"I didn't."

"They do. Get them out and checked offÄthen close the big door and shoot this place full of sleepy gas. Or tear gas and force you to come out wiping your eyes and tossing your cookies."

"Brrr! Pete, are they really equipped in the ship with those gases? I wondered."

"Those and worse. Look, the skipper of this ship operates many light-years from law and order and he has only a handful of people he can depend on in a crunch. In fourth class this ship carries, almost every trip, a gang of desperate criminals. Of course he is equipped to gas every compartment, selectively. But, Friday, you won't be here when they use the gas."

"Huh? Keep talking."

"The migrants walk down the center aisle of this hold. Almost three hundred of them this trip; they'll be packed into their compartment tighter than is safe. So many of them this trip that I am assuming that they can't possibly all know each other in the short time they've had to get acquainted. We'll use that. Plus a very, very old method, Friday; the one Ulysses used on Polyphemus. .

Pete and I were hanging back in an almost dark corner formed by the high end of the generator and a something in a big crate. The light changed, and we heard a murmur of many voices. "They're coming," Pete whispered. "Remember, your best bet is someone who has too much to carry. There'll be plenty of those. Our clothes are okayÄwe don't look first class. But we must have something to carry. Migrants are always loaded down; I got the straight word on that."

"I'm going to try to carry some woman's baby," I told him.

"Perfect, if you can swing it. Hush, here they come."

They were indeed loaded downÄbecause of what seems to me a rather chinchy company policy: A migrant can take on his ticket anything he can stuff into those broom closets they call staterooms in third classÄas long as he can carry it off the ship unassisted; that's the company's definition of "hand luggage." But anything he has to have placed in the hold he pays freight charges on. I know that the company has to show a profitÄbut I don't have to like this policy. However, today we were going to try to turn it to our advantage.

As they passed us most of them never glanced our way and the rest seemed uninterested. They looked tired and preoccupied and I suppose they were, both. There were lots of babies and most of them were crying. The first couple of dozen in the column were strung out with those in front hurrying. Then the line moved more slowlyÄmore babies, more luggageÄand clumped together. It was coming time to pretend to be a "sheep."

Then suddenly, in that medley of human odors, of sweat and dirt and worry and fear and musk and soiled diapers, one odor cut through as crystal clear as the theme of the Golden Cockerel in Rimsky-Korsakov's Hymn to the Sun or a Wagnerian leitmotif in the Ring CycleÄand I yelped:

"Janet!"

A heavyset woman on the other side of the queue turned and looked at me, and dropped two suitcases and grabbed fne. "Marjie!" And a man in a beard was saying, "I told you she was in the ship! I told you!" And Ian said accusingly, "You're dead!" and I pulled my mouth away from Janet's long enough to say, "No, I'm not. Junior Piloting Officer Pamela Heresford sends you her warmest regards."

Janet said, "That slitch!" Ian said, "Now, Jan" and Betty looked at me carefully and said, "It is she. Hello, luv! Good on you! My word!" and Georges was being incoherent in French around the edges while trying gently to take me away from Janet.

Of course we had fouled up the progress of the queue. Other people, burdened down and some of them complaining, pushed past us, through us, around us. I said, "Let's get moving again. We can talk later." I glanced back at the spot where Pete and I had lurked; he was gone. So I quit worrying about him; Pete is smart.

Janet wasn't really heavyset, not corpulentÄshe was simply several months gone. I tried to take one of her suitcases; she wouldn't let me. "Better with two; they balance."

So I wound up carrying a cat's travel cageÄMama Cat. And a large brown-paper parcel Ian had carried under one arm. "Janet, what did you do with the kittens?"

"They," Freddie answered for her, "have, through my influence, gained excellent positions with fine prospects for advancement as rodent-control engineers on a large sheep station in Queensland. And now, Helen, pray tell me how it chances that you, who, only yesterday it seems, were seen on the right hand of the lord and master of a great superliner, today find yourself consorting with the peasantry in the bowels of this bucket?"

"Later, Freddie. After we're through here."

He glanced toward the door. "Ah, yes! Later, with a friendly libation and many a tale. Meanwhile we have yet to pass Cerberus."

Two watchdogs, both armed, were at the door, one on each side.

I started saying mantras in my mind while chattering double-talk

inanities with Freddie. Both masters-at-arms looked at me, both

seemed to find my appearance unexceptionable. Possibly a dirty

face and scraggly hair acquired in the night helped, for, up to then,

I had never once been seen outside cabin BB unless Shizuko had

labored mightily to prepare me to fetch top prices on the auction block.

We got outside the door, down a short ramp, and were queued up at a table set just outside. At it sat two clerks with papers. One called out, "Frances, Frederick J.! Come forward!"

"Here!" answered Federico and stepped around me to go to the table. A voice behind me called out, "There she is!"Äand I sat Mama Cat down quite abruptly and headed for the skyline.

I was vaguely aware of much excitement behind me but paid no attention to it. I simply wanted to get out of range of any stun gun or sticky-rope launcher or tear-gas mortar as fast as possible. I could not outrace a radar gun or even a slug rifleÄbut those were no worry if Pete was right. I just kept placing one in front of the other. There was a village off to my right and some trees dead ahead. For the time being the trees seemed a better bet; I kept going.

A glance back showed that most of the pack had been left behindÄnot surprising; I can do a thousand meters in two minutes flat. But two seemed to be keeping up and possibly closing the gap. So I checked my rush, intending to bang their heads together or whatever was needed.

"Keep going!" Pete rasped. "We're supposed to be trying to catch you.

I kept going. The other runner was Shizuko. My friend Tilly.

Once I was well inside the trees and out of sight of the landing boat I stopped to throw up. They caught up with me; Tilly held my head and then wiped my mouthÄtried to kiss me. I turned my face away. "Don't, I must taste dreadful. Did you come out of the ship like that?" She was dressed in a leotard that made her look taller, more slender, more western, and much more female than I was used to in my quondam "maid."

"No. A formal kimono with obi. They're back there somewhere. Can't run in them."~

Pete said irritably, "Stop the chatter. We got to get out of here." He grabbed my hair, kissed me. "Who cares what you taste like? Get moving!"

So we did, staying in the woods and getting farther from the landing boat. But it quickly became clear that Tilly had a sprained ankle and was becoming more crippled each step. Pete grumbled again.

"When you broke for it, Tilly was only halfway down the gangway from the first-class deck. So she jumped and made abad landing. Til, you're clumsy."

"It's these damn Nip shoes; they give no support. Pete, take the kid and get moving; the busies won't do anything to me."

"Like hell," Pete said bitterly. "We three are in it together all the way. Right, MissÄ Right, Friday?"

"Hell, yes! `One for all, all for one!' Take her right side, Pete; I'll take this side."