vaguely. He wasn’t feeling very well. For the last thirty miles he had been imagining that a ton of burning metal, rubber, and leather was a fully functioning automobile, and the Bentley had been resisting him fiercely. The hard part had been to keep the whole thing rolling after the all-weather radials had burned away. Beside him the remains of the Bentley dropped suddenly onto its distorted wheel rims as he stopped imagining that it had tires.
He patted a metal surface hot enough to fry eggs on.
“You wouldn’t get that sort of performance out of one of these modern cars,” he said lovingly.
They stared at him.
There was a little electronic click.
The gate was rising. The housing that contained the electric motor gave a mechanical groan, and then gave up in the face of the unstoppable force acting on the barrier.
“Hey!” said Sgt. Deisenburger, “Which one of you yo-yos did that?”
Zip. Zip. Zip. Zip. And a small dog, its legs a blur.
They stared at the four ferociously pedaling figures that ducked under the barrier and disappeared into the camp.
The sergeant pulled himself together.
“Hey,” he said, but much more weakly this time, “did any of them kids have some space alien with a face like a friendly turd in a bike basket?”
“Don’t think so,” said Crowley.
“Then,” said Sgt. Deisenburger, “they’re in real trouble.” He raised his gun. Enough of this pussyfooting around; he kept thinking of soap. “And so,” he said, “are you.”
“I warns ye—” Shadwell began.
“This has gone on too long,” said Aziraphale. “Sort it out, Crowley, there’s a dear chap.”
“Hmm?” said Crowley.
“I’m the nice one,” said Aziraphale. “You can’t expect me to—oh, blast it. You try to do the decent thing, and where does it get you?” He snapped his fingers.
There was a pop like an old-fashioned flashbulb, and Sgt. Thomas A. Deisenburger disappeared.
“Er,” said Aziraphale.
“See?” said Shadwell, who hadn’t quite got the hang of Madame Tracy’s split personality. “Nothing to it. Ye stick by me, ye’ll be all right.”
“Well done,” said Crowley. “Never thought you had it in you.”
“No,” said Aziraphale. “Nor did I, in fact. I do hope I haven’t sent him somewhere dreadful.”
“You’d better get used to it right now,” said Crowley. “You just send ’em. Best not to worry about where they go.” He looked fascinated. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new body?”
“Oh? Yes. Yes, of course. Madame Tracy, this is Crowley. Crowley, Madame Tracy. Charmed, I’m sure.”
“Let’s get on in,” said Crowley. He looked sadly at the wreckage of the Bentley, and then brightened. A jeep was heading purposefully towards the gate, and it looked as though it was crowded with people who were about to shout questions and fire guns and not worry about which order they did this in.
He brightened up. This was more what you might call his area of competence.
He took his hands out of his pockets and he raised them like Bruce Lee and then he smiled like Lee van Cleef. “Ah,” he said, “here comes transport.”
THEY PARKED THEIR BIKES outside one of the low buildings. Wensleydale carefully locked his. He was that kind of boy.
“So what will these people look like?” said Pepper.
“They could look like all sorts,” said Adam doubtfully.
“They’re grownups, are they?” said Pepper.
“Yes,” said Adam. “More grown-up than you’ve ever seen before, I reckon.”
“Fightin’ grownups is never any use,” said Wensleydale gloomily. “You always get into trouble.”
“You don’t have to fight ’em,” said Adam. “You just do what I told you.”
The Them looked at the things they were carrying. As far as tools to mend the world were concerned, they did not look incredibly efficient.
“How’ll we find ’em, then?” said Brian, doubtfully. “I remember when we came to the Open Day, it’s all rooms and stuff. Lots of rooms and flashing lights.”
Adam stared thoughtfully at the buildings. The alarms were still yodeling.
“Well,” he said, “it seems to me—”
“Hey, what are you kids doing here?”
It wasn’t a one hundred percent threatening voice, but it was near the end of its tether and it belonged to an officer who’d spent ten minutes trying to make sense of a senseless world where alarms went off and doors didn’t open. Two equally harassed soldiers stood behind him, slightly at a loss as to how to deal with four short and clearly Caucasian juveniles, one of them marginally female.
“Don’t you worry about us,” said Adam airily. “We’re jus’ lookin’ around.”
“Now you just—” the lieutenant began.
“Go to sleep,” said Adam. “You just go to sleep. All you soldiers here