Errol stood staring into the light, and Baj saw a weasel's silver circles of reflection in his eyes.
"Do you question?"
Richard said, as if to himself, "Jesus-the-Christ," then heaved to his feet and called, "He doesn't question – doesn't speak!"
Silence. Then the man said, "Come out. And explain why you were hiding from Manifestation."
Richard muttered, "Be careful," as Baj and Nancy stood to join him. "… and ask no questions."
"The burning…" Nancy whispered, and once she had, Baj smelled – from the huge thing on the road, the men standing by it – the faintest drift, almost a smoky memory of fire.
Baj considered for an instant taking Nancy and fading back into the dark – then thought of Richard left alone with those people, and decided not. Doubted Nancy would go, in any case. His hand hurt; she'd bitten deep into the meat of his thumb… second time biting him…
He stood and followed Richard over the mud shelf, then stepped down, Nancy right behind, into golden light where a man stood in almost silhouette, other men in the darkness behind him. He held a long, dark, heavy stick – part wood, perhaps part iron.
"Why," the man said, "- do Persons and a human appear to travel the Demonstration Road?"
Baj saw the man's white beard as he spoke. An old man, holding a weighty, polished stick.
"We didn't know it was your road," Baj said. "We intend only to cross it… and mean no harm."
"To appear to cross it, is to appear to travel it," the old man said, "- and damage the demonstration."
"Then," Nancy said, "- we'll go around." One of the men behind the lamp's dazzle laughed.
"But this boy -" the old man pointed with his heavy stick, "- this… what is he, a sort of Person? He already appears to stand on it."
"An offense may be put right," Richard said.
"It's best put right, apparent Made-man, by ripping up our road and paving again – at least where he seems to stand. And where you three seem to stand."
"I wish," Richard said, "- we had time enough to help do that."
Several of the lamp-shadowed men laughed. "Your help would not be acceptable," the old man said, and turned fully into the light to murmur something to a man behind him.
"Floating Jesus…" Baj had said it before he'd thought. The old man was wearing dark long-leg cloth trousers and a buttoned dark jacket to match. His shirt was white cloth, with a turned-down collar – and under it, a narrow red neckerchief was knotted, that hung below his beard. His shoes were laced low, and made of black, waxed leather… He might have been a copybook sketch from Warm-times, torn from an ancient page to walk and talk again.
The old man stared at Baj. "Do you have a question, apparent boy?"
"I'm no boy," Baj said – then remembered Richard's murmur: "No questions." "And I have no questions."
The old man stared at him a few moments more, then said, "All of you will seem to come and follow us for discussion – but not appearing to walk on our road."
"And if we prefer to go on our way?" Nancy gripped Errol's arm to hold him still.
"That rudeness," the old man said, "- so close to real, would call for actual demonstrations by Winchesters, Springfields, and Remingtons."
Baj supposed those named were the families of the men with him. Fighting men, apparently, and with kinsmen to back them in trouble… The odor of burning was in the night air with the Shadow-men. Their huge road-traveler shifted behind them, gravel ground beneath it.
"Seem to follow," the old man said. "But walk to the side of our road. To touch it again, would be the same as a question." He walked back out of the lamp's harsh yellow light, the others with him, and Baj saw their dark shapes climbing up onto the big thing, which, after no apparent signal, began again that stomping shuffle, chuff… chuff… and moved, its great wheels crunching over gravel, east down the Pass I-Seventy.
… By star-light and lamp-light, Richard led carefully alongside the roadway, walking fast to keep up with the thing and its burden of men. Nancy kept a grip on Errol's arm.
Baj trotted up beside Richard, murmured, "Why no questions?"
"Perfect belief admits no questions."
"Ah… And if we fight these people, then run?"
"We could kill some… but there are more than 'some' riding their thing. Those sticks are not sticks."
"Then what? Are they the WT guns?"
"Shhh… They are pretend-those-guns, made to look as the copybooks show them."
"Then what keeps us here?"
"The Guard knows those sticks. They have rows of little steel springs inside them that look like leaves. A notched steel rod is forced down into the stick, that catches those springs and bends them against their will."
Baj found it difficult to keep close with Richard's long striding. "… I see. Then whatever grips the rod, if that's released and the springs spring straight -"
"Yes. Then the rod flies out – and will nail a Person to a tree if it strikes him."
"That's a serious weapon."
"Serious, yes – but slow to make work again, and without an arrow's range, or a slung stone's, either… Their spring-sticks aren't the reason the Guard doesn't come this way."
"Then why?"
"Because," Richard said, even more softly, "- madness may be caught, as the pox is caught."
Baj thought of asking more, then decided not to, and dropped back to more comfortable walking.
Nancy poked him, and whispered, "What were you saying?"
"Saying there is no fighting, then running. The sticks are spring-shooters, and dangerous."
"I knew that," Nancy said, not troubling to whisper. "Everyone knows that."
Someone called to them from the road-traveling thing – a different voice from the old man's. "Is there a question?"
"No," Baj called back, "- there is no question. And we are not touching your road."
… But there began to be a question as the night wore on, and the road-thing's big wheels turned and turned down the gravel way behind the flare of its yellow lamp. The roadside was graded even, its dirt covered only with rough grasses, but even a level can weary after several dark glass-hours – and tire travelers more, when they are traveling captive. Baj heard Nancy trip and stumble once… then, later, again – something she'd rarely done where there was freedom, and unevenness for her bounding pace.
"Give the boy to me." Baj turned, caught Errol by his shirtsleeve, then stepped aside and stopped to let Nancy by. "Go on…"
It seemed that surely the men riding their road-thing would grow tired of riding, but they never did, so it breathed its hoarse boot-step breaths, and its wheels rolled on through hour after hour, until all seemed to Baj – tugging the silent boy along – only a dream as his moccasins marched the night away… until at last they brought him into the first of dawn's gray light.
Then, leaving Errol with Nancy, and trotting up past Richard – who made a face and gestured him back – Baj began to see the traveling thing clearly, its lamp's glow fading. It was a huge box – high, wide, and very long – painted the red of rust, and rolling on iron wheels, front and back. Baltimore & Ohio was printed along its side in black.
Thirty men sat in three rows, riding the top of it – all dressed in Warm-time ways out of copybooks: jacket-suits and white shirts with colored cloth strips tied under the collars. They all held spring-sticks upright beside them. And none turned their heads to look down at him.
… There was a chimney at the front, a black smokestack like those that Ordinary merchants built into their houses on the River. But this was made of painted wood planking, like the rest of the rolling box – and the big light (a cluster of oil-lamps and polished mirrors) was fastened below it.