The Computer Connection

10

Then came the unexpected epiphany of Hillel, the Jew; saturnine, Sephardic black and white, and twice as smart as the rest of the world put together.

As Natoma and I came out of customs in the Northeast Corridor (Brazil has no franchise to put down in Mexifornia; don’t ask me why) there he was with the live and mecho porters. He answered a signal I never made, fought to us, picked up our luggage, and hustled us to a pogo. When I started to greet him he shook his head. As he put us in he mouthed, “Tip.” I tip. He growl in disappointment and disappear. He reappear in a different coverall as the pogo hackie, demanding in a debased Spang where we had the nerve to want to go. When I told him he started a fight for extra fares. I’ve never been so abused in my life, and hot-tempered Natoma was ready to slug him.

“Cool,” I soothed her. “This is typical of the Corridor. It’s all a rage trip.”

Hilly passed me a note. It read: Careful. You’re monitored. Will contact soonest. I showed it to Natoma. Her eyes widened but she nodded in silence.

We made the hotel in three jumps and damn if Hillel didn’t start another fight over the tip. The concierge rescued us and escorted us through the security barriers, followed by the Hebe’s screams of outrage. Beautifully in character. Chronic fury was the beau ideal of the Corridor.

We took a suite with water, both hot and cold, an extravagance that erased the desk clerk’s sneers. The Corridor suffered from a perpetual water shortage. Most of it was black market and you had to pay through the nose for it. In the Corridor you didn’t ask a girl to come up and see your etchings; you invited her to come up and take a shower.

So we took our showers, which made me feel like a deliciously dirty old man, and while we were drying off, the floor steward came in carrying a couple of leather gun cases.

“The shotguns you ordered, sir,” he said in affected hotel Euro. “Over-and-under .410’s. Lady-size for modom. Box of shells in each case.”

I started to deny everything. Then I saw it was the Jew again and shut up.

“Sunrise tomorrow morning on the Heath. Five thirty ack emma,” Hillel continued suavely. “The club has agreed to release twenty chickens. Most generous. If you will permit a suggestion, Mr. Curzon, one would be advised to offer a generous bonus.”

“Chickens!” I said incredulously. “No grouse, pheasant, partridge?”

“Impossible, sir. Those are extinct species in the Corridor. They could be imported from Australasia but that would take weeks. However, the chickens have been bred for cunning and guile. You and modom will have a fine morning’s sport.”

A range safety officer came up to us on the Heath while we were waiting for sunrise and the birds. He wore brilliant protective crimson and I thought he was going to ask to inspect our permits. Then I saw it was Hillel again.

“Gottenu!” he groaned, sitting down on the concrete. It was called “The Heath” only by courtesy. It had been a jetport centuries ago; square miles of concrete now owned by the gun club. “I had to walk it. Sit alongside me, Mrs. Curzon. Otherwise if Guig introduces us I’ll have to stand up, and I don’t think I can make it.”

“Walked!” I exclaimed. “Why?”

“Taking no chances. The Extro network is damned thorough, which is why we’re meeting here where we can’t be monitored. Good morning, Mrs. Curzon. I’m called Hillel the Jew.”

“What is Jew?” Natoma asked curiously.

The Hebe chuckled. “If only that question could have been asked five centuries ago, what a difference it might have made for the Chosen People. It is an ancient race and culture that predated Christianity, Mrs. Curzon.”

“What is Christianity?”

“I like this girl,” Hilly said. “She has exactly the right gaps in her education. Bird, low, at ten o’clock, Guig.”

I shot and missed on purpose. I hate killing creatures.

“You seem to be everybody everywhere,” Natoma said. “What is it you do?”

“He’s a professional Inductor,” I said.

“I don’t know that word, Glig.”

“I invented it especially for Hillel. He’s a genius of induction. That means he can observe and appraise separate, apparently unrelated facts, and add them up to a conclusion about a whole scene that hasn’t occurred to anyone else.”

“You’re too complicated for her, Guig. Put it this way, Mrs. Curzon. I see what everyone else sees, but I think what no one else has thought. Bird, two o’clock, coming over fast. Try to bring yourself to get a few, Guig, to keep up appearances.”

You see? He knew I was missing on purpose. Acute.

“I think I understand,” Natoma said. “My husband told me you were the smartest man in the world.”

“When did he say that?” the Hebe demanded savagely. “I warned you to be careful.”

“He did not say, Mr. Hillel. He wrote a note. We have been mostly talking by note.”

“Thank God.” Hilly was relieved. “For a moment I thought I’d had the schlep out here for nothing.”

“But is being an Induction a profession, Mr. Hillel? How?”

“I’ll give you an example, Nat,” I said. “He was in a dealer’s gallery in Vienna where they had a Claude Monet displayed. Something about the painting seemed odd to the Jew.”

“It ended abruptly at two edges,” Hilly explained. “Bad composition.”

“Then he remembered another Monet he’d seen in Texas. In his mind’s eye he put edges together. Two of them fitted exactly.”

“I don’t understand yet,” Natoma said.

“It’s a crooked practice of art dealers to take a large canvas by a high-priced painter, cut it up into pieces, and sell each piece as a complete work.”

“That’s not honest.”

“But very profitable. Well, Hilly went on a treasure hunt, found and bought the rest of the pieces, and had the original Monet restored.”

“Also v. profitable?”

The Hebe laughed. “Y, but that wasn’t the real motive. Actually it was a case of being unable to resist the challenge. I never can.”

“And that’s why you’re here, Hilly,” I said.

“There, love. He’s as smart as he thinks I am. Perhaps more so.”

“But always too flippant.”

“So I have noticed over the years. He refuses to dedicate himself to anything; he prefers to make jokes. Gottenu! If he would only be serious as life requires now and then, what a tremendous man he would become.”

I resented that and took it out on a chicken at eight o’clock.

“Give me the gun,” Hilly said. He potted four more in quick succession. “That ought to keep the Extro from asking questions. Now let’s get down to business.”

“First, how do you know about the business?” I asked.

“Induction by the Inductor. I was in GM City on the trail of a vintage Edsel when I got word from Volk — he’s a dealer in rare coins and stamps in Orleans — to come quick. He’d located a strip of six British Guiana one-cent stamps of 1856. All still attached. Uncanceled.”

“I didn’t know they made stamps that far back.”

“They didn’t make many, which is why one 1856 Guiana is priceless. A hundred thousand easy. A strip of six attached and uncanceled is worth — oh, as much as you are.”

“What! Collectors are crazy.”

“R. I was immediately suspicious and requested confirmation of the message. Radex confirmed. I sent an inquiry to Volk. No reply. I asked Radex for confirmation of delivery. Confirmed. So I split for Orleans and saw Volk. He denied everything and I knew I was on the track of something.”

“What made you suspicious in the first place, Hilly?”

“Back in those primitive days they engraved and printed stamps in batches of sixteen, four by four. A strip of six was ip. fac. phony.”

“My God! Talk about acutedom.”

“When I got back to GM I was thinking that maybe another collector was trying to spook me off the trail of the Edsel. Then Radex sent an apology and a refund. Mistake in transmission. It should have read sixteen 1856 British Guiana stamps, not six. Now my blood began to boil.”

“On what grounds?”

“Volk and I had our conversation alone in his atelier. No one was there, but we were overheard.”

“Volk is bugged.”

“No doubt, but what the hell do the polizei know or care about rare stamps?”

“The price.”

“Never mentioned.”

“Um.”

“We were overheard by something else and it was trying to cover up a bungle. A third attempt was made to lure me out of GM, but I won’t go into details. It was a challenge I couldn’t resist. I did what the cossack couldn’t do — tracked down the Group, all dispersed by fake messages.”

“Why?”

“Later. I found out about the Extro network, Dr. Guess, and the whole damned lunatic conspiracy.”

“The Group knows?”

“More or less. I got the hard data from Poulos.”

“Where is he? Also dispersed?”

“No, trying to track down the renegade. Yes, the Greek told me about that and I agree with his assumption. It’s a dangerous mishmash. Crucial. He or she has got to be destroyed before the Group is destroyed. No one of us alone is a match for him, and that’s why I think he had the Group scattered — to pick us off one by one.”

“Any idea who it might be?”

“Not a clue. We’ve got an average proportion of rotten members. Take your pick.”

“Just one thing. Are you saying the Extro can make mistakes?”

“I thought you were above blind computer worship, Guig. Yes, they can make mistakes and so can the Extro’s collaborator, Dr. Guess. Even between them they can make mistakes, and that’s how we’re going to find Guess and his three freaks. What d’you think, Guig? Are they equipped with a putz and a twibby? Both?”

“I don’t know, Hilly, and I don’t want to find out. It gives me the chills.”

“When we locate Guess we’ll find out. Now, we have a three-pronged attack. Guess and the capsule are hiding out somewhere here on Earth.”

“They might be in orbit.”

“Not a chance.”

“Expound.”

“He lofted the capsule out of U-Con after it killed your girl. Houdini and Valentine took off. You were in shock. The capsule went up and nobody noticed.”

“Into orbit?”

“How? He needed a rocket vehicle for that and he had none. The capsule must have gone up as far as repulsion would take it and then drifted.”

“Why not fall down?” Natoma asked.

“It had gas jets to maintain attitude in space. Evidently they were enough to keep it up and take it to wherever Guess wanted it. So he’s on Earth somewhere. Now the three prongs. Mrs. Curzon, you will inquire about your famous and distinguished brother everywhere. You love him and you’re worried about his disappearance.”

“I am, Mr. Hillel.”

“I believe you and so will everyone else. You will make a pest of yourself. Force people to avoid you as the plague. Send constant messages to Guig reporting progress.”

“But if there is none?”

“Then use your imagination. We can send fake messages, too. Everything you do will reach your brother by the network. It may draw him out to reassure you.”

“I understand. I hope so.”

“Guig, yours is more technical. How much gas was available in the capsule? How far would it take it? You’d—”

“It had full tanks of compressed helium.”

“Hmm. Anyway, you’d better diagram that. Check UFO sightings and reports; a space capsule is an unusual sight here on Earth. Dr. Guess will need power to maintain the capsule pressure and refrigeration. If it’s under cover, the solar vanes can’t charge the batteries. Check every energy source within your plot for a new demand or drain. And here’s a tricky one. What if the cryonauts develop no further than infancy? Mature in body; infantile in mind.”

“My God! I never thought of that.”

“No one else did.”

Natoma said, “Boris told us he was reborn with all skills after CNA-Drone.”

“DNA-Clone, darling.”

“Thank you, Glig.”

“Not the same thing, Mrs. Curzon,” Hilly said. “Guess will have to train and educate them, first of all in speech. Check every supplier of educational modes for retarded children who are autistic. Address of every order received in the past month. It’s a drag, I know.”

I shrugged that off. “And the third prong?”

“Mine. The hardest of all. Why were three separate attempts made to get me out of GM?”

“But the renegade and the Extro have been dispersing the entire Group.”

“True. They’re afraid of us. But they could have got me out of GM by leading me to the Edsel. Why didn’t they? Perhaps the car doesn’t exist. A possibility. Perhaps they made a mistake in their estimation of my character. A possibility. But I’m looking for a third possibility.”

“Which is?”

“I have no idea. I don’t even know if it exists.”

“What do you think, Hillel? Is Guess a monster?”

“N. N. N. The Extro and the renegade are the monsters. Unfortunately we must counterattack through Guess, who’s merely a bad boy.”

“Bad boy!”

“I repeat, bad boy. He’s dealing with breathtaking discoveries and he’s drunk as a kid in love for the first time. I don’t fault him for that. It’s so unusual it would intoxicate anyone.”

“Then what can we do?”

“Sober him down. Basically he’s a good boy; a frightful nuisance now but no source of lasting danger. Keep your sights on the real evils, the Extro and the renegade.”

“Are they an intimate commingling, too?”

“Quien sabe? Now we must break this up, alas, and go to work, each of us independently. No more of the mama-papa shoot, Guig. I’m sorry, but you’ve had your honeymoon. Remember, you must Telex and Radex to each other constantly, but no message sent or received should be believed. Ignore them.”

“But what if—”

“There is no what if. You told Boris this would be a bootleg chase. So it is. Lie to each other. Fabricate. Be outrageous. That will throw the network into fits wondering whether you’re using a code it can’t break. And always remember it will be fabricating phony messages too, so believe nothing and go on with the chase. The three of us operate alone. Understood?”

“Y, sir.”

“Gung. Give me a half-hour start. Delighted to have made your acquaintance, Mrs. Curzon. Don’t forget to collect your chickens, Guig.”

“Don’t forget Sequoya is my brother,” Natoma called.

The Jew turned and smiled. “More important, he’s of the Group, Mrs. Curzon, and we’re always extra kind to our meshugenehs. Ask your husband what we went through with barking Kafka.” Then he was gone. Acute and fast.

“Kafka?” Natoma asked. “Barking?”

“He thought he was a colony of seals. Will this concrete be too hard on your back?”

“Yes, but not on yours.”

So we gave Hilly his half hour and I did remember to collect the chickens.

SIX-FOOT LEMUR DISCOVERED IN MADAGASCAR. LIVING FOSSIL. NOTIFY YOUR BROTHER. URGENT.

SEQUOYA REPORTED ON THETIS.

TELFORD SAYS YOUR BROTHER WORKING ON CURE FOR ASTHMA IN GRASSHOPPERS. CAN CONFIRM? MAY MEAN NOBEL PRIZE IF HE CAN LOCATE ASTHMATIC GRASSHOPPERS.

N CONFIRM. HAVE HEARD HE HAS JOINED INCA CULT IN MEXICO.

EDISON SAYS YOUR BROTHER AND CAPSULE IN ORBIT. SAYS GUESS FEELS LIKE A BRASS MONKEY. N BELIEVE EDISON.

SEQUOYA NOT IN MEXICO. WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN P G?

MUST BE MISTAKE IN TRANSMISSION. N P G. AM IN TINKER TOY. YOUR BROTHER CLOSE BUT ANCHOR ICE MAKING SEARCH DIFFICULT.

URGENT. COME AT ONCE TO GARBO. HAVE BROKEN MY HIP.

SO SORRY. N LIKED YOUR HIP. ON MY WAY TO SEE GUESS IN SAN MIGUEL ALLERGY.

RESPECTFULLY REQUEST DIVORCE.

BRINGING COUNTERSUIT FOR THE CRIME OF PHLEBOTOMY COMMITTED WITH YOUR BROTHER. HOW DID YOU BREAK YOUR HIP IN GARBO?

N GARBO. AM IN DIETRICH. HIP UNDAMAGED.

YOUR BROTHER TELLS ME CAPSULE SAFELY HIDDEN BUT N SAYS WHERE. HAS HE TOLD YOU?

IN LOVE WITH EVIL ECZEMA. RESPECTFULLY REQUEST DIVORCE OR YOUR SUICIDE. MY BROTHER TELLS ME NOTHING.

URGENT. INFORM SEQUOYA ANOTHER LIVING FOSSIL SIGHTED IN CANASKA. A DINAHSHORE. IT IS GERMAPHRODITE.

URGENT. P SEND CREDIT. HAVE BEEN BILLED BY TRACER ASSOCIATES FOR EXTRA 1110110011 MILES COVERAGE RESULT OF YOUR MESSAGES.

IMPOSS. 1110110011 MILES IS TO THE SUN AND BACK. IS THAT WHERE YOUR BROTHER IS NOW?

CORRECTION. N MILES. KILOMETERS.

REPEAT: STILL TO SUN. IS YOUR BROTHER IN ORBIT WITH CAPSULE?

CORRECTION: USED BINARY INSTEAD OF DECIMAL. FIGURE SHOULD READ 947 MILES. Y. SEQUOYA AND CAPSULE IN ORBIT.

The Jew was right as usual. We had the Extro network throwing fits; distorted transmissions, phony messages, dumb corrections. Meanwhile I was pursuing the course he’d plotted for me. The capsule was up to its ass in gas, enough to take it as far as Houston, Memphis, Duluth, Toronto. No point in mapping that. There had been a dozen UFO sightings in Nevahado, Utoming, Iowaska and Indinois. Also Hawaii. That was a bust, too.

I did just about as well on the energy drain. After half a dozen consultations with the enclave I discovered that they no longer tried to trace the thefts. It was cheaper to add it all up and charge everybody a surtax to cover it.

Ah, but the Autistic Instruction Modes! That was the hot lead. A barrage of orders for crash courses had come in to the branch offices from something calling itself the Neo School. The orders were forwarded to the main office in Tchicago which, alone, knew where to deliver them. There was a strong chance that this was Hiawatha and his three baby machisbians. I would have to go to Tchicago and do some snooping.

But in the course of all this it dawned on me that while I was tracking the Chief I was being hounded myself. It started small and built. Salesmen from private composts paid calls. Wedding cakes in horrid glowing neon were delivered COD; also beds, clothes, carpets, spirits, acids, and belts for hernia. I began to receive bills from physicians for absent acupuncture, and confirmations for bookings to Venus, Mars, and the Jupiter and Saturn satellites, all luxury class.

Then it got worse. You add human worship of computers to an electronic revolt and you have a rough scene. There’s nothing the damned machines can’t do when the humans bob their heads and take infallibility for granted. At least the Druids worshiped trees, which are sensible and trustable. You can’t corrupt a tree.

Six criminal indictments were filed against me by the Provacateur General’s machine. Followed by announcements of my death by suicide over Solar Press Interplanetary wires. Then my passport and credit cards were revoked as counterfeits after routine computer review. I was now a man without a country.

My seven banks and brokerage houses informed me curtly that their accounting printouts indicated I was heavily overdrawn. No further courtesies could be extended. I was now bankrupt. Then my former home — now the Chief’s — burned to the ground. I’d taken the precaution of moving every treasure from the tepee to the house for safekeeping. All destroyed or stolen. I spent the night sifting through the cold ashes looking for a fragment of memory. The looters had been before me and left nothing but their excrement and an odd weapon which must have been dropped unnoticed in the excitement. It was a short dagger with a broad, pointed blade. The handle was two parallel bars joined by a crosspiece. I slid it into my boot. It might help me locate the looters and recover some of the stolen things.

I would have given up that night if I hadn’t had a vivid image of how Hillel and Natoma would ream me out. That gave me Dutch courage. So next morning I cash-fared onto a linear bound for Tchicago. It was hijacked to Cannibal, Mo. I was transferred along with the other passengers and many bewildered apologies to a linear bound for Tchicago, and this time we were jacked to Duluth. Transfer and confusion again (“These are all computer routed and piloted!”) but this time the Guig-jinx was smart. So they wanted to keep me away from Tchicago? R. I transferred to the Buffalo shuttle and they let me get there.

So here I was at the far end of the Erie reservation and this time I had a break. The gate was guarded by a Cherokee tour of duty and one of them was a totemic relation who recognized me. He grinned, knocked his fists together four times, put me in a chopper, and lofted me to the Guess marble wickiup.

I must have looked awful. Mama stared at me, burst into tears, and swept me into her billows. Then she stripped me, bathed me, put me to bed, and fed me a broth that lined my ribs. I never had a mother like this. I loved her. An hour later stately papa came in accompanied by a goblin — all head and not nearly enough body to go with it. Slavic eyes and high cheekbones. A character out of “The Hall of the Mountain King.”

“Like bwenas tarthes, man,” the goblin said in mellifluous Spang. “How esta you?”

“I’m more comfortable in XX,” I said. “Do you speak it?”

“But of course. I am Larsen, Professor of Linguistics at the college. You’re not ill, I hope, Mr. Curzon.”

“Just tired, spent, exhausted.”

“The Sachem asks first about you, his new son. I will tell him.” He told papa in Cherokee. Papa shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Now he asks about his other son and daughter.”

“Both are alive and well, to the best of my knowledge.”

“That is ambiguous, Mr. Curzon.”

“I’m aware of it, Professor Larsen, but the facts are so complicated it would take the rest of the day to explain. Just say alive and well and happy.”

After a palaver the goblin said, “The Sachem asks why they are not with you.”

“Tell him I’m on my way to join them.”

“And this is a courtesy call?”

“Yes and no.”

“Ambiguity again, Mr. Curzon.”

“It’s part of the complication. I must borrow some cash.”

“But you are reputed to be a millionaire many times over, Mr. Curzon.”

“And so I am. Again more complications.”

“I must hear them. I have never been so tantalized. Excuse me.” He turned and quonked with papa. Then back to me: “The Sachem says certainly. Of course. How much will you need?”

“One hundred thousand.”

Larsen was startled; not so papa. He nodded calmly and I loved him. I never had a father like that. He left the room and returned with ten neat packets of gold-colored notes, meaning they were thousands. He stacked them on the bedside table, sat down on the bed, and peered into my face. He put a hand on my brow and murmured.

“The Sachem says that despite your fatigue, marriage to his daughter seems to agree with you.”

“Please tell him that she has become more beautiful than ever.”

“I had better not, Mr. Curzon. On the reservation it is regarded as unmanly to admire one’s squaw.”

“Thank you, Professor Larsen. Tell him that Natoma is a hardworking squaw.”

“That should please him, I think.”

The door burst open and the hardworking squaw charged into the room, looking like an agitated goddess… that is, if the gods ever were chic. She threw herself on top of me. “What is it, Glig? What is wrong? Why are you in bed? Am I hurting you? Why are you here? Where should you be? Did you know I was coming? How? Why don’t you say something?”

When she gave me a chance I said something, and managed to ask her what she was doing here.

“I had to come,” Natoma said. “I had to reload with sanity. I’ve seen my brother and I’m furious.”

I was dying for her news but there was no more time for talk; dinner was waiting. Papa, the professor, the kid brothers, and myself at the table while mama and Natoma waited on us. My incomparable wife had the charm to revert to tradition on the reservation. She wore deerskin, kept her head lowered, and actually blushed when the naughty boys made coarse marriage jokes which Larsen refused to translate.

When I signed to her to come out with me for an evening walk she nodded but gave me a wait signal. She had to help mama with the dishes. When at last we left the wickiup she walked three humble paces behind me until we were out of sight. Then she threw herself at me and nearly knocked me down.

“I love you. Oh, how I love you! I would love you if you were hateful. You’ve rescued me from all this.”

“You would have rescued yourself, Nat.”

“How could I? I never knew there was another world. No, you liberated me and now I’m entire.”

“And so am I. It works both ways.”

She took me to her childhood hideout, a giant cedar of Lebanon in which we could climb up, sit close, and hold hands without caustic comment from the Erie conservatives.

“Who goes first, you or me?” she said.

“You.”

“Mr. Hillel was right. My brother came looking for me.”

“Where did he find you?”

“In Boxton.”

“I never knew you were there.”

“The machines were keeping us apart.”

“Yes. And? Did he try to reassure you?”

“No. He frightened me. He’s not just a bad boy; he’s cold, cold, cold. Heartless.”

“Ah.”

“He’s not my brother anymore.”

“Not now, but he will be again.”

“He told me that it was cry havoc for the human race, which had been asking for it for a thousand years. Death and destruction. No mercy.”

“Dio! We know he and the network mean it.”

“He told me to go home where I’d be safe. The network can’t get through to the reservation. There are other places, too. Sahara and Brazil and — and — I forget because I wasn’t listening.”

“Why not?”

“I lost my temper. I told him — Why are you grinning?”

“Because I know that temper.”

“I told him he was a traitor to me, to his family, to his people, to this entire beautiful world you’ve shown me.”

“Hoo boy. You were hot.”

“I was. I told him I wasn’t a squaw anymore; that you had turned me into a thinking, independent person, and that I would do everything I could to stop him and punish him, even if it meant getting the Erie tribes and nations to hunt him down. If they could beat the Mafia International they would have no trouble with him and that damned computer on his back.”

“Pretty strong stuff, Nat. Would the tribes and nations help?”

“They will. We’ve done without electronics for generations, outside of the fence and a few simple basics, so they can’t be cowed by a computer. And most of them are dying for a fight anyway.”

“Even against the son of the Great Sachem?”

“They won’t kill him. They’ll just roast him over a slow fire, Iroquois-style, until he comes to his senses. That’ll sober him down.”

“Did you mention the real enemy, the renegade?”

“No.”

“And what did he say to all this?”

“Nothing. He just turned and left me like you leave a piece of furniture.”

“Going where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Back to the capsule?”

“I don’t know. He left and I came home.”

“Of course. And you’ll stay here.”

“N.”

“Why N?”

“I want to be with you.”

“Natoma!”

“Edward!”

We had it out so hard that I nearly fell out of the tree. I listed all the disasters wrought by the computer network. Nothing. Not even a tear for the Sèvres destruction. She only looked grimmer and more determined. She had taken the ball from flippant old me and was set to run or pass, so I surrendered. My goddamn Cherokee wife had the Indian sign on me.

And she outsmarted the anti-Tchicago network. We took the Buffalo shuttle to Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh to Charleston. Then it would be Charleston to Springfield and hovercraft to Tchicago. But someone must have slipped up on Natoma’s passage vouchers. The Charleston travel desk paged her just before takeoff. Her Spang wasn’t nearly as good as her XX, so I left her on the shuttle and went to the main desk myself to find out what the tsimmes was.

I reasoned with the smart-asses and they argued back — computer check (infallible) indicated the tickets were faulty. I planked down a gold-colored thousand and asked for a new voucher. Quick, please. They quick, but the automatics took over and the shuttle lofted while I was waiting. A hundred feet up it burst into an explosion that shattered it, smashed the walls of the port building, and knocked me into oblivion.