That’s when he saw another vehicle approaching the small lake from the direction of the major roadway.
It had whirling bright blue lights on its roof and was emitting a strange whooping sound. The girl ran into the middle of the roadway and waved her arms, causing this vehicle to stop. Two men in uniforms jumped out and went to her aid. That’s when Hunter’s video screen began flashing: Princess saved!
Good work!
Hunter looked at the ticking clock. It was now down to 11 seconds. He quickly yanked the flying machine out of its hover mode. He had to get out of this crazy place. He pushed his throttles forward, and an instant later, he was streaking along at treetop level. He began looking for a blue screen through which to escape. But once he got back over the major roadway, he found not one but dozens of blue screens. They were erected alongside the roadway, and they had words and numbers bathed in a reflective glow displayed all over them.
Which one do I go through? he thought.
The game clock was ticking down. Nine seconds. Eight seconds… Seven… Six.
That’s when Hunter saw a much larger screen about three miles off to his left. It was at one end of a huge area where several hundred of the ground vehicles were parked. Strange shapes and colors were flashing across this screen. But as soon as Hunter pointed the nose of his aircraft toward it, it turned the unmistakable color of misty blue. This had to be it: his way out.
He pushed his throttle full forward and, with less than 0.01 second remaining on the game clock, slammed the flying machine right into the blue screen.
Or at least he thought it was a blue screen.
Suddenly he was moving forward at a speed faster than his senses could comprehend. The surface below him was flashing by in one long, blue blur — it was the reverse of the sensation earlier when he’d found himself streaking backward.
Fast forward.
That was it. He was stuck in fast forward.
Now came a violent crashing sound. His eyelids snapped shut and stayed that way. Hunter tried to open them, but they would not cooperate. This was not good. How could he blink if his eyelids refused to yield? He reached out for the controls and gave the stick one mighty yank backward. His machine shook from one end to the other. He felt like he was spinning out of control. His power plant let out one long scream.
But then came a flash of light so intense, he could feel its warmth on his retinas even though his eyes remained closed.
Then, just like that, everything settled down. He opened his eyes and took another long, deep breath.
He was back over land again.
Passing below were great cities, golden deserts, lush forests. He rocketed over a vast plain, which was dotted with high, snow-topped mountains not unlike those back on Fools 6. Hunter could see the eastern ocean ahead of him. Beyond that lay Big Bright City and the finish line. He had not slowed one iota. Still, it felt like he was just leaving the starting line.
He turned around to check his six-o’clock position. No one was behind him.
When he looked forward again, he saw the third screen coming.
He hit it really hard. Again, his machine was shaking down to its rivets. Passing from one dimension to another was not so good for his chassis. He lost control of his aircraft for a third time, but quickly did the two-hand trick, and as soon as his eyeballs stopping juggling, he was able to get the aircraft back under control.
He looked around him, expecting to be over the X-ray world again, but this was not the case. He was no longer streaking above the distorted image of the Earth. He was in space. Outer space. The real one, this time. Endless blackness with trillions of twinkling stars, some bright, some dim, the Earth nowhere in sight. Hunter looked at his hands. They were shaking. He looked at his instruments. There were no weird weapons this time. His original equipment returned and everything seemed to be working, even though his flying machine was definitely not adapted for space travel.
At least he didn’t think it was.
He tried to get his bearings. The vastness before him was dizzying. He still had the sensation of unfathomable speed, but this piece of space was so immense, it was like he was not moving at all.
So what was going on?
Why was he here?
His reply came an instant later.
They appeared as two faint lights at first. Way, way off, coming out of a star formation that looked somewhat familiar. The two specks grew larger very quickly. Hunter could tell this was not some kind of transdimensional optical illusion. These weren’t fake meteorites, or death moons, or crappy versions of his own aircraft. These two objects were real—and they, too, were traveling at a tremendous speed.
And, of course, they were heading right for him.
In the big thirteenth dimension, everything just seemed to come his way.
In the hairbreadth of time it took him to make a quick turn to the right, the two objects were nearly on him. Moving incredibly fast. One seemed to be following the other — or maybe chasing it. Neither made a turn toward him, thank God. Hunter yanked his flying machine left again and banked to a roughly intersecting course. Would he able to see the two objects as they streaked by… or would they be just a blur?
As it turned out, they were a little bit of both.
The first object was gigantic… and familiar. It passed within a mile of him. Hunter got a damn good look… and felt his jaw hit the top of his helmet brace.
It was the Blackship — the same Blackship he’d shot out of Supertime during the attack on the BonoVox. There was no doubt that this was the same vessel. Its control bubble was shattered and smoking, its tail section was still on fire. What’s more, a string of dead bodies seemed to be trailing behind it, like expired puppets on a thousand-mile-long piece of invisible string.
What the hell is going on here?
But even more incredible was the spacecraft hard on the crippled Blackship’s tail.
Everything that flew in the Empire came from one basic design: the triangular wedge. But this thing chasing the ghostly Blackship was not like that. This craft was completely different.
It was round.
A perfect circle.
Saucer-shaped.
16
Erx had barely struck the match when suddenly there was a commotion off to his right.
A flash of light. A cloud of dust. A mighty gasp from the crowd.
“By the one true God!” Berx exclaimed.
It didn’t seem possible, but Hunter’s racer had reappeared at the starting line. A thin trail of smoke indicated it had arrived from the east — yet the faint contrail he’d left upon departure was still visible in the west. His flying machine had disappeared not two seconds before. Now it was back again.
Erx and Berx had never seen anything like it. It didn’t make sense.
“Can we be disqualified for… sorcery!” Erx asked, still holding the burning match in hand.
“If this is not real, they’ll have our heads!” Berx bemoaned.
“It is not sorcery nor illusion, my brothers,” Calandrx told them. “Now, I’m not sure exactly what it is — but it doesn’t matter. Hunter has won. It will be verified that his flying machine traveled the course and mastered the obstacles.”
“And that means…” Erx began to say. He was still a bit dumbstruck. The match had not even burned down to his fingertips yet.
“That we are all very wealthy?” Berx finished for him.