Of course, she thought. Ofcourse. They were among friends. She saw Fang grin and nudge Thor with his elbow. Thor smiled quietly, as if at a well-orchestrated surprise. Sherrine started to laugh, earning an odd glance from Alex.
All that time she had been worried about being in Proxmire country. She had forgotten they were in Clifford Simak country, too.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"The Best of All Physicians…"
The van was dark and cold and stank with a stale pungency Alex MacLeod could never get used to. Worse than a spaceship! He sat huddled under blankets with the others in the back of the van, sharing his warmth. The only light was the feeble glow of a flashlight. Alex took a breath of damp, moldy air. He wished Bob could start the engine so they could warm up; but, of course, that was impossible.
Sherrine was a goblin face half-lit by the weary flashlight. "This is cozy," she said. "I used to read science fiction books like this--under my blankets with a light. Always with an ear cocked for the sound of my parents coming."
"Did they ever catch you?" asked Gordon.
"Oh, sure. I got a lecture the first time. The second time, they spanked me. They never caught me again. Maybe they got tired of watching. I always looked forward to the summers, though, when they'd send me to Gram's farm. Pop-pop kept two cartons full of old paperbacks hidden in a corner of the root cellar. I could read them in daylight."
Gordon laughed. "It sounds like fun."
"Yeah, lots of fun," said Alex. "How long are we going to be stuck here?"
Bob shrugged and the blankets shrugged with him. "I don't know."
"Relax," said Fang. "Here. It's cheddar."
It was a half-found wedge. Alex felt his throat close. "No thanks," he said. I'm going to be heartily sick of cheese by the time we get to Chicago."
"Cheese is fermented milk curd," Fang volunteered. "The Orientals think of it as 'rotten milk.' "
Sherrine turned to him. "Thank you for sharing that thought with us."
"Well," said Thor. "Where there's a curd, there's a whey."
"Seriously," Alex insisted. "How long will we be stuck inside this trailer?" Surrounded by cheese. Encastled by cheesy ramparts. Breathing cheese with every breath. Sure, it saved gas on the van; sure, it hid them from the sheriffs deputies; but it seemed as if he had been buried in a tomb of… of fermented curds.
Fang nibbled on the wedge, looking for all the world like an oversized mouse. "How long?" he said. "Hard to say. The trailer takes the back roads to avoid the monties."
"The Mounties?"
"Monties… Montereys. They high jack cheese."
Gordon cocked his head. "High-jack cheese? Poche--Why would anyone do that?"
Fang held his wedge up and turned it so it caught the pale light. "Supply and demand," he said. "South and east of Chicago this stuff is rare. Infrastructure collapsing. Bridges, culverts, embankments. Roads are near impassible. Can't hardly get gas anywhere in Wisconsin. So not much cheese ever gets out of the state. Not until the farmers can hoard enough fuel to make a run like this one. Naturally, the monties are on the lookout. One cheese truck taken to… oh, Pittsburgh or St. Louis, could set you up for life."
"I've heard," said Sherrine, "that in some places they stamp the cheese wheels with official seals and use them for money."
Thor laughed. "I've heard that. What would you do for a wallet?"
"No, no," said Fang. "You put the cheese in a larder--"
"Fort Cheddar!"
"--and issue certificates-"
"Backed by the full faith and credit of--"
"Issue certificates," Fang repeated more loudly. "Pay to the bearer on demand, so many pounds of cheese. Pound notes!"
"Would a Swiss cheese pound note be worth more than a cheddar?"
"Sure, you know how reliable those Swiss cheese bankers are…"
"How many Gorgonzolas to a Colby?" asked Steve. "What's the exchange rate?"
"Excuse me, sir," said Sherrine to Thor, "but do you have change for a Roquefort?"
"Keep your stinking money."
"Hey," said Bob laughing. "At least the money would be backed by something."
"Maybe," Thor ventured, "they could use jellies and jams… backed by the Federal Preserve Bank."
Alex simply could not believe it. Van and all they were riding in a back of a cheese-filled eighteen-wheeler trailer, rolling through territory infested by highway bandits, and his companions made… cheesy jokes. "It seems to me," he said, "that this is an awfully risky way to escape Wisconsin."
The others looked at him with their mouths half-open in smiles, waiting for his punch line. Alex plowed resolutely on. "I mean the montereys. They're real?"
"Sure, but…"
"Alex," said Sherrine. "The police are looking for a van."
"Hiram Taine gave us new plates and painted us orange."
"All the more reason not to risk being stopped."
"Besides," interjected Thor, "there's something I've always wanted to say."
Alex frowned at him. "What's that?"
"Cheese it! The cops!"
Everyone broke into laughter again. Alex scowled and shifted his right foot to a more comfortable siddhasan position. His companions couldn't seem to take things seriously. They had to make jokes. Just how dependable was this rescue? Was this to be his fate, his punishment for screwing up that one last time? To be shuttled aimlessly across the planet for the rest of his life?
Sherrine touched his arm and leaned past Thor who was cracking yet another joke to Steve. "Alex," she said. "We could never have scrounged enough gas for the van to drive out on our own. The farmers there have been saving fuel for a long time to send just this one truck out and back. They made a tremendous sacrifice by putting us back here instead of the same volume in cheese."
"It's not that, Sherrine. It's…"
"It's what?"
Alex sighed and she leaned closer. He could smell the sweetness of her breath. "It's…" What was bugging him? Was it that the optimism he had felt at the Tre-house had leached out of him? That his resolution to enjoy his exile had foundered against huddling places and blizzards and crumbling roads and funerals? He jerked his head toward the other fans. "Don't they realize the gravity of our situation?" he whispered to her.
She whispered back, "You fight gravity with levity."
Later, as they dozed under the blankets, Alex was jarred awake. He raised himself on his elbows, momentarily delighted that he could raise himself on his elbows, and looked around. Not that he could see anything. Under a pile of blankets inside a van that was chocked up inside a trailer. It gave the word "dark" new meaning. He lay still and listened. The familiar grumble of the motor and the gentle rocking and bouncing were missing.
The truck had stopped.
"What is it?" Sherrine's voice sleepy beside him. He flashed a momentary fancy that they shared a bunk together, somewhere hidden from their five chaperones.
"Nothing," he said. "The truck stopped, is all. Rest break, maybe."
"Oh, good. I could use a rest break myself. Should we get out, do you think?"
"Wait." Doors slammed and the engine roared to life. "Changing drivers, I guess." First gear ground and caught. "The two guys up front must have switched seats."
"I hope we get there soon, or this van is going to smell like a New York subway station."
"Please," said Bob, yawning in the darkness, "if you have to go, go outside."
"On the cheese?"
"I really miss my space suit," said Alex.
"Eh? Why?"
"It had a catheter," he said dreamily.
Lee Arteria studied the list that Moorkith had passed around the table. It was several pages long. Eight-by fourteen-inch computer pages. Names and addresses ranked in severe columns. Not even alphabetized! Maybe it was sorted by address? No, there was no logical order to the sequence at all. A random dump. Maybe no one on Moorkith's staff knew how to run a sort.