"No," Nita hissed, startled into speech, and dragged Kit back into the dark of the doorway. Pale yellow-brown light flickered down the street, got brighter. A second later, with a snarl of its engine, a big yellow Checker Cab hurled itself past them, staring in front of it with headlight-eyes burned down to yellow threads of filament — eyes that looked somehow as if they could see. But the cab seemed not to notice them. Its snarl diminished as it plunged down the street, leaving a whirl of dirty paper and dead leaves in its wake. Kit coughed as its exhaust hit them. (That was alive,) he said when he got his breath back. (The same way the helicopter was.) Nita made a miserable face. (Let's get outa here,) she said.
Kit nodded. She led him off to their left, through the Hclmsley-Spear Building, which should have been bright with gold-leafed statuary. Here» was gray witn soot> an<A tne carvings stared down with such looks of silent [jialice that Nita refused to glance up more than that once.
She hoped for some more encouraging sight as they came onto Forty-sixth Street and looked up Park Avenue. The hope was vain. The avenue stretched away and slightly upward for blocks as it did in their own world, vanishing in the murk. But the divider between the uptown and downtown lanes, usually green with shrubbery, had become one long tangle of barren thorn bushes. The old-fashioned red-and-green traffic lights burned low and dark as if short on power; and no matter how long one watched, they never changed from red. The shining glass-and-steel office buildings that had lined the avenue in their Manhattan were grimy shells here, the broad sidewalks before them cluttered with rubbish. Nothing moved anywhere, except far up Park, where another pair of yellow eyes waited at a corner. Those eyes made Nita nervous. (This way,) she said. She hurried past a dirty granite facade full of still doors and silent windows. Kit followed close, and Fred with him, both looking worriedly at everything they passed.
Nita was doing her best to keep herself calm as they turned the corner onto Forty-seventh. It can't all be as bad as the helicopter, she told herself. And nothing really bad has happened to us yet. It was just the shock of the—
She jumped back into the shadow of a building on hearing a clapping sound so loud she felt sure the helicopter's mate was coming for them. Fred and Kit huddled terrified into that shadow too, and it took a few seconds for any of them to find the source of the sound. Not more than five or six feet from them, a pigeon had landed — a sooty-dark one, cooing and strutting and head-bobbing in a perfectly normal fashion. It walked away from them, muttering absently, intent on its own pursuits. Kit poked Nita from behind—not a warning: a teasing poke. (Getting jumpy, huh.) (Yeah, well, you were the one who said—)
. The lightning-stroke of motion not six feet away knocked the merriment "ght out of them. What had seemed a perfectly ordinary fire hydrant, dull yellow, with rust stains and peeling paint, suddenly cracked open and shot °ut a long, pale, ropy tongue like a toad's. The pigeon never had a chance. *i't side-on, the bird made just one strangled gobbling noise before the tongue was gone again, too fast to follow, and the wide horizontal mouth it £anie from was closed again. All that remained to show that anything had aPpened was a slight bulge under the metallic-looking skin of the fire hy-arant. The bulge heaved once and was still. Nita bit her lip. Behind her she could feel Kit start shaking again. (I feel rry for the next dog that comes along,) he said. (I hope you don't mind if I cross the street.) Kit headed out of the shadow.
U think I'll join you,) Nita said. She backed out of range of that tongue ef°re she started across the street herself—
There was no time to move, to scream, even to think. Kit was halfway across the street, with his eye on that fire hydrant, his head turned away from the big yellow Checker Cab that was maybe six feet away and leaping straight at him,
A flash of brilliance struck Nita like a blow, and did the same for the cab so that it sv/crved to its left and knocked Kit sideways and down. The cab roared on by, engine racing in frustration, evidently too angry to try for another pass. But something about it, maybe the savage sidelong look it threw Nita out of its burned-down eyes as it squealed around the corner of Forty-sixth and Madison — something made Nita suspect that it would not forget them. She ran out into the street and bent over Kit, not sure whether she should try to move him. fSawright,) Kit said, groaning softly as he worked at getting up. Nita slipped hands under his arms to help. (Fred did it.)
(Are you all right?) came the frantic thought, as Fred appeared in front of Kit's face. (Did I hurt you, did I emit anything you can't take? I took out all the ultraviolet. Oh, no! I forgot the cosmic rays again.)
Kit managed a smile, though not much of one, his face was skinned and bruised where one cheekbone had hit the pavement. (Don't worry about it, Fred, that thing would have done a lot worse to me than a few cosmic rays if it'd hit me the way it wanted to.) He stood up, wincing. (It got my leg some, I think.)
Nita bent down to look at Kit's left leg and sucked in her breath. His jeans were torn, and he had a straight horizontal gash six inches or so below the knee, which was bleeding freely. (Does it feel deep?)
(No. It just hurts a lot. I think it was the cab's fender, there was a jagged piece sticking out of the chrome. Listen, Fred, thanks—)
(You're sure I didn't hurt you? You people are so fragile. A little gamma radiation will ruin your whole day, it seems.)
(I'm fine. But I've gotta do something about this leg. And then we've got to get moving again and get to the dark Book.)
Nita looked over at the fire hydrant, fear boiling in her. Casually, as if this was something it did many times a day, the hydrant cracked open and spat something out onto the sidewalk — a dessicated-looking little lump of bones and feathers. Then it got up and waddled heavily down to a spot about fifty feet farther down the block, and sat down again. And I thought it couldn't all be bad.
Together, as quickly as they could, two small, frightened-looking figures and a spark like a lost star hurried into the shadows and vanished there.
Entropies Detection and Avoidance
(How close are we?)
(Uh … this is Madison and Forty-ninth. Three blocks north and a long one east.) (Can we rest? This air burns to breathe. And we've been going fast.) (Yeah, let's.)
They crouched together in the shadow of a doorway, two wary darknesses and a dim light, watching the traffic that went by. Mostly cabs prowled past, wearing the same hungry look as the one that had wounded Kit. Or a sullen truck might lumber by, or a passenger car, looking uneasy and dingy and bitter. None of the cars or trucks had drivers, or looked like they wanted them. They ignored the traffic lights, and their engines growled.
Nita's eyes burned in the dark air. She rubbed them and glanced down at Kit's leg, bound now with a torn-off piece of her shirt. {How is it?)
(Not too bad. It feels stiff. I guess it stopped bleeding.) He looked down, felt the makeshift bandage, winced. (Yeah… . I'm hungry.)
Nita's stomach turned over — she was too nervous to even consider eating — as Kit came up with a ham sandwich and offered her half. (You go ahead,) she said. She leaned against the hard cold wall, and on a sudden thought Pulled her pen out of her pocket and looked at it. It seemed all right, but as she held it she could feel a sort of odd tingling in its metal that hadn't been there before. (Uh, Fred—)
He hung beside her at eye level, making worried feelings that matched the d'niness of his light, (Are you sure that light didn't hurt you?)