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10

Lando was sipping his second cup of coffee when Cy and Melissa burst into Junk's galley.

It had been a week since his return and things were back to normal. In this case "normal" meant Cap was "sick" a good deal of the time causing Lando to shoulder most of the work, but what else was new? At least Cap had continued the cleanup effort during Lando's absence and met the minimum terms of their contract. There was still a week or two of work left to be done but the end was in sight.

Lando had considered leaving, taking his share of the gold, and buying a passage out, but what good would that do? He'd still be persona non grata with the underworld and have a price on his head everywhere else.

So, until Lando could figure a way out of his double bind, Junk was a place to be. More than that, a place where he was accepted, and no different from all the rest. Lando raised his coffee mug in a mock salute.

"Greetings, O princess of space. Salutations, O silver one."

Melissa curtsied in reply, while Cy rolled forward, then backward, suggesting a bow. Having done so, both were silent.

There was something about them however, something about the repressed excitement in Melissa's eyes and the way Cy bobbed up and down that suggested an agenda of some sort.

Lando raised an eyebrow. "Well?"

Cy turned a vid pickup in Melissa's direction and she looked back. It was Cy who spoke. "Well, I've been overhauling the drives, and we've got a problem."

Lando took another sip of coffee. "I'm listening."

"It's the control module for the number two power accumulator," Melissa put in eagerly. "It was nearly worn out so Cy installed our backup."

"And that means we need a new backup," Cy continued. "So we wondered if you would . . ."

"Take the two of you dirtside," Lando finished dryly. "And once there you could have a little fun. What's Cap say?"

"Well, that's the problem," Melissa said innocently, "he's sick, and that means you're in charge."

Although Cap had never formally designated Lando as second in command, it was understood and accepted by all concerned.

Lando smiled at the obvious attempt to manipulate him. Both knew full well that Cap would say no.

Ever since the brawl back on Dista, and his own trip to the surface of Pylax, Sorenson had shown a marked aversion to going dirtside. The reason was fairly obvious. Jord Willer was out to get him and his crew. By maintaining a low profile Cap hoped to avoid trouble. Not only that, but Cap was still fixated on the Star Of Empire, and had little interest in anything else. Anything outside of a bottle that is.

Lando put the mug down. What the hell, staying cooped up on a spaceship was no life for a little girl, or a cyborg either for that matter. A trip dirtside would do them all a lot of good. The odds against running into Willer were astronomically large. He smiled.

"The shuttle for Pylax leaves in thirty minutes. There's some civilized people down there . . . so dress accordingly."

About four hours later they stepped out of the tender, hired an auto cab, and departed in style. It took only a few minutes to cross the scorched duracrete, buy the control module from one of the many suppliers that lined the edge of the spaceport, and head downtown.

Melissa chattered like a magpie as they rolled through Blast Town, while Cy zipped from one side of the cab to the other, and Lando looked out the window.

There were people everywhere, walking, talking, doing things. And because this was Blast Town some were certain to be bounty hunters. Were they looking for him? Sorting through memprinted faces in search of his? Lando forced the thought out of his mind. To hell with them. He deserved some time off and by God he'd have it.

The auto cab passed through the downtown area and headed for the suburbs. They'd agreed that each person could choose one activity and this was Cy's. Though trapped aboard ship for the past few weeks, the cyborg had access to all the planet's vid channels, and that's how he'd heard about bacca racing.

Baccas were little eight-legged weasellike animals that could run up to thirty or forty miles an hour. Racing them, and betting on those races, was extremely popular on Pylax and Cy was eager to see the real thing.

The cab slid into a tube way where it surrendered control to the city's transportation computer. Interior lights came on as the cab picked up speed and headed underground.

Outside the windows dark duracrete rolled by, occasionally relieved by the sight of vehicles headed in the opposite direction, and platforms full of waiting passengers.

Melissa passed the time by making faces in the glass. Seeing this Cy got into the act too. First he floated beside Melissa, so she had two heads instead of one, then he hid behind her and made a vid pickup grow out of her ear.

Outside the cab there were occasional flashes of sunlight as the cab shuttled up and down between surface and subsurface tubes.

Then, just when Lando was wondering if the trip would ever end, they rolled out of a hillside and onto a regular road. The cab coasted downhill toward a huge recreational complex.

The building had a dome-shaped roof and, thanks to a mineral mixed into the duracrete, glittered like gold. Huge parking lots surrounded the facility and were packed to overflowing with brightly colored ground cars.

Meanwhile, Cy was bobbing up and down with excitement and counting out the money he'd produced from a hidden compartment. Seeing this, Lando was reminded of how Cy had gambled away his body, and wondered if coming here was such a good idea after all.

But good idea or not Cy was clearly determined to go inside. So, rather than challenge him, Lando resolved to give it some time and ease the cyborg out of the complex as quickly as possible.

The cab pulled up at the main entrance, agreed to debit Cap's bank account, and whirred off with a new fare.

Cy generated a few stares as they joined the throng that was crowding its way into the dome, but so did the scattering of other cyborgs, and nobody looked for very long. Lando was glad figuring that people who stared at Cy wouldn't notice him.

The inside of the building was a large open space. Various kinds of vendors lined the outside walls. The crowd seemed to have divided itself into subgroups and headed toward various parts of the huge floor. Once there they seemed to mill around Lando couldn't see the attraction at first, but then he caught a glimpse of a boxlike structure at the center of each group, and realized it was a computer terminal.

"That's how you place your bets," Cy explained eagerly, "the terminals will accept cash or credit. You can bet on a particular animal to win, place, or draw."

"That's nice," Lando said, looking around. "But where are they? The animals I mean? And how can they race with all the people in here?"

All of a sudden the lights dimmed, there was a flurry of trumpets, and a melodic voice flooded the PA system. "Fellow sentients! Welcome to the Pylax Pavilion! Are you ready for a bounty of bodacious baccas? Let me hear you say 'Hell yes!'"

"Hell yes!" the crowd roared back, and Lando realized this a small army of booze and drug vendors had started to make their rounds. With each passing moment the pavilion seemed less and less appropriate for little girls.

"That's the announcer Les Lexus," Cy yelled over the noise "Isn't he a riot?"

"Yeah, a real riot," Lando agreed dryly. "Do you think this is a good place for Melissa?"

Cy spun back and forth as if seeing the pavilion in a new way. "Well, now that you mention it I'm . . ."

There was another blare of trumpets. Four holo projections, one for every point on the compass, snapped into being, each one filled with statistics on that day's races. Then the ceiling became a maze of pulsating red, blue, yellow, and green neon while the floor turned suddenly transparent. "Lando, look!"

Lando followed Melissa's finger down toward the floor. What he saw was a softly lit transparent tube. A brown streak raced through it and Lando realized that he'd just seen a bacca.

It was running through a complex system of tunnels under the pavilion's floor. Looking closer he saw there were actually two tracks, the one that was lit, and another more complicated version right next to it.

A cheer went up. "Warm-ups are under way . . . it's time to place your bets, my fellow sapients . . . time to win, lose, or draw!"

Lando turned to say something to Cy but he was gone. Standing on tiptoe, Lando could just make him out, placing his bet at a terminal, then speeding back.

"Just one race," Cy said excitedly, braking himself with a jet of compressed air, "then we'll leave. One race won't corrupt you will it, Mel?"

"Of course not!" Melissa replied indignantly. "Besides, I want to see what happens. How does it work, Cy?"

"Well," Cy replied, taking on the air of a lecturing professor, "first the tunnels are misted with rasa scent, those are the little animals that baccas like to hunt, and then four of them are released all at once.

"That's no problem at first, because the tunnel's real wide, but then it narrows down and that forces 'em to go through one at a time."

"And what happens then?" Lando asked, already having a pretty good idea.

"Well," Cy said cautiously, sensing the trap that had just been laid for him, "they tussle a bit. You know, fight to see who goes first."

"But that's mean!" Melissa said unhappily. "You're making them fight!"

"Maybe a little," Cy admitted, "but they rarely get hurt. Then the tunnel widens out a bit, and two baccas can run neck and neck till they hit the maze."

"The maze?" Melissa asked suspiciously. "What happens there?"

"Here, I'll show you." Cy zipped over toward a cluster of people and waited for Lando and Melissa to arrive. Looking down they saw that what had been a single tunnel was now a maze of tubing, complete with twists, turns, false entrances, and dead ends.

"There's only one way through," Cy said, "and they've got to find it. Once they do there's an underwater swim, an obstacle course, and a long straightaway to the finish line. The first one across wins."

Melissa crossed her arms and tapped a small foot. Then she frowned and gave Cy a dirty look. "I think it's silly and mean. I hope you lose all your money."

But this comment was lost on Cy as a bell clanged, a cheer went up, and the announcer yelled, "They're off!"

Something moved up above. Lando looked up to find that the pulsating neon had resolved itself into a huge diagram. Since spectators could see little more than the section of tunnel where they happened to be standing, the diagram provided the "big" picture, and served as a universal reference point.

Meanwhile, a small army of antigrav-equipped robo-cams had appeared all over the inside of the pavilion and were feeding images to the holos above. The pictures were the same ones seen all over the planet.

Choosing the diagram over actual video Lando watched as four animated baccas were released from a stylized starting gate. At first they were side by side, racing down a short straightaway, heading for the point where the tunnel narrowed.

Then, as the passageway began to close in, the cartoon baccas began to nip each other trying to gain an advantage. It was immediately clear that numbers one and four were getting the best of it, but just when their supremacy seemed assured, the tunnel ballooned out, then narrowed into a tiny corridor.

The crowd cheered as the electronic baccas tore into each other, biting off chunks of neon-colored flesh in their eagerness to pursue the maddening scent, each determined to be first through the hole.

Looking down, Lando saw that Melissa was undisturbed. Like him she was watching the computerized animation and the cartoonlike images held no reality for her.

Half the crowd cheered and the other half groaned as number three wriggled through the passageway first. Numbers one, four, and two were close on its heels.

Cy yelled, "Here they come!"

Lando looked up and saw the cyborg was right. The crowd was coming toward them with two robo-cams leading the way. He grabbed Melissa's shoulder just as the mob surged around them.

"Look!" Melissa said and pointed toward the floor.

Lando looked just in time to see four furry little animals enter the transparent maze. An extremely small robo-cam followed along behind them.

Each bacca wore a harness with a number on it. They had small weasellike faces, no external ears, and three eyes. One eye was located up front toward the center of the bacca's head, with the other two on either side, providing lateral vision.

Lando noticed that their front legs were shorter, ended in prehensile paws, and weren't used for running. Would a few million years of additional evolution turn their front legs into arms and their paws into hands? There was no way to tell.

Number three was bleeding profusely from a deep bite. Melissa bit a knuckle and reached for Lando's hand.

Now Lando found that he could see individual differences between the animals.

Number one darted here and there, exploring each and every possible route, eliminating them one by one.

Two was different, more tentative somehow, sniffing here and there but refusing to make a commitment.

Three split its time between licking its wound and exploring, while four sat back and took it all in. Was it thinking? Or just so confused it didn't know what to do?

The question was answered a few seconds later when number four took off down a tube, took two turns to the right, and cleared the maze.

A few seconds later numbers one, two, and three confirmed what Lando was beginning to suspect, that baccas are smarter than they look, and followed four's lead. As usual the small robo-cam tagged along behind them.

As the animals headed toward the underwater swim, most of the crowd followed, pulling Cy along. A few moments later Lando and Melissa had the surface of the maze all to themselves.

"Well," Lando said, "what do you think?"

"I think it's mean," Melissa answered without hesitation. "I felt sorry for number three. Will he be okay?"

"I'm sure he will," Lando answered reassuringly. "How 'bout some ice cream while we wait?"

"Yes please!" Melissa said, jumping up and down with excitement. Seconds later she had him by the hand and was towing him toward the nearest refreshment counter.

Looking back over his shoulder, Lando saw Cy hovering over the thickest part of the crowd and decided the cyborg would have little trouble finding them. Life in a silver sphere might have its problems but it had some advantages too.

It was a full fifteen minutes later before the baccas had found the way over, through, and around all the obstacles, and made the final dash for the finish line. Number two was first, with four second, three third, and one last. The winners roared with approval, while the losers threw their tickets toward the floor in disgust and ordered some more solace from one of the many vendors.

Cy appeared out of nowhere, shouting, "I won! I won!" before speeding off toward a nearby pay-out window. Landc and Melissa traded amused grins as they ambled along behind. They were about fifty feet from the window when all hell broke loose.

Someone shouted, "Grab that cyborg!" and the crowd swirled as a dozen people tried to obey.

Lando looked up just in time to see a man throw his cape over Cy and attempt to bundle him up. Two men and a woman stepped in to assist while Melissa ran straight at them shouting, "Let him go! He hasn't done anything to you! Let him go!"

Lando swore a blue streak as he followed, cursing Cy, cursing himself, and cursing his rotten luck. The four strangers had Cy almost under control by the time he arrived, but a flying body block and a bite or two from Melissa turned the tide.

Breaking out from under the cape, Cy squirted himself upward, and yelled, "Follow me!" So saying he headed for the nearest exit.

Breaking free of the hands that reached out to grab him, Lando grabbed Melissa's arm and followed the fleeing cyborg. He didn't get far. The stunner hit him right square between the shoulder blades.

Lando dropped like a rock. He could see and hear but that was all. All of his muscles were locked into spasm. People yelled, robo-cams swarmed around him like flies on a corpse, and rough hands picked him up off the floor. Since Lando was facedown he saw nothing but floor.

Lando heard a man say, "Yeah, the gambler's guild wants the borg for unpaid debts, and this guy tried to help him escape. The girl says her father's a Captain somebody or other. Book 'em and let the judge sort it out."

Lando gave a silent groan. Surely things couldn't get any worse than this?

But had Lando seen the bounty hunter with the green eyes and the flaming red hair he would've known the answer. Things could get worse. Much, much worse.

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Framed