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  Billy Bob won his second heat as if he'd beenthe Blink. Actually, it was his great-great-grandfather who had developed the mnemonic brains of an airors. Billy Bob was good. He rode in the prescribed style, hands free, giving orders to his airors with knees and body movements and the almost uncanny empathy which can develop between a good airors and a good rider. It was almost as if theClean Machine were a living thing reading Billy Bob's mind. Well, sometimes you felt almost as if an airors were a living thing. Out on the boonies, the Bojacks, you spent a lot of time with it, and you got to the point of talking to it and it responded, that funny, complicated brain learning new things; and while herding a wingling meacr you sometimes wondered if that damned machine didn't know more about it than you did. A wingling is swift and shifty and sometimes the airors seemed to anticipate a darting turn before you did and that was the kind of thing you had to have to be able to do the job and to be able to win a race and Billy Bob had it. He'd won more races than any other young stud on Texas and the next one to him was one Lex Burns, who won his prelim heats and then, sweating, drinking a cool brew, eager, a little nervous, watched Billy Bob really turn it on to best the best time of the day by a full five seconds, eliminating everyone but Lex from the finals.

  Lex took his run, his first, all out, leaning, twisting, feeling the hard pull of the g's as he cut a pylon, a force which, had he not been strapped in, would have thrown him ass over teakettle into the sand or the surf. He was counting off the ticks of the clock as he went down course and he knew he was behind Billy Bob's time by at least half a second and one odd run back up the course to make it up. He powered the Zelda beyond human ability to ride her and leaned horizontal on the turns and stirred up sand as his boot tip dragged he was flying so low. He could hear the rush of the wind and his own grunts of effort as he fought the g's, sometimes feeling the blood pushed out of his brain and going a little soft in the head but recovering in time to push theZelda hard down the last straightaway to tie Billy Bob's time to the tenth of a second.

  That called for a runoff and the crowd had grown and it seemed that all of New Galveston was out to see them break the tie. Lex had to go first and he went down all out and blacked out for what seemed to be an eternity as he rounded the last pylon, losing a precious tick as he went wide and then recovering to burn up the course, blowing sand silently in the wake of the flashingZelda , but he knew he'd blown it down there on the far turn, and sure enough, when Billy Bob came in he was a tenth of a second faster and, once again, Lex had to settle for a second.

  "I been running hind tit to you all my life," he told Billy Bob. "One of these days I'm gonna get tired of it and beat on you a little."

  "Bring your lunch," Billy Bob said. "It'll be a long day's work."

  Herding, now, was a separate breed of cat. In herding, it usually went the other way, with Lex's slightly lighter weight adding to his maneuverability and his rapport with his machine giving him another slight edge. The contest was a simple one drawn directly from the work life of a male Texican. It all started way back when the settlers found out that the meacr made better, juicier, more tender steaks than the various breeds of Earth cattle which had been brought out in the original settlement fleet. The meacr was smaller than, say, a whiteface or a Charolais, and he bred like an old Earth rabbit, having twins twice a year, cute little critters with wings which, after a few days, hardened up like a bat's wing and grew to massive length to carry the chunky little body of the wingling up into the auto sport and play and look for insects and small rodents, things which made up his diet until the change, when the wings shrank into two swollen appendages used for flicking bisects and which made the finest, tastiest soup this side of galactic core. In his flying form the meacr was unpredictable. He was as likely to soar a thousand miles as he was to stay put on the range where he belonged, with an owner's brand on his hide, until his wings set and he started to grow and eat a few tons of grass to make him fat, placid and highly edible. While he was in flying form, the meacr needed herding to keep him on his proper range and that was where the airors came into its own. The meacr wingling wasn't fast, but he was tricky. It took some dude to stay with him, herd him back where he belonged. Fortunately, the wingling was gregarious, soaring in groups of six to twenty, and he played follow the leader. Herd the leader and the rest followed.

  There weren't that many Texicans that a man could go through life without doing a hitch on the Bojacks and both Billy Bob and Lex had done their year. There were, of course, professional herdsmen who made a lifetimes work of it, but they were, for the most part, loners who loved the big, empty nighttime skies of Texas, lit only by the two small moons, the galaxy itself mist in the southern sky on summer evenings. Some of them were men who had lost out in the competition for the scarce women of Texas. Some of them were just ne'er-do-wells who couldn't hack it in the towns and some just liked it.

  Lex had liked it well enough. It was a pleasure to have it all to yourself, all the Bojack country stretching away flat and green to make an inverted bowl of horizon all around you, the meacrs gentle and quiet, making only those soft, sweet humming sounds after they fed enough for the day, the winglings being restless and pesky, the occasional old, grizzled farl sneaking up to cut down a stray for his dinner. But Lex, being the son of Murichon Burns, had been off planet twice, once when he was just thirteen, on a scouting trip into Cassiopeian territory to determine the feasibility of trade routes into the galaxy. And once you've seen space, well, herding winglings becomes just a sport for a Sunday afternoon and the year of enforced service drags and then you begin to know what girls represent and you're given the loot and a new suit and sent into Miss Toni's in Dallas City and after that the Bojacks have lost their charms.

  But doing it for sport, herding, is fine; and Lex was ready and eager as he took his turn in the chute and a wingling with a ring on its tail to put life into it was released a few yards in front of him to take to the air like a salt-shot beagle. He was off with a whoop and hadZelda on the wingling's nose in a wink and had the critter going the right way when he made a slip and the wingling zapped a left and then it was full g's getting him again and not much time lost and the circle down there coming up. He forced the frustrated wingling to land and the time was good enough to win his heat.

  He leaned on the fence next to Billy Bob. "You, an, been to bed with her?"

  "A gentleman don't answer questions like that," Lex said, looking skyward.

  "I been into Miss Toni's," Billy Bob said.

  "You ain't a man until you have," Lex said.

  "Who'd you get when you went?"

  "Girl named Pitty."

  "Tall, blond?"

  "The same."

  "Hot damn. I got her, too." "They say she specializes in first-timers," Lex said. "God, what a set," Billy Bob breathed, the memory making him squirm. "Billy Bob Blink next in the chute," the announcer said. Billy Bob was so shook thinking of Miss Pitty

  and her set that he let his wangling take a lead and lost three full seconds and then it was over and Lex had his ribbon and a few brews and then he buttoned up the hood and blinked home and in the gathering darkness the skies began to take on their blackness and the lone star of the globular cluster out there in the big lonesome was low and the galaxy hadn't risen yet. Then he began to think and what he thought he didn't like. He thought about the scene at the spaceport when theTexas Queen came down, all the big wigs there to meet her, although the news of the successful trip had been blinkstatted ahead of them. They weren't there to greet the heroes returned from the Empire, but to see the girl Murichon Burns's boy had stolen, right under the noses of the Empire on Polaris Two.

  He remembered how she looked, dressed like a decent Texas woman in real cloth, her legs extending out from the short skirt, her hair flowing down over her shoulders, her head held high. And he remembered what she'd said.

  "I demand," she said imperiously, "that these ruffians be arrested at once." "Well," said President Andy Gar, "we'll talk a
bout that." "Under the laws of the Empire," she said. "This ain't Empire," the President had said, quickly. "But there must be civilized men here." "Well," said Murichon Burns, "I reckon we're civilized enough to suit us. Civilized enough, at any rate, to

  send you back on the meat fleet, but that'll be a wait, ma'am, since it takes time to slaughter and freeze." "Meanwhile, ma'am," Lex said, "why don't you stay at our town house? We got plenty of room." "I would not be caught dead under the same roof with you," she said. "We're sorta short on guest facilities," President Gar said. "And Murichon's house is comfortable. But if

  you don't want to be around the boy I reckon we can find something. Might put you up at Miss Toni's place." This brought a general chuckle and roused Gwyn's suspicions. "And who is Miss Toni?" "Well, it's sorta hard to explain," Lex said. "But it's where we, I mean we young ones, go—"

  "A whorehouse," Gwyn said. "Not exactly," President Gar said. "We prefer to call it a place of professional entertainment." Miss Toni, who was over sixty, was Gar's cousin.

  "We'll put the boy out in the garage," Murichon said.

  And that's the way it had been. He saw her, that night, at table. She was displaying some curiosity about the planet and Murichon was answering questions carefully. He'd had her in isolation during the last part of the trip and what she could see in the skies wouldn't tell her much. It would tell her more than he wanted her to know, that Texas was an outplanet, distant from the disc of the galaxy, and relatively near a globular cluster, near enough for the cluster to make one huge star in the nighttime skies. However, after discussing it with the others, they'd decided that those were not enough clues to give away the exact location of the planet. At any rate, the only alternative to risking giving a clue was to keep the Lady on Texas and Murichon wasn't sure the planet could stand such a test. He'd seen her in action against his son. She was, he thought admiringly, quite a woman.

  Lex tried to get into the conversation at table but every time he spoke she cut him dead and ignored his comments. She even turned down an offer to be taught airors riding and that was his hole card.

  While he sat outside atmosphere, buttoned up in the hood of theZelda , cold space empty around him, he called and used voice to say, "I'm home, Dad," hit the button and blinked into the garage. There was warmed-over soup and wingling stew and he ate alone, in the kitchen. He was feeling so lonely he had the cook robot go over menus just to hear a voice. Then he went to his room over the garage and turned on the circular music station from Dallas central and let the twangy sound of strings soak into his hide, killing a brew before going in for a shower.

  Hell, he was going to marry the girl. What more did she expect?

  "I am an appointed representative of the Emperor himself," she'd told President Gar. "I shall report my ill treatment to the Emperor personally."

  "Well," President Gar said, "give the old boy my regards."

  He was dressed and ready for—what? Dressed up and no place to go. Early evening. Just across the courtyard was—heaven in scents and feels and softness and long hair and supple legs and clinging arms. How could she change so quickly? She'd loved him there on Polaris Two. How could she have done the things she did with him without love? She wasn't like Miss Toni's girls, who had chosen to even the inbalance of the sexes on Texas by being all things to all men. Hell, she wasn't like that. So she had to have loved him and then, when he did what any man would do, steal away the girl he loved, she'd turned into a spitting, scratching female farl, half-tiger and half-shrew.

  He was feeling quite sorry for himself when the communicator came to life and his father's voice requested his body in the house. A request from Murichon was not merely an order, it was the law, and, besides, it was something to do. He walked across and noted that there were a couple of strange airorses outside and an official arc with the great seal on the side. He went into the living room looking around forher . She wasn't there, but old Andy Gar was, along with the head man of the Meat Growers Association, a couple of Ranger officers of high rank and his father.

  "Sit down, boy," Murichon said. He was dead serious, grim as being stranded in the middle of the great desert without water. Lex sat. He glanced out of the corner of his eye toward the Ranger General with his tan and gold braid and wondered how he'd look in uniform.

  "I'm gonna give it to you straight and slow, son," Murichon said. "First off, it appears that you've snatched a red-hot coal right out of the Emperor's own fire and it might burn your fingers. Your little gal with the spitfire temper is the Emperor's own cousin, and, in all probability, one of his favorite bedmates, judging from the fuss they're making about the Lady Gwyn."

  "The Empire demands," began the Ranger General, but Murichon held up his hand and the General lapsed into silence.

  "He's just a boy and he's got a decision to make," Andy Gar said. "Let's make sure he understands the situation."

  "You know we've been in blinkstat communication with the First Leader on Polaris," Murichon said. Lex nodded. He knew the setup. At random times a Texican ship, blinking random patterns within range of an Empire blink relay, would contact and wait just long enough to receive a message in return. The details of the meat shipment were being worked out that way, after the Empire had swallowed its pride in order to be able to swallow good, juicy Texas steak. "Well, the first message about your gal was just a polite inquiry about her, wondering if we had any idea where she was. That was a couple of days ago. The next one wasn't so polite. They told us flatly that you'd been seen carrying a suspicious-looking sack onto the Texas Queen . Now I suppose we should have just flat out lied about it at that point, but you know I don't cotton to lying without reason, and I was looking on this Lady Gwyn as just another Empire gal, a little more advanced in position than most, but just another gal in a system which has billions of girls. I was wrong. I admitted that one of the crewmen had taken a fancy to her and had lifted her to be his wife. I was lying just a little, because I guess that was your intention."

  "It was," Lex said.

  "Well," Murichon said, "I should have lied more." He tilted his glass and drained it. He looked at his son and there was a deep wrinkle between his eyes he was looking so hard. "Son, they say either we turn over the kidnapper and the Lady in good condition or the meat deal is off."

  Lex's face did not change, but he felt cold winds blow inside. He had an instant flashback to the day, the wild ride over the desert, the wide plains, the sun over Texas. "Well then, I reckon I'll have to go," he said.

  Andy Gar cleared his throat. "Son, do you remember when that prospector, got picked up in Cassiopeian space back in '65?" Lex nodded. He remembered it well from hearing the stories, but he'd been born too late to volunteer for the rescue force. "And how the whole nation turns out when a man is missing in the desert or somewhere?"

  "Yes, but this is different," Lex said.

  "Only in degree," Andy Gar said, while the Ranger General fidgeted. "You're still a Texican and we Texicans stick together. There ain't no one here gonna try to force you to go into the Empire and turn yourself in to a pack of faggots. Under ordinary circumstances, our answer to the Empire ultimatum would have been something like what old Jack Bridges told his wife when he was determined on going out into the outback prospecting for iron." Lex chuckled. Jack Bridges, an almost legendary figure, had reputedly told his wife, who protested his leaving her and her two children, to perform an anatomical impossibility involving basic breeding functions. "But," Gar went on, "we got us a problem, son. We're all alone out here and there ain't too many of us and we'd like to have enough people on this world to fix it up right, not too many, but just enough. Because we're short on a lot of things we have to limit the population so that there's just about one Texican for every thousand square miles of land. We need metals. You know from your schooling that Texas is a light planet. That's good in a way, because if she had a metal core like some she'd have a gravity which would be so strong it would be all we could do to crawl. Now we've got a couple o
f ways to get metals. We can sneak into the worlds on the periphery and poach them from Empire or Cassiopeian territory. We've done it in the past and so far we've not lost a man. But sooner or later we're going to get caught. Some prospector is going to be careless and he'll come home with an Empire or a Cassiopeian Vandy on his tail and then we'll be in it when we don't want to be. All the Republic of Texas wants is to be left alone to do things the way our fathers did them, maybe just a bit better. We want no part of the war inside the galaxy. But we've got some things that each of the warring sides would risk ten battle fleets for. Meat, for example. They're eating manufactured protein on the ships of the line and the home front doesn't even get that most of the time. Let an Empireite or a Cassiopeian see Texas and we'll be calling out the Guard and I don't have to tell you that even a Texican can be outgunned and outmanned when the odds are a million to one and the other side has unlimited metals and arms. The other way we can get metals is to trade, and we're right on the verge of making a successful deal for enough metals to keep Texas going for fifty years. We've spent ten years working out the details, breeding a surplus of meacrs, so you can see why some folks are a little upset about the turn of events."

  "I'll go," Lex said.

  "Hold your horses," Murichon said. "Hear it all."

  "We've had our lawyers working over Empire law-books," the President said. "It seems that they've got more laws than they know what to do with. The penalty for kidnapping is a severe one, but it hasn't been enforced for a hundred or so years, because in spite of the war they've got so many people that when they lose one or two they don't even notice, unless the victim is someone of importance. There's not been a kidnapping prosecution on Earth for 2 hundred years and there are no penalties for rape—at least they're not enforced. So we're not sure just what they'd do to you. There's an old law on the books calling for life under supervision, working the mining planets, for kidnapping, so that seems to be the worst that could happen. On the other hand, we've told them and we're waiting for an answer, that you're the son of a rather important man who'd take a dim view of his son being sentenced to labor for life. We told them flat out that one Texican is worth all the metals they could dig in a thousand years, and we're hoping that they'll make an offer. Here's what we're thinking. If they'll offer a light punishment, and if you're willing to go out there for Texas, then we'll think it over. Fair enough?"