For the United States of America

May we never forget the second half of that quote.

Thanks as always to the Eugene Wordos for support and inspiration, especially Ken Brady, Aurora Lemieux, Eric Witchey, Dave Bishoff, and Blake Hutchins, who made sure I sat down and wrote when I said I would by the simple expedient of coming over to my house and doing it with me.

Thanks to Elba Solano and Françoise Beniston for help with my Spanish and French. The pails I got right are theirs; any mistakes are my own.

Thanks to Jack McDevitt for the title, which he found languishing unused in my previous book, The Getaway Special.

Trent Stinson just wanted to get some cash. It was Friday evening, and he and Donna were headed downtown for their traditional “start the weekend right” dinner out. He had enough cash in his wallet for fast food, but Donna wanted to go to the brew pub tonight, and two burgers and a couple of pints of ferry beer would just about clean him out. A weekend in Rock Springs without money was about the dullest prospect Trent could imagine, so he swung by Southside National on their way downtown and parked across the street from the ATM.

“Be back in a sec,” he told Donna as he stepped out and down to the pavement.

It was a long reach. His pickup was standard equipment for a Wyoming native: three feel high at the running boards, with knobby off-road tires too big for the fenders, each wheel individually powered by a General Electric 150 superconducting motor modified with a bank of ultracapacitors for even more torque on startup.