Walking through these generally flat-floored alleys was a strange business, but Coyote led the way through the maze without delaying at any of the many forks, following a path only he knew, turning left and right a score of times. One slot was so narrow they could touch both walls at once, and they had to scrape through a turn.

When they came out the northern side of the crevasse maze, emerging from a draw in the riven steep escarpment which was the end of the plateau islands, a small tent stood before them against the western canyon wall. Its arc of fabric glowed like the bulb of a dusty lamp. Within the tent were mobile trailers, rovers, drills, earthmovers, and other mining equipment. It was a uranium mine, called Pitchblende Alley, because this lower section of the canyon was floored with a pegmatite extremely rich in uraninite. It was a very productive mine, and Coyote had heard that the processed uranium stockpiled at it during the years between elevators had not yet been shipped out.

Now Coyote ran over the canyon floor toward the tent, and Nirgal and Art followed. There was no one visible inside the tent; the only illumination was provided by a few night lights, and the lit windows of a big trailer set near the center of things.

Coyote walked right up to the tent’s nearest lock gate, and the other two followed him. He plugged his wristpad jack into the keyhole by the lock gate, and began to tap on his wristpad. The outer lock door opened. No alarms seemed to go off; no figures appeared out of the door of the trailer. They got in the lock, closed the outer door, waited for the lock to suck and pump, then opened the inner door. Coyote ran toward the settlement’s little physical plant, beside the trailer; Nirgal went for the living quarters, hopping up the steps to the trailer’s door. He held one of Coyote’s “locking bars” under the door handle, turned the dial that released the fixative, and pushed the bar against the door and wall of the trailer. The trailer was made of a magnesium-based alloy, and the polymer fixative would make what was in effect a ceramic bond between the locking bar and the trailer, so that the door would be stuck. He ran around the trailer and did the same to the other door, then dashed back toward the gate, feeling his blood fly through him as if it were pure adrenaline. It was so much like a prank that he had to consciously remember the explosive charges that Coyote and Art were distributing through the settlement, in warehouses, against the tent fabric, and in the parking lot for the mining behemoths. Nirgal joined them in running from vehicle to vehicle, climbing the stairs on their sides, opening doors manually or electronically, tossing small boxes Coyote had provided into the cabs or cabins.