"We're here," announced Sherrine. "And--" She stopped abruptly.

"And what?" Bob asked, twisting to his feet. He stood silently for a moment, swallowing laughter.

Alex grabbed the side of the buckboard and pulled himself to his knees. They were hitched before a wide storefront with double-paned plate glass windows. A wooden sign nailed above the entrance was painted in bright red and gold letters:

YNGVI'S DE-LOUSING AND PEST CONTROL CENTER

The guard finished hitching the horse to the rail and scowled at them. "All right, why's everyone grinning?"

My question exactly, thought Alex.

Terri Whitehead was a short, muscular woman with long, black hair and owlish glasses. She wore jeans and a man's dress shirt with rolled up sleeves, and elbow-length gloves. When she spoke, it was in a husky contralto.

She took care of the guard first. "Because you may have picked up lice from being around the new temps. She made him take off all his clothing and dusted it with malathion powder. Searched through his underwear, and recoiled in horror.

"What?" he demanded.

She held up forceps. "Louse, aina? I'll have to see if it's carrying anything." There was a microscope by the window. She put the insect on a slide and studied it. "You're lucky. This one's healthy. Get back to barracks and take a hot shower. Here's a prescription. Tell 'em I said hot water. Use this stuff." She handed him a small bottle of green liquid. "Use it good, all the hairy parts of your body. Scrub like hell. You'll be all right."

"Uh, Doc--"

"Typhus," she said. "Dehydration. Babbling. High fever. After a while you dry up and die. You won't like it."

"Jesus, Doc--"

"You'll be all right. One thing, if you itch, don't scratch. Don't crush lice. That's really bad. Just wash them off. Then powder yourself. As for your clothes, change clothes. Take your old ones where they're doing a fire and get 'em good and hot, then smoke them good. Real good.

"Yeah, I will, but, Doc--"

"You're all right now. I can tell. You don't have it. Get going before you do."

"What about them?"

She laughed and was suddenly holding a pistol, quite casually. "No problem. Now get going."

"Yes, ma'am."

By this time Alex could feel tiny life forms crawling over his body looking for blood to drink. He kept his hands rigidly by his side. Life under Lonny Hopkins had its drawbacks; but at least lice wasn't one of them.

When Terri faced them, she was laughing. "Yngvi is a louse," she said.

"FIAWOL," Bob replied.

"FIJAGH," she responded. Then she and Sherrine and Bob and the other fans joined in a happy embrace.

Sherrine said, "A sensitive fannish face! I knew--"

"There isn't time," Terri told them. "We have maybe an hour before they send another guard. Follow me." She led them to the back of the building and out the rear door. "Don't worry about the typhus, she said. "That was just to get you over here. It's a good thing you have that transponder, Bob. The Ghost knew right were you were." She paused and looked at them. "You guys must be awfully important." No one said anything and she shrugged. "None of my business, right? Come on, this way."

A path led across the ragged yard to the river bank, where a small sailboat bobbed at a decaying, wooden wharf. "Seamus will take you from here. Seamus deBaol. You may remember him. He used to publish a line of SF books in the old days. 'Books by deBaol'? He'll take you down the river as soon as he ties me up back in the shop."

Sherrine took her by the arm. "Aren't you coming with us?"

Terri shook her head. "No, someone's got to stay behind and give you an alibi. I can tell them how you overpowered me and headed west out St. Paul Avenue. My friend Allis Place belongs to Psi Phi Fraternity over by the University. They'll report some horses stolen, so the Alderman's stooges will go chasing off that direction. I'll tell them you're gonna die of typhus anyway. The Alderman will think you're a blessing. Maybe you'll go to Juneautown and start a plague."

"But--you won't come, then?"

"This is my home," she said. "Such as it is. What if other fen find themselves in need of help someday?"

Sherrine hugged her. "It must be awful, living life undercover like that. Aren't you afraid of exposure?"

Terri grinned. "That's why I stay under the covers. Being a fan was a lot simpler in the old days; now we've all got new destinies to pursue. Here." She handed them a paper sack. "You'll need money. Take this. It's filled with cheese. Sorry, no apple pie. 'The best of all physicians is apple pie and cheese.' Quick, now. Into the boat. Seamus, hurry! You've still got to tie me up."

The short, bearded man grinned at them as he jogged past up to the house. "Some parts of this job, I like."

It was a gaff rigged catboat with plenty of room aboard. The mast was stepped well forward and wore a single quadrilateral sail.

The boat pushed off from shore, and the sail caught the wind. It heeled dangerously, then settled on course. They huddled in the bottom of the boat, out of the chill wind, and Alex managed to be next to Sherrine.

"How did you know she was a friend?"

"The sign. 'Yngvi is a louse'-well, it's a quote from an old fantasy, and it got to be sort of a catch phrase among fans. As soon as I saw 'Yngvi DeLousing…' "

Alex nodded. "I see. FIAWOL I know, but what means that other one?"

She grinned. "FIJAGH. Fandom Is Just A Goddamn Hobby.

The Museum of Science and Industry was located on the shore of Lake Michigan in Jackson Park on Chicago's south side. Seamus maneuvered the catboat to a spit of land just north of the museum and ran the bow aground. "Are you sure you want off here?" he asked.

"Yes," Sherrine told him. "We are supposed to meet someone."

Seamus glanced up at the imposing building. He ran a hand through his beard. "Well, be careful. It's not the museum it used to be. Time was this was Chi-Town's biggest tourist attraction. Four million people a year came to look at Science and Technolo exhibits. Like a damn city come to visit. A lot of the displays have been changed over now. They only left a few, and they don't keep the homeless out."

Alex wobbled as he stepped ashore. His legs felt like rubber and he grabbed Thor's shoulders to stay upright. "Sorry," he muttered. "I seem to have lost it." The long, leisurely sail down the Milwaukee River and then along the shore of Lake Michigan had, with its gentle rolling motion, put him back into a state of near weightlessness. Now the earth heaved to and fro as if tossed by waves.

Seamus waved to them as he cast off. The wind was off the lake, abeam to his course both coming and going. "Sailor's wind," he called. "Good luck."

"FIAWOL," Alex said tentatively.

"Don't you just know it," Seamus called. He hauled in the sheets and the boat moved rapidly away.

Bob and Sherrine disappeared and reappeared a short while later with a pair of wheelchairs with C.M.S.A.T. stenciled in yellow ink across the back. "Here you go, guys," Sherrine said. "You wouldn't believe what they wanted for a deposit on these things."

Bob led the way to the front of the building. The facade consisted of tall, fluted columns with voluted capitals. Statues of the Muses gazed serenely down. "It's a huge building," he said. "Covers five and a half hectares. It was built originally for the 1893 World Colombian Exposition; then rebuilt in the 1930s as the museum."

"Where would this Cole character have his Titan?" asked Alex.

"There used to be a wing, called the Henry Crown Space Center. It had Schirra's Aurora Seven Mercury capsule and the Apollo Eight, the first craft to orbit the moon. The Titan is probably back there. I figured maybe we could mount the Apollo on the Titan somehow. It seats three."