Jane took some time then to work on the maintenance hulk, one of the dirt-stupid machines that the state of Texas used to keep up its county roads. The Troupe sometimes made a little money working repair on busted state robotry, and it kept them in a better air with sheriff’s deputies and the Texas Rangers. Out in West Texas, official repair yards were very few and far between, and worse yet, for some reason, the locals seemed to dote on structure-hitting highway machinery. The hulk in their shop had been put out of its misery by a fusillade of twenty-four shots from a deer rifle.