Eschaton 2 - THE SIEGE OF ETERNITY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Pat Adcock was the first to reach the old car, flinging the doors open, but Dannerman came slipping and sliding down the snowy hill after her, half-tugging old Rosaleen Artzybachova. "You drive," he ordered, hustling the old lady into the backseat, before trotting around the car to get in beside Pat. "Do you know how to drive this thing?" he asked as an afterthought, but she already had the motor going and was turning the car around. The car's screen had lighted up as soon as Pat turned the key, displaying some weird kind of creature that Dannerman didn't have time for. He slapped it off. "Hurry up," he ordered. "We have to get to the rendezvous before sundown, and we don't know if they have friends nearby- What?"

Artzybachova was pounding on his shoulder. "Turn that back on!" she demanded.

Dannerman craned his neck around in honest puzzlement. "What for? We can watch TV once we're in the VTOL-"

"Do it now! Didn't you see who was speaking?"

Pat resolved the dispute; as soon as she had the car heading downhill she reached forward and snapped the screen on again. "Oh, hell," Dannerman said sulkily. "What's the matter with you? What can be so important that we have to see it this minute?"

But then the picture showed an agitated-looking woman, with a sheet of fax flimsy in her hand. "-was received just minutes ago," she said. "We will repeat it now, and then we will go to the White House for comments on this astonishing new development. Stand by, please-"

She disappeared. There was a moment of white-screen silence. Then a picture appeared. It showed a bizarre creature with a pumpkin head and a spindly body and a mouthful of teeth, and Dannerman did not ask again what it was that was so important.

The Scarecrow didn't seem to be speaking; it stood stolid before the camera-whatever kind of camera it used-with its spindly arms crossed over its spindly chest, but there was a voice, and it spoke in English. "People of Earth, your difficulties are at an end. We have succeeded in establishing communication with you once again. Soon we will provide you with further information as to how you may join the legions of sentients who are proud to call us their Beloved Leaders.

The picture faded. "Oh, Christ," said Pat Adcock, almost going off the road. "It's starting all over again."