In the meantime, if he didn't get moving, he'd have to buy that taxi. Max got up and started down the slope. The helicab was parked in front of the house and the driver was standing near it, looking out over the great raw gash of the Missouri-Arkansas Power Project. The fields Max once had worked were gone, the cut reached clear into the barn yard. The house was still standing but the door hung by one hinge and some kid had broken all the windows. Max looked at the house and wondered where Maw and the man she had married were now?--not that he really cared and no one around Clyde's Corners seemed to know. They had told him at the courthouse that Maw had collected her half of the government-condemnation money and the pair of them had left town.

Probably their money was gone by now--Max's half of the money was gone completely, it hadn't quite paid his fine. If they were broke, maybe Montgomery was having to do some honest work, for Maw wasn't the woman to let a man loaf when she was needing. The thought pleased Max; he felt he had a score to settle with Montgomery, but Maw was probably settling it for him.

The driver turned toward him. "Be a big thing when they get this finished. You ready to go, sir?"

Max took a last glance around. "Yes. I'm all through here."

They climbed into the cabin. "Where to? Back to the Corners?"

Max thought about it. He really ought to save money--but shucks, he would save plenty this next trip. "No, fly me over to Springfield and drop me at the southbound ring road station. I'd like to make it in time to catch the _Javelin_."

That would put him in Earthport before morning.