Sheklov let a thought form in his mind.

t made it!

The realization hit him with almost physical violence, so that he did not immediately react when Turpin opened the car door and motioned for him to get in. Belatedly he complied, noting the decadent luxury of the vehicle's interior . . . and then the sullen inertia of the door as he closed it.

Armored, of course. The thing must weigh six or seven tons. And in plain sight next to the radiation-counter: a gun, its muzzle snugly inserted into a socket on the dash, its butt convenient for the driver's right hand.

Well, he was going to have to get used to that kind of thing.

“What about tracks?” he said, thinking of how deeply so much weight could drive tires into the ground as soft as he had just been walking on. Turpin started the car and bean to turn it around. It was equipped with manual con– trols. naturally. He'd had it dinned into him that over here people liked to gamble with each other's lives on the roads.

“Sonic projectors in the wheel-arches.” Turpin answered. “They homogenize dust and mud. If someone comes by before the next rain he might realize a car has been this way, but he won't have a hope in hell of identifying a tread-pattern. But don't talk until we're out of the reserved area, please. I shall have to use some pretty tricky gadgets to get us through the perimeter alarms. As soon as we hit the superway, through, we can relax.”

The third time he sawed the car back and forth, it was facing in the direction he wanted, and he sent it silently down the track, back to the superway, back to the real America.

When the car had gone, Danty stepped out from the bushes and began to walk unconcernedly in its wake. He was a mile or so from the superway. He would reach it a few minutes before dawn.

He didn't bother to turn the site back on. • ,(r)

The mud on Danty's face had dried. Rubbing at it as he walked, he reduced it to a grayish 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 leukemia 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 Dantyan expression of surprise.

Not at what he saw. Danty was ordinary enough to look at, apart from the mud on his face: young, thin, midbrown 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.

“Ali. 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 center 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, never the less their speed increased perceptibly 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 bead. “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 CowvMe 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 traveling this way?” Rollins curled his lip. It was probably in his mind to add: Because if you do, you must be a lousy rebl 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 program. 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 armored, 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.