Through business streets he followed it, where eyes turned to follow
its passage and furtive Titanians whispered to each other behind
concealing palms, and--as the squalid little shops thinned out--into
the suburban residential districts ... finally quite out of the city
proper.
Out here it was practically impossible to follow the truck without
being noticed. Once the city's artificial foliage was left behind, the
landscape of Titan's countryside stretched stark and severe so far
as the eye could see ... its drab, sandy monotony broken only by an
occasional dune, its dull sameness embellished only by the silvery span
of roadbed upon which humans must travel to live on Titan.
By dropping far behind the roller, Rocky was able to keep it in sight
for a little while longer. But then his efforts came suddenly to
naught as the driver of the truck--a Titanian--swerved completely off
the lead highway and began rolling across the barren desert toward a
hummock outlined on the horizon some miles distant.
* * * * *
Lacking a bulger, Rocky was stopped cold. No way to follow, now. But he
waited and watched a while longer to assure himself that the swollen
rise of ground _was_ the roller's destination, then strolled back into
New Boston.
Here he sought the privacy of a 'fresher, and called Bud on the
vocoder. Mulligan answered immediately.
"Yeah, Rocky? Everything all right?"
"Everything's all _wrong_! The confounded roller left the highway and
plowed across the gray-and-nasty. Having no desire to be cooked into
frizzled beef, I gave up the chase."
"That's tough, Chief. What do we do now?"
"I," said Rocky, "stay right here. You load a couple of bulgers in a
roller and come charging back here as fast as you can. I _still_ want
to find out what Grossman's hiding in those hills that needs to be tied
up with twenty-foot bands of forged steel."
"O.Q." said Bud. "Sit tight. I'll pick you up in three shakes."
"Make it two!"
"One," chuckled Bud. "I'm practically on my way now."
He was as good as his word. Rocky had only finished one cigarette when
a blue S.S.P. roller came tearing up the highway from Fort Beausejour.
Bud jumped out, bulger-clad and carrying a second protective suit for
his comrade.
"Here you are, pal. Where do we go from here?"
"Out of town on the east highway. I'll show you. A hill rising out
of--Hey, wait a minute! Who's driving this crate?"
Bud looked embarrassed.
"Oh--she is!"
"She?"
"Miss Graham. She--"
"--refused," chimed in Lynn Graham, "to be left out of it. Indeed I
did. Captain Russell, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, deceiving
us the way you did. When the Sergeant, here, told me who you _really_
were, and what you were doing here, I almost _died_ with excitement!
And to think that you, a Captain in the S.I.D., pretended to be a
mythologist! It's the funniest thing--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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