"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.