He shivered. Laurel Canyon would go. The house, the studio. Hell, everything would go. Worse than Sodom and Gomorrah, worse than the fall of Nineveh. Nothing but ashes for hundreds of miles. “Jesus,” he said. “Everybody scared silly of terrorist nukes, and three carloads of dumb kids tossing cigarettes can do the job just as easily.”

“But this time it wasn’t cigarettes, Mike,” the dispatcher said.

“No? What then, arson?”

Again that strange stare and blink, much like the one the field mechanic had given him. “You serious? You haven’t heard?”

“I’ve been in New Mexico the last six days. Way off in the outback.”

“You’re the only one in the world who hasn’t heard, then. Hey, don’t you ever tune in the radio news when you drive?”

“I flew there and back. The Cessna. Listening to the radio is one of the things that I go to New Mexico to get away from having to do.—For Christ’s sake, heard what’?”

“About the E-Ts,” said the dispatcher wearily. “They started the fires. Three spaceships landing at five this morning in three different corners of the L.A. basin. The heat of their engines ignited the dry grass.”

Carmichael did not smile. “E-Ts, yeah. You’ve got one weird sense of humor, kiddo.”

The dispatcher said, “You think it’s a joke?”

“Spaceships? From another world?”

“With critters fifteen feet high on board,” the dispatcher at the next computer said. “Linda’s not kidding. They’re out walking around on the freeways right this minute. Big purple squids fifteen feet high, Mike.”

“Men from Mars?”

“Nobody knows where the hell they’re from.”

“Jesus,” Carmichael said. “Jesus Christ God.”

Half past nine in the morning, and Mike Carmichael’s older brother, Colonel Anson Carmichael III, whom everyone usually spoke of simply as “the Colonel,” was standing in front of his television set, gaping in disbelief.