gaps. Listen." I put an arm real uncle-like around her shoulder. "You're a helluva gipsy. I never seen anyone better at dredgin' a bay or sprayin' a forest full of pear-thrips than you. I am proud to be your partner on any job Stack gives us. But that's where it ends, you latch? Strictly a professional relationship."

Geraldine had turned the taps off by the time I finished my speechifyin'. She knuckled her eyes, then extended one hand. We shook.

"Okay," she said, sadder'n a preacher who's seen the collection come up empty, "if that's the way you want it. It's better than nothing, I guess."

We loosed our shake. "See you on the plane, Lew."

I went back to my packin'. What a mixed-up gal. I wondered why people had to lose it when it came to their emotions. Thank the Lord we at least had tropes and strobers nowadays to help. It was hard to imagine how it had been just a few decades ago, before the bioboys understood all there was to know about the brain. Not that you should come to rely too much on such aids, I believed. There was something to be said for a natural life. Why, look at me, for instance. Once I had taken all the mnemotropins prescribed in school and learned what I had to, did I keep on takin' 'em? Nope, not me. As my daddy always said, "Son, if we was meant to get our experience out a a pill, the Good Lord woulda made 'em easier to swallow."

Before that day was over, we were boardin' a DDI suborb, all laughin' and jokin' at the thought of hittin' the streets of Dallas once again. We had barely settled into the

flight, however, when we were told to buckle up once more for the landin' and take our circadian-adjusters. That's the problem with these hour-long jumps: they don't give you no time to feel like you really been travelin'. One minute your ass is in Mongolia, the next minute you're home. It does require some mental gymnastics.

We got hung up in Customs for a couple of hours-longer'n the flight itself. Turned out a couple of our gips had tried to make a little extracurricular eft for themselves by attemptin' to smuggle back Mongolian bugs in their blood. Probably some kind of ethnic-specific high that they figured would sell well among the Dallas community of ex-pat Hong Kongers. The Customs probes had unzipped the nongenotype codes faster'n spit dryin' on a griddle, and Stack had some fancy dancin' to do to get off with just a bloodwash, by claimin' our innocent liddle boys was infected without their knowledge.

In the terminal we were crossin' the atrium when a squad of IMF crick-cops bulled through, carryin' their chromo-cookers and packin' splat-pistols, lookin' mean as eighty-year-old virgins with libido-locks, headin' doubtlessly for some Fourth-World infection or infestation of some sort. We gave 'em a wide berth outa respect, as they are about the only ones with a dirtier job than us gips. We got it relatively easy, dealin' with old well-known hazards, while they get all the new and superdangerous shit.

Outside DDI had a couple of Energenetix cowbellies with drivers waitin' for us. Most of the folks clambered right into the minivans (I made a point of gettin' in a different one

from Geraldine), but Tino and Drifter-the boys who had gotten pinched by Customs-had to take a piss real bad. Side effect of the bloodwash. They'd be leakier'n a sharecropper's cabin in a hurricane for the next day.

Stack called out, ''Don't waste the biomass, boys."

Tino and Drifter grumbled, but they each opened up a fuel intake cap, unvelcroed their flies, butted their groins up to the vans, and did their best to top off the tanks.

Refastenin' their coveralls, the two climbed in rather sheepishly. Tamarind, a bantam-weight black gal sittin' next to me, who always managed to get off a great zinger with perfect timin', said, "A lot different than the last sockets I seen you boys plugging."

Everyone cut loose with all the laughter we'd been holdin' in, roarin', and howlin' fit to burst. Even Drifter and Tino eventually joined in the gipsy camaraderie. Hell, 'we knew it could've been any of us that'd got caught, and we couldn't hold the wasted time against them. Come what may, us gips hang tighter'n the plies of steelwood laminated with barnacle-grip.

Thus enjoyin' ourselves in our loose gipsy way, we motored south out of the mass of gleamin', glassy Dallas towers, headin' toward our latest assignment.

Waxahachie was about twenty-five miles south of the city, so we had roughly a forty-minute drive. (You can't push a cowbelly much faster'n sixty kph, especially when fully loaded.) Some gips settled in for a nap, which helps the circadian-adjusters kick in, but I was too excited to be back home to sleep, so I levered open a window and let the familiar

dusty scents of a Texas summer waft in while I watched the scenery laze by.

We passed a small orchard of peachtrees at one point. The trees were full of splices harvesting the force-grown fruit. The human overseer lay in the shade, collar-box by his side, within easy reach. To me the splices looked about 50 percent chimp, 40 percent lemur, and 10 percent human. But I coulda been off by a few percent either way.

"I sure do dislike those splices," said Tamarind. "Thank heavens we got laws keeping them down."

"Not to mention the collars and diet-leashes," I added. Then I got a funny notion which I had to share. "Hey, Tam, you ever feel weird about the splices and your heritage and all? I mean, like maybe they hold the same position now that your folks did, a couple of centuries ago?"

"Shit no. They aren't human, after all, are they? And that makes all the difference."

I could see her point. "Well, I guess in a way the splices make it possible for an old redneck like me to be buddies with a gal of color like yourself and mostways not think twice about it."

Tam punched me in the shoulder. "You got it, Lew."

Shortly after that, we pulled into the parking lot of the motel Geraldine had mentioned to me back at Lake Baikal. There were a lot of other DDI vehicles there, all with the tweezered helix on their sides, and, as I later found out, some other gipsies were even bunkin' in the quarters that used to house the Slikslak staff. I figured this for one of the biggest deconstruction jobs I had ever taken part in. With any luck,

it'd last a good long time, so I could continue to enjoy the comforts of a real bed, good American food, and sweet Texas poontang, a juicy sample of which I was gonna make haste to lay my hands and stiff probe on as soon as possible.

In the motel lobby, Stack called our names off a roster. "Shooter, you're bunking with Benzene Bill in three-sixteen."

I swore. Benzene Bill-so called for the tattoon of a spinning snake-in-mouth Kekule ring he sported off his massive right bicep-was a mean-natured sumbitch I had never gotten along with. Maybe I woulda been better off with Geraldine, even if I had hadda fend off her constant feminine advances.

I found Bill in the crowd, and we headed for our room together in tense silence.

Inside, Bill said, "Lissen, Sludgehead, if I want to bring some nookie back here, you'd better clear out on my say-so, whether it's for the whole night or not."

I put my kit down and calmly faced him. "Bill, the facts is, you are as ugly as an ape 'n' hornytoad splice, and no sleeve is gonna look twice at you, lessen she's paid some big eft, or she's maybe been dosed with a combo of uglybuster and lubricine."

Bill grabbed the front of my coverall. "Why, you cocksucker-"

"Bill," I said all calm and gentle-like, "do you remember Marseilles?"

He snorted then, but he let me go right fast. Retreating to his bed, he began unpacking his kit, and there was no more said about me clearin' out for his improbable ruttin'.

It's good to get the terms straight in any relationship right from the start.