[“Is that so? When we were on the hospital roof you told us to stay away from Ed, Mr. L. You were very emphatic about that.] Lachesis shifted uncomfortably and fidgeted with his hands.
El… that is to say we… we can be wrong. This time we were.] Except Ralph knew that wrong wasn’t the best word for what they had been; self-deceived would be better. He wanted to scold them for it-to tell the truth, he wanted to scold them for getting him into this shitting mess in the first place-and found he couldn’t.
Because, according to Old Dor, even their self-deception had served the Purpose; the side-trip to High Ridge had for some reason not been a side-trip at all. He didn’t understand why or how that was, but he intended to find out, if finding out was possible.
[“Let’s forget that part of it for the time being, gentlemen, and talk about why all this is happening. If you want help from me and Lois, I
think you better tell me.] They looked at each other with their big, frightened eyes, then back at Ralph.
Lachesis: [Ralph, do you doubt that all those people are really going to die? Because if you do-] [“No, but I’m tired of having them waved in my face. If an earthquake that served the Purpose happened to be scheduled for this area and the butcher’s bill came to ten thousand instead of just two thousand and change, you’d never even bat an eye, would you? So what’s so special about this situation? Tell me!”] Clotho: [Ralph, we don’t make the rules any more than you do. We thought you understood that.] Ralph sighed.
[“You’re weaseling again, and not wasting anybody’s time but your own.] Clotho, uneasily: [All right, perhaps the picture we gave you wasn’t completely clear, but time was short and we were frightened.
And you must see that, regardless of all else, those people will die if you can’t stop Ed Deepneau!] [“Never mind all of them for now,I only want to know about one of them-the one who belongs to the Purpose and can’t be handed overjust because some undesignated pisher comes along with a headful of loose screws and a planeful of explosive.
Who is it You feel you can’t give up to the Random? Who? It’s Day, isn’t it? Susan Day.] Lachesis: [No. Susan Day is part of the Random.
She is none of our concern, none of our worry.] [“Who, then?”
Clotho and Lachesis exchanged another glance. Clotho nodded slightly, and then they both turned back to Ralph.
Once again Lachesis flicked the first two fingers of his right hand upward, creating that peacock’s fan of light. It wasn’t McGovern Ralph saw this time, but a little boy with blond hair cut in bangs across his forehead and a hook-shaped scar across the bridge of his nose. Ralph placed him at once-the kid from the basement of High Ridge, the one with the bruised mother. The one who had called him and Lois angels.
And a little child shall lead them, he thought, utterly flabbergasted.
Oh my God. He looked disbelievingly at Clotho and Lachesis.
[“Am I understanding? All this has been about that one little boy?”] He expected more waffling, but the reply from Clotho was simple and direct: [Yes, Ralph.] Lachesis: [He’s at the Civic Center now. His mother, whose life you and Lois also saved this morning, got a call from her babysitter less than an hour ago, saying she’d cut herself badly on a piece of glass and wouldn’t be able to take care of the boy tonight after all. By then it was too late to find another sitter, of course, and this woman has been determined for weeks to see Susan Day… to shake her hand, even give her a hug, if possible. She idolizes the Day woman.] Ralph, who remembered the fading bruises on her face, supposed that was an idolatry he could understand. He understood something else even better: the babysitter’s cut hand had been no accident. Something was determined to place the little boy with the shaggy blond bangs and the smoke-reddened eyes at the Civic Center, and was willing to move heaven and earth to do it. His mother had taken him not because she was a bad parent, but because she was as subject to human nature as anyone else. She hadn’t wanted to miss her one chance at seeing Susan Day, that was all.
No, it’s not all, Ralph thought. She also took him because she thought it would be safe, with Pickering and his Daily Bread crackpots all dead. it must have seemed to her that the worst she’d have to protect her son from tonight would be a bunch of sign-waving pro-lifers, that lightning couldn’t possibly strike her and her son twice on the same day.
Ralph had been gazing off toward Witcham Street. Now he turned back to Clotho and Lachesis.
[“You’re sure he’s there? Positive?” Clotho: [Yes. Sitting in the upper north balcony next to his mother with a McDonald’s poster to color and some storybooks. Would it surprise you to know that one of the stories is The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins?]
Ralph shook his head. At this point, nothing would surprise him.
Lachesis: [It’s the north side of the Civic Center that Deepneau’s plane will strike. This little boy will be killed instantly if steps are not taken to prevent it… and that can’t be allowed to happen.
This boy must not die before his scheduled time.] Lachesis was looking earnestly at Ralph. The fan of blue-green light between his fingers had disappeared.
[We can’t go on talking like this, Ralph-he’s already in the air, less than a hundred miles from here. Soon it will be too late to stop him. That made Ralph feel frantic, but he held his place just the same.
Frantic, after all, was how they wanted him to feel. How they wanted both of them to feel.
[“I’m telling you that none of that matters until I understand what the stakes are. I won’t let it matter.”] Clotho: [Listen, then.
Every now and again a man or woman comes along whose life will affect not just those about him or her, or even all those who live in the Short-Time world, but those on mani, levels above and below, the Short-Time world-These people are the Great Ones, and their lives always serve the Purpose. If they are taken too soon, everything changes. The scales cease to balance. Can you imagine, for instance, how different the world might be today if Hitler had drowned in the bathtub as a child? You may believe the world would be better for that, but I can tell you that the world would not exist at all If it had happened. Suppose Winston Churchill had died of foodpoisoning before he ever became Prime Minister? Suppose Augustus Caesar had been born dead, strangled on his own umbilical cord? Yet the person we want you to save is of far greater importance than any of these.] [“Dammit, Lois and I already saved this kid once!
Didn’t that close the books, return him to the Purpose?”] Lachesis, patiently: [Yes, but he is not safe from Ed Deepneau, because Deepneau has no designation in either Random or Purpose.
Of all the people on earth, only Deepneau can harm him before his time comes. If Deepneau fails, the boy will be safe again-he will pass his time quietly until his moment comes and he steps upon the stage to play his brief but crucially important part.] [“One life means so much, then?” Lachesis: [Yes. If the child dies, the Tower of all existence will fall, and the consequences of such a fall are beyond -your comprehension.
And beyond ours, as well.] Ralph stared down at his shoes for a moment. His head seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. There was an irony here, one he was able to grasp easily in spite of his weariness.
Atropos had apparently set Ed in motion by inflaming some sort of Messiah complex which might have been pre-existing… a by-product of his undesignated status, perhaps. What Ed didn’t see-and would never believe if told-was that Atropos and his bosses on the upper levels intended to use him not to save the Messiah but to kill him.
He looked up again into the anxious faces of the two little bald doctors.