My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire Read Online Free PDF Page A

towns and then through a couple that appeared deserted. A few miles outside the second ghost town, he turned off onto a dirt road—a track, really. I could see why he had a four-wheel drive machine; nothing else would have survived. The track led into the bare hills, twisted through a ravine and then came back out onto a flat region. Once we reached that, Angel slowed down. He was obviously looking for something. I asked what.
    “Track coming out. Either it rained since I left or it’s farther than I thought.”
    He was starting to convince me. I found myself staring ahead, looking for tire marks that led away from the track.
    “Aha! There we are!” Angel braked sharply, almost putting me through the windshield. I looked where his arm was pointing and there, indeed, were tire tracks. They headed away from the track at right angles, in the direction of a cliff wall that sprouted vertically from the plain.
    “Angel, I hate to say it, but I don’t see anything over there.”
    “Not yet, Danny. Not yet.” He swung the Jeep around to parallel the other tire markings.
    We bounced along for another hour, seeing nothing different. I wondered if the tire marks would lead to a canyon carved into the cliff, but the rock wall ahead of us was solid. The tracks simply stopped at the base of the cliff.
    I looked at Angel. He stared mutely at the rock in front of us.
    “Maybe there’s another set of tracks?” I suggested.
    “No. This is it,” he shook his head. “Just don’t rush me.”
    He switched on the headlamps and gunned the Jeep directly at the cliff.
    I yelled, “Shit!” and threw my arms up to shield my face. But there was no crash. The Jeep roared up to the cliff and
into
it. Angel brought the Jeep to a stop and grinned at me.
    “Well, Danny, what do you think of that?”
    I was stunned. The Jeep was sitting in what appeared to be a dark tunnel. Illuminated by our lights, the floor and semicircular roof looked like polished rock. Behind us, the rock ended in a pitch-black semicircle. Ahead, the tunnel curved to the left.
    But, amazing as it was, a tunnel, however strange, does not a spaceship make. I told Angel so and he laughed.
    “Just hang on,” he said.
    It occurred to me then, that Angel must have stumbled on some abandoned government installation. As with most fantasies, there was a grain of truth behind this one.
    Angel gunned the Jeep again. When we rounded the corner, I saw a semicircle of light not more than twenty yards ahead. Two figures stepped into the opening, blocking the road. There was no question that they were armed. Scratch abandoned installation, I thought; Angel must have come across something top secret. The figures at the end of the tunnel, when we reached them, looked human enough in shape. They wore coveralls of a leathery material, gloves and boots, and their faces were hidden behind visored helmets. Their weapons, and from the way they were held I assumed they were weapons, were something strange, however. At a distance, and in silhouette, I had taken them for rifles. Up close, I could see that they were not. They were a good foot longer than a normal rifle, and what would have been the barrel appeared to be a solid-blue cylinder. At least, I saw no opening in the business end. There were some odd protuberances on the stock and the whole piece seemed to have been melted together. There was nothing that looked like a trigger. Okay, the weapons certainly looked unearthly, even if their owners did not.
    That was when Angel began speaking to the guards in something that was definitely not English. In response, one of the guards jumped onto the running board and Angel drove another quarter mile, which brought us out into a narrow canyon.
    The ship sat in a hollow in the cliff wall. It was a stubby cigar shape that sprouted bat wings, all in jet black. A row of markings near the front end had to be writing, but it was in no alphabet that I recognized. Light glinted off a section of glass,