"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?"