"Then I can't hide much from you, can I? I was
thinking how the passions of a Crusade—or a broken love affair—are but moments in geological time."
"True. But since you are not a rock or a glacier, what difference does that make?" Then, "You have terminated such a relationship recently?"
"I guess that's one way of putting it, yes."
"Sad, perhaps. Or not, as the case may be. You—"
"Not," he said. "Not really. It was something not meant to go on. Yet there is a feeling of loss... Why am I telling you this?"
"Everyone finds someone to tell things to. At a time like this you must be careful. Following a loss, one often seeks to fill that place with something new. One chooses in haste, rather than wisely. One—"
"Here comes Leila now," Randy said.
"Oh."
There was silence.
Randy drew on the cigar. He considered the clouds reflected in the hood. He regarded the bewildering array of vehicles drawn up about him, like some display in a museum of transportation.
"I do not detect her approach," Leaves said after a time.
"Sorry. I was mistaken."
There came a burst of static. Then, "Sorry, Randy. I wasn't trying to intrude."
"That's all right."
"It's just that I wanted to—"
"She is coming now."
"Okay. I just— Never mind."
Leila jerked the door open, climbed in and slammed it. She reached over and removed the cigar from between his fingers. She took a long drag on it and slumped in the seat.
"I take it you didn't—" he began.
"Shh! We're practically bumper to bumper now. Only there was no forwarding address. I have to look again."
He watched as her gaze drifted through the smoke. Her face grew expressionless for a time, then emotions flickered across it too rapidly for him to classify.
"Start the engine! Drive!" she ordered.
"Where?"
"Down the Road. I'll know the turnoff when it happens. Let's go!"
He backed out of the parking place, swung toward the exit.
"I'm beginning to understand ..."
"What?" he asked.
"What we are," she said, passing him the cigar.
He pressed the accelerator and sped.
One
Red rolled out of bed, grabbed for his vest.
"Hey! Hell of a smoke-detector you are!"
"That part of me mutht have been damaged altho."
He withdrew a small, flat flashlight from the garment's pocket as he slipped it on. He sent its beam about the room, but there was no smoke. Rising, he moved to the door. He halted there and sniffed.
"Maybe you'd better not..."
Opening the door, he stepped out into the hall, sniffed again and moved to his left.
There! The next room!
He ran to the door, pounded on it, tried the knob. It was locked.
"Wake up!"
Stepping back, he kicked hard, next to the lock. The door flew open. Smoke rolled by him. He rushed in to behold a burning bed, a smiling woman still apparently asleep within it.
Stooping, he raised her from the flames and bore her across the room. He dumped her onto the floor, her clothing still smoldering, and returned to beat at the bed with a rug.
"Hey!" the woman called out.
"Shut up" he said. "I'm busy."
The woman rose to her feet, her clothing still afire. She ignored this for the better part of a minute and watched him assail the flames. Then, as the front of her garment flared, she glanced down at it. With a casual movement, she unfastened a tie behind her neck and let it fall to the floor. Stepping out of its circle of fire, she advanced.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Trying to put out your blasted fire! What were you doing, smoking in bed?"
"Yes," she replied. "Drinking too."
She knelt and reached beneath the bed. She retrieved a bottle.
"Let it burn," she said. "Have a drink. We'll watch it."
"Leila, stay out of my way!"
"Sure, Reyd. Anything you say."
She withdrew, seated herself in a large chair, looked about, rose again, crossed to the dresser, applied a candle that burned there to the wick of an oil lamp and picked up a goblet. She returned to the chair.
There were rapid footsteps in the hall. They slowed, stopped.
"How bad is it?" came Johnson's voice, followed by a cough.
"Just the bed," Red replied. "I've got it under control now."
"You can throw the mattress out the window when you're able to handle it. There's just gravel down there."
"Okay. I will."
' Room seventeen is empty. Miss Leila. You can have that one."
"Thanks, but I like it here."
Red moved to the window, unfastened the shutters, swung them back. Returning to the bed, he rolled the mattress, gathered it in his arms and bore it to the star-filled square, where he pushed it through.
"I'll have a new bed and mattress sent up," Johnson said.
"And another bottle."
Johnson, who had stepped inside, backed out into the hall, still coughing.
"Very well. I don't see how you people can breathe in there."
Red stared out the window. Leila opened her bottle. Johnson's footsteps retreated down the hall.
"Care for a drink, Reyd?"
"Okay."
He turned and walked to her. She handed him the goblet.
"Your health," he said, and sipped it.
She snorted and took a drink from the bottle.
"Here, that isn't ladylike," he said. "I'll trade you."
She chuckled.
"Never mind. I've the better part of the deal. —Your health. How is it, anyway?"
"The booze or my health?"
"Either one."
"I've had better and I've had worse. Either one. What are you doing here, Leila?"
She shrugged.
"Drinking. Turning a few tricks. What are you doing? Still racing up and down the Road, looking for an unmarked turnoff—or trying to open one?"
"More or less. For a long while I thought perhaps you had found the way and taken it. To find you here is—how shall I say it?—disillusioning."
"I've a way of producing that effect," she said, "haven't I?"
He withdrew a cigar from his vest, crossed to the candle, lit it.
"Got another of those on you?"
"Yeah."
He passed her the cigar, lit a second for himself.
"Why are you doing it?" he asked.
The smoke spiraled above her head.
"Doing what?"
"Doing nothing," he said. "Wasting your time here when you could be looking."
"Since you ask," she said, taking another drink, "I will tell you. I have been up and down that damned Road from the Neolithic to C Thirty. I have followed every sideroad, footpath and rabbit run along the way. I am known in a thousand lands by different names. Yet in none of them have I found what I sought, what we seek."
"You have never been close? You have never felt the presence?"
She shuddered.
"I have felt presences—some of them very similar, some of them quite unforgettable—none of them right. No. I can only conclude that the place I once sought no longer exists."
"Everything exists somewhere."
"Then you can't get there from here."
"I can't believe that."
"Then tell me this: is it worth it? Is it worth wasting your life looking when you can have your choice of times and places, go anywhere, do anything you want?"
"Like turning tricks and drinking yourself unconscious? Like setting fire to the bed?"
She blew a smoke ring.
"I have been doing nothing—as you said—for almost a year. It gets easier every day. And the results are the same. I have used up my energies. I am by nature quite indolent. It is pleasant to stop, to resign a fruitless enterprise. Why don't you join me? You have nothing to show for all your efforts. We could at least console one another."
"It is not my nature," he said, just as servants arrived with new bed, bedding and bottle.