toll on his nerves. There was nothing I could do except to assure him it would all go according to plan.
And I wondered myself, Whose plan?
The summer wore on and the crisis approached. The Paradox Machine clanked and whirred and shot bright blue sparks, its spinning sharp-toothed wheels up to full speed.
We summoned Arthur.
It was a balmy California evening. We stood in a hollow in back of Dave's house, watching the skies. There were few stars; only the biggest and brightest could make it through the hazy glare that the sprawling electric grid of Los Angeles threw back at the sky
'I've got goose bumps,' Dave said, playing his flashlight beam up into the night. 'This is like a scene out of The Day the Earth Stood Still.'
'A movie?' I asked.
'Yeah. And if Arthur looks anything like Gort, I'm going to shit enough bricks to build a barbecue pit.'
'I can't say for sure, but Arthur probably doesn't look anything like Gort. Arthur doesn't look like anyone or anything I know.'
'There?' Darla whispered, pointing to a distant shape moving against the semidarkness.
We heard a low droning accompanied by a chopping sound.
'Helicopter,' Dave said. 'See the lights?' Dave stamped his foot. 'Damn, there's a lot of air traffic tonight.'
'Probably better that way,' I said, wishing I had the communicator. Lori had it. She was out somewhere with Carl Two. Arthur said he already had Dave's house pinpointed and would be able to land if we stood near the site and signaled visually. Carl One was in the house, biting his nails. Would Carl Two repeat history and go up to Mulholland Drive, there to meet his destiny? Only time would tell, and time wasn't telling yet.
Dave gasped, and I looked up.
There was the ship, ghosting over the lip of the hollow, its dark ovate bulk outlined by a constellation of flashing red and blue lights. I smiled. Arthur had done a good job of camouflage. The lights were positioned to mimic the configuration of a conventional aircraft. I wondered if he'd been tracked on radar. Soundlessly, like some sort of dirigible whale, the craft cased to the ground, its immensity filling up the hollow. The main cargo bay dilated and we went in.
'Je-sus! This is your truck?' Dave said, awestruck.
'That's it.'
'This thing's a monster! You say it's atomic powered?'
'Nuclear fusion. Want to climb in?'
'Je-sus.'
He did, and we did. I gave him the tour, and Dave oohed end aahed for a while, then fell into silent wonderment.
'What's the matter?' I asked.
He took his hands from the steering bars. 'You know, up till now, I gotta admit that there was a tiny bit of doubt in the back of my mind about all this. I was secretly hoping, desperately hoping, I guess, that I'd fallen into a group delusional psychosis thing, like those saucer cultists who camp out in the desert waiting for the aliens to come down and save the world.' He slapped the instrument panel. 'But here it is, in all its mind-shredding reality. You know, there were times when I thought-'
Brought up short, he stared numbly out the viewscreen. 'Oh, my God,' he said in a hollow voice.
I looked. It was Arthur. 'Yoo-hoo!' Arthur waved.
We got out, and I introduced Dave to our quasiandroid servant.
'Are you tracking Lori?' I asked.
'Yes, indeed,' Arthur said.
'Where are they?'
He gestured vaguely. 'Out there somewhere. Nowhere near the pick-up zone, which you said wasn't far from here.'
'Well, we have some time,' I said, then glanced around. 'Carl should be here. Darla, would you run and get him?'
'Sure.'
I noticed that Dave was still gawking at Arthur, who was returning a supercilious glare. Suddenly self- conscious, Dave averted his eyes.
'Dave's been a real help,' I said to Arthur. 'Don't get on his case.'
'Well, excuse me,' Arthur sniffed.
'My fault,' Dave said. 'I was staring. I've never seen a seven-foot tall, pink and purple person before.'
'And yellow,' Arthur said, pointing to an appropriate section of his plasticlike skin.
'Yeah. Sorry.'
'Quite all right. You know, Dave, I'm not as strange as I look.'
'That's right,' I said. 'He's stranger.'
'All I get is abuse,' Arthur lamented. 'A servant's lot. One of these days I'm going to rise above my station in life and tell you how passing strange I think humans are.'
'We know we're strange, Arthur,' I said. 'Don't forget. You may not look it, but you're human, too.'
'Don't remind me.'
Arthur conducted Dave on a tour of the ship.
'It's so empty,' Dave remarked, perplexed. 'There's nothing in here.'
'Oh, there's plenty of auxiliary equipment,' Arthur said. 'It's all built in.' Arthur went to a bulkhead and ran his index finger over its surface, outlining a simple oblong shape. Suddenly, the pattern materialized and the portion of bulkhead that it described tilted out. Arthur detached it and held it in both hands. 'This is a weapon, for instance. There are lots of things hidden in the walls, everything from scientific instrumentation to-'
Darla came running in. 'Carl left,' she said breathlessly. 'Took the Chevy.'
'What?' I yelped. 'Where'd he go?'
'He was raving that he'd had enough crazy stuff and that he was going to get Lori and go away somewhere and forget all this. I tried to stop him, but he was already pulling out of the cul-de-sac.'
'Great,' I said. 'Arthur, do you have another communicator?'
Arthur crossed to the opposite bulkhead and did the same trick, pulling a smaller oblong out of the wall. He handed it to me.
I said, 'Is there any way to track Carl's Chevy?'
'Do you know what type of propulsion system it has?'
'Of course not. Hell, I'd never catch him, anyway. But it's a good bet he'll find Lori. So just guide me to her.'
'Should I take the ship up? I've got the outside surface tuned properly now. It should be radar transparent. And with the camouflage, we'll be fairly inconspicuous.'
'Yeah, for a flying saucer. Just stand by. Dave, I'll take the VW and go after him, if that's all right with you.'
'Okay,' Dave said nervously. 'I'll stay here in the dimension of imagination.'
'Hm? Right.'
A balmy, subtropical California night, traffic-choked and many-peopled. We raced north on the San Diego Freeway. By this time I could dart and weave between lanes like a native.
'I wish there were some way for Arthur to contact Lori,' I said.
'It might be awkward for her if Arthur's voice suddenly came out of her handbag,' Darla ventured.
'It might. Again, where did Lori say they were going?'
'Out somewhere in the San Fernando Valley, to watch a drag race.'
'A which?'
'Drag race?' Darla flipped both hands palms up. 'Do you have any idea-'
'It has something to do with automobiles, but beyond that…'
'In this culture,' I said, 'what doesn't have something to do with automobiles?'
Traffic thickened as we got into the valley. I was used to the incessant rush of traffic by now. The
