.
He came to his feet and looked around at the rest of them. "Let us go
over there and learn the worst," he said.

At the curb, before the hotel, Ross Wooley looked up and down the street
for a cab.

Crowley said, his voice registering self-deprecation, "Over here."

Over here was a several toned, fantastically huge hover-limousine, a
nattily dressed, sharp-looking, expressionless-faced young man behind
the wheel.

The three looked at Crowley.

He opened the door. "Climb in folks. Nothing too good for you
scientists, eh?"

Inside, sitting next to a window with Patricia beside him and Dr. Braun
at the far window, and with Ross in a jump seat, Crowley said
expansively, "This is Larry. Larry, this is Doc Braun and his friends I
was telling you about, Ross Wooley and Pat O'Gara. They're like
scientists."

Larry said, "Hi," without inflection, and tooled the heavy car out into
the traffic.

[Illustration]

Ross spun on Crowley. "Don, where'd you get this car?"

Crowley laughed. "You'll see. Take it easy. You'll see a lot of things."

* * *

They were too caught up in their own thoughts and in the barrage of
demands they were leveling at Crowley to notice direction. It wasn't
until they were already on the George Washington Bridge that Patricia
blurted, "Don, this isn't the way to your hotel!"

Crowley said tolerantly, "Take it easy, Pat. We're taking a short
detour. Something I have to show you in Jersey."

"I don't like this," Ross snapped. The redhead shifted his heavy
shoulders in a reflexive protest against the confining tweed coat he
wore.

"Relax," Crowley told him reasonably. "I've been thinking things out
quite a bit and I've got a lot to discuss with you folks."

They were across the bridge now and Larry headed into the maze which
finally unraveled itself to the point that it was obvious they were
heading north. Larry hit the lift lever and they rose ten feet from the
surface.

Dr. Braun said evenly, "You had no intention of taking us to your room.
You used that as a ruse to get us out of our hotel and, further, across
the bridge until we are now in a position where it's quite impossible
for us to summon police assistance."

Crowley grinned. "That's right, Doc. Didn't I tell you these three were
real eggheads, Larry? Look how quick he figured that out."

Larry grunted in what might have been amusement.

Ross, growling low in his throat, turned suddenly in his jump seat