“Don’t worry about it. Here, come on with me.” The mechanic led Larssen over to a bicycle which had a bracket welded to the head tube. The handle of the tool kit fit neatly over the bracket. Tompkins climbed onto the saddle, gestured to Larssen. “You ride behind me. I don’t use any gas this way, a bike’s got fewer parts than a car, and they’re easier for somebody like me to fix if they do break.”
All that made perfect sense, but Jens hadn’t ridden on one of those little flat racks since about the third grade. “Will it carry both of us?” he asked.
Tompkins laughed. “I’ve put bigger men than you back there, my friend. Sure, you’re tall, but you’re built like a pencil. We won’t have any trouble, I promise.”
They didn’t have much. What there was, came because Larssen hadn’t been on any bicycle at all for a good many years, and needed a little while before his body remembered how to balance. Charlie Tompkins compensated for his lurches without saying a word. In a way, that only made them more embarrassing: weren’t you never supposed to forget how to stay on a bicycle? Jens sighed as he did his best not to maim himself while exploding the cliche.
“Whereabouts you from, mister?” Tompkins asked as they rolled past the sign welcoming people to Strasburg.
“Chicago,” Larssen answered.
The mechanic twisted his head. That struck Larssen as foolhardy, but he kept his mouth shut. After a moment, Tompkins turned back to watch where he was going. He spoke over his shoulder: “And you were heading back there, were you, from wherever you were coming from?”
“That’s right. What about it?”
“Nothing, really.” Tompkins pedaled along for a few more seconds, then went on in a sad tone, “Thing is, though, you might not want to say that to just anybody around here who asks. Chicago’s still free, right? Sure it is. I’m not asking whether you would or you wouldn’t, mind, but I can see where you might not want the Lizards to get wind of whatever reasons you’ve got for going that way.”
“How would the Lizards…” Larssen’s voice trailed away. “You don’t mean people would tell them?” He knew the Lizards had human collaborators: the Warsaw Jews, Chinese, Italians, Brazilians. Up till this second, though, he’d never imagined there could be such a thing as an American collaborator. He supposed that was naive of him.
Evidently it was. Tompkins said, “Some people, they’ll do anything to get in good with the boss, no matter who the boss is. Some other people have gotten hurt on account of it.” He didn’t seem to care for the subject, either. Instead of giving details, he took one hand off the handlebars and pointed. “That your car up ahead there, that Plymouth?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.” Tompkins stopped the bike with the soles of his shoes against the asphalt. He and Jens both got off. The mechanic unhooked the tool box, walked over to the deceased automobile, reached through the grill, and popped the hood latch. Once the long piece of sheet metal was up and out of the way, he bent over and peered into the engine compartment.
A low, mournful whistle floated up. “Mister, I hate to tell you, but you got yourself a cracked block.” Another whistle, not much later. “Your valves are shot to shit, too, pardon my French. What the hell you been burnin’ in this machine, anyhow?”
“Whatever I could get my hands on that would burn,” Larssen answered honestly.
“Well, I know how that goes, what with the way things are, but Jesus, even if times were good I couldn’t fix this poor bastard by my lonesome. What with the way things are, I don’t think I can fix her at all. Hate to have to tell you that, but I’m not gonna lie to you, either.”
“How am I supposed to get back to Chicago, then?” Larssen wasn’t really asking Tompkins; it was more a cry to the unhearing gods. When he’d come east through Ohio, the Lizards hadn’t been anywhere near this far north. When he’d come east through Ohio, his car had been in reasonably good shape, too.
“Wouldn’t take you forever to walk there,” Tompkins said. “What is it, maybe three, four hundred miles? Could be done.”
Jens stared at the mechanic in dismay. At least two weeks on shank’s mare, more likely a month? Dodging in and out of the Lizards’ territory? Dodging bandits, too, likely enough (one more thing he’d never expected in America, at least outside the vanished Wild West)? Winter was on the way, too; already the sky had lost the perfect, transparent blue of summer. Barbara would think he was dead by the time he got back-if he got back.
His eye fell on Tompkins’ bicycle. He pointed. “Tell you what-I’ll trade you my set of wheels for yours. You can use the parts that are still good to keep other cars running.” Before the Lizards came, swapping a two-year-old Plymouth for an elderly bicycle would have been insane. Before the Lizards came, of course, his car could have been fixed if it broke down. Before the Lizards came, his car wouldn’t have broken down because he wouldn’t have had to abuse it so.
Now-Now Charlie Tompkins looked from the bike to the Plymouth, slowly shook his head. “What’s the point to that, mister? You take off for Chicago, you gonna carry your car on your back? I’ll get to scavenge it whether I give you my bike or not.”
“Why, you-” Larssen wanted to murder the mechanic. The force of the feeling frightened him, left him almost sick. He wondered how many killings had sprung from the chaos the Lizards spread across the United States, across the world. Times grew ever more desperate, the risk of getting caught shrank… so why not kill, if you needed to?
To fight the temptation, he jammed his hands deep into his trouser pockets. Amidst keys and small change, the fingers of his right hand closed round his cigarette lighter. The Zippo, unlike the Plymouth, would work forever, or at least as long as he could keep coming up with flints. It would also burn moonshine a lot better than the car had.
He yanked out the buffed steel case, flipped open the top. His thumb went to the lighter’s wheel. “You don’t trade me your bike, Charlie, I’ll burn the goddamn car. Let’s see how you like that.”
The mechanic started to grab for a wrench from his tool kit. Larssen’s mouth went dry-maybe he hadn’t been the only one thinking of murder. Then Tompkins’ hand stopped suddenly. His high-pitched laugh sounded unnatural, but it was a laugh. “Godawful times,” he said, to which Jens could only nod. “All right, Larssen, take the bike. I expect I’ll be able to come up with another one from somewheres.”
Larssen relaxed, but not very far. His Zippo might torch the Plymouth, but it didn’t stack up very well against a monkey wrench. He walked over to the rear end of the car, opened the trunk. He took out the smaller of the two suitcases there and a ball of twine, slammed the trunk shut. He did the best job he could of tying the suitcase to the rack on which he’d ridden, then pulled the trunk key off the ring and tossed it to Charlie Tompkins.
He swung his right leg over the bicycle saddle, as if he were mounting a horse. If he’d wobbled as a passenger, he was even more unsteady up there by himself. But he managed to stay upright and keep the bike rolling forward. After a couple of hundred yards, he took a chance and looked back over his shoulder. Tompkins was already going through the suitcase he’d had to leave behind. He scowled and kept pedaling.
The U-2 buzzed through the night, so low that an instant’s inattention or simply a hillock she’d forgotten would have cost Ludmila Gorbunova her life. The Kukuruznik was proving the Soviet Union’s ace in the hole in the war against the Lizards. Newer Red Air Force planes with greater speed and better guns, but also with more metal in their airframes and higher minimum ceilings, had all but vanished from the skies. The obsolescent little biplane trainer, too small, too slow, and too low to be noticed, soldiered on.
The slipstream blew chilly over Ludmila’s goggled face. Fall was in the air. The rains would start any day now. Her lips curled upward in a mirthless smile. The rasputitsa, the time of mud, had hurt the fascists badly last year. She wondered how the Lizards’ armored vehicles would enjoy trying to push forward through slimy porridge.