I didn't answer. I sipped my coffee and stared at the table. Conversation started up again, but I didn't listen.
I thought I heard Susan's voice, far off, faint. I cocked my ears. No. Just wind, maybe. Or a castle ghost.
'Jake?'
It was Darla, again. I turned my head to her. 'Are you all right, Jake?'
I nodded. 'Yeah. I'm… fine. Fine.'
The feeling passed quickly, leaving a wistful longing for something I couldn't name. That gradually faded, too.
I sighed and sat up, drained my cup, and stood. 'We're going home,' I announced.
We hunted up Arthur and found him fiddling with the controls on the back of his little helper robot, which looked like a mobile gum-ball machine.
'What's gotten into you?' he was asking it as we approached. He looked up. 'Oh. Hello, there.'
'We're leaving, Arthur,' I said.
'Want a lift to the exit portal, or are you taking the scenic route?'
'What you said.'
'Right. Dearie me, this little guy's innards are all cockeyed.' He flipped the access plate up, and it clicked into place. He tapped the robot's transparent globular head. 'All right, Edgar, run along.'
The mechanism rumbled off on wobbly wheels.
''Bye, Edgar,' Darla said, waving. 'Nice meeting you.'
'Whirrclickbeep,' Edgar said, swiveling his head around and raising a mechanical arm.
'Nice kid, but from a low-tech family, if you know what I mean,' Arthur said. 'Okay, I'm your chauffeur again.' There wasn't much to fetch from our quarters. John, Zoya, and Darla had a few things to pack, Ragna and Oni next to nothing, and I rounded up my toothbrush and an extra shirt. I didn't see anything belonging to Susan, Roland, or the Talltree boys. Sam had nothing but the clothes on his back:
Our host made no appearance as we made our way to the lower. I didn't expect him to show, but for some reason I diwbted we'd seen the last of him.
Emerald City's glossy green walls remained mute; the cmpty chambers were as silent as they had been for the last million years. What events had transpired in them, long ago? What plots had hatched, what scenes had unfolded? Don't ask rue. The place had made a fair motel, as motels go.
We took an up-chute to a higher level, walked down a hallway, then climbed a spiral stairway to the tower.
'Good Lord,' Sam exclaimed. 'You weren't kidding about a flying saucer.'
'Would I kid you about a thing like that?' I said. Arthur dilated the saucer's main hatch and we boarded.
By the time we got our gear stowed in the truck, Arthur had taken off. As I stepped into the control room, the walls dm-hpaqued and I could see the tower's top closing behind us. Emerald City dropped away, and we shot out over the valley.
Sam was mesmerized as he watched the terrain of the diskworld slide beneath us.
'This is pretty weird.' he finally decided.
'You think?' I said.
'Most spectacular!' Ragna exclaimed, his pink oval eyes wider than usual.
Oni's pale blue hands were up over her mouth in a very human gesture of amazement. She uncovered to say, 'It is indeed magic, or something verily like it!'
'Verily,' I agreed.
'I am almost sorry to leave this place,' Zoya said quietly.
I regarded her for a moment. There hadn't been time to discuss what effect Yuri's decision was having on her. She looked relieved. Perhaps it had been for the best.
We were heading for the dark face of the planet-it was still broad daylight on this side. I scanned all around, trying to catch sight, of anything coming our way. And sure enough, slowly gaining on our tail…
'Arthur-'
'I saw it before you did,' Arthur said as he stood at the control panel. He hadn't moved his head.
Darla searched the sky and saw the glittering many-colored phenomenon behind us. 'I wonder what it is this time.'
'I know what it is, and I'm scared,' Arthur said. 'And I'm not even alive. In the conventional sense, that is.'
'What is it?' I asked.
'What's the conventional sense of being alive?'
'For God's sake, what's chasing us?'
'I don't have a name for it. You'll soon see.'
The glittering vortex grew until it became a rotating wheel of fire that stretched from horizon to horizon.
'Oh, my God,' Darla said, clutching my arm.
'Arthur,' I said, 'you had better reach deep, deep into that bag of tricks of yours.'
'What bag is that, dearie?'
The rim of the wheel was a ring of golden fire braced by hundreds of green luminescent spokes that spun about a rubyred, star-bright hub. Cascades of pyrotechnics spewed from the rim at various points along its circumference. The spokes shimmered and left blue smoky trails as they rotated. The phenomenon wasn't a physical object in the conventional sense-the spokes and the rim seemed to be turning in opposite directions.
'Pretty,' Sam said.
'Deadly,' Arthur said.
'What's it do?' Sam asked.
At that instant the ship was enveloped in a brilliant fireball, and we were thrown to the deck by a terrific concussion. I rolled and got to my feet, helped Darla up, but another shock wave hit us, and we went down. This time I waited for a moment before trying to get up. I asked Sam if he was all right.
'Never better,' he reported. 'What hit us?'
The walls had opaqued instantly, but now they were partially transparent again. The wheel was radiating dazzling purple energy beams from at least a hundred points along the circumference of the golden ring, and they were all focused in on us.
'Whew!' Arthur said. 'For a couple nanoseconds there we were actually subject to the normal laws of physics! Any more of that and we'll turn into vapor. But I have the energy pretty much neutralized now.'
We all got up and looked back. We seemed to have put some distance between us and the wheel. Not much, but we were slowly pulling away. There was still a faint rounding us, gradually fading.
'I think we can outrun this thing,' Arthur, said.
'Can you do a continuum jump?' I asked.
'Not with that thing chewing on our tail, and certainly not this close to the planet. We lucked out last time I did a blind jump. Our fortune might not be so good the second time. Just let me get some distance first, and then we might be able… uh-oh.'
'There,' Darla said, pointing to starboard.
A V formation of glowing red disks was coming abreast of us, having just darted out from a suspicious-looking greenish cloud. Arthur steered the ship to port, but we were met by another V, this one made up of a squadron of pulsating blue cubes. Arthur veered off again.
'Cubes,' Arthur observed. 'Well, at least that's in keeping with the minimalist style they seem to be fond of. Dodecahedrons next, I bet.'
'They can give us trouble?' I wanted to know.
'Maybe. They don't seem to want to close with us-which means…'
'They're herding us somewhere,' Sam suggested.
'Yes,' Arthur said, 'but I can't imagine where or why.' The interceptors kept feinting at us, pinching us in, forcing Arthur to adjust and readjust our heading. They obviously had sonic specific course in mind for us.
'Very effective ploy,' Arthur commented admiringly. 'We can't outrun them while we're neutralizing the wheel's energy, nor can we outshoot them. I'm betting they can't outshoot us either, but all bets are off when we get to where they want us to go.'
