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was getting myself into.
    I leaned forward again, rattled a command string into the telecom's keyboard, then waited while it dialed a CalFree State LTG number. For the second time tonight—my time for cold relays, apparently—I watched the icons blink as my call was routed through a couple of intermediary nodes. Then, finally, the Ringing symbol flashed on-screen.
    Someone answered immediately—through a blank screen, audio only—a thin, somewhat asthmatic voice that brought to mind images of a weasel-faced punk. "Do desu ka ?"
    "Get me Argent," I told the screen.
    The weasel paused. "And who the frag are you?" he demanded.
    "The fact that I know about this relay means I don't have to answer that, doesn't it?" I pointed out.
    "Look, priyatel ," the weasel snarled, "you want to play fragging games, you play them somewhere else , neh?
    I imagined him reaching for the Disconnect key with a dirty forefinger and shrugged. "Okay, omae ," I told him, "we'll play it your way." It didn't really matter anyway. "Tell Argent that Dirk Montgomery wants to talk to him, okay?"
    "Montgomery?" The weasel's voice changed, the habitual hostility vanishing. "Hey, the Man talked about you, priyatel , told me some stories. We got something in common, you know that?" I didn't really want to think about what that might be, but the weasel went on, "We're both refugees from the Star. How about that, huh? Small fragging world, neh?"
    "Yeah," I said, muffling a sigh. "Small fragging world. And you are ...?"
    "You can call me Wolf."
    "Oh." I tried again. "I need to talk to Argent, Wolf."
    "Can't do it, priyatel, he's over the wall and out of the sprawl. On biz."
    "When's he due back?"
    Wolf/Weasel chuckled thinly. "You ever known Argent to give you a straight answer to that one?" He paused, then went on more seriously, "I'll get him to call you when he gets back, that's the best I can do. Got a relay number?"
    I gave Wolf the LTG number for a voice-mail service in Cheyenne. Nowhere near as secure as a true cold relay, of course, but since the voice mailbox was rented in the name of a dead man, at least it wouldn't lead interested parties directly to my doorstep. I exchanged a few more empty pleasantries with Wolf/Weasel and logged off as soon as I could.
    I sighed again and checked the time. Close to eighteen hundred. It had been a full couple of days, all in all, and it didn't look like the pace would be slowing any time soon. I reviewed the details on my S-O ticket: departure, oh-six-hundred, check in and be in the boarding lounge no later than one hour before dust-off. No worries there ... at first glance. Unfortunately, however, the only airport in the Sioux Nation capable of handling full-on suborbitals is in Casper, not in Cheyenne—and almost 300 klicks away. Which meant a short-hop "Skybus," which left from downtown Cheyenne. Which, in turn, meant a cab from my doss to the Skybus terminus, unless I wanted to pay an arm and two legs for parking my car. Which meant ...
    I sighed one more time. I'd better start packing.

4
    Traditionally, the screamsheets and datafaxes have absolutely nothing good to say about the many short-hop carriers in the Sioux Nation. Too many companies, too little inspection, too many cases of pilot error, too few meaningful afterincident investigations, drekcetera. So when I boarded the Federated-Boeing Commuter VTOL, all shiny in its Sioux Skybus livery, and strapped myself into the window seat, I was expecting a hairy ride.
    No flap, chummer, smooth as synthsilk. Okay, it's true, I could see past the little bitty curtain into the flight deck, and it did disturb me a tad to watch the pilot and copilot—jacked into the flight systems via fiberoptic cables—playing a heated game of crib while we were climbing out. But other than that, no problems.
    We put down at the commuter terminal of Casper International at oh-four-forty-five, which gave me fifteen minutes to collect my baggage and hump it over to the international