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When the saucer students reached the crossroads, the problem of which route to take was solved for Hunter by circumstances The entry to Mulholland was blocked by three sleekly expensive though n Their occupants had got out and were clustered together, probably to argue about which direction to take on Monica Montainway Though somewhat muddied like their cars, they looked to be sleekly expensive people - probably Malibu folk

So, to take Mulholland would take time, and Hunter felt that his little two-vehicle cavalcade had none of that to spare, for the pursuit fro back for sos, was at last catching up

Monica Mountainway ran straight here for three quarters of a hts of the Santa Monica mountains The Corvette and the truck had hardly covered half of the straight when two sports cars, packed to the sides, came around the last turn abreast, and more behind them Hunter slowed the Corvette a little and waved the truck on Hixon reot a flash of the rim faces in the back: Fulby, Pop, Doddsy, and Wojtowicz - and McHeath crouching with the one rifle they had left

The women in the car with Hunter were tensely silent Ann beside hiot another flash of faces, this ti by their expensive cars and looking surprised and rather pained, as if to say, "What bad manners to rush past us without so much as a wave - and in these catastrophic tietherness is mandatory!"

Hunter didn&039;t exactly wish them evil, but he did hope they&039;d divert and delay a bit the crazy pursuit from the Valley When he heard brakes behind hiriuilt

Hixon&039;s truck was disappearing around the first of a series of hairpin turns leading upward, which Hunter remembered from yesterday&039;s trip He scowled and squinted ahead, the sinking greenish-white sun in his eyes, and he began to hunt for a certain configuration of road also remembered from yesterday

He found it at the second of the sharp turns: a clutch of big boulders on the inside of the U-curve He slammed to a stop just beyond it and juot it, and scrambled up the steep, acidly odorous, blackly burned slope until he was behind the boulders He pointed the gun at them and fired For the first two seconds he was afraid they weren&039;t going to , but then they turned over, grating together loudly, went thu down the slope, and thudded ponderously into the asphaltoid

He dashed forward after the dust to see if an adjustment shot would be needed, but they blocked the road perfectly

Fro up be saw the trucka stretch two hairpin turns further on He ran back to the car Before he tossed the gray pistol back to Margo, he quickly checked the scale on the grip and saw there was at least a bit of violet still showing As he drove off he heard brakes squeal again behind the

Ann said, "Those people won&039;t be able to use this road noill they?"

"Nobody will be able to use it, dear," Rao put in a bit sardonically froood job, Ross?"

"A real bank-to-bank choke-up," he told her curtly "Two of the rocks it&039;ll take a derrick to move"

Ann persisted: "Ibeside their cars"

"They had their own road, the one they came on," Hunter lashed out harshly "They had their chance to turn around and use it to get away If they didn&039;t, well, they were damned rich-bitch fools!"

Ann moved away from him, closer to herout his feelings on a child Doc hadn&039;t been that way

"Professor Hunter did absolutely right, Ann," Wanda put in with a s positiveness from the other back seat "A man always has to think first of the women with hiods always had probleic weapons, dear It&039;s all in theeyes fixed on the snakelike road, wanted to tell theood twenty ht up with the truck Hixon had stopped just short of another side road

"It says, &039;To Vandenberg&039;," he called down, pointing ahead to a sign, as the Corvette drew up beside hih the hills Since I guess we&039;re going, there, to find this Opperly and all, I think we ought to take it Save us those hway"

Hunter stood up in the seat The side road looked all right, the first short stretch of it, asphaltoid like the one they were on He thought for a couple of seconds

In the pause, a profound sound, soft as a sigh, passed overhead traveling from the southeast None of the saucer students had the dictionary that would translate it into the vanishing three and a half hours ago of the Isthuel Araiza

Hunter shook his head and said loudly: "No, well keep on Monica Mountainway We were over it yesterday and we know it&039;s OK - no falls or anything A new road&039;s an unknown quantity"

"Yeah?" Hixon coravity gun to block off those nuts"

"Yes, I did," was all Hunter could think of to say, and he didn&039;t say it pleasantly

"Then there&039;s the tide, as Doddsy&039;s rehe&039;ve got to worry about that"

"If we get there before sunset it&039;ll be OK Low tide&039;s at five PM," Hunter told hi anywhere near their old rhyth yesterday"

"Yeah - if," Hixon said

"Anywhere we reach the coast we&039;ll have the tides to contend with," Hunter retorted His nerves were snapping "Co," he ordered "I&039;ll take the lead fro Monica Mountainway After a bit Margo said reassuringly: "Hixon&039;s following you"

"He&039;d damn well better!" Hunter told her

For forty hours the Wanderer had been raising higher and higher tides, not only in Earth&039;s crust and seas, but also in her atreater than the daily heat-tide caused by the sun warreatly widened tidal zone had beentheir unprecedented contributions to to in the disturbed air Stor In the Caribbean, up across the Celebes, Sulu, and South China Seas, and in a dozen other critical areas, the as rising as it had never risen on Earth before

The "Prince Charles" was boldly ato southeast by the port of Cayenne Darkly silhouetted against the wild sunset, Cape d&039;Orange told the great ship it was passing thethat of the Aent captains i them to head out into the South Atlantic, away froes were sneered at

In one of the areas yet unruffled by the Wanderer winds, Wolf Loner scanned through the graying overcast for Race Point, or Cape Ann, or even for the one-four-three I L-O-V-E Y-O-U wink of the Minot&039;s Ledge Light, or the sober six-second double flash of the Graves Light in Boston&039;s Outer Harbor He knew he should be nearing the end of his voyage, but he had noticed so past the "Endurance" and he hadn&039;t calculated he was that close to Boston However, there was nothing to do but keep watch and sail on