Bob's voice was soothing. "We can't outrun anything except on the straightaway. So why don't you tell us about this trap?"
Harry's head sagged. Then his body followed. He was doing a back stretch, hanging from the hip bones. He came up, rolling for full effect. "That's better. Yeah. The church looked fine. I went past it, figuring to park a decent distance away, and I saw the billboard. I saw just enough that I pulled into a Taco Bell and Jenny and I took a pew near a window so we could study it. Here."
He handed across a notepad. The printing was Jenny's:
SERMON BY THE REVEREND NEHEMIAH SCUDDER IF THIS GOES ON
"Uh… huh."
"What is it?"
The crushing power in an Angel's hand was always a shock. Bob said, "Literary reference, Gordon. Robert Heinlein, 'If This Goes On…,' in which the Reverend Nehemiah Scudder turns the United States into a religious dictatorship… incidentally terminating space travel, come to think of it. So it's a definite warning."
"Too bad we can't rescue whoever left it," Harry said, "but those trucks come first."
"Yeah. Back aboard. Sherrine sleeps, I drive. Harry, you get Jenny now, and then we need the services of the Oregon Ghost. We need a source of gas not much more than eighty miles away, and refuge in Flagstaff."
The Ghost's instructions took them to a fueling station and a decent chili joint in Grants, New Mexico, sixty-five miles east of Albuquerque. Hours later, approaching Flagstaff, they switched from I-40 to the old, worn Route 66. Then to asphalt, then graveclass="underline" the roads grew narrower and harder to drive. Why were they being led here in eighteen-wheeler trucks?
Bob had to fight the wheel because of potholes. It was midafternoon; he had been driving since dawn, and he was puffing from fatigue and the thin air. Sherrine knew that she didn't have the strength in the arms to spell him.
Motel up ahead: long two-story buildings with porches. A more compact, more ornate structure must be Registration. A few bulbs in the signs were dark. There weren't many cars. The drive-in next door was dead. Nobody had bothered to change the letters on the marquee:
SCI FI RILLER
OCTO SSY
"The city must have moved a highway on them," Bob said. He was driving dead slow now, hunched like an ape over the wheel. "In Flagstaff they're always doing that. It's slow death for a motel. Or a drive-in." He pulled between paired pillars into the driveway.
"Octocon," Sherrine said, "used to be in Santa Cruz."
Two men were running to meet them… then a dozen. More. The first were guiding the truck. Bob was muttering to himself as he followed them toward one of the long, windowed buildings… with a face missing at the narrow end. They guided Curly into the opening, into a shell two stories high.
"Crazy. Do you suppose they never finished it?"
"Smuggling. The customers weren't stopping anymore and import duties kept going up. I'm guessing, of course," Sherrine said. "Pull up to the end. They re lowering some kind of false front behind us."
It was not a big con. Four long buildings enclosed brown lawn and a pool. They had taken over just one of the buildings; they stayed clear of the Registration building, including the hotel restaurant, newsstand, etc. Rooms along the side that faced a wall had become the dealer rooms, Con Suite, Art Show, and a couple reserved for programming.
Four people talking on a panel stopped when the procession hove into view; then the panel followed their audience over the low railings.
"Welcome to Microcon!" And the fans surged around them, hugging and shaking hands. Alex had time for one glimpse of Gordon's bulging eyes before they were borne away.
"Only Hotel Liaison eats at the hotel restaurant," a fan said. "We don't want to be too visible, but we do need to keep track. So far so good: nobody's been asking about tall supermen."
The rooms were all bedrooms, all the same size; but doors could be opened between. Three upstairs rooms were the Con Suite, and that was where everyone was eating.
There was a punch bowl filled with a pinkish liquid of uncertain genealogy. Several bottles of homemade wine lined the windowsills. Tables pushed against the walls had bowls of popcorn and corn chips and various dips, and a vat of soup sat on the floor. There was great variety to the food, and a flavor of panic and improvisation.
"I'm sorry there isn't more," Buck Coulson apologized. "Times are tight. Be sure to keep your glass handy so you don't accidentally use someone else's."
Numbers were hard to gauge because the convention was so broken up, but Alex hadn't counted more than thirty people.
He was half-reclined in a chair and footstool, delighting in his ability to sprawl. Sprawling was wonderful after scores of hours of being wedged into a bouncing truck cabin. He eavesdropped with half his attention, and watched the women.
Sherrine was asking Tom Degler, "You worked up a convention just for us?"
"We don't need a good excuse. A bad one is fine." Degler's face was surrounded by a sunburst of bright, red hair; full beard, hair tied up in back with a rubber band. His legs, which Alex could see between the knee socks and shorts that he wore, were also hairy. Perfectly adapted to an ice age, Alex thought.
"Fast work," Sherrine said.
"Well, but you're still carrying the Navstar transponder, right? And you had to have a place to rest. It's a long drive across Oklahoma and the panhandle. Ever since they caught S. B. O'Rafferty, there's been no safe house on that leg of the Fanway."
Maybe a third of those present were women. All pudgy or burly, of course, in Alex's estimation; but not bad looking. Not bad looking, at all. Either that or it had been a long time--
"They caught O'Rafferty? Oh, Tom. The old guy was a past master at staying hidden."
Degler shrugged. "They reeducated him; but no one can tell the difference. He always did see everything skewed sideways and upside down from Tuesday. But of course he's being watched, so we stay clear of him, now." He shook his head sadly. "Anyway, The Ghost let us know when you'd be arriving; so last night I made a few phone calls. Kind of a welcoming party." He looked around the Con Suite, a bedroom with the beds removed, a few chairs, fans sitting on the carpet. "This is all that's left of Suncon and Bubonicon and the others. Slim pickings, eh?"
"Worldcon wasn't much bigger," Sherrine told him.
"Speaking of Worldcon," said Barbara Dinsby, "did you hear? Tony Horowitz got himself arrested to distract the cops during your getaway." Dinsby was a thin woman with long, dark red hair. She wore no makeup and tended to lean toward you when she spoke. Alex considered her the second prettiest woman present. According to Degler she already had several stories on the samizdat network, one of them critically praised.
Bob raised his eyebrows. "Horowitz?"
"Sure. When the chips are down, we all play on the same side."
"Did he make bail?" asked Sherrine.
"Tremont took care of everything. And Tony's book sales have tripled. Everyone on the Network has been downloading his manuscripts; and half the pros are lining up for his shared world project."
Sherrine craned her neck. "So, Tom. Who'd you snag for Guests of Honor?"
Degler beamed. "Well, you, actually."
"What?"
"Sure. Are there any fans more worthy than you and Pins, here?"
Alex ginned at Sherrine's sudden discomfiture. "Don't fight it," he said. And, in a more serious voice, he added, "You deserve it."