“Okay, but be sure to talk to the women who run the local powernetwork,” the producer was saying. “Now that Tillbury’s dead, the ones that matter are Maggie Petrowsky, Barbara Richards, and Dr. Roberta Harper. Harper’s going to introduce the Big Kahuna tonight, I think… or maybe in this case it’s the Big Kahunette.”
The woman took a step off the sidewalk and one of her high heels skewered a lumbering color-bug. A rainbow of guts spewed out of it, and a waxy-white substance that looked like stale mashed potatoes.
Ralph had an idea the white stuff had been eggs.
Lois pressed her face against his arm.
“And keep your eyes open for a lady named Helen Deepneau,” the producer said, taking a step closer to the building. The bug stuck on the heel of her shoe flopped and twisted as she walked.
“Deepneau,” Kirkland said. He tapped his knuckles against his brow. “Somewhere, deep inside, a bell is ringing.”
“Nah, it’s just your last active brain-cell rolling around in there,” the producer said. “She’s Ed Deepneau’s wife. They’re separated. If you want tears, she’s your best bet. She and Tillbury were good friends. Maybe special friends, if you know what I mean.”
Kirkland leered-an expression so foreign to his on-camera persona that Ralph felt slightly disoriented. One of the color-bugs, meanwhile, had found its way onto the toe of the woman’s shoe and was working its way up her leg. Ralph watched in helpless fascination as it disappeared beneath the hem of her skirt. Watching the moving bump climb her thigh was like watching a kitten under a bathtowel.
And again, it seemed that Kirkland’s colleague felt something; as she talked to him about interviews during Day’s speech, she reached down and absently scratched at the lump, which had now made it almost all the way up to her right hip. Ralph didn’t hear the thick popping sound the fragile, flabby thing made when it burst, but he could imagine it. Was helpless not to, it seemed.
And he could imagine its innards dripping down her nyloned leg like pus. It would remain there at least until her evening shower, unseen, unfelt, unsuspected.
Now the two of them began discussing how they should cover the scheduled pro-life rally this afternoon… assuming it actually happened, that was. The woman was of the opinion that not even The Friends of Life would be dumbheaded enough to show up at the Civic Center after what had happened at High Ridge. Kirkland told her it was impossible to underestimate the idiocy of fanatics; people who could wear that much polyester in public were clearly a force to be reckoned with. And all the time they were talking, exchanging quips and ideas and gossip, more of the swollen, multicolored bugs were swarming busily up their legs and torsos. One pioneer had made it all the way up to Kirkland’s red tie, and was apparently bound for his face.
Movement off to the right caught Ralph’s eye. He turned toward the doors in time to see one of the techs elbowing a buddy and pointing at him and Lois. Ralph suddenly had an all-too-clear picture of what they were seeing: two people with no visible reason for being here (neither of them was wearing a black armband and they were clearly not representatives of the media) just hanging out at the edge of the parking lot. The lady, who had already screamed once, had her face buried against the gentleman’s arm… and the gentleman in question was gaping like a fool at nothing in particular.
Ralph spoke softly and from the corner of his mouth, like an inmate discussing escape in an old Warner Bros. jailbreak epic. “Get your head up. We’re attracting more attention than we can afford.”
For a moment he really didn’t believe she was going to be able to do that… and then she came through and lifted her head. She glanced at the shrubs growing along the wall one final time-an involuntary, horrified little peek-and then looked resolutely back at Ralph and only Ralph. “Do you see any sign of Atropos, Ralph?
That is why we’re here, isn’t it… to pick up his trail?”
“Maybe. I suppose. Haven’t even looked, to tell the truth-too many other things going on. I think we ought to get a little closer to the building.” This wasn’t a thing he wanted to do, but it seemed very important to do something. He could feel the deathbag all around them, a gloomy, suffocating presence that was passively opposed to forward motion of any kind. That was what they had to fight.
“All right,” she said. “I’m going to ask for Connie Chung’s autograph, and I’m going to be all giggly and silly while I do it. Can you stand that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because that will mean that if they’re looking at anybody, they’ll be looking at me.”
“Sounds good.”
He spared one last look at John Kirkland and the woman producer.
They were now discussing what events might cause them to break into the evening’s network feed and go live, totally unaware of the lumbering trilobites crawling back and forth on their faces.
One of them was currently squirming’slowly into John Kirkland’s mouth.
Ralph looked away in a hurry and let Lois pull him over to where His. Chung stood with Rosenberg, the bearded cameraman. He saw the two of them glance first at Lois and then at each other. The shared look was one part amusement and three parts resignationhere comes one of them-and then Lois gave his hand a hard little squeeze that said, Never mind me, Ralph, you take care of your business and I’ll take care of mine.
“Pardon me, but aren’t you Connie Chung?” Lois asked in her gushiest isn’t-this-the-living-end voice. “I saw you over there and at first I said to Norton, ’Is that the lady who’s on with Dan Rather, or am I crazy?” And then-”
“I am Connie Chung, and it’s very nice to meet you, but I’m getting ready for tonight’s news, so if you could excuse me-”
“Oh, of course, I wouldn’t dream of bothering you, I only want an autograph-just a quick little scribble would do-because I’m your number one fan, at least in Maine.”
His. Chung glanced at Rosenberg. He was already holding a pen out in one hand, much as a good O.R. nurse has the instrument the doctor will want next even before he calls for it. Ralph turned his attention to the area in front of the Civic Center and slid his perceptions up the tiniest bit.
What he saw in front of the doors was a semi-transparent, blackish substance that puzzled him at first. It was about two inches deep and looked almost like some sort of geological formation. That couldn’t be, though… could it? If what he was looking at was real (the way objects in the Short-Time world were real, at least), the stuff would have blocked the doors from opening, and it wasn’t doing that. As Ralph watched, two TV techs strolled ankle-deep through the stuff as if it were no more substantial than low-lying groundmist.
Ralph remembered the aural footprints people left behind-the ones that looked like Arthur Murray learn-to-dance diagrams-and suddenly thought he understood. The tracks faded away like cigarette smoke… except that cigarette smoke really didn’t go away; it left a residue on walls, on windows, and in lungs. Apparently, human auras left their own residue. It probably wasn’t enough to see once the colors faded if it was only one person, but this was the biggest public meetingplace in Maine’s fourth-largest city. Ralph thought of all the people who had poured in and out through these doorsall the banquets, conventions, coin-shows, concerts, basketball tourneys-and understood that semi-transparent slag. It was the equivalent of the slight dip you sometimes saw in the middle of much-used steps.
Never mind that now, sweetheart-take care of your business.
Nearby, Connie Chung was scribbling her name on the back of Lois’s light-bill for September. Ralph looked at that slaggy residue on the cement apron in front of the doors, hunting for a trace of Atropos, something which might register more as smell than sight, a nasty, meaty aroma like the alley which used to run behind Mr. Huston’s butcher-shop when Ralph was a kid.