Doug Joorish relaxed as his seat shifted into atmospheric position. He watched the central holo-field as a stewardess explained safety precautions, unloading procedures, and the conditions on Bamark. Doug was an experienced space traveller and he had checked up on Bamark back on the starship. His gaze drifted away from the holo to the woman he had noticed earlier. She had boarded late and taken a seat about a third of the way around the chamber from him. She was a comely brunette with expensive looking clothes in the latest fashions.

As the dropship began to pass through the planets atmosphere, Doug began to go over his plans one more time. He would first pick up his suitcase from customs assuming everything had gone okay and they had not detected any of his equipment. Then he was supposed to go to a local mall complex where he would receive further instructions. If anything went wrong, he was to go to a certain private ship lock where he would find a small inter-system freighter so he could get off planet.

The stewardess recording had finished now and the holo-field was displaying a cam-view of the lush rain forest planet. The horizon was a green verdant mass changed only by the intermittent groves of the purple Rayola trees native to Bamark. During the drop, Doug had barely noticed any increase in pressure. The gravgenerators must be getting better, he thought. The holo-field flickered and then began the stewardess recording over as a last minute reminder while the ship entered it's lock.

As Doug walked out the unloading connecter tunnel, he straightened his real synthleather jacket and watched for the woman from earlier, but she had disappeared in the press of tourists trying to get to the spaceport where they could breath real air instead of the canned, recycled air from the ship. Doug shrugged ruefully, probably better that he couldn't find her.

After passing through customs and receiving his suitcase with no problems, Doug stepped into a restroom for a moment to check his gear, then passed out of the spaceport into the noontime sun. The main form of transportation her was giant sliding walks like conveyor belts. The outside strips moved slow and the closer you get to the middle, the faster the strips are. Doug stepped on to the mover and moved towards the middle. He glanced around. It was pretty crowded here. A lot of people wore business suits, traveling between work and lunch.

When he reached the complex, he started out for the restaurant, glancing around occasionally, but alertly. Once he thought he saw a guy from the mover strip, but then he was gone. When he reached the restaurant, he stepped in and glanced back. The woman from the dropship was standing across the way looking at one of the open stall vendor's wares. She had a pair of polarized sunglasses on and he could not see her eyes. He stepped back into the shadows of the dim restaurant as the man from the mover strip walked up to the same stall and began browsing next to the woman. The man had chromed cyber-eyes so Doug couldn't see where he looked either.

A hand came down on his shoulder and spun him around. He raised his left arm to block as his right hand went for the gun he had assembled in the restroom at the spaceport. A woman stood there. She had nearly white hair, a black jumpsuit that fit her tightly, and sharply defined black eyebrows.

"Hurry, we have to go!", she hissed at him. Doug's vision faded, then came back, leaving him reeling. She was shaking him, but he couldn't move. "Doug, hurry!", she said again. "Doug, wake up, your going to be late!" His vision faded again, and then when it cleared, Doug saw his mother standing over him in her pink nightgown and he was lying in his bed. Doug groaned. It was the first day of summer school, the year 1988, in dry, hot Tucson, Arizona.