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Authors: Walter Jon Williams
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suspicions, the discontents. “Just for the record.”
The Dodger is busy cutting a plug of tobacco. “Chloramphenildorphin,” he says. “There’s going to be a shortage on the East Coast. The hospitals will pay a lot. Or so the rumors say.” He grins. “So be of good cheer. You’re going to make sure a lot of sick people stay alive.”
“Nice to be sort of legal,” Cowboy says. “For a change.”
He looks at the panzer, all angular armor and intakes, ugly and graceless compared to a delta. He owns this one but he hasn’t given it a name, doesn’t think of it in the same way. A panzer is just a machine, not a way of life. Not like flying.
Cowboy calls himself Pony Express now. It’s his radio handle, another nickname. He wants to keep the idea alive, even if it can’t take wing.
Cowboy climbs on top of the panzer, worms through the dorsal hatch, and sits down in the forward compartment. He studs a jack in his right temple and suddenly his vision is expanded, as if his two eyes were stretched around his head and a third eye surfaced on top. He calls up the maps he has stored on comp, and displays begin pulsing like strobes on the inside of his skull. His head has become a ROM cube. Inside it he sees fuel trucks spotted down the Alley, ready to move when he needs to be topped up; there is his planned route, with deviations and emergency routes marked, drawn in wide bands of color; there are old barns and deep coulees and other hiding places spotted like acne on the displays, all marked down by Arkady’s scouts.
Cowboy fishes a datacube out of his jacket pocket and drops it into the trapdoor. The display flares with another series of pinpricks. His own secret hiding places, the ones he prefers to use, that he keeps up to date with scouting forays of his own. Arkady, he knows, wants this trip to succeed; but Cowboy doesn’t know everyone in the thirdman’s organization, and some of them might have been bought by the privateers. Best to stick with the places he knows are safe. The panzer rocks slightly and Cowboy can hear the sound of footsteps on the Chobham Seven armor. He looks up and sees the Dodger’s silhouette through the dorsal hatch. “Time to move, Cowboy,” the Dodger says, and then spits his chaw over the side.
“Yo,” says Cowboy. He unplugs himself and stands up in the cramped compartment. His Kikuyu pupils contract to pinpricks as he puts his head out the hatch and looks west, in the direction of the wine-dark Rockies he knows are somewhere over the horizon. He feels, again, the strange lassitude infecting his heart, a discontent with things as they are.
“Damn,” he says. There is longing in the word.
“Yeah,” says the Dodger.
“I wish I was flying.”
“Yeah.” The Dodger looks pensive. “Someday, Cowboy,” he says. “We’re just waiting for the technology to roll around the other way again. ”
Cowboy can see Arkady standing by his armored Packard, sweating in the shade of a cottonwood, and suddenly the discontent has a name. “Chloramphenildorphin,” he says. “Where’s Arkady get it?”
“We’re not paid to know those kind of things,” the Dodger says.
“In quantities like this?” Cowboy’s voice turns thoughtful as he gazes across the gap of bright sky between himself and the thirdman. “Do you think it’s true,” he asks, “that the Orbitals are running the thirdmen, just like everything else?”
The Dodger glances nervously at Arkady and shrugs. “It don’t pay to make those kind of speculations out loud.”
“I just want to know who I’m working for,” Cowboy says. “if the underground is run by the overground, then we’re working for the people we’re fighting, qué no?”
The Dodger looks at him crookedly. “I wasn’t aware that we were fighting anybody a-tall, Cowboy,” he says.
“You know what I mean.” That if the thirdmen and panzerboys are just participating in a reshuffling of finances on behalf of the Orbital blocs, then
The Dodger is busy cutting a plug of tobacco. “Chloramphenildorphin,” he says. “There’s going to be a shortage on the East Coast. The hospitals will pay a lot. Or so the rumors say.” He grins. “So be of good cheer. You’re going to make sure a lot of sick people stay alive.”
“Nice to be sort of legal,” Cowboy says. “For a change.”
He looks at the panzer, all angular armor and intakes, ugly and graceless compared to a delta. He owns this one but he hasn’t given it a name, doesn’t think of it in the same way. A panzer is just a machine, not a way of life. Not like flying.
Cowboy calls himself Pony Express now. It’s his radio handle, another nickname. He wants to keep the idea alive, even if it can’t take wing.
Cowboy climbs on top of the panzer, worms through the dorsal hatch, and sits down in the forward compartment. He studs a jack in his right temple and suddenly his vision is expanded, as if his two eyes were stretched around his head and a third eye surfaced on top. He calls up the maps he has stored on comp, and displays begin pulsing like strobes on the inside of his skull. His head has become a ROM cube. Inside it he sees fuel trucks spotted down the Alley, ready to move when he needs to be topped up; there is his planned route, with deviations and emergency routes marked, drawn in wide bands of color; there are old barns and deep coulees and other hiding places spotted like acne on the displays, all marked down by Arkady’s scouts.
Cowboy fishes a datacube out of his jacket pocket and drops it into the trapdoor. The display flares with another series of pinpricks. His own secret hiding places, the ones he prefers to use, that he keeps up to date with scouting forays of his own. Arkady, he knows, wants this trip to succeed; but Cowboy doesn’t know everyone in the thirdman’s organization, and some of them might have been bought by the privateers. Best to stick with the places he knows are safe. The panzer rocks slightly and Cowboy can hear the sound of footsteps on the Chobham Seven armor. He looks up and sees the Dodger’s silhouette through the dorsal hatch. “Time to move, Cowboy,” the Dodger says, and then spits his chaw over the side.
“Yo,” says Cowboy. He unplugs himself and stands up in the cramped compartment. His Kikuyu pupils contract to pinpricks as he puts his head out the hatch and looks west, in the direction of the wine-dark Rockies he knows are somewhere over the horizon. He feels, again, the strange lassitude infecting his heart, a discontent with things as they are.
“Damn,” he says. There is longing in the word.
“Yeah,” says the Dodger.
“I wish I was flying.”
“Yeah.” The Dodger looks pensive. “Someday, Cowboy,” he says. “We’re just waiting for the technology to roll around the other way again. ”
Cowboy can see Arkady standing by his armored Packard, sweating in the shade of a cottonwood, and suddenly the discontent has a name. “Chloramphenildorphin,” he says. “Where’s Arkady get it?”
“We’re not paid to know those kind of things,” the Dodger says.
“In quantities like this?” Cowboy’s voice turns thoughtful as he gazes across the gap of bright sky between himself and the thirdman. “Do you think it’s true,” he asks, “that the Orbitals are running the thirdmen, just like everything else?”
The Dodger glances nervously at Arkady and shrugs. “It don’t pay to make those kind of speculations out loud.”
“I just want to know who I’m working for,” Cowboy says. “if the underground is run by the overground, then we’re working for the people we’re fighting, qué no?”
The Dodger looks at him crookedly. “I wasn’t aware that we were fighting anybody a-tall, Cowboy,” he says.
“You know what I mean.” That if the thirdmen and panzerboys are just participating in a reshuffling of finances on behalf of the Orbital blocs, then
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