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rotates once every twenty-five hours, so points along the equator move eastward at better than five hundred meters per second, while points north and south rotate at correspondingly slower speeds. Teleporting across the planet’s surface is like—”
    “—Like playing hopscotch on a merry-go-round,” said Yoninne. “And so they jump into water to cushion the impact of their arrival. Ha! I bet that accounts for those lake chains we saw from orbit: these people have to teleport in short jumps from puddle to puddle.” Ajão nodded. Even with water to cushion the impact, these boats would be shattered if they splashed into their destination at more than a few meters per second. So they could not safely teleport more than a few hundred kilometers at a stroke. No, that wasn’t quite right: from a given point in the northern hemisphere, you could teleport due south to the point whose south latitude was the same as your north latitude (and vice versa), since such pairs of points have the same velocity. But that was a quibble. Most long distance trips would require many jumps—and therefore strings of many transport lakes.
    “But,” continued Leg-Wot, “we should have seen this from orbit. We had plenty of pictures of these lakes and the boats in them. If those jackasses back on Novamerika had only spared us some decent reconnaissance equipment, we could have had continuous coverage of our ground track, and we would have seen these guys teleport. Hell, if Draere’s people hadn’t been so anxious to set up that telemetry station landside, they might have stayed in orbit long enough to—”
    She was interrupted by the boat’s warning whistle. Ajão wondered just how that sound was generated. Jump . Again he felt the sinking sensation as the boat rose westward from the surface of their destination lake, then smashed back into the water. It was raining here just as heavily as before, but they had definitely moved: this new lake was huge, and he could see dozens of other boats bulking darkly through the gloom. Long wooden buildings crowded the shoreline. Warehouses? Along the water’s edge, work crews in slickers tied boats into the piers. The scene was busy, but there weren’t as many laborers as Bjault would have expected in a medieval harbor. It was more like a jet- or a spaceport, where a few technicians loaded thousands of tons of cargo with automatic equipment. Then Ajão saw the reason for the seeming anachronism. Of course! The Azhiri workers could simply teleport cargo from their storehouses to the boats’ holds, and vice versa. Probably the only real hand work was in the maintenance of the boats and buildings.
    Again the whistle, and again they teleported. Ajão tried to keep track of each jump, but it was difficult. Not all lakes were set amidst fortifications and warehouses. Some were surrounded by deciduous forests whose fallen, three-pointed leaves turned the ground and the water’s edge to orange and red and chartreuse. Jump followed jump, and the landscapes beyond their boat flickered swiftly by. As the minutes passed the air became almost tropically warm. The rainstorm was far behind them now. Sunlight streamed down through blue sky between blocky chunks of cumulous cloud. To the north, the clouds merged into a dark gray line against the horizon.
    The jolt as they splashed into each new lake was always in the same direction and of much the same force: Ajão estimated that they were heading steadily southeastward. There was something else that didn’t change from jump to jump: a tiny, camouflaged boat always sat in the water a hundred meters away when they popped into a new lake, and always disappeared in a great gout of water just before their own boat jumped. Apparently they had an escort.
    Another jump … and the pressure in his ears was sudden, painful, and increasing. Ajão swallowed rapidly, found himself just barely able to compensate for the rapidly lessening air pressure. He opened his eyes,