Samurai studied the breakfast menu dubiously. Full of cholesterol, sugar, fat, starch; it wasn't the kind of thing he was used to seeing being blatantly encouraged—and without warnings. The people behind him were smoking shamelessly in public, and the staff took no notice. He was only a few miles past the border, and already standards were beginning to revert to primitive. Yet his destination lay nearly three thousand miles farther east. Why would people voluntarily forgo the security of ordered lives and the fulfillment of dedicating themselves to a duty in favor of such places? . . . Freedom? Most of them wouldn't know what to do with it. Responsibility would terrify them far more than anything the state could ever impose. No wonder psychiatric wards were full. The counselors and analysts were right: anyone who found things at home dissatisfying had to be a victim of serious maladjustment problems.
He hadn't risen especially early, and there were only a few people left in the hotel restaurant. A couple was sitting in the far corner, a woman on her own was behind him, two men who looked like travelers were eating alone, and there was a party of two men and a woman together. Samurai's first thought was to get away from this area as quickly as possible, since he wasn't sure of the situation concerning possible cooperation between the German and local police. Maybe it was unwise to have remained this close to the border for as long as he had, but that was irrel-e-vant now. The most obvious place to make for would be the capital, Prague, roughly fifty miles away, where the options for further travel onward would be greatest.
The waitress came over and asked something in Czech, which wasn't among the languages that Samurai was equip-ped with. He asked if she could repeat it in German, which seemed not unlikely since this was a border town. "Would you like coffee?" she complied.
"Do you have coylene?"
"In the kitchen. I'll get them to make you some."
Samurai ordered rolls with an egg dish and sausage that didn't sound too red. "How could I get to Prague from here?" he asked before she left.
"Are you driving?"
"Of course not. If I were, I'd simply look at a map."
"Well, excuse me. You can get a bus to Jablonec, or a cab if you're in a hurry. And another bus or the train from there. They'll have details at the desk."
"Thanks."
"Do I detect German with a trace of an American -accent there?" a voice said genially behind him, in English. He turned. The woman who was alone was looking at him. She was approaching middle age, rounding out and showing the beginnings of a second chin. All the same she was not unattractive, with clear, bright eyes, dark hair cut straight across at the neckline, and fresh makeup. She was wearing a navy top with a flimsy orange scarf tied at her throat, which added a mischievous, carefree touch.
"Yes. That's right," Samurai said.
"Great! It isn't exactly what you'd call crawling with us around here."
"I guess not." Samurai had a lot of thinking to do. He didn't have time for chatter, nor any inclination, and tried not to show any reaction that might encourage her.
She gave him a moment to reciprocate, but he turned back to pour himself a glass of water. Then she said, "I heard you asking about getting to Prague. I'm driving there myself, if you'd like a ride."
Samurai's head turned back around. "When?"
"As soon as I've finished this."
That changed everything. Samurai grinned and received a pleased smile in return. "That's very good of you," he said. "The name's Sam, Sam Harris. Maybe I could join you? Breakfast is on me."
The snow in the night had confined itself to the higher reaches of the hills, standing white against a sky that had cleared to misty blue, streaked with furrows of cloud high up. Even so, the road was frosty and treacherous, calling for careful driving.
She had arrived sometime in the middle of the night. Her name, she said, was Roxy, originally from Montana, but that had been quite a few years ago. Although easygoing and convivial, she was vague about what she did these days. Samurai got the impression of some kind of businesswoman or freelancing adventuress who went with whatever opportunities life decided to cast her way at the moment. She seemed to travel a lot and knew the FER, which promised much useful information in the course of the journey and made Samurai doubly glad that he had changed his mind.
"How about you?" she inquired finally.
"What about me?"
"Quit stalling. Where are you from? What do you do?"
"Does it matter?"
"Hell, why not get to know each other a little for the duration, even if it's not going to be a lifelong affair? I like talking to people. I'm just curious."
"Oh . . . I'm based out of Philadelphia right now." Which was what Sam Harris's documents said. It saved having to invent a whole new background after Maurice Gordon was deactivated. "I import stuff mostly. This and that. Not anything in particular. Spend a lot of time all over the States."
"So what brings you here?"
"Some possible lines that I might get an exclusive on. Anyhow, new places are interesting. Like you, curious maybe."
"This and that, eh?"
Samurai didn't like the cross-examining and looked away out the window. "Whatever."
"Now why not come clean?" Roxy suggested.
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh, come on." Roxy's voice was softly chiding, in a way that said she wasn't really trying to pry, but it was too obvious. "A town near the border, first thing in the morning. No transport. No bags, just a briefcase. No real plans." She glanced across pointedly. "You're defecting, right? You want to get through into FER territory."
"Look, I just agreed to accept a ride to Prague, okay?"
"Hey, don't worry about it. There's no need to be so touchy. How do you think I got here? I said Montana was a long time ago now."
He was being touchy, he told himself. She could be useful, and she sounded as if she wanted to help. "I'm sorry. . . . Okay, so I'm just out. It does things to your nerves."
"I know. Like I said, don't worry about it. So where are you heading, out east?"
"Yep. I've got contacts in a couple of places that I can follow up."
"So you want a connection from Prague. Do you like driving? I'm going to Budapest. Not FER, but it's closer."
"It's a nice thought, but I have to be a long way from here in two days."
"Do you have cash?"
"Oh, enough, I'd think."
"Be careful budgeting. Consolidation currency probably isn't worth as much as you think. Train or plane, then? I can drop you at either." Samurai didn't reply immediately. He needed to find out about how his being a fugitive on the other side of the border might affect things here. "You've gone quiet," Roxy said, looking across. "Is there some kind of problem?"
"I don't know too much about this country," Samurai said. "I ended up here . . . I guess you could call it kind of 'unintentionally.' "
Roxy's eyes wrinkled with amusement. "Okay."
"How closely do the police here cooperate with the Germans? If you were being chased over there, would they be watching for you here?"
She answered matter-of-factly, almost as if expecting it. "A lot of the old system is still intact here at the western end of what used to be Czechoslovakia. In Moravia it gets easier, and Slovakia is FER. But here where we are, yes, the police across the border tend to work together. It depends how bad it is. If it's a parking ticket, don't lose too much sleep about it. But if you've just assassinated the German chancellor or something . . ."
"No." Samurai hesitated, but decided that his best chance was to be straight. Roxy could hardly tell him what he needed to know without knowing the situation herself. He drew a long breath and sighed. "But there was a mess with their border police last night. One of them stopped a bullet."
"Oh, shit."
"Don't worry. He'll live."
"Did you do that?"
"Somebody I was with, but does it matter? . . . There were Berlin federal agents involved too."
"Terrific. . . . Boy, do I pick me some company for -breakfast."
"So, what would you do?"
Roxy thought for a few seconds, then shook her head. "If you're hot, I wouldn't risk the airport. You want to keep your name off the passenger lists. In the FER it gets easier, but here you're too close. Train would be better."
"I don't have the time. It's too far. I need to fly."
Roxy fell silent again for a short while, then said, "Maybe there's another way. The airport at Ruzyne has a flying club attached, where the small stuff is based: private planes, company planes, choppers, that kind of thing."
"Do they lease planes out?" Samurai asked, seeing the possibility. "I am a pilot, fixed wing and helicopters."
"To someone they've never heard of, who just walks in off the street? That could be difficult. I was thinking more that you might be able to work a deal with somebody—you know, make it worth their while. That's how things tend to work here. There's all kinds of commercial activity -going on in places like Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia. It shouldn't be hard to find someone who's heading that way."
"Do you know anybody at this airport?" Samurai asked.
"Not really. But I know how to talk to people."
"Why should you do that for me?"
"Well, I assumed you'd be making it worth my while too." She flashed him a mock-seductive, pouty look. "What's wrong with helping a guy out for a little money? Maybe I missed out when I was younger."
They passed through some snow that had been recently plowed, and descended out of the hills to the north of Prague, with the landscape taking on a recognizably Wences-lasian flavor. Lower down, they passed a baroque mansion, solid and immutable amid high-walled grounds, washed up from the ocean of a time long gone.
"You say it should be easier once I'm in the FER," Samurai checked.
"So long as you mind your manners and don't go trying to rip too many people off. They call it the Wild East, didn't you know?"
She seemed to approve of such a state of affairs, and that provoked him. "Don't they have any law there?" he said acidly. "Is everyone a criminal?"
Roxy laughed delightedly. "Boy, did they put you through school. Look, don't believe everything you heard back home. It's the gateway off the planet out there in the FER, the new frontier. That's where it's all happening. Oh, sure, it can be kind of rough and ready at times. People who mess other people around tend to get dealt with pretty abruptly. But it works the other way too: people don't bother you too much. Just don't try and push them around; and be straight, because they're sharp. . . . So, yes, there the law is pretty straightforward in most of the territories, even if some people might say it's a bit basic. It protects rights. But it doesn't concern itself all that much with the rest of the world's politics."
"Well, maybe it should," Samurai suggested. "Politics is the science of maintaining order, which makes it necessary that people obey the same rules. And the only way they can be made to do that is through force and through fear."
"They're obeying something else inside them, which they believe in," Roxy said. "Maybe fifty years from now academics will invent a word for it. Meanwhile, it seems to be working a lot better than the things you're talking about ever did."
They stopped for a snack and a shared pot of tea, -after which the surroundings became more suburban, with townships, industrial and office parks, and newish-looking road systems. To Samurai, it all suggested a playpen for overindulged children. The cars were gaudy, and there were too many of them in too many needless varieties, spread unneces-sarily over multiple lanes that wasted fuel as well as space by encouraging uneconomical speeds. The buildings were flimsily built and inefficient, with too much glass. Roxy said it was because they ran on fusion-generated electricity fed into the grid from the FER, which was cheap enough to make the building codes that were mandatory back in the States not worth the hassle. Samurai doubted it, since technical problems had caused the U.S. fusion program to stagnate years ago. It was inevitable that when this kind of extravagance had run its course, these people would be coming bowl-in-hand to the West like prodigals returning to the family estate, in the way the experts were predicting. Only this time, there would be no bailouts. If they had listened, they would have known that a finite world imposes its own harsh realities. That was when the reckoning would come.
They skirted the western outskirts of Prague and joined a wide highway that brought them to Ruzyne by early afternoon. Roxy followed signs into the airport complex, and after a couple of wrong turns, doublings back, and a stop to ask directions, they found their way to the terminal and outbuildings of the club and flying school, located at a remote end away from the main facilities. They went -inside, and after a brief look around sat down with two cups of coffee—there was no coylene this time—at a window booth in a cafeteria lounge situated on one side of the reception area. The place was filled with a colorful mix of people, talking, laughing, arguing, some sitting alone; wearing business clothes, casual gear, flying suits, others in working jeans and mechanic's coveralls.
The window looked out over the parking apron for private aircraft, beyond which lay a taxiing area and the main airport runways. There was a steady traffic of international and regular domestic flights, most of the aircraft types being one or other of various Siberian makes. Samurai hadn't realized that they were so widely used. In the immediate vicinity there seemed to be a fairly continuous coming and going of smaller machines, also—as Roxy had said would be the case.
She looked across at him and raised her eyebrows. "Well, want me to give it a shot?"
"Why? It's my problem."
Roxy pursed her lips for an instant, then smiled. "Nothing personal, Sam, okay? But you fly the planes. I think I might be better at handling the people." She stood up before he could respond, squeezed his shoulder good-naturedly, and sauntered over to a group of men and a woman in a mixture of flying clothes, who were talking loudly around a table.
"Hi, guys, how're you doing today?" he heard her say. Then her voice fell and some muted conversation followed, marked after a while by several curious glances thrown in Samurai's direction. Then one of the men called over two others who were sitting together a short distance away. More talking ensued, and then the two came with Roxy over to the booth where Samurai was sitting. One was tall and swarthy, with a lazy stride, an easygoing face that seemed to smile easily, and a walrus mustache. He was wearing a fleece-lined leather jacket, woollen cap, and jeans tucked into calf-length boots. The man with him was short and pale, with a fur-trimmed parka and cossack cap. Samurai's first thought was of flying cowboys.
"I hear you're looking to hitch a ride east," the tall one said without preamble, perching himself on the end of the seat opposite.
"Where are you going?" Samurai asked him.
"We'll be taking some parts for a turbine to Cluj. They're being loaded outside there now."
"How far's that?"
"About two hours' flight time. But we gain an hour because of the time zone."
"Cluj-Napoca," Roxy supplied. "It's FER, in Tran-sylvania—part of what used to be called Romania."
"Where do you want to get to?" the smaller of the two asked Samurai.
"East, into Siberia. Could I connect from Cluj?"
The one who was sitting showed a palm casually. "Sure. Straight into Odessa. There should be something going there tonight, but if not there's definitely a couple in the morning. From there you're in the trans-Siberian trunk net, with flights round the clock."
Samurai regarded him cautiously. It sounded too easy. "There are no exit formalities for leaving Bohemia?" he queried.
The flier with the mustache grinned. "Why? Did you want to ask someone if it's okay?"
"What about getting into Transylvania at the other end? I don't have any entry permit or visa, you understand."
The smaller one gave a short laugh and looked at his companion. "He hasn't been in the FER before," he said.
The other shrugged and showed his palms to indicate that he had no more to say. "So, we've got a spare seat. Does that sound good?"
Samurai still felt uneasy, mainly because of the unfamiliarity of the situation, he had to admit. But really he had no choice. "Okay," he agreed.
The flier gave one of his easy smiles. "Good. Now let's talk about money. . . ."
But when Samurai tried to settle up with Roxy, she would have none of it. "Let's make it a way of saying welcome to somebody else from home," she told him. "Always be the first to do the other guy a favor—it's a saying they've got in Siberia. Remember it. That's the way you get along in the FER." She smiled and gripped his hand. "So long, Sam Harris. Good luck."
They took off later in the afternoon in a small cargo plane with twin turboprops. Samurai sat by a window in one of several seats in the forward cabin behind the pilots. The seat next to him was empty, the two behind piled with baggage, and the only other passengers were two Asiatics opposite, who talked between themselves in a dialect he didn't under-stand. Apart from offering him a swig of a potent-smelling drink from a flask that they kept passing back and forth, which he declined, they paid him no attention.
The plane flew south of the Carpathian Mountains across Bohemia and Moravia, which like Poland were in a halfway state between the West and the FER. Then, above lengthening winter shadows, the plane entered FER airspace over the northern part of Hungary. By the time the pilot announced the commencement of their descent, the ground was getting dark. On the approach, Samurai was surprised to see a bustling city with lots of tall buildings, bridges, and lights spread out below, and enormous floodlit structures of steelwork and engineering that appeared to be under construction beyond the perimeter of the airfield. For some reason he'd expected Cluj to be some kind of shanty-town, neglected and decayed.
After landing, they taxied to a parking area in front of a hangar away from the main terminal. The three passengers and two-man crew climbed down to the tarmac and walked to an entrance in a row of small buildings housing workshops and a cargo bay. Inside was a small reception office with seats and a counter. For a moment it seemed to Samurai that he could simply walk through, but the pilot indicated for him to wait at the counter.
"We'll get you a ride over to the terminal," he explained.
"I'll be okay."
"No chance. They make changes to this airport so fast that even I get lost in it." Just then, a man came out of the office behind the counter. "Marek, can we get this guy a ride to the terminal? He just came in with me."
"Sure." Marek turned and called back through the door. "Is the wagon out front? We got somebody who needs to go across to main arrivals, international."
Samurai resigned himself to accepting that he wasn't going to have much option. An old man with a grizzled beard drove him along the side of the tarmac behind a line of parked aircraft, across part of the airfield, and deposited him at a glass door with stairs leading up inside. Samurai followed the corridor and ramp at the top and found himself on the route through to the main arrivals concourse. Ahead, he could see, he would have to pass a desk where an official in a white shirt was sitting. There was no way around. Samurai thrust across his passport, and having nothing else to offer, his German visa and U.S. exit papers.
The official pushed them back again. "I don't need those. You're in the Free World now." He stamped the passport without giving it a second glance and handed it back. "Welcome to the Federation of Eurasian Republics."
Samurai stared about him. There was no obvious continuation from there on, no indicators for the next stage of processing, no guards, no signs instructing anyone what to do.
He looked back uncertainly. "Where do I go now?"
The official shrugged. "Anywhere you want."