Down Staircase Ramp #1 rolled the five official municipal shuttle-carriages from Worlds 41, 42, 43, 44, and 45.
Wait—they weren’t even flying! Because the five planetary governors had read in a smuggled copy of the Dry-Well Municipal Highway Code that flying low over a pedestrian ramp carried a fifty-thousand-note fine, they had bolted iron wagon wheels onto the bottom of their flying shuttles and driven down the stone steps at a polite twenty-five miles an hour!
At the bottom of the ramp, General Tie Zhan was busy loading his Spirit-Furnace Star-Trains with fifty thousand armored guards and a hundred Giant Magnet-Toads, getting ready to march into Worlds 41 to 45 to liberate the cities.
SCREEEECH—HISS!
The five wheeled shuttle-carriages stopped neatly behind the white stop-line at Toll Booth #40. Before Abacus Su could even tap his window, the doors of the five carriages popped open, and five plump, grey-bearded Planetary Mayors tumbled out wearing homemade Dark-Blue Cotton Tunics sewn to look exactly like Dry-Well citizen uniforms!
Each of the five mayors held a copper basin containing five copper coins for the toll on top of their heads, and carried a thick stack of parchment scrolls under their arms!
“Wait a minute! Don’t fire the cannons, General Tie!” Mayor Qian of World 41 shouted, sprinting up to Pei Xuan and Tie Zhan while waving a large blue silk flag painted with a slightly crooked picture of Dry-Well Village’s Sweet-Spring Well and a giant Meat-Potato. “Lord Pei! We paid our five-copper toll…
