must have a very odd sense of humour, beyond the imaginings of men. Unfortunately, he forgot that roads are designed to be used by traffic and that people with vital missions should not attempt to cross Knightsbridge in a state of heedless exaltation.
The hover sled was travelling at high speed. It hit Gabriel at high speed. It was driven — using the term loosely — by an intensely agitated Brother Peter, attempting to escape the hot pursuit of his campaign managers, public relations officers and accountants. With quite unworldly naïvety, he had committed the unforgivable indiscretion of publicly insisting that all the massive funds accumulated by the Perfect Universal Love movement be devoted to purchasing comforters, diapers, feeding bottles and processed milk for one hundred million starving Chinese babies.
The hover sled hit Gabriel a glancing blow that spun him round three times and dropped him in a mangled heap in the gutter. Obeying Newtonian laws of motion with rough precision, Brother Peter executed three aerial somersaults and fell flat on his face. Both men were mortally injured.
Gabriel was still conscious. The world was filled with thunder. Or was it laughter?
Laughter, most probably. Supergitt was having a ball.
He was aware of someone crawling towards him. A man he felt he ought to know but did not. Perhaps the joker was coming to help, though somehow Gabriel already knew that he was beyond help.
Nevertheless, human nature being incredibly stupid and sentimental, he stretched out a hand. Painfully, slowly, the other man pulled, crawled, willed himself forward. He, too, held out a hand. The hands touched.
“I bring you,” gurgled Brother Peter, choking on his own blood, “the message of Perfect Universal Love.”
Gabriel looked up. Suddenly he knew that the thunder really was laughter. And he knew where it came from.
With a tremendous effort, he managed to grip Brother Peter’s hand, and held it tightly.
There was a brief surge of kinship, a flicker of brotherhood.
Then Gabriel died…
Laughing!
Copyright
CORONET BOOKS
Hodder Paperbacks Ltd., London
Copyright 1970 by Edmund Cooper
First published 1970 by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd as SON OF KRONK
Coronet edition 1972
Reprinted 1975
ISBN 0 340 16217 1
