Crater Lake

The albino nodded. "Keep sec men out of m'ass. I'll hide up, 'round ten miles out. If'n there's fork, I'll leave marker which took. Watch for me."

Quickly they gathered around the open window of the dorm, which overlooked the sullen expanse of the lake at the rear of the long building, and watched Jak leave. Fi

"Keep warm," Krysty warned the boy.

"Sure. By time get safe away, light'll have come up. Find shelter. Got fire."

"Go," Ryan said, patting the ski

"Welcome To Gi

His great head wobbled and shook on his scrawny neck, as though it might topple onto his desk at any moment. Behind him stood two stone-faced sec men, arms folded across their chests, carbines slung over their shoulders. Ryan stood with Doc, J.B. and Fi

"Nobody speaks to me? I think that this must be because of guilt."

Ryan shook his head. "Not so, Mayor Sissy. The boy joined us only hours before we met your sec patrol. We thought he might be a mutie, but we let him travel with us until we could be sure."

"If you'd been sure?"

"If we'd been sure the boy was a mutie, then I'd have chilled him myself."

"Or brought him here for trial and then execution."

"Yeah, of course."

"Now we must decide what to do with you. Your home-keeps are waiting for me to see them and decide if they are truly whores. What is your opinion, Outworlder Cawdor? Whores?"

Ryan shrugged, as though the question wasn't of the least concern to him. "What you decide will be right, Mayor Sissy."

He clapped his chubby little hands softly. "Well spoken, for an outworlder. You will all do well in our militia. But not the dotard," he said, pointing at Doc Ta

"Senile! Euthanasia!" Doc roared, stamping the end of his sword stick hard on the floor and making both sec men reach for their blasters. "You posturing little... urrgh."

Ryan shut him up the only way he knew how, elbowing him so hard in the guts that Doc folded over like an eager courtier, dropping to his knees with a cracking of joints. His face turned the color of curdled milk, and he gasped for breath.

"See how he behaves," Mayor Sissy said. "So undignified for one so old."

"Old, maybe," Doc said quietly. "Not surfeit-swelled or profane."

"What are you babbling about, old man?"

"Just a thought came from nowheres, Mayor Sissy. Be glad to go and see this Home you talked about."

"Good, that's better. If you live in Gi

"You'll be fine," they said in chorus, receiving a beam of delight in reward.

"Excellent, outworlders." Sissy leaned back, ticking points off on his fingers. "The white-headed mutie will be hunted and destroyed. The old man to the home. That can wait until the morrow. The home-keeps for me to see... I shall leave that for tomorrow. I have to oversee an exposing."

"A what?" Ryan asked.

"An exposing, outworlder. All the nonperson babies born in the past three months will all be taken by the elders of the council and exposed on the slopes about the ville. It is one of the most important of all our rites to maintain the proper balance as our founders decided."

Ryan took a deep breath, trying to school his face to blankness. "I see, Mayor. Where is this done?"

"To the west, at the exposing place. The creatures of the wild gather for the ceremony."

At the back of Ryan's mind was still that peculiar radio message they'd received, promising help for anyone who went north.

"Not to the north?"

Sissy shook his head so violently that his tiny blue eyes rolled like marbles in lard. "Never north, you cretin! Even a stupe outworlder should know that. North is trouble and darkness and death. Any citizen of my ville that goes north is a dead man!"

"Should we go for the induction?" Ryan asked after the tiny ma

"Yes, go. No, wait. Wait. If there is to be the exposing today, many sec men will be busy. Let it wait. Go back to your dorms, or walk about the ville. Enjoy it. See what a pleasant life we lead here. Creds and passes will be issued. Don't ask what Gi

As they stepped out into the warm sunshine, Fi

None of them could come up with an answer.

The walk back through town heightened their feeling of alienation.

The ville was immaculate. There were no drink houses and no gaudies, except for the main one where most of the women were herded — kept in a form of purdah, locked away in seclusion and totally subservient to the whims of the males.

The clothes and the buildings seemed to conform to some sort of norm. Homes were neat frame houses, each with its own trim front garden and wire-fenced back garden. Ryan noticed that every house was painted white, and all of them looked as if they'd been decorated within the past few months.

"No blacks," Fi

"All good, decent, red-neck WASPs," Doc Ta

"No commies or Catholics or aidies," J.B. said, watching the good people of Gi

"Some of these buildings go back better'n a hundred years," Doc Ta

They ate lunch together, despite the disapproving glares and sniffs of the janitor. The food was reasonable, basic meat and vegetables. The meat was protosoya, flavored with fresh herbs, tarragon and nutmeg predominating. The vegetables were compressed blocks of spinach and shredded carrots with oversteamed artichokes. To complete the meal there were slabs of green gelatin, quivering gently on plastic dishes.

"Mayor says them got to go to the workhouse," the janitor said, offering them a malicious, gap-toothed grin.

"Tomorrow, he told us," Ryan said.

"New message. Today. Three in the afternoon, they go. Down the Arthur Sissy wing. Near the lake. By the wag park. Yeah, got to go, got to get an' go an' go and get gone they gotta go."

He went out, slamming the cream-painted door behind him. Doc Ta

"We have to go?" Lori asked plaintively.

Krysty patted her hand. "Come on, lover," she said, to Ryan. "This has gone on better than long enough. This place is sicksville. Let's go after Jak."

"In daylight?" he replied. "Get some fucking sense in your brain, Krysty. They got old blasters, but there's mebbe seven thousand vigilantes all primed and ready. If you'd been in the quarry last night, you'd have seen what a swarm of mothers we'd have on our necks. When we go, it has to be night. Take a run north. Hope that the fact they're so shit-scared of up that way, they'll leave us be."