A mobile town, like a convoy of ships in wartime, moves at the speed of its slowest member. Alone, Bat Hardin’s electro-steamer could easily maintain a steady five hundred kilometers an hour, at least on an automated underground ultra-highway in the States. Even under manual control such as at present, three hundred kilometers an hour was quite possible. However, the average home behind him seldom got much above a hundred kilometers an hour, especially when traveling in a group.

He shrugged that off. He was used to this reduced speed and they were in no hurry. No hurry at all. If they wished, they could take a year#longdash#or ten years#longdash#to reach their destination. He grunted at that, too. In actuality, they were rather vague on just what the destination was.

What was really on his mind was the sullen quality that he had seemed to detect in some of the border officials. It was nothing he could quite put his finger upon and didn’t apply to all of the immigrations and customs people, but it was there in most. And he didn’t quite know why.

He said into his car phone, “New Woodstock, Al Castro.”

Al’s face faded in. “The rear guard here,” he said, yawning. “I’ll sure as hell be glad when we get up into the mountains. I hate air conditioning.”

Bat ignored the complaint of his second. Al Castro was a born complainer. He would have complained about Peter’s gate service, and the tone of Gabriel’s horn.

He was a small man of about thirty-five. Thin and wiry, and absolutely reliable in the clutch. He was Bat’s right hand man, and the town cop would have hated to see the other leave New Woodstock.