Roadmarks

"Whether he might not have been in one of those categories I mentioned earlier—the people who can't find their ways home. He always seemed to be looking for something—exploring, testing. And I never did know exactly where he came from. He spent a lot of time poking around sideroads. And after a while, I believe that he did try to—alter things—here and there. Only his memory of the exact set of circumstances he wanted to re-create did not seem quite complete—as though it might have been something from a very long time ago. Yes, he traveled a lot..."

"Made it to Cleveland, anyway," Randy said, "at least for a little while." Then, "What was he like? I mean, personally."

"That is a difficult question. Restless-if I had to choose one word."

"I mean-honest? Dishonest? A nice guy? A prick?"

"Yes, he was all of those things at various times. His personality was liable to change suddenly. But later... Later on he got—self-destructive..."

Randy shook his head.

"I guess I'll just have to wait, if he's still around. How about a language lesson?"

"Very well."

One

Red cut suddenly to the right, taking a narrow turnoff without slowing. "What," Flowers asked, "are you doing?" "Twelve hours of driving is plenty," he replied. "I

want to sleep now."

"Collapse the seat and I'll take over." He shook his head. "I want to get out of this damned car and get some

real rest."

"Then please use a phony name when you register." "No place to register. We're just going to camp. It's

a devastated area. No problem." "Mutants? Radiation? Booby traps?" "No, no and no. I've been here before. It's clean." After a time he slowed, found another turnoff—

narrow, poorly surfaced. The sky phased into a pink

and purple twilight. In the distance, a shattered city

appeared in the sunset glow. He turned again. " '... Et que lews grands piliers, droits et majestueux,

rendaient pareils. Ie soir, aux grottes bascdtiques,'"

Flowers observed. "You're going to camp in a death

museum."

"Not really," he replied. They were on a dirt road now. It ran across the face

of a mountain for a time, crossed a creaking bridge over a narrow gorge, rounded a bluff, and reached a plain within sight of the city again. Red pulled off into a field, dotted here and there, amid its craters, with rusting equipment—mostly damaged vehicles, surface and air. He braked to a stop in a clear area.

The curiously shaped shadow which now lay across the vehicle's roof took on a reptilian outline, darkening thickening...

"Alter the truck's appearance to resemble one of these wrecks," Red instructed.

"Occasionally you have a decent idea," Flowers observed. "It will take about five or six minutes to do a really fine decadent job. Leave the engine running."

When the alteration began, the shadow contracted suddenly into a circle, dropped from the vehicle and slid off quickly across the ground in the direction of a crashed aircar. Red and Mondamay climbed out and began stringing a barrier. The air stirred sluggishly about them, dry, with a faint hint of coolness to come. A bank of clouds was building in the east. Somewhere, an insect began buzzing.

In the meantime, warped areas appeared in the truck's body, deepening, twisting. Random dents appeared. Rust-colored spots flashed across the vehicle's surface, slowed, settled. The machine tilted to one side. Red returned to it and unloaded a parcel of rations and a sleeping bag. The engine stopped.

"That's it," Flowers said. "How's it look?"

"Hopeless," Red replied, sprawling on the bag and

opening a food container. "Thanks."

Mondamay approached, halted and said softly, "I detect nothing of an overtly hostile nature within ten kilometers."

"What do you mean 'overtly'?"

"There are a number of undetonated bombs and | unfired weapons amid the wreckage."

"Any of them underfoot?"

"No."

"Radioactivity? Poison gases? Bacteria?"

"Safe."

"Then I guess we can live with the situation."

Red began to eat.

"You say you have been working for a long while," Mondamay asked, "trying to alter things back to some situation you remember from long ago?"

"That's right."

"From some of the things you'd said earlier about your memory, are you certain that you would even recognize it if you were to find it?"

"More certain than ever. I remember more now."

"And if you locate the road you seek, you will take it and go home?"

"Yes."

"What is it like there?"

"I couldn't tell you."

"Then what is it you hope to find?" "Myself."

"Yourself? I am afraid I do not understand." "Neither do I, entirely. But it is getting clearer." The sky blackened, came down with a case of stars. A piece of moon drifted rudderless, low in the east. Red lit no lights other than his cigar. He drank Greek wine from an earthen flask. The wind rose, cool now. Flowers was doing something barely audible which might have been Debussy. Blackness within blackness, a coil of shadow slid near to Red's extended foot

"Bel'kwinith," he said softly, and the wind seemed to pause, the shadow froze, an impurity in the cigar caused it to hiss and flare for a moment.

"The hell with it," he said then.

"What do you mean?" Mondamay asked him. "The hell with what?"

"Getting Chadwick."

"I thought we had been through all this. None of the alternatives struck you as sufficiently attractive."

"It's not worth it," he said. "The fat fool is just not worth it. Won't even do his own fighting."

"Fool? You once said he was a very clever man."

Red snorted.

"Humans! I suppose he's clever enough, as far as that goes. It still comes to nothing."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"Find him. And make him tell me some things. I believe he knows more about me than he ever let on. Things I may not even know."

"Because of things you are remembering?"

"Yes. And you may be right I—"

"I have detected something."

Red was on his feet

"Nearby?"

The shadow retreated about the rear of the vehicle.

"No. But it is moving in this direction."

"Animal, vegetable or mineral?"

"There is a machine involved. It is approaching cautiously... Get into the truck!"

The engine started as Red leaped into the vehicle. The doors slammed. A window began closing. Another shape-change commenced.

Flowers suddenly broadcast Mondamay's words to him.

"What a beautiful killing machine!" he said. "Spoiled in many ways by the organic adjunct. Nevertheless^ :

quite artfully designed."

"Mondamay!" he shouted as the truck shuddered. "Can you hear me?"

"Of course. Red. I wouldn't neglect you at a time like this. My, it's coming on fast!"

The truck creaked and twisted. The engine sputtered twice. A door opened, then slammed.

"What the hell is it?"

"A large, tanklike device packed with an amazing array of weapons and guided by a disembodied human brain which is, I believe, somewhat mad. I don't know

whether it really hails from around here or was shipped here to await your coming. Are you familiar with it?"

"I think I've heard of battle wagons like that somewhere along the line. I'm not certain where, though."

The sky caught fire like a sudden dawn, and a wave of flame rolled toward them. Mondamay raised an arm and it halted as if it had encountered an invisible wall, boiling for half a minute before it finally subsided.

"He's got atomics, all right Neatly done, that," he commented.

"Why are we still alive?"

"I blocked him."

Mondamay's arm flared for a moment and a distant hilltop took fire.

"Right in front of him," he observed. "That crater will slow him. You had better be going now, Red. Flowers, take him away."

"Right."

The truck turned and headed back across the field, still changing shape as it bounced along.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Red shouted.

The sky blazed again, but the small fireball was blocked, filtered, dimmed, forced back.

"I have to cover your retreat properly," came Mondamay's voice, "before I'll be free to deal with him. Flowers will get you back to the Road."

"Deal with him? How do you propose doing that? You can't even—"

There came an enormous explosion, followed by a burst of static. The truck shook, but continued on toward the dirt road. Dust swirled about them.

"—fully operational again," came Mondamay's voice. "Flowers was able to analyze my circuits and direct me in repairing myself—"

There came another explosion. Red was looking back, but their camping area was filled with smoke and dust. He was momentarily deafened, and when his hearing

returned, he realized it was Flowers's voice that was now addressing him.

"—are going? Where did you say we are going?"

"Huh? Out of here, I hope."

"Next destination! Coordinates! Quick!"

"Oh. C Twenty-seven, eighteenth exit, fourth right off that, second left from that, third left from that It is a large white building. Looks sort of Gothic."

"Got that?" she said.

"Yes," Mondamay's voice came through the static. "If I can locate the Road, I will try to follow when this is finished."

There came another explosion, followed by uninterrupted static. They hit the dirt road, turned and con. tinued on.

Two

Randy faced the slim Victorian gentleman whom he had met in the foyer. The man's bag was on the bench near the door. He ran a hand through light, thinning hair.

"... That is correct," he said. "Three days ago. They shot it out right in this parking lot. And I'd come down this way for a holiday! Violence!" He shuddered. The tic at the left comer of his mouth returned. "Mr. Dorakeen departed that night. I really cannot tell you where he went."

"Is there anyone here who could?" Randy asked.

"The host—Johnson—perhaps. They seemed to know one another."

Randy nodded.

"Could you tell me where I might find Johnson?"

The man gnawed his lip and shook his head, looking past Randy, across the dining room and into the bar, where an argument between a stunning redheaded woman and a heavyset black man was taking place.

"Sorry. Today seems to be his day off. I've no idea where he's gone. I can only suggest that you inquire at the desk, which is in the bar. Excuse me."

He moved around Randy, took a nervous step in the direction of the altercation. At that moment, however,

it ended. The woman said something sweet and taunting, smiled, turned and walked away, heading toward the foyer.

He sighed, retraced his route around Randy and picked up his bag. He offered the woman his arm as she approached. She took it and they departed together. He nodded sharply to Randy as they went out the door.

The man who had been arguing with the woman ;

stared at Randy as he entered the bar.

"Pardon me, but don't I know you from somewhere?" he asked. "You look very familiar ..."

Randy studied the dark features.

"Toba. The name's Toba," the other added.

"I don't believe so," Randy said slowly. "My name's Randy Carthage. C Twenty."

"Guess not, then." Toba shrugged. "Let me buy you

a beer, anyway."

Randy looked around the room—rough wood and ironwork; no brass, no mirror. There were four people at the bar, which also served as a reception desk, and two were at another table. ;

"The bartender stepped out a few minutes ago. Draw yourself a beer—they're very informal here—and I'll settle up when he comes back."

"Okay. Thanks."

Randy crossed the rush-strewn floor, filled a mug from the keg on the rack, returned to the table and seated himself across from Toba. There was a halffilled glass to his right and the chair stood angled away from the table beyond it. |

".., bitch," Toba muttered softly. Then, "Traveling this way on business?" he asked. |

Randy placed Leaves on the table, shook his head and sipped his beer. I

"I was looking for a guy, but he's already left."

"Just the opposite of my problem," Toba said. "I know where the guy I'm looking for is. I just stopped here for lunch. Then the damn girl I'm working with

picks someone up and takes off to visit a half-assed ruin! Now I'm going to have to get a room here and wait till she's done with him. Probably a day or two, damn it!"

"Who is he, anyway?"

"Huh? Who?"

"Your friend. The Englishman you were talking with."

"Oh. I don't know him. I was just asking him something. But he did say his name is Jack, if that's any help."

"Well, that's his problem, poor bastard."

Toba took another drink. Randy did the same.

"What?" came a raised voice, French-accented, from one of the men at the bar. "You have never been beyond C Seventeen? My God, man! You owe it to yourself to get as far as early C Twenty at least once in your life! To fly, that is why! A man is not complete until he has known the freedom of the heavens! Not the big sky-boats that came later, where you might as well be taking your ease in a provincial parlor—no! You must leave your petty bourgeois concerns behind and get up in a light craft with an open cockpit where you can feel the wind and the rain, look down at the world, the clouds, up at the stars! It will change you, believe me!"

Randy turned to look at him.

"Is that who I think it is?" he asked, and he heard Toba chuckle. But they were both distracted at that moment by the arrival of the woman.

She came in through the hall entrance on the left, opposite that from the restaurant. She wore black denim jeans bloused over high, efficient-looking boots of the same color, and a faded khaki shirt; a black scarf bound her black hair above a broad forehead, heavy brows, large green eyes, and a wide, unpainted mouth.

The butt of a weapon protruded from the holster at her right hip, and its heavy belt also bore a sheathed hunting knife on its left side, low on her narrow waist. She

was close to six feet in height, full-breasted, somewhat wide across the shoulders, and moved with her head held high. She carried a large leather purse as if it were a football.

Her eyes cast about the room for only a moment, then several quick strides bore her to the table at which Randy and Toba sat, and upon which she dropped the purse.

The half-filled glass the redhead had left toppled, slopping its contents toward Toba and into his lap.

"Shit!" he announced, springing to his feet arid running his hands down the front of his trousers. "This just isn't my day!"

"I'm sorry," she said, smiling, and then she turned to Randy. "I was looking for you."

"Oh?"

"I'm going to find whoever's in charge and get a room and go to bed!" Toba stated, throwing some money onto the moist tabletop. "Nice meeting you, kid. Good luck and all that. Shit!"

"Thanks for the beer," Randy told his back.

The woman seated herself in the chair that had been the redhead's, removing Leaves from the path of the spreading puddle.

"You're the one, all right," she said. "Lucky I got : you away from that guy."

"Why?"

"Bad vibes. That's what I've got at the moment, and that's enough. Hi, Leaves."

"Hello, Leila."

A rampant deja vu resolved itself in that instant

"Your voice—" Randy began. '

"Yes, Leaves has my voice," Leila stated. "I was ! handy to provide the matrix when Reyd obtained this unit"

"I warrant a pronoun these days," Leaves said slowly and with a touch of menace, "and it is feminine."

"Sorry, old girl," Leila said, patting her cover. "Cor

rection noted. No offense." She turned toward Randy and smiled. "What is your name, anyway?" "Randy Carthage. I don't understand—" "Of course not and it doesn't matter a bit. I've always been very fond of Carthage. Perhaps I'll take you

there one day."

"Take her up on it," Flowers said, and you'll be into back braces for a while."

Leila slapped the cover with more force.

"Have you had lunch yet?" she asked.

"My time sense is a little skewed," Randy replied, "but if that's the next meal, I'm ready for it, yes."

"Then let's move over to the other room and I'll get you some. We'd better start out with full stomachs."

"Start out?"

"Right" she said, rising and snatching up her purse.

He followed her into the dining room, where she selected a table in the far corner and seated herself with the corner to her back. He settled down across from her, placing Leaves on the table between them.

"I don't understand..." he said again.

"Let's order," she said, gesturing to the waiter and studying the several other diners near the front. "Then we'll have to head for C Eleven, chop-chop."

The waiter approached. She ordered a massive meal. He did the same.

"What's at C Eleven?" he asked then.

"You are looking for Reyd Dorakeen. I am too. That is where he went when he skipped out on me a few nights ago. I saw the second black bird circling him there."

"How do you know this? How did you know who I am? What black bird?"

"I had no idea who you were to be. I only knew that a man with a copy of Leaves of Grass would be in the bar this afternoon, that he, too, would be looking for Reyd, and that he would be kindly disposed toward him. I came down when I did to meet you and to join

forces, since I saw that he would be needing help. before too long, somewhere along his way."

"Okay, I see," he said. "But I am still confused as to your source of information. How did you know I'd be there? How do you know where—"

"Let me explain," Leaves broke in, "or she'll be at this all day. Her conversational patterns tend to resemble an avalanche. Thank the Great Circuit I didn't acquire that with the voice-imprint. You see, Randy, she possesses paranormal abilities. She calls them something different, smacking of Stone Age rituals and magic, but the results are the same. I'd guess she is about seventy-five percent effective precognitively— maybe more. She does see things, and they do often come to pass. I've seen her be right too frequently for it to be mere chance. Unfortunately, she acts as if everyone else understands this, as if they share her visions, or at least should automatically accept them. She knew you were coming because she knew you were coming, that's all. I hope that explains some of what is bothering you."

"Well—some," he said. "But it still leaves other gaps. Tell me, Leila, has Leaves stated the situation adequately?"

"Pretty much so," she said. "I don't feel like quibbling, so let's let it stand. I saw you coming, that's true."

"It still doesn't tell me who you are and where you come from and why you are so interested in Red's safety."

"We have been many things to one another, but mainly he is an old and special friend," she said, "and we are alike in many ways. There are so many debts between us that I've lost track of how they balance out. Also, the son of a bitch ran out on me when I told him to wait around."

"Something you didn't foresee?"

She shook her head.

"Nobody's perfect; Leaves just told you that. What's Reyd to you, by the way?"

"I believe he is my father.

She stared, her face immobile for the first time since they had met. Then she bit her lip.

"How blind of me," she finally said. "Of course...

Where were you born?"

"C Twenty, Cleveland, Ohio."

"So that's where he went..." She looked away. "Interesting. I foresee our lunch. Now."

Their waiter entered the room, carrying a tray.

"What was wrong with that guy I was with—Toba?" Randy asked as they began eating.

"He is someone connected with the dark birds," Leila said between mouthfuls.

"What dark birds? This is the second time you've mentioned them."

"Reyd is the subject of a black decade. I see his would-be assassins that way."

"Black decade?" said Leaves. "What's he done?"

"Made an enemy he shouldn't have, apparently. He thinks it's Chadwick."

"Oh, my! Chadwick can be very nasty."

"So can Reyd, you know. Or do you?"

"I have often suspected this, though—"

"Someone's out to get him?" Randy broke in.

"Yes," said Leila, "someone who can afford the very best. There will be a lot of bookmaking on this one, up and down the line. I wonder what odds they'll be giving? It might be worth putting some money on one side or the other."

"You'd bet against him?"

"It depends on the odds, the circumstances—quite a few things. Oh, I'm going to try to help him, all right, but I hate to miss out on a good thing too." "Doesn't your talent give you an unusual advantage in betting situations?"

"You bet, and I love money. Too bad we don't have

time to pursue the second one now. I'd go for Reyd now that he's been warned."

"This is probably my father you're talking about."

"I've known him a long while. He'd be betting if it were me. Make a bundle too."

Randy shook his head and addressed his attention to his food.

"You're strange people," he said after a time. "Just a little more open than most, maybe. Look I wouldn't have spent three whole days getting back into shape for just anybody. I'm on his side all the way. Waiter! Bring me a box of cigars—the good ones."

"About this black decade thing..." Randy said. "How do we get him out of it?"

"See him through the encounters, I guess. Then the game's over."

"What's to stop this Chadwick guy from continuing the game then, or starting it all over again?"

"The rules. Everyone plays it by the rules. If he didn't, he'd be barred by the Games Board from ever getting another permit and playing again. He'd stand to lose a lot of prestige."

"And you think that would be enough to restrain

him?"

"Hell, no!" Leaves broke in. "The Board is a C

Twenty-five thing with no teeth. Just a bunch of dod

dering sadists who legalized it in their period so they

could watch the progress of the vendettas which always occurred along the Road. If Chadwick can't get Red one way, he'll do it another. All this talk about it as a game is silly!" "Is that true, Leila?" "Well, yes—though she left out the fact that without the Board, the betting situation would be very disorganized. That's important to the structure of the thing, too. I felt you needed background information. That's why I gave it to you." "But you think Chadwick will cheat?"

"Probably."

"Then what are we to do about helping Red get through this thing?"

"Oh, we'll help him to cheat too, of course. Just how, I don't know yet. We will have to catch up with him first. Finish eating so we can get moving."

When she had left to get her duffle bag. Randy asked Leaves, "How well did you know her? How far can we trust her?"

"I know that Red trusted her. There is some strong bond between them. I think we should trust her too."

"Good," Randy said, "because I want to. I wonder what we're getting into, though."

When Leila returned some minutes later, her duffle bag on her shoulder, cigar clenched between her teeth, she smiled, nodded and gestured with her head toward the door.

"I am all settled up and checked out," she said. "Have a cigar and let's roll."

Randy nodded, collected Leaves and followed her, unwrapping the stogie she had thrust upon him.

One

"Flowers?"

"Yes, Red?"

"Good driving. Thanks."

"Is that all?"

"No. How'd you know?"

"You never just compliment anybody, or thank them. It is always an afterthought or a preliminary."

"Really? I never noticed that. I guess you're right Okay. Are you getting tired of being what you are? Would you like to move on into a new avatar, become part of a more complex computer setup? Or perhaps go the organic route and be the matrix of awareness in a body?"

"I have thought of it—yes."

"I'd like to reward you, for faithful service and all that. So decide what you want and pull in at the next service center. I will leave you there for pickup and delivery to the proper institution, with authorization for everything to be billed to my account."

"Wait a minute. You always were a tightwad. This isn't at all like you. What is the matter? I thought I knew everything you know. What did I miss?"

"You're more suspicious than half a dozen wives. I made you a bona fide offer—"

"Come off it! Why do you want to get rid of me?"

"1-" "I probably know you better than half a dozen wives.

So forget the shit. Get to the point. What's the matter?"

"It is just that I do not believe I will be requiring your services for much longer. You've been a good and faithful employee. The least I can do is reward you this

way." "It sounds as if you are getting ready for retirement

or death. Which is it?"

"Neither. Both. I'm not sure ... I am planning a change in status, though, and I don't want you damaged in anything that entails."

"What do you think I am—a pocket calculator? After all this time, you insult me by assuming I possess no curiosity. You've said enough to guarantee not being able to get rid of me until I have the whole story."

"Hm."

"... And if you are thinking of sending me off to my new career without my consent, bear in mind that I can turn this vehicle into a cage."

"You are persuasive. I was trying to get out of it, but I guess I do owe you some explanation. Okay. I suppose it will be difficult for you to understand what a dream is, let alone some of the peculiar ones that have always followed me..."

"I'm strong on theory. Go on."

"My most recurrent dream has always been of gliding, gliding on warm air currents, holding myself motionless above a rich and varied landscape, and sometimes the sea. I can do it forever, it seems, seeing into the secret hearts of everything below. It breeds in me a pleasant combination of peace and cynicism, as well as some other feelings I can no longer put a name to. Days and nights seem to roll by without special emphasis. There is a profound joy in simply being, and a species of understanding I cannot bring over to here and now.

There is also a power, a terrible power in me, which I am almost too lazy to use. I drift..."

"Sounds like a nice head-vacation. You're fortunate."

"It's more than that, and different things happen in different dreams."

"Such as?"

"I said that I moved above different places—lands where there are wars, or great cities, or both, wilderness. erupting volcanoes, ships on the oceans, small towns, dizzying cityscapes where nothing natural remains in sight. I recognize many of them—Babylon, Athens, Rome, Carthage, New York—across the ages. And there are many, stranger still, which I do not recognize. I begin to move my wings. I soar above the Road. It is a toy. It is a gauge, like marks on a map. We put if there. It is funny, watching the few who have noted it as they scramble along from probability to probability. I do not know but—"

" 'We'? Who is this 'we,' Red?"

"The dragons of Bel'kwinith would be the best way I could say it in these words we use. I just remembered that part earlier, and—"

"In your dreams you are a dragon?"

"That is the best way I know of describing the feeling and the appearance, though that is not exactly it."

"Interesting if not comprehensive. Red. But what has all this got to do with your present problems and your decision to ditch me?"

"They are not just dreams. They are real. I only recently realized that more and more of them seem to return to me when my life is threatened. I seem to undergo some sort of transformation."

"Real? You are not a man dreaming you are a dragon, but the other way around?"

"Something like that. Or both. Or neither. I don't know. It is real, though, the more of it I recall. As real as this."

"These—dragons of Bel'kwinith—you think that they you—whoever—built the Road?" "They didn't exactly build it. They sort of composed it, or compiled it, like an index for a book." "And we are driving down an abstraction? Or a

dream? "I don't know what you'd call it."

"I have to stay with you now, Red. Till you get your

wits back." "This is why I would have preferred not telling you

as much as I have. I foresaw this reaction. I can't convince someone else of the existence of a version of reality that is temporarily my subjective vision. But I know I am stable."

"You say 'as much as I have,' meaning that there is more to tell, and I still do not know why you want to get rid of me. Let's have it all."

"This is just what I was trying to avoid .. ."

The truck creaked loudly. To his right, the seat buckled and folded toward him. The steering wheel began to elongate and twist in his direction like a strange, dark flower. The roof pressed down upon his head. A clawed arm emerged from the glove compartment, reaching for him. Outside, a shadow on the truck's bed twisted like seaweed in a current.

"I can deliver you to the nearest human service station for a complete physical and psychiatric workup, unless you show me why I should not."

"I would like to avoid that too," Red said. "You have made your point. Okay. Ease up and I'll satisfy your circuits."

The clawed arm retreated into the glove compartment and emerged again moments later holding a lighted cigar, which it extended to him while the steering wheel resumed its normal form, the roof rose and the seat settled.

"Thank you." He accepted it, puffed upon it.

Suddenly, Flowers recited:

"Toute 1'ame resumee Quand lente nous 1'expirons Dans plusieurs ronds de fumee Abolis en autres ronds

Atteste quelque cigare Brulant savament pour peu

Que la cendre se separe De son clair baiser de feu

Ainsi Ie choeur des romances A la levre vole-t-il Exclus-en si tu commences Le reel parce que vil

Le sens trop precis rature Ta vague litterature"

He chuckled.

"Apt, I suppose," he said. "But I thought you were programmed for Baudelaire, not Mallarme."

"I am programmed Decadent. I am beginning to see why. No matter what you do, you are slumming."

"I never looked at it that way—consciously. Maybe you have a point."

"The point is in the poem. Puff your cigar and dis pense with reality."

"... And your depths amaze me." "Cut the flattery. Why do I have to go?"

"To put it simply, you are a sentient being whom I like. I am trying to protect you."

"I am built better than you are when it comes to taking punches."

"It is not just a matter of danger. It is a matter of almost certain destruction for you—" "I repeat-"

"You're never going to get the information you want if you keep interrupting me." "I wasn't getting it the other way, either."

"I don't know. Whether this is the dream, whether

the other is the dream—I don't know. It doesn't matter.

I do know that I am that other of whom I dream. A

woman with whom I was once old had a notion I only today realized to be correct. Before those of my blood can reach maturity, we must be set upon the Road to

grow young—for we are born crabbed and twisted and old and must discover our youth, which is our maturity, in this form. This may in fact be the reason for the Road, and I begin to suspect that all who can travel it must be somewhat of our blood. But this I do not

know for fact."

"Save the speculations for later, okay?"

"All right. Leila became progressively more selfdestructive and dangerous to be about, though our paths have a strange way of continuing to cross. It began with her sooner than it did with me—and I only spotted it in myself later and tried to keep it under control. She always was more sensitive than me—"

"Stop. Leila is the woman back at C Sixteen—who started the fire—the one to whom you referred as someone with whom you were once old?"

"Yes. There's corroboration there, if you ever meet her again. First we sought—together, then apart—for the way back to the place from which we had come. No luck. Then I decided one day that it was because things had changed from my earliest memories of dispositions along the Road itself. So I set out to alter the picture, to bring it back into accord with my recollections—hoping to find the lost route once everything was back in place. But the world is too messy and hard to work with. I realize now that I can't just fiddle with it here and there and get it to behave the way it used to, back when I was old. I guess I had actually begun to realize this some time ago. But I couldn't figure any other way to go about it, so I persisted. Then Chadwick declared black decade against me and things slowly began to fall into place."

"Should I begin to see how?" "No."

Red took a puff on his cigar and stared out of the window. A small black vehicle passed. As he watched it diminish before him, he continued, "Once my life was threatened, my spells became more frequent and my dreams increased in intensity. I saw more and more iclearly which dreams were true—and I suddenly realized that it was this threat that was causing it. I considered my past. I had experienced similar reactions to danger throughout my life. Back at the camp before the attack, when I was drowsing, it occurred to me that Chadwick was accidentally doing me a favor with this vendetta. Then, as we fled, I thought, supposing it is not an accident? Supposing—unconsciously, perhaps— he is trying to help me? It seems possible that we are of

the same breed and that he somehow knows what it takes..."

He let his voice trail off.

"I really think that last spell messed up your thinking

a bit. Red. You're not making sense. Unless there is something you are leaving out."

"Well, I have a number of friends, and the word is out as to what is going on. It is possible that someone may try to remove Chadwick so as to do me a favor. I

would like to prevent that, which has now become the reason for this trip."

"Hm. A red herring. If I buy your crazy logic, I can understand your sudden desire to save the life of the man who has been trying to kill you. But that is not what I meant. You said it just then to distract me.

There is something that you are not saying and I'm getting close to it. Come on!"

"Flowers, you've been with me too long. There was another unit such as yourself that I actually had to

abandon because she was beginning to think too much like me."

"I guess I'll have to bear that in mind and be sure I leave you first. In the meantime..."

"Actually, I thought she was beginning to flip out. Now I wonder whether she might not have been more perceptive than—"

"You can't distract someone with a memory core like mine! What are you hiding?"

"Nothing, really. I am looking for the way back, to the existence I begin to remember more clearly. You know that. This search has been a constant thing for me. I've a feeling—if that's what you're after—that I may be finding it before much longer,"

"Aha! Finally. Okay, I suspected as much. Now give me the rest of the news. How is this to happen?"

"Well, I believe that this existence has to be, ah, terminated, before the other resumes."

"You know, all along I sort of felt that you were getting at something like that It is the most bizarrely justified death-wish I've ever heard described—and my Decadent programming is very thorough. Anything

you'd care to add? Have you decided yet how you'll go about it?"

"No, no. It's nothing like what you're implying. I've never thought of myself as suicidal, or even accidentprone. This is something more in the nature of a premonition—I guess that's the best way to put it. It's just that I feel now that this is what must happen. I also feel that it can't be just any old place or time or means. there is a proper manner in which the translation must occur, and it has to happen at just the right spot."

"Do you know the time and the place and the means?"

"No."

Well, that's something, anyway. Maybe you'll have a revised premonition before long." "I don't think so."

"Whatever, I am glad you told me. Now, to answer your question finallyNo, I am not leaving you."

"But you might be damaged, destroyed when it occurs." "

"Life is uncertain. I will take my chances. Mondamay would never forgive me if I left you, either." "You have an understanding or something?" "Yes." "Interesting..."

"You are the curiosity under discussion at the moment. My decisions are governed mainly by facts and logic, you know."

"I know. But—"

" 'But,' hell! Shut up a minute while I rationalize. I have no facts to run through the chopper. Everything you've told me is subjective and smacks of the paranormal. Now, I am willing to acknowledge the paranormal under certain circumstances. But I have no way to test it. All I really have to go on is my knowledge of you, gathered during our strange relationship as transporters and occasional time-meddlers. I find myself wanting to believe that you know what you are doing at the same time that I fear you are making a mistake."

"So?"

"All I can conclude is that if I restrain you and it turns out you were right and I was wrong—and that

I've kept you from something very important to you— then I'll feel terrible. I'll feel that I've failed in my :

duty as your aide. So I feel obligated to come along and assist you in whatever you are up to, even though I can only accept it provisionally."

"That's more than I asked of you, you know."

"I know. Damned decent of me. I also hasten to point out that I feel equally obligated to slam on the brakes if I think you are doing something really stupid.

"Fair enough, I guess."

"It will have to do."

Red breathed smoke.

"I suppose so."

The miles ticked inside him like years.

Two

Suddenly, the marquis de Sade threw down his pen and rose from his writing table, a strange gleam in his eye. He gathered together all the manuscripts from the writing workshop into a mighty bundle and waddled across the room with them and out onto the balcony. There, three stories above the parks and glistening compounds of the city, he removed the clips and staples and, one by one, cast them forth, clumps of enormous, dirty snowflakes, into the afternoon's slanting light.

Executing a brief dance step, he kissed his fingertips and waved as the last of them took flight, the ill-cast dreams of would-be scribblers from half a dozen centuries.

"Bon jour, ail revoir, adieu," he stated, and then he turned away and smiled.

Returning to the desk, he took up his pen and wrote, I have done my successor a favor and destroyed all of your stupid manuscripts. None of you have any talent whatsoever, and he signed it. He folded it then to take with him, to tack to the door of the conference room as he passed it on the way out.

Then he took up a second sheet of paper.

It may seem, he wrote, as if I am repaying your hos pitality, your generosity, in a particularly odious fashion, with my resolution to assist your worst enemy by de stroying you—destroying you, I might add, in an es pecially macabre style. Some might feel that my sense of justice has been outraged and that I do this in the service of a higher end. They would be wrong.

After signing it, he added the postscript: By the time you read this, you will already be dead.

He chuckled, placed the skull paperweight atop the document, rose to his feet and departed his quarters leaving the door slightly ajar.

He took the tube down, posted his rejection slip and walked the short corridor to the side door, encountering no one. Outside, he shuddered against the balmy breeze, squinted at the sunlight, grimaced at the birdsongs—taped or live, he could not be sure which— from the nearest park. He chuckled, though, as he mounted a beltway and moved northward toward the transfer point. It was going to be a glorious day nevertheless.

By the time he passed onto the westbound belt, he was humming a little tune. There were a few other people out, but none of them nearby. His destination was already plainly visible, but he moved to the faster belt and actually walked along it for a few moments before returning to the slower and finally stepping off at the proper underpass. He could as readily have reached this point on the underground belts, he thought, if he had been sure of his distances and directions. As it was, he had needed this landmark.

He entered the enormous building, proceeding in what he recalled to be the proper direction. He passed only two white-smocked technicians and he nodded to . both of them. They nodded back.

He found his way into the big hall. At a workstand toward the center, Sundoc leaned over a piece of equipment. He was alone.

The marquis had crossed most of the distance between them before Sundoc looked up.

"Oh. Hello, marquis," he said, wiping his hand on his jacket and straightening.

"You may call me Alphonse."

"All right. Back for another look, eh?"

"Yes. I stole a few moments from that miserable schedule Chadwick has set up for me. Oh, my!"

"What?". "Some of the magnetic fluid is leaking from that

piece of equipment behind you!"

"What? There's no—"

Sundoc turned to his left and bent to inspect the indicated unit. Then he collapsed across it.

The marquis held a stocking in his right hand, with a bar of soap knotted into its toe. This he thrust back into his jacket pocket, then he caught Sundoc in his slide floorwards and assisted him into a supine position. He covered him with a tarpaulin which had protected a machine near the wall.

Whistling softly, he moved to the small console which controlled the pit lift. After a moment, he heard the low, sighing noise of the machinery. He moved to the edge and looked down, the helmet clasped before him.

"How like that wondrous Beast of Revelations," he mused, as the startled creature bellowed, dropped the carcass of a cow and began, with great thudding noises, to spring about within its enclosure. "I long to be joined with you, my lovely. But a moment more—"

"Hey! What's going on in here?"

The two technicians he had passed on the way in had just come into the hall.

"Reverse it! Reverse it!" one of them screamed, and began running toward the unit near the workbench.

The marquis raised the helmet and placed it on his head. There followed a moment of delightful disorientation. He closed his eyes.

... The wall was sinking all about him. He beheld his own diminutive, helmeted form. He saw the first white-coated figure arrive at the console, the second close behind it. "Don't do that!" he tried to say. But a button was pushed. All at once, the walls ceased their movement. He sprang. God! the power! The guard rail collapsed. He swayed on the edge of the pit, then moved forward. The console and the technicians vanished beneath him. He bellowed... Lower your head, he/they willed, that I might mount. Clumsily, he straddled the neck of the great beast. Now we are going to take a walk. You are my guest artist for today.

The doorway was too small, for a few moments. As he moved up the mall paralleling the belts, screaming sounds began, here and there. A slow-moving vehicle halted and discharged its colorfully garbed passengers, all of whom fled. The breezes, the sunlight, the birdcalls, were no longer disturbing. In fact, they were barely discernible. He overturned the vehicle and bellowed a song. Chadwick's main building lay ahead.

He would be in the a rebours room at this time of day...

With each lurching step forward, his feelings rose. Parceling out terror, he left the mall and headed into the park. He passed through its elegant periphery of trees, shrubs, flowerbeds, like wind through a sieve. The holograms closed upon themselves behind him, to rustle in their imaginary breezes. Hidden below the level of fictitious tulips, a pair of lovers were crushed at the moment of orgasm. A genuine bench splintered, a trash container crumpled as he passed. His bellowed song drowned all other sounds.

As he emerged at the side of the park nearest his destination, he tried to smash a small black car which had slowed and seemed to be aimed to park beside the

blue truck which he had not noted earlier. It swerved about him, however, and vanished rapidly up the road.

He continued on, passing to the right of the entrance, rounding a comer, unaware of the play of shadow now behind him, so like that which had lain upon the truck.

He ceased his bellowing as he counted windows, seeking the proper section of wall. Stalking, panting, chuckling, he did not hear the sounds of more vehicles approaching the front of the building. If he had, it

really would not have mattered.

His joy rising to a new height, he struck. The facade shattered, and on his third blow he burst through the large-grained crushed morocco leatherbound wall. The ceiling tore apart and fell down around him as he advanced upon Chadwick and the other man who stood at the fireplace before the sphinx, regarding a lengthy tongue of tape. His forelegs clawed at the air. His

tongue darted forth.

"The death of Chadwick!" he shouted. "By Tyrannosaurus rex! Under the direction of the marquis de

Sade!" "Really," Chadwick replied, flicking an ash from his

cigar, "there are simpler ways of submitting your

resignation."

The beast halted. The shadow fled from beneath its tail, centimeters ahead of a copious quantity of urine.

The forelegs twitched.

"The marquis has already introduced himself," Chadwick stated, throwing his arm about the other man's shoulders, thrusting him forward and stepping behind him. "Marquis, I would now like you to meet my former partner. Red Dorakeen."

The marquis's smile vanished. The beast shifted uneasily.

"Take off your hat," the marquis ordered.

Red doffed his baseball cap and smiled around his cigar.

"You do look like your photo in the hit file" the marquis acknowledged as Chadwick slipped over and tore the printout from the teeth of SPHINX. "So what are you doing here? That man has designs on your life "

"Well, yes-"

Across the room, at the point to which the shadow had lifted, there was an implosion. Writing desks. chairs, oriental rugs, drink carousels were sucked into a dark tornado, along with debris from the walls and ceiling, the remains of a large lunch, a stuffed leopard, an owl and the remains of a cat which had expired some time before in a curtained alcove. The curtains also swirled and were drawn into the vortex. The three men watched with interest, the tyrannosaurus less intelligently, as the door to a concealed refrigerator was torn off and its contents sucked in, along with the door.

The dark column grew, absorbing the mass of almost every loose item in the room. At some point in its progress, it began to emit a humming noise. This rose in pitch as it increased in volume.

"I take it this is not a local meteorological effect?" Red inquired. "Hardly," said Chadwick.

An enormous outline took shape within the mass. The humming noise ceased. A huge figure began to coalesce before them, giant wings outspread. It remained motionless until it had solidified to a point where there could be no doubt as to its nature.

It was almost the size of the tyrannosaurus, and, while roughly reptilian in appearance, this was of a highly stylized nature. Its coinlike scales ranged from gold on its breast to jet upon its back, running from copper through red down the length of its tail and back across the breadth of its great vanes. Its eyes were large and golden and lovely and disturbing to look upon. A small wisp of smoke curled upward from either nostril. It advanced two meters in a sudden movement and its neck snaked forward. Its voice was delicate,

strangely nasal, and accompanied by soft gray plumes, and it was neither Red nor Chadwick that it addressed.

"What have you done to this poor beast?" it asked.

The marquis shifted uneasily.

"Sir, or madam," he stated, "I am in phase with his nervous system and I can assure you that he feels no discomfort whatsoever. As a matter of fact, there is an implant in his pleasure center which, if you insist, I will stimulate so as to give him as much joy as the poor beast is capable of—"

"Enough!"

"Frazier? Dodd?" said Red.

"Yes," it replied. "But I am not addressing you now. It was Chadwick that I sought, and you have brought me to him. But first—" Flames rolled about its mouth, subsided. "It is an abomination to have wired this

handsome creature so!"

"I agree with you fully," said the marquis, "and I am pleased it was not I that did so."

"You have compounded the crime against his magnificent person! You manipulate him!"

"I assure you it is only a brief borrowing. My intentions—"

Chadwick seized Red's sleeve and tugged him along as he backed slowly toward the door.

"Your intentions be damned, sir! Release him and apologize to him!"

"I would do that at peril to my life!"

"Your life—and more—is already at peril! Release him!"

Chadwick edged the door open with his foot just as the tyrannosaurus bellowed and lunged toward the dragon, which sinuously avoided its charge. He sidled through, drew Red after him, pulled the door shut and locked it.

"You're parked out that way, aren't you?" Chadwick asked, gesturing.

''Yes."

"Come on! They could break out of there any minute."

As they hurried up the corridor, heavy crashing noises were heard and the floor shook.

"We'd best get this trip under way immediately" Chadwick remarked. "I had not anticipated an employee grievance at this time—or on this scale. We can stop for necessaries sometime else."

From behind them came a sound like an explosion a moment's silence, then a resumption of noisy activity. Glancing back, they saw a falling wall in the vicinity of the room from which they had fled. Smoke emerged and the air purifiers sucked it away.

Chadwick hit the door running, with Red close behind him. He immediately collided with a short man wearing a garish shirt, a lightweight kilt and blue sunglasses who had been advancing upon the door. Falling back, the man recovered his footing with amazing agility and reached for the camera case he wore slung over his left shoulder. "For the love of God! No!" cried Chadwick. As the camera came about. Red was beside the man. His left hand caught the strap and jerked, pulling him off balance again.

"Don't kill him!" Chadwick shouted. "The decade's off! I've sent the cancel order!"

"Him?" said the smaller man, drawing back as Red took away his camera. "Him? I've no intention of harming him. Ever! The game is over as far as I am concerned, too. My only reason for coming here was to tender my resignation by killing you. But now—" He turned toward Red. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to straighten things out. They're a lot straighter now. I don't believe that we've met..."

"We have, but I see that you do not recall. My name is Timyin Tin, and I have this thing about dragons. It is of a religious—"

A loud series of clumping noises, accompanied by shattering and tearing sounds from within the building, began a steady approach.

"In that case, stay right where you are," said Chadwick. "You are about to have a profound religious experience." He seized Red's arm. "Let's get the hell

out of here!"

He tore off down the stairs, leaving the smaller man standing bewildered before the door. Red stumbled along beside him, nodding toward the blue pickup truck beside which Timyin Tin's small black car stood, its engine idling. The truck's doors flew open upon their approach, and Red slid into the front seat behind the driver's wheel. The engine started as Chadwick got in beside him. The doors slammed and the vehicle began backing up.

"The Road," Red said.

"I never had labor problems before," Chadwick commented.

"Who's the kidnapee?" Flowers asked.

The wall around the building's door had begun to crumble. Timyin Tin had backed down the stairs. The truck turned and tore off up the street.

"Strange, yet not strange," Chadwick observed, "and well-timed."

One

Speeding down the Road under the big golden arch, Red lit his cigar and regarded his passenger from beneath the shadow of his cap's bill. Chadwick, decked in many colors, his thick fingers heavy with rings, still perspired from the run to the vehicle. Each time he moved, his programmed contour seat underwent a radical readjustment. As he shifted often, the seat suffered constant metamorphosis about him. He tapped his fingers. He looked out of the window. He glanced furtively at Red.

Red grinned back at him.

"You're out of shape, Chad," he commented.

"I know," said the other, lowering his eyes. "Disgusting, isn't it? Considering what I once was..." Then he smiled. "Can't say it wasn't fun doing it, though."

"Cigar?" Red suggested.

"Don't mind if I do."

He accepted it, lit it, turned suddenly and glared at Red.

"You, on the other hand," he said, gesturing with the fire, "are no longer as old as you once were. Do you wonder why I hate you?"

"Yes," said Red. "Outside of being out of shape and overweight and covered with paint, I'd say that you are very similar to the person I knew a long while ago. I believe that your condition and mine are much alike, only yours is masked."

Chadwick shook his head.

"Come on. Red! That can't be. Don't you think I'd know it—or my doctors would—if I were growing younger and stronger and healthier?"

"No. Whatever the process, I feel that in your case it has an awful lot to work against. With you, it's had to run just to stand still. For the life you've led, I'd say you're in remarkably good shape. Even with the finest medical care, anyone else would probably have been dead by now."

. "I wish I could believe you, but all I can agree on is that I do have a strong constitution."

". .. You have an affinity for fire, you have a thing about accumulating wealth—"

"You're crazy! Everybody likes money, possessions. That doesn't prove anything. As for fire ... ." He drew hard on the cigar, exhaled a cloud of smoke. "Everyone has little peculiarities. Just because my memory is spotty too..."

"Who was your father?"

Chadwick shrugged.

"Who knows? I remember living at an inn."

"Near an entrance to the Road."

"What does that prove? My father probably was a Road man. I had to come by the talent some way. That doesn't mean he was something like you—" He was silent a moment. Then, "Oh, no," he said. "You are not going to try telling me that you are my father."

"I never said that—or thought it. But—"

"This whole thing has to be a fantasy of yours. It's too damned circumstantial. There is too much conjecture, too many wild premises—"

"That's what I say," Flowers interrupted. "I wish you could have locked him up somewhere and had a therapist of some sort work him over."

"She's right," Chadwick said. "Too much of your

thinking these days springs from your very fallible memory and guesswork."

Red chewed on his cigar and looked away. "All right," he finally said. "Maybe so. Tell me, then

—Why did you call off the decade and agree to come with me?"

Chadwick's fingers did a drumbeat on the dashboard. "Partly because you said that you think you are going to die in a very peculiar fashion shortly, and you aroused my curiosity," he said. "And partly after hearing

—and even helping with—all the garbage and paranoid guesswork I permitted you to feed into the SPHINX, I want to see where this is going to take us. And partly—at the end—because I was in a hurry to get out of there." "You saw that creature appear out of nowhere." "... And I have seen stranger things in a long and colorful career."

"Exactly. So what is the problem in believing my story?"

"You've nothing to back it up with. Even if you're right, I'm still right in not believing without evidence. Red, if I'd known you were in the shape you're in, I'd

never have started the feud. It wouldn't have been worth it."

"Stop it!" Red turned away.

"So you do have a few doubts yourself? I suppose that is a healthy sign."

"You believe nothing I've said?"

"I believe you are a fool—of unknown origin—and that you are probably headed for your doom."

"Will someone please feed that tape into my scanner?" said Flowers. "It may take a while to see whether you want me to find you a seacoast in Bohemia."

"Here," said Chadwick, passing over the printout.

Red inserted it into a slot. It was digested.

"I can tell right away," said Flowers, "that this is

going to be quite a drive." "Ridiculous," said Chadwick, placing his cigar in the

tray and folding his arms. "You're helping me whether you like it or not." Red

laid his cigar aside also. "A very long drive. Flowers?"

"Yes."

"Then put us to sleep. I don't feel like talking with him the whole time."

"The feeling is mutual," said Chadwick.

A soft hissing sound began.

"I ought to just gas you both permanently and become a Flying Dutchperson, like that car I heard about 'a while back, flitting down the centuries with a pair of skeletons inside."

"Very funny," said Red, breathing deeply.

Chadwick yawned.

"The whole thing..." he began.

Two

Randy had changed six flat tires. He had also seen the radiator, the generator and a fan belt replaced. Had a tuneup too, while the brakes were being relined. Leaves had blithely charged it all to Red, with whose account it would sooner or later rendezvous. And who knew how much fuel? He had lost track.

And they continued on ...

"Where?" Randy repeated. "When?"

"I'll know it when I see it," Leila replied.

"At this rate, you'll run us back to the Ice Age."

"Not that far, I think."

"He will show up there, though? You're sure?"

"I'm afraid so. Hurry."

"And you want to save him from a death which you say he now desires?..."

"We've been through all this."

"... because he believes it will work some transformation?"

"That's why he ditched me," Leaves said. "I caught

on to his death-wish before he was ready to admit it." "Then obviously neither of you believe him." "I believe my own visions," Leila said. "If he dies

there, he dies. Period."

Randy rubbed the stubble on his chin and shook

his head. "I don't know that I would attempt to stop him from

doing whatever he wishes to do most, whether it seems futile or not. All I really wanted to do was meet him. I'm not even certain what I'd say..."

"You've already met him."

"You'd better explain."

"That old couple with car trouble. That was us— Reyd and myself—a long time ago, before we grew younger. You were the one. I didn't remember it until

then-" "What the hell was that?"

"What?"

"Something big—like an airplane—went over." "I didn't see anything." "It was back a ways. I caught it in the rearview

mirror."

Leila shook her head.

"No way. Passing through time as we are, anything like that would only be visible for such a tiny fraction of a second that you wouldn't even be subliminally aware of it. Leaves, did you detect anything?"

"No."

"So there-"

He pointed.

"Up there! It's back!"

Leila leaned forward, breaking her cigar on the windshield.

"Damn!" she said. "It looks like— It's gone again."

"A dragon," Randy said. "Like in storybooks."

Leila settled back in her seat.

"Hurry," she said.

"This is as fast as we can go."

The peculiar shadow did not reappear. After about fifteen minutes, they passed a turnoff and Leila raised her hand.

1/0 KUAUMAKK5

"What is it?" he asked, touching the brake. "That the place?"

"No. For a moment it seemed that it might be, but it's not. Keep going. I've a feeling we are getting near."

They passed a series of exits during the next hour, all of their signs marked with pictures. Then there was a long unbroken stretch. Finally another appeared in the distance. Leila leaned forward, staring.

"That's it," she said. "Stop. Pull over. The blue ziggurat—The last exit to Babylon. This is the place."

He drew off onto the shoulder of the Road. Suddenly it was morning, and the sun beat down with a summer-like intensity. Randy rolled down his window. He looked back. He looked around. It seemed that a shadow passed, but he lost it before he could be certain.

'I don't see anything unusual," he said. "We seem to be the only people around. What now?"

"We did it," Leila replied. "We're ahead of him in terms of Road-time now. Stay on the shoulder and take the exit. Run up it maybe a hundred meters. Then pull back on the access road and park sideways, blocking it, to give him a chance to brake. Then we get out and walk back to flag him down. We've got to stop him from taking this exit."

"Wait a minute," Leaves said as Randy engaged the gears. "Mightn't we be running a risk of causing what we are trying to avoid?"

"Good point," Leila said. "Do you have any flares, Randy?"

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"We will set several along the way as we head back. Also, leave the car's lights on—and hang your undershirt or sleeve or some damn thing like that out the window."

"All right."

He moved forward, made the turn.

One

Red rubbed his eyes, glanced to his right. Chadwick

was stirring also.

"Whisper mode," he said softly. "How near are we?"

"Very near. That's why I aroused you. Do you have any idea what you are going to do when you find your magic spot?"

Red looked at Chadwick again.

"I want to ditch him before we get there. It's for his

own—" "No!" cried Chadwick, sitting upright. "You're not

getting rid of me now! I want to see this crazy thing through to the end!"

"I was starting to say that it is for your own protection. You want to walk away from whatever happens,

don't you?"

"I know what I'm doing. Better than you do, you fool! Your time has not yet come."

"Just what do you mean by that? I'm trying to do you a favor and all you do is bitch! Flowers! Pull over!"

Chadwick's hand shot forward, slapped the drive switch from automatic to manual. Immediately, the vehicle drifted to the left. Red seized the steering wheel and turned it back.

"Crazy bastard! You trying to kill us both?"

Chadwick laughed wildly at that, then chopped with

his hand, striking Red's forearm as he reached for the switch.

Red began to brake. He looked at Chadwick. "Listen! If I'm wrong, I'll pick you up afterwards.

But if I'm right, you don't want to be aboard. I'm

going to meet my destiny. I—"

He had begun cutting the wheel to the right. Chadwick threw himself at him and took hold of it, pushing leftward.

"Look out! People!"

Red looked up, saw Leila waving with both arms over her head, a handkerchief in one hand. Far beyond her was a young man, also waving.

As they shot past, Chadwick struck him a glancing blow on the jaw. Red's head struck against the window frame. Chadwick seized the wheel again.

"Stop it! Both of you!" Flowers cried. "Someone throw the switch!"

They passed a sputtering flare. Red saw the sign with the blue ziggurat as he drove his elbow against Chadwick's head, knocking him back into his own seat. His hand shot forward then, nipping the switch back to automatic drive as he began the turn into the exit

The brakes were immediately seized as Flowers announced, "Roadblock!"

The tires screamed. The land to the left of the road fell away sharply. The slope to the right was more gradual, if rockstrewn, above the yellow earth . ..

Red twisted the wheel to the left. It turned right

"Sorry, boss," Flowers said. "One of us is wrong, and I hope it's you."

Something soft and heavy enveloped him as they left the road and hit the slope. He heard the door open. He was ejected.

Falling, hitting the ground, rolling ... He lost consciousness. For how long he could not tell, though it did not seem a great while.

He could hear the crackling of flames. There also

seemed to be some distant shouts. He took several deep breaths. He stretched and relaxed. Nothing seemed to

be broken ...

He began struggling with his cocoon. It was a tough, white, foamy substance.

The shouts came nearer. More than one voice, but he still could not make out what they were saying.

He worked his hands around to his stomach, up toward his chest. There was a sudden pang along the left side of his ribcage.

He caught hold of the fabric before him, scratched at it, dug in with his fingers, drew upon it. Slowly it parted. He adjusted his grip, pulled harder.

It tore open. He spread his arms and pushed downward. It came away from his shoulders. He began to crawl out. He heard Leila's voice calling his name. He saw her running toward him.

He turned away and looked down the slope to where his truck lay on its side, burning. He tried to rise, but his foot caught in the spongy material and he slipped back into a sitting position on the grass, catching himself with his arms. His side still throbbed.

"No," he said as he watched the truck burn. "No..."

A hand rested on his shoulder. He did not look up.

"Reyd?..."

"No," he repeated.

Below them, the truck suddenly blossomed into a ball of fire. Moments later, a wave of heat arrived. Red raised his left hand just as Randy came up and halted several paces away.

"You could have been in there .. ." Leila began.

His hand shot forward, a finger extended.

The flames fell back. A tower of smoke rose. Something seemed to be moving within it, traveling a slow spiral upward.

"There," he said. Then, "Now I understand."

A huge gray-green dragon-form rose above the smoldering vehicle.

"It was Chadwick whose time had come," she said. "All of your actions were meant to serve him."

Red nodded without taking his eyes from the twisting, drifting shape. All of its movements were graceful, and somehow verged on the erotic. It was an air-dance of freedom, release, abandon.

Abruptly, it halted and looked their way. It spread its wings and drifted toward them. When it was very near, it managed, somehow, to hover.

"Thank you, children," it said, in a voice rich and melodious. "You have done for me that which I did not know to do for myself."

It circled slowly above them.

"What is the secret?" Red asked. "I remembered more than you did. I thought I was arranging things for myself."

It looked upward to where another dark form was now drifting.

"Events, child. Events, and their unconscious manipulation," it replied. "I cannot advise you, for we are all different. Keep looking, if you feel you must. For you, that may be the way. But your time is not yet come. When it does, help may come from anywhere— a friend, an enemy, a stranger, a relative ... As for me, I am going home now. Let us hope to meet again one day."

It twisted sharply and began to rise in the morning light, its scales gleaming like golden mirrors. It began to move its wings, slowly at first, then faster, climbing, dwindling as they watched. Another winged form passed near it. Soon they were gone from sight.

Red lowered his face into his hands for a moment. The wind had shifted and the smell of his burning vehicle came to him now.

"Will someone please come and pick me up?" came a small voice from down the hillside, "before thisdamned vegetation takes fire?"

"Flowers?" he said, dropping his hands and beginning

to rise.

But the young man was there before him. He retrieved the book, encased in an ejection pod, and carried it back up the hillside. Red stared at him.

"Reyd, I'd like you to meet your son Randy," Leila

said.

Red frowned.

"Where you from, boy?"

"Cleveland, C Twenty."

"I'll be damned ....lake—or Carthage?"

"Yeah. But I'm using Dorakeen now."

Red stepped forward and took Randy by the shoulders, looked into his eyes.

"I'd say so, I'd really say so, and you're welcome to it. ' What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you. Leaves showed me the way. Then I met Leila—"

"I hate to break this up," Leila said, "but we'd better move that car up there before someone else comes along."

"Yes."

They turned back toward the feeder road.

"Uh— What should I call you? Father?"

"Red. Just Red." He looked at Leila. "My head is suddenly clear. Something like a fog seems to have gone."

"That was the last dark bird," she replied.

"You know, I'd have missed Randy here, if that had been me."

"Yes."

"Let's go to Ur for a beer. They always have good beer in Ur."

"Okay with me," Randy said. "There are a lot of things I want to ask you."

"Sure. There are plenty of things I want to ask you— and we have plans to make."

"Plans?"

"Yes. The way I see it, the Greeks still have to win at Marathon."

"They did."

"What?"

"That's what the history books say."

"You got on at C Twenty. Where?"

"Near Akron."

"Can you retrace your route?"

"I think so."

"We're going to do it! Wait! We'll stop at Marathon first, to check the scorecard. Some new factor may have come into play."

"Red?"

"Yes?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"That's all right. I'll explain—"

"Mondamay will be looking for me," Flowers interrupted. "I think you'd better leave a message."

Red snapped his fingers.

"Right. You guys move the car. I'll be back in a minute."

He turned and jogged back down the slope, holding his side. He picked up a hot, twisted chunk of metal, to scratch HAVING LUNCH IN UR. -RED on the buckled door of his still-burning pickup.

"Does reality always seem a little out of step around him?" Randy asked.

"I never noticed anything strange," said Leila, patting her pockets, shrugging and exhaling a small flame to light her cigar, "until after the other fire. But he seems his normal self again, now," " 'De ce terrible paysage, tel que jamais mortel n'en

•fit, ce matin encore I'image, vague et lointaine, me ravit...'" Flowers began. "Perhaps I, too, am a dragon

—only dreaming I am a book."

"I wouldn't put it past you," said Leila, climbing into the car. "Leaves, meet Flowers."

There came a double burst of static.

Two

In a mountain fastness in C Eleven Abyssinia, Timyin Tin regarded the lovers.

Pressing close beside him, Chantris ran a dark pinion over the bandaged head and back of the tyrannosaurus.

"Poor dear. That's better now, isn't it?"

The tyrannosaurus moaned softly and leaned against her.

"Thank you for the use of this delightful bower," she told Mondamay, who had helped to dig them from the ruins of Chadwick's palace, "and you, little man, for assisting us with transportation."

Timyin Tin bowed deeply.

"To be of service to a dragon of Bel'kwinith is almost too great an honor for this one to bear," he replied. "I wish you every joy in this place of your liking."

The tyrannosaurus grunted several times. The dragon laughed and caressed him.

"He's not much on brains," she confided. "But what a body!"

"I am pleased that you are pleased," said Mondamay. "We will leave you to your bliss now, for I must seek along the Road after my own love. This human destroyer has offered to assist me. After that, we will make pots and grow flowers. Timyin Tin—if you are ready, come mount my back."

"You might," said Chantris, blowing a small spiral of pale smoke, "check around the last exit to Babylon near the sign of the blue ziggurat. We dragons have ways of possessing peculiar information."

"I thank you for that," said Mondamay as Timyin Tin climbed onto his back and grasped his shoulders.

They rose into the air, bellows and shrieks of laughter filling the valley below them.

In a dirt-floored adobe building in Ur, Red, Leila and Randy, garbed in native garments, sat drinking the local brew from clay pots. A swarthy, stocky man, similarly clothed, approached. "Randy?" They looked up.

"Toba!" Randy said. "I owe you a drink. Sit down. You remember Leila. Do you know my father. Red Dorakeen?"

"Sort of," said Toba, shaking hands. "Your father? My, my!" "What are you doing in Ur?"

"I'm from these parts originally, and I'm between jobs just now. Thought I'd come back and visit the folks and set up some more work for myself."

He nodded toward the corner, where several burlap sacks leaned against the walls.

"What sort of work?" Red asked, lowering his crock and wiping his mouth.

"Oh, about sixty Cs up the Road I'm an archaeologist. Every now and then I come back to bury a few things. Then I go forward and dig them up again. I've already written the paper on this batch, actually. It's a pretty interesting piece on cultural diffusion. I've got some really nice artifacts from Mohenjo-Daro this time around."

"Isn't that—uh—sort of cheating?" Randy asked. "What do you mean?"

"Planting things that way— You're messing up the archaeological record."

"Why, no. As I said, I am from here. And they'll really be six thousand years old when I discover them."

"But won't you give people a distorted idea about Ur and Mohenjo-Daro?"

"I don't think so. That guy I was drinking with over in the corner is from Mohenjo-Daro. Met him at the 1939 World's Fair. I've done a lot of business with him

since." "It's a very—peculiar—occupation," Randy observed.

Toba shrugged.

"It's a living," he said. "I'm pleased to see you're still alive. Red."

Red smiled.

"It's an occupation," he said. "As a matter of fact, we were just discussing it..."

Somewhere, the Red Baron and Saint-Exupery were going at it over the French countryside. Joan saw their forms in the sky, like battling crucifixes...

A small man braked his black Volkswagen when he saw the blue pickup truck turn over and begin to burn. He watched for a time, then continued on ...

Alone, important and wise, the great dragons drift above Bel'kwinith, dreaming roadmaps.

The messenger collapsed on the steps of the Acropolis. He delivered the news from Marathon before he died.