The Night of the Long Knives Read online

  CHAPTER 3

  _We are always, thanks to our human nature, potential criminals. None of us stands outside humanity's black collective shadow._

  --The Undiscovered Self, _by Carl Jung_

  Ordinarily scroungers who hide around on the outskirts until thekilling's done and then come in to share the loot get what theydeserve--wordless orders, well backed up, to be on their way at once.Sometimes they even catch an after-clap of the murder urge, if it hasn'tall been expended on the first victim or victims. Yet they _will_ do it,trusting I suppose to the irresistible glamor of their personalities.There were several reasons why we didn't at once give Pop thistreatment.

  In the first place we didn't neither of us have our distance weapons. Myrevolver and her dart gun were both tucked in the cave back at the edgeof the freeway. And there's one bad thing about a bugger so knife-happyhe lugs them around by the carload--he's generally good at tossing them.With his dozen or so knives Pop definitely outgunned us.

  Second, we were both of us without the use of an arm. That's right, theboth of us. My right arm still dangled like a string of sausages and Icouldn't yet feel any signs of it coming undead. While she'd burned herfingers badly grabbing at the gun--I could see their red-splotched tipsnow as she pulled them out of her mouth for a second to wipe the Pilot'sblood out of her eyes. All she had was her stump with the knife screwedto it. Me, I can throw a knife left-handed if I have to, but you bet Iwasn't going to risk Mother that way.

  Then I'd no sooner heard Pop's voice, breathy and a little high like anold man's will get, than it occurred to me that he must have been theone who had given the funny scream that had distracted the Pilot'sattention and let us get him. Which incidentally made Pop a quickthinker and imaginative to boot, and meant that he'd helped on thekilling.

  * * * * *

  Besides all that, Pop did not come in fawning and full of extravagantpraise, as most scroungers will. He just assumed equality with us rightfrom the start and he talked in an absolutely matter-of-fact way,neither praising nor criticizing one bit--too damn matter-of-fact andopen, for that matter, to suit my taste, but then I have heard otherbuggers say that some old men are apt to get talkative, though I hadnever worked with or run into one myself. Old people are very rare inthe Deathlands, as you might imagine.

  So the girl and me just scowled at him but did nothing to stop him as hecame along. Near us, his extra knives would be no advantage to him.

  "Hum," he said, "looks a lot like a guy I murdered five years back downLos Alamos way. Same silver monkey suit and almost as tall. Nice chaptoo--was trying to give me something for a fever I'd faked. That his gunmelted? My man didn't smoke after I gave him his quietus, but then itturned out he didn't have any metal on him. I wonder if this chap--" Hestarted to kneel down by the body.

  "Hands off, Pop!" I gritted at him. That was how we started calling himPop.

  "Why sure, sure," he said, staying there on one knee. "I won't lay afinger on him. It's just that I've heard the Alamosers have it rigged sothat any metal they're carrying melts when they die, and I was wonderingabout this boy. But he's all yours, friend. By the way, what's yourname, friend?"

  "Ray," I snarled. "Ray Baker." I think the main reason I told him wasthat I didn't want him calling me "friend" again. "You talk too much,Pop."

  "I suppose I do, Ray," he agreed. "What's your name, lady?"

  The girl just sort of hissed at him and he grinned at me as if to say,"Oh, women!" Then he said, "Why don't you go through his pockets, Ray?I'm real curious."

  "Shut up," I said, but I felt that he'd put me on the spot just thesame. I was curious about the guy's pockets myself, of course, but I wasalso wondering if Pop was alone or if he had somebody with him, andwhether there was anybody else in the plane or not--things like that,too many things. At the same time I didn't want to let on to Pop howuseless my right arm was--if I'd just get a twinge of feeling in thatarm, I knew I'd feel a lot more confident fast. I knelt down across thebody from him, started to lay Mother aside and then hesitated.

  * * * * *

  The girl gave me an encouraging look, as if to say, "I'll take care ofthe old geezer." On the strength of her look I put down Mother andstarted to pry open the Pilot's left hand, which was clenched in a fistthat looked a mite too big to have nothing inside it.

  The girl started to edge behind Pop, but he caught the movement rightaway and looked at her with a grin that was so knowing and yet sofriendly, and yet so pitying at the same time--with the pity of the oldpro for even the seasoned amateur--that in her place I think I'd haveblushed myself, as she did now ... through the streaks of the Pilot'sblood.

  "You don't have to worry none about me, lady," he said, running a handthrough his white hair and incidentally touching the pommel of one ofthe two knives strapped high on the back of his jacket so he could reachone over either shoulder. "I quit murdering some years back. It got tobe too much of a strain on my nerves."

  "Oh yeah?" I couldn't help saying as I pried up the Pilot's index fingerand started on the next. "Then why the stab-factory, Pop?"

  "Oh you mean those," he said, glancing down at his knives. "Well, thefact is, Ray, I carry them to impress buggers dumber than you and thelady here. Anybody wants to think I'm still a practicing murderer I gotno objections. Matter of sentiment, too, I just hate to part withthem--they bring back important memories. And then--you won't believethis, Ray, but I'm going to tell you just the same--guys just up andgive me their knives and I doubly hate to part with a gift."

  I wasn't going to say "Oh yeah?" again or "Shut up!" either, though Icertainly wished I could turn off Pop's spigot, or thought I did. Then Ifelt a painful tingling shoot down my right arm. I smiled at Pop andsaid, "Any other reasons?"

  "Yep," he said. "Got to shave and I might as well do it in style. A newblade every day in the fortnight is twice as good as the old ads. Youknow, it makes you keep a knife in fine shape if you shave with it. Whatyou got there, Ray?"

  "You were wrong, Pop," I said. "He did have some metal on him thatdidn't melt."

  I held up for them to see the object I'd extracted from his left fist:a bright steel cube measuring about an inch across each side, but itfelt lighter than if it were solid metal. Five of the faces lookedabsolutely bare. The sixth had a round button recessed in it.

  From the way they looked at it neither Pop nor the girl had the faintestidea of what it was. I certainly hadn't.

  "Had he pushed the button?" the girl asked. Her voice was throaty butunexpectedly refined, as if she'd done no talking at all, not even toherself, since coming to the Deathlands and so retained the culturedintonations she'd had earlier, whenever and wherever that had been. Itgave me a funny feeling, of course, because they were the first wordsI'd heard her speak.

  "Not from the way he was holding it," I told her. "The button waspointed up toward his thumb but the thumb was on the outside of hisfingers." I felt an unexpected satisfaction at having expressed myselfso clearly and I told myself not to get childish.

  The girl slitted her eyes. "Don't you push it, Ray," she said.

  "Think I'm nuts?" I told her, meanwhile sliding the cube into thesmaller pocket of my pants, where it fit tight and wouldn't turnsideways and the button maybe get pressed by accident. The tingling inmy right arm was almost unbearable now, but I was getting control overthe muscles again.

  "Pushing that button," I added, "might melt what's left of the plane, orblow us all up." It never hurts to emphasize that you may have anotherweapon in your possession, even if it's just a suicide bomb.

  "There was a man pushed another button once," Pop said softly andreflectively. His gaze went far out over the Deathlands and took in agood half of the horizon and he slowly shook his head. Then his facebrightened. "Did you know, Ray," he said, "that I actually met that man?Long afterwards. You don't believe me, I know, but I ac
tually did. Tellyou about it some other time."

  I almost said, "Thanks, Pop, for sparing me at least for a while," but Iwas afraid that would set him off again. Besides, it wouldn't have beenquite true. I've heard other buggers tell the yarn of how they met (andinvariably rubbed out) the actual guy who pushed the button or buttonsthat set the fusion missiles blasting toward their targets, but I felt asudden curiosity as to what Pop's version of the yarn would be. Oh well,I could ask him some other time, if we both lived that long. I startedto check the Pilot's pockets. My right hand could help a little now.

  * * * * *

  "Those look like mean burns you got there, lady," I heard Pop tell thegirl. He was right. There were blisters easy to see on three of thefingertips. "I've got some salve that's pretty good," he went on, "andsome clean cloth. I could put on a bandage for you if you wanted. Ifyour hand started to feel poisoned you could always tell Ray here toslip a knife in me."

  Pop was a cute gasser, you had to admit. I reminded myself that it wasPop's business to play up to the both of us, charm being the secretweapon of all scroungers.

  The girl gave a harsh little laugh. "Very well," she said, "but we willuse my salve, I know it works for me." And she started to lead Pop towhere we'd hidden our things.

  "I'll go with you," I told them, standing up.

  It didn't look like we were going to have any more murders today--Pophad got through the preliminary ingratiations pretty well and the girland me had had our catharsis--but that would be no excuse for any suchstupidity as letting the two of them get near my .38.

  Strolling to the cave and back I eased the situation a bit more bysaying, "That scream you let off, Pop, really helped. I don't know whatgave you the idea, but thanks."

  "Oh that," he said. "Forget about it."

  "I won't," I told him. "You may say you've quit killing, but helped on ado-in today."

  "Ray," he said a little solemnly, "if it'll make you feel any happier,I'll take a bit of the responsibility for every murder that's been donesince the beginning of time."

  I looked at him for a while. Then, "Pop, you're not by any chance thereligious type?" I asked suddenly.

  "Lord, no," he told us.

  That struck me as a satisfactory answer. God preserve me from thereligious type! We have quite a few of those in the Deathlands. Itgenerally means that they try to convert you to something before theykill you. Or sometimes afterwards.

  We completed our errands. I felt a lot more secure with Old Financier'sFriend strapped to my middle. Mother is wonderful but she is not enough.

  I dawdled over inspecting the Pilot's pockets, partly to give my righthand time to come back all the way. And to tell the truth I didn't muchenjoy the job--a corpse, especially such a handsome cadaver as this,just didn't go with Pop's brand of light patter.

  * * * * *

  Pop did up the girl's hand in high style, bandaging each fingerseparately and then persuading her to put on a big left-hand work glovehe took out of his small pack.

  "Lost the right," he explained, "which was the only one I ever usedanyway. Never knew until now why I kept this. How does it feel, Alice?"

  I might have known he'd worm her name out of her. It occurred to me thatPop's ideas of scrounging might extend to Alice's favors. The urgedoesn't die out when you get old, they tell me. Not completely.

  He'd also helped her replace the knife on her stump with the hook.

  By that time I'd poked into all the Pilot's pockets I could get atwithout stripping him and found nothing but three irregularly shapedblobs of metal, still hot to the touch. Under the charred spots, ofcourse.

  I didn't want the job of stripping him. Somebody else could do a littlework, I told myself. I've been bothered by bodies before (as who hasn't,I suppose?) but this one was really beginning to make me sick. Maybe Iwas cracking up, it occurred to me. Murder is a very wearing business,as all Deathlanders know, and although some crack earlier than others,all crack in the end.

  I must have been showing how I was feeling because, "Cheer up, Ray," Popsaid. "You and Alice have done a big murder--I'd say the subject was sixfoot ten--so you ought to be happy. You've drawn a blank on his pocketsbut there's still the plane."

  "Yeah, that's right," I said, brightening a little. "There's still thestuff in the plane." I knew there were some items I couldn't hope for,like .38 shells, but there'd be food and other things.

  "Nuh-uh," Pop corrected me. "I said _the plane_. You may have thoughtit's wrecked, but I don't. Have you taken a real gander at it? It'sworth doing, believe me."

  I jumped up. My heart was suddenly pounding. I was glad of an excuse toget away from the body, but there was a lot more in my feelings thanthat. I was filled with an excitement to which I didn't want to give aname because it would make the let-down too great.

  One of the wide stubby wings of the plane, raking downward so that itstip almost touched the concrete, had hidden the undercarriage of thefuselage from our view. Now, coming around the wing, I saw that _therewas no undercarriage_.

  I had to drop to my hands and knees and scan around with my cheek nextto the concrete before I'd believe it. _The "wrecked" plane was at allpoints at least six inches off the ground._

  * * * * *

  I got to my feet again. I was shaking. I wanted to talk but I couldn't.I grabbed the leading edge of the wing to stop from falling. The wholebody of the plane gave a fraction of an inch and then resisted myleaning weight with lazy power, just like a gyroscope.

  "Antigravity," I croaked, though you couldn't have heard me two feet.Then my voice came back. "Pop, Alice! They got antigravity!Antigravity--and it's working!"

  Alice had just come around the wing and was facing me. She was shakingtoo and her face was white like I knew mine was. Pop was politelystanding off a little to one side, watching us curiously. "Told youyou'd won a real prize," he said in his matter-of-fact way.

  Alice wet her lips. "Ray," she said, "we can get away."

  Just those four words, but they did it. Something in me unlocked--no,exploded describes it better.

  "We can go places!" I almost shouted.

  "Beyond the dust," she said. "Mexico City. South America!" She wasforgetting the Deathlander's cynical article of belief that the dustnever ends, but then so was I. It makes a difference whether or notyou've got a means of doing something.

  "Rio!" I topped her with. "The Indies. Hong Kong. Bombay. Egypt.Bermuda. The French Riviera!"

  "Bullfights and clean beds," she burst out with. "Restaurants. Swimmingpools. Bathrooms!"

  "Skindiving," I took it up with, as hysterical as she was. "Road racesand roulette tables."

  "Bentleys and Porsches!"

  "Aircoups and DC4s and Comets!"

  "Martinis and hashish and ice cream sodas!"

  "Hot food! Fresh coffee! Gambling, smoking, dancing, music, drinks!" Iwas going to add _women_, but then I thought of how hard-bitten littleAlice would look beside the dream creatures I had in mind. I tactfullysuppressed the word but I filed the idea away.

  I don't think either of us knew exactly what we were saying. Alice inparticular I don't believe was old enough to have experienced almost anyof the things the words referred to. They were mysterious symbols oflong-interdicted delights spewing out of us.

  "Ray," Alice said, hurrying to me, "let's get aboard."

  "Yes," I said eagerly and then I saw a little problem. The door to theplane was a couple of feet above our heads. Whoever hoisted himself upfirst--or got hoisted up, as would have to be the case with Alice onaccount of her hand--would be momentarily at the other's mercy. I guessit occurred to Alice too because she stopped and looked at me. It was alittle like the old teaser about the fox, the goose, and the corn.

  Maybe, too, we were both a little scared the plane was booby-trapped.

  * * * * *

  Pop solved the problem in the direct way I might have ex
pected of him bystepping quietly between us, giving a light leap, catching hold of thecurving sill, chinning himself on it, and scrambling up into the planeso quickly that we'd hardly have had time to do anything about it ifwe'd wanted to. Pop couldn't be much more than a bantamweight, even withall his knives. The plane sagged an inch and then swung up again.

  As Pop disappeared from view I backed off, reaching for my .38, but amoment later he stuck out his head and grinned down at us, resting hiselbows on the sill.

  "Come on up," he said. "It's quite a place. I promise not to push anybuttons 'til you get here, though there's whole regiments of them."

  I grinned back at Pop and gave Alice a boost up. She didn't like it, butshe could see it had to be her next. She hooked onto the sill and Popcaught hold of her left wrist below the big glove and heaved.

  Then it was my turn. I didn't like it. I didn't like the idea of thosetwo buggers poised above me while my hands were helpless on the sill.But I thought _Pop's a nut. You can trust a nut, at least a little ways,though you can't trust nobody else._ I heaved myself up. It was strangeto feel the plane giving and then bracing itself like something alive.It seemed to have no trouble accepting our combined weight, which afterall was hardly more than half again the Pilot's.

  * * * * *

  Inside the cabin was pretty small but as Pop had implied, oh my!Everything looked soft and smoothly curved, like you imagine yourinsides being, and almost everything was a restfully dull silver. Thegeneral shape of it was something like the inside of an egg. Forward,which was the larger end, were a couple of screens and a wide viewportand some small dials and the button brigades Pop had mentioned, lined uplike blank typewriter keys but enough for writing Chinese.

  Just aft of the instrument panel were two very comfortable-lookingstrange low seats. They seemed to be facing backwards until I realizedthey were meant to be knelt into. The occupant, I could see, would sortof sprawl forward, his hands free for button-pushing and such. Therewere spongy chinrests.

  Aft was a tiny instrument panel and a kind of sideways seat, not nearlyso fancy. The door by which we'd entered was to the side, a little aft.

  I didn't see any indications of cabinets or fixed storage spaces of anykinds, but somehow stuck to the walls here and there were quite a fewsmooth blobby packages, mostly dull silver too, some large, somesmall--valises and handbags, you might say.

  All in all, it was a lovely cabin and, more than that, it seemed livedin. It looked as if it had been shaped for, and maybe by one man. It hada personality you could feel, a strong but warm personality of its own.

  Then I realized whose personality it was. I almost got sick--so close toit I started telling myself it must be something antigravity did to yourstomach.

  But it was all too interesting to let you get sick right away. Pop waspoking into two of the large mound-shaped cases that were sitting looseand open on the right-hand seat, as if ready for emergency use. One hada folded something with straps on it that was probably a parachute. Thesecond had I judged a thousand or more of the inch cubes such as I'dpried out of the Pilot's hand, all neatly stacked in a cubical boxinside the soft outer bag. You could see the one-cube gap where he'dtaken the one.

  I decided to take the rest of the bags off the walls and open them, if Icould figure out how. The others had the same idea, but Alice had totake off her hook and put on her pliers, before she could make progress.Pop helped her. There was room enough for us to do these things withoutcrowding each other too closely.

  By the time Alice was set to go I'd discovered the trick of getting thebags off. You couldn't pull them away from the wall no matter what forceyou used, at least I couldn't, and you couldn't even slide them straightalong the walls, but if you just gave them a gentle counterclockwisetwist they came off like nothing. Twisting them clockwise glued themback on. It was very strange, but I told myself that if these boys couldgenerate antigravity fields they could create screwy fields of othersorts.

  It also occurred to me to wonder if "these boys" came from Earth. ThePilot had looked human enough, but these accomplishments didn't--not bymy standards for human achievement in the Age of the Deaders. At anyrate I had to admit to myself that my pet term "cultural queer" did notdescribe to my own satisfaction members of a culture which could createthings like this cabin. Not that I liked making the admission. It's hardto admit an exception to a pet gripe against things.

  The excitement of getting down and opening the Christmas packages savedme from speculating too much along these or any other lines.

  I hit a minor jackpot right away. In the same bag were a compass, acatalytic pocket lighter, a knife with a saw-tooth back edge that mademy affection for Mother waver, a dust mask, what looked like a compactwater-filtration unit, and several other items adding up to a deluxeDeathlands Survival Kit.

  There were some goggles in the kit I didn't savvy until I put them onand surveyed the landscape out the viewport. A nearby dust drift I knewto be hot glowed green as death in the slightly smoky lenses. Wow! Thosespecs had Geiger counters beat a mile and I privately bet myself theyworked at night. I stuck them in my pocket quick.

  * * * * *

  We found bunches of tiny electronics parts--I think they were; spools ofmagnetic tape, but nothing to play it on; reels of very narrow film withframes much too small to see anything at all unmagnified; about threethousand cigarettes in unlabeled transparent packs of twenty--we lit upquick, using my new lighter; a picture book that didn't make much sensebecause the views might have been of tissue sections or starfields, wecouldn't quite decide, and there were no captions to help; a thin bookwith ricepaper pages covered with Chinese characters--_that_ was apuzzler; a thick book with nothing but columns of figures, all zeros andones and nothing else; some tiny chisels; and a mouth organ. Pop, who'dmake a point of just helping in the hunt, appropriated that last item--Imight have known he would, I told myself. Now we could expect "Turkey inthe Straw" at odd moments.

  Alice found a whole bag of what were women's things judging from thefrilliness of the garments included. She set aside some squeeze-packsand little gadgets and elastic items right away, but she didn't take anyof the clothes. I caught her measuring some kind of transparent chemiseagainst herself when she thought we weren't looking; it was for a girlmaybe six sizes bigger.

  * * * * *

  And we found food. Cans of food that was heated up inside by the timeyou got the top rolled off, though the outside could still be cool tothe touch. Cans of boneless steak, boneless chops, cream soup, peas,carrots, and fried potatoes--they weren't labeled at all but you couldgenerally guess the contents from the shape of the can. Eggs that heatedwhen you touched them and were soft-boiled evenly and barely firm by thetime you had the shell broke. And small plastic bottles of strong coffeethat heated up hospitably too--in this case the tops did a five-secondhesitation in the middle of your unscrewing them.

  At that point as you can imagine we let the rest of the packages go andhad ourselves a feast. The food ate even better than it smelled. It wasreal hard for me not to gorge.

  Then as I was slurping down my second bottle of coffee I happened tolook out the viewport and see the Pilot's body and the darkening puddlearound it and the coffee began to taste, well, not bad, but sickening. Idon't think it was guilty conscience. Deathlanders outgrow those if theyever have them to start with; loners don't keep consciences--it takescultures to give you those and make them work. Artisticinappropriateness is the closest I can come to describing what botheredme. Whatever it was, it made me feel lousy for a minute.

  About the same time Alice did an odd thing with the last of _her_coffee. She slopped it on a rag and used it to wash her face. I guessshe'd caught a reflection of herself with the blood smears. She didn'teat any more after that either. Pop kept on chomping away, a slow feederand appreciative.

  To be doing something I started to inspect the instrument panel andright away I was all exci
ted again. The two screens were what got me.They showed shadowy maps, one of North America, the other of the World.The first one was a whole lot like the map I'd been imaginingearlier--faint colors marked the small "civilized" areas including onein Eastern Canada and another in Upper Michigan that must be "countries"I didn't know about, and the Deathlands were real dark just as I'dalways maintained they should be!

  South of Lake Michigan was a brightly luminous green point that must bewhere we were, I decided. And for some reason the colored areasrepresenting Los Alamos and Atlantic Highlands were glowing brighterthan the others--they had an active luminosity. Los Alamos was blue,Atla-Hi violet. Los Alamos was shown having more territory than Iexpected. Savannah Fortress for that matter was a whole _lot_ biggerthan I'd have made it, pushing out pseudopods west and northeast alongthe coast, though its red didn't have the extra glow. But itsgrowth-pattern reeked of imperialism.

  * * * * *

  The World screen showed dim color patches too, but for the moment I wasmore interested in the other.

  The button armies marched right up to the lower edge of the screens andright away I got the crazy hunch that they were connected with spots onthe map. Push the button for a certain spot and the plane would gothere! Why, one button even seemed to have a faint violet nimbus aroundit (or else my eyes were going bad) as if to say, "Push me and we go toAtlantic Highlands."

  A crazy notion as I say and no sensible way to handle a plane'snavigation according to any standards I could imagine, but then as I'vealso said this plane didn't seem to be designed according to anystandards but rather in line with one man's ideas, including his whims.

  At any rate that was my hunch about the buttons and the screens. Ittantalized rather than helped, for the only button that seemed to bemarked in any way was the one (guessing by color) for AtlanticHighlands, and I certainly didn't want to go there. Like Alamos, Atla-Hihas the reputation for being a mysteriously dangerous place. Not openlymean and death-on-Deathlanders like Walla Walla or Porter, but buggerswho swing too close to Atla-Hi have a way of never turning up again. Younever expect to see again two out of three buggers who pass in thenight, but for three out of three to keep disappearing is againststatistics.

  Alice was beside me now, scanning things over too, and from the way shefrowned and what not I gathered she had caught my hunch and also sharedmy puzzlement.

  Now was the time, all right, when we needed an instruction manual andnot one in Chinese neither!

  Pop swallowed a mouthful and said, "Yep, now'd be a good time to havehim back for a minute, to explain things a bit. Oh, don't take offense,Ray, I know how it was for you and for you too, Alice. I know the bothof you _had_ to murder him, it wasn't a matter of free choice, it's theway us Deathlanders are built. Just the same, it'd be nice to have a wayof killing 'em and keeping them on hand at the same time. I rememberfeeling that way after murdering the Alamoser I told you about. You see,I come down with the very fever I'd faked and almost died of it, whilethe man who could have cured me easy wouldn't do nothing but perfume thelandscape with the help of a gang of anaerobic bacteria. Stubbornsingle-minded cuss!"

  * * * * *

  The first part of that oration started up my sickness again and irked menot a little. Dammit, what right had Pop to talk about how all usDeathlanders _had to_ kill (which was true enough and by itself wouldhave made me cotton to him) if as he'd claimed earlier _he'd_ been ableto quit killing? Pop was, an old hypocrite, I told myself--he'd helpedmurder the Pilot, he'd admitted as much--and Alice and me'd be betteroff if we bedded the both of them down together. But then the secondpart of what Pop said so made me want to feel pleasantly sorry formyself and laugh at the same time that I forgave the old geezer.Practically everything Pop said had that reassuring touch of insanityabout it.

  So it was Alice who said, "Shut up, Pop"--and rather casually atthat--and she and me went on to speculate and then to argue about whichbuttons we ought to push, if any and in what order.

  "Why not just start anywhere and keep pushing 'em one afteranother?--you're going to have to eventually, may as well start now,"was Pop's light-hearted contribution to the discussion. "Got to takesome chances in this life." He was sitting in the back seat and stillnibbling away like a white-topped mangy old squirrel.

  Of course Alice and me knew more than that. We kept making guesses as tohow the buttons worked and then backing up our guesses with hotlanguage. It was a little like two savages trying to decide how to playchess by looking at the pieces. And then the old escape-to-paradisetheme took hold of us again and we studied the colored blobs on theWorld screen, trying to decide which would have the fanciestaccommodations for blase ex-murderers. On the North America screen toothere was an intriguing pink patch in southern Mexico that seemed totake in old Mexico City and Acapulco too.

  "Quit talking and start pushing," Pop prodded us. "This way you'regetting nowhere fast. I can't stand hesitation, it riles my nerves."

  Alice thought you ought to push ten buttons at once, using both hands,and she was working out patterns for me to try. But I was off on a kickabout how we should darken the plane to see if any of the other buttonsglowed beside the one with the Atla-Hi violet.

  "Look here, you killed a big man to get this plane," Pop broke in,coming up behind me. "Are you going to use it for discussion groups orare you going to fly it?"

  "Quiet," I told him. I'd got a new hunch and was using the dark glassesto scan the instrument panel. They didn't show anything.

  "Dammit, I can't stand this any more," Pop said and reached a hand andarm between us and brought it down on about fifty buttons, I'd judge.

  The other buttons just went down and up, but the Atla-Hi button wentdown and stayed down.

  The violet blob of Atla-Hi on the screen got even brighter in the nextfew moments.

  The door closed with a tiny thud.

  We took off.