Checkoffs completed, Gay switched off lights, opened the garage door, and backed out onto the landing flat.

"Copilot, can you read your verniers?"

"Captain, I had better loosen my chest belt."

"Do so if you wish. But your seat adjusts forward twenty centimeters-here, I'll get it." Zeb reached down, did something between their seats. "Say when."

"There-that's about right. I can read 'em and reach 'em, with chest strap in place. Orders, sir?"

"Where was your car when you and Deety went to the space-time that lacked the letter 'J'?"

"About where we are now."

"Can you send us there?"

"I think so. Minimum translation, positive-entropy increasing-along Tau axis."

"Please move us there, sir."

My husband touched the controls. "That's it, Captain."

I couldn't see any change. Our house was still a silhouette against the sky, with the garage a black maw in front of us. The stars hadn't even flickered.

Zebbie said, "Let's check," and switched on Gay's roading lights, brightly lighting our garage. Empty and looked normal.

Zebbie said, "Hey! Look at that!"

"Look at what?" I demanded, and tried to see around Jacob.

"At nothing, rather. Sharpie, where's your alien?"

Then I understood. No corpse. No green-blood mess. Workbench against the wall and flood lights not rigged.

Zebbie said, "Gay Deceiver, take us home!"

Instantly the same scene... but with carved-up corpse. I gulped.

Zebbie switched out the lights. I felt better but not much.

"Captain?"

"Copilot."

"Wouldn't it have been well to have checked for that letter 'J'? It would have given me a check on calibration."

"I did check, Jake."

"Eh?"

'~You have bins on the back of your garage neatly stenciled. The one at left center reads 'Junk Metal."

"Oh!"

"Yes, and your analog in that space-your twin, Jake-prime, or what you will-has your neat habits. The left-corner bin read 'lunk Metal' spelled with an 'I.' A cupboard above and to the right contained 'Iugs & lars.' So I told Gay to take us home. I was afraid they might catch us. Embarrassing."

Deety said, "Zebadiah-I mean 'Captain'-embarrassing how, sir? Oh, that missing letter in the alphabet scared me but it no longer does. Now I'm nervous about aliens. 'Black Hats."

"Deety, you were lucky that first time. Because Deety-prime was not at home. But she may be, tonight. Possibly in bed with her husband, named Zebadiah-prime. Unstable cuss. Likely to shoot at a strange car shining lights into his father-in-law's garage. A violent character."

"You're teasing me."

"No, Princess; it did worry me. A parallel space, with so small a difference as the lack of one unnecessary letter, but with house and grounds you mistook for your own, seems to imply a father and daughter named 'Iacob' and 'Deiah Thoris." (Captain Zebbie pronounced the names 'Yacob' and 'Deyah Thoris.')

"Zebadiah, that scares me almost as much as aliens."

"Aliens scare me far more. Hello, Gay."

"Howdy, Zeb. Your nose is runny."

"Smart Girl, one gee vertically to one klick. Hover."

"Roger dodger, you old codger."

We rested on our backs and head rests for a few moments, then with the stomach-surging swoosh of a fast lift, we leveled off and hovered. Zebbie said, "Deety, can the autopilot accept a change in that homing program by voice? Or does it take an offset in the verniers?"

"What do you want to do?"

"Same ell-and-ell two klicks above ground."

"I think so. Shall I? Or do you want to do it, Captain?"

"You try it, Deety."

"Yes, sir. Hello, Gay."

"Hi, Deety!"

"Program check. Define 'Home."

"Home.' Cancel any-all inertials transitions translations rotations. Return to preprogrammed zero latitude longitude, ground level."

"Report present location."

"One klick vertically above 'Home."

"Gay. Program revision."

"Waiting, Deety."

"Home program. Cancel 'Ground level.' Substitute 'Two klicks above ground level, hovering."

"Program revision recorded."

"Gay Deceiver, take us home!"

Instantly, with no feeling of motion, we were much higher.

Zeb said, "Two klicks on the nose! Deety, you're a smart girl!"

"Zebadiah, I bet you tell that to all the girls."

"No, just to some. Gay, you're a smart girl."

"Then why are you shacked up with that strawberry blonde with the fat knockers?"

Zebbie craned his neck and looked at me. "Sharpie, that's your voice."

I ignored him with dignity. Zebbie drove south to the Grand Canyon, eerie in starlight. Without slowing, he said, "Gay Deceiver, take us home!"-and again we were hovering over our cabin. No jar, no shock, no nothing.

Zebbie said, "Jake, once I figure the angles, I'm going to quit spending money on juice. How does she do it when we haven't been anywhere?-no rotation, no translation."

"I may have given insufficient thought to a trivial root in equation ninetyseven. But it is analogous to what we were considering doing with planets. A five-dimensional transform simplified to three."

"I dunno, I just work here," Captain Zebbie admitted. "But it looks like we will be peddling gravity and transport, as well as real estate and time. Burroughs and Company, Space Warps Unlimited-'No job too large, no job too small.' Send one newdollar for our free brochure."

"Captain," suggested Jacob, "would it not be prudent to translate into another space before experimenting further? The alien danger is still with us- is it not?"

Zebbie sobered at once. "Copilot, you are right and it is your duty to advise me when I goof off. However, before we leave, we have one duty we must carry out."

"Something more urgent than getting our wives to safety?" my Jacob asked-and I felt humble and proud.

"Something more urgent.' Jake, I've bounced her around not only to test but to make it hard to track us. Because we must break radio silence. To warn our fellow humans."

"Oh. Yes, Captain. My apologies, sir. I sometimes forget the broader picture."

"Don't we all! I've wanted to run and hide ever since this rumpus started. But that took preparation and the delay gave me time to think. Point number one: We don't know how to fight these critters so we must take cover. Point number two: We are duty-bound to tell the world what we know about aliens. While that little isn't much-we've stayed alive by the skin of our teeth-if five billion people are watching for them, they can be caught. I hope."

"Captain," asked Deety, "may I speak?"

"Of course! Anyone with ideas about how to cope with these monsters must speak."

"I'm sorry but I don't have such ideas. You must warn the world, sir-of course! But you won't be believed."

"I'm afraid you're right, Deety. But they don't have to believe me. That monster in the garage speaks for itself. I'm going to call rangers-real rangers!-to pick it up."

I said, "So that was why you told me just to leave it! I thought it was lack of time."

"Both, Hilda. We didn't have time to sack that cadaver and store it in the freezer room. But, if I can get rangers-real rangers-to that garage before 'Black Hats' get there, that corpse tells its own story: an undeniable alien lying in its goo on a ranger's uniform that has been cut away from it. Not a 'close encounter' UFO that can be explained away, but a creature more startling than the duckbill platypus ever was. But we have to hook it in with other factors to show them what to look for. Your booby-trapped car, an arson case in Logan, Professor Brain's convenient disappearance, my cousin's death in Sumatra-and your six-dimensional non-Euclidean geometry."

I said, "Excuse me, gentlemen. Can't we move somewhere away from right over our cabin before you break silence? I'm jumpy-'Black Hats' are hunting us.',

"You're right, Sharpie; I'm about to move us. The story isn't long-all but the math-so I taped a summary while the rest of you were getting ready. Gay will speed-zip it, a hundred to one." Zebbie reached for the controls. "All secure?"

"Captain Zebadiah!"

"Trouble, Princess?"

"May I attempt a novel program? It may save time."

"Programming is your pidgin. Certainly."

"Hello, Gay."

"Hi, Deety!"

"Retrieve last program. Report execute code."

"Reporting, Deety. 'Gay Deceiver, take us home!"

"Negative erase permanent program controlled by execute-code Gay Deceiver take us home. Report confirm."

"Confirmation report. Permanent program execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home negative erase. I tell you three times."

"Deety," said Zeb, "a neg scrub to Gay tells her to place item in perms three places. Redundancy safety factor."

"Don't bother me, dear! She and I sling the same lingo. Hello, Gay."

"Hello, Deety!"

"Analyze latest program execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home. Report."

"Analysis complete."

"Invert analysis."

"Null program."

Deety sighed. "Typing a program is easier. New program."

"Waiting, Deety."

"Execute-code new permanent program. Gay Deceiver, countermarch! At new execute..code, repeat reversed in real time latest sequence inertials transitions translations rotations before last use of program execute-code Gay Deceiver take us home."

"New permanent program accepted."

"Gay, I tell you three times."

"Deety, I hear you three times."

"Gay Deceiver-countermarch!"

Instantly we were over the Grand Canyon, cruising south. I saw Zeb reach for the manual controls. "Deety, that was slick."

"I didn't save time, sir-I goofed. Gay, you're a smart girl."

"Deety, don't make me blush."

"You're both smart girls," said Captain Zebbie. "If anyone had us on radar, he must think he's getting cataracts. Vice versa, if anyone picked us up here, he's wondering how we popped up. Smart dodge, dear. You've got Gay Deceiver so deceptive that nobody can home on us. We'll be elsewhere."

"Yes-but I had something else in mind, too, my Captain."

"Princess, I like your ideas. Spill it."

"Suppose we used that homing preprogram and went from frying pan into fire. It might be useful to have a preprogram that would take us back into the frying pan, then do something else quickly. Should I try to think up a third escape-maneuver preprogram?"

"Sure-but discuss it with the court magician, your esteemed father-not me. I'm just a sky jockey."

"Zebadiah, I will not listen to you disparage yours-"

"Deety! Lifeboat rules. Jake, are your professional papers aboard? Both theoretical and drawings?"

"Why, no, Zeb-Captain. Too bulky. Microfilms I brought. Originals are in the basement vault. Have I erred?"

"Not a bit! Is there any geometer who gave your published paper on this six-way system a friendly reception?"

"Captain, there aren't more than a handful of geometers capable ofjudging my postulate system without long and intensive study. It's too unorthodox. Your late cousin was one-a truly brilliant mind! Uh.... now suspect that Doctor Brain understood it and sabotaged it for his own purposes."

"Jake, is there anyone friendly to you and able to understand the stuff in your vault? I'm trying to figure out how to warn our fellow humans. A fantastic story of apparently unrelated incidents is not enough. Not even with the corpse of an extra-terrestrial to back it up. You should leave mathematical theory and engineering drawings to someone able to understand them and whom you trust. We can't handle it; every time we stick our heads up, somebody takes a shot at us and we have no way to fight back. It's a job that may require our whole race. Well? Is there a man you can trust as your professional executor?"

"Well... one, perhaps. Not my field of geometry but brilliant. He did write me a most encouraging letter when I published my first paper-the paper that was so sneered at by almost everyone except your cousin and this one other. Professor Seppo Rãikannonen. Turku. Finland."

"Are you certain he's not an alien?"

"What? He's been on the faculty at Turku for years! Over fifteen."

I said, "Jacob... that is about how long Professor Brain was around."

"But-" My husband looked around at me and suddenly smiled. "Hilda my love, have you ever taken sauna?"

"Once."

"Then tell our Captain why I am sure that my friend Seppo is not an alien in disguise. 1-Deety and I-attended a professional meeting in Helsinki last year. After the meeting we visited their summer place in the Lake Country... and

took sauna with them." -

"Papa, Mama, and three kids." agreed Deety. "Unmistakably human."

"Brainy' was a bachelor," I added thoughtfully. "Cap'n Zebbie, wouldn't disguised aliens have to be bachelors?"

"Or single women. Or pseudo-married couples. No kids, the masquerade wouldn't hold up. Jake, let's try to phone your friend. Mmm, nearly breakfast time in Finland-or we may wake him. That's better than missing him."

"Good! My comcredit number is Nero Aleph-"

"Let's try mine. Yours might trigger something... if 'Black Hats' are as smart as I think they are. Smart Girl."

"Yes, Boss."

"Don Ameche."

"To hear is to obey, 0 Mighty One."

"Deety, you've been giving Gay bad habits."

Shortly a flat male voice answered, "The communications credit number you have cited is not a valid number. Please refer to your card and try again. This is a recording."

Zebbie made a highly unlikely suggestion. "Gay can't send out my comcredit code incorrectly; she has it tell-me-three-times. The glitch is in their system. Pop, we have to use yours."

I said, "Try mine, Zebbie. My comcredit is good; I predeposit."

A female voice this time: "-not a valid number. Puh-lease refer to your card and try again. This is a recording."

Then my husband got a second female voice: "-try again. This is a recording."

Deety said, "I don't have one. Pop and I use the same number."

"It doesn't matter," Cap'n Zebbie said bitterly. "These aren't glitches. We've been scrubbed. Unpersons. We're all dead."

I didn't argue. I had suspected that we were dead since the morning two weeks earlier when I woke up in bed with my cuddly new husband. But how long had we been dead? Since my party? Or more recently?

I didn't care. This was a better grade of heaven than a Sunday School in Terre Haute had taught me to expect. While I don't think I've been outstandingly wicked, I haven't been very good either. Of the Ten Commandments I've broken six and bent some others. But Moses apparently had not had the last Word from on High-being dead was weird and wonderful and I was enjoying every minute... or eon, as the case may be.

XIII

Being too close to a fireball can worry a man-

Zeb:

Not being able to phone from my car was my most frustrating experience since a night I spent in jail through mistake (I made the mistake). I considered grounding to phone-but the ground did not seem healthy. Even if all of us were presumed dead, nullifying our comcredit cards so quickly seemed unfriendly; all of us had high credit ratings.

Canceling Sharpie's comcredit without proof of death was more than unfriendly; it was outrageous as she used the predeposit method.

I was forced to the decision that it was my duty to make a military report; I radioed NORAD, stated name, rank, reserve commission serial number, and asked for scramble for a crash priority report.

-and ran into "correct" procedure that causes instant ulcers. What was my clearance? What led me to think that I had crash priority intelligence? By what authority did I demand a scramble code? Do you know how many screwball calls come in here every day? Get off this frequency; it's for official traffic only. One more word out of you and I shall alert the civil sky patrol to pick you up.