LITMIR.BIZ

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Like that.”

      “Well...Adolphus is a mute, of course. Rhan Kik’hik Pyrtmyr is from Arcturus.”

      “Ran—”

      That’s Giganto. That’s his real name. Ronald is from somewhere in the Quagdirian Federation. He’s here writing his thesis on Pre-Human Religion. Something about the emergence of the centaur myth. The circus is just a way of earning money while he’s here; his grant isn’t too liberal.”

      “I understand his problem. And the unicorn is a mute. Is that mutant?”

      “Do you know of any unicorns that aren’t?”

      “The young lady has a point,” Chester said, pausing between versus of “Barkus Is Willing.”

      “Time travel?” I again suggested.

      “I don’t know. Sylvia, tell me: what year is this?”

      “That’s silly,” said Sylvia. “Nineteen thirty-six.”

      “I should have guessed,” Chester said, regarding his recorder strangely..

      “I think I hear something,” Sylvia said. “Please don’t play for a moment.”

      “Parallel I time tracks,” I said. “Each moving at a slightly different speed. I remember a story....”

      “Maybe they just number the years differently,” Chester suggested.

      “Hush!” Sylvia whispered. “Listen to that. It certainly doesn’t sound like a unicorn.”

      It certainly didn’t. A thin, high whistling sound with undertones of bass honk, it seemed to come from all around us.

      “Look,” Chester said quietly.

      I looked. Up in the air, slightly off to the left, hung a thing. A long, cigar-shaped thing with portholes giving off blue flashes. It was etched in the sky so sharply in red light that it gave the impression of being outlined in neon tubing. It wasn’t moving.

      “Look at what?” I asked Chester nonchalantly. “The flying saucer?”

      Chester took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All right,” he agreed. “Look at the flying saucer. Isn’t it wonderful how all you have to do is label something to understand it?”

      “What is that thing?” Sylvia asked.

      “It’s not one of yours then,” I said, “from the circus or somewhere?”

      “It is not,” she assured me. Her eyes were getting wide. I think this was the first time she realized there was something wrong besides a missing Adolphus.

      “How far away do you think it is?” I asked Chester.

      “That depends,” he said. “How big is it?”

      “We could triangulate,” I suggested. “How’s your trig?”

      “Just fine,” Anderson snarled. “How’s yours?”

      “I just thought....”

      “At a time like this, your scientific experiments are out of place. Set up your fun-fair project tomorrow.”

      “I think it’s important to know how far away it is,” I informed Chester.

      “The only thing that’s important,” Chester told me calmly, “is that it doesn’t get any closer.”

      It got closer. Adding a weird meep meep sound to its orchestration, it started blinking an insistent red light at us and growing smoothly larger.

      “Is it after us?” I asked.

      “Come on,” Chester said. “Let’s not stay here and find out.”

      We started running, following the trail. Chester and I ran as fast as we could, which was pretty fast considering our sedentary lives. Sylvia loped along with us with the easy grace of a young gazelle. I decided to tell her to run faster if she could and let us catch up, but I didn’t have enough breath to talk and run at the same time.

      The saucer swerved slightly, correcting its aim and settling whether it was after us or not, and I tripped. Flat on my face. The gravel dug into my nose and forehead and something sharp scraped across my leg. My eyes filled with a warm, sticky wetness and I couldn’t see. There was no pain, and my brain seemed curiously clear. Everything was happening in slow motion. I tried to get up, but my leg wouldn’t work and I fell back down. At least, I thought, this will give Chester and Sylvia a better chance to get away. I wondered whether there would someday be a brass marker at the spot where I had fallen.

      Two hands tugged at my elbow, a slim arm was slid under my shoulder, and in a second I was on my feet. “Can you walk?” Sylvia inquired anxiously.

      “You are the clumsiest person on the whole West Coast,” panted Chester.

      It is a curious trait of the human animal that in times of stress, if he doesn’t panic, he tends to become overly polite and verbose. Well, anyway, I do. “If you two would proceed up the trail, I shall endeavor to follow as soon as possible,” said I. “Not that I don’t fully appreciate your stopping for me.”

      “Don’t be silly,” Chester said. “Here, wipe the blood off your face.” He handed me a great square of fabric.

      “Look!” Sylvia said.

      “Wow!” Chester breathed.

      “Where?” I asked, trying to clear my eyes. “At what? What’s happening?” As soon as I could see, I looked around. There was nothing in sight but trees. “Where is it?” I yelped, turning quickly through three hundred and sixty degrees. “What happened to it?”

      “It disappeared in sections,” Sylvia said. “I saw it blink out.”

      “In sections?”

      “Yars,” drawled Chester in the accent he uses to explain anything he doesn’t understand. “In sections, from left to right. As if it were the moon and a cloud passed in front of it.”

      “You don’t think that could be it, do you?” I asked, staring apprehensively at the sky. “Or maybe it just turned its running lights out.”

      “No,” Chester said “There was something permanent about this. Besides, you can see stars through where it was. It’s gone.”

      I brushed myself off. “I wonder what it was.”

      “I thought we’d already settled that,” said Chester, smiling tightly at me. “It’s a flying saucer.”

      I discovered I could walk, so we continued down the trail.

      “I hope it didn’t frighten Adolphus too much,” Sylvia said.

      I had the sudden notion that it might be what had happened to Adolphus, but I didn’t say it.

      “Are you all right?” Chester asked me. “Do you want to go on, or go back and get medicated?”

      “I’m okay,” I said. “Just a few abrasions. Continue the quest.”

      Sylvia took my hand and looked at me solemnly. “I’m glad, Michael the Theodore Bear, that you were not hurt.” Somehow the nickname, which Chester had fastened on me when the world was young, didn’t sound so silly when Sylvia said it.

      “Thank you,” I said.

      “Then, let us find Adolphus.” She sang, “Trala, tralee. Would you tootle a little, Chester?” Sylvia had amazing powers of recuperation. She skipped ahead of us on the path.

      “A lot of things seem to be happening all at once,” I told Chester.

      “Enemy action,” he replied.

      “Huh?”

      “That’s what you told me once. An old Army motto you had found when you were doing

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