“Tom?”
“Morning, ma’am.”
She walked toward him. A nice-looking woman, he thought. Not sensationally beautiful, the way that Allie woman was, but of course Allie was artificial, they could make them as beautiful as they wanted. And Elszabet was pretty. Tall and slender with very long legs and wonderful warm rich gray eyes. And a very good person, too, kind and gentle. That was obvious right away, how tender and loving she was, and full of life. He hadn’t known many people like that, with the kindness and goodness right out front where you could feel it. Although there was something tight inside her, like a clenched fist. Tom wanted to reach into her and pry that fist open. She’d look even prettier then.
“Going up for breakfast?” she asked.
Tom nodded. “It’s in there, right?”
“That’s right. I’ll walk over with you. Sleep well?”
“Best I’ve had in months. Years. Real sound sleep.”
“I bet it was so sound you didn’t even dream.”
“Oh, I dreamed, all right,” Tom told her. “I always dream.”
She gave him that pleasant smile of hers. “I’ll bet you have interesting dreams, don’t you?”
Tom walked along beside her, not saying anything. She had said something about dreams last night too, he remembered. When she had taken him to his cabin after dinner, just some offhand remark, something about how she was going to go to sleep herself right away because she was tired, she had had a strange dream the night before and it had upset her. He thought then that she was hoping he would ask her about that dream of hers, but he hadn’t felt like it. Now she was talking about dreams again. And both times she had seemed sort of tense when the subject came up, her nostrils quivering a little, color coming into her cheeks. Why were they so interested in dreams here? He recalled that man Ed saying, telling him about the pick thing.You even forget what you dreamed last night. Tom began to feel a little uneasy.
She said after a moment, “When you get a chance, Tom, would you like to come over to my office for a talk? It’s in that building just down here—you ask anyone inside, they’ll tell you where to find me. I’d like to know a bit more about what was happening yesterday with Ed and Alleluia out beyond the forest, okay? And a few other things I’d like to talk about with you.”
“Sure,” he said. “Sure, I’ll stop by.” Why not? These people were feeding him and sheltering him. She was entitled to ask him a few things.
They paused outside the big gray building. She stood close beside him, looking straight into his eyes. She was almost as tall as he was, and she was very close to him. He found himself hoping she would take him in her arms and hold him tight; but all she did was rest her hand on his forearm for an instant, giving him a little squeeze. And he saw her nostrils quiver again, and the two little red dots appear in her cheeks. As though she was a little afraid of him. As though she knew somehow that he could reach in and open that tight fist within her soul. And she was afraid of that, afraid of him.
Well, that makes two of us, he thought. Because I’m a little afraid of you, Miz Elszabet.
She let go of him and walked away, turning to wave. He waved back and entered the mess hall. There were just a few people in it, most of them sitting far apart from one another. Tom took a seat by himself, off to one side. A machine on the table lit up and asked him what he wanted. Coffee and rolls, he decided. It told him which buttons to push. He had learned how to do that last night at dinner. He had expected that a machine would come down the aisle bringing him his dinner, too, but that wasn’t how it worked: a boy came by with a cart. This morning it was a girl. The rolls were so good that he ordered a second breakfast, more of the same and a grapefruit, too. It seemed you could have whatever you wanted here, and as much as you wanted, and not pay. Poor Charley, he thought—getting scared and running away like that. If he hadn’t run away, he might be eating free grapefruit and coffee and rolls this morning too. Tom wondered what had become of them, Charley and Buffalo and Stidge and the rest. Probably in Ukiah by now, or maybe on their way to Oregon, wandering on and on and on in their aimless way. He hoped they stayed out of trouble, wherever they went. Just took it easy, Tom hoped, and not get themselves killed this close to the Time of the Crossing, because all their worries would be over when they went out to the stars. If they lived long enough to get to go.
When he was finished eating Tom sat by himself for a while, just savoring the pleasure of sitting still and not having to jump back in the van and ride off somewhere with the scratchers. He wondered how long they would let him stay here. A week, maybe? That would be nice, staying here a week. And then maybe he’d be able to catch a ride down to San Francisco. He had liked that city. So clean, so pretty. Too bad they’d only stayed there a couple of hours. But he would go back. It was getting to be October, now. Winter coming on in those parts of the country that had real winter. If he had to spend another winter on the Earth, he thought, at least let it be a California winter. He didn’t know when the Crossing would begin—maybe next week, maybe by Christmas, maybe not until spring. You could freeze to death wandering around east of the mountains, but out here on the coast you were pretty safe from the weather.
“Hey, you, Tom!”
He looked up. The man named Ed was standing by the door of the mess hall. He had another man with him, a short pudgy curly-haired one wearing a Catholic priest’s outfit. They seemed to be looking for company. Tom beckoned them over.
“I thought the idea of food made you sick right now,” Tom said.
“Well, I got to feeling a little better after a time. The fresh air. Tom, this is Father Christie. Father, Tom.”
“You the chaplain here?” Tom asked.
The priest smiled. He seemed like a sad little man. “Chaplain? Oh, no, no, I’m just a patient, same as you.”
Tom shook his head. “I’m not a patient.”
“You aren’t? But you can’t be staff, surely.”
“Just a visitor,” Tom said. “Just passing through. But very pleased to make your acquaintance, Father. I’ve done some preaching myself, up Idaho way, Washington State. Different sort of thing from yours, of course. But I was pretty good. The congregation, they didn’t much mind how crazy I got. They thought the crazier the better, the crazier the holier.”
“We aren’t supposed to use the word crazy here,” said Father Christie.
“Perfectly good word,” Tom said. “What’s wrong with saying crazy? What’s wrong with being crazy?”
“You telling us you’re crazy?” Ed asked.
“You know it. I see visions. Isn’t that crazy? Other worlds swimming before my eyes. Always have, since I was a kid, visions pouring in like—like crazy.”
Ed and Father Christie exchanged glances. Ed said, “Other worlds? Like space dreams?”
“Space dreams, yes. But not just when I’m asleep.”
“Father Christie here has space dreams too. Everyone in this whole fucking place has them. Excuse me, Father. Everyone has them but me, that is. I don’t get them. But I know all the dreams. The green world, the nine suns, the red star and the blue one—”
“Wait a second,” said Father Christie mildly. “You say there are several kinds of space dreams?”
“Seven of them,” Ed said. “You don’t know that, because you get picked every morning, you don’t remember anything about your dreams. But there are seven. I have ways of keeping little records. You had one this morning, Father, the green world again. But they picked it. The bastards. Excuse me again, Father.”