Read Starman for Free Online Page A

shaking and she made a bad job of what ordinarily was a simple task. The battery ran down despite her best efforts to get the engine to turn over. Maybe Scott had kept the engine tuned up, but the battery was old and probably in need of replacement.
    “It’s been sitting here for days,” she told him. “And the motor’s cold. And the battery needs replacing, and I . . .”
    She broke off. He was staring at her uncomprehendingly. “What’s wrong?”
    “What’s wrong?” She muttered to herself. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. Two downers and a jug of wine.” She slapped herself. It worked in cartoons. Maybe it would work now.
    “Jenny, dammit, wake up.”
    No luck. He was still there, staring at her. As she waited he raised an arm and gestured toward the dirt road that led away from the lake. There was a halting insistence in his voice.
    “We must go. Now.”
    She tried the key again. The engine growled. She was frightened and tired and dazed and she wasn’t thinking her actions through. The end result was that she flooded the engine. When it died this time it sounded final. The thin sharp smell of gasoline filled the car.
    His hand dropped to the automatic resting in his lap. She was near collapse from panic.
    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I can’t get it started. I tried, but I can’t. Can’t you smell it? It’s flooded. We’ll have to wait.” Her eyes were darting rapidly from his face to the hand now cradling the forty-five.
    Suddenly he leaned over and touched the ignition key. Or maybe he didn’t touch it. Maybe he only touched the ignition plate. She was never certain, then or afterward.
    The engine rumbled, turned over once, twice. It caught on the third try, the big 387 under the hood coming to loud life. It idled smoothly as she threw her companion an uncertain look, then turned resolutely away from him. If she didn’t pay attention to her driving she’d like as not end up killing them both.
    Still feeling his eyes on her she backed out, shifted gears and sent them bouncing down the narrow access road that led away from the bay.
    They worked their way through mud and over potholes until they finally came to the intersection where the access lane met blacktop. Jenny slowed to a halt. She was glad of the solid, unyielding plastic of the steering wheel beneath her fingers. It gave her something to hold onto, and she badly needed something to hold onto. Reality was a half-memory. She was trapped in a persistent nightmare that was solidifying around her like stale Jell-o. It was hard to breathe, harder still to remain calm. If anything even slightly out of the ordinary had happened to that steering wheel, if it had turned suddenly soft and rubbery in her hands or sported a couple of leering eyes or gone floating off skyward like a small gray sphere she’d recently seen do just that, she was absolutely certain she would have gone quite insane.
    It did none of those things. It stayed a steering wheel, the familiar smooth plastic curve cool inside the curl of her fingers. The engine purred softly beneath the hood, the leather seat was warm against her back. Everything was as it should be. Everything, except the character sitting next to her cradling the deadly automatic in his lap.
    “Why do you stop?”
    Compared to what her keeper had said so far, the question amounted to a veritable speech.
    She gestured at the intersection. “Which way do you want to go? Left or right? East or west? Does it matter? Should I just drive?” Silently she prayed that he’d leave the decision up to her. It would amount to a confession of ignorance of his surroundings—though she already suspected he wasn’t a local. If he just wanted to drive aimlessly she would turn left and head for the nearest big town.
    He appeared to be debating with himself. Finally, and with obvious reluctance, he reached into one of the windbreaker’s pockets and withdrew another of the mysterious gray spheres. She wondered if it, too,