded. "People pay a lot for heating oil
and they don't ask questions."
Alex blew a cloud of breath into the chill air.
"No, I don't suppose they do." He had a sudden, wild
image of Cole, his eyes glowing crazy, careening Moe
around the streets of Chicago, making clandestine
midnight deliveries of black market heating oil. It
was a hell of a planet.
* * *
Bruce was a SMOF. He made a list. SMOFs always
make lists.
Sherrine sat on the floor next to Steve, with her
knees drawn up under her chin and wondered if she
would ever see Gordon and Alex again. She pictured
Phoenix soaring skyward on a pillar of fire. God, to
be there! But she would be back home, and would hear
about it only on the news (if they dared run it on
the news) and she would smile a secret smile that
her coworkers would never understand.
"First," said Bruce, "we need identity papers for
the Angels, in case Phoenix doesn't work out.
Sherrine, Mike, Bob and I will be returning to
Minneapolis. Sherrine, you'll link up with Tom
Marshall and get that ball rolling. Okay?"
Back to Minneapolis. Sherrie nodded. "Sure." Back
to the old terminal. It would be tricky, working
things out of the University computer center,
setting it up so they couldn't trace back to her.
Bruce checked off something on his list. "Good.
I'll have The Ghost set up the Great Scavenger
Hunt." He looked at Alex. "Fans will come up with
stuff we never thought of. You'll have your
cornucopia."
Bruce checked off another item on the list.
"Mike."
Mike came to abrupt attention-—hard to do while
slumped in a chair-—and snapped a salute. "Oui, mon
capitan!"
You find out about the plastic corn at Iowa
State."
"Yes, mon capitan!" He looked at Sherrine. "I'll
need a name," he said.
Sherrine rose. "I can call my grandmother right
now. Oliver, can I use your phone?'
"Use a public phone," said Thor. "Always use
public phones. Its a rule."
Fang looked at him. "I thought you were quitting
this."
Thor shrugged and looked away. "Last reflex twitch
of a dying brain."
"Don't do it now," said Bruce. "Wait till we're
done here." He studied his list and licked the point
of his pencil. "Steve. You've got to get back to
California, right?"
Steve, meditating in a full lotus on the floor,
answered without opening his eyes. "Right."
"Could you be our point man for the first option?
Head up to Edwards and talk to Gary. Get the full
picture. Fill him in on what's happening. Find out
if he'll volunteer his bird."
"He'll volunteer, all right. I only met him the
once; but the one thing in life he wants more than
anything else is to fly that bucket."
Harry popped the lid of a beer can. "Odds are that
Wade has already filled him in."
"Sure, but Wade doesn't know everything. Steve, it
can't hurt to make sure."
Steve opened his eyes. "I know that. My dojo can
stay closed another few days."
"We're not asking you to go underground," said
Bruce, checking another item off the list. "Oliver
will hide the Angels until everything is ready."
Oliver bowed. "My honor."
"Especially Gordon," added Violetta, giving the
younger Angel a broad smile. "You can make Roland
jealous."
Gordon said, "Well, uh . . ."
"Check," said Bruce. "Next item is to get the
trucks-—"
"Larry and Curly," said Cole.
"-—to California. We need drivers." He looked at
Thor, Fang and Harry.
"I told you already," Thor said. "Count me out."
Harry shrugged. "I can take one, but the bike will
be more useful. You'll need scouts, and Jenny and I
do that best."
Fang raised his hand and waved it back and forth.
"I want Larry."
 Bruce blinked. "Why Larry in particular?"
"Because I always liked him. The Forgotten Stooge.
He never got the credit he deserved."
Bruce made a note on his pad. "Fine. Jenny can
ride the bike-—or can you drive this rig?"
Bob said "She doesn't have to. I'll drive."
Bruce frowned. "Bob? Don't you have to be back at
the University?"
"I took care of that. I'm not going back."
Sherrine looked at him. "What happens to your
students? I thought you told me you owed it to your
students to teach them."
He met her eyes. "I will be teaching them. This
will be a lesson they never forget."
"Are you contemplating going to orbit?" Alex
asked.
"Sure. I'm in good shape, I have a Ph.D in
physics, and the rocket seats-—what? More than two."
"More than two, da," Gordon said. "But-—"
"He's saying don't burn your bridges," Alex said.
"Commander Hopkins may not want another physicist.
Even if this Phoenix works, which isn't all that
damn clear to me."
"I know that," Bob said. "I didn't quit. On the
way here I called the University and told them I
have typhus.
"Typhus?" Thor said.
"Why not?"
Damn you, Sherrine thought. And I'll be back at my
computer console-—
Bruce tugged on his beard. "Okay, then. Bob and
Fang drive. Harry and Jenny scout ahead. Steve takes
the train to coordinate with Hudson. Now what about
Dr. Cole? Ron, what do you want to do? Stay here?"
"It may not be safe," Cole said. "It has been
getting worse every year. Another year, two at most
No, there is no reason for me to stay here now."
"Want to go to California?"
"No. It would be too painful," Cole said. "You may
have the tank trucks. I have another, a six-wheeler.
If you will help me load my still on it, I will be
all right."
"I'll help," Thor said. "Ron, if you like, I'll go
with you. "
Cole looked at him. "I remember you. Yes, I would
like that. Thank you."
Sherrine took a deep breath. "I'm going, too," she
announced.
"What?" said Bob. "Now, wait. You can't take that
chance."
"You are."
Bruce brandished his list. "You've got to go back
to Minneapolis to coordinate the Angels' new IDs,"
he said.
She shook her head. She had been wondering for
days whether she was risking her job-—whatever
security she could count on in poor, doomed
Minneapolis-—or whether she was leaving it behind.
Now she knew. Damn Bob, anyway. "You don't need me.
The Legion of Doom can handle this. So I guess it's
not so important that I get back to my job tomorrow-
—"
"What you're saying," Bob said, "is that you don't
want to go back to your job."
She took another deep breath. "I guess that is
what I said, isn't it?"

Sherrine called her grandmother from a phone booth

in the candy store on the corner. She used a few
tricks to shunt the call through four other trunks
just to humor Thor. After she had talked to Gram,
she was glad she had.
She must have looked badly shaken up when she left
the phone booth because Harry, who had escorted her
there, looked concerned. "What's wrong, Sherry?"
"I-—" She shook her head. "Take me back, Harry."
Back in the Brown apartment, she handed Mike a
slip of paper with a name and phone number. Then she
turned to Bob and fell into his arms. "Oh, Bob. We
made the right choice, after all." Tears ran down
her cheeks. When had she started crying, for Ghu's
sake? She didn't like to cry.
"What do you mean?" Bob asked.
"I mean they know about us!"
"Who?"
Bruce rose from his chair. "Who knows what?"
"The police. Gram said they came to her house
asking questions. About me. About a maroon van. I-—
I-—" She paused, took a deep breath. "I made some
other calls. Tremont says they've got my house
staked out and they're asking about Bob around the
University."
Bob stepped away from her. He looked a little
gray.
Sherrine touched his arm. "We'd both already
decided we weren't going back."
"I know. It's just . . ."
"What?"
"Now we can't go back. It's different when
somebody's following you around burning bridges."
Bruce and Mike exchanged glances. "What about the
rest of us? Doc Waxman?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. But why would
they have any clues that point to you guys?"
Mike let out his breath and Sherrine knew that she
should be relieved for his sake, as well; but she
was simply angry that he was happy to be off the
hook.
"Oh, dammit. Dammit." She made fists of her hands.
"I never had much; but it's gone now. My house. My
car. All my clothes, except what I packed for this
'two-day' excursion. Everything."
Bob shook his head and said, yeah, he was sorry
for her, too. And that made her cry even more,
because, hell, Bob had lost as much or more as she
had, and somehow he could smile. She felt a hand on
her shoulder and turned and stared into Ron Cole's
crazy eyes.
"Don't worry, dear," he said. "Don't worry. You
can always stay in my Titan. The sister of
misfortune is hope."
"Oh, Ron Cole. That's the kindest thing anyone has
ever said to me."

"Gather round," Bruce said. He sat in front of

Oliver Brown's fireplace and tapped the paper
against his hand. "I've got a list."
"Why am I not surprised?" Mike asked.
"List?" Harry asked.
"Things we have to do. First thing: Mike, you're
the only one who has any right to be at that
research place, the one with the bacteria."
"Well, yes . . ."
"It's not far out of our way," Bruce said. "We go
there, make sure everything's all right, and Belinda
Jenks will meet us in her car and get us back to
Minneapolis. The rest of you will go on to St.
Louis. The St. Louis people will get you aimed
west."
"Right. We're off then," Harry said. "We'll be
sure everything's all right."
 "What if it isn't?" Mike asked. "What can you do?"
"We can warn you," Harry said.
"How? Telephone?"
Jenny sniffed. "We'll get you the word. If we have
to make enough noise that everyone in the country
knows-—" She patted her oversized handbag.
"Yeah, well that makes sense," Mike said. "But-—"
He took Harry aside. "Harry, take this. It's a
thousand."
"I don't need-—"
Mike's voice was low but intense. "Harry, you
never ask until you need it right now. This time-—
just take the money, Harry. Think of it as default
option money. It's your last gasp. When you run low
on funds and Jenny's ready to rob some poor schlub
at gunpoint, use the damn money instead."
Harry hadn't taken it. Mike said, "You know her,
Harry. Any excuse. "Bring it down, bring it down-—"
"Yeah." Harry took the money and had it in his
boot with a minimum of motion.
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Treasure Hunt,
or
The Hundredth Dream

<logon>
<Greetings, all, from the Oregon Ghost. Gabe and
Rafe are on their way. Let's all chip in and do what
we can for their going away present. If you can't
deliver it in person, leave word and I'll find a way
to get it there.>
-—Ghost, with both hands, you couldn't find your-—
<Alter! How did you get out of your dungeon? I
don't have time for you now. There is serious
business afoot.>
-—That's why I'm here, you pitiful Primary Ego.
This is too serious for me to sit back and watch you
screw things up. Did you think I would stay down
there amusing myself by burning those old copies of
The Intergalactic Reporter-—?
<What?! How dare you burn my collection of
fanzines? What would Carol Kovacs say if she knew?>
-—Well, an imp has to keep itself warm somehow. If
you would heat the dungeon I wouldn't have had to
ignite that stack of Lan's Lanterns last week-—
°Shriek°
 -—Or the FOSFAXs or Mimosas. They're getting dry
and crumbly. Make good tinder
<All right, Alter. Make your point, if you have
one.>
-—Point? Point? Oh, very well. Friends, don't
trust The Ghost. His minds aren't what they used to
be. Send your contributions to the usual places.
DUFF, SKIFFY, TAFF, they're all in this. The final
drawing hasn't been scheduled yet; but the big prize
is still the Trip of a Lifetime. Remember, two Grand
Prize winners have already been chosen, but don't
let that stop you from giving them the boost they
need. They're feeling a little Down.>
<Thank you, Alter. Now get back to your dungeon,
like a good little Ego.>
-—Don't count on it, Ghost. I'm the Prime Self
now. Remember? The fans voted for me in Galaxy years
ago. Me, not you, Ghost. Eh? No! Not the Spell! Not
the Spell! Arrgh!-—
<logoff>
* * *
<Like what?> Anonymous note on electronic bulletin
board.
<You name it; they need it. Make it small and make
it light. There's a weight limit on their baggage.>
Anonymous reply on same bulletin board.
* * *
Captain Doom flashed the light briefly at the big
wooden sign. PUTNAM'S WORM FARM. WORMS FOR SOIL
CULTIVATION; WORMS FOR BAIT; WORMS FOR ALL PURPOSES.
He pondered that, wondering what other purposes
worms might have. Then he shrugged and touched his
throat mike. "Captain, Doom to SMOF-One," he
whispered. "I am in position."
"Roger, Captain Doom," he heard Benjamin Orange's
voice tinny in his ear. "Go for it."
 Captain Doom nodded to his three companions. He
grabbed a section of chain-link fence while Mark and
Lisha Hartz worked their wire cutters in unison.
Then he lifted the loose flap like a trap door. He
clapped the third fan on the shoulder. "Chain up!
We're going in."
Andy ducked swiftly forward with a shovel in his
hand. Captain Doom began counting in his head. "One
one-thousand; two one-thousand; three one-thousand .
. ." Then he tapped Mark and Lisha, who dropped
their bolt cutters, grabbed plastic sacks, and
scurried through the hole in the fence.
While his teammates were gone Captain Doom tied
twisties to the cut sides of the fence flap. Then he
waited. When his mental count reached three minutes
the bag carriers slip back through the fence,
followed in another minute by Andy with the shovel.
The four plastic sacks bulged and Captain Doom
caught a whiff of the contents. "Better double-bag
that," he said. "It's a long ride back."
His three companions nodded and slipped away into
the darkness. As he fastened the loose fence section
back in place with the twisties, Captain Doom
triggered his throat mike. "Captain Doom to SMOF-
One. Mission accomplished. Have the deodorizers
ready."
Captain Doom rejoined the others. Benjamin Orange
stood by the open back doors of the panel truck they
had come in. Doom's teammates and two other teams
were already seated inside the truck, wiping
greasepaint from their faces. Orange was garbed in
slacks and dress shirt and sported a prominent bow
tie in the Black Watch tartan. He wore a headset and
throat mike that left his hands free for a clipboard
and checklist. SMOFs always made lists.
"Can you hear me, Team Gamma? Can you hear me?" He
glanced up as Captain Doom approached. "How'd the
worm farm go?"
"It went like clockwork, Orange."
"Good." The SMOF nodded. "Good. Wait." He put a
hand to his earphone. "Ah, there you are, Henry. I
can hear you now. Have you got the bull semen? Yes,
I know it's kept cold. We've got a refrigerated
container in the truck; so hurry it back here. SMOF-
One, out." He grinned at Captain Doom. "Let's see
the Lunarians top that one. With that plus the ova
from the agricultural school . . . if the Angels
can't culture a bit of laboratory beef, then we
aren't the Fanoclasts."
* * *
The clerk at the checkout counter raised his
eyebrows. "Starting a garden, miss?"
Winnie Null piled more seed packets on the
counter. "Sure am."
The clerk studied the packets. "You must have a
mighty big plot."
"Big enough."
"You've got too much there, miss. They'll choke
each other out."
Winnie sighed. Why did men assume that, because
she looked like a covergirl, she did not have a
brain in her head? "I know what I'm doing."
"If you'd like a little advice on gardening, I get
off at five."
"That's very generous. My husband and I will be
glad to have your help." Husbands were useful, she
reflected, as the clerk suddenly busied himself with
his job. One of these days she would have to get
one.
* * *
Thor waited by the checkout lane at the
supermarket, holding a place in line while Fang
scurried back and forth with small purchases. That
earned him a glare from the lumpy, dough-faced woman
who was next in line. Probably upset because, due to
Fang's ploy, she was one place behind her rightful
place in line. Thor considered letting her go ahead;
decided against it. Her shopping basket was piled so
high that by the time she was through at the cash
register the glaciers would be in the parking lot.
The doughy woman gave him one last glare before,
rustling the pages with a flourish, she dived behind
the anonymity of a checkout tabloid. This one,
called the international Global Celebrity Tattle-
Tail, featured a lurid headline in 72-point type:

"ICE NUDES ON GLACIER!!!"

It was accompanied by a rather fuzzy photograph of

a nude woman in unidentifiable surroundings. The
remainder of the headlines lined the margin of the
front page like wallflowers at a school dance. One
of them proclaimed a new "Thermal Diet" to help keep
one warm and comfortable during the colder winters.
From what he could glean, it involved a considerable
amount of curry and jalapeño peppers.
The woman caught him reading the front page and,
with a sniff of righteous indignation, folded it
over and returned it to its rack. Thor wondered what
unspoken rule he had transgressed. Could one
freeload on a freeloader?
Fang scurried up to him with an armful of spice
cans, dumped them into the arm basket Thor held, and
dashed off for one more run. Thor scanned Fang's
choices. A little bit of everything, with an
emphasis on the preservative spices. When the
contents were used up, the light tin-plated
containers would still be valuable. He considered
for a moment sending Fang after some jalapeños, but
decided it would take too long to explain.
Where were the Angels by now? Halfway to St.
Louis, probably. Thor toyed idly with the spice
cans. Was he right to drop out? After all, Fang was
sticking with it. He'd be setting out in Larry as
soon as they bought the supplies.
But someone had to watch over Ron Cole. And the
fewer people hanging around the Angels the better.
And the Phoenix would never fly anyway.
See what free men-—
Thor sighed unhappily. He had really believed in
the Cole legend. A naive belief, he saw now. His
parents had always been after him to "be realistic."
Especially after catching him with "that"
literature. So he had always associated realism with
a world where dreaming was suspect.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred dreams came crashing
down around you. But if life always fell short of
your expectations, that was no argument for lowering
them. There was always the hundredth dream.
The shopper in front of him finished her check
through and Fang returned to line with a jumbo jar
of multivitamins just in time. Madam Doughball
pointedly did not move aside for Fang, but that
didn't stop the crusty old guy. He lobbed it.
Now, there was someone who had the Talent. Fang
could dream realistically. The Titan had not fazed
him at all. An option had failed to pan out; there
were other options.
Fang watched the tally carefully. Programming
skills were deteriorating and scanners had been
known to commit egregious errors as a result. But
all Thor could see in his mind's eye was the
magnificent ascent of Phoenix from her desert home.
With ten berths in her crew cabin module. Eight of
them up for grabs. He wondered if any of the others
had had the same dream he had.
But it wasn't realistic.
* * *
Riding in the cab of an eighteen-wheeler tank
truck southbound on I-55 for the Gateway City, with
the pavement humming beneath their tires and off-
highway neonlit diners flashing past in the
darkness, Sherrine had a barely controllable urge to
tune into a country/western station. Bob was hunched
over the steering wheel, eyes glued on the road
ahead. He looked like a trucker. They'd found him a
yellow baseball cap with the name of a feed store on
it, which he wore pushed back on his head. Between
them, Gordon dozed fitfully.
Sherrine had thought that the truck cabin would be
crowded with four of them aboard; but she found that
the big Peterbilt could fit three across the seat
while the fourth could rest in a smaller sleeping
compartment behind the cab. The two Angels did not
mind the cramped conditions. In fact, they seemed to
relax. Sherrine judged that they were accustomed to
sleeping quarters not much roomier than the back of
the Peterbilt.
They passed the turn-off for Winnemucca, which
made her think of Cordwainer Bird. Bird had taken
the National Endowment for the Arts advance for The
Very, Very Last Dangerous Visions; Really. And This
Time I'm Not Foolin' and vanished without a trace.
Rumor speculated that he was preparing the ultimate
diatribe; the one that would rock the Establishment
to its very foundation.
There were stories about Bird. Some of them were
true.
I wonder if Bob misses his van. Foolish question.
Of course he did. He had had that van a long time
and had kept it in careful condition. It was
comfortable, like an old slipper. Lots of memories
there.
Lots. The quilts and blankets in the back of the
van were not entirely meant for insulation. Sherrine
gave Bob a sidelong glance. She was not opposed to
marriage, in principle. Not for sex, although the
new laws made it safer that way, but for the
comradeship. She had even tried it once, and it had
been the happiest three years of her life . . .
though the marriage had lasted five.
Whatever had become of Jake? Had his liaison with
Heather lasted? The Cookie had struck her as one who
enjoyed the chase more than the prize. Suppose,
after dumping his wife for a better looker, Jake had
been dumped in turn for a more virile stud?
Or else Jake and Heather were living a life of
connubial bliss in a suburban bungalow somewhere,
with a miniature Jake and Heather scampering around
them.
Well, well. How little we know ourselves. She had
not thought about Jake in a long, long time. Yet,
the recollection still drove her heart to flutter.
Not the end-Jake, but the early Jake. He with the
wide, smiling mouth and the perpetually shadowed jaw
and the audacity to wander through the timescape of
undreamed lands. Somehow, beneath the bitterness,
beneath the anger, there was . . . not love, but the
shadow of a love that once was.
She was glad when Bob pulled over and turned the
wheel over to her. Gordon half-woke, then settled
back. Alex climbed out of the sleeper box like a
sleepy spider monkey. Bob crawled in. Sherrine put
the monster in gear.
The task at hand was to honcho an eighteen-wheeler
to St. Louis. Other cars drifted past like windup
toys. There weren't many in these early morning
hours.
The truck turned majestically, less like a car
than a seagoing liner. A lot of momentum in an
eighteen-wheeler. But if they stuck mainly to the
interstates she would be okay. No sharp turns. What
was it that Bill Vukovich had said after winning his
second strait Indy 500? "There's no secret. You just
press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning
left."
"What did you-—?"
"Did I say that out loud? Sorry, Gordon. Back to
sleep."
"Can you drive and talk?"
"Sure, Gordon. How are you holding up?"
"I was asked, 'Am I still having fun?' I am. You?"
"I haven't had time to stop and think since Bob
rousted me out of bed to pull Angels off the Ice."
She remembered the comfort and security of the
computer room with a longing that shocked her. There
was an animal contentment to living only in the
present, snug under the covers and comforters,
giving no thought to the future.
The future was a sneaky tense that crept up a day
at a time, each tomorrow just a little different
from the last, until one day you looked back along
the path you had traveled and saw how very, very far
you had come from your roots. Safe and secure; but
with your dreams cauterized. In the bright light of
day, she could see that that path of accumulated
tomorrows was a smooth and slippery one that led
down, down, down. The bottom of a Well was the point
of minimum energy; which was why it was so easy to
rest there unmoving.
To move, however . . . Ah, that was another matter
entirely. There were other paths, other tomorrows.
One could choose among them. And she had made her
choice.
And having made that choice, having left behind
everything in her life but a change of clothes
—"Yeah. Yes, Gordon, I'm still having fun."
But both Angels were asleep, slumped into each
other as if boneless.
Sherrine felt more at peace than she had had at
any time since Jake had left. Yet, all the
psychologists would agree that she should be feeling
terrible tensions and insecurity. A body at rest
tends to remain at rest, unless acted upon by an
outside force. She had never thought of Newton as a
psychologist before.
They passed an interchange. A neon sign on the
feeder road below them glided out of the darkness
and then faded behind them. HARRY'S ALL NIGHT
HAMBURGERS. She felt a sudden passion for
cheeseburger and fries.
* * *
He licked the pencil tip with his tongue, tucked
the receiver more firmly against his ear, and held
his hand poised over the order pad. "All right, go
ahead. You want what? Cornish hens. Fine, ma'am.
Yes, we do. All sorts of barnyard animals. A half-
dozen? And what? I see. Is there some reason why
they should be pregnant? How about a nice rooster,
instead? Fine. Yes, you can pay when you pick them
up."
* * *
The clapboard building was falling apart. The
porch roof sagged, and the windows were boarded up.
Shutters and sidings loose and brittle with time
ratted in the prairie wind. Behind the building,
black and rotted husks dotted a weed grown field.
Mike Glider gingerly got out of the truck and looked
around. "Harry?"
"Here." Harry and Jenny came down from the
decaying porch.
"I thought this was the place," Mike said. "Now
I'm not so sure."
"This is it," Harry said. He held up a piece of
broken board. IOWA STATE COLLEGE AGRICULTURAL RESEA-
—The end of the sign was charred black.
"Sure is run down," Bruce said.
Mike nodded. "Yeah, but it was once the pride of
the Agricultural Service. They did a lot of good
work here."
"Closed by court order," Harry said.
"Worse than that," Mike said. "They didn't even
wait. A Green flying squad burned the main building
out. Killed four of the research staff-—and got off
as justifiable manslaughter."
"Wasn't the only place that happened," Harry said.
"The big pogrom-—lot of scientists killed that year.
Okay, what's next?"
"We get shovels," Mike said. "They buried the
bacterial cultures out in the cornfield when they
heard the mob was coming."
"I better watch the bike," Harry said.
"It's all right, I can see it," Jenny said.
Harry shrugged. "Okay." He looked around at the
wasted fields. "Shovels. Dig where?"
"They faxed me a map," Mike said. He grabbed the
doorknob and shook it. The door would not budge.
"They used student labor during the school year;
then used volunteers so they could continue working
the land"-—again, he tried the door-—" into summer
sessions. There are probably all sorts of tools-—"
He kicked the door. "If we can just get inside."
The doorknob was pulled from his grasp. "I came in
through the back," Harry said.
Mike looked at Bruce and Bruce looked at Mike. "I
would have tried that next," Mike said. He stepped
inside the building to the musty smell of cobwebs
and rotted wood. A thick layer of dust coated the
floor, broken by the tracks of rodents.
The building was a warren of rooms and closets.
Abandoned offices. Desks with empty drawers hanging
open. File cabinets overturned. Papers scattered
about the floor, stained with rodent droppings and
the leak of rain through the roof.
"God damn them," Mike said reverently. "They did
good work here. Milk. We had a way to synthesize
hormones. Natural hormones, what cows make
themselves. Give the cows more and get half again as
much milk. Only they wouldn't let us use it."
"With people starving?" Jenny demanded. "How long
has that been going on."
"They discovered how to do it back before the turn
of the century," Mike said. "In 1987."
"But-—why-—"
"They're still testing to see if it's safe. That's
what the Greens said. The dairy corporations didn't
fight very hard. The last thing they need is cheap
milk. Oversupply, they called it."
He found Bruce at the back door of the building.
The door was hanging loose on its hinges, and the
jamb around the latch was broken and splintered.
Bruce pointed to the shattered door. "When Harry
said he came trough the back door-—"
"He's got a helluva knock, doesn't he?"
Harry approached them from the farther hallway
carrying two shovels over his shoulder. " I found a
store room," he announced. He gave one shovel to
Bruce; the other, to Mike. "And there were just
enough shovels."
* * *
<logon>
<SMOF-One: Bull semen!!!??? The Ghost>
<logoff>
 * * *
The plant manager spoke in such a broad Texan
accent that you would never guess he was not
originally from Texas. Just as some people were
"more Catholic than the Pope," Ron Ellick reflected,
others were more Texan than the Texans. Johns even
kept a stuffed rattlesnake in his office. It all
seemed very strange, because they were in the
Pennsylvania coal country, nowhere near Texas.
Ellick felt right at home.
The plant manager led him past the beds of
enormous NC machines jigged to shape different parts
from the base material. All but one were silent and
shrouded. The plant was weirdly quiet with only a
handful of people at work. The echo of hammer, saw
and drill sounded small in its cavernous spaces.
"Not very busy, Mr. Johns," Ellick ventured.
"Call me Johnny," the manager said. "And you're
right. We aren't very busy, 't all. Because of the
all."
"All?"
"Right. Pollution laws won't let anyone drill for
all anymore. So, less fuel for the airlines. And
they cut back on the number of flights because it
might damage the ozone layer. So fewer planes are
being built." Johns shrugged. "Bunch of guano, if
you ask me. But I'm an interested party. The
aerospace people were our biggest customers. Now all
we get are maintenance and spares orders. There's an
example, on that pallet. See where Mitch is gluing
the details in place? Now, what does that remind you
of?"
"A bee's honeycomb."
Johns nodded. "Right. We call it structural
honeycomb. That there is part of the nose assembly
for a 737b."
Ron Ellick studied the part dutifully. He had
flown from Minneapolis to Philadelphia, courtesy of
3MJ, on an old 737b. He wasn't sure he wanted to
know how much of it was held together with glue.
"You work on some mighty big parts, Johnny. Awkward
shapes. Must be a problem handling the stuff."
"Oh, not the raw material you were asking about.
That comes in blocks. Come on, let me show you."
Johns led him to an area of the plant filled with
shelving. Each shelf held a stack of what looked
like solid oblong blocks. "The way the industry's
been ruined, we have enough honeycomb in stock here
to last a generation." Johns shook his head sadly.
"Anyhow, the stuff was shipped collapsed into blocks
like this. Easier to handle. We set the blocks on an
extender, put hooks in each end, and stretch 'em
open like an accordion." He pointed to another
machine which to Ellick looked like a rack from a
medieval torture chamber. His mind toyed with the
notion: a modern day horror story . . ..
"So the original honeycomb block," Johns went on,
"takes up hardly any room at all. Ginny, show Ed
here what happens when you put a block in water." He
nudged Ron Ellick with his elbow. "Watch this."
The worker pulled on a pair of metal reinforced
gloves. Glaives, thought Ron Ellick. Chain mail. It
seemed appropriate for someone who worked on a rack.
She pulled a block from the shelves and began to
lower it end-first into a barrel filled with water.
"This one is aluminum," Johns told him. "But we
have honeycomb, in all sorts of metallic and non-
metallic composites."
The block was completely immersed in the water now
and the level in the barrel had hardly risen at all.
"Ninety percent air," Johns assured him. I doubt
there's any structural material on the face of the
earth that combines the structural strength with the
lightness of honeycomb."
 Ron Ellick nodded. Or off the face of the earth,
either. "How much for the blocks?"
Johns rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. "The
aluminum kind or the-—"
"Each."
Johns cited a list of prices from memory. Ron
Ellick wrote them down on a notepad. "OK, Johnny,
I'll talk to my people. You can ship it to
California?"
Johns nodded. "Son, the way the market is right
now, I'll carry it to California."
* * *
<logon>
<I have caught the bug. MYCROFT.>
<logoff>
* * *
Ted Marshall was a young man, round of face and
soft of muscle. At 5' 11" and 160 pounds, he gave
the odd impression of being both skinny and
overweight. He had an aversion to athletics of any
sort. Every morning he watched a run of joggers
pound by his home, lifting them up and putting them
down; a peculiarly elaborate form of self-torture.
In high school, he had taken remedial gym.
He held the chip up to the light and looked at it.
"How many books does it hold?"
"About five hundred," said Will Waxman. The old
man with the bushy patriarch's beard laid four more
on the table. "This is almost my entire library. The
last one, there? That's the Encyclopaedia
Britannica."
Ted grunted and laid the first chip down. All five
had been modified to look like Nintendo "Game Boy"
cartridges. "Cyberbooks. And you want to know if I
can duplicate them?"
Will Waxman nodded. "And the reader." He set a
Sony Bookman on the table between them. "Maybe a
dozen of each?"
Ted picked up the Bookman. "Where did you get this
baby? I thought their import was banned."
"It is."
Ted inserted one of the cartridges into the
Bookman and touched the "game buttons." "How does
it-—Never mind, I got it. This is page forward; and
this is page back. Hey! You've of the entire
Heinlein canon in here! And Asimov and de Camp and .
. . What does this button do?"
"It moves the cursor around so you can tab
hypertext buttons. Go ahead, move it to the story
title you want to read and then press the 'A'
button."
Ted did so and smiled when he saw the title page
appear on the screen. He glanced at the other
cartridges. "This must be a lot of fun when you're
browsing through the encyclopedia."
"Flying through the encyclopedia," Will corrected
him, "like a stone from David's sling skipping over
the water. No, more like jaunting in Bester's The
Stars My Destination or the stepping discs in
Niven's Ringworld. Did you ever hear Philip José
Farmer's definition of a dullard?"
Ted shook his head. "No."
Will grinned. "Someone who looks a thing up in the
encyclopedia, turns directly to the entry, reads it,
and then closes the book."
Ted laughed. "It's a damn shame they banned these
things. The trade problem-—"
"Trade friction had nothing to do with it." Will
took the Bookman from Ted, saw that it was open to
Pebble in the Sky and flipped through the electronic
pages. "Can you imagine any gadget better designed
to seduce the Video Generation into reading?"
 Ted frowned. "Nah. Conspiracy theories are fun,
but it's usually just ineptitude or-—"
"A well-read, educated public is more difficult to
lead around by the nose ring." Will leaned across
the table. "Can you duplicate the chips and the
reader, Ted? I need to know."
Ted Marshall shook his head. "No, I can't. The
programming? No problem. But the chips
themselves . . . I'm not a hardware man."
The old man sighed. "I was hoping to keep my
originals. Oh, well."
Ted held out a placating hand. "Hold on, Will. I
don't know how to duplicate the hardware, but I know
someone who knows someone."
Free-lance electrosmithing was almost as
incriminating as free-lance programming. Will didn't
ask further. Ted Marshall made the Bookman and its
chips vanish. "I'll see what I can do. You won't
mind if I make copies for myself, will you?"
"Of course not."
"Still. Won't the, uh . . ." He cast his eyes
toward the ceiling. "Don't our friends need things
like algae for their hydroponics a lot more than
they need books?"
Will shoo his head. "Man does not live by pond
scum alone."
* * *
<logon>
<Ghost: Honeycomb, won't you be my baby. Batman>
<logoff>
* * *
"Oh, what a cute little bunny rabbit!" said
Adrienne Martine-arnes, stooping over to peer into
the cage. The oversize rodent inside laid her ears
back and sniffed. The Gnawing incisors lay
bucktoothed over the lower lip. Yes, aren't you
cute." And plump, too. Rabbits gave good meat per
volume. So did guinea pigs.
"May I help you?" The pet store manager had come
up behind her.
Adrienne rose and turned. "Yes, you may." She had
the commanding presence of the queen of Olympus. A
white streak accented her otherwise black hair, as
lightning does the night sky. "How much are the
rabbits and the guinea pigs? The manager told her
and she nodded. She pulled a checkbook from her
handbag. "And do you give quantity discounts?"
* * *
When they came to the Interstate bridge over the
Mississippi, they slowed, and Harry and Jenny came
by on the motorcycle. Harry held up his hand, thumb
and forefinger in a circle.
"All clear," Bob said. "At least from outside."
Alex could see the St. Louis waterfront laid out
below him. Many of the docks and wharfs along the
river stood dry and inaccessible, since so much of
the river's source water was locked up in northern
ice. Starved as she was, though, the Mississippi was
still a mighty stream; and tug barges and riverboats
crowded her like a Manhattan street. The Missouri,
which entered a few miles upstream, was still
running near strength wind and rain patterns having
so far kept her watershed nearly ice-fee.
Even so, Alex noticed two barges aground o a mud
bar near the East St. Louis side of the river. Grain
barges from the north, Bob told him. Files of
people, ant-mall in the distance, marched on and off
the barges, balancing baskets full of grain on their
heads. He wondered how much of the cargo they could
salvage before rats and rot did for the rest.
Gordon, sitting between them, suddenly perked, up
and pointed through the windshield. "What is that?"
he asked.
 "That is the Gateway Arch," said Bob, taking the
exit onto Memorial Drive. "Our destination."
"But what does it do? What is its function?"
"The Arch? There's an elevator inside that takes
you to an observation platform on top. And there
used to be a Pioneer Museum underneath; that's
closed up now for lack of funds."
"That's all? Not for microwave relay or, your word
. . . weather observation or such?"
"No, it was a tourist attraction. A monument.
Why?"
Gordon shook his head in wonder. "I have never
seen such an artifact built for no useful purpose.
Could make poem about such beauty. Building under
constraint of gravity field is like building poem
under constraint of sonnet form. Requires craft and
artistry."
Alex noticed Gordon's lips move and grunted. The
stilyagin was probably trying to compose a poem on
the spot. It was that sort of distraction that got
him put on probation, then on the dip trip.
But Gordon was right about its beauty. In orbit
Alex would not have wondered twice about the Arch.
Such construction would have been easy, given the
mass . . . which is never given, in orbit. That's
why we need Moonbase so badly. All that free mass!
But in a gravity field . . . how did they keep it
up? Its soaring lines seemed to defy gravity. He
tried to imagine the forces acting on the arch. The
downward vectors must be translated into vectors
along the length of the arch itself. A neat problem
in basic physics. It was a fascinating planet. His
eyes travelled along the sleek parabola until, in an
odd echo to his thoughts, he saw what looked like
vector arrows pointing down from the top of the
Arch. As he watched, the arrowheads swayed slightly
in the wind.
 "What are those?"
Bob squinted through the windshield. "Beats me."
He reached back over his shoulder and rapped on the
back of the cab. "Coming up on the Arch," he said.
The panel separating the sleeping cubicle from the
cab slid back and Sherrine stuck her face through.
"The fan club meets in the underground museum,
right?"
"That's what Violetta said. They'll give us a
place to spend the night." He pulled to the side of
the street and turned on his blinkers. A car and two
horse carts drove around him. "All clear," he
announced.
Alex heard the door to the sleeping cubicle open
and shut. He squirmed a bit in his seat; then he
gripped his cane, unlatched the passenger door and
slid to the sidewalk.
"Hey," said Bob, "where are you going?"
"With Sherrine," he answered. He flourished his
cane. "For the practice. And just in case."
* * *
Sherrine saw him coming and waited politely on the
tiled plaza. She was framed by the gleaming Arch
against the backdrop of the river. A barge drifted
lazily behind her, keeping carefully to the cannel
buoys. He was struck again by her fragile beauty; a
beauty she herself seemed oddly reluctant to
acknowledge. Most Earth girls seemed terribly short
and muscular to him; and he had seen enough by now
to realize that pudgy and burly were the norm. Yet,
Sherrine continued to allure him.
Was it only a physical thing? Or was it a
fixationé-—imprinted like a baby duck!-—brought on
by the fact that she was the first woman he had seen
after Mary had . . . had betrayed him? Now there was
a thought!
 Betrayed you how, Alex? Because she didn't order
you back upstairs after that first missile attack?
Because she left it up to your own stupid pride? If
anyone betrayed you, Alex, it was yourself.
A sudden horn jolted him from his reverie. Two men
in a horse jitney shook their fists at him as they
pulled around. As if they hadn't the whole street to
themselves, Alex thought sourly.
Sherrine said, "Alex? What's up?"
"You don't want me with you?"
Her lips parted to answer him, then she shook her
head. "Come on, then. I think the entrance to the
old museum is over this way." Alex wondered what she
had been about to say. He thought he could make a
reasonable guess. Couldn't stick to the flight plan,
could you, Alex? And why? To moon along after a
woman who . . . He wanted to say that he found her
attractive; that he admired the way she had
abandoned her career and freedom to help him; that
he wanted to get to know her better. But the words
stuck awkwardly in his throat. Held down by gravity.
She led him down a concrete ramp festooned with
gaily-colored graffiti and handbills. One large
poster, plastered overtop the others, announced a
closed-circuit TV address by Emil Poulenc,
"Discoverer of the Ice Folk." Whatever that meant.
The sun was high in the sky, brushing the shadows
from the ramp. Four odd, circular shadows wavered
like black spotlights on the paving stones.
Why can't I ever pick a woman who'll choose me
back?
Sherrine knocked three times on the boarded-up
doors at the bottom of the ramp. A face like a side
of beef peered down at her from behind a plywood
partition, too high up. With a bit of a stutter she
said, "We're knights of Saint Fantony."
 His face showed nothing. "Here for the High
Crusade?"
"To win victory or sleep with the Angels. By order
of Duke Roland."
"Duke Roland" was Oliver Brown.
The giant's face withdrew into shadow. A minute or
two later the door opened.
The young man who opened the door was considerably
smaller. In the midday brightness he seemed shy and
awkward. He blinked up at Alex and held out his
hand. "Welcome," he said. "I'm Hugh." He indicated
his companion, a giant to rival Thor. "We call him
Fafhrd."
"What are those things up there?" asked Sherrine,
staring up against the glaring sun at the four
bundles dangling from the Arch.
The young man looked up, shading his eyes with his
hand. "Scientists from the University. They were
accused of practicing nuclear physics."
Sherrine stared at Hugh. "They hanged them for
that? Because they were convicted of being nuclear
physicists?"
The young man shook his head. "They weren't
convicted. We think they were four of the people who
ran the museum here. The place was empty after that,
and we moved in." Hugh had led them inside. Alex saw
a flash of silver at his left hand, then jumped as a
huge hominid shadow caught the corner of his eye.
Hugh had a knife in his left hand. He'd had it
ready while his right immobilized Alex, while the
giant doorman guarded him from overhead. "Duke
Roland says you're to be trusted. I trust my senses
when I can. Alex, how do you take a shower in free
fall?"
Alex said, "It takes forever to get wet and
forever to get dry. Wherever water is, it wants to
stay. We don't have enough water anyway. Mostly we-—
Hugh, how would a Downer know if I was lying?"
"This Downer was a physics teacher at KC High.
Milady, I might grant you're an angel, but not an
astronaut."
Sherrine smiled and colored. "No. I was one of the
rescuers."
"I see." Hugh's arm swept in a circle. "Well,
welcome all!" Others came from out of the shadows
beyond the entryway. Many people, some in armor.
"You have friends?"
"Yes. I'll go for them," Sherrine said, but she
didn't move at once. "Hugh, if the locals are
hanging scientists, are you safe here?"
Hugh's face closed like a wall . . . and then he
said, "We are safe indeed. I am Duke Hugh Bloodcup
because I was King Hugh of the Middle Kingdom six
years ago. The locals-—the Downers-they hanged four
scientists here, once. But when others came to
disturb us, we buried those bodies and replaced
them. The locals see four bodies hanging from the
Arch. They never think to examine them, to see if
they've been cycled. But there are rumors enough to
protect us, and if they won't-—"
"Yes. I see. Your Grace, Alex MacLeod will need to
sit even in your presence-—"
"Yes, of course. A chair for our saintly guest!
And an escort for Lady Sherrine!"
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Last Shuttle

"I tell you, Captain," Lieutenant Billings
insisted, "something is going on. There's been
increased activity in the fannish underground over
the past few days. Weird activity."
Lee Arteria nodded to the AP lieutenant standing
stiffly before the desk; reached out and rifled
through the thick stack of reports. "Yes. Though how
can you tell when fannish activity is weird?"
"They've been quiet for so long. The timing must
be significant, wouldn't you agree, ma'am?"
"True."
"Someone must be hiding the spacemen, or we would
have found them by now."
"But sci-fi fans? Really, Lieutenant. Could a
bunch of nerds and geeks have slipped the aliens
past the search parties on the Ice? With virtually
no notice, mind you." She grinned. "Maybe the Ice
Folk have them."
Billings made a face. "Ice Folk. Supermarket
tabloid nonsense. A newly evolved race of humans who
can live naked on the Ice? And there's that Sherrine
Hartley. She never reported back to work. And her
boyfriend with the maroon van called in to report he
has typhus. Typhus! And vanished. Captain Arteria,
this other fannish activity must be related to the
spacemen, too."
"Cornish game hens, Lieutenant? How will that help
hide the fugitives?"
"I don't know, ma'am. They might be stocking a
hidden hideaway with food."
"Bull semen, Lieutenant? Earthworms?" Arteria
leaned forward, hands placed flat upon the desk.
"Dung?"
Billings turned red. "Maybe they're hiding on a
ranch or a farm."
"Could be, actually. Anyway, you've convinced me.
Something's up. Get reports on all unusual activity
by known or suspected fans. Let's get 'em!"
"Yes, ma'am!"

Lee Arteria thumbed idly through the file folders.

They're up to something. But what? Fans were
technophiles, so they were watched; but they were
mostly flakes, so the effort was sporadic and
incomplete. And they kept trying to recruit the
cops, lecturing them, giving them reading material,
driving them crazy.
More fanac would surface presently. Bull semen,
earthworms, dung, game hens? Worse than the Stardust
Motel Westercon Banquet! Bouncing potatoes, bouncing
potatoes-—A known fan in Portland bought rabbits.
One buck and several females. How did that fit the
pattern? Impregnating rabbits with bull semen? A
secret gengineering project? But to what purpose?
You'll come abouncing potatoes with me!
Angels down. Fans to the rescue. That, said the
waitress, is roast beef and a salad, too! You'll
come a-bouncing potatoes with one! But what would
they want with Cornish game hens?
* * *
 The St. Louis Society for Creative Anachronism
were not exactly fans. But there was considerable
overlap between SCA and fandom; and Oliver Brown had
been King Roland II, which made him a Royal Duke,
and the SCA people were deferential to their
aristocracy. The place was used by fans; but it was
an SCA fief.
The museum was a large, low-ceilinged space broken
up by partitions and display cases into quasi-rooms
ill-lit by kerosene lanterns and candles. Men
practiced with padded weapons in cleared spaces.
Women showed each other intricate ways of making
cloth with their fingers. Men, women, children
huddle around the light sources, reading tattered
old books; talking and arguing with animated
gestures; or, in a few cases, writing intently on
smudged tablets of lined paper.
Two knights brought Gordon inside, one at each
elbow, and helped him to a chair. He was pale with
effort . . . no, Gordon was stronger than that now.
Pale with shock. He'd walked under four corpses.
Alex said, "Still think the Well is worth saving,
tovaritch?"
Gordon nodded. "Desperately so."
"Where's Sherrine?"
"Helping Pins with docking maneuvers. A squire has
shown them where to hide the truck. Why, are you
lonely, Alex?"
"We're to meet the King all together. Never mind,
that must be them." There was activity at the door.
Passwords were exchanged, while the silent giant
Fafhrd took his defense position. Duke Hugh ushered
them in: Sherrine, Bob Needleton, Harry Czescu and
Jenny Trout. Gordon and Alex stood to join them.
Duke Hugh whispered instructions before they were
led to meet the King.
 The procession was short. All eyes were on them.
Alex enjoyed having Sherrine on his arm, though she
was supporting him. The King was a large young man
whose nose had once been smashed flat against his
face. It was fun to watch him try to balance hero
worship against his royal dignity. Still, he was the
man who had beaten every other fighter in St. Louis;
that was how you got to be King. The four bowed,
with Sherrine and Bob supporting the Angels.
They were turned loose into a party that was just
starting to turn raucous.
Harry and Jenny stayed behind, by invitation of
the King. Some of the court settled in a circle.
Some had lutes or tubes that turned out to be
musical instruments. Alex listened for a bit. Songs
of past and future-—

"Wanted fan for plain sedition, like the

singing of this tune.
If NASA hadn't failed us we'd have cities on
the moon.
If it weren't for fucking NASA we'd at least
have walked on Mars.
If I never can make orbit, then I'll never
reach the stars."

Never can make orbit . . . Harry and Jenny were

singing to Alex's soul. Alex wasn't in the mood for
that much gloom. He moved away, toward laughter.
Jenny's voice followed him. "How's this, Majesty?"

"Wanted fan for mining coal and wanted fan

for building nukes;
Wanted fan by William Proxmire and a
maddened horde of kooks.
 Washington, D.C., still wants me 'cause I
tried to build a dam.
If they're tearing down the cities I'll help
any way I can."

"Yeah, Jenny, I know you would . . ."

Gordon gravitated to one of the fans who was
writing furiously on a legal pad. He stood a little
aside so as not to distract the woman; but Alex
could see that she was aware of the Angel's hovering
presence.
Alex wandered among mannequins dressed in the
style of mountain man, Plains Indian, cowboy. They
stood ghostly sentinel amid prairie dioramas and
reconstructed Conestogas. Sunbonnets and calico and
flintlocks. A moldboard plow. A la riata coiled to
loop over a steer's horns. Chaps and Stetson hat.
Buckskin shirt and leggings done up with beads and
quillwork. A birchbark canoe bearing a coureur de
bois. The opened diary of a woman who had crossed
the Plains in an 1840's wagon train. Alex tried to
read what was written there, but the light was too
dim.
All the ages interfaced. No wonder fans were
comfortable here.
Gordon, he saw, was deep in conversation with an
aspiring writer named Georgina. The stilyagin was
sitting lotus beside her on the floor and was
pointing to something on her pad. They had gathered
a small audience-—all femmefans, Alex noted-—and she
was nodding with a very serious look on her face to
whatever Gordon was saying.
Alex found a chair and sagged into it, a bit too
tired to be sociable.
Somebody brought him a pewter flagon of fairly
powerful punch. A younger fan brought an elderly
couple over and introduced them as Buz and Jenn.
"Have you made much use of the shuttle tank?" Jenn
asked. "The one that went up with the last shuttle?"
Alex nodded. Noblesse oblige. "We couldn't live
without it. And the other one. I've heard the story,
of how the pilots and a friend in Mission Control
brought the first tank to orbit. It was supposed to
splash, but the pilots pulled the circuit breakers
for the separation charge igniters."
Buz nodded. "The astronauts and cosmonauts had
already decided to try to build a civilization. They
had to have the tanks for living space."
"You were in on that?" Alex asked.
"A little," Jenn said. "They couldn't do that but
once, though. Then came-—"
"The Last Shuttle," Buz said.
"Yeah. I was in it," Alex said.
"We know," Jenn said. "How are Ian and Alicia?"
"You knew them?"
"Yes."
"Dad was killed in a blowout nine years ago," Alex
said. "Mother died last year. Heart."
"Oh. I'm sorry," Jenn said. She turned to her
husband. "They had twenty years together. Up there."
"And we're still here," Buz said. He turned to
Alex. "It was Ian and Alicia or us," he said. "When
the astronauts decided to take the last shuttle up.
The space program was winding down, and we thought
it would be important to get more people into the
habitats. Peace and Freedom. Cooperation between
U.S. and Russia. Symbols of peace and progress. They
already had a shuttle tank in orbit, and we wanted
to send another, but mostly we wanted to send up
families. Jenn and I were candidates. So were Ian
and Alicia, and you, only you didn't know it. You
were about six, as I recall, and your mother was
small, so the two of you weighed less than I do."
Georgina and Gordon had come to listen, and others
gathered around. "What happened to the last
shuttle?" Georgina asked. "You still have it, don't
you?"
"Sure. It can't reenter. It was damaged."
"I heard-—there was a riot at the launch," a fan
said. He was younger than Gordon, a small round
teenager with thick glasses. "I read about it-—"
"It was Enterprise Two," Alex said. "Like Buz
said. There had been regular supply runs, but-maybe
Buz should tell this."
"I've told it before," Buz said. "Let's hear how
you tell it."
"I was six," Alex said. "My father and mother were
mission specialists. Engineers. They'd heard the
space program was being closed down, and thought-—
they thought that if there were families in space,
Americans as well as Russians, it would shame the
government into supporting them. So they all
volunteered to go. They thought there would be other
ships. The NASA ground crew swore they'd stay on the
job, refurbish the ship and send her back up with
supplies. It wasn't supposed to be the last one."
"Some group had tried to get a court order to stop
the launch," Jenn said. "Said there was a chance
that a bad launch could fall on pleasure boats out
in the ocean. Then they sent most of their
membership down to man a fleet downrange of the
pads."
Their audience had formed up in a circle. The
younger fans were wide-eyed. A man in medievals, a
troubadours outfit, with a lute slung across his
shoulder, was jotting notes. Older fans, hanging
farther back, showed a blacker mood. It wasn't just
a yarn to them. They remembered.
 "That was Earth First," Buz said.
Jenn snorted. "You mean Earth Only."
"Earth Last," another muttered. "Bastards."
"Nobody worried about their court order," Alex
said. "But then the word leaked out that the launch
was on, and a mob gathered around the perimeter.
They tried to tear down the fences, but there was
another group, the L-5 Society, supporters, trying
to protect the ship. Not enough of them. There was
fighting. Mom wouldn't let me watch. She had a death
grip on me until she could get us aboard."
Alex noticed he was rubbing his arm, and stopped.
"We squeezed into one couch. Everything was going
wrong, Dad said half the control board was red, but
they launched anyway. I remember the acceleration.
Mother was holding onto me, the couch wasn't big
enough, other kids were screaming, but Dad was
grinning like a thief; I'll never forget his face.
Or Mother's. "
"On the way up there was a clonk and a lurch.
Didn't feel any worse than what was happening till I
saw Dad's face. Scared. Snarling with fear."
"An eco-fascist Stinger," Jenn said. "It was a
near miss. Ripped a shitload of tiles off her nose."
Alex nodded. "Punched nearly through. I've seen
it. But we made it. Mission Control kept feeding
corrections to the main computer. They're the real
heroes, the NASA ground crew. I never knew their
names."
"Why them?" asked one of the young fans.
"Because they stayed at their posts."
"But-—"
"The mob broke through."
"Oh."
"The fighting in Mission Control was hand to
hand," Buz said. Long, hard muscles were jumping in
the old man's arms. He'd learned to fight . . . but
afterward, Alex thought. "The mob had baseball bats.
Two had handguns. Some of the ground crew held them
at the door until they took bullets and went down."
He turned to the woman beside him and took her
gnarled hand in his and stroked it. "The mob swelled
inside, swinging bats and smashing panels. The crew
held on, nobody left, nobody left a console until
Enterprise Two was up." He sighed and looked at the
floor. "The police showed up then; but it was too
late to save anything."
"The MP's were pissed," said Jenn. "They'd been
ordered to stand down because the organizers had
assured everyone that the 'demonstration' would be
peaceful; and an MP cordon would have been 'too
provocative.' Not that the politicians needed much
assurance. California and Florida both had Green
governors."
"Skazhitye," said Gordon. "But how do you know so
much about it?"
The elderly couple glanced at each other. Jenn
said, "Jim here was Launch Control and SBR
Separation. I was Flight Path Planning and RSO."
"You-—" Alex felt a lump rise in his throat. Buz's
voice-—a younger Buz's voice-—had been the last
words from Earth he had heard, fed through the
speakers into the passenger cabin in the silence
after the engines shut down. Good luck, Enterprise.
Our dreams are going with you. Alex took a step
toward them and they rose from their chairs. A
moment's awkward hesitation gave way to an embrace.
Alex's cheeks were hot with tears.
"You knew, didn't you," he said, hugging the old
woman. "You knew it would be the Last Shuttle up."
She said nothing, but he could feel her head
nodding. "We knew we'd never see another," said Buz.
"Not in our lifetimes. But we're still the lucky
ones. Come."
He led them through the exhibits, past the
trappers, the cowboys, the sod busters. Pioneers,
Alex thought. Pioneers all.
Buz led them to a small case near the back of the
museum. It was nothing but a scroll, done up on
pseudovellum. One-inch-square photographs had been
mounted beside a list of names. The lettering was an
intricate Old English calligraphy.

Star Date 670127

Virgil J. [Gus] Grissom
Roger Chaffee
Edward H. White II
670424 Vladimir Komarob
710629 Vladislav VolKob
Geiorgi Dobrovolsky
Viktor Patsayeb
860128 Francis R. Scobee
Michael T. Smith
Jubith A. Resnik
Ronald C. McNair
Ellison S. Onizuka
Gregory B. Forbis
CHrista McAuliffe

Alex woke groggy on a museum bench.

Gordon sat in a plastic shell of a chair hunched
over a scarred and warped desk. He was staring off
into space with his mouth half-open. Writing a love
poem? Sure. And to whom, Alex thought he could
guess. Shoeless, he padded up silently behind Gordon
and read over his shoulder:
 The scoopship's cabin was a sounding box for
vibrations far below the ears' grasp; as, high over
the northern hemisphere, her hull began to sing a
bass dirge. My bones could feel . . .
Gordon jerked suddenly and turned in his seat.
"Alex, I did not hear you come." He covered the
tablet with his forearm.
Alex grinned. "Does the hero get the girl?"
Gordon flushed a deeper crimson. "It is not that
kind of story. Are no heroes. It is story about
belonging; about one's place in the world. About
being at home."
Alex's eyes flicked toward the hidden sky.
"No, Alyosha. Not home like that. Not accident of
birth. Home is where, when you have to go there,
they have to take you in. Sometimes you find it in
places you don't expect."
"That's fine, Gordon." Gordon did have a way of
putting words together. Not just a subsonic hum, but
a "dirge." The hum and the sweetness of flight-—yet
with a touch of ominous anticipation. When Alex
wrote, the words fell like stones in line: solid,
serviceable prose for memos and technical reports
and the occasionally informative letter; but it
never sang like Gordon's did.
"May I ask you a question, Alex?"
"Sure. I can't sleep; and we'll be leaving soon
anyway."
"Ask away."
"About Sherrine." He looked up, locked eyes with
Alex for a fraction, then looked away. "Alex. I
burn. Sherrine . . . She is as Roethke wrote: I knew
a woman, lovely in her bones, / When small birds
sighed, she would sigh back at them . . .' But I . .
. she and I . . ." He shook head abruptly. "Nyet. I
cannot assert myself. The time is not right." He
turned and looked again at Alex. "What if she does
not care for me?"
Alex almost laughed. "Is that what you wanted to
ask me about? You want her, but does she want you?
How would I know? Ask Bob. She doesn't confide her
love life to me." Alex forced the words out between
his teeth, surprised at how much they hurt. "Things
are a lot looser down here in the Well, you know."
Gordon looked at him strangely. "I thought you . .
."
"You thought I what?"
Gordon shook his head. "Nichevo."
Alex shrugged and tried to recover his broken
sleep. What was with Gordon, anyhow? Lost on frozen
Earth, the authorities searching for him, and there
he sat writing fiction in the middle of the night. A
novel no one would read.
* * *
Sherrine drove the rig while Bob slept in the
back. The hill country of southwest Missouri, trees
shorn prematurely of their leaves, swept past on
both sides of the nearly abandoned interstate. The
setting sun nagged at the edges of her vision, not
quite dead ahead and too low for the visor to help,
painting the pastel clouds that hugged the horizon.
She kept her speed down; from fear of the cops, but
also because she had to watch each overpass as she
came upon it.
Here the Ice was only a distant whisper beyond the
horizon, borne on summer breezes that had become
crisp and cool. The fall came earlier, and the
winter blizzards were more frequent.
And none of the overpasses had quite collapsed.
But they were shedding. What had Fang called it?
Spalling? Sometimes she had to steer the truck
around chunks of concrete lying in the roadway under
an overpass; and she sweated when she drove across a
bridge. The dreadful blizzards of the smog-free 19th
century Plains once more shrouded the heartland in
winter, freezing and cracking the works of mankind.
Alex was crumpled against a pillow jammed between
the passenger door and the seat back. He slumped
loosely, dozing, bent like a contortionist, or a
marionette. From time to time he would blink and
raise his head and gaze around himself as if baffled
before nodding off once more to the gentle rocking
of the truck's suspension.
Gordon sat between them quietly reading a book. He
had found it at the clubhouse in St. Louis and had
pounced on it with unconcealed delight. A thick
squat paperback with cracked and dog-eared covers.
The Portable Kipling. The fans had made him a gift
of it.
He closed it now, because it had grown too dark to
read. Gordon gazed out the windshield into the
gathering dusk, where sunset stained the western
horizon. He whispered so as not to wake Alex. "I saw
nothing like this in Freedom. Always we see sunsets
from above."
Sherrine was glad of conversation. Driving in
silence disembodied you. It was talk that made you
real. "I've seen the old pictures, looking down on
the Earth. They made my heart ache."
"Each place has its own beauties. We can learn to
love the one, and still yearn for the other."
"What were you reading?"
"A story. A character sketch. 'Lispeth.' It tells
of Indian hill country girl raised by English
missionaries. She wears English dress and acts in
English manner. When a young official of the Raj
passes through, she falls in love. He swears he will
return and marry her; but he never has such an
intention and abandons her without a thought.
Finally she realizes truth. So she gives up the
mission and returns to her village and her gods and
becomes peasant wife."
"A sad story."
"A tragedy." She could hear his smile in the dark.
"I am half-Russian. We are not happy without a
tragedy. Kipling saw the tragedy of India. Lispeth
thought she was English, but the English never did."
"I haven't read much Kipling. His books are hard
to find these days."
"Oh, but you must. I will lend you mine. Kipling.
And Dickens. And London. And Twain. Wonderful
writers. I have. . . . No. I have only this one book
now. Real book, of real paper. Still, you may borrow
it."
Sherrine smiled to herself. "You like to read."
"Yes. Yes. Though much I do not understand.
References. Shared assumptions of Downers. I read
Austen one time; but her world is like alien planet.
Still, I laugh and cry with her characters."
"I had a math teacher in college who had read
Pride and Prejudice fifteen times, in fifteen
different languages."
Gordon blinked. "Math professor?"
"Math professors read literature, Gordon. But it's
not commutative. Lit profs never read math."
He laughed. "Russian literature is harder than
maths. Do you smile, that I find Russian literature
difficult? My matushka made me read Tolstoy, Gorki,
Pushkin. It was so different from my father's
Western literature. In the West, novel was
biographical. About characters. About Lispeth or
David Copperfield. In Russia, was writing about
ideas. War and Peace. Crime and Punishment.
Characters, even central characters like Karenina
only illustrate the Idea. Very hard for each people
to read the other kind. But my mnatushka said it was
important I live in two worlds, the Rodina and the
West. A new society is evolving in the habitats.
Western optimism and Russian gloom.
Sherrine laughed. "It sounds . . . appropriate. It
needs a new literature, then. A synthesis. Floater
literature."
"Perhaps. Gloomy optimism. Optimistic gloom. I
have tried . . . " Silence.
"Light-hearted pessimism. Mark Twain?" She turned
on her headlights. Had Gordon said-—"You've tried to
write something?" Scratch any eager reader and
you'll find a wannabee writer.
"Nichevo. Story fragments. A few poems. Such
things are not survivalrelated activity. I must
steal time to do them. So they are not very good.
Nothing good enough for you to hear."
"Have you ever read a fanzine? No, really. I read
some pretty awful stuff in my grandfather's old
pulps. Go ahead. Recite one of your poems for me."
Next to him, Alex stirred shifted positions.
"No, I cannot," Gordon whispered.
She took a hand from the steering wheel and laid
it on his arm. "Please?"
"I . . . If you will not laugh?"
"I won't laugh. I promise."
"I hold you to promise." Gordon coughed into his
fist, straightened in the seat. He looked off into
the black distance, not meeting her eyes, and spoke
gently:

"Lying softly, white as snow is snow,

With delicate beauty, borne delightful to
the eye,
Reflected in the silver, skydropped moon:
 Her face, upturned and smiled on by the
stars.
Asleep is she more lovely and at peace;
Her skin would glow a light unsnowlike warm.

She sleeps. Touched by the moon

And me.

He fell silent; still he would not look at her.

Bashful. "Why, that's lovely, Gordon."
He turned at last. "You like it?"
"Certainly." Sherrine probed: "She must have been
pretty."
"Who?"
"Your girlfriend. The one you wrote the poem to."
"She is. Very beautiful."
Aha! "Have you, ever recited for her?"
"Yeah-da. I did." Sherrine smiled broadly out the
windshield. Gordon was caught on that cusp where he
wanted to keep his love a deep, delicious secret and
shout it to the world at the same time. She had been
caught there once before. She and Jake. A long time
ago, but she could remember the wonderful glow. With
Bob it had been different fun, good times, a lot of
laughs; but she had never glowed. "What did she
say?"
"She said my poem was lovely."
"Well, that's a pretty tepid response to a love
poem."
A long pause, then, "Ah. I had forgotten."
"Forgotten what?"
"You do not live in such close quarters as we do.
You do not have to be so careful to avoid offense or
to rub against your neighbor's feelings. So few of
us, and still there has been murder, because we
cannot escape from one another. One does not speak
of love until one is sure."
"Then how can you ever be sure?"
He may have shrugged in the dark, but he did not
answer. Sherrine returned her attention to the road.
She kept it at thirty and slowed for every shadow in
the road. Some shadows were hard and rigid.
Approaching bridges, she crawled.
Ten minutes or an hour later, something went click
in her head.
Oh, no. He means me!
It had been obvious for some time that both Angels
lusted after her. Lord knew why. Tall and skinny was
the Angel ideal, but . . . Lust she could deal with.
A little recreational workout; fun for everyone and
no hard feelings. It was impossible to sit between
two horny males-—three, counting Bob, who was in a
perpetual state of rut without picking up the
pheromones. She was more than a little horny
herself.
But Gordon was not just horny. He was in love; and
that she could not deal with; because . . .
Because Jake is still living there, somewhere in
the back of my skull.
Oh, great. Now she had four men to deal with.
Three live and present; one a ghost. An old rhyme
capered through her thoughts. Its gude to be merry
and wise. / It's gude to be honest and true; / It's
gude to be off with the old love, / Before you are
on with the new.
Was he asleep? Or studying her in the dark?
She said nothing; concentrated on her driving. He
loves me? She craned her neck and looked in the
large side-view mirror. A smaller Sherrine,
distorted by the convex shape, stared back. He loves
me? The truck had a lot of inertia; a lot of
momentum.
Gordon said, "You are offended."
"No!" She paused; spoke again. "No, I'm not. I'm
flattered. It has been a long time since anyone
loved me."
Gordon seemed appalled. "Shto govorish? How can
that be? There is Bob-—"
"He only thinks he's in-—"
"And Alex."
The cab was silent except for the older Angel's
deep, regular breathing.
"Alex."
"Yeah-da. You do not see it? He is Earthborn
American: more direct than most, but still a
Floater. Still, even he may have been too oblique
for you. Alex loves you; though he writes no poems.
Is why I have hesitated so long to speak. He is my
captain, and-—and I wish to be fair." He shook his
head again. "Life is complicated for my generation.
If I was all Russian or all American, there would be
no dilemma."
"Fair! And he treats you so badly. I mean, I like
Alex, too; but he's so stern and unforgiving.
Especially over the crash."
Gordon nodded slowly. "That is true."
"And it wasn't really your fault."
"My fault? Oh, no. It is himself he cannot
forgive. He was hero once. Now he feels neglected.
After the first missile we could have aborted to
orbit. Alex chose not to. Because he wished again to
be the hero, da? Now he feels shame. He feels he has
failed Freedom; has failed Mary Hopkins; has failed
me."
"How would you like some advice, Doctor Freud?"
The voice was low and thick with sleep. Sherrine
twisted her head to look past Gordon. Alex's eyes
shone in the dim, reflected light. The cab fell
silent. The tires hummed on the roadway.
"Mind your own business, Gordon." Alex twisted,
punched the pillow into a shapeless lump, and lay
back into it with his back to the rest of the cab.
After a while Gordon leaned over and spoke in a
whisper. "I was wrong. This truck cab is as close
quarters as anywhere in orbit."
Sherrine sucked on her lip. The Interstate was a
pale ribbon under the rising moon. A single car
distant in the northbound lanes was the only
movement other than the wind-tossed trees. It would
not do to laugh.
* * *
Arteria stared at the Alderman. The platoon of Air
Police stood by waiting, their weapons held at a
casual order arms. The Alderman's court cast wary
eyes at their visitors and kept their hands away
from their own motley collection of hunting rifles
and bows. Bows! Outside, the shoop-shoop of
helicopter blades interrupted the silence. "Well?"
Arteria put an edge of menace into the question.
The Alderman looked up from the photographs he had
been given. He licked his lips and looked around at
his ward heelers. The ward heelers would not meet
his eyes.
"Yeah. Sure." Alderman Strauss stuck his chin out.
"They was here. What about it?"
"I'm glad to hear you say that, Alderman. It
confirms what we learned from the truck drivers and
your own stevedores." Though those farmers in
Millville were certainly tight-lipped. HAH! "Big
Front Yard Sale." And that van the Kilbournetowners
confiscated . . . Lieutenant Billings says it's
maroon under the new paint job. Thank God I saw that
deputy's report on the funeral in Millville. The
engine's VIN had matched a van owned by Robert K.
Needleton of Minneapolis, a materialist science
professor at U. Minn. Called in sick, with typhus.
Whereabouts unknown.
"Now, where did they go when they left here?" God,
we should clean out this nest of barbarians, too.
Why haven't they been evacuated south? If the
government knew how far they've fallen under the
cloak of anarchy . . . The Green Weenies would love
to arrest an entire city for air pollution. Unless
they don't care, or don't dare let the rest of the
country know what's happened here.
Arteria studied the bitter and edgy men and women
clustered around the Alderman's throne; smelled the
ripe smell of fear. Sure. Move them south. And when
conditions to the south worsen, too, move them
farther south. I'm glad it's not my job to do
anything about it. Maybe they've got the right idea.
Stay and fight. Like Scithers and his engineer cadre
at Fargo Gap.
The Alderman tugged at his spade-like beard,
clearly wondering if he should try to hold out for
some advantage, but Arteria's face decided him.
"They went west," he said. "They escaped from the
de-lousing station, stole some horses and rode west.
We didn't bother to chase 'em because of the
typhus."
West didn't make sense . . . though typhus did. If
Needleton had been here . . . "Are you sure?"
"Sure, I'm sure. You can ask over at Yngvi De-
Lousing, if you want."
Arteria nodded slowly, eyes hooded. "You're right.
Maybe I should ask over there." Arteria turned to
leave, and the MP platoon followed, not quite
relaxing, not quite turning their backs.
"Hey!" The Alderman's voice stopped them and
Arteria lifted a questioning eyebrow.
 "You're from the government, aina?" The Alderman
was out of his seat and the arrogance and contempt
had dropped from his face. "When's the government
gonna come and help us out of this? I've got people
dying up here!"
Arteria said nothing for a long moment. He still
believes in government bailouts. What can I tell
him? That the government is too busy chasing
polluters and nuclear scientists and secular
humanists? And people who cut wood without
permission. That the government can't afford it any
more and wouldn't know how, anyway?
A curt nod. "I'll let them know the way things
stand. Things are tough all across the northern
tier."
The Alderman licked his lips. "Yeah. Sure." He
looked around at his cronies. "Things must be a lot
worse other places, right? Otherwise they'da gotten
to us by now."
Arteria wouldn't meet his eyes. A crafty machine
politician. He wasn't fooled. It was the Titanic all
over again. Not enough lifeboats to go around.

Outside at the command chopper Arteria contacted

Redden on the radio. "Your reports seem to have been
correct, sir. That's right. We found the van. We can
confirm Needleton as well as the Hartley woman. Plus
four other males, three Caucasian and one black."
Two of them were tall and skinny and having trouble
walking. Things were getting interesting. "There's a
lead here I want to follow up on. No, sir, I don't
need anything more. I'll go solo on this."
Arteria rang off and handed the set back to the
tech sergeant. The sergeant looked worried. "Do you
think that's wise, Captain? You could send one of
the troops, instead."
 "No, Sergeant, this is something I've got to do
personally."
"But you'll be out of touch. Shouldn't
you . . . ?"
"Soldier, ask not what my plans might be." Arteria
looked left, then right, then added in a lower
voice, "It's a crazy idea; and if it doesn't pan out
. . ."
The sergeant blinked, then slowly brightened. "I
get you. No one will know."
"Right you are. Besides, I won't be any further
out of touch than the radio in my car, will I? We'll
just have to make sure that the Rapid Deployment
Team is ready to go anywhere, anytime, on my signal.
Now tell Lieutenant Billings I want a staff meeting
in ten minutes."
The sergeant saluted and dogtrotted off to find
the platoon commanders. Arteria smiled a slow smile.
Solo and in civilian clothes. That was the best way.
No committees to second guess and hamper you. Just
your own wits and reactions. Follow the clues
wherever they led, without a lot of silly debate.
Redden and the military brass would want periodic
reports; but that was no problem. Moorkith would be
worried that he wasn't getting all the skinny; let
him stew. If the others wanted the credit of finding
the Angels first, they would have to do the same
thing. Get off their asses and scour the highways
and byways. Especially, the fannish byways.
And who better to scour those byways than a
gafiated fan?

Lee parked outside Yngvi's De-Lousing. Her car was

plain back, with civilian license plates from Ohio,
because this wasn't the first time she'd needed to
look like a civilian. She went up to the door and
waited to see a sensitive fannish face.
"FIAWOL," Arteria said.
Terri Whitehead gave her a blank look. "What?"
"FIAWOL, and it's damned well true of you if not
me."
"I don't know-—"
"Look, I don't have a lot of time," Arteria said.
"Yngvi is a louse, but throwing a handful of rotten
snow at me isn't going to get rid of me."
"Who are you?" Terri asked grimly. "The only
people here are the Alderman's slaves-—and police.
And you?"
"Air Force," Arteria said. "I'm in charge of
finding the Angels."
"Angels?"
"Look, Dr. Whitehead, if I wanted you in jail I'd
have come with a squad and taken you away." Lee took
a photograph from her jacket pocket. "Here. Sherrine
Hartley and Bob Needleton. They were here.
Incidentally, Dr. Needleton called in to his
university claiming he had typhus. I suppose he got
that idea from you. Ideas are contagious."
"I-—"
"So why should you tell me anything?" Lee asked.
"Because they're going to get caught. Be real clear
about it. That picture's being circulated all over
the country. If I find them, I can help them. And
will."
"How do I know that?" Terri asked. She was near
tears.
"You don't, but you know damned well nobody else
cares," Lee said.
"Who are you-—""
"Hah. Got it," Lee said. "WackyCon at Waikiki
Beach. Lex Nakashima's convention. You were on a
panel with Will Waxman. The Miracles Panel. Cheap
superconductor wire, cold fusion-—"
"My God, that was fifteen years ago!" Terri said.
"You were there all right. But-—you're police now."
"Air Force," Lee said. "Air Police. Office of
Special Investigations. Yes. Look, Dr. Whitehead,
this is it: you tell me where they went, or-—"
"Or?"
"Or I walk out of here, of course, and keep
looking on my own. You're safe no matter what you
do. But you won't know who finds them."
"What will you do with them?"
Lee shook her head. "I won't kid you. I don't know
myself. Let me point out that I can always find
them. I can go back and take the Tre-house apart.
Somebody there knows. Save your friends a lot of
trouble, Terri. Where'd they go?"
"I won't tell you."
Lee shrugged. "Ok but you're making a lot of
trouble for 3MJ, and the result will be the same no
matter what. I sort of like the old boy, but-—
anyway, good luck." She turned to go.
"Wait."
"Yes?"
"Damn you. Leave the others alone. Chicago. They
wanted to go to Chicago, so we took them there. To
the museum. The big one, Science and Industry."
"Museum. Right. Thank you. Now we've got one more
problem. You'll want to call them. I'm afraid I
can't let you do that, so a couple of my troops will
sit with you for the rest of the day. You're not
under arrest unless you want to be, but you're
incommunicado for a few hours." Lee went toward her
car, stopped, looked back. "FIJAGH," she said.
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

". . . Better than a Plan"

Excerpt from the electronic journal of
Surrealistic Housekeeping, Adrienne Martine-Barnes,
ed.:
If a little lemon juice is good for stains, a bit
of gallium and germanium will do wonders for dope. I
mean how much flip-flopping can a body take, land's
sake? PNP is not a supermarket abbreviation for
pineapple, is it? And don't forget heavy metal
music, either. (Who could? Such lovely
melodies . . . .)
Orange is a Taurus, of course. (Boeuf l'Orange!)
But what of the rest of the zodiac? What's your sign
There is Pisces, after all. How many fish swim in
the ocean of night? Or Sagittarius. No, I'm not sure
what that means, either. But it must mean something!
Tap into your cosmic connection and feel the vibes
of the universe. I'm sure you'll come up with
something useful. Let's see . . . Aquarius is
obvious; a bit too obvious, I'm afraid. As for
Gemini, they had better quit cloning around. And
Aries has taken it on the lamb. Honestly. I wouldn't
try to pull the wool over your eyes.
We all know how important the Sweepstakes is, so I
know you'll all send your entries in promptly.
 Now, the next article on surrealistic housekeeping
is one you have all been asking for. How do you keep
watches from melting on the arms and backs of your
sofas and chairs? Why, it is simplicity itself,
provided, of course, that you have enough lace Dalis
. . .
* * *
Ike Redden threw the printout down in disgust.
"All right," he said to Moorkith. "You tell me what
it means!"
"Captain Arteria seems to understand this stuff,"
Moorkith said.
"She's on a special assignment," Redden said.
She! "Where?"
"Damned if I know," Redden said. "But she gets
results."
* * *
There was a TV in the lobby of the Museum of
Science and Appropriate Technology. Lee Arteria was
just showing her credentials to the manager when the
newscaster said, "More on the ice nudes, from
Winnipeg. Gerald Cornelius and Anthony Rogers were
found on foot on the Fargo highway, both suffering
from frostbite. They told police of being rescued
from their wrecked truck by a tribe of naked and
near-naked savages."
All of Lee Arteria's assumptions came crashing
down around her ears. They'd done it again, they'd
moved the Angels out of the United States across the
Ice in a microwave beam to keep them warm-—and Lee
Arteria was haring south on a wild goose chase. Well
done, Whitehead.
The broadcast continued. A black-bearded man said,
"They were lovely. Thin, almost hairless, and their
skin was pale blue. Some of the men offered us their
wives. Maybe they were evolved from Eskimos, or
maybe they just learned their mores from Eskimos.
Their skin was cold to the touch. I mean, when in
Rome, sure, but if I had it to do all over again-—"
Bruce Hyde. The breath went out of Arteria in a
whoosh. So that's where they went, Hyde and Mike
Glider, after they tried to get into Sherrine
Hartley's house and almost got caught. Over the Ice.
And to hell with them. Lee Arteria was after
bigger game.

She looked around the empty garage. "Milkheim Low

Fat Milk," she said, and noted it in her casebook.
"You're sure about this?"
The maintenance mechanic nodded enthusiastically.
"Yes, ma'am, that's what they had painted on them.
'Milkheim.' Means 'Milk Home' in German. Now Mr.
Cole, he called them trucks by names, a name for
each one of 'em. One of them was Larry, and I
disremember the other, but when there was three, one
of them was Moe, I remembers that. Set a big store
by those trucks, Mr. Cole did. Always taking care of
'em, giving me money to look after them, keep them
ready to run, but he never took 'em noplace."
"Tell me about Cole," Arteria said.
He eyed her suspiciously. "What call you got to be
asking about Mr. Cole?" he demanded. "He's a nice
man. Touched in the head some, yes, ma'am, some
people thought he was plumb crazy, but he's a nice
man, no trouble at all if'n you, didn't mess around
with his trucks. Or his rocket ship."
"Rocket ship." Lee smiled. "We just want to help
Mr. Cole. Dr. Cole, actually. He was very famous
once, did you know that? He has earned a pension
from the National Science Foundation, but there was
something wrong with the paperwork."
Joe Jefferson nodded sourly. He understood
mistakes in paperwork.
"So all I need is his signature, and he can
collect his pension," Lee said. "It's not a lot of
money, but I bet he can use it. Is he around?"
"No, ma'am, leastways I haven't seen him. He used
to sleep in that rocket, but a couple of days ago a
lot of people come here and took them trucks away,
and his. . . and some other stuff that belonged to
Mr. Cole, and I ain't seen him since."
"A lot of people," Arteria said. She smiled. "Tell
me about them."

" 'Milkheim Low Fat Milk.' Two big Peterbilt

tanker trucks," Arteria said. "Look, Billings this
is a long shot, we'll really look like idiots if it
doesn't work out. I can't afford to look like an
idiot, can you? Right. So what I want is a quiet
request to State Police to report the location of
any truck that says Milkheim and report it to my fax
number. Observe and report, but don't stop them. But
don't ask Wisconsin or Minnesota or the Dakotas.
Right, Billings. Do not ask them. Yes, Billings,
exactly right, it means you have to send out
requests to the others one state at a time, and I'm
sorry, but you see how it is. Chances are this is
nothing but if it pans out we may both get
promotions. Right. Thanks."
* * *
Fang guided the milk truck through the interchange
and onto I-25 South. The Denver skyline glittered
before him: tall, boxy, glass towers cut at strange
angles. Fang squinted his eyes and tried to imagine
that they were a growth of immense quartz crystals
set in the midst of the High Plains. By aliens. Uh-
huh: aliens. After cutting their teeth on Great
Pyramids and Easter Island self-portraits, the space
gods had finally hit their stride with this immense
crystalline structure. White quartz, black quartz.
Quartz as clear as glass; opaque, stony quartz.
Suppose someone discovered Denver's alien origin,
and the aliens were still around! Disguised as real
estate developers. Good. That was good. Who was in a
better position to "grow" a crystal city than its
developers? Come to think of it, who was more alien?
What hidden purposes did they have behind their
weirdly shaped erections?
Okay. The aliens are metaphors for mindless,
runaway development. That made the story literary.
So, the aliens realize they've been found. What do
they do?
They capture Our Heroes and turn them into bug
juice. Alien Cliché number one, vintage 1950.
They capture Our Heroes and take them on a tour of
the universe and invite them to join the galactic
confederation. Alien Cliché number two, vintage
1980.
Damn Hollywood. No matter what kind of aliens you
had, they were already used up.
No, wait. Remember Nancy Kress's "People Like Us?"
That's it. The aliens are neither benign nor
malevolent. They do what they do for their own
reasons . . . like the aliens who built Clarke's
Rama. Like the Europeans coming to America. The
Spaniards came for gold; the Incas were just in the
way. The destruction of the Amerind societies was
simply a spin-off of Europeans doing European things
for European reasons.
Good title: "Spin-off."
He was so deep in the story that he didn't see the
flashing red light behind him for several seconds.
Oh shit! But I wasn't speeding, dammit. He pulled
over carefully and stopped on the shoulder.
The Colorado state trooper walked up to the cab
window and smiled. "Sorry to stop you, sir, but I
noticed one of your brake lights is out. The middle
one on the left side."
"Aw, shit. Thank you, Officer, I'll get it fixed
at the next truck stop."
"Yes, I think you ought to. OK, just wanted to let
you know." The trooper turned away, then turned back
again. "Driving alone? Where'd you sleep, last?"
"Only ten hours, Officer. Really."
"All right. We're strict on that in Colorado." He
walked back to his cruiser.
Fang let out a deep breath. I am sleepy, he
thought. And there's sure no hurry, they don't want
me to be in Albuquerque until tomorrow afternoon.
I'll get that light fixed and catch some z's. He was
careful to accelerate smoothly and level out, his
speed just at the limit. After a while the cruiser
passed him and went on ahead, leaving him to his
thoughts.
So, it's the same with the aliens who are building
Denver-—and all the other strange glass-box
downtowns. Aliens doing alien things for alien
reasons. Only human egocentrism would suppose that
they came to conquer or assist us.
So Our Heroes discover the aliens and the aliens
don't do anything. Who would believe it anyway? They
don't even bother to capture the protagonists and
tell them . . . No, wait. The reader has to know
what's coming down, so someone's got to explain.
Unless he sent the story to Ted Bistrop at Fantasy &
. . . Nothing was ever explained in the stories he
published.
* * *
The fax machine was built into the car's
dashboard. It startled Arteria with its "wheep,
wheep."
 PETERBILT 18-WHEELER TANKER MARKED MILKHEIM
LOW FAT MILK PROCEEDING SOUTH ON I-25 AT
DENVER. DRIVER OLD FART WITH BEARD. COLORADO
STATE HIGHWAY POLICE OBSERVED MINOR SAFETY
VIOLATION. NO CITATION ISSUED.
BILLINGS.

Denver. What in hell do they want with a truck

full of rocket fuel in Denver? Whatever it is, I've
got some driving to do if I'm going to catch up.
Her suitcase was already in the trunk. Her
telephone and fax were connected to the cellular
phone system, so she didn't have to tell anyone
where she was going. She took out maps.
Not Denver. Colorado Springs? USAF Space Command
had been there, when there was a Space Command. It
was the reason Arteria had joined the Air Force.
Fifteen years ago, even ten, you could kid yourself
that the United States might go back to space, get
moving again, stop retreating from the Ice.
Not now. Now-—
The Milwaukee alderman had upset her more than she
wanted to admit.
Now I can never go to space. I catch criminals.
It was a job she mostly liked. She was good at it,
good at solving puzzles, and she liked the power
that being an OSI Special Agent aye her. Twitching
the nerves of the mundanes, she liked that, too.
Not Denver! West of there. Edwards! It came as a
sudden flash, as things often did for her, and it
took her several minutes to construct what her
subconscious had leaped past. Angels Down. Fans to
the Rescue. What to do with Angels. Send them back
to Heaven. How? Dr. Cole's broken Titan, but that
wouldn't do it. What would? What was left?
 What was left was the only working rocket ship in
the United States. Phoenix, sitting on Thunder Ridge
at Edwards Air Force Base.
* * *
Morning in the desert.
Alex watched the sun come up across Bob's
shoulder, teasing streamers of fog from the sluggish
Washita River that ran parallel to the highway. The
fog slithered across the barren, dusty ground and
wrapped itself around the sparse stands of Lone Pine
and scrub grass that dotted the otherwise empty
land. The pale light of dawn created a wash of
white, green and brown; a weird, alien vista of mist
and grass and sand.
"What do you think of it?" Bob asked. "Quite a
sight."
Alex shook his head. "I was just getting used to
the green."
"Oh, this part of Oklahoma used to be green, I'm
told. You didn't see real hardpan desert until you
hit west Texas. Now there's no rain and in a few
years there won't be a speck of green left
hereabouts."
Alex looked at the sleeping form beside him. "I
should wake Gordon up. He could write a poem about
it."
There must have been something in his voice,
because Bob gave him an odd look. "You have
something against poetry? "
Alex shook his head. "Never mind. It's not
important." Bob said nothing. Finally, to fill the
silence, Alex continued. "Gordon is irresponsible."
He looked at the sleeping stilyagin, just to make
sure he was sleeping. "He likes to write poetry when
he should be doing something else."
"Poetry? About what?"
 Alex scowled. "Love poetry, mostly. The last time
he got inspired, we nearly lost an entire tray of
tomatoes. So they put him on probation. That's why
he was assigned to the dip trip with me." He rubbed
a hand over his face. Two-day stubble scratched his
palm. His skin felt oily, dirty. He hoped it was not
much farther to the next safe house. He should let
his beard grow out, like Gordon was doing. Clean-
shaven Downer males were a rarity.
"Look, Bob, I haven't said this before because . .
. well, because. But the only people they assign to
dip trips are the expendables, like Gordon."
"And yourself?"
"Yeah-da. Me, too. Nothing more useless than
yesterday's hero. I'm no good for outside work
anymore. I can't even work in the command module
because I get the shakes whenever-—oh, hell. I don't
want your, pity. It's probably just as well that I'm
stuck down here."
"Don't be too sure of that. Being stuck."
"No, Bob, don't mistake my orbit. I want to get
back upstairs more than anything I've ever wanted.
Almost anything. Not adventure; not glory. I'm just
homesick. Freedom's my hometown, and I miss it. But
I really don't expect it to happen. And if it
doesn't . . . Well, I can make a life for myself
down here."
"Hanging around the docks," Bob said with a half-
smile.
"What?"
"Never mind. Don't dismiss Phoenix out of hand,
though."
"I haven't. But there's more to a successful
launch than stealing a ship and taking off. Damn, I
know what's involved. Maybe this Hudson character
does have the ROMs. Maybe the IMU isn't locked up so
tight as all that. But eighty-eight thousand liters
of liquid hydrogen?"
"You want-—"
"Forty-four thousand liters of LOX? Someone will
notice!"
Bob shrugged. "You want me to tell you it's all
worked
out. That we've got a plan? We don't. But, hell,
we've got something better than a plan."
Alex didn't ask him what that was.
* * *
The fax wheeped again.

REDDEN AWARE OF MILKHEIM REQUEST AND

REPORTS. PLEASE PHONE ME ON SECURE LINE
SOONEST.
BILLINGS

Aw, crap! She watched for a telephone.

"Billings? Arteria."
"Yes, Captain. I don't know how Redden got onto
it, but he found out about your request to the
highway patrols. He's got all their reports coming
to him, but there's more, he's set a trap in
Albuquerque."
"Trap. What kind of trap?"
"I don't know, ma'am. Something about a fannish
church, but he sure wasn't going to give me any
details."
"The fans own a church? -—Albuquerque, fine. And
he's intercepting reports about the trucks."
"Yes, ma'am."
Lee thought for a moment. "All right. Quietly
cancel our request for information on those trucks.
Do it in a way that makes it look like we're
embarrassed about asking. Then see what you can find
out about that church. I'm nearly to Sante Fe, I'll
get on to Albuquerque. Ask around and get me a clue.
Any clue. But don't let them know I'm out here."
"Well-—"
"I'm pretty sure I know where they're taking those
Angels," Arteria said. "And why all the odd
purchases. You were right, Billings, it's fans. Now
if we do this my way, the Air Force will get all the
credit. That means you and me."
"Yes, ma'am." He sounded enthusiastic.
"When you've got the other stuff done, get my
chopper and our crew and take it to George Air Force
Base in the Mojave. OSI official investigation."
"George Air Force Base. Bring your helicopter and
crew, and come myself. That place is like the back
side of the moon, Captain."
"I know."
"All right, ma'am."
"Good man. I'll meet you there."

A fannish church in Albuquerque. There were a lot

of fans in New Mexico. Fair number of writers, too.
But a church? With luck Billings would find out
something.
Lee Arteria drove steadily. She was just passing
through Sante Fe when the fax began. "Wheep! Wheep!"

UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD OF THE WAY. FORMERLY

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY. NORTHEAST AREA
ALBUQUERQUE BASE OF SANDIA MOUNTAINS NEAR
TRAMWAY STATION. REDDEN AND MOORKITH ON THE
WAY. MILKHEIM TRUCK AT OUTSKIRTS
ALBUQUERQUE. TRUCK STOP. DRIVER ASLEEP.
 REDDEN DOESN'T KNOW YET.

Lee smiled faintly to herself. So. Redden can

think ahead, too. Good move, setting a trap at that
church. The Angels may well stop there on the way
west.
If the Angels were caught by Redden and the New
Mexico Police, the Air Force wouldn't get any credit
at all. What I need, she thought, what I need is to
get them to Edwards. Once on an Air Force Base,
they're mine. All mine.
Which means I ought to do something about this
trap . . .
* * *
Sherrine was almost tired enough to pull Bob out
of the bunk alcove. She kept driving because they
were already in Albuquerque. The church couldn't be
far. A pew would make a hard bed, but a long one.
Sherrine was looking forward to that. So, she
guessed, were the Angels.
The roar of the huge motor changed timbre.
Trouble? Something else? Numb in the ears and the
mind, she still recognized the sound just before six
motorcycles roared up into her rear-view mirror.
She held the truck steady. This ship-on-wheels
must be terrifying to a cyclist.
They drove past. All but one. Harry Czescu (why
had Harry joined a covey of strange bikers?). He was
waving her over, arm windmilling in seeming terror.
There was no place to pull over. At a Y-
intersection she angled right, no longer headed for
the Universal Brotherhood of the Way. Still
looking . . . but Harry was motioning her forward,
to follow him.
Sherrine called, "Who's awake?"
"Yeah-da."
 "Alex, get Bob up. Shake him if he's settled."
Like salad dressing . . .
Harry led and she followed. Onto the I-40 freeway
and onward, west. Flagstaff was three hundred and
forty miles away. She'd need fuel much sooner than
that.
"Sherrine? What?"
"Harry's got us back on the I-40."
Bob rubbed his eyes. "He wouldn't do that lightly.
What happened exactly?"
She told him. He said, "The way to read Harry is,
he's seen something seriously wrong, and he's right.
He'll try to fix it, but badly. So stop when you see
a decent chance."
She drove. She wondered about Fang and Larry. Both
trucks had to reach the Mojave. What was going
through Harry's mind? A man you couldn't trust to
buy the beer . . .
A turnout. She eased into it . . . signal, keep it
smooth, don't panic yet. Brought the behemoth to a
stop.
Now panic. Sherrine eased out of the cabin and
down. Where the hell was Harry? Long gone, it looked
like. Nope, that was him coming back. The Angels
were sliding out, too, slithering down to the dirt,
distrusting gravity.
Harry pulled into the cloud of dust, bringing
more. "It's a trap! We've got to keep moving!"
"What about Fang? And Jenny?"
"I left Jenny on watch in case I missed you. I'll
have to go back for her. I found Fang sleeping it
off while he waited for dark. Jesus. I think I
lucked out. After I saw the church, I found a bunch
of bikers and pulled into the middle of them. They
got me close to Fang. I gave him the word, and then
I caught up with the bikes." Harry patted the metal
flank of his motorcycle. "Goood boy. I don't know if
I was followed or not. But someone knows we're here,
and someone else must have-—Jesus, we've got to get-
—"
Bob's voice was soothing. "We can't outrun
anything except on the straightaway. So why don't
you tell us about this trap?"
Harry's head sagged. Then his body followed. He
was doing a back stretch, hanging from the hip
bones. He came up, rolling for full effect. "That's
better. Yeah. The church looked fine. I went past
it, figuring to park a decent distance away, and I
saw the billboard. I saw just enough that I pulled
into a Taco Bell and Jenny and I took a pew near a
window so we could study it. Here."
He handed across a notepad. The printing was
Jenny's:

SERMON BY THE REVEREND NEHEMIAH SCUDDER IF THIS

GOES ON

"Uh . . . huh."
"What is it?"
The crushing power in an Angel's hand was always a
shock. Bob said, "Literary reference, Gordon. Robert
Heinlein, 'If This Goes On . . . ,' in which the
Reverend Nehemiah Scudder turns the United States
into a religious dictatorship . . . incidentally
terminating space travel, come to think of it. So
it's a definite warning."
"Too bad we can't rescue whoever left it," Harry
said, "but those trucks come first."
"Yeah. Back aboard. Sherrine sleeps, I drive.
Harry, you get Jenny now, and then we need the
services of the Oregon Ghost. We need a source of
gas not much more than eighty miles away, and refuge
in Flagstaff."
The Ghost's instructions took them to a fueling
station and a decent chili joint in Grants, New
Mexico, sixty-five miles east of Albuquerque. Hours
later, approaching Flagstaff, they switched from I-
40 to the old, worn Route 66. Then to asphalt, then
gravel: the roads grew narrower and harder to drive.
Why were they being led here in eighteen-wheeler
trucks?
Bob had to fight the wheel because of potholes. It
was midafternoon; he had been driving since dawn,
and he was puffing from fatigue and the thin air.
Sherrine knew that she didn't have the strength in
the arms to spell him.
Motel up ahead: long two-story buildings with
porches. A more compact, more ornate structure must
be Registration. A few bulbs in the signs were dark.
There weren't many cars. The drive-in next door was
dead. Nobody had bothered to change the letters on
the marquee:

SCI FI RILLER
OCTO SSY

"The city must have moved a highway on them," Bob

said. He was driving dead slow now, hunched like an
ape over the wheel. "In Flagstaff they're always
doing that. It's slow death for a motel. Or a drive-
in." He pulled between paired pillars into the
driveway.
"Octocon," Sherrine said, "used to be in Santa
Cruz."
Two men were running to meet them . . . then a
dozen. More. The first were guiding the truck. Bob
was muttering to himself as he followed them toward
one of the long, windowed buildings . . . with a
face missing at the narrow end. They guided Curly
into the opening, into a shell two stories high.
"Crazy. Do you suppose they never finished it?"
"Smuggling. The customers weren't stopping anymore
and import duties kept going up. I'm guessing, of
course," Sherrine said. "Pull up to the end. They re
lowering some kind of false front behind us."
* * *
It was not a big con. Four long buildings enclosed
brown lawn and a pool. They had taken over just one
of the buildings; they stayed clear of the
Registration building, including the hotel
restaurant, newsstand, etc. Rooms along the side
that faced a wall had become the dealer rooms, Con
Suite, Art Show, and a couple reserved for
programming.
Four people talking on a panel stopped when the
procession hove into view; then the panel followed
their audience over the low railings.
"Welcome to Microcon!" And the fans surged around
them, hugging and shaking hands. Alex had time for
one glimpse of Gordon's bulging eyes before they
were borne away.
"Only Hotel Liaison eats at the hotel restaurant,"
a fan said. "We don't want to be too visible, but we
do need to keep track. So far so good: nobody's been
asking about tall supermen."
The rooms were all bedrooms, all the same size;
but doors could be opened between. Three upstairs
rooms were the Con Suite, and that was where
everyone was eating.
There was a punch bowl filled with a pinkish
liquid of uncertain genealogy. Several bottles of
homemade wine lined the windowsills. Tables pushed
against the walls had bowls of popcorn and corn
chips and various dips, and a vat of soup sat on the
floor. There was great variety to the food, and a
flavor of panic and improvisation.
"I'm sorry there isn't more," Buck Coulson
apologized. "Times are tight. Be sure to keep your
glass handy so you don't accidentally use someone
else's."
Numbers were hard to gauge because the convention
was so broken up, but Alex hadn't counted more than
thirty people.
He was half-reclined in a chair and footstool,
delighting in his ability to sprawl. Sprawling was
wonderful after scores of hours of being wedged into
a bouncing truck cabin. He eavesdropped with half
his attention, and watched the women.
Sherrine was asking Tom Degler, "You worked up a
convention just for us?"
"We don't need a good excuse. A bad one is fine."
Degler's face was surrounded by a sunburst of
bright, red hair; full beard, hair tied up in back
with a rubber band. His legs, which Alex could see
between the knee socks and shorts that he wore, were
also hairy. Perfectly adapted to an ice age, Alex
thought.
"Fast work," Sherrine said.
"Well, but you're still carrying the Navstar
transponder, right? And you had to have a place to
rest. It's a long drive across Oklahoma and the
panhandle. Ever since they caught S. B. O'Rafferty,
there's been no safe house on that leg of the
Fanway."
Maybe a third of those present were women. All
pudgy or burly, of course, in Alex's estimation; but
not bad looking. Not bad looking, at all. Either
that or it had been a long time-—
"They caught O'Rafferty? Oh, Tom. The old guy was
a past master at staying hidden."
 Degler shrugged. "They reeducated him; but no one
can tell the difference. He always did see
everything skewed sideways and upside down from
Tuesday. But of course he's being watched, so we
stay clear of him, now." He shook his head sadly.
"Anyway, The Ghost let us know when you'd be
arriving; so last night I made a few phone calls.
Kind of a welcoming party." He looked around the Con
Suite, a bedroom with the beds removed, a few
chairs, fans sitting on the carpet. "This is all
that's left of Suncon and Bubonicon and the others.
Slim pickings, eh?"
"Worldcon wasn't much bigger," Sherrine told him.
"Speaking of Worldcon," said Barbara Dinsby, "did
you hear? Tony Horowitz got himself arrested to
distract the cops during your getaway." Dinsby was a
thin woman with long, dark red hair. She wore no
makeup and tended to lean toward you when she spoke.
Alex considered her the second prettiest woman
present. According to Degler she already had several
stories on the samizdat network, one of them
critically praised.
Bob raised his eyebrows. "Horowitz?"
"Sure. When the chips are down, we all play on the
same side."
"Did he make bail?" asked Sherrine.
"Tremont took care of everything. And Tony's book
sales have tripled. Everyone on the Network has been
downloading his manuscripts; and half the pros are
lining up for his shared world project."
Sherrine craned her neck. "So, Tom. Who'd you snag
for Guests of Honor?"
Degler beamed. "Well, you, actually."
"What?"
"Sure. Are there any fans more worthy than you and
Pins, here?"
 Alex ginned at Sherrine's sudden discomfiture.
"Don't fight it," he said. And, in a more serious
voice, he added, "You deserve it."
"But . . . "
Degler put his hand on Alex's thin shoulder. "Gabe
and Rafe, of course, are the Pro GoH's."
Alex looked at him. "Now, wait a-—"
"What do we have to do?" asked Gordon.
"Not much," Degler told him. Just mingle with the
guests; talk to them. You get a "free con membership
. . ."
"Spasebo."
"And you have to make a GoH speech later tonight."
Alex opened his mouth to protest, but no words
came out.
"Tom," said Bob, "they aren't actually SF pros."
Dergler grinned. "They live science fiction.
That's close enough."
"But I can't come up with a speech, just like
that," Alex said. "Not that quickly." After the
rescues of Peace and Freedom, when it was clear that
the boosters had restabilized the orbits, and Lonny
invited him to address the assembled Floaters from
his hospital bed, he had been unable to say anything
coherent. Lonny, damn his black heart, had probably
known that.
"Don't worry," Degler said. "Just make it up as
you go along. You're a spaceman! You could get up
there in the pulpit and preach from the Albuquerque
phone directory and still get a standing ovation."

Indeed, he could. As the fans milled around his

chair, Alex discovered that anything he said was
soaked up by his eager listeners. The little-orbit-
to-orbit "broomsticks" that they rode between the
stations? Fascinating. (And five minutes later he
heard two fans blocking out a story about witches in
space.) The details of hydroponic farming? Endlessly
interesting. Especially the painstaking attention to
detail that Ginjer Hu demanded.
Filkers were gearing up out by the pool; the
laughter was louder than the singing.
Sherrine settled onto the narrow arm of his chair.
"Comfy?"
"Very. Next best thing to floating."
"So let's float?"
He peered up at her elvish I've got-a-secret
smile. He said, If you have antigravity, we've
chased our tails a long way for your amusement."
She laughed like bubble-wrap popping. "Alex, it's
possible to float in water. The Dinsby just took
Gordon out to the spa-—""
"Yeah, water."
"I forget how much water there is. We walked
across a frozen river, I've seen the damn
Mississippi, I don't know why it keeps hitting me
like this-—"
"But if Gordon and Barbara Dinsby are out there,
every horny male and curious fan is going to be
stripping down, too, so if you want to float-—"
"Lead me."
It was turning chilly. There was a stack of towels
on a webbed recliner. The pool had long been empty,
but the spa was bubbling and steaming. It was eight
feet across, circular, with people-sized
indentations in the rim. Gordon and the red-haired
woman were already in, and nestled comfortably
close. In the dark around them, fans were stripping
down.
Sherrine began to strip off her clothes, standing
up. Awesome. Like a dancer, Alex thought, or a
gymnast. He sat on one of the webwork recliners to
get his shoes and pants off. Bare-assed fans were
beginning to slide into the water. Two had kept
their underwear on.
"The law speaks," Sherrine said, "as follows: you
can wear anything you want in the spa after dark.
Bob really did go in in the top part of a tuxedo
once."
Barbara Dinsby was scratching Gordon's back in
slow, luxurious circles, while Gordon twisted around
to talk to her. Thurlow Helvetian was scratching
Barbara's back. Tom Degler slid into the water
behind Helvetian, and a short woman moved up behind
him. A circle-scratch.
Sherrine, entirely naked and entirely lovely, slid
into the water ahead of Gordon. Gordon's hands rose
in the air; his fingers flexed like a pianist's.
Sherrine waved imperiously to Alex, and Alex slid in
ahead of her.
She spoke against his ear, a warm breath within
the steam and roar of bubbles: "Scratch or massage?"
Decisions, decisions.

The huckster was a skinny gent with an unruly mop

of salt-and-pepper hair; somewhat elderly, but with
a twinkle in his eye. He wore a colorful, billowing
shirt and stood behind a table stacked high with
books from which he importuned passing fans. He
wasn't getting much action. They were all wet from
the spa, and the night was driving them in.
"Hi," he said to Alex, "I'm Thurlow Helvetian. May
I shamelessly try to sell you a book?"
"You can try," Alex allowed as he paused at the
table. He was bundled up now, and nearly dry, and
still warm. "You'd have better luck with Gordon. I'm
not much of a reader. Then again, Gordon's still in
the spa."
Helvetian nodded to himself. "Start slow." He
rummaged about on the table and emerged triumphantly
with a cloth-bound volume. "Here. A Night on the
Town. This is a fair sampler of my work. All short
stories, so you get it in small doses."
Alex studied the book. The cover bore a stamp:
Certified Elf-Free! "Fantasy."
"Rational fantasy," Helvetian assured him.
"Fantasy with rivets. It means getting the details
right, making sure it all hangs together logically."
"My matushka once said-—" Alex turned and saw that
Gordon had come up behind him. Gordon was surrounded
by a group of five femmefans, including Barbara and
Sherrine. "My matushka once said that the secret of
realism was to describe the thumb so well that the
reader thinks he has seen the entire hand."
Helvetian nodded. "That's right. It's got to be
consistent and realistic or you lose the reader."
"What if it's a fantasy?" Alex asked.
"Especially in a fantasy," Helvetian replied.
"Yeah-da." Gordon's head bobbed vigorously. "A
dragon you may believe in, or a time traveller, but
a time-travelling dragon asks too much of the
reader. H.G. Wells never used more than one—"
"Gordon? Save it," Barbara said. "It's time for
your speech."
Gordon's mouth opened and closed, and he half-
turned to run.
"Alex, isn't it? You're next. Or if Gordon freezes
up, you're first. Work it out between you. Thurlow,
you're not going to miss the GoH speeches, are you?"
"I didn't used to go to the program items . . ."
The Angels looked at each other. Neither had
anything planned. Neither wanted to go first.
 "Together," Gordon said.

"Mir was old. A tested, fully manned space

station, more than the United States ever had, but
old," Gordon said. "We had a Buryat shuttle up when
everything stopped, but that was useless, not much
more than a missile without guidance. We made it
part of the habitat and rifled it for parts. There
was not much on the moon, but we could work with
what there was because of all that lovely working
mass free for the taking-—"
"And oxygen. There's infinite oxygen in lunar
rock."
"So we had Moonbase. We even expanded a little.
And in orbit, Mir and two shuttle tanks from which
to make Freedom. One shuttle, ruined. And three
NASPS."
The room was filled with rows of chairs. Behind
them there was still standing room; the balcony
doors were opened wide.
These thirty people were more than he could have
gathered aboard Freedom, without leaving crucial
functions untended. All these solemn eyes . . .
"Now, each of the NASPS is different," Alex said,
"and neither of them could carry cargo, because each
was an, experimental hypersonic ramjet airplane.
Piranha couldn't even reach orbit without an
auxiliary tank at takeoff!"
"And of course these were no longer available."
"You get a bubble for two and the rest is fuel
tank and motors. So landing it and coming back to
orbit-—"
Gordon was really enjoying himself. Nobody in Mir
or Freedom had ever looked at him like this. He
said, "You would do only for the joy of it, and it
would cost in hydrogen and wear. But we found we
could convert all three to dive into the atmosphere
and return without too much loss of delta-vee.
Without that, we would not have nitrogen."
All these solemn eyes. Where was all this support
when space was being abandoned like an unwelcome
gift? Only thirty, though they seemed like more. But
those who gathered on the desert to watch the
shuttles land numbered up to a million. Where were
they?
Running from the Ice.
Gordon was saying, "The scoopship's cabin was a
sounding box for vibrations far below the ears'
grasp; as, high over the northern hemisphere, her
hull began to sing a bass dirge. My bones could feel
. . ."

"I've lost track of my cup," Alex said.

"In the old days," Sherrine whispered in Alex's
ear, "there would have been plastic or styrofoam
cups."
"Nonbiodegradable plastic or styrofoam cups," said
Degler, appearing out of nowhere.
"Bullshit," said Sherrine. "Plastics are
recyclable. Shred it and melt it and make more. The
fact that no one bothered gave plastic a bad rep."
"Well, not quite," Degler said, fingering his
beard and grinning. "There are EPA rules that forbid
the recycling of certain plastics. The styrofoam
used by fast-food chains was chemically recyclable;
but the EPA forbade it because"-—he gave an
exaggerated shudder-—"because it had once touched
food."
"Yeah, and they replaced the stuff with coated
paper, that was also nonbiodegradable and
nonrecyclable. So the rules had zero impact on the
environment and the landfills . . . And why are you
laughing, Tom?"
"What if it was on purpose?"
"What do you mean? "
Alex noticed that a small crowd had gathered
around them, listening intently to what Degler had
to say. He saw Bob Needleton and Barbara Dinsby and
the huckster, Thurlow Helvetian; Gordon's head
topping them all. We really do stand out in a crowd.
Gordon had been letting his beard grow ever since
St. Louis, but it was not much to speak of yet.
Sherrine had called it a beatnik beard, whatever
that meant.
Dealer glanced left and right, and leaned forward.
Everyone else instinctively leaned toward him. "I
meant, what if it was on purpose? There was a
company in California that bought chemical wastes
from other companies; processed the waste and broke
it down; and sold the end products as feed stock.
Closed loop recycling. The state EPA shut them
down."
"Why?" asked Alex.
Degler eyed him, and again glanced
conspiratorially around the room. "Because the EPA
rules required that chemical wastes be put in fifty-
five-gallon drams and stored."
"Why, that is pomyéshanniy," Gordon said. "If we
did so on Freedom, would soon die. Cannot afford to
waste waste. Is too valuable."
If the Downer Greens were serious about recycling
and waste reduction, Alex mused, they should be
clamoring to communicate with the stations. Who-—on
Earth or off-—knew more about the subject than the
Floaters. It isn't just our quality of life, it's
our lives.
"Exactly," said Degler. "So why do so many
environmental regulations wind up, harming the
environment? I say, what if it's on purpose?"
"Can't be," said someone in the crowd. "What
purpose?"
"Yeah, who would gain?"
"The Babbage Society? "
"No, the Greens. The Greens would gain job
security," said someone else.
"Job security how? They're pledged to clean things
up."
"No they aren't," said Tom Degler with a grin.
"They're pledged to advocate rules whose apparent
purpose is to make someone else clean things up."
"That's right. There's a difference. The rules
only require actions, not results."
"I have a question," said an elderly fan. "Why did
the Greens become so popular back in the '90s, which
was after the worst pollution had been already
cleaned up? None of you kids remembers the old days,
when coal smoke blanketed every city and the
Cuyahoga River caught fire."
Alex had finally figured out why Degler grinned
all the time. He was watching funny pictures inside
his head. "This is your hobby, isn't it?"
Degler grinned at him. "What is?"
"Throwing out wild ideas and watching people play
with them."
"No, this is my profession. Dropping seed crystals
in a supersaturated solution. Plumbing is my hobby."

Chairman Buck Coulson produced a giant cake

covered with chocolate frosting, baked in the shape
of a manhole cover. He presented it to Degler as Con
Chair. Degler wiped a tear from his eye. "I'm
touched, folks. I am truly touched."
"Hell, Tom," said Bob. "We've known that for
years."
"Okay!" said Buck rubbing his hands. "That's three
uses." He pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket
and made a note.
Alex looked around for help. He saw Sherrine
nearby with a glass of bhlog in her hand and
beckoned to her. Sherrine giggled and weaved her way
to his side. "What did Buck mean, that's three
uses?" He had to lean close to make himself heard
over the noise of the room party. The jostling crowd
pressed Sherrine against him just as he bent close.
He wasn't about to complain.
"Mmmm," said Sherrine, lingering against him for
just a moment, bracing herself with her arm around
him. "Egscyooze-—I mean, excuse me. I'm sorry."
"I'm not."
"Have some bhlog?" She held her glass up to him.
"No, thanks. I had one. It ripped the top of my
head off. What's in that stuff?"
"Oh, I don't know. No one does. It's a closely
guarded secret known to no one." Sherrine giggled
again.
"You're drunk."
She pressed a finger against her lip. "Shhhhh.
Maybe no one will notice." She drank the rest of her
bhlog. Then she pointed at the cake. "Chocolate-
covered manhole covers are, is the only idea Tom
ever threw out that never went anywhere. What can
you say about chocolatecovered manhole covers?"
Alex smiled. "Not much."
"A cake for Tom, that's three. A source of food on
an alien planet, that was first."
"What was the second?"
Her diction became careful and solemn. "The
American Dental Association thinks they are bad for
children's teeth."

It must have been almost one in the morning. There

was only a handful of fans still lolling about in
the Video Room. Sherrine sat tailor fashion near the
door, talking tete-á-tete with Dinsby. The others
had wandered off. Some were dozing on the floor.
Buck grew sufficiently bored to turn on the TV. He
sat splayed in the sofa changing channels at random
with his phaser. Tom Degler snored beside him.
Slouched in the armchair with his head buzzing,
Alex let his mind drift with the TV. Buck would not
stay on one channel long enough for anything to make
sense. If, after five glasses of bhlog, anything
could make sense.
"For relief of hemorrhoids," the TV declared,
"use-—°!°-—the President of the United States-—°!°-—
couldn't imagine anything more exciting-—°!°-—
building value in every step of design and
construction-—°!°-—don't miss all the action-—°!°-—
with Barbie-—°!°-—But what if lance discovers us,
darling-—°!°-—coming up next-—°!°-—Sherrine Hartley-
—°!°—-—ll right, let's move em out-—°!°-—for Captain
Spaulding, the African explorer-—"
"Wait!" said Alex suddenly alert. "Buck! Back up a
couple channels."
°!°°!° and a photograph of Bob and Sherrine graced
the screen. "-—of those suspected of harboring the
fugitives. Hartley is a computer nerd. Her
boyfriend, Needleton, is a scientist. Needleton's
van was used in the getaway. It was found in
Milwaukee-—"
"See Spot," snarled Buck. "See Spot run. Run,
Spot, run."
"Quiet!"
"-—seeing them should contact the State Police.
Captain Lee Arteria of the U.S. Air Force Office of
Special Investigations is leading the pursuit.
Outdoor shot of a hard-looking officer in fatigues.
"We're piecing the evidence together, Heather,"
Arteria told the newser. "There are several
promising lines of inquiry-—"
Alex grabbed the phaser from Coulson's hands and
stabbed at the buttons until the screen went black.
Bob spoke without turning from the screen. "The
backdrop. It was the Museum of Science and Industry
in Chicago."
Coulson frowned. "Arteria looks familiar. I've
seen him somewhere before. At a con? Art show?" He
shook his head. "A long time ago."
Had Sherrine seen this? Alex twisted and looked by
the door. Barbara and Sherrine were gone. But they
were there earlier.
He left the Video Room and wandered down the
corridor. An open room door showed fans carpeting
the beds and floor. Other doors were closed and
silent. The Con was shutting down for the night.
Downstairs in one of the function rooms, he found
Dinsby in a circle of femmefans surrounding Gordon.
" . . . syllables, accents or feet," Gordon was
saying.
"But English stresses are too strong for syllabic
poetry, which is why haiku does not work in English.
Accentual poetry is the native English structure. As
in Beowulf, which has four beats per line with
central pause. Is also the limerick like you hear in
nursery rhymes and rap. But accent structure can
degenerate into mere broken prose,' like free verse,
which is basic form used for advertising copy. Was
Chaucer who invented the foot, which combines accent
and syllable-— "Yes, Alex, what is it?"
Alex put a hand on a table to steady himself. "I'm
looking for Sherrine. Have you seen her?"
"She was with me earlier," Dinsby said. "I came
out here for the midnight poetry panel. I saw her
leave the room party a few minutes ago. I think she
went outside." She pointed to the side door on the
right.
Outside, the night air was a knife in his lungs
and the stars hung like diamonds on velvet. He
exhaled a cloudy breath. Not as cold as it had been
up north; but still . . . The moon was low in the
west, casting pale, pearly shadows. One of the
shadows moved slightly and Alex headed toward it.
She was hunched up with her knees tucked under her
chin and her arms wrapped around her legs. Alex
hunkered down beside her. She looked at him; looked
away and drew her sleeve across her nose.
"You shouldn't cry during an ice age," he told
her. "Your eyes will freeze closed."
"Or open. I'd rather have them freeze open. Better
to see if anyone's chasing you."
"You saw the news clip, then."
She said nothing, but Alex could sense her nod. "I
won't make a very good 'wanted fan,' will I? If they
showed Fang or Crazy Eddie on national TV with
everyone in the country asked to turn them in . . .
they'd throw a party."
"They think they can't be caught. They have faith
in their own wits."
"I'm in real trouble, then. My instincts are no
damned good."
"Your instincts are the best."
"I'm drunk, and I'm depressed, and I'm cold."
Alex didn't think he could do much about the first
two complaints. He put his arm around her. "Do you
want to go back inside? It's warmer there."
 He could feel her shake her head. "No. I'm fine
now." She snuggled against him. "Who would have
thought it could get so chilly in the desert?"
Alex pointed to the sky with his left hand. "No
clouds. The ground radiates its heat into open
space. I bet you could make ice that way."
"You can."
"Ah."
"Look at the moon," she said. It was three-
quarters full and just kissing the horizon, swollen
by the lens of air. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"Not so beautiful as the Earth, looking back."
"Have you ever been there? To the moon."
"No." And now he could never go. Alex can't go out
and play because he might get a nosebleed. I don't
even have a suit anymore.
"I'd like to go there. I've always wanted to go
there. Ever since I read Space Captives of the
Golden Men. I forget who wrote it. A juvenile. These
kids are kidnapped by Martians-—we could still
imagine Martians in those days-—and taken to the
moon; and I've always wanted to be . . . to be. . ."
She turned and buried her face against him and he
hugged her tight. "I'll take you there," he
promised. Don't make promises you can't keep.
"Someday, I'll kidnap you and take you to the moon."
Oh, Alex." She put her arms around his neck and
kissed him. It was a soft, lingering kiss, and Alex
felt himself respond to the promise. He shifted his
arms and hugged her tight and kissed her back.
"Alex, make love to me."
"What, here? Now? It's too cold."
She laid her head on his shoulder. "You don't want
to?"
"I-—yes, dammit. Yes, I do. But-—"
 "Then forget your damned courtship rites and your
damned propriety. You're in Faerie now. All the
habitat rules are suspended."
"Except cold!" he laughed.
She grabbed him and ran her hands down his body.
The moon had set and the desert night was as black
as death. The galactic spiral was a garland draped
across the sky. They fumbled under their clothing,
exploring each other; never quite exposed to the
night cold and growing warm enough with the effort.
Alex discovered that if you were careful and if you
wanted something badly enough, you could accomplish
anything. None of it was planned.
It was better than a plan.
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The LASFS
Steve Mews and George Long pedaled through the
decaying neighborhood at dusk. Long looked around
and whistled "Man, this place would make Harlem look
like Bel Air!"
Mews grinned. "Yeah, but it's not so bad. Besides,
we're the meanest S-O-B's in the valley."
George Long looked it. He was an enormous black
giant. Steve had been trying to get him to work out
for years, but Long always said, "Hell, I'm a nurse!
Sometimes I wonder what a frail old geriatric
patient thinks when he sees, or she sees, Rosey
Grier bearing down on her with a bedpan and a
mucking great hypodermic. You get me doing that
black-belt stuff and they'll arrest me for
breathing."
The house was huge, a six-bedroom mansion built in
the 1920s during the Hollywood era. It hadn't been
painted in years, and now stood almost isolated.
There were houses on both sides of it but they'd
sunk even further into decay, not quite abandoned,
but inhabited by people who just didn't give a damn.
Mews led Long up the driveway to the garage in back.
There were other bicycles there. The garage was
dimly lit by a single electric bulb.
 "Big place," Long said. "I knew Los Angeles fans
had a clubhouse, but this is something!"
"Heh, heh. You don't know the half of it." Steve
swept his hand around. "There was a freeway going
through. The Greens got that stopped, but the whole
area had already been condemned. Nobody can get
permits to build here, or to tear anything down
either. It's all pretty stupid, but it's good for
LASFS. Glen Bailey knew it first because he's a
Green."
Long shied off a bit. "You've got a tame Green?"
"Glennie's not tame. But he's definitely one of
ours, and he got us this house. They're paying us a
caretaker fee to keep the druggies out!" He grinned.
"Of course, they aren't paying the Los Angeles
Science Fantasy Society, Inc. They're paying the LA
Safety First Society. The checks still read LASFS."
"You're still incorporated?"
"No, they yanked our Inc. 'Not in the public
interest.' I keep forgetting."
There were more lights at the big house. Steve led
the way to the back door and knocked, then stood in
the dim pool of light from the porch lamp. After a
moment the door opened. " 'Lo, Steve," a large
elderly woman said.
" 'Lo, June. This is George Long."
"I know George," she said. "You're a long way from
NESFA."
Long nodded. "New England's getting cold. I'm
moving out here," he said. "By way of Worldcon."
"I ran into him at Minicon, then on the Amtrak,"
Steve said.
June opened the door and led them into a kitchen.
There were a dozen fans talking, standing in
doorways as fans did. Most didn't know George Long,
but June was taking care of the introductions. "Is
Merlin here yet?" Steve asked.
"Upstairs."
The stairway was ornate, with magnificent wood
bannisters. There was mahogany wainscoting in the
hallways, and the ceilings were carved plaster. Most
of the splendor was in decay, but here and there
someone had worked to restore it.
The upstairs room was locked. Steve knocked and
waited. Finally the door was opened by a tall man
with stringy gray hair and bad teeth. He stood in
the doorway. "Steve."
"I need to get on-line."
Merlin Null, LASFS Senior Committeeman, frowned at
Mews. "The rules are, you tell me, and I do it if I
think it's safe."
"Merlin, this is Stone from Heaven business."
Null thought about it. "Have to check." He came
out into the hall, carefully locking the door behind
him, and led the way down the hall to another room.
C.C. Miller, often called Cissy for reasons no one
remembered, was Chairman of the LASFS. He sat at a
table in the old butlers pantry making a list.
Miller was a large, round man, gray haired as most
LASFASians were. His wife, Ginny, looked half his
age, but she always had.
"Steve wants me to log him on," Null said.
Miller nodded knowingly. "It's all right. Steve,
when you get done, we've got a package for you."
"Package?"
"Fan Express," Miller said. "From Curtis. Address
'Bottle Shop Keeper, care of Steve Mews.' I gather
he wants you to deliver it."
"That figures. See you in a minute."
Back inside the locked computer room there were
three people at a poker table. Hands had been dealt,
and there were poker chips in front of the players.
No one really cared much about illegal gambling, but
it was a cover for the locked door.
Null locked the door again, then opened a cabinet.
Inside were more poker chips and cards. Null reached
past them to open the back of the cabinet, exposing
a computer console. Null pulled it out. "OK, what?"
"FAPANET," Steve said. "I need to get on."
Null typed furiously. There were the odd tones of
a modem dialing, then locking on. Finally Null
stepped back. "You got it."
Steve typed gingerly. "They call me Bruce."
<Hello Bruce. Enter your password>:
"I am new in town."
<Welcome Bruce. Down, alter. Down I say! Be a good
Imp and let me talk. Bruce, Pins says they're
looking forward to greatest burgers in the universe
for lunch tomorrow. That is tomorrow. Treasure hunt
has gone well. Time to see the bottle shop wizard.>
"Roger Dodger." Steve stepped back from the
console.
"That's it?" Null asked.
"That's a lot," Steve said. "Now I need to see
C.C. again. I'm going to need some help. Starting
with a car and somebody to drive."

The drive from Los Angeles through Mojave took

nearly three hours in C.C. Miller's underpowered
car. Interstate 5, the main north-south California
artery, was still maintained, but when they turned
off into the Antelope Valley and headed toward
Palmdale the decay in America's infrastructure was
obvious.
They crossed the San Andreas Fault line. "Lucky so
far," Miller said. "We've been expecting The Big One
for years . . ."
"They said at Minicon that the Ice would
definitely trigger it," Steve said. "Guess that
would close the highway for good."
Palmdale was half-deserted. They passed a stand of
dead trees and grapevines. "Can't say I disagree
with the Greens on that one," Steve said. "Sucking
water out of Sacramento to grow Christmas trees and
grapes in the desert never did make sense."
"It would if you had enough electricity to make
the fresh water," C.C. Miller said. "But, hell,
that's science fiction."
They drove through Mojave, past the faded signs
proudly announcing Phoenix and Voyager. Now Mojave
was a small road town, as it had once been. They
turned east.
A sign told them it was twenty-five miles to the
turnoff to the Thunder Ridge Air Force Museum.

There had once been a fence and guard post at the

North Entrance to Edwards AFB, but the guardhouse
was boarded up, and the fence had been knocked down
by tumbleweeds piling against it. There had been
some maintenance, though. The blacktop road up the
ridge from Highway 58 had potholes, but Steve didn't
think it was much worse than 58 itself, and 58 still
had traffic, if you could call a truck every five
minutes traffic. The view across the Mojave Desert
to the north was spectacular. So was the Rogers Dry
Lake bed to the west. Where the spaceships used to
land. A million people camped out on the desert to
watch the first shuttle landing . . .
The museum stood at the top of a ridge: several
concrete block buildings, a blockhouse, a large
concrete pad, and big cylindrical storage tanks. The
security shack at the main gate to the facility was
empty, but the gate was open. They drove on up to
the largest building, a huge structure. Most of the
windows were boarded up, but not all, and there was
a light inside one office.

Gary Hudson was tall and thin, graying a bit. He

wore a silver-tan shirt and a desert hat, and looked
a bit like the old films of Indiana Jones when he
wasn't carrying a bullwhip and pistol. He came out
of the office and watched as C.C. and Steve got out
of their car.
"Museum's only open Friday and Saturday," he said.
"Sorry, it's a long trip, maybe I can show you a
little anyway." He waved toward a big corrugated
aluminum structure. "The bird's in that hangar."
"We'd love to see it," Steve said. "Thanks."
Hudson led the way over in silence. The wind
whistled off the Mojave Desert and howled around
them, rattling the corrugated metal of the hangar
building. They went in through the small, people
door set in the enormous hangar door. It was almost
as loud inside as out, but it was a relief to be out
of the wind.
It was gloomy inside. Hudson gave them a moment to
let their eyes adjust. The roof was eighty feet or
more above them, held up by a network of girders
that looked needlessly complicated just to hold up a
roof.
Phoenix stood in the center of the enormous room.
It looked like a giant ice cream cone, sixty feet
high, standing on its big end. At the slightly
rounded base it was half as big across as it was
high. It stood alone, with no scaffolding around it.
Hudson threw a switch, and banks of spotlights
came on.
The nose was rounded. Holes a foot and a half
across ringed the base: not one big rocket motor,
but a couple of dozen little ones. There was a small
door, high up. The hull was grimy enough to need
hosing down, but it didn't seem to have been cut in
half or anything. The damn thing even had windows.
Steve stared up at it. Beside him C.C. said, "Your
big mistake was, rockets are supposed to be phallic
symbols."
Hudson nodded. "Wrong shape. Too short, too. The
tailfin on a 747 stood taller than Phoenix."
"Yeah, oh, well, the shuttle wasn't any better-—"
Normally Steve would have joined in. Somehow he
didn't have the heart. There had been scaffolding;
it had been wheeled into shadow to display the beast
better. Like the last Saturn, laid out horizontally
so the tourists could see it better.
"-—Saturn, too. What kind of a phallic symbol is
it that comes apart during launch?"
"Yeah, but it did get there, Gary."
Pause. "Yes. Well, Phoenix hasn't been well
maintained, as you can see," Hudson said. "She'll
never fly again." He looked closely at Steve. "I've
seen you before. You came with a tour about two
years ago."
Mews nodded. "You must not get many people here."
"Not many black people," Hudson said. "And you
cried then, too."
"Oh."
"Can I show you anything else?"
"Yes. What I'd like to see is outside," Mews said.
He led the way away from the building, away from
where Phoenix stood under the tin-roofed hangar.
Away from the fuel tanks. Off past the parking lot.
Hudson frowned but followed as Steve went out to
an empty area. "Safe to talk here?" Steve asked.
 Hudson nodded. "Safe everywhere. No bugs here, if
there ever were any. Things deteriorate, and nobody
cares about a dead bird anyway. She'll never fly
again. Talk about what?"
"She sure looks dead." Steve sighed. "But I've got
a package for you. Wade Curtis says to tell you it's
a Doherty Project."
Gary Hudson's face went quite slack. He shied back
a bit from the small parcel Mews pulled from his
jacket pocket. "Doherty Project."
"Absolutely."
Hudson took the package and opened it. Inside was
a half-pint bottle of clear liquid. "Moonbeams?"
"Seawater," Steve said "And we took that shipping
tag off a compressed air cylinder. It has a poem
written on it. It's to be pinned to the ground with
a knife."
Hudson stared out across the desert. "For Mare
Imbrium," he said slowly. "Yeah. All right, you're
real. At least you sure come from Curtis. Like a
ghost after all these years. Now what's up?"
"Angels down. You heard about it."
"Sure. So?"
"We rescued them."
"Where? Where are they?"
Mews pointed east. "About ten miles that way. The
Astroburger stand, at Cramer's Four Corners. Waiting
for you to say it's all clear. They've got two tank
trucks of jet fuel, and the ROMs that Cole was
keeping for you."
Gary Hudson stared at him. "But-—you mean-—"
Hope you've got your bags packed," Steve said.
"It's time."
* * *
The motorcycle came up an hour later. Harry and
Jenny got off and stretched elaborately. "Hello,
Gary."
"Hello, Harry. OK, you're real, too. Are there
really Angels out there—"
"If the chili ortega Astroburgers didn't kill
'em," Harry said. He looked around the facility.
"Can we work alone here?"
"Until Friday," Gary said. "And I can close the
gate then, if there's good reason."
Harry had a small radio, the kind that used to be
sold in pairs as children's toys. He extended the
antenna. "Gabriel, this is Rover. All clear." He
listened for a second and grinned. "OK. Now, do you
have a beer? It's been days. I mean literally."
The tanker trucks wound slowly up the hill. Hudson
watched with binoculars. "They look full," he said.
"They are full," Harry said. "One diesel fuel, one
JP-4. Enough to make the hydrogen and LOX-—"
"For a bird that will never fly," Hudson said.
"Oh, bullshit," Harry said. "You haven't been
saying that so long you believe it, have you?"
"Harry-—"
Harry shrugged. "Okay, but you're scaring the
kids. Look at Steve. He's turning white."
"I am not."
"Get that man a mirror!"
"Harry, there's no launching pad, nothing."
"Sure," Harry said. "Gary, one thing, you better
let the Angels in on this right away. When they
finally set eyes on Cole's Titan, they were ready
for self-immolation."
Hudson was sweating, and it wasn't the heat.
"Harry, why don't I just put up a neon sign?"
"It's gonna get conspicuous anyway, isn't it?"
"This is just what I've been avoiding for fifteen
years. More. Some of the Air Force types like to
daydream, but a real launch? If they see . . ."
"You're gonna be conspicuous. That's all. What can
you do that won't show right away? Making fuel is
noisy. Your grocery bill is gonna go up. You'll have
to wheel the beast out-—"
"No, that's the one thing I don't have to do.
Bring them in, Harry. Just bring them."
* * *
It was crowded with four in the truck. The Angels
hadn't wanted to be separated from each other, and
Gordon hadn't wanted to travel without Barbara
Dinsby. New love and true love, Bob Needleton
thought. They look cute together. Of course it meant
that Sherrine was riding with Fang in the other
truck.
And maybe that's all right too. It was pretty
clear that something was happening between Alex and
Sherrine. And we're leaving her behind, too. If that
rocket works I am by damn going. I have earned a
place. I thought of the rescue!
Harry was waiting at the turnoff into Edwards. He
waved them on, then passed both trucks to lead the
way. Bob was glad that the road was twisty and full
of holes. He welcomed the distraction.
* * *
Lee Arteria drove past the turnoff into Edwards
and went on for another mile before stopping. Even
then she stayed well inside her car, so that the sun
wouldn't flash off the binoculars. She watched as
the trucks ground slowly up the hill.
So far so good. And Moorkith was still looking for
the Angels down by the Mexican border, certain that
they were being smuggled out of the country. Arteria
grinned wolfishly. It's too late, Moorkith, my lad.
They're on Air Force property now. They're mine.
 * * *
Gary Hudson shook hands with Alex, then Gordon. He
prolonged his grip on Gordon's hand. "Weak arm,
strong grip. Do you have any trouble standing?"
Gordon grinned broadly. "Stronger every day. Steve
has-—"
Hudson pulled his arm to the right and back.
Gordon fell over.
Hudson's left arm caught Gordon's elbow and pulled
him back upright. Nobody laughed at Gordon's gaping
astonishment.
Hudson said, "Sorry. I had to know. So. It's
decision time."
"What's to decide?" Harry said. "They need to go
to orbit, and you have the only rocket ship that
will get them there."
"Harry-—" Miller said.
"He's right," Fang said. "God damn."
"So I just fire it up and go," Gary said. "So
simple. Why didn't I think of that?"
Gordon asked, "is it real? Will it fly?"
"It's real but-—" Gary caught himself. He took a
deep breath. "It's a real rocket ship. It really
goes straight up on a pillar of fire. It even goes
into orbit. Barely. Almost."
Nobody wanted to say it, so they all looked at
each other until Jenny Trout said, "What good is
that?"
"I don't get much chance to explain this. We have
here a prototype, and it isn't the whole thing. When
we were doing the planning, I took the most
optimistic assumptions. Why not? But the FAA had
some rules that apply to airplanes. My stockholders
wanted a heavier heat shield. The landing, legs-—"
"Landing legs? Sorry," Alex said. "Of course it
has to land. I'm too used to dippers."
"Sure. Phoenix comes down on its own tail fire,
just like all the old Analog covers, just like the
LEM. I made the legs so slender it won't stand up
unless the fuel tanks are dead empty. But they still
have to take a recoil, and my stockholders wanted
them beefed up." Hudson's bony shoulders rose and
fell. "Everything got just a little heavier.
"But, dammit! I'd have put a bigger cabin on the
real thing. It'd fire passengers halfway around the
world in under two hours. Every president of every
company or country would want one. And with the zero
stage it could have reached geosynchronous orbit,
and that would have been . . ."
Nobody had said anything about a "zero stage."
Alex was about to comment when Hudson went on. "The
zero stage would have been cheap as dirt. Same fuel
and oxygen tanks, same pump system, same legs-—
because of course it lands independently! Half again
as many motors and no heat shield. You could serve a
dozen Phoenixes with two lousy Zeros because they
recycle so fast."
"So where is our zero stage?"
"It paid the lawyers for awhile, and then I was
bankrupt. The Greens sued me. Poking holes in the
ozone layer, yada yada." Hudson shook his head
violently. "Sorry. Way off the subject. You want to
know what you need now."
C.C. said, "Yeah. You can't get to orbit?"
"I can barely get into an elliptical orbit with
the low end eighty miles up. The atmosphere pulls it
down fast. But another ship could rendezvous and
boost it the rest of the way. That must be what you
were planning with the Titan, wasn't it?"
"Yeah. What else do we need?"
"Quite a lot-—"
 "Will these help?" Bob Needleton held out a
package wrapped in foil. "Cole said these are the
ROMs."
Gary took the package. "That's a spare set, but
yeah, after all these years it's worth doing a
program comparison."
"And we brought you the fuel to make the fuel,"
Sherrine said. And-—fans have been collecting things
to go up with the Angels. Seeds, chemicals,
supplies, all kinds of things-—"
"All that stuff isn't coming up here!" Hudson
exclaimed.
"No, no, it's going to a safe place in Los
Angeles," Miller said. "We'll bring whatever's
needed from there."
Hudson nodded.
"Can-—may we see the ship?" Barbara Dinsby asked.
She was holding tightly onto Gordon's hand.
Hudson sighed. "Yeah, sure." He led them into the
hangar and turned on the lights.
"God, that's beautiful," Jenny said. "Beautiful.
Starfire!"
Alex walked slowly over to the ship. He ran his
hands along the sides, then stooped to look up into
the engine chambers. When he stood again his face
had changed.
"You can fly it, Alex?" Gordon asked.
"It doesn't need a pilot," Alex said. "It's up to
Mr. Hudson, I think. But it's clear someone has been
taking care of this ship. He looked up at the roof
scaffolding. "Does that open?"
"Just once," Gary said.
"Once is all we need," Alex said. He looked
straight at Hudson. "Commander Hopkins-—our leader
in the habitats-—I'll start over. We thought it
would be pointless to say anything to Lonny Hopkins
about spaceships. Now . . . does he have a decision
to make? Do I call him? I wouldn't want to unless
this was all real."
"Let me think about it," Gary said.
"Don't think too long," C.C. Miller said.
Gary frowned at him.
"We heard from Ted Johnstone in Phoenix. He works
for the Highway Department. The police are looking
for milk trucks. They're being real quiet about it,
but they're looking."
"Oh, shit," Fang said.
"The church," Harry said. "That's-—"
"That's fine," Jenny said. "So first thing is we
get the damn trucks under cover, right? Looks like
there's room in here."
"Actually, there's a garage made for tanker
trucks," Gary said. "I'll show you." He turned
toward the door, then turned back. "Hell, I don't
know why I'm stalling. I've been waiting for this
all my life. Major MacLeod, you can tell your boss
that with any luck we'll be launching you within a
week."
Three fans had wheeled the scaffold up to the
Phoenix. Hudson climbed up to the door, used a key,
tried to open it.
By then Alex was up there with him, climbing
barefooted, using his toes. He felt no gut-fear
climbing this spiderweb of metal, but he didn't
trust gravity. He set himself and pulled alongside
Hudson, and the oval plug-shaped door swung back.
Three heads poked in: Gary, Alex, Gordon. And a
fourth: Sherrine. Sherrine said, "Four."
There were four seats, two with control consoles,
two without. There were tanks, and bracing struts,
and oxygen lines. Hudson waved and pointed and
lectured. "We were set for up to a month in orbit. A
lot of this could come out, because we don't need
that much oxygen. I could have got another couple of
seats in. Of course I don't have the seats, but
that's no sweat. Glue in an exercise mat and two,
pillows for knees and head, that's all it would
take. It's a matter of what cargo you're willing to
give up."
"Four." Gordon scowled. "I should be reassured
that it will not shrink by more yet."
Alex said, "After Chicago, after Titan, I wouldn't
have believed this much. Gordon, by God, we can get
home again!"
"Da."
The stilyagin's enthusiasm left something to be
desired. No seat for Barbara? Others must stay,
too . . . but Gordon wouldn't meet Alex's eyes.

They sat in the large workroom outside Hudson's

office. In better times a dozen engineers would have
sat at the desks and drafting tables there. C.C.
Miller had his notebook and was ready to make a
list. "All right. Dr. Hudson, what do we have to do
now?"
"Details," Gary said. "First things first. We
clean out the tanks. The hydrogen tank won't need a
lot of work, but there's a fair amount of work to
clean the oxygen tank. We'll need alcohol."
"Alcohol," Miller said. "What kind?"
"Anything would work, but since there will be
people working in that tank, we'll want ethanol so
we don't poison them."
C.C. wrote it down on his list.
"How much alcohol?" Harry asked.
"Gallons."
 "Gallons." Harry shook his head. "All right. I'll
see what I can do." He grinned. "Going to be the
first time I ever convinced LASFS that they ought to
buy me enough to drink. God knows I've tried."
"How many people do we need?" C.C. Miller asked.
"To clean the tanks, other stuff?"
"Well, maybe ten," Gary said. "Moving scaffolds,
just standing watch, that sort of thing. But they'd
have to be reliable."
"They will be," Miller said. "I've got Lee Jacobs
rounding up a crew. They'll come up in a van, as
soon as some of the other stuff from the treasure
hunt comes in. Gary. you may be a bit surprised by
some of what they've rounded up."
Hudson said, "Can you keep most of the LASFS away?
I'll look conspicuous enough without a horde of fans
looking over our shoulders."
"What I can do, maybe, is make it official.
Announce that anyone who comes brings groceries. I
worried about that. What are a dozen of us going to
eat? Nobody gets in without a bag of groceries per.
Nobody will do that twice. Fans can't afford it."
Hudson nodded reluctantly.
"After we clean the tanks," Alex said. "What
then?"
"We have to get hydrogen. That's not hard, the
pipeline's already in place, we just tap it off the
main pipeline into Mojave. We'll have to go turn it
on, but the valve's not guarded."
"Won't anyone notice?" Sherrine asked.
"Not for a couple of weeks," Gary said. "And by
then with any luck-—"
"Right," Miller said. "What happens after the
hydrogen's flowing?"
"Compression," Hudson said. "We run the turbo
compressor and liquify the hydrogen. Takes about
three days. Make it four to be sure."
"What about the LOX?" Harry asked.
"That takes about three days, too, but it's
quieter," Hudson said. "That takes a diesel engine.
The hydrogen compressor is run by a jet engine."
"Jet engine," Sherrine said. "Aren't they noisy?"
"A little," Hudson said. "Hell, a lot."
"So we have to run a jet engine for three days,"
Miller said. "Don't you think someone will notice?"
"I've thought about that for ten years," Hudson
said. "I've got a cover story. This is a research
facility as well as a museum. We'll say we're doing
hydrogen energy research. I can double-talk it. I've
even got a grant request to show around. It should
work-—"
"And if it doesn't work, we're all dead," Alex
said.
"Would it help if we had a high ranking Green
space cadet up here?" Miller asked.
"Green space cadet? Contradiction in terms,"
Hudson said.
C.C. Miller grinned. "That's what you think. OK,
what comes after you make the fuel?"
"We need the IMU," Hudson said. "I know where it
is."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah, I actually get along pretty good with some
of the Air Force johnnies over at Dryden. They keep
hoping we'll be able to take Phoenix up again. But,
you know, I'm not exactly a professional thief,"
Hudson said. "Somebody's got to break in and steal
the IMU. I think we do that last thing. I can
double-talk the compressor if we get unwanted
company, but there's only one thing we could be
doing with the IMU."
 "How long does it take to install?"
Hudson shrugged. "Half an hour, but it's better if
we can run some tests. Four or five hours of tests
after installation."
"And then?"
"Launch," Gary said. "And I get to find out what
free fall feels like."
"You're going then," Miller said. He made another
note.
"Hell yes I'm going," Gary said. "I've waited all
my life. Not to mention what they'll do to me for
stealing my own ship. I'd take Annie, too, but she's
in New York. Laid up for two weeks with a cracked
ankle. Lousy timing."
Makes sense." C.C. wrote rapidly. "So. There's
you, and the two Angels. Say about seven hundred
pounds. How much more can we lift?"
"Four thousand pounds," Gary said.
"Hah. One seat open, and still room for supplies."
Alex shook his head. "Before you start filling
those seats, you better let me talk to Commander
Hopkins. He's going to have something to say about
that."

"Big Daddy, this is Piranha. Big Daddy, this is

Piranha."
"Da, Piranha, we relay you. Be standink by."
"Alex! Are you all right?"
"Better than all right, Mary. Is the Commander
there?"
"I'm here, MacLeod. What's your situation?"
"Damned good, that's what my situation is," Alex
said. "I feel like singing, that's what."
"Are you drunk?"
 "No, sir, not drunk. Not on booze, anyway.
Commander, we have a spacecraft."
There was a long pause. "The transponder says
you're in the Mojave Desert. Phoenix?"
"Yes, sir. Phoenix. We can-—Gary Hudson says we
can lift off in about five days. With cargo. About
two tons of cargo. Seeds, computer chips,
vegetables, minerals-—you name it, they seem to have
found it for us."
"Hudson. Gary Hudson. He's still alive?"
"Yes, sir, alive and in charge. You know him?"
"I know about him."
Alex couldn't get any information from the tone of
voice. "Sir, he wants to come up with us. But wait
until you hear what all we can bring with us. Look,
I know Hudson's a little old, and you don't want
more crew, but—"
"That's funny," Hopkins said.
"Sir?"
"MacLeod, I'd far rather have Hudson than you;
He's a ship designer. And that ship— Is Hudson
there?'
"Yes, sir."
"Put him on."
Alex had set up the radio in Hudson's office. He
motioned Hudson in and took off the headset. "He
wants to talk to you. Commander, this is Gary
Hudson. Gary, Commander Lonny Hopkins."
"Hello, Commander." Hudson put on the headset.
"Yes. Yes, sir, it's the old Phoenix, and I believe
she'll work, but it's going to be close. We'll get
into an elliptical orbit, but there's not enough
fuel to rendezvous. You'll have to come get us."
Alex listened for a moment, then felt useless.
Maybe they wouldn't want him to listen? I'd far
rather have Hudson than you. It made sense, but it
still hurt. He went out into the main engineering
bay. The others were grinning like crazy, but their
faces fell when they saw Alex's expression.
"What did he say?" Gordon asked. "It is impossible
after all?"
"Huh? No, as far as I know everything's fine. Last
I heard they were talking details, but it didn't
sound like anything was a showstopper."
"Then what is eating you?" Sherrine asked. "We're
here! It's working!" Her expression didn't match her
words. She looked almost as down as Alex did.
"It's-—"
"Alex," Hudson called. "Your turn again."

"Yes, sir," Alex said. "Of course I can't tell

without really inspecting the ship, but everything
looks all right. Gary started the diesel compressor,
and that works. We don't want to fire up the jet
turbo expander until the hydrogen is flowing, but
the unit's in place. I'd say it's just the way
Hudson explained it, we make the fuel, steal an IMU,
and go. About five days."
"All right," Hopkins said. "And meanwhile there's
all that cargo." There was no video link but Alex
could see Hopkins rubbing his hands together. "And
the ship! The ship!-—OK. Now for passengers. I'm
told it seats four. I don't have to tell you that we
don't really need more drones up here. Hudson's
fine. Hudson's wonderful. Gordon's people will be
very pleased to get him back. That's two. But then
there's a problem."
"Problem, sir? I'm all right, I won't have to do
any EVA on this-—"
"You might, but that's not the difficulty."
Commander Hopkins paused for a moment. "Major
MacLeod, I'll come get you. But bring your own
woman."
"Sir."
"We understand each other, MacLeod. Shall I get
Mary in on this loop? I can, and I will if I have
to."
"MacLeod, I wouldn't risk the fuel for you. You
know that, I know that, Mary knows that. But you're
bringing up treasure beyond price, and you'll have a
new job up here, coordinating with our friends on
the ground, because, although you don't seem to have
noticed it, I have: that ship can land and take off
again. We can send it back down for more supplies."
Son of a bitch, Alex thought. Of course it can. We
were so concerned with getting up there-—" Yes. I
see that."
"So someone will coordinate with the ground
people. You seem to understand them, and there's
nothing else for you to do between flights, so it's
you. Only I don't want you hanging around Mary while
you do it. She's pregnant, you know."
"No. I didn't know."
"It may be yours. It's not mine."
"Shut up. I've been sterile since the Lunar
reactor flared. I was impotent for a while, too. Now
I'm still sterile, but I'm not impotent. And you
will stay away from Mary. I want to be sure of that.
Bring your own woman, MacLeod."
"So I'm in."
"Yes. Smile?"
Sherrine considered that. "I'll come, of course.
But you get to tell Bob."
"Sherrine, there's room for five, or six, or
whoever we have to take. It's a trade, passenger for
cargo-—"
 "Sure."
"We'll get him aboard. But without you, I don't
go. And I'm on record, I could live with that. Would
you live with me on the ground? Marry me?"
"I'll come."
"Why aren't we smiling?"
Sherrine lunged. Alex thought the impact would
knock him backward, but she caught her mass and his,
too. What muscles she had! And she felt so good. Why
hadn't they been doing this ever since Flagstaff?
And she buried her face in his throat and said,
"It's, I wanted, damn. Four seats. Would you have
asked me anyway?"
"When I got up the nerve."
"Time was getting damn short, Alex! How long would
you have waited?"
"Oh . . . just about thirty seconds too long,
judging by past performance. But it's all right,
right? Lonny Hopkins as Cupid." He pulled back to
see her face. "It's not okay."
"It's okay," Sherrine said. "I'm tougher than you
think."
 CHAPTER NINETEEN

"Death Will Not Release You . . ."

Stakeout could be a peaceful, lazy, catch-up time.
Arteria hadn't done stakeout in years. She played a
box of cassettes from Books by Mail while she
watched and waited.
Some science fiction was still approved. The box
was labeled as "The Sheep Look Up" by John Brunner.
She had a perfect site, on a hill high above the
old Rogers Dry Lake. Her binoculars and telescope
camera lenses could see most of Thunder Ridge.
Vehicles came: vans and campers, six to ten
passengers each. Numerous grocery bags went into the
concrete buildings. Nothing heavy. The tanker trucks
had vanished into a garage; they certainly hadn't
come down the hill again. Vehicles came and went.
Some stayed.
Lot of manpower there. What work would need all
those hands? Most of it must be going on in the
hangar. Meanwhile, a city of tents and campers was
going up on the desert.
It had been like this in the days when the shuttle
landed. Much larger crowds then, of course. Several
square miles of Nature's own parking lot, with
guides to set them in rows. Campers, tents, a line
of huckster tent-booths selling food, drink, badges
and patches, photos and paintings, commemorative
mugs and T-shirts. At night, little coal fires,
music, sometimes a whiff of marijuana; tiny parties
and profound silences, while hundreds of thousands
of people waited for dawn.
Everybody else always saw it first. Then there it
was, nose pointed way down, the world's boxiest
glider. You'd hear BooBoom, a double sonic boom from
the nose and the awkward bulge at the tail.
Afterward the Air Force raked up their several
square miles of garbage and ran a roller over the
black spots where fires had been, and it was as if
the crowds had never been.
Twenty to thirty of them, now; no more. No
spacecraft would be landing tomorrow. Were they
singing? Did they tell old stories? Lee Arteria the
outsider, the watcher, watched and wondered what she
was waiting for.

Wheep! Wheep! Wheep! Captain Lee Arteria tore off

the fax sheet and spread it.

WE'RE HERE AT GEORGE AFB. TWO SQUADS AIR

POLICE, TWO PILOTS, YOUR HELICOPTER AND ME.
STANDING BY FOR ORDERS. COLONEL MURPHY WANTS
TO KNOW WHERE THE HELL YOU ARE. I TOLD HIM
YOU HAD A BIG CASE BUT I'D FIND OUT.
BILLINGS

Yeah. I'm going to have do something pretty quick

or get off the pot. But when? By waiting she got
license plates and photographs of conspirators: half
a dozen cars and trucks with a dozen people-—
sensitive fannish faces on Thunder Ridge.
But what good was this doing? Especially now. One
call, and the Air Police would surround the place.
Her chopper would come. Imagine the consternation
when she landed!
So far there were no decisions to make. The
astronauts-—she was quite certain that was who they
were-—had made no attempt to leave the base.
Everyone else could be identified and tracked down.
So what are you waiting for, dear? Lee Arteria had
always liked the chase better than the kill; but
this was different, very different.
The motorcycle started, was coming down the hill
now. Two people on it. The usual overweight bearded
driver. No guitars. It was just dusk, not much
light, and they were moving too fast for her to see
the face of the rider, who was wearing a helmet
anyway, but it clearly wasn't the thin older woman
who usually rode back there.
There was a tool kit strapped to the luggage
carrier. The motorcycle reached the bottom of the
hill, but instead of turning north onto Rocket Site
Road-—on her new, map it was labeled Ecology Ruin
Drive-—the motorcycle turned west. That road led
around Rogers Dry Lake and down to the south
entrance of the base, into the area still guarded by
the Air Force. What in the world would they be doing
there? They'd need papers-—
When the road turned southwest, the motorcycle
continued due west. It passed just under Arteria's
hill and continued out across the dry lake.
Curiouser arid curiouser-—
. . . Night was falling fast now. Maybe this
wasn't such a good idea. What in hell can they be
planning?
She got out her best night glasses. There was just
enough moonlight to let the big binoculars follow
the unlighted motorcycle across the lake-—
They stopped about a quarter of a mile from the
fence, left the bike, and went on foot to the fence.
Not quite to the main fence. To a smaller fenced
compound outside the main base. The two figures
huddled near the fence on the far side from the
base. No one was likely to see them-—no one not
watching them in the first place, anyway. In a few
minutes they were inside the fence and alongside the
corrugated aluminum building. Either the door wasn't
locked or they were good at lockpicking, because it
didn't stop them for long.
They went in. Arteria timed it: nine minutes and a
couple of seconds. Then they were out again, out the
door, pause to repair the fence, then out on the
lake, running to the bike. They walked it for half a
mile, then started it up and drove without lights.
The desert wind covered the sound as they drove back
up to Thunder Ridge.
Arteria got out her map of the base. It took a
while to find the area that the bandits had visited,
but there it was:

HYDROGEN PIPELINE VALVE CONTROL BUILDING

A main hydrogen pipeline led down from the north,

across Edwards, and on toward Los Angeles. Two
smaller lines branched off at Edwards. One went from
the valve building into Dryden. The other went
around the dry lake and up to Thunder Ridge.
* * *
"Slicker'n ary weasel," Harry said. "Got in, broke
the lock, turned on the valve, and epoxied the lock
back so nobody'll notice even if they look."
"They can find the hole in the fence," C.C. Miller
said.
Bob Needleton said, "We did a pretty good job of
restoring the fence, too. It's like the lock, if
they know to look they'll find it, but that's the
only way. The real question is, is the hydrogen
coming through?"
"There's pressure," Hudson said. "We're bleeding
out air now, but if there's pressure, we'll have
hydrogen by morning. OK. Well done. Tomorrow comes
the real work."

Harry was weeping. "Shame," he said. "Goddam

shame." He crawled out of the tank, painfully, like
the first fish that tried to conquer the land. He
was wearing white coveralls, white socks, and a big
white painter's hat. His face and beard were nearly
covered by white cloths, and he wore white gloves.
He stood up in the sunlight, leaning heavily on
Jenny Trout, and blubbered. "Goddam crying shame."
"How horrible. All that scotch." Fangs voice
echoed like a thousand metal ghosts. His head popped
out of the opening, swathed in white like Harry's
and smiling a goofy smile. "Liter . . . rary
reference."
"It's in a good cause," Hudson said. "Harry,
you're supposed to clean that tank, not drink the
solvent."
"I didn't drink one damn thing. Not one," Harry
blubbered. "Poor LASFS. Nothing to drink anymore.
All they had."
"Drink, no," Fang said. "Woosh! But a man's got to
breath. Doesn't he? Hee!"
"Anyway, I think that's enough for Harry," Hudson
said. "You, too, Fang. Who's next?"
" 'How horrible! All that scotch!' Mad magazine,
fifties," Fang said. "When the oxygen comes in, we
should breathe summa that. Hangover."
"I'll take a turn," Jenny said. "I'm with Harry,
though. Distilling the alcohol off good scotch and
bourbon is a hanging offense." She took Fang's
protective garments as he wrestled them off. "Cheer
up, Harry. You've never been so drunk, and the LASFS
paid the bill."

The noise began at noon, the high-pitched scream

of a jet engine. Arteria's camp was fully three
miles from Thunder Ridge, but it was still noisy.
She swept her binoculars over the area. The fans had
clustered around one of the big cylindrical tanks,
had opened it up and gone inside two and three at a
time. They came out staggering. Now they had the
tank sealed off and they'd started the big jet
engine on a stand next to the other partially buried
tank. Other fans were carrying things into the big
hangar that housed the rocket Arteria had never
seen.
There was other machinery running, too. A big
diesel engine belched smoke on startup, and still
put fumes into the air. That one seemed to be
attached to the larger of the two fuel cylinders.
After a while the lines from the diesel began to
smoke.
Not smoke. Condensation, even in this dry air.
LOX! They're making LOX, which would explain their
working on the tank, cleaning it out. LOX, and
hydrogen.
Lee had never seen anyone liquefy gasses, but it
was clear that's what they were doing. They must be
entirely crazy-—like the Jonestown massacre, whole
communities do go mad, and this little clump of
madmen must think-—but why did they think they
could-—
The anticipation grows, in the crew that waits
below, in the silent burst of stars before the dawn.
Starfire! Starfire! We can know the promise of the
stars . . .
 Unless I stop it. I'm supposed to stop it.
She was still watching when the Green Police car
drove onto the base.
* * *
The car glowed iridescent green like a bottlefly.
It wound up the side of the hill toward Thunder
Ridge. Harry dove into his saddlebags and came up
with a pistol. Jenny produced one from her boot.
"No, dammit," C.C. Miller said. "Put the damn
hardware away." He had to shout, almost to scream,
to be heard over the sound of the compressor.
"They're police!" Harry said.
C.C. was bobbing and weaving to stay out of the
line of Harry's weaving revolver. Harry hungover
wasn't much better than Harry drunk. "Harry, we
don't have time. Shut up and get yourselves under
cover! We'll fix it!"
"We'll be watching," Jenny threatened. She pulled
Harry into the blockhouse.
"So damned close," Hudson said. "Another couple of
days-—"
"Come and meet them."
"Oh, joy."
"Meet them on their own territory. At their car.
It's supposed to be reassuring," Miller said.
The Green car pulled up and two men got out. C.C.
Miller waved to one of them, a short man with a
beard so black that it looked dyed. "Hello, Glen!"
"Hello. This is official. Captain Hartwell, Green
Police. Dan, this is C.C. Miller. That's Gary
Hudson. He's in charge here."
Hartwell was tall and thin. His look was grim as
he stared at the let engine. "What is this?" he
shouted.
Hudson indicated the office area. "It's quieter in
there." He led them inside. With the door and
windows closed they could almost talk.
"All right," Hartwell said. "What's going on?"
"Hydrogen economy experiments," Hudson said.
"We're liquefying hydrogen and oxygen. Then well
burn them. If we can increase the efficiency of
hydrogen burning by ten percent, we can save
enormous amounts of energy. Just enormous. And with
the winters getting longer, and everything colder-—"
"You mean the glaciers coming," Hartwell said.
"Well, yes, but I wasn't sure you guys believed in
them," Hudson said. "I've talked to some-—"
"Some fuggheaded Green Police," Hartwell said.
"Yeah, but you can't judge us by them! Niven's law.
No cause is so noble that it won't attract
fuggheads."
"Well-—yes," Hudson said. "But wouldn't expect you
to believe that either."
"We're not all fools," Hartwell said. "Man, that
noise pollution is savage, and the smoke isn't much
better. If you can really justify this you'd better
tell me, quick, because someone is sure as hell
going to notice."
* * *
Just as well I didn't move, Captain Arteria
thought. The Greens got there even faster than I'd
have guessed. They'd have beat me in.
And now what? Call the helicopter, go down, and
claim them. It's still an Air Force base. Wait . . .
hell, now who's come to join the party? She swung
the binoculars to the point of a dust plume just
starting up the hill. More Greens? Oh, Lord, it's
Earth First.

Black letters on the car's iridescent green flank

read REMEMBER THE GREAT ALASKA OIL SPILL!
 "They should change that bumper sticker," Sherrine
said to C.C. "You knew one of them."
C.C. said, "Glen's ours, roughly speaking-—" And
then Glen Bailey had nearly reached them. C.C.
yelled above the jet roar, "Where's your friend,
Glen?"
"Hudson's still lecturing Hartwell. Some fur
haters called in a violation in the Mojave, so I
grabbed him and came. Hartwell was never in fandom,
he just used to read the stuff, so I've got no
strings on him, but he kind of caught the bug. He'd
wipe out all the polluting factorties if we have to,
but he'd rather put them in orbit and on the moon
where they can't hurt anything and turn the Earth
into a park like the good guys wanted to do in
Spirals and-—"
C.C. held, up both hands. "Okay, okay. Sherrine,
what were you-—"
"The bumper sticker," she said.
"So?"
"It looks . . . All right, the Great Alaska Oil
Spill. I was in grade school," Sherrine said. "I
remember my father shouting at the television and
cutting his Exxon credit card into strips. He
shouted in my face about greed and profit. The Sound
was going to be polluted for years. So the next
summer I asked him why the TV people didn't go back
to Alaska and show people how polluted it still was.
Daddy gave me a funny look and never mentioned it
again. The Greatest Oil Spill in History, and it
wasn't worth a one-year"later follow-up."
Glen was still looking at her. She said, "Then
Saddam Hussein covered the Persian Gulf with oil and
made it all moot. So our bumper sticker looks fairly
silly, doesn't it, Inspector? And in ten minutes an
Earth First police van is going to be up here and on
our asses-—"
 C.C. was shaking his head and smiling while
Inspector Bailey said, "You don't get it. Hussein
doesn't listen. I mean he's dead, of course, but he
didn't listen any better when he was alive, let
alone to infidels from Satan's own United States.
Why would anyone be yodeling in Iraq's ear when they
don't listen? Corporations listen. McDonald's
switched from paper to plastic even when it would
hurt the environment, because the Greens told them
to. Remember the boycotts against South Africa? The
Soviets made them look like choirboys by any
civilized standard, but they just didn't fucking
listen, so what would be the point in—"
"Enough, Glen," C.C. said. "Did you get enough
from Gary? Can you talk to Earth First about
hydrogen experiments?"
"Yeah, have some faith, Cissy, I'll have them
dying to put their support behind-—"
"Yeah, good, good." Then they all ducked as the
Earth First van pulled up in a wave of dust.
* * *
A boy and a girl, both tall and lean and dark-
haired and well under twenty, spilled out of the van
and pointed and jabbered. Noise! Smoke! See? See?
Three uniformed Earth First cops, two women and a
man, followed them out more slowly. Glen walked up
to join them.
Sherrine said, "Those kids must be the ones who
turned us in."
"Sherrine, I don't want to be recognized, but one
of us should be there," C.C. said. "We don't want
them thinking Glen's a flake."
"Perish the thought!"
"It's not like that. He's bright, but there's a
glitch in his programming. Too much LDS in the
sixties, like Mister Spock." Sherrine laughed, but
C.C. went on earnestly. "He can't stop talking by
himself. He has to be stopped."
Glen talked. The Earth Firsters nodded. The boy
and girl listened, ready to offer what they knew.
Hudson and Hartwell came out of Hudson's office
and sauntered toward the Earth First van.
The kids had moved closer to the compressors. The
noise was horrendous, and the girl had put her hands
over her ears as she stared at the spinning jet
turbine. Sherrine watched as the girl moved around
toward the front of the engine. The danger area was
clearly marked off with a low rope barrier, but it
would be easy to step over it. "Hey!" Sherrine
screamed and ran toward the girl. "Stop!" The screen
over the jet intake would keep out birds, but it
might not be strong enough to hold a one-hundred-
pound girl. Talk about mixed emotions! Sherrine
thought.
The boy had moved closer to the exhaust, and now
stood with his nose wrinkled as he held his hands
over his ears. Eager to be offended. When he saw
Hudson and the others gather near the police van, he
got the girl and led her over. Good. They did not
need an injured civilian.
An Earth First cop talked while Glen smiled and
nodded.
Sherrine strolled up; but what would she say? How
do you talk about hydrogen? The ashes are water
vapor, utterly pollution free, and what else is
there? Now Glen was talking again. "So, Michael. You
were on your way from Las Vegas to L.A. for a, what,
a demonstration?"
"Yeah, outside the premiere," the tall boy said.
"Anyone wearing fur, she'll at least know what we
think of her! The rest of us went on in the other
car, but Barb and I thought we'd better report what
we saw Jeez, you can smell it, the filth they're
putting in the air-—"
"Kid," said the male Earth First cop, "have you
noticed it's getting chilly lately?"
"Sure, the Ice is coming." The boy named Michael
looked elaborately around him at the heat of the
desert. "Okay, I've seen them on TV, the glaciers,
but they don't affect the principle, they don't
affect the blood spilled. Wearing fur was murder
when the goddam scientists were still whimpering
about global warming, and it's still murder today!"
"I don't question that, but it seems to me," Glen
said to the speaker, "that all of your targets are
women. Isn't that sexist? I mean, men wear fur, too,
not often, but-—"
An Earth First policewoman said, "He has a point,
kid. Sexism is politically incorrect, too. I think
you need to target an equal number of fur-wearing
males."
Now Barb was glaring at Michael. The boy said, "Uh
. . ."
"And why just fur?" said Glen. "Leather is the
skin of a dead animal, too!"
Earth First glanced down at their boots. So did
both of the kids. Sherrine hadn't had to say
anything at all. Glen let them argue-—fur versus
leather, wild free beasts versus beasts held
prisoner until their deaths, hide and meat versus
fur alone. The teens' respect for uniforms was
fading. The cops were getting angry.
Glen said, "What we could do is, we should station
teams outside biker bars and throw dye on leather-
clad men as they come out."
The jet motor roared in a sudden silence.
"That would be more correct," the girl called Barb
bellowed. "We'd include men as well as women. And it
would show that we care as deeply about homely cows
and other leather-producing animals as we care about
cute, furry rabbits and minks."
Michael said, "Barb-—"
Oh, that would be fun, Sherrine thought. Glen was
right: the attacks on fur-bearing upper-class women
were sexist. Let's see what leather-clad bikers do
when Michael and Barb spit on their jackets.
Sherrine was trying to swallow a grin . . . and
Earth First turned to face Hudson and Hartwell with
evident relief.
* * *
Nobody seemed to be under arrest. Just a shouting
match. Lee Arteria still didn't see that her
presence could swing events one way or another.
She watched the Earth First cops begin a search.
Hudson would have his papers in order, of course
assuming the cops even recognized the spacecraft.
Presently they drifted back. Still the desert roared
and black smoke drifted, and still there were no
arrests.
Now the cops got back into their van; the teens
argued, then got in, too. The van drove off. Minutes
later, the Green car followed.
How the hell did they work that?
And where did it leave Captain Lee Arteria?
Sanity check: they were still liquefying hydrogen
and oxygen. They had come to see Phoenix . . .
possibly they'd had contingency plans, but they'd
come to see Phoenix first, and what they saw must
have looked like a working spacecraft. Crazy
amateurs . . . but they had Gary Hudson to tell them
whether Phoenix was in any way crippled, and they'd
judged Hudson sane.
They were planning to launch.
They were still gathering. The grandest gathering
of pro-technology buffs ever to pour jet-engine roar
and hot kerosene exhaust into clean desert air was
still gathering. Fuel and oxydizer, the stranded
dipper pilots as passengers, maybe Hudson himself as
pilot . . . what else did they need? Cargo? That's
what the fans were up to, all that weird stuff!
Cargo for the space habitats! There had been a lot
of stuff, boxes, paper bags, at least one cooler.
Course programming: they must have that solved.
Copies of the programs stored away. So. What else
would they need to launch?
Lee Arteria smiled. Yes!

BILLINGS, TELL COLONEL MURPHY THAT WE'RE

ABOUT
TO MAKE THE MOST IMPORTANT ARREST OF THE
DECADE.
BOTH SPACEMEN PLUS THE WHOLE NETWORK THAT
SMUGGLED THEM ACROSS THE COUNTRY. USAF AND
OSI WILL GET EVERY BIT OF THE CREDIT.
TELL HIM TO HANG ON FOR THREE MORE DAYS AND
WE'RE SET. THIS WILL GET HIM A BRIGADIER'S
STARS. NOT TO MENTION PROMOTIONS FOR YOU AND
ME.
ARTERIA
* * *
They only turned on the lights in the hangar when
they had to, and never at night. The lighted windows
must be visible for tens of miles. It was near dusk,
and the daylight through the windows was dimming,
but Harry Czescu and Bob Needleton continued to move
cargo. "Sarge" Workman helped for awhile, but he was
the only jet mechanic they had, and they needed him
to keep the turbo expander working properly. Gordon
joined them, got tired and quit.
Nothing was large, nothing was heavy. They climbed
about within the cabin space, tethering everything
with lightweight nylon cord. Heavier stuff on the
bottom, then sturdy metal cages. Guinea pigs and
guinea hens and rabbits expressed anxiety in their
diverse fashions.
"Make sure you don't cover up the front of the
cage," Bob said. They need air."
"Teach your grandmother to suck eggs . . ."
A net would cover everything once it was all in
place. The paper in the cages would come out just
before they closed up the Phoenix. Or maybe not. The
cages stank, but after all, organics were organics .
. .
Another load in place. Back out, and down to
ground level. Harry lit a cigarette. He was just
about the only one on Thunder Ridge who smoked. He
took two puffs and inched off the end, put the butt
back in the package. "OK, do we want to glue the mat
in now? Or wait?"
Bob didn't answer.
"Lighten up, Pins. Nobody thinks-—" Harry looked
up. "Hi, Sherry, C.C. Alex, they brought you an
exercise mat."
"Hi, Harry." C.C. rubbed his hands together
briskly. "Okay. What can we give up? Alex, those
mice are gengineered to produce juvenile growth
hormones. That'd let the Angels grow their bones
back, right?"
"That's what I'm told," Alex said.
"You need the seeds a lot, the guinea pigs and
guinea hens and rabbits not as much. The diet
supplements, of course. No bull semen, to bowdlerize
a phrase. Sausage packed in dry ice?"
"Sausage, no. Eat it before we take off, if it's
that good and won't keep. Dry ice, hell no. Carbon
we want, but oxygen comes almost free from lunar
rock. Did anyone think of sending lamp black?"
 C.C. ran his eyes down the list. "I don't think
so. I'll see what we can get when. How badly do you
want these metals? And the honeycomb blocks? They re
heavy."
"It's not really my department, C.C."
"Alex, you and Gordon are the only ones who can
make these choices. And five passengers . . . Where
the hell is Gordon?"
Alex waved toward the shadows where he had seen
Gordon with Jenny Trout. "I told him we needed him,
but-—"
Bob Needleton said, "I confess I do not see why
the fifth wheel has to be me." His ears and nose
were noticeably pink.
Alex said, "Gordon. Sherrine. Hudson. Me. You.
Shall I take the exercise mat?"
Bob was having trouble pulling the words out. "We
pulled you off the Ice. The rest are gone. There's
only me and Sherrine left-—"
Alex said, "Hold it."
"Hold it, my foot. You and Sherrine have been-—"
"You wanted to know, Bob. Sherrine had the right
to know. Sherrine has to go into space because I
slept with the Commander's wife."
Needleton gaped, then, grinned. "We-ell. That's a
better story than I expected."
'Well, it's true. Sherrine doesn't go, the Station
Commander says he won't pick me up. Maybe you can
live with that, but I won't volunteer to stay. I
won't."
Bob looked at Sherrine. "All right-—"
"He already told me."
"I didn't ask, Sherry. But why not six? Gordon's
got a woman, too. What are we going to give up for
Barbara? Dammit, where the hell is Gordon?"
 Two voices echoed oddly, as if the entire hangar
space had answered-——"

"Wanted fan on Chthon and Sparta and the

Hub's ten million stars,
Wanted fan for singing silly in a thousand
spaceport bars.
If it's what we really want, we'll build a
starship when we can;
If I could just make orbit then I'd be a
wanted fan."

"Enough of this," Alex said. "Excuse me." He

walked toward were Jenny and Gordon were leafing
through notes, nodding, singing:

"Wanted fan for building spacecraft, wanted

fan for dipping air,
Sending microwave transmissions, building
habitats up there.
Oh the glacier caught us last time; next
time we'll try to land!
And when Ice is conquered, it will be by
wanted fans!"

Jenny said "Gordon, that's nice. A little

premature, maybe, hi, Alex, even a little
overoptimistic-—"
"Hi, Jenny. Gordon, we're deciding your fate while
you play. This is how you came here in the first
place, remember?"
"And this is why I stay," Gordon said. "That verse
I wrote for you, Alex. And when the stars are
conquered, it will be by wanted fans!"
Alex became aware that the others had followed
him. He said, "Gordon?"
"I am stilyagin, Alex. Nothing has changed. But
there is room for poets here, and novelists, and I
can always catch the next flight with Hudson's wife.
My voice is needed here. I stay. Four seats, four
passengers. Tell my family I kiss them from below.
No, let me word that again," he said, while Sherrine
and Bob and Gary Hudson looked at each other. "Wait,
now-—"
Sherrine took Alex's arm and led him into the
shadows. She said, "Do you see what I see?"
"Oh, sure. If the Phoenix went up missing me and
Gordon, it'd be a disaster. Lonny couldn't be voted
dog catcher. So you don't have to come, but why
don't you come anyway? Please?"
Sherrine smiled. "Okay."
"Stop toying with my affections and give me a
straight answer."
"I'll come if I have to sit in your lap. Now we
need to finish loading. Alex, didn't you say you
didn't want the plastic corn?"
"Yeah. I appreciate the work that went into
getting it, but we don't need plastic that much and
we've got better use for the soil, and it doesn't
even breed!"
"Well, it was here. Some dedicated fan sneaked it
aboard."
"Damn. We'd better find it before it gets buried."
They climbed the scaffold. Sherrine asked, "How do
you make love in free fall?"
Alex laughed. "Superbly. It takes a tether."
They eeled into the cabin. "Look inside things,"
Sherrine said.
"Yeah. Sherrine, this could be your last chance to
make love in a gravity field."
 "Mmm."
"We could even find a, what did we call those
things, they were soft and you spread a sheet over
them-—" You're kidding, right? Bed."
"Bed."
* * *
Hudson laid out a map of the Dryden Research
Center portion of Edwards Air Force Base and pointed
to a building. "In there. Room G-44. There are three
security containers in the room, and the IMU is in
the lowest drawer of the middle one."
"And you're sure?" Bob Needleton asked.
"Yes, of course I'm sure. Actually, there are five
of the damned things, but that's where they keep one
of them, the one that's been tested most recently."
"And when was that?" Sherrine asked.
"About a year-—no, more like two years. Twenty
months ago. Major Beeson brought it over and we ran
tests on the whole Phoenix electronics system.
Worked like a charm, too. Then they took the IMU
back, packed it in foam, and put it in the safe."
"And it hasn't been moved since?" C.C. Miller
asked.
"Not that I know of," Hudson said. "And why would
it? Its where it stayed between tests last time."
"When's the next test?" Needleton asked.
"Maybe never. Beeson was transferred. There's a
civilian named Feeley in charge of technology
studies at Dryden now."
"Feeley?"
"Yeah, the troops call him Touchy Feeley, of
course. He's a Green."
"And brain dead, I suppose," Miller said.
"He's not brain dead, he's soul dead. Everything's
kept in order, though, all the lab tools put away
every day, all the reports filed on time."
"Hell of a way to run a lab," Needleton said. "But
I suppose it's as well. Makes it likely your IMU
will be right where it belongs." He studied the map.
"Harry, it looks like we can go in from the hydrogen
valve compound. Get inside there, and then open a
new hole into the main base. Fang, you've been
watching the base, did you ever see patrols at
night?"
"Nothing," Fang said. "Guards at the gates, some
people in the operations building, some night crew
at the flight line. Nothing else."
"Not much to guard anymore," Hudson said. "One
time, they had the hottest airplanes and pilots in
the world here. Spaceships, too. Now-—"
"Yeah," Needleton said. "OK, Harry, I guess we're
set. Let's do it."

They laid the bike on its side next to a mesquite

bush and walked the rest of the way to the fence.
The twisties holding the fence together hadn't been
disturbed in the three days since they'd broken in
to start the flow of hydrogen. Thunder Ridge was
fifteen miles away, and the sounds of the compressor
and turbo expander were lost in the howl of the
desert wind.
"Damn moon," Harry muttered. "I like moonlight,
but there's too damn much of it."
Nearly full, Bob Needleton thought.
By God! Ten hours! Dawn tomorrow, and I'm up and
out of here, off this Earth. If my heart doesn't
pound so damn hard it wakes up the guards . . .
Sherrine would be going, too, but not the way he'd
thought. Oh, well. I get the best consolation prize
there is. Free trip, too. Four seats, and one's
mine!
 The Hydrogen Valve building had its own fence, but
there was a gate from that area into the main Dryden
compound. Harry inspected the gate and its lock,
then whispered, "Damn good lock. It might be easier
to cut a hole in the fence, but that'll be more
noticeable when there's light. What should I do?"
"Whatever's quickest. By the time there's light
everyone in the country will know." Bob took out his
wire cutters and started in.

Room G-44 was in a temporary building constructed

in the glory days of the 1950s. Like the engineering
room on Thunder Ridge, it had space for far more
desks and drawing boards than it held. Even so, many
of the desks seemed unused.
A bank of three security cabinets stood against
one wall. Harry went over and rubbed his hands in
anticipation. "The middle one," he said. He
ostentatiously took out a nail file and began to rub
it over his fingertips. "No sandpaper-—"
"Harry, damn it, get on with it," Needleton
whispered. "Right." Harry opened the tool kit and
took out a drill, pliers, crowbar. "Well-—here goes-
—but you know, just in case-—"
"What?"
Harry pulled on the drawer. It opened.
"Like I said, just in case. And there's your
gizmo, I think." He lifted' out a plastic box and
set it on the desk. "Let's see-—"
"Harry, be careful, don't drop it-—"
"Not me. Yep." He took out a smaller box that had
been nested in foam packing. "And here we are. One
IMU-—"
The room lights came on.
"Harry, damn you-—" Needleton shouted.
 "Me?"
"Hello-o!"
They turned. An Air Force captain in combat
fatigues stood at the door. The captain's submachine
gun didn't quite point at either Harry or Needleton.
"Oh, shit," Harry said.
"Now what?" Needleton said. He eyed the distance
to the gun. There were two desks in the way. He
glanced at Harry, who nodded slightly.
"Death will not release you," the captain intoned.
The submachine gun was pointing straight at Harry's
navel.
 CHAPTER TWENTY

A Fire in the Sky

Jenny Trout stared down the road. "Where the hell
are they?"
"Maybe the lock was tougher than Harry thought,"
Sherrine said.
"It wouldn't be the lock," Jenny said. "Harry's
good with locks. I'm sure glad Bob went along. Where
the hell are they?"
"There's something coming." A light, a long way
away. Fantastic, how far you could see out here.
"Two lights! It's a car!" Jenny shouted. "Get
Hudson."
"Jenny, for God's sake put that gun away!"
Sherrine said. "Gary!"
C.C. Miller came running out of the office.
"Jenny, for God's sake, shooting people isn't the
answer to everything!"
"Cissy, sometimes it is!"
"Not this time," Gary Hudson said. "Look, if you
start a firefight there'll be a hundred Air Police
up here long before any possible launch window." He
stared moodily at the approaching headlights.
"Whatever we do, it has to be done quietly."
"Oh. Okay." Jenny put the gun back in her boot.
 Miller edged closer to Fang and spoke in a low
urgent voice. "Stay with her, just in case."
"We can't just give up now!"
"No, and we won't," Miller said. "But there're
more ways to futter a cat than just to stuff its
head in a sea boot."
"Eh?"
"Ted Sturgeon's other law. Just go wait with
Jenny."

The car was a small gray sedan, totally

inconspicuous if you didn't notice that it had six
antennas. It pulled up in the pool of light in front
of the office, and Bob Needleton got out on the
driver's side. He was moving slowly, carefully.
Harry got out of the passenger's side, moving e same
way, as if they were underwater.
"What the hell is going on?" Gary Hudson demanded.
Somebody slid out of the back seat, lithe and quick
like a striking shark.
Bob Needleton said, carefully, "Gary Hudson, this
is Captain, Lee Arteria, U.S.A.F. Office of Special
Investigations."
"Oh, shit-——"
"Death will not release you." Captain Arteria's
voice carried even over the roar of the let engine.
Headlights glowed on the intruder's blue uniform and
compact machine gun and sharp white smile. The Air
Police captain moved like a man in free fall, Alex
thought. Like Steve Mews. Strong and dangerous.
Harry Czescu and Bob Needleton had stopped moving.
The night seemed to wait. C.C. cleared his throat
and said, "Even if you die."
"Pay your dues! Pay your dues!" Was that a man's
voice or a woman's?
 "Lee Arteria?"
"Right. You're . . . Miller? C.C. Miller. Director
of the LASFS.
"Chairman now," Miller said.
Gary Hudson demanded, "Will someone please tell
me-—"
"She's a LASFS member," Miller said.
"Or was," Bob Needleton said.
Lee Arteria said, "Nobody leaves the LASFS. Death
did not release me, nor fafiation. It took me a
while to figure that out."
"Which is all very well, but where is the IMU?"
Hudson said.
"I have it here." Arteria handed across a box. She
held her weapon like a prosthetic attachment. Hudson
took the box while trying to evade the machine gun's
snout.
"And you better get it installed fast." Arteria
glanced at her watch. "It's twenty-three forty-two
now. By oh-eight-hundred, oh-eight-thirty tops, this
place will be crawling with police. OSI, blues,
Greens, Army, Immigration agents, Post Office
inspectors for all I know."
"Yes. OK." Gary Hudson held the box gingerly, like
a hot potato. Small wonder, Alex thought,
considering what-—who-—had come attached to it.
"Okay. And, Alex, you'd better tell Jenny to stand
down."
Alex went.
The hangar was larger from inside than it had
looked from across the ride. Phoenix stood proudly,
enshrouded by scaffolds now. They turned on all the
lights. That was safer than using flashlights.
Furtive lights might be investigated immediately.
Working lights could wait until morning.
 "God, it's beautiful," Lee said.
"Not as beautiful as when she flies," Hudson said.
"It really will work, then."
Hudson gave her a sour look. "I don't want to seem
ungrateful, but you're about the hundredth person to
ask that. Yes, Phoenix is ready. More precisely, I'm
enough convinced that it will work that I'm going up
with it."
Hudson took the IMU and climbed up into the well
above one of the landing legs. The opening was
barely large enough to admit him. A few moments
later he came out far enough to take a wrench out of
his pocket, then climbed back in. Finally he emerged
with a big grin.
"All's well?" Lee Arteria asked.
Hudson grinned wider. "Yeah. Now let's check
things out." He led the way up the ladder.
The cabin was crowded. The only empty spaces were
the four seats, which could just be reached from
above. Chickens protested the disturbance when
Hudson turned on the lights. Lee watched from the
hatchway as Hudson wormed into the command chair and
pulled the panel toward him. He threw switches.
Lights blinked yellow, then green, and the readout
screen came alive. Hudson typed furiously at the
keyboard.
"Hot damn," he announced.
"All's well?" Lee asked.
"Like a charm." He typed more commands. "There.
I've got it in a test loop, but I don't expect any
problems."
"And you can launch when?" Lee asked.
"In about ten minutes, or at oh-six-forty. We
won't be ready in ten minutes."
"Six and a half hours," Lee said.
 * * *
Jheri Moorkith was trying to be polite. After all,
this was an Air Force Base, and he was talking to
Air Force officers. It wasn't easy, though.
"Dammit, she lied to me," Moorkith said.
"How?" Lieutenant Billings asked.
"She said that message on the sermon board,
'Sermon by Nehemiah Scudder,' would lure them in."
"And it didn't. What makes you think they went
anywhere near your church?" Colonel Murphy demanded.
"We know they went through Denver, and they
crossed the California border at Needles four days
ago. Four days! And you've known it all this time,
and didn't tell me!"
"I sent you a memo," Billings said.
"Through channels," Moorkith said through his
teeth. "Yeah, and we all know how that game is
played. All right, but it's played out now. I have a
directive here from the National Security Council
putting me in charge of finding these enemies. Do
you acknowledge my authority?'
Murphy braced. "Yes, sir." He didn't pretend to
like it.
"Good. Where is Captain Arteria?"
"We don't know exactly," Billings said. "She's
communicating through the Mount Emma relay station.
That serves the entire Mojave Desert. She could be
anywhere out there, but for all I know she's here in
Victorville. This is where she told me to wait for
orders."
Moorkith grimaced. "Colonel, I am ordering you:
find her. I want to know where Captain Lee Arteria
is."
"Why?" Murphy demanded.
"Because I think she has gone over. Find Arteria,
and we'll know exactly where those astronauts and
their fannish friends are. I'm sure of it. So find
her!"
* * *
Wheep! Wheep!
Lee tore off the fax sheet, read it and handed it
to C.C. Miller.

BOSS IT'S GETTING STICKY. MOORKITH IS HERE

WITH FULL AUTHORITY FROM THE NATIONAL
SECURITY COUNCIL TO TAKE CHARGE. THE
CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL TOLD HIM TWO
MILKHEIM TRUCKS CROSSED THE BORDER AT
NEEDLES FOUR DAYS AGO. MOORKITH IS UPSET.
MOORKITH IS VERY UPSET. MOORKITH IS FURIOUS.
HE'S SCREAMING AT COLONEL MURPHY. THE
COLONEL IS SCREAMING AT ME.
DIRECT ORDER FROM COLONEL MURPHY: CAPTAIN
ARTERIA, YOU WILL REPORT YOUR LOCATION AND
CIRCUMSTANCES IMMEDIATELY. MURPHY.
COLONEL MURPHY SAYS I HAVE ONE HOUR TO FIND
OUT WHERE YOU ARE AND GET A FULL REPORT AND
THEN HE'S SENDING THE AP'S LOOKING FOR YOU.
HE SAYS THAT BUT I THINK HE SENT THEM OUT
ALREADY.
I HOPE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING BECAUSE
ITS GETTING HOTTER THAN HELL AROUND HERE.
BILLINGS

Miller read it, then handed it to Bob Needleton.

They all stood in a group around Lee's car, reading
in the light from the office windows behind them.
"That does look sticky," Bob Needleton said.
"It is sticky," Lee said. "Up to now I might just
get away with saying you overpowered me. I'd look
like an idiot letting you and Harry get my piece
away from me after the way you telegraphed your
moves, but I could talk my way out of a court
martial. Now I have direct orders to tell my colonel
where I am and what I'm doing. That's not a game
anymore. That's Leavenworth."
"So what will you do?" Miller asked.'
She looked around at their faces as they stood in
a circle around her car. At the desert beyond. Then
at the open door to the hangar. She could just see
the base of Phoenix.
She still held the submachine gun. She stood for
another moment, then got into the car, laid down the
machine pistol, and began to type furiously at her
fax machine.
Harry looked at Miller. They both looked at
Hudson. Hudson shrugged.
Arteria got out again and retrieved her weapon.
"There. Take the big tank trucks to the oil fields
at Taft and abandon them. Have somebody follow in a
car to take the drivers, then call this number and
tell the duty sergeant where you left the trucks.
Get away from there fast. Keep going on north to
wherever you want to hide. Meanwhile, I've got the
Air Police watching Cajon Pass to San Bernardino.
About the time they get that covered, they'll get
the tip about the trucks in Taft. Go on, move! This
ought to buy us a few hours."
Hudson nodded warily.
C.C. said, "Sarge, Mark, a truck each. Bjo, you've
got a hydrogen car? Fuel up and follow them and keep
moving. Sarge, you're in charge."
"Right."
Lee Arteria stood up briskly, The gun had never
left her side. "Now as to my price."
"So what's your price?" There was something in Bob
Needleton's voice that said he already knew. What
had passed between them in the car on the way here?
"I'm going up," Lee Arteria said.
Hudson shook his head emphatically. "We don't have
time to repack. It's packed for four and we're only
six hours from liftoff-—"
"Your seat, Pins."
Needleton said, "Captain, I never said I wasn't
going."
"I heard what you told me, coming here. You're
staying to teach, you're staying to fight, you're
giving up and leaving, you're not sure what you'll
do up there, you'll be locked in a can with the
woman who kicked you out and the man who took her.
You're in a quantum state, Pins. Well, I'm flipping
you over."
Arteria was moving forward; Bob Needleton was
backing up. He didn't seem to be aware of it. His
jaw thrust out mutinously. "If I give up my seat
it'll be to something that's needed up there. What
are you doing?"
Arteria was opening zippers. She was wearing lots
of zippers. She said, "I've done too much to cover
for you. I go up, or I go to Leavenworth. I caught
you people! Fair and square, and then I covered for
you."
"So you have to go underground. So do most of us.
You can hide as easy as me. Easier. You know more
about how to do it."
"Not good enough," she said. "You can't stop me."
"I can try. Maybe I can kill you before you summon
help, maybe I can't."
"I don't have to summon anyone. If I don't report
in, they'll know where to look."
"I don't believe you-—"
 Arteria laughed softly. She was moving toward him
while dropping things: the submachine gun. Her
leather jacket. A holdout gun from one boot, a knife
from the other, then the boots. Handcuffs, the fancy
pin in her hat. Bob Needleton watched in horror,
retreating, and nobody else moved.
"Maybe it's a bluff. Maybe you, couldn't alert
your squad because you waited too long." Bob's
threat might have been more effective if he weren't
backing up toward the Operations Planning Room.
"Every cop on Earth knows my face." Handcuffs, a
mace delivery system, a horrifying armory. And her
pants. Blouse. "They're all going to think . . .
know I betrayed them."
She looked quite dangerous, Alex thought. She had
muscles . . . smoother than Steve's, but powerfully
differentiated. She looked to Alex like an alien
life form, and more female every second.
Arteria was almost nose to nose with Bob
Needleton. He'd backed up against a flat surface.
She wasn't wearing anything at all now. She said,
"What about a woman of childbearing age?"
"Okay," Bob said, "you're a woman."
"Open the door," she said.
"Door?" Needleton became aware of the flat surface
behind him. He found a doorknob and turned it and
backed through.
Lee Arteria said, "I'll be taking your seed with
me."
"I don't, uh-—"
"I didn't ask."
Slam.
Gordon was smiling broadly. "Wonderful! Just like
`God's Little Acre.' "
"Shouldn't we be trying to rescue him?" Sherrine
looked at the stunned faces around her.
* * *
Hudson climbed out of Phoenix and gathered the
others around him at the ship's base.
"All right," he said. "It's set. We launch at oh-
six-forty-four on the dot. Commander Hopkins has the
rendezvous set. He'll go when we report success."
"Who do you need here for the launch?" Miller
asked.
"Once we get the roof opened, no one. We'll open
that in half an hour, then you people scatter, and I
mean scatter. Get off the base and take off in all
directions. Can anybody go straight north across the
desert?"
"We can," Harry said. "But maybe Jenny and I ought
to stay. Stand guard."
"And do what? Not that I need to ask," Hudson
said, as Jenny reached toward her boot. "Look: just
now I won't be wanted for anything but stealing my
own spaceship. I can land in a foreign country and
the lawyers can take care of it. Kill somebody and
they'll have extradition warrants out everywhere we
can land! Not to mention that a bunch of Air Force
johnnies who right now sympathize will be gunning
for me. I have to come back to Earth to get Annie!
No, thanks, Harry."
"No last stand?" Jenny said.
"No."
"Imagine my relief," Harry said. "Look, we'll be
going out last, right? I'll take a coil of that
stainless steel wire and close off the gates. We can
drop broken glass on the road up, too."
"Well, that's all right," Hudson said. "But nobody
gets hurt!"
"Except maybe us," Jenny said.
"If that's what it takes to get this ship up-—"
 "Yeah, Harry," Jenny said. She put the pistol back
in her boot. "Where's that wire?"
"Now. One more thing," Hudson asked. "Where's
Arteria?"
Everyone looked at each other. "She's still-—"
"She's with Needleton-—"
"It would help to know her weight," Hudson said.
"Harry, go ask."
"Well, all right-—" Harry walked across the square
from the hangar to the engineering building, and
stood on the porch outside the closed door to the
Operations Planning Room.
He stood there a while, then came back. "Actually,
you won't be very far off if you say a hundred and
fifty pounds."

Gary Hudson activated the speaker system. It

wouldn't matter now, voices wouldn't add to the
noise of the turbo expander. "MINUS EIGHTY MINUTES
AND COUNTING," the computer said. Damn, it feels
good to hear that again!
The door to the Operations Planning Room opened,
and Lee Arteria came out wearing the silk kimono
that Hudson kept in the shower in his office suite.
"Yours, Hudson? I like your taste," she said. "But
someone seems to have moved my clothes."
"Next room. You won't need all the weapons, you
know."
"I don't need any, do I?"
Hudson frowned. "Not by me. But I haven't told
them upstairs about the change in the passenger
list. Not too late to rethink it."
"Nothing to rethink. This career's over."
"So you run away. What do you think you'll do up
there?"
 She shook her head. "I'm not useless you know. I
have an engineering degree. Air Force ROTC. I wanted
to work in the space program. I got my commission,
but they didn't need engineers, and they did need
police investigators. I was good at that, but I can
learn anything." She smiled slightly, a thin,
wistful smile. "I can make babies. My biological
clock is going tick, tick, brrinnggg!"
"OK, you convinced me. I gather you already
convinced Dr. Needleton."
"Let's say he's no longer objecting."
* * *
"All right, the hour's up. Where is she?" Moorkith
demanded.
Colonel Murphy looked embarrassed. "She ordered
the helicopter to meet her at an area above Cajon
Pass, but the place was empty when they got there.
We're searching the area."
"Searching the area."
"Yes, Mr. Moorkith. She may be hurt, or taken
prisoner."
"I don't believe one word of that," Moorkith said.
"And neither do you. She's gone over. Helping them!
That's what's happened. Now, Colonel, unless you
want to explain all this to the Secretary of
Defense, you will cooperate with me."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to think! What could have persuaded
her to help the Angels? She must know they'd be
caught."
Lieutenant Billings had been listening quietly.
Now he drew in his breath sharply.
Moorkith looked at him. "Well, Lieutenant?"
"Nothing, sir. Just a thought."
"Out with it," Moorkith said.
 Billings shook his head. "Sir, it was nothing-—"
"Tell us," Colonel Murphy said.
"Maybe they won't get caught, sir."
Murphy frowned. "Billings, there's no way! There's
no place in this country, on this continent-—oh.
"What in hell are you talking about, Colonel?"
Moorkith demanded.
"Nothing, sir."
"God damn you people! You know something, you know
something-—" He stopped and looked thoughtful. "So.
Not on this continent. Not on this planet, right?
They have a way to get back to orbit, don't they?
What is it? Where?"
"No place," Murphy said. "It's silly."
"Silly or not, Colonel, this is a direct order
from me acting with the authority of the National
Security Council: how might they get those Angels
back into orbit?"
Murphy and Billings looked at each other
helplessly. Finally Murphy said, slowly, "Phoenix."
"There's a rocket ship in Phoenix?"
* * *
"MINUS FIFTY MINUTES AND COUNTING. TAKE YOUR
LAUNCH STATIONS. CLEAR THE BASE AREA. CLEAR THE BASE
AREA."
Bob Needleton was buttoning his shirt as he came
out of the Ops Planning Room. Everyone carefully
looked away as he came out onto the porch. "Where is
she?" he asked.
"Getting aboard," Harry said. "Uh-—you're not
going to make trouble?"
"Huh? No. She goes. I'll be staying here to fight
the danelaw."
He went down to the Phoenix hangar. The roof was
open now, open to the stars burning brightly in the
high desert. The moon was just going down, and there
was the faintest tinge of dawn to the east, but
straight above was cold and dark and clear.
Sherrine and Arteria were climbing up the
scaffolding. Hudson and Alex stood at the top, sixty
feet above.
"Go with God," Gordon shouted.
"Yo!"
Bob Needleton waved. "Good-bye, Sherrine. Captain
Arteria . . . Lee. Name them after the kids in Doc
Smith's Children of the Lens. Guys, I'm hungry."
"There's food left over," Harry said. "Look we've
all got our escape assignments. You're to go in
Lee's car. They thought that would be appropriate.
If you're-—Sandy here will drive, he knows the
area."
Hudson got into the ship.
"CLEAR THE BASE AREA."
"Guess that's it, then," Bob Needleton said.
"Seems like an-—I guess it's over. From the Ice to
the Desert." He stood at the door to the hangar,
reluctant to leave, until Harry pulled him away.
They reached the car. Sandy Sanders was already in
the driver's seat.
Wheep! Wheep!
The fax machine startled them.

CAPTAIN LEE ARTERIA THIS IS COLONEL ANTHONY

MURPHY. OFFICIAL. MISTER JHERI MOORKITH WITH
AUTHORITY OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
HAS ASSUMED COMMAND OF OPERATION FALLEN
ANGEL. HE HAS DECIDED THAT THERE WILL BE AN
ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE OUR JURISDICTION BY
ILLEGAL LAUNCH OF A USAF EXPERIMENTAL SHIP
CALLED PHOENIX AT PRESENT HELD IN A USAF
 MUSEUM AT EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE. YOU ARE
HEREBY ORDERED TO DO ALL IN YOUR POWER TO
PREVENT THE LAUNCH OF THE PHOENIX ROCKET.
FYI MOORKITH LEFT HERE TEN MINUTES AGO WITH
LIEUTENANT BILLINGS IN YOUR HELICOPTER,
DESTINATION EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, REPEAT,
DESTINATION EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE.

"Holy shit," Needleton said. "How do we tell

Hudson?"
"Cissy and Gordon are still in the blockhouse,"
Harry said. He looked at his watch. "I think they
are."
"Harry, run this over," Bob said. "Have him read
it to Hudson."
"Then what?" Sandy asked.
"Then nothing," Harry said. "Hudson ordered us not
to fight, and it don't matter anyway. We can't fight
a chopper. Can't even mess up the landing areas,
there are too many up here. Get Bob out of here,
Sandy."
Sandy looked to Needleton. Bob nodded. "Let's go,"
he said. "Who knows, if enough of us run away, maybe
they'll chase us. Let's go."

Miller read the fax and shook his head. "I've got
a bad feeling about this-—" He punched the intercom
button. "Phoenix, we have a problem." He read the
fax.
There was a long pause.
"Okay, we got it," Hudson said. "Not that there's
much we can do. We wait. Know any prayers?"
"Edwards," Lee Arteria said. "Moorkith said
Edwards, so that's where they're taking him! I know
Murphy, if they were coming to Thunder Ridge he'd
have said Thunder Ridge. I think we're going to make
it!"
"Cutting it damned close," Hudson said. "Miller,
get your people out of here. We may be able to shave
a few minutes off the launch time. I'll talk to
Commander Hopkins. You people, get out. Now! Go!"

"MINUS TWENTY MINUTES AND COUNTING," the computer

said.
"And who do you think it's talking to?" Sherrine
asked.
"No one, I hope," Gary said. "But you never know
about fans. And Harry."
"We're blind in here," Arteria said. "If I'd been
thinking we could have rigged up a way to
communicate with whoever's in my car-—"
"Bob Needleton," Hudson said.
"Alex, is it always like this?" Arteria asked.
"Waiting? I'm beginning to know what criminals must
feel like-—"
"Phoenix, this is Freedom," a woman's voice said.
"Roger, Freedom."
"I am patching in a relay. Stand by."
"Alex, this is Gordon. We relay to you."
"Roger, Gordo. Good to hear from you. What's up?"
"Not you, but Air Police helicopter has landed at
Edwards main base."
"Eighteen miles from here," Hudson muttered. "Ten
minutes flight-—"
"Five," Arteria said.
"And they'll hear the compressor," Hudson said.
"I don't think so," Arteria said. "We drove a good
halfway here before we heard it-—but you can see the
lights up here with no trouble at all."
"Oh, shit," Hudson said.
 "MINUS FIFTEEN MINUTES AND COUNTING."
* * *
"All right, now where is this Phoenix?" Moorkith
demanded.
"Phoenix, sir?" the operations sergeant asked. The
name tag on his coverall said "MacDaniel." "It's in
a museum up on Thunder Ridge."
"Thunder Ridge? Where's that?"
The sergeant pointed. "You see them lights up
there across the lake? That's Thunder Ridge."
Moorkith turned to Billings. "What in the hell are
you up to?"
"Sir? You asked to be taken to Edwards. We're at
Edwards."
"God damn you, you knew I wanted to get to the
Phoenix!"
Billings kept a straight face. "Sir, you told
Colonel Murphy I was to take you to Edwards. I took
you to Edwards. I assume you want to clear this
activity on U.S. Air Force property with the base
commander. Sir."
"And where is he?" Moorkith demanded.
The operations sergeant looked at Billings, then
back at Moorkith. "Sir, he's in Rosamond. He doesn't
live on base."
"Then who the hell is in charge here?"
"Sir, that would be the Officer of the Day, Major
Cobb."
"And where is he?"
"In the Operations Office, sir."
"You bastards are going to give me a runaround all
night, aren't you?" Moorkith demanded. "You're all
in this together. You're finished, Billings, you and
Murphy and Arteria, you're all finished!"
"Yes, sir. Did you want to see Major Cobb, sir?"
 "No, I want you to take me up to Thunder Ridge."
"Yes, sir. Sergeant, see that this chopper is
fueled up and-—"
"Damn it, NOW!"
"But, sir, we're low on fuel. And, Sergeant, I
thought I heard a funny noise in the main bearing.
Probably nothing, but you better check it out."
Sergeant MacDaniel fought with a grin and almost
won. "Yes, sir."
"Space cadets," Moorkith said. "Sergeant, get me a
car. That car. Right there. Are the keys in it?
Good. You two, you guys with the guns, come with me.
Now. Lieutenant, when you get your helicopter
working, you can use it to get up on that ridge and
stop that launch or you can stuff it up your ass.
Either way, Billings, either way, you are finished.
Done. Do you understand me?"
"Well, not quite, sir. Now I suppose it's pretty
astonishing that a bunch of Air Force people would
have an interest in space-—"
"And you can quit stalling, too," Moorkith said.
"All right you men. Get in the car. I'll drive.
Sergeant, open the fucking gate, and don't give me
any problems about that."
Sergeant MacDaniel shrugged. "Yes, sir. Give me a
moment to get the keys."
* * *
Inspector Glen Bailey drove the Green Police car
through Mojave and east on Highway 58, keeping his
eyes on Thunder Ridge more than on the road. Any
moment now, he thought. Any moment.
As he drove he sang softly to himself.

"And the Earth is clean as a springtime

dream,
No factory smokes appear,
 For they've left the land to the gardener's
hand,
And they all are orbiting here . . ."

* * *
Bob Needleton looked at his watch. "Stop," he
said. Sandy pulled over to the edge of the road.
Needleton got out and leaned on the car. He looked
south, to Thunder Ridge, and waited. It was just
before dawn, a few stars left in the west, none in
the east, but it was still dark on the ground. Not
quite dawn, Needleton thought. Not by Mohammed's
definition, can't tell a black thread from a white
one-—
There was a flash on Thunder Ridge. Then another,
even brighter.

Jheri Moorkith could see the big hangar through

the fence. The base area of Thunder Ridge was
deserted, but there were lights everywhere, and the
roof of the big building two hundred yards away had
been swung open. The Air Police car stopped, and
Airman Joey Murasaki got out. "Gate's locked," he
shouted. "No keys."
The hangar was just ahead, but there was no way
through the locked gate. Jheri Moorkith was tempted
to scream, but managed to be calm. "Shoot the lock
off," he ordered.
Sergeant Malcolm Lincoln sniffed. "Sir, that works
better in movies than the real world. Maybe I should
get a hammer out of the trunk and open it with
that?"
"I don't care how you do it, open that gate!"
Two blows of the hammer smashed the lock, but the
gate still wouldn't open. "It's wired shut,"
Sergeant Lincoln said. "Joey, get me the bolt
cutters out of the trunk."
There was a bright flash from the hangar. The
corrugated aluminum walls shook, and there was
thunder.
"Hurry!" Moorkith screamed.
The hangar walls fell outward. Phoenix began to
rise, slowly, majestically. Moorkith turned to face
the Air Policemen, who were staring at the slowly
rising rocket. "Shoot it!" Moorkith ordered.
"Shoot it?" Sergeant Lincoln asked.
"Yes! Shoot! Shoot! Damn you, I order you, shoot
it!"
"Sir-—"
"Give me that damn gun!"
Malcolm Lincoln never took his eyes off the ship
as he unslung the submachine gun. Then, exactly as
he'd been taught, he slipped the clip loose and
opened the bolt. He handed the empty weapon to
Moorkith.
Jheri Moorkith fumbled with the cartridge clip. He
saw nothing as Phoenix rose.
Sergeant Malcolm Lincoln watched with a faraway
look as Phoenix flew upward, faster now. Thunder
washed across him, and his ears hurt but Lincoln was
grinning like a thief. As the rocket climbed she
caught the growing light of dawn, but the jets were
brighter than the dawn as Phoenix rode a fire into
the sky.
 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Cruisecon

The big sailing ship had been designed for cargo,

a high tech windjammer with four tall masts and
sails that looked like airplane wings standing on
end. They shifted constantly as Gullwhale raced at
18 knots through the Caribbean toward the Windward
Islands. She could make 20 knots in decent winds.
Chuck had his videocamera bolted to the deck. The
view tilted with the ship, heeled over by fifteen
degrees. "February 31st, 23,309. This is Gullwhale
Crossing, a videofanzine published by Chuck Umber.
Rick Foss, what are we doing here?"
Foss was a lean, bearded man with a mad smile and
an absurd hat. "We are here to hold Cruisecon, the
first World Science Fiction Convention ever to be
held at sea."
"And how did this come about?"
"Nice timing. I notice we're coming about. Well,
Gullwhale was a Green research project, expensive
even by NASA standards, but clean as clean can be.
What she couldn't do," Rick Foss said, "was make
money. Between the U.S. environmental regulations
and the unsteadiness of the wind, nobody wanted to
risk sending cargo that way."
 "So we got her cheap," Chuck said.
Rick grinned. "I got her damn near free. This is
her shakedown as a passenger resort cruise ship."
"Hotel bill and food all in the convention
registration fee. Quite a coup Rick."
"I didn't tell them it was a science fiction
convention, of course. I just guaranteed to fill the
ship up with people who don't mind being a week late
so long as it doesn't cost them any more. But we're
not in U.S. waters now-—"
From the rail Poul Dickson shouted, "Ach, ja, now
ve can sing ze old songs!"
A heavy-set black man stuck his head out of a
doorway. "Land ho!"
Chuck swung the camera around to catch him. "Ken,
shouldn't you be up in a crow's nest?"
Ken patted his ample bulk. "It'd never hold me.
We've got Grenada on radar. We're still two hours
away, but you should think about wrapping it up."
Rick grinned mysteriously. "I may have another
surprise for you, Chuck."
"I'm talking to Bruce Hyde and Mike Glider. Bruce,
you left the rescue party to spring any traps at
Sherrine's apartment. I take it that was for
misdirection?"
Bruce said, "Sure. At best we'd get the law
looking in the wrong direction. At worst, we had the
owner's written permission to be there, and a key.
We went in through a window anyway, picked up a few
of Sherrine's things-—still nothing-—walked out the
front door and boarded Mike's van and drove north."
"Nobody stopped you?"
"No, but they were following us. I guess we could
have stopped, but-—"
"I wanted to cross the glacier again," Glider
said. He held newsprint from the National Enquirer
under his chin, for the camera, under a wide toothy
smile. The headline said:

ICE NUDES ORGY ON GLACIER!

Bruce said, "We took the same track as before,

with the Angels' death beam toned down a little-—"
"How many of you?"
"-—So we could-—Huh?" Bruce laughed. "No, no, just
me and Mike, fully dressed. We crossed to Fargo and
went straight to the local TV station-—"
"Hide in plain sight," Mike said.
"-—and told them about joining the mating rituals
of a tribe of naked semi-humans with pale blue skin.
Don't look so disappointed, Chuck."

"We all got away clean after the launch. Maybe

everyone got an extra day or two because of
Moorkith," Glen Bailey said. "You remember how it
looked when Phoenix went up?"
Harry Czescu nodded briskly. "I kept thinking,
'Ours always blow up. Ours always blow up.' But it
was going smooth as silk-—"
"Remember the vapor trail, sprawled all over the
sky? They used to call that 'frozen lightning,' the
Germans did, I mean. It's in Willy Ley's books,"
Bailey said. "In the thirties they thought their
rockets were going wild-—"
"It's just stratospheric winds blowing the vapor
trail around," Mike Glider said, sticking his head
into camera view. Umber scowled.
"Yeah, but it looks like something spun by a
spider on LSD. The Green bigshot cop, Moorkith, he
saw the frozen lightning and thought the Phoenix
must have crashed. He was searching the desert for
Phoenix while the whole gang drove away."

"I missed it all," Ann Hudson said. "I was in New

York. I tried to follow it on the news, but how much
could I trust? Gary didn't try to call me till he
was already in orbit."
"But you're going up this time."
"You bet. God help Gary if he already knows how to
mate in free fall. Chuck, I want a copy of this tape
to take with me."
"That's why I'm hurrying. I want it finished and
copied before the ship takes off again."
"No trouble," C.C. Miller said. "We just drove
off. We even got the clubhouse cleared out before
the Greens came sniffing. But there are tons of it.
If the Angels don't want it, I think we'll just
leave it in Grenada."
"You mean it's aboard?"
"Oh, yeah. We sold the bull semen, but we've still
got the plastic corn and acorns and honeycomb and
powdered chlorine and five cartons of earthworms,
and there's a package I don't know what's in it but
it wants out BAD . . ."
"Gordon, nobody spotted you?"
"I could walk, even then," Gordon said. He got out
of his deck chair and spread his arms and bowed. His
head nearly brushed the floor.
C.C. Miller said, "Today I could hide him on a
basketball team."
"What have you been doing since, Gordon?"
"Your viewers, they know. I publish Wind Chill in
sections. Now Baen Books, they want it. I can
publish because I won't be on Earth."
"You're going up?"
 "Sure. Alex say my family ready to skin him if he
can't produce me, so I go with Annie. Bring a copy
of Wind Chill, tell everyone-—"
There was a sharp sound, loud above the wind, and
a sharp crack! "Hold it," Chuck said, and he swung
the camera around. "It was-—got it."
High in the sky over Grenada, a dot, descending.
"Comes down just like a falling safe, only
faster," Chuck said rapidly. "Those rockets should
be lighting any . . . any minute now . . . it's
broad daylight so they won't be too
conspicuous . . . shit fire, will you light?"
"Phoenix is slowing," Gordon said. "Rockets must
be lit. See? Slowing."
"Yeah. Sorry. Ni . . . ice."
The cone had settled behind trees.
Umber laughed. "Your faces! The rocket was too far
away to show much, but you watching it land, that's
something. Okay, Gordon, you published
autobiographical material, but there's a novel, too,
isn't there?"
"I am working on it. Should finish, how do you say
it, Real Soon Now."
"He did a verse for the song, too," Harry said.
"Song?"
"Jenny's song," Harry said. He took out his
guitar.
The others gathered around, fifty fans on the deck
of a sailing ship, staring across to an island where
a spaceship had landed.
"The Angels fell. And rose again," someone said.
"And by God we did it!"
Chuck was still filming. Harry began to play.
Jenny sang, and the others joined in.
"Wanted fan in Luna City, wanted fan on Dune
and Down,
Wanted fan at Ophiuchus, wanted fan in
Dydee-town.
All across the sky they want me, am I
flattered?
Yes I am!
If I could just reach orbit, then I'd be a
wanted fan.

"Wanted fan for mining coal and wanted fan

for drilling oil,
I went very fast through Portland, hunted
hard like Gully Foyle.
Built reactors in Seattle against every
man's advice,
Couldn't do that in Alaska, Fonda says it
isn't nice.

"Wanted fan for plain sedition, like the

singing of this tune.
If NASA hadn't failed us we’d have cities on
the moon.
If it weren't for fucking NASA we'd at least
have walked on Mars.
And if I can't make orbit, then I'll never
reach the stars.

"Nader's Raiders want my freedom, OSHA wants

my scalp and hair,
If I'm wanted in Wisconsin, be damned sure I
won't be there!
If the E-P-A still wants me, I'll avoid them
if I can.
They're tearing down the cities, so I'll be
a wanted fan!
 "Wanted fan on Chthon and Sparta and the
Hub's ten million stars,
Wanted fan for singing silly in a thousand
spaceport bars.
If it's what we really want, we'll build a
starship when we can;
If I could just make orbit then I'd be a
wanted fan.

"Wanted fan for building spacecraft, wanted

fan for dipping air,
Sending microwave transmissions, building
habitats up there.
Oh the glacier got us last time, next time
we'll try to land!
And when the Ice is conquered, it'll be by
wanted fans.
And when the stars are conquered, it'll be
by wanted fans!"

The End
Acknowledgments and Other Thuktunthp

Fallen Angels is sold as science fiction, but one

could quibble with that: while the book is clearly
fiction, the science is it real.
Item: Although the Phoenix spaceship doesn't exist
yet, it or something like it could be built today
for between $50 and $200 million dollars.
Once built, Phoenix would operate the way
airplanes do. It takes about the same amount of fuel
to fly a pound from the United States to Australia
as it does to put that pound in orbit. Airlines
operate at about three times fuel costs, including
depreciation on the aircraft. Phoenix wouldn't run
much more. The operational costs of any system
depend on how much you use, it but given the low-
cost regime Phoenix works in, it should be used a
lot.
Of course airlines have about one hundred fifteen
employees per airplane; but most airlines need to
sell tickets. The SR-71 program (which didn't) ran
with about forty employees per airplane. NASA, with
four spacecraft, has over twenty thousand people
employed to support shuttle operations. This may
explain why Phoenix, which wouldn't need more than
fifty people to operate, would charge less than one
percent of what NASA charges to put cargo in orbit.
Item: Despite all the talk of global warming,
there is just as much scientific evidence for the
coming Ice Age. Experiments have failed to detect
solar neutrinos in the quantities expected, and
astronomers tell us that we are going into a new
period of minimum solar activity. The last such
prolonged period was known as the "Maunder Minimum,"
and coincided with what has come to be known as "The
Little Ice Age." Moreover, archeologic evidence
shows that in the last Ice Age, Britain went from a
climate a bit warmer than it enjoys now to being
under sheet glaciers in considerably less than a
century.
* * *
Of course our story is fiction. Many of the
characters are fictional, too. But some are based on
composites of real people; some are real people with
their names changed; and some appear here under
their own names. A few have even paid to be in the
book! We allowed certain fan charities to auction
off the right to play themselves in Fallen Angels.
Because the book takes place in an indefinite future
we have made free use of an author's right to change
details of age, or occupation, or city of residence.
Readers who find the action of the book surprising
must consider that we have, if anything, tamed down
the reactions of organized science fiction fandom
had there really been a downed spaceship in a
society that hates science and technology.
As to the society portrayed here, of course much
of it is satirical. Alas, many of the incidents-—
such as the Steve Jackson case in which a business
was searched by Secret Service Agents displaying an
unsigned search warrant-—are quite real. So are many
of the anti-technological arguments given in the
book. There really is an intellectual on-campus
movement to denounce "materialist science" in favor
of something considerably less "cold and
unforgiving." So watch it.

References

There are many literary references in Fallen

Angels. A few are explained in the text; others are
left for the delight of readers familiar with
science fiction and fan publications.
One is worth explaining here. In Robert A.
Heinlein's early work "Requiem," the hero dies in a
successful voyage to the moon. He is buried on the
lunar surface by companions who have no grave marker
other than a shipping tag for a compressed air
cylinder. When Mr. Heinlein died, he was, according
to his instructions, cremated and his ashes
scattered at sea from a U.S. Navy warship. Some of
us feel it would be appropriate to honor him by
placing a pint of seawater and a suitably inscribed
shipping tag on Mare Imbrium. The poem to be
inscribed is R. L. Stevenson's "Requiem."
Acknowledgments

Acknowledgment of everyone who has, either

directly by commenting on the manuscript, or
indirectly through his or her life and example,
contributed to this book would require a volume a
great deal longer than the book itself. We therefore
apologize now for taking the easy way out: as you
might suspect, this section is being written the
night before the final manuscript is due.
The song "The Phoenix" is copyright 1983, by Julia
Ecklar, and is used by permission of Julia Ecklar.
The song "Starfire" is copyright 1983, by Cynthia
McQuillan, and used with her permission. Both songs
and many others much worth listening to are
performed on tapes sometimes available at science
fiction conventions. Excerpts from the songs "Black
Powder and Alcohol" and "Bring It Down" are used
with permission of Leslie Fish, and are available on
her tape Firestorm.
We do want to acknowledge the special help of Gary
Hudson, President of Pacific American Launch
Systems, Inc., who generously helped us get Phoenix
right. We only wish that we had the money to let him
build the rocket. Any one of us would be glad to
ride it with him. Ann Roebke Hudson deserves equal
thanks. Clearly, any mistakes in the science and
technology are ours, not theirs.
We also thank Jim Baen, our editor and publisher,
and Toni Weisskopf, Executive Editor at Baen Books;
we suspect that few books have ever been delivered
this close to a previously scheduled publication
date.
As to everyone else, you mostly know who you are.
Thanks!
 Larry Niven
Jerry Pournelle
Michael Flynn
Hollywood, California,
and Edison, New Jersey, 1991