XII: SEVENDAY MORNING
At eleven o'clock, mid-morning by Maggiese time, I leaned stiffly against the log wall of the apartmented building in which Betty Toal lived. I watched the Minimums, and Dominants, and a few Maximums pass. Some pointedly ignored me, while others gazed with hostility. Although all were potential meals for the Hog, they showed no gratitude for my attempts to help them. Sighing, I felt my more prominent bruises and wondered if I should wear a white oversuit for hunting. It was the only light clothing I had left, and I refused to consider Maggiese costume.
Astride a pedal-operated vehicle, Betty Toal rode into the street. The machine resembled the tricycles, but had five wheels with the two rear ones supporting a seat. "Low, Kinlock!" she called. "Come aboard the pentacycle."
"High, Toal. Wouldn't they give you two? I can't let you haul me all over the planet."
"Not hard with the gears."
I piled a firearm, a pouch of shells, and what remained of my pack on the rear seat and climbed in between the wheels. "That red-headed Farmer, Yuko, brought me a firearm," I said, indicating the heavy weapon with two barrels. "He said he borrowed it while Rasmussen was out."
Toal looked at the weapon and said, "If it doesn't knock you down, you'll be all right."
"Wonder why Yuko did it," I said. "Except for you, he's the first person here who's been friendly."
"You look alike, slightly. Be careful of that box of dynamite."
Toal stood on the pedals, gripped the steering bar, and propelled the pentacycle down the street. She wore a fresh green and brown sack, but no leggings.
As we swished through the gate, I said, "What's dynamite?"
"Explosive. Has nitroglycerin in it. Rasmussen killed two pigs with it. We can throw some at the Hog, if he's alive."
"He probably will be," I said. The riding was smoother and much quieter than in the steam tractor. "Explain this about looking alike," I said. "It's worried me since those emigrants boarded the Ap-GG-12C."
"Oh, that." Toal settled back on the saddle. She explained, "You and Yuko look alike. I've heard that unrelated people throughout the Explored Galaxy may look alike. They're called doubles. Even the Hog is similar to real pigs. When Joe Nordo settled Planet Maggie, decided everyone should be the same. Advertised for fifty years. Out of the billions in the Explored Galaxy, selected three hundred colonists who looked like him. Everyone on Maggie is descended from them."
"I see," I said, beginning to experience a new form of motion disturbance—pentacycle sickness. "I suspected new genetic discoveries, but it's only applied coincidence. If—"
Toal braked the pentacycle so quickly that I almost knocked her from the saddle with my head. "Tractor tracks," she said. Toal dismounted and studied the interlaced wheel marks on the damp road. "Must have been Rasmussen," she decided. "He has the only one with twelve wheels."
I said, "He's trying for the first shot again."
Toal dropped to hands and knees with her face close to the dirt. "Towing something," she said. "I don't know what. Something with two big wheels."
"You can see all that?"
"Why, yes, can't you?" Toal climbed back into the saddle.
As we started, I mumbled, "Without my instruments, I can't see anything."
The absurd cap that replaced my lost sunhat protected my face, but my neck and ears slowly fried. The breeze blew hot and searing against me. Joe's Sun burned in the deep blue sky, and the temperature climbed astonishingly.