I remember, Bobbi.

One piece of advice: watch out for rabid vacuum cleaners.

Then she was gone, if she had ever been there. From behind him came the rending, grinding crash of a tree falling over. The woods between here and the farm had begun to sound like a big open-hearth fireplace. Now he could hear voices from behind him, both mental and shouted aloud. Tommyknocker voices.

But Bobbi was gone.

You imagined it, Gard. The part of you that wants Bobbi-that NEEDS Bobbi-is trying to reinvent her, that's all.

Yeah, and what about the hand? The hand over my hand? Did I make that up? I couldn't have hit that thing all by myself. Annie Oakley couldn't have hit that thing without help.

But the voices-those in the air and those inside his head-were getting closer. So was the fire. Gardener drew in a throatful of smoke, put the Tomcat in gear again, and got going. There was no time for debate right now.

Gard headed for the ship. Five minutes later he came out in the clearing.

“Hazel?” Newt cried in a kind of religious terror. “Hazel? Hazel?”

Yes, Hazel! Dick Allison shouted back at him furiously, and could restrain himself no longer. He threw himself upon Newt. Stupid bastard!

Whoreboy! Newt spat back, and the two of them rolled about on the ground, green eyes glaring, grabbing for each other's throats. This was not at all logical under the circumstances, but any resemblance between the Tommyknockers and the likes of Mr Spock was purely coincidental.

Dick's hands found the wattled folds of Newt's throat and began to squeeze. His fingers punched through the flesh and green blood bubbled up over Dick's fingers. He began to raise Newt up and slam him back down. Newt's struggles lessened… lessened… lessened. Dick choked him until he was quite dead.

With that done, Dick discovered that he felt a little better.

Gard dismounted the Tomcat, staggered, lost his balance, fell down. At that same instant, a buzzing, snarling projectile blasted through the air where he had been a moment before. Gardener stared stupidly at the Electrolux vacuum cleaner which had nearly torn his head off.

It bulleted across the clearing like a torpedo, banked, and came back at him. There was something on one end that distorted the air into a silvery ripple -something like a propeller.

Gardener thought of that round, chewed hole in the bottom of the shed door and all the spittle in his mouth dried up.

Watch out for

It dive-bombed him, the cutter attachment whining and buzzing like the motor of a kid's gas-powered fighter plane. The little wheels, which were supposed to make the weary housewife's work easier as she trundled her faithful vacuum cleaner along behind her from room to room, spun lazily in the air. The hole where one was supposed to clip various attachment hoses gaped like an open mouth.

Gardener made as if to dive to the right, then held position a moment longer-if he jumped too soon, the vacuum cleaner would jog with him and chew through his guts as easily as it had chewed through the shed door when Bobbi called it.

He waited, feinted left this time, then threw himself to the right at the last moment. He thudded painfully into the dirt. The bones in his shattered ankle ground together. Gardener screamed miserably.

The Electrolux crashed. The propeller ate dirt. Then it bounced, like a plane rising into the air again after touching down too hard on a runway. It whistled off toward the great canted dish of the ship and then banked around for another run at Gardener. Now the cable it had used to run the buttons was emerging from the hose attachment hole. The cable whistled in the air-a dry, snakelike sound that Gardener could just hear under the rumble-roar of the fire. The cable whickered, and for a moment Gardener was reminded of a wild west rodeo his mother had taken him to once (in that rootin”, tootin” trail-drive town of Portland, Maine). There had been a cowboy in a tall white hat who had done rope tricks. In one of the tricks, he had floated a big lasso at ankle height, dancing in and out of its circle while playing “My Gal Sal” on a harmonica. The cable whirling out from the attachment hole looked like that rope.

Fucker'll cut your head off just as slick as shit through a goose, if you let it, Gard ole Gard.

The Electrolux whistled at him, shadow tracking beneath.

On his knees, Gardener held out the Sonic Blaster and fired. The vacuum cleaner sheared off as he aimed, but Gardener winged it just the same. A chunk of chrome above a rear wheel blew off. The cable drew a wavering line through the dirt.

get him

yes get him before

before he can hurt the ship

Closer. The voices were closer. He had to end this.

The vacuum cleaner skirted a tree and circled back. It tilted upward, climbed, then dropped in a kamikaze power dive, its chopping blade turning faster and faster.

Gardener steadied himself by thinking of Ted the Power Man.

You oughtta take a look at this shit, Teddy-boy, he thought crazily. You'd go ape for it! Better living through electricity!

He pulled the trigger on the toy gun, saw the green pencil-beam splash off the vacuum cleaner's snout, and then shoved himself forward, digging with both feet, and never mind the shattered ankle. The Electrolux struck the ground beside the Tomcat and buried itself three feet deep in the dirt. Black smoke jetted from the protruding end in a tight, compact little cloud. It made a thick farting noise and died.

Gardener got to his feet, holding onto the Tomcat for support, the Sonic Space Blaster dangling from his right hand. The plastic barrel, he saw, was partially melted. It wasn't going to be any good much longer. The same was undoubtedly true of himself.

The vacuum cleaner was dead-dead and sticking out of the ground like a dud bomb. But there were plenty of other gadgets on their way, some flying, some trundling enthusiastically through the woods on makeshift wheels. He couldn't wait around.

What was it the old man had been thinking at the end? The last thing… and then… Deliverance

“Good word,” Gardener said hoarsely. “Dee-liverance. Great word.”

Also, he realized, the name of a novel. A novel by a poet. James Dickey. A novel about city men who had to get slugged, mugged, and buggered before discovering they were good ole boys after all. But there was a line in that book… one of the men looking at one of the others and telling him calmly, “Machines are gonna fail, Lewis.”

Gardener certainly hoped so.

He hopped over to the lean-to, then pushed the button which started the sling's descent. He was going to have to go down the cable hand over hand. It was stupid, but that was Tommyknocker technology for you. The motor began to whine. The cable began to descend. Gardener hopped over to the cut and stared down. If he could actually work his way down there, he would be safe.

Safe among the Tommyknocker dead.

The motor stopped. He could faintly see the useless sling at the bottom. The voices were closer, the fire was closer, and he sensed a rogue's gallery of gadgets closing in. Didn't matter. He had shot the chutes, climbed the ladders, and somehow got to the finish line before the others.

Congratulations, Mr Gardener! You've won a flying saucer! Do you want to quit or go for the all-expenses-paid vacation in deep space?

“Fuck,” Gardener croaked, tossing the half-melted toy gun aside. “Let's do it.”

That also had reverberations.

He seized the cable and swung out over the cut. As he did, it came to him. Sure. Gary Gilmore. It was what Gary Gilmore said just before stepping in front of the firing squad in Utah.