s, he had to look kind too--the sort of man who would put you to
bed and take care of you, as if you were some sort of interesting sick
fox, and maybe even say a little prayer for you, and all manner of other
abominations.

* * * * *

I don't think I could have endured my fury standing still. Fortunately
there was no need to. As if we'd rehearsed the whole thing for hours,
the girl and I scrambled up onto the freeway and scurried toward the man
from the plane, cunningly swinging away from each other so that it would
be harder for him to watch the two of us at once, but not enough to make
it obvious that we attended an attack from two quarters.

We didn't run though we covered the ground as fast as we dared--running
would have been too much of a give-away too, and the Pilot, which was
how I named him to myself, had a strange-looking small gun in his right
hand. In fact the way we moved was part of our act--I dragged one leg as
if it were crippled and the girl faked another sort of limp, one that
made her approach a series of half curtsies. Her arm in the sling was
all twisted, but at the same time she was accidently showing her
breasts--I remember thinking _you won't distract this breed bull that
way, sister, he probably has a harem of six-foot heifers_. I had my head
thrown back and my hands stretched out supplicatingly. Meanwhile the
both of us were babbling a blue streak. I was rapidly croaking something
like, "Mister for God's sake save my pal he's hurt a lot worse'n I am
not a hundred yards away he's dyin' mister he's dyin' o' thirst his
tongue's black'n all swole up oh save him mister save my pal he's not a
hundred yards away he's dyin' mister dyin'--" and she was singsonging an
even worse rigamarole about how "they" were after us from Porter and
going to crucify us because we believed in science and how they'd
already impaled her mother and her ten-year-old sister and a lot more of
the same.

It didn't matter that our stories didn't fit or make sense, the babble
had a convincing tone and getting us closer to this guy, which was all
that counted. He pointed his gun at me and then I could see him hesitate
and I thought exultingly _it's a lot of healthy meat you got there,
mister, but it's tame meat, mister, tame!_

He compromised by taking a step back and sort of hooting at us and
waving us off with his left hand, as if we were a couple of stray dogs.

It was greatly to our advan