NECROM

Gibson looked out of the window. The Cadillac seemed to be traveling at an impossible speed. The speedometer was hard over, and the car appeared to be moving at something well in excess of the 120 mph that was showing on the clock. The trees at the edge of the highway were flashing past as though the Caddy were about to sprout wings and fly. He knew that there had to be some advanced gizmo from another dimension juicing the mill.

It seemed that Klein must also have had something juicing his reactions. The signs were coming too fast for Gibson to read, but Klein was quite able to spot the one for the Kings Ridley exit and send the car hurtling into the off ramp in a scream of tires.

On the country two-lane, they had to slow down considerably, but Klein was still able to throw the car through its twists and turns at an average of ninety. Kings Ridley was a picturesque piece of rural England with cottages set around a village green, a Saxon church with a squat, square tower, a pub called The Ox, and even a duck pond, but Gibson saw almost nothing of it as they roared through like a motorized banshee. Two miles outside the village, they halted, just as Windemere had suggested. Klein turned off the headlights, and Gibson looked through the rear window, but he could see no signs of Yancey Slide's Hudson. Smith peered out at the fields that surrounded them. The sky was overcast and vision was further hampered by the lack of a moon.

"Does anyone see this burial mound thing?"

Klein was also staring into the darkness. "There's something over there but it's hard to tell what it is."

Smith thought for a moment. "We can't go back with Slide somewhere behind us. I fear our only course is to engage the groove and see what happens."

French scowled. "If there's nothing there for the groove to lock on to, it could create a random displacement and that'd be the effective end of us."

"We're going to have to take that chance."

French was not only scowling but also shaking his head. "You're placing one hell of a bet on the accuracy of Windemere's information."

Smith nodded. "Believe me, I'm very aware of that. If there was an alternative course of action, I'd take it."

Gibson watched with a frightened fascination as Klein dropped the flap of the glove compartment. A complex keypad was built into its inside surface with three decks of keys, one marked with normal roman characters, the second with Japanese, and the third with an alien script. Klein tapped in a twelve-character code, six roman, four Japanese, and two alien.

All through the drive, Gibson had been bracing himself for the unexpected, but none of his fears or imaginings had prepared him for what happened next. For the briefest instant, the surrounding countryside was lit up as bright as day. It was as though the bomb had gone off, but then, as quickly as it came, the flash faded into retinal aftershocks and the very nature of the light itself began to change. Both land and sky took on brilliant emerald radiance as though a vast green fire had suddenly blazed at the core of the Earth. The horizon started to curve upward. It was like giant hands were attempting to roll the actual fabric of the landscape into a giant tube. Perspective was shot to hell by the curvature of this distortion, and Gibson reflexively grabbed for a handhold as the visual distortion tilted him sideways. Then the Cadillac started to vibrate. At first it was a smooth tremor, but it rapidly became more violent and erratic, and as Gibson was bounced up and down in his seat he became quite convinced that something was wretchedly wrong and the car was going to shake itself to bits. Then the buffeting stopped, and all that remained was a high-pitched whistle.

Klein's voice floated to him from a long way away. "We have groove lock."

With no apparent acceleration, the Cadillac started to move forward. It seemed to be floating down a huge emerald tu

French voiced the general alarm as the Cadillac began to slide into the curve like a surfer entering the pipeline. "This isn't right."

"It's got to be a power plant or something throwing a stress pattern."

"It'd take more than a power station to produce a stretch-out like this."

Klein, who was no longer steering the car, just letting it take its own course, pointed through the windshield. "There's the culprit."

A glowing disk of bright white light surrounded by a blue aura had appeared in the area of sky that was contained by the u

Gibson's jaw sagged. "I don't believe it. Every time I step outside the house, I'm set on by UFOs."

Despite the tension, Klein gri

A second white UFO with a blue aura appeared beside the first. Gibson turned anxiously to Smith. "What can we do about this?"

Smith looked at him blankly."Your guess is as good as mine. It's like I told you on the plane, UFOs are way outside our field of expertise."

The first disk held its position, but the second one dropped into the path of the Cadillac. It was coming rapidly toward them.

French stared at it, transfixed. "This looks unpleasantly like the start of a strafing run."

A strange detachment had taken hold inside the car. Gibson knew that he should have been convulsed with terror, but he wasn't. He was frightened, but there was a distance to the fear. The environment had become so unreal that it was hard to relate to the idea that they were under attack by hostile UFOs. It was something that just didn't happen. The worst part was the unreal quiet. Events silently drifted. With no outside sound except the high-pitched whine, the UFO seemed to be floating at them through a vacuum. It rose and fell slightly but kept getting bigger and bigger, and with no idea of its size and no intelligible perspective, it was impossible to judge how far away it was and how soon it would be upon them.

Gibson shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Can't we take some kind of evasive action?"

Klein shook his head. "Once you lock the groove, you give up all control. You're on a cosmic railroad."

Gibson groaned. "Mystery train and out of control."

A bright point of ruby-red light detached itself from the disk's leading edge. It zigzagged toward them. Gibson shut his eyes. He was certain that it was an alien missile. He opened them again just in time to see it explode short of the car. He wasn't even sure that it was an explosion. For a brief instant the world as he could see it turned scarlet, and then it returned to the way it had been. All that remained was a column of glittering vapor. The Cadillac plunged into it, and where the car came in contact with the mist a blue-gray deposit was left behind on the bodywork.

Gibson looked at the others. "I think we're okay."

Smith was peering suspiciously at the blue-gray deposit on the outside of the windows. "Don't speak too soon, we've no idea what this stuff may be doing to us."

The UFO lifted slightly and passed over them. As it did, their hair stood on end and Gibson was aware of an acute electric tingle ru

"I think it's coming back!"

The UFO had completed its turn and started to drop again. Two more ruby points of light detached themselves from the white disk, but, once again, they exploded short in two more brief, silent flashes of red. Again, they were apparently unharmed, but now the original UFO had started dropping from its previous vantage point and was coming at them, seemingly joining the attack, if indeed it was an attack.