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somethin . Goofy stuff.
 That s exactly what it is. I slapped him on the shoulder.  Got some business
for you. Sam s ailing.
 Well, let s throw him against the wall and see if he sticks. Bring him in. I
went outside and told
John to take everybody to breakfast. There was a little diner not two blocks
away. Then I eased Sam into the garage. It was a tight fit. Twenty minutes
later Sam was in pieces all over the dome. The engine was stripped of
shielding and laid bare to the torus. During the process, I discovered to my
nasal discomfort that Stinky was still worthy of the nickname only his friends
could call him with impunity. Stinky tapped the engine with his flex-torque
wrench, a clinical scowl clouding his features.  I don t know, Jake. This
punkin thing might have to go.
 The torus? I yelped.  Christ, you re talking big money, Stinky.  Hey, do
you want me to tell you punkin fairy tales or do you want the truth? The
punkin confinement tubing is hotter than a [reference here to the sexual
habits of the human inhabitants of a planet called Free] during Ecstasy Week.
He crossed his arms and looked the rig over distastefully.  Hey, Jake. How
come you don t get an alien rig?
This thing s a piece of merte. He shook his head.  What do you want with this
punkin Terran merte anyway? Look at this thing. He reached and tapped a
cylindrical component.  An ohmic preheater. He snorted.  I mean, that s a
punkin joke. Nobody uses them anymore, even on Terran models. He crossed his
arms and clucked disapprovingly.  I don t know how you get around in this pile
of scrap.
He looked at me, then hastened to add,  Hey, I don t mean no offense to Sam.
I was impatient.  Right.
What do you think s wrong with it?
He threw up his arms.  How the punk should I know? I gotta hook up the sensors
and look at the thing. Okay, so you got a kink-instability. That s only a
symptom. What if it s this preheater? They don t make parts like that any
more. I ll have to rig up something. Or it could be the vacuum pump. Or the
current pickup, or the RF breakdown transformer. Punkin hell, it could be
anything. He shrugged, giving in.  Oh, hell, Jake, I ll do my best. Should be
able to do something with it. After I get her fixed, I ll degauss it for you.
I thumped his back.  Knew I could count on you. Stinky.
 I know, I m such a punkin genius. He glanced at the exposure tab on his
filthy shirt front.  Hey! I
better get my rad-suit on and you better get outta here before we both get our
sferos cooked off.  Okay.
Sam ll keep in touch with me. Let him know, okay?
 Okay, Jake.
I turned to go.
 Jake! Stinky called after me.
 What?
 You re walkin kind of fanny. You all right?
 We met up with some bugs out on the plains. Things about this long, with 
 Oh, hoplite crabs. I
don t know why they call  em that, but that s what they call  em.  Right,
hoplite crabs. They told us at the hospital.
 You gotta watch out for those things.
 Uh, we... Yeah. See you.
The gang was waiting for me outside in the Gadabout. I climbed in, and in
doing so, I got the itchy, antsy feeling that something was crawling on me. I
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gave myself the once-over, but found nothing. Too many small, nasty things
lately. Nerves.
After running some errands in town, mainly to pick up groceries and sundries,
we drove out of town.
The mail question was settled when we drove by the Maxwellville post office
and saw the mail rig unloading at a side dock. Doubtless it contained a
communique about us. Also before leaving, we dropped off two of the group,
the Abo man and a Hindu woman, at a motel. They d been having a low-
key argument with Sukuma-Tayler. The two did not care for the way things had
been going. They wanted time to think things over  get in touch with the
Plan, is the way they put it. The implied meaning of the phrase struck me as
rather diffuse. Sukuma-Tayler didn t say good-bye to them, but he didn t
appear to be overly distressed at their leaving. A short stretch of Colonial
highway ended in a dirt road that conveyed us bouncingly along for what seemed
like hours, winding around high buttes and towering sheer cliffs, until it
split into a Y.
Sukuma-Tayler stopped the Gaddy and threw up his hands.  As usual, he said
sardonically,  directions given barely approximate directions taken. Anybody
care to guess which way we should go? He turned to the Oriental man in the
front seat.  Roland? Roland poked his head out the window, trying to find the
sun.  Hard to get your bearings on a new planet... especially when you don t
know the axial inclination. Do you have the Guidebook, John?
 The what inclination?
 Let s see, Roland said, shielding his eyes,  the sun s there. So, that
means... uh  He scratched his head.
 Well, I put in,  Maxwellville s in the opposite direction of where we want
to go, and so is the
Skyway. Without knowing why, I turned to Winnie,  Where s the Skyway, honey?
 That way! she piped, pointing to our right.
Eyes turned rearward. After a moment s hesitation, John started the Gaddy
forward again, and took the left fork.
By now we had a depopulated crew: me, Darla, Winnie, the Oriental, and a
Caucasian woman, to whom we were introduced for the first time Roland Yee and
Susan D Archangelo plus our Afro leader. The man in the hospital, we learned,
was named Sten Hansen. Susan was light-haired, thin, had hazel eyes and a
pixie nose that crinkled when she smiled a young face, but I put her on the
downhill side of thirty, probably having forgone her first series of
antigeronic treatments for financial, religious, or ethical reasons. I still
had only a shell of an idea as to what Teleological Pantheism might mean or [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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