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Shaddack had said that the New People’s freedoreater use of their innate brain power, even to the extent of exerting mental control over the form and function of matter Their consciousness now dictated their form; to escape a world in which they were not perh they could not return to the Old People they had been Evidently life as a cyborg was free of angst, for Penniworth had sought release fro--perhaps some kind of obliteration, as well--in this monstrous incarnation

But what did he feel now? What purpose did he have? And did he remain in that altered state because he truly preferred it? Or was he like Peyser--trapped either for physical reasons or because an aberrant aspect of his own psychology would not permit him to reassume the human form to which, otherwise, he desired to return?

Lomented cable burst from the driver’s door of Penniworth’s car, without shreddingas if a part of the door had melted and re-foranic The probe struck Loman’s side ith a snap

The revolver eluded Loman’s sweaty hand, for he could not take his eyes off the probe to look for the gun

The glass did not crack, but a quarter-size patch bubbled and melted in an instant, and the probe weaved into the car, straight at Loman’s face It had a fleshy sucker mouth, like an eel, but the tiny, sharply pointed teeth within it looked like steel

He ducked his head, forgot about the revolver, and tramped the accelerator to the floor The Chevy almost seee of power that pressed Loman into the seat, it shot forward, south on Juniper

For a moment the probe between the cars stretched to e of Loone, reeled back into the vehicle from which it had come

He drove fast all the way to the end of Juniper before slowing down to e whistled at the hole that the probe had melted in his

Lo Those New People who didn’t choose regression were going to transform themselves--or be transformed at the demand of Shaddack--into hellish hybrids of man and uished monsters he had made

9

Preceded by Sah the ave way to gluey ht she sounded like a sort of goofy alien herself, plodding along on big, sucker-equipped feet Then it occurred to her that in a way she was an alien in Moonlight Cove tonight, a different sort of creature from what the majority of the citizens had become

They were two-thirds of the way across the field when they were halted by a shrill cry that split the night as cleanly as a sharp ax would split a dry cord of wood That unhue and uncanny but faht were invading aliens Though the rain had stopped, the air was laden with moisture, and in that humidity, the unearthly shriek carried well, like the bell-clear notes of a distant trumpet

Worse, the call at once was answered by the beast’s excited kin At least half a dozen equally chilling shrieks arose from perhaps as far south as Paddock Lane and as far north as Holliwell Road, froh hills in the east end of town and fro bluffs only a couple of blocks to the west

All of a sudden Chrissie longed for the cold, lightless culvert churning aist-deep water so filthy that it round seeerous by comparison

A new cry arose as the others faded, and it was closer than any that had coet inside," Sa to adood Andre Norton heroine, after all She was scared, cold, grainy-eyed with exhaustion, starting to feel sorry for herself, and hungry again She was sick and tired of adventure She yearned for warood books and trips to e cake By this time a true adventure-story heroine would have worked out a series of brilliant stratageht Cove to ruin, would have found a way to turn the robot-people into harcrowned princess of the kingdorateful citizenry

They hurried to the end of the field, rounded the bleachers, and crossed the deserted parking lot to the back of the school

Nothing attacked the howled again

Sometimes even God seemed to have a perverse streak

There were six doors at different places along the back of the school They moved from one to another, as Sam tried them all and exaht He apparently couldn’t pick any of theined FBI ency they could open a bank vault with spit and a hairpin

He also tried a fes and spent what seeht He was exa not the rooms beyond but the inner sills and frames of the s

At the last door--which was the only one that had glass in the top of it, the others being blank rectangles of ht, looked solemnly at Tessa, and spoke to her in a low voice "I don’t think there’s an alar But there’s no alarlass and, as far as I can see, no hard-wired contacts along the frames or at thelatches"

"Are those the only two kinds of alarht have?" Tessa whispered

"Well, there’resonic transmitters or electric eyes But they’d be too elaborate for just a school, and probably too sensitive for a building like this"

"So nohat?"

"Now I break a "

Chrissie expected hi tape from a pocket of his coat and tape one of the panes to soften the sound of shattering glass and to prevent the shards fro noisily to the floor inside That was how they usually did it in books But he just turned sideways to the door, drew his arh the eight-inch-square pane in the lower-right corner of thegrid Glass broke and clattered to the floor with an awful racket Maybe he had forgotten to bring his tape

He reached through the eed the not to step on the broken glass

Saht He didn’t hood it quite soto keep the backwash of the bea hallway It was full of the cedar-pine sreen disinfectant and dust-attractor that for years the janitors had sprinkled on the floors and then swept up, until the tiles and walls had beconated with the scent The aroma was familiar to her from Thomas Jefferson Elementary, and she was disappointed to find it here She had thought of high school as a special, mysterious place, but how special or mysterious could it be if they used the sarade school?

Tessa quietly closed the outside door behind the for a moment

The school was silent

Theyinto classroo for the computer lab In a hundred and fifty feet they reached a junction with another hall They stood in the intersection for a ain

The school was still silent

And dark The only light in any direction was the flashlight, which Saer hooded with his right He had withdrawn his revolver froht hand for that

After a long wait, Sam said, "Nobody’s here"