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plenty of time to take off and do pretty much whatever I like—which is going places and doing things, mostly. I love trouble if I can find it.”
    “Is that so? What kind of trouble?”
    “Don’t you just love seeing strange places and the strange things people do there? Don’t you just love not knowing what’s around the next corner?”
    See what I mean?
    Englehorn anchored well out from the little harbor of Las Los, the capital of San Serif. I could see just about all I wanted to see of the town through the captain’s glasses. And at that I figured I’d seen too much. The town looked like someone had dumped it out of a bag.
    “Want to come along?” Pat asked as I watched the ship’s launch being lowered. “I’m going ashore to meet a representative of the resistance.”
    It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. What I’d had in mind was sitting under the awning that covered the flying bridge and sipping something ice cold all afternoon. We were barely ten degrees north of the equator and the sun was blistering the paint off the sides of the ship. Besides, Pat was far too enthusiastic and struck me as a girl who’d all too happily walk into a situation that was rougher than she’d counted on, and be glad of it. All I needed was to end up in some greaser jail for the rest of my life. But then, looking into those weird eyes, I thought: What the hell?
    A few minutes later, I found myself being welcomed to sunny Las Los by a pompous official in a blazingly white uniform covered with medals that I just knew in my heart of hearts had only lately been in a pawn shop. He was a fat little bird with black stringy hair and moustache who was rendering into a puddle of grease as I watched.
    “Señor, señorita,” he bubbled, “El Jefe walcomes you an’ hopes you weell enjoy yor stay een Los Las!”
    “I thought this place was called Las Los’,” I whispered to Pat.
    “It doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference,” she shrugged. “Either way it means The The’.”
    “I don’t get this,” I continued, as we followed the official—who hadn’t stopped talking since he met us—toward a small building at the end of the wharf. It was a government office of some sort, judging by the flag that flew from it. The harbor master’s office, I supposed. “I don’t get it. Why are we walking into this place bold as brass with a ship full of illegal arms half a mile offshore?”
    “Nothing could be simpler,” she said, dismissing my objection with a wave of her hand. “General Culebra wants nothing more than a show of normalcy—to demonstrate that business is not only going on as usual but has even improved under his regime. We’re supposed to be picking up a cargo of sugar and coffee and I assure you the general’s not going to be able to see anything other than the armload of dollars I’ll be piling under his syphilitic nose. He’ll never notice that the boats bringing his cargo out to the Venture won’t be returning empty.”
    “Sounds absolutely hare-brained to me.”
    “Don’t be silly: I’ve thought it all out very carefully.”
    She said that as coolly as someone announcing they had a sure-fire recipe for fried chicken. She looked cool, too, dressed entirely in white cotton, her tanned face shaded by a broad-brimmed white straw hat. How she did it was beyond me: I was already drenched to the skin, with stinging sweat pouring into my eyes from under my pith helmet. The heat reflected from the parched ground around us as though from a mirror and it was exactly like standing in front of a glassblower’s furnace. Yet Pat looked like a tower of vanilla ice cream and I knew for a certainty that if I touched her she’d feel twenty degrees cooler than the surrounding air.
    However oblivious Pat was to the heat, I was grateful for the shade inside the office, though the temperature was, if anything, greater than it had been out on the pier. Maybe if I hadn’t been so preoccupied with