"All right."
He moved forward, made the turn.
One
Red rubbed his eyes, glanced to his right. Chadwick
was stirring also.
"Whisper mode," he said softly. "How near are we?"
"Very near. That's why I aroused you. Do you have any idea what you are going to do when you find your magic spot?"
Red looked at Chadwick again.
"I want to ditch him before we get there. It's for his
own—" "No!" cried Chadwick, sitting upright. "You're not
getting rid of me now! I want to see this crazy thing through to the end!"
"I was starting to say that it is for your own protection. You want to walk away from whatever happens,
don't you?"
"I know what I'm doing. Better than you do, you fool! Your time has not yet come."
"Just what do you mean by that? I'm trying to do you a favor and all you do is bitch! Flowers! Pull over!"
Chadwick's hand shot forward, slapped the drive switch from automatic to manual. Immediately, the vehicle drifted to the left. Red seized the steering wheel and turned it back.
"Crazy bastard! You trying to kill us both?"
Chadwick laughed wildly at that, then chopped with
his hand, striking Red's forearm as he reached for the switch.
Red began to brake. He looked at Chadwick. "Listen! If I'm wrong, I'll pick you up afterwards.
But if I'm right, you don't want to be aboard. I'm
going to meet my destiny. I—"
He had begun cutting the wheel to the right. Chadwick threw himself at him and took hold of it, pushing leftward.
"Look out! People!"
Red looked up, saw Leila waving with both arms over her head, a handkerchief in one hand. Far beyond her was a young man, also waving.
As they shot past, Chadwick struck him a glancing blow on the jaw. Red's head struck against the window frame. Chadwick seized the wheel again.
"Stop it! Both of you!" Flowers cried. "Someone throw the switch!"
They passed a sputtering flare. Red saw the sign with the blue ziggurat as he drove his elbow against Chadwick's head, knocking him back into his own seat. His hand shot forward then, nipping the switch back to automatic drive as he began the turn into the exit
The brakes were immediately seized as Flowers announced, "Roadblock!"
The tires screamed. The land to the left of the road fell away sharply. The slope to the right was more gradual, if rockstrewn, above the yellow earth . ..
Red twisted the wheel to the left. It turned right
"Sorry, boss," Flowers said. "One of us is wrong, and I hope it's you."
Something soft and heavy enveloped him as they left the road and hit the slope. He heard the door open. He was ejected.
Falling, hitting the ground, rolling ... He lost consciousness. For how long he could not tell, though it did not seem a great while.
He could hear the crackling of flames. There also
seemed to be some distant shouts. He took several deep breaths. He stretched and relaxed. Nothing seemed to
be broken ...
He began struggling with his cocoon. It was a tough, white, foamy substance.
The shouts came nearer. More than one voice, but he still could not make out what they were saying.
He worked his hands around to his stomach, up toward his chest. There was a sudden pang along the left side of his ribcage.
He caught hold of the fabric before him, scratched at it, dug in with his fingers, drew upon it. Slowly it parted. He adjusted his grip, pulled harder.
It tore open. He spread his arms and pushed downward. It came away from his shoulders. He began to crawl out. He heard Leila's voice calling his name. He saw her running toward him.
He turned away and looked down the slope to where his truck lay on its side, burning. He tried to rise, but his foot caught in the spongy material and he slipped back into a sitting position on the grass, catching himself with his arms. His side still throbbed.
"No," he said as he watched the truck burn. "No..."
A hand rested on his shoulder. He did not look up.
"Reyd?..."
"No," he repeated.
Below them, the truck suddenly blossomed into a ball of fire. Moments later, a wave of heat arrived. Red raised his left hand just as Randy came up and halted several paces away.
"You could have been in there .. ." Leila began.
His hand shot forward, a finger extended.
The flames fell back. A tower of smoke rose. Something seemed to be moving within it, traveling a slow spiral upward.
"There," he said. Then, "Now I understand."
A huge gray-green dragon-form rose above the smoldering vehicle.
"It was Chadwick whose time had come," she said. "All of your actions were meant to serve him."
Red nodded without taking his eyes from the twisting, drifting shape. All of its movements were graceful, and somehow verged on the erotic. It was an air-dance of freedom, release, abandon.
Abruptly, it halted and looked their way. It spread its wings and drifted toward them. When it was very near, it managed, somehow, to hover.
"Thank you, children," it said, in a voice rich and melodious. "You have done for me that which I did not know to do for myself."
It circled slowly above them.
"What is the secret?" Red asked. "I remembered more than you did. I thought I was arranging things for myself."
It looked upward to where another dark form was now drifting.
"Events, child. Events, and their unconscious manipulation," it replied. "I cannot advise you, for we are all different. Keep looking, if you feel you must. For you, that may be the way. But your time is not yet come. When it does, help may come from anywhere— a friend, an enemy, a stranger, a relative ... As for me, I am going home now. Let us hope to meet again one day."
It twisted sharply and began to rise in the morning light, its scales gleaming like golden mirrors. It began to move its wings, slowly at first, then faster, climbing, dwindling as they watched. Another winged form passed near it. Soon they were gone from sight.
Red lowered his face into his hands for a moment. The wind had shifted and the smell of his burning vehicle came to him now.
"Will someone please come and pick me up?" came a small voice from down the hillside, "before thisdamned vegetation takes fire?"
"Flowers?" he said, dropping his hands and beginning
to rise.
But the young man was there before him. He retrieved the book, encased in an ejection pod, and carried it back up the hillside. Red stared at him.
"Reyd, I'd like you to meet your son Randy," Leila
said.
Red frowned.
"Where you from, boy?"
"Cleveland, C Twenty."
"I'll be damned ....lake—or Carthage?"
"Yeah. But I'm using Dorakeen now."
Red stepped forward and took Randy by the shoulders, looked into his eyes.
"I'd say so, I'd really say so, and you're welcome to it. ' What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you. Leaves showed me the way. Then I met Leila—"
"I hate to break this up," Leila said, "but we'd better move that car up there before someone else comes along."
"Yes."
They turned back toward the feeder road.
"Uh— What should I call you? Father?"
"Red. Just Red." He looked at Leila. "My head is suddenly clear. Something like a fog seems to have gone."
"That was the last dark bird," she replied.
"You know, I'd have missed Randy here, if that had been me."
"Yes."
"Let's go to Ur for a beer. They always have good beer in Ur."
"Okay with me," Randy said. "There are a lot of things I want to ask you."
"Sure. There are plenty of things I want to ask you— and we have plans to make."
"Plans?"
"Yes. The way I see it, the Greeks still have to win at Marathon."