Good Omens

told Aziraphale.
    "Not a lot to go on," said the angel.
    "We know the child must be alive," said Crowley, "so.. "
    "How do we know?"
    "If it had turned up Down There again, do you think I'd still be sitting here?"
    "Good point."
    "So all we've got to do is find it," said Crowley. "Go through the hospital records." The Bentley's engine coughed into life and the car leapt forward, forcing Aziraphale back into the seat.
    "And then what?" he said.
    "And then we find the child."
    "And then what?" The angel shut his eyes as the car crabbed around a corner.
    "Don't know."
    "Good grief."
    "I suppose.. get off the road you clown.. your people wouldn't consider.. .. and the scooter you rode in onl.. giving me asylum?"
    "I was going to ask you the same thing.. Watch out for that pedestrian!"
    "It's on the street, it knows the risks it's taking!" said Crowley, easing the accelerating car between a parked car and a taxi and leaving a space which would have barely accepted even the best credit card.
    "Watch the roadl Watch the road! Where is this hospital, anyway?"
    "Somewhere south of Oxford!"
    Aziraphale grabbed the dashboard. "You can't do ninety miles an hour in Central London!"
    Crowley peered at the dial. "Why not?" he said.
    "You'll get us killed!" Aziraphale hesitated. "Inconveniently discorporated," he corrected, lamely, relaxing a little. "Anyway, you might kill other people."
    Crowley shrugged. The angel had never really come to grips with the twentieth century, and didn't realize that it is perfectly possible to do ninety miles an hour down Oxford Street. You just arranged matters so that no one was in the way. And since everyone knew that it was impossible to do ninety miles an hour down Oxford Street, no one noticed.
    At least cars were better than horses. The internal combustion engine had been a godse.. a blessi.. a windfall for Crowley. The only horses he could be seen riding on business, in the old days, were big black jobs with eyes like flame and hooves that struck sparks. That was de rigueur for a demon. Usually, Crowley fell off. He wasn't much good with animals.
    Somewhere around Chiswick, Aziraphale scrabbled vaguely in the scree of tapes in the glove compartment.
    "What's a Velvet Underground?" he said.
    "You wouldn't like it," said Crowley.
    "Oh," said the angel dismissively. "Be.. bop."
    "Do you know, Aziraphale, that probably if a million human beings were asked to describe modern music, they wouldn't use the term 'bebop'?' said Crowley.
    "Ah, this is more like it. Tchaikovsky," said Aziraphale, opening a case and slotting its cassette into the Blaupunkt.
    "You won't enjoy it," sighed Crowley. "It's been in the car for more than a fortnight."
    A heavy bass beat began to thump through the Bentley as they sped past Heathrow.
    Aziraphale's brow furrowed.
    "I don't recognize this," he said. "What is it?"
    "It's Tchaikovsky's 'Another One Bites the Dust'," said Crowley, closing his eyes as they went through Slough.
    To while away the time as they crossed the sleeping Chilterns, they also listened to William Byrd's "We Are the Champions" and Beethoven's "I Want To Break Free." Neither were as good as Vaughan Williams's "Fat.. Bottomed Girls."
    * * *

        It is said that the Devil has all the best tunes.
    This is broadly true. But Heaven has the best choreographers.
    * * *

        The Oxfordshire plain stretched out to the west, with a scattering of lights to mark the slumbering villages where honest yeomen were settling down to sleep after a long day's editorial direction, financial consulting, or software engineering.
    Up here on the hill a few glow.. worms were lighting up.
    The surveyor's theodolite is one of the more direful symbols of the twentieth century. Set up anywhere in open countryside, it says: there will come Road Widening, yea, and two.. thousand.. home estates in keeping with the Essential Character of the Village. Executive Developments will be manifest.
    But not even the most conscientious surveyor surveys at midnight, and yet here the thing was, tripod legs deep in the turf. Not many theodolites have a hazel twig strapped to the top, either, or crystal pendulums hanging from them and Celtic runes carved into the legs.
    The soft breeze flapped the cloak of the slim figure who was adjusting the knobs of