“Yeah, me, too,” the kid said as he squeezed the truck between two parked cars. “I could go for a couple beers. You want I should get a six-pack?”
“No beer for me, thanks,” Snowy said. “Just bring me some coffee, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Be right out.”
Of course the kid did not come right out. The kid was in there swilling medicine water, but Snowy didn’t mind, because the cab was cooling off, finally, and he needed the time to think.
I’ve got to lose the kid, somehow, Snowy thought. If only I could drive one of these things.
Snowy shifted over and put his feet up on the pedals. Now, this one made it go, and this one …? He knew it had something to do with this metal bar over here, which you were supposed to move when the engine started screaming. Yeah.
Damn, he’d never get this right. But he had to ditch the kid, for more than one reason. The spell was about to blow, and, two, Snowy had to find Halfway House soon or he’d start losing his grip. Humans were okay in small doses, but …
The door beside him suddenly opened. Speaking of humans, here was one: a tall, skinny critter with lip hair. He was flashing something at Snowy, a wallet or something with some kind of badge or emblem on it.
“Freeze!” Snowy turned his head. Another human had opened the far door and was pointing a weapon at him.
“Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms!” the first one blurted. “You’re under arrest!”
Those things said, the two of them began to act strangely. Transfixed, they stared at Snowy, their small eyes round and disbelieving.
“What’s up, guys?” Snowy asked.
Neither one of them could speak. The one nearest Snowy backed off, making a noise like “Gah gah gah —” and looking fearful.
The other one blinked his eyes a few times and kept staring while still pointing the gun.
“Well?” Snowy demanded, throwing up his hands. “Look, if you guys —”
He saw that his hands had reverted to their original furry state. He felt his face. Sure enough, the spell had evaporated.
Snowy reached a huge arm across and snatched the gun away. “If you’re not gonna use that, pal,” he said.
He gave the other guy a little push and sent him flying over a hood. Snowy closed the door, found the ignition key, and twisted it. The engine came to life, and the truck lurched forward. Snowy fiddled with the pedals and the bar until the engine stayed on and the truck kept moving forward. Then he floored the power pedal.
There was nothing in front of the truck save for a hedge. But beyond the hedge lay a field full of auto parts and other debris. He cut a swath through there, then smashed through a wooden fence, flattening the tool shed on the other side.
Snowy got confused for a moment; then the crashing and banging stopped and all the debris and broken stuff slid off the windshield and hood, and he could see. He was on the road, but apparently headed in the wrong direction. Headlights rushed at him, horns blaring. He veered off the road.
He wrenched the steering wheel around, spinning the truck on the gravel-strewn shoulder. He flattened a traffic sign, sideswiped a parked car, then roared back out on the highway again, the truck’s engine howling its pain.
He fiddled with the metal bar until the engine settled down. He found that different positions of the metal bar gave different speeds, more or less. He shifted to the highest speed and pushed the power pedal as far as it went.
He checked the mirrors. Nothing following. Maybe those guys had a big enough scare put into them that they wouldn’t be interested.
Maybe. Well, little bit of luck that turned out to be. Now all he had to do was find Halfway, and he’d be home.
Damn, he was thirsty. And hungry. There was nothing in the cab … except for that small metal can full of liquid that had kept rolling out from under the seat. Snowy reached, found it, brought the can up, and bit a hole through the top. He tasted the contents. Oily, definitely oily, but not bad. He chugged it down and threw the empty can out the window. He burped. Now he was hungry. Nothing around in the food department, save an open carton of cigarettes that the kid had been smoking out of. Snowy ripped open a package and sniffed. Weeds, yuck. But he was starved. He unhinged his jaws and emptied the contents of the pack into his mouth. Then he threw the pack in, too.
He emptied three more packs until an oozing wad of the stuff had accumulated in his mouth. Funny, it was more fun to chew than swallow. He spit some of the juice out the open window.
Funny place, Earth.
Twenty-nine
Laboratory
To Jeremy, the place looked like something out of a Frankenstein movie. He half expected to see Karloff shamble out of a dark corner. Strange contraptions filled the room. Among other Gothic monstrosities, there were spark coils three stories high, towering banks of strange instruments, fantastic wheels and cylinders, and titanic vacuum tubes.
The “mainframe” was an assemblage of fanciful components spilling out of a large alcove to one side. Different perspectives produced varying impressions. In part, Incarnadine’s computer looked like the set of a bad 1950s sci-fi flick, whereas some of its apparatus appeared to have been filched from a medieval alchemist. Other components were simply indescribable.
“How does it work?” Jeremy wanted to know.
“Well,” Incarnadine said, “it’s not an electronic computer. Electrons are rather sluggish in this universe. All I can say is that it works partly by magic, partly by utilizing the peculiar physical laws of this continuum. But structurally speaking, it’s just like the computers you know. You input data. That data is stored, then retrieved and manipulated in a central processing unit. The results are fed to various output devices. Those are pretty crude, which is why your laptop will come in handy.”
“Sounds strange. I’m sorry. What I mean is —”
“Forget it. The point is, the thing works. Why don’t we turn it on?”
Not only did it look like a bad sci-fi flick, it sounded like one, beeping and burping to ape the worst of them.
But the contraption did indeed work. Jeremy opened his computer case to find that the Toshiba had already interfaced with the mainframe. In fact, they were arguing.
— GOING TO BE PROBLEMS. I’M NOT USED TO WORKING WITH SUCH A SKIMPY DATA BASE.
WHOSE DATA BASE IS SKIMPY? YOUR ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT YOU CAN’T HANDLE MY COMPLEXLY STRUCTURED DATA WITH YOUR PUNY 16-BIT MICROPROCESSOR!
OH. IS THAT WHAT ALL THIS QUAINT CLUTTER IS? DATA?
WHAT? LISTEN, SHORT CIRCUIT, YOU’RE TALKING TO A STATE-OF-THE-ART INSTALLATION HERE!
DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH.
YOU’LL BE LAUGHING OUT OF THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUR DISK DRIVE IN ANOTHER MINUTE.
“We’re going to have compatibility problems,” Jeremy said.
“I expected as much,” Incarnadine said, checking a bank of readout instruments. “That’s your department, young man.”
“But …”
The King kept his eye on the instrument panel. Jeremy sighed and put his fingers to the keyboard.
OKAY, GUYS, he typed, LET’S CUT THE EGO CRAP AND GET DOWN TO BUSINESS OKAY?
WELL, THIS ONE STARTED IT, WALTZING IN HERE AND CASTING ASPERSIONS ON THINGS IT CAN’T BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND, MUCH LESS RENDER AN OPINION ON.
