Adventure Bike Club and the Tire Giant

again.”

  He gave me a sad little smile and a squeeze on my shoulder to let me know that he understood.

  “Okay, kid,” he said, “Roger that.”

  Dad was always using military style terms; he’d been a jet fighter pilot, after all. Then he walked on ahead to speak with Mom, and I came upon a freshly dug grave by myself. For some crazy reason, I stopped.

  A wooden platform covered the over the grave, but I could see a dark gap along the edge. A damp, earthy smell wafted up, and I thought I could hear a faint voice calling out:

  “Come on in, little girl,” it said, “you’ll like it down here.”

  For a mad instant, I actually wanted to follow that voice. But I managed to pull back my mind. I ran all the way to the car.

  I detect that same, damp awful smell coming from the brightness. If only I could run away from it again –

  “Stop it!” I cry.

  “Pardon, Lady Amanda?” Kintz A says.

  Her voice sounds terribly sad, as tragic as Kintz One’s had sounded when he talked about our upcoming space ride.

  “Nothing, it’s just ... why is there more power now?” I say. “What’s changed?”

  “Ah, Lady Amanda,” Kintz A says, “I fear that the ship is preparing for takeoff. The energy fields spiked this way shortly before our previous departure.”

  A bolt of terror stabs right through me like a javelin from the King Arthur book. My mind goes as blank as a newly washed blackboard. Suddenly, I know how a bug pinned to a display card must feel.

  Calm down, Amanda! I tell myself. This is just a science fiction movie ... and the script says that you’re supposed to act brave.

  I don’t feel all that brave, though.

  “How long have we got?” I croak.

  “Alas, I reckon but thirty Earth America minutes or thereabouts,” Kintz A says. “Then the dynamo will have built sufficient velocity for takeoff.”

  She and the other girls begin to cry.

  “Stop that!” I shout. “We’ve got to figure something out fast or we’ll all get frozen into corpse-sicles!”

  I hadn’t meant to yell so loud, but it’s the only way to keep myself from screaming out of control. The girls shut up, thank heaven.

  “Please do not be angry with us, Lady Amanda,” Kintz B says.

  “Yes,” Kintz C adds, “we cannot help being the way we are.”

  I am too rattled to feel bad about them.

  “Let’s just keep focused,” I say. “No more crying, it doesn’t help any.”

  “We shall try, Lady Amanda,” Kintz A says.

  I fan my fingers over my eyes and peek out through the gaps. I sure could use some dark sunglasses about now. Tears blur what vision I still have.

  Then I am suddenly gripped with fury. A flaming red anger replaces the white glow. We are trapped, in great danger, and the people outside who are supposed to protect us from these alien horrors have done nothing. Worse, they’ve been bought off!

  “Tell me about the bribes the guard paid out,” I say.

  “Ah yes, the blue diamonds,” Kintz A says. “They are gems of rare beauty, but perhaps they will not benefit the receivers as much as expected.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The diamonds are creations of a time and universe different from here,” Kintz A says. “They may not survive long once the supporting power of the ship is withdrawn.”

  19. The Blue Diamond

  Mayor ‘Honest Joe’ Lazar relaxed in his city hall office. His feet rested their custom-made shoes on his desk, his hands were joined behind his head, and his teeth clenched a long, premium cigar. The No Smoking sign on the wall disappeared behind a cloud of smoldering tobacco.

  “Ahhhhh,” he said with great satisfaction. “It doesn’t get much better than this!”

  Sitting in the desk’s top drawer was the fabulous blue diamond. Lazar had just returned with it from the establishment of a top gem authority – a man renowned for his discretion, meaning that he knew not to ask questions about fabulous diamonds of unknown origins. A man who knew how such items could be quietly sold so that inconvenient persons, such as the tax authorities, did not find out.

  Lazar had been floored when he learned how much the diamond was worth. If sold to the right buyer, it would bring in millions. This ‘right buyer’ was being contacted now, in a few days the deal would be settled.

  Millions! Soon it would be goodbye to Allendale. No more nickel and dime graft for Joe Lazar. He’d be settled on a Caribbean island estate with a yacht and private airplane – and lots of pretty girls, too. Women always went for a man with money, even if he was a bit old and pasty like he was. Why, the first thing he’d do once he got to the tropics would be ...

  A new and unpleasant smell wafted among the cigar fumes. Mayor Lazar took his feet off his desk, the chair legs banged back down.

  Smoke was pouring out of his desk drawer! In a panic, Lazar wrenched it open. The blue diamond inside sputtered amid a thick mass of acrid vapor. Lazar leaped to his feet and grabbed the diamond. A shock vibrated up his arm like the bite of a poisonous snake.

  “Ow!”

  He dropped the diamond. It rolled to the middle of the floor, hissing and smoking. Then it was abruptly gone – evaporated into thin air like a hunk of dry ice. A small burn in the carpet was the only evidence that the gem had ever existed.

  Honest Joe collapsed into his chair. All his dreams of wealth collapsed with him like a house of cards. He remained for almost a minute, too shocked to move. Then he ripped the telephone off its hook and jabbed a button.

  “Hello,” Police Chief Bascomb’s voice said on the other end of the line.

  “Drop whatever you’re doing,” Lazar howled. “We’re going out to that tire giant!”

  20. Glow Ride

  We are floating calmly now inside a crackly, shining bright globe. My skin tingles with little shocks. Our hair wafts around us like seaweed in a gentle current – like the hair of dead people sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

  I can’t actually see much outside our little sphere, but I can sense that machinery and other stuff is lurking all around us. Things are going on out there, I just can’t detect them with my human senses. Maybe the aliens can take in more with their button eyes.

  “Do you know how any of that stuff works?” I ask.

  “Alas, no, Lady Amanda,” Kintz A replies. “Females in our society do not receive much of a technical education.”

  The whole place had seemed to be empty before, like it really was a hollow tire. But maybe the things in it were hiding behind a time warp or something – a whole new reality where things run different from Earth. Was that where the pretzel beams from our lights vanished?

  “Are there any escape hatches?” I ask. “How about that ramp we came in on?”

  “The guard would know about those things.” Kintz A says. “Unfortunately, we do not.”

  The guard – we have to get at the guard!

  Things outside our globe appear in little flashes of light and blips of sound. Just as I think I can make something out, it’s gone. For an instant, I think I can see robot type machines floating nearby waving long, spindly arms. Then they vanish.

  “What are those things!” I cry.

  “They service and protect the machinery,” Kintz A says. “They will not harm us if we do not tamper with anything.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I say.

  “They restrained my brother when he tried to sabotage our previous takeoff,” Kintz A says. “They were quite effective, and there was no need for the guard to administer a beating – except that he enjoys such cruelties.”

  Her voice catches, but she doesn’t start crying again.

  “Where’s that dynamo thing you mentioned?” I ask.

  “It is a great ring circling the ship,” Kintz A says. “It spins at high velocity as the craft prepares for takeoff, and ... why, you can see its outline now.”

  A band of dull glow is
flickering into life all around us. It arches away high above and swoops down below our feet. Everything outside the shining band has turned inky dark. It’s like we are in the middle of a glowing friendship ring, although it is anything but friendly.

  “I don’t like the looks of that much,” I say.

  “Nor do we!” the girls wail.

  Then the lighted band starts turning slowly. The motion is hypnotic. I feel it starting to pull my mind away, like that voice in the grave tried to do.

  Kintz A shakes me hard.

  “Lady Amanda!”

  “Yes ... what is it?”

  “Stay with us, Lady Amanda.”

  I yank my eyes away from the glow and shut them fast. When I open them again, the shimmering band has lost its fascination. I’ve escaped that open grave a second time.

  “We have to stop that dynamo before it gets moving too fast,” I say.

  “How?” Kintz A asks.

  “I don’t know, yet,” I say. “What if it spun the other way – would it reverse the direction of the ship, send you back toward home?”

  “My brother thought so,” Kintz A says. “He was trying to influence the dynamo’s progress when he was caught. The dynamo is large, but very sensitive.”

  The lighted band seems to be turning a bit faster now. Whining vibration fills the darkness.

  “We have to it try again,” I say. “There are more of us now.”

  “I do not wish to discourage you, Lady Amanda,” Kintz A says, “but the robots will prevent that.”

  “How fast can those robots move?”

  “Faster than any of us can run, unfortunately,” Kintz A says. “My brother discovered that.”

  My heart sinks. Every passageway out of this nightmare world leads smack! into a brick wall. Why don’t