II

 

 

The mud on Danty’s face had dried. Rubbing at it as he walked, he reduced it to a greyish smear. That would have to do until he reached soap and water.

Emerging on to the hard shoulder of the superway between two billboards advertising insurance against juvenile leukaemia and KOENIG’S INTIMATE INSULATION, he gazed towards the oncoming traffic. He ignored the long-distance freight-trucks, which had schedules to keep, and concentrated on the last of the night-riders, the lamps of their cars dimming as they headed home for a day’s sleep. These were the people who seemed to feel oppressed by the isolation of their continent, even though it was three thousand miles wide, and needed to relieve their tension by simply going, regardless of whether there was any place to go to.

It was the third car that stopped: a red-and-gold Banshee. The dead weight of its armour made it almost nosedive into the concrete as it responded to its compulsorily excellent brakes. The man at the wheel wore a snug hat and tailored fatigues, and also—as he stared at Danty—an expression of surprise.

Not at what he saw. Danty was ordinary enough to look at, apart from the mud on his face: young, thin, mid-brown complexion, sharp chin, dark eyes above which his brows formed a shallow V. But at the notion of stopping for him in a state where hitch-hiking had been illegal for decades.

Before he could recover his presence of mind, however, Danty had sauntered over and leaned on his door. Rashly, the man was driving with its window open.

“Going to Lakonia?” he inquired.

“Uh …” The driver licked his lips, hand hovering close to his dashboard gun. “Now look here! I didn’t stop to give you a ride! I—”

And broke off in consternation. The question had just occurred to him: Then why in hell did I stop?

He could see no other reason than Danty, who went on looking at him levelly.

“Ah, shit,” the driver said at last. “Okay, get in. Yes, I am heading for Lakonia.”

“Thanks,” Danty said, and went around to the passenger’s door.

Before his unwelcome companion had fastened his safety-harness, the driver stamped on the accelerator and shot back into the centre of the road, watching his mirror anxiously—not so much for following cars, as for a patrolman who might have witnessed that entirely unlawful pickup. The speedo needle reached the limit mark and stopped climbing, nonetheless their speed increased preceptibly afterwards. Danty concealed a grin. Another reason for the driver to feel worried. Plainly he’d eased the control on the governor. Everybody did that, but you were still liable to arrest if you were caught.

Relaxing after a mile or two without incident, the driver reached for the cigarette dispenser.

“Want one?” he asked reluctantly.

“Thanks.” Danty shook his head. “Don’t use them.”

The driver took his, ready-lit, and sucked on it twice before speaking again, this time with the petty bravado of a man defying the law and trying not to let the fact bother him.

“Now don’t you get the idea I go around the country free-lifting all the time!”

“Of course not,” Danty said equably.

“So you’d better be a friend of mine, hm? Just in case. My name’s Rollins, George Rollins. What’s yours and where are you from?”

“Danty. And it says Cowville in my redbook.”

Rollins betrayed obvious relief. Cowville was right next door to Lakonia; in fact it was the nucleus from which Lakonia had spread, like a stump of wild-rose root with a gorgeous over-blown double floribunda grafted on it. Taking a man back to his home city wasn’t too bad. Danty let the idea curdle.

Then he added mildly, “But mostly I’m from all over.”

“You make a habit of travelling this way?” Rollins curled his lip. It was probably in his mind to add: Because if you do, you must be a lousy reb! Everybody knows they shave and cut their hair nowadays!

“No, this is kind of a special case.”

“Glad to hear it!” Rollins snapped, and fell silent. After a moment he reached for the radio buttons and snapped on an early-morning music programme. Soothed by the sound of the current chart-toppers, the Male Organs, Danty dozed.

 

He awoke to a prod in his ribs and the sound of the gas-gauge emitting a penetrating hum.

“Got to pull in for gas,” Rollins told him unnecessarily. “Now you watch how you act, hear? Don’t want some radiated gas-attendant to turn me in for free-lifting!”

Danty touched the gritty mud on his face. He said, “Well, then I can get to a washroom and clean up.”

“You do that! And watch yourself!” Rollins ordered.

His imitation bravado leaked away as the car slowed. His lips moved as though he were rehearsing what he would say when they stopped.

He was. Therefore it came out smoothly enough. “Fifty, please!” he called to the attendant in his overhead booth, watching the forecourt through armour-glass with his hands poised above the triggers for his guns.

“Fifty it is,” the man answered, and began to haul on his waldoes. Angled, a fuel-pipe launched down from its high hook and sought the car’s filler like a blind snake.

So far, so good. As Danty left his seat, Rollins breathed easier. Hell, was anyone—even a gas-attendant, in a trade that encouraged paranoia—going to turn him in for a little free-lifting? Of course not!

And then his stomach filled with ice-cubes. There was a cop rolling into the gas-station, masked and armoured, like a mere extension of the single-seat racer that he rode.

Patrolman Clough yawned hugely as he dismounted. That was a slow job, involving a thorough survey of the vicinity, then the folding back of four light-alloy bullet-deflectors. But finally he freed himself, stood upright, and stretched and yawned again. The quick dash of midnight had worn off, and he was having to pull in more and more often to rest up. The endless concentration tired the brain. Police racers had no governors on them, only a red line at the hundred-fifty mark that the rider was forbidden to exceed except in emergency. Something to boast about in company—“they don’t turn loose any but the picked best on the superway without a governor!”—but on the job, not so much fun.

Only one car in the station. Banshee. Cheapjack make. Slick lines, sure, but inside—well, built-in obsolescence, of course. Trouble being they sometimes guessed wrong, the obsolescence progressed too quickly, and then he or someone was picking bits of people out of the wreckage.

Not this one, though. A last-month’s model, red and gold.

Driver sort of nervy … Wonder if he’s disconnected his governor. Sort of thing the guy who buys a Banshee might do. Easy to short the governor circuits on one of these. Not a bad idea to have him lift the hood, take a quick squint.

He snapped back the visor of his helmet and strode towards the car.

 

Rollins rubbed sweaty palms inconspicuously on the sides of his thighs. “Morning, officer!” he exclaimed, and damned his voice for skating up towards the treble.

The patrolman gave a neutral nod. Rollins told himself he couldn’t possibly have seen the disreputable passenger, and whatever was bothering him with luck he’d guess wrong and be away before Danty emerged from the washroom. In fact it might be a good idea to get back on the road without Danty, if he could. What in the world could have possessed him to stop for a free-lifter? And a reb at that, more than likely!

The gas-pipe withdrew to its hook. A cash-drawer shot out of the side of the pump within easy reach of him. But he was so intent on the patrolman that at first he didn’t notice, and the attendant had to parp on his hooter.

Damnation. Now the pig will know I’m rattled. He fumbled a credit card from his pocket and laid it in the tray. The patrolman followed every move, and when the drawer had clicked shut he said, “Mind lifting your hood, mister?”

“Uh …” Well, there was no help for it. He flipped the release and the hood ascended three feet on lazy-tongs mountings, sighing. Look, officer, I have a clean licence ten years old, everyone eases the governor control a bit, it’s not as though I’d been in an accident. …

But the patrolman only glanced at the engine, nodded, and made to turn away. Rollins exhaled gratefully.

Must have thought the governor was cut out completely. Who but a damned fool—?

And Danty re-appeared.

He’d washed, and wiped the stubble of beard from his chin with Depilide, but even so he didn’t match a brand-new Banshee. And here he was opening the passenger door. You could almost hear the tumblers clicking in the pig’s head, like a fruit machine.

“Hah!” he said after a tense pause. “Let’s see your redbook, you!”

Danty shrugged, unzipped his hip-pocket, and held out his red-covered identity papers. The silence stretched as the patrolman seemed to be reading every single word. Finally Rollins could bear it no longer.

“Is something wrong, officer?”

The cop didn’t glance up. He said, “Friend of yours, mister?”

“Sure! Of course he is!”

“Tell me more.” The machine-like helmet still bent over the redbook.

“Uh …” Rollins’ mind reacted. “Why, Danty’s from Cowville. Close to where I live. We just been night-riding a bit, that’s all.”

Though if he asks what this radiated reb’s other name is …!

The patrolman slapped shut and returned the redbook. “Okay,” was all he said, but under his voice, clear as shouting, he was adding: So, a couple fruits most likely. I should arrest that kind on suspicion? I’d be at it all day. Anyway, they’d jump bail and head for a state where it’s allowed.

Frantically Rollins started the engine again, eager to get away from here.

“Your credit card,” Danty said, and pointed. Rollins snarled, snatched it from the cash-drawer, and trod on the gas. Danty was amused to see that he must have worked out what the pig was thinking. He was blushing scarlet clear down to his collar.

 

Behind them, Patrolman Clough made a routine entry in his tape-recorded log. But, two or three minutes later, as he was emerging from the men’s room, a car howled past at far above the legal limit, and he scrambled back on his racer and took out after it, yelling for assistance on his radio. In the excitement of the chase he clean forgot about Danty and Rollins.