"On the road again. I just can't wait to get on the road again. My love is makin' music with my friends, and I can't wait go get on the road again..."

"Yeah, Willie. Sing it!"

Slick Jenson was headed North on I-74 to Illinois through Northern Indiana in his dilapidated '68 pickup truck he called Stanley at 2:30 in the morning. He was headed back to Galesburg to stay with his cousin Tom for a while.

"Whiskey River take my mind" he howled off key. His habit of singing along with the cassette player was not appreciated by most. Slick liked driving at night much better than other any other time. That's when you could really get where you were going. He sped up around the curve to about 90 mph. "Just me and them tuckers. None of them sissy-butt businessmen clogging up the freeway."

When Willie Nelson began "Blue eyes crying in the rain" for the fourth time the cassette player sputtered, sped up, sputtered again, then went silent.

"Now what the ugly crud's going on here?"

Slick ejected the cassette but found the tape still attached to the inside.

"Awww. Hog nuts! And me with no radio neither."

He yanked on the tape and broke it off leaving a long strand still jammed inside.

"If that ain't the luck."

He drove on for a long time in tortured silence. Even he couldn't stand his own voice a cappella. Then, about a half hour past Champaign, he ran out of gas. He pumped the accelerator in vain desperation, but there was just no more fuel. He pulled his truck onto the shoulder and got out.

"Dogonnit Stanley." He kicked the tire. "Why'd you have to pull a dumbhead trick like that? You never don this to me before." He kicked the tire again. Slick hear his truck's reply in his head, "Well, you never made me run out of gas before, you stupid putz."

"Well roll me in hot butter and toast my butt. That was real slick, Slick."

He started to kick the tire again, but since it was really his won fault, he kicked himself in the shin. He crouched over in pain then stood up and kicked the tire anyway.

He eventually calmed down and got the small two gallon gas tank from under the seat and headed down the road when he disappeared from the Earth.

Slick suddenly found himself in a phone booth. At least that was his first impression. There was a misty checkerboard of colors to his right. He switched the gas can to his other hand and put his finger into a blue square.

He could now see out into a city. It was sort of a city but looked more like a jungle except it seemed manufactured.

"How does a fellow open the door of this gizmo?"

He touched a green button. There was now a small shape moving slowly toward him against a backdrop of stars. It got bigger, and bigger, and closer, and closer. "That hummer's gonna hit me," he suddenly realized. He slapped his hand into the misty squares and the result almost made him throw up, for the scene out the front window changed about a hundred times in an instant.

Slick was breathing hard with his eyes closed. Slowly he opened his left eye and saw again out the front window. This time he saw a field of tall, wavy grass blowing gently in the wind under a sky with two suns.

"This sure is freaky."

As he reached again for the panel, it disappeared. The quiet grassland turned to pitch blackness for maybe ten seconds, then gravity shifted and he hit his head on the ceiling/floor. Soon he was right side up and the blackness faded to what made Slick think of a laboratory or perhaps a gymnasium. A door opened and he stepped out.

From behind a machine came a humanoid for dressed in a bright purple cloak. He approached Slick and said, "You shouldn't have gone playing with the transfer controls. I had a hard enough time finding and Earth person in the first place."

"Huh?"

"Huh, he says. Listen to him. I've got paperwork coming out my nose and all he can say is 'Huh.'"

Slick couldn't really see that the creature had any sort of a nose at all. He asked, "Are you some kind of space man?"

The small "man", with a look of disgust one gives a puppy who has gone on the carpet, led Slick to a seat and said, "Okay, let's see. You are in fact an Earth person? Born on Earth, I mean. You didn't immigrate did you?"

"Huh?"

"Oh dear. O dear."

"What the blazes is this?"

"Right. Listen. I'm only going to tell you once. I'm very busy you know. I've got enough stuff to do without explaining every little detail to your kind. I'm not a space man. I've never been to space and I hope I never do. The thought scares the willies out of me. Now, here's the form. Please sign here signifying that you are in fact a native Earth person and give permission to us for the destruction of the planet. Now where did I leave that inter spatial x-21 3-5 destruction encoder."

"Destruction of... Hey, I ain't signing that!"

"Oh, you're not going to put up a fuss are you?"

"Well. Well, yeah. I'll put up a fuss! A damn big fuss!"

"I can't tell why. Smelly little place. Crowded too. Did you know that practically nobody speaks the same gibberish. It took me weeks to learn them all. I'll be glad to be rid of it. I'll tell you, if they'd only learn to eat one another, things would fix up right quick. More trouble than it's worth I'd say."

The creature fished around in a drawer for a couple minutes while Slick Jenson contemplated the end of ... well, heck, everything."

"Here it is. Can't get very far without the inter spatial x-21 3-5 destruction encode. You've signed then have you?"

The alien placed the small device into a machine and turned it clockwise half a turn then poised a finger over a large red button.

"Please hurry. I haven't got all day."

Slick raised his empty gas container and brought it down hard on the creatures head. It's body slumped quietly to the floor. Slick reached over to the destruction encoder, turned it counter-clockwise and took it out. He put it in his pocket, picked up his gas can, and left the room.

In the hallway he saw other humanoids dressed in similar cloaks of different colors. He eventually found his way down ramps and stairs to the bottom floor and to the outside. Not far away he saw a road over which flat disc-like objects flew.

For lack of a better idea, he went over there. He found that the road stretched far back and forward around curves and over hills. He didn't know where it would lead him, but he figured it would lead him away from here.

He walked on the side of the road carrying his empty gas container as the planet's sun set behind him. He kept walking as the traffic dwindled to near nothing then he sat and rested. He was hungry, tired, and still a little shaken up, but he soon fell asleep.

He slept for a couple hours until one of the passing discs slowed and hovered near him giving off a low, loud hum. Slick got up and prepared to run as a large pyramid-like head popped out of a hatch.

It spoke. "Hey buddy, need a ride?"

Slick nodded his head.

A circular ramp lowered around the disc toward him which led to the top of the disc. Slick followed it up to the top and down the hatch into a well decorated, modern looking room.

"Just have a seat anywhere."

The large mountain shaped creature bounced toward the front of the room where the flying controls were located. This creature was totally unlike the little fellow who had tried to destroy the Earth. This one was about ten feet high, had no legs, and used clay like tentacles which changed shape for different tasks. He didn't walk, rather he wobbled and bounced to where he was headed.

"This is a fine jalopy you got here mister. Hey, you're not going to hurt me are you?"

"Now, what makes you say that?"

"There was a guy back there gonna blow up my planet!"

"Oh. I should have guessed. I was wondering what you were doing here. You didn't look like any sentient I'd ever seen before. The Snofflobs are an undesirable lot. I wouldn't be on their planet if I didn't have some Grikeffon to snangleplarb. They're nosy little buggers always sticking their noses into to other people's business, blowing people's planets up whenever they feel like it. Disgusting."

"Indeed."

"How'd you get away then?"

"Beaned him with this." Slick held up his gas can.

"Good move."

"They do this often then do they?"

"What's that?"

"Blowing up planets."

"Well not too often, but they've been at it for a long time. It's like an artistic statement of some kind. Hold on, we're about to dip into 7-D space."

"What's 7-D space?"

"Shh. Hold on."

Slick leaned back into the soft plush chair. It was comfortable enough, even though it was designed for a creature with no legs.

"It's clear. We're under."

The pilot got up and bounced his way over to another chair then bunched up and with a big bounce, bounced right in.

Slick asked, "What would he have done if I hadn't rapped his noggin?"

"If you didn't sign the form? I guess he would have eaten you."

"Gory be." Then he wondered, "Will my planet be all right?"

"Oh sure. The only one authorized to destroy a planet in a given sector is the one assigned to that sector. Since you did him in..."

"Am I in trouble then?"

"Oh, yeah. That's for damn sure. It's a good thing I picked you up when I did. You'll be safe if you don't go poking around their planet for a while.

"Well, I don't plan to. Hey, how come you speak English too?"

"I don't. I taught you mine just before you woke up."

Only then did he realize that he'd been speaking a different, somewhat lisping language. "Gefelakarnian!" he said, which of course means, "Cool beans!"

"You were wondering about 7-D space. It's very simple really. Imagine flat people on a sphere. If they want to go from point A to B, the have to go around on the surface. If you dip into 3-D space, and go straight across, you cut the distance some. But that line in 3-D space isn't really straight, so you dip into 4-D space to cut down some more, and so on. This isn't a very powerful ship really. Some of the big cruisers travel in 20 sometimes 25-D space."

There was a signaling noise from the controls.

"We're coming up on Earth. Nice meeting you," he said as he bounced over to the controls.

"Yeah. Thanks for everything." He started to add an invitation to drop in if the pilot were ever in the solar system, but before he got it out he was standing a couple feet from Stanley.

"I'll be switched. Half way from here to I don't know and back and I still can't get down to Galesburg without no gas." He opened the door and sat down behind the wheel. "Anyway, it's good that the planet didn't blow up." He settled back and closed his eyes.

He didn't get much rest though because just then an Illinois state trooper stopped behind the truck with its red and blue lights flashing.

Slick got out of the truck and said, "Howdy officer. I sure am glad to see you right about now."

The cop stopped dead and said, "What's all that gibber jabber?"

Slick had forgotten that he was still speaking the pilot's language. He shifted back to English. "I said I'm glad to see you."

"What's the problem?"

"Out of gas."

"I see. Well, I can't have you staying out here all night. Lock up your truck and I'll take you up the road. There's a gas station a few miles up."

"I was headed to Galesburg."

"Do I look like a taxi service?"

"No, I suppose not."

"Hey, is that blood on your gas can?"

"No look here, it's kind of a blue purple. I don't quite know what that is."

"Have you been waiting long?"

"Not too long. I found stuff to do."

:^D