The trader seemed to wilt. Reluctantly, he nodded. “It's those Valley clowns,” he said. “They think I'm spying on them.”

“Well. You are.” Again, Liz spoke up where a local girl would have kept her mouth shut.

“That doesn't mean I want to get killed on account of it!” Luke exclaimed. He turned to her father. “You got some place you can, like, hide me, man?”

Nobody from this alternate knew about the subbasement or was likely to find it. All the same, Liz thought No! as loud as she could. She didn't want Luke going down there. That was where transposition chambers materialized. Nobody from this alternate had any business seeing such things.

“How far behind you are they?” Dad asked.

“Not far enough,” Luke answered.

“They'll know to come here,” Liz said. “People will remember he's visited us. Or maybe the Valley soldiers have bloodhounds.”

“I took care of that-I put down ground pepper.” The ghost of a smile crossed Luke 's face. As if on cue. two dogs started baying frantically. “Well, that bought me a little time, anyways.”

When he talked about pepper, he meant the red kind. It grew in the New World. Black pepper was a rare luxury here. Most of it came from Old Time supermarket shelves. The plants from which black peppercorns came grew only across the sea. Ocean traffic aboard windjammers was even more erratic than hauling goods overland.

Dad looked very unhappy, and pepper had nothing to do with it. “They will come here- Liz is dead right about that,”' he growled. “I ought to turn you lose and see how fast you can run.“

“Wouldn't try that.” Luke 's right hand dropped toward a pistol.

“Wouldn't try that,”' Mom said from out of the darkness. Luke froze-her voice carried conviction. Very slowly and carefully, he moved his hand away. She didn't say anything else, not even, That's better. No point to letting him know exactly where she was.

“Well, come on,” Dad said, and led Luke into the courtyard. No! Liz wanted to yell again. Biting her lip. she made herself keep quiet.

Dad didn't send Luke down to the subbasement. Instead, he got a ladder and nudged it up against the ceiling of a storeroom. “There's a hidey-hole up there,” he said. “Push aside a couple of boards, get in, and put 'em back. And keep quiet from then on out, if you know* what's good for you.”'

Luke touched the brim of his hat. “Much obliged to you. sir.”

“Yes,” Dad said. “You are. Now climb.”

The trader from Speedro did, and disappeared into the hidey-hole. “I didn't even know that was there,” Liz said in a low voice.

“Life is full of surprises sometimes,” Dad answered, which might have meant anything or nothing.

Liz didn't get much of a chance to figure out what it meant, because more knocks came from the front door. “The Valley men!” she squeaked.

Dad took down the ladder. “Mm, I don't suppose it's the Tooth Fairy or the Great Pumpkin,” he agreed. “We'd better answer it, don't you think?” He sounded almost indecently calm.

“Open up, in the name of King Zev!” the men outside shouted. Liz was pretty sure the Great Pumpkin didn't go around yelling things like that.

Dad did open the door. Liz went with him. Mom stayed out of sight-and kept the pistol where she could use it in a hurry. “Hello,” Dad told the Valley men. who did have a couple of bloodhounds with them. “You probably want to know about Luke the trader, don't you?”

“Better believe we do,” growled the sergeant who held the dogs' leashes, “You got him here? There's a twenty-dollar reward on his head.”

Twenty dollars, in this alternate, was a lot of money. Dad sounded impressed when he said, “Good grief! What did he do?”

“Spied for the enemy, that's what,” the sergeant answered, and he wasn't lying- Luke had done just [hat. “I'm gonna ask you one more time, buddy-you got him here?”' He sounded tough and mean.

Dad looked sorry as he shook his head. He made a better actor than Liz would have given him credit for. “With that kind of reward, I wish I did. But I sent him off with a flea in his ear. I don't want any trouble with anybody.”

“Can we track him?” another sergeant asked the dog handler. Then he asked Liz 's father, “Which way did he go?” Liz thought she would have asked those questions in the opposite order.

“That way.” Dad pointed south.

“I don't know.” The sergeant with the bloodhounds looked almost as sorrowful as they did. ''That person”-which wasn't exactly what he said-”has some kind of smelly stuff to mess up his trail. Rocky and Bullwinkle got all fubared before we came here.”

Rocky and Bullwinkle? Liz thought. They aren't dogs! But they were here and now. And what was fubared supposed to mean? The English they spoke around here was mostly easy to follow, but every once in a while…

The bloodhounds did pick up a scent. It was probably the one Luke had left the last time he walked out of the house. The Valley soldiers seemed happy enough to let them follow it. One of the men nodded politely to Liz and her father as the group hurried off down the street.

Dad's shoulders slumped in relief when he reached for the bar to close up the door again. “I'm getting too old for this,” he muttered.

“I'm getting too old for this, and I'm a lot younger than you are,” Liz said.

That got her a weary grin. “ 'Do field work,' they told me,” Dad said. ““You can't really understand anything without field work,' they said. I'll tell you what I understand-I understand how you can be scared out of your gourd all the time when you're doing field work, that's what.”

“Yeah,” Liz said. “And there are plenty of alternates worse than this one, too.”

“Tell me about it!” her father exclaimed. “There are probably some of them where they give you your money back if you don't have a coronary the first day you're there.” He snapped his fingers. “And I understand one more thing, too.”

“What's that?” Liz asked.

“I'd better get Luke some water and a honey bucket,” he answered. “With luck, a honey bucket with a lid.”

“A honey bucket?” Liz said, and then, “Oh.” Most of the time, euphemisms made her impatient. That one, though, she found she liked. She added, “You'd better let him know you're not giving him to the Valley soldiers, too.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dad said. “I think he's liable to shoot first and ask questions later.” He sang out as he hauled the ladder into place again: “It's just me! I've come with your fresh cauliflowers!”

Cauliflowers? Liz wondered. Dad could be weird sometimes. She didn't believe this was the right moment for it.

But maybe she was wrong. Luke opened the hidey-hole, and he didn't shoot first without bothering to ask questions later. “They gone?” he asked-quietly now, so his voice wouldn't carry. Questions first: the right way.

“For now, anyway,” Dad answered. “How long do you want to stay there?” He asked questions, too.

“I was thinking till tomorrow night, if that's cool,” the trader from Speedro said. “That way, they won't jump up and down so much, you know what I mean? If I went and split tonight, they'd still be all uptight, like.”

'“Groovy,” Dad said, a small smile on his face. He enjoyed talking like a twentieth-century hippie. Liz was fried if she could see why. It made him sound like a jerk. She sure thought so, anyhow. “I brought you some goodies, then,” Dad went on. He handed up the water and the… honey bucket. Then, from the top of the ladder, he told Liz, “Why don't you get our friend some bread and a chunk of that chicken we had tonight?”

Because I don't want to. Because I'm not more than fifty-one percent convinced he is our friend. Because I’d rather give him a clout in the teeth than a drumstick. All of that went through Liz 's mind in a fraction of a second. None of it came out. The only thing that did was, “Sure, Dad.”