Wild Country by Dean Ing Page A

instructions and use good judgment?
    P . I found your damned com chips and delivered them, didn't I?
    S : (LAUGHTER). That you did. Now, before you do anything else, draw out enough cash to operate. You can do that on your own?
    P : Yes. Did you know my father was—
    S : I know your father, Mary. Please attend to business. Do you have a car there?
    P : My roadster.
    S : Dios mio ! Why not carry a banner? Garage your car, go to some store with many exits, dress plainly, change everything about yourself that you can, as soon as you can. You must disappear. Change your appearance often. You may think you are alone, but the chance is very great that others are studying you. You must lose yourself. When you change clothes, change everything and leave the ones you wore. I am sure you can imagine ways to move around without using credit cards. And you must. Are you getting all this?
    P : Yes. Are you sure?
    S : I am sure I do not want to lose you, Mary. When you . are certain you are not followed, go to another town, smaller but large enough for bus, rail, and air terminals. Change appearance again and go to another large city, making sure you are not followed. Only then, Mary, only then are you to contact these scientists. Make an appointment, change appearances yet again, and tell me the arrangements by our usual channel. Can you do all that?
    P : I think so. Can you hear my knees knocking?
    S : Your knees do not knock; but they beckon, Mary.
    P : Now I feel better. Uh… Horse?
    S : A sus or denes .
    P : This is the big time, isn't it?
    S : Very. You must be paranoid. If I thought it would not endanger you, I would suggest you carry a weapon.
    P : You know about me and weapons, don't you?
    S : I do, Mary. I also know this phone may not be as secure as you think. Now, do everything I told you, as fast as you possibly can, and pretend that you are pursued. Do not underestimate others; let them underestimate you. And do not hesitate to act in self-defense.
    P : I'll do it.
    S : Do it now. This instant, Mary.
    (TRANSMISSION ENDS.)

Chapter Seventeen
    Marianne was fleeing up North Broadway before the syndicate had time to react. Within twenty minutes, she reached the sprawling shuttleport outside Kansas Ringcity; in another five minutes she parked her Ocelot in an expensive sealed compartment deep inside the fifth underground level of the shuttleport parking complex. A shuttle-setter herself, Marianne knew that such parking compartments were available for storing an automobile while you spent a month on New Israel/Aleph, if you could afford the tab.
    A tracer bug will not transmit through five layers of ferroconcrete, so the syndicate only knew that she had gone to ground north of the Ringcity beltline. Marianne was smart and lucky. Smart to hurry aboard the first monorail to St. Joseph; lucky to find a suburban mall immediately in old Saint Joe.
    By the time Marianne had outfitted herself in cotton work clothes, the syndicate had called off their womanhunt. They knew Marianne Placidas lived near SanTone, and they knew what their own man had told her because they had him under narcosis. Very soon after the interrogation began, they knew that they were not going to muscle out the rival outfit.
    For one thing, the rival's address was on Sharon Square in the satellite colony of New Israel/Beth. Had it been New Israel/Aleph, they might have entertained a hope that some Earth-based drug baron was taking it easy in the low-gravity spa on that carefully groomed tourist haven. They could get an ID check and, when he shuttled back Earthside. deal with him in customary ways.
    But Beth was New Israel's second satellite colony, the one devoted to research. No one could visit without a special visa, except for Israelis with expertise in weapons, physics, agronomy, or some other skill vital to the survival of a spacefaring people.
    The syndicate knew its limitations. It enjoyed traditions as old and honored as the island of Corsica, and no doubt it