"I know. I'm going to have to do something about it pretty soon."
The other regarded him for a moment.
"If you would like my help in resolving this matter, I will be glad to give you a hand."
Red drew his teeth across his lower lip and slowly shook his head.
"Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it But no thanks. This is a very special sort of thing."
The big man smiled faintly and nodded.
"You know your situation best"
He stooped and raised the supine figure effortlessly with one arm. His shirt tore across his back as he did so. Slinging John over his shoulder, he turned and extended his hand.
"Thanks for my patient then, and best of luck with your—problem."
"Thanks. Good-bye, Doc."
"Good-bye."
He watched the other walk back to his car, deposit his burden, get in and drive off.
"Good to see John get his," said Mondamay, extending a metal hand, the firing tube now retracted, and placing it on Red's shoulder. "By the way, he was able to monitor your progress by means of a broadcasting device secreted somewhere on your vehicle. It was placed there at a repair shop you recently visited. He'd mentioned it to me. Perhaps we had best locate it and remove it before we do anything else."
"Good idea. Let's have a look." They moved off toward the truck. "How come you didn't detect it,
"Must be an odd wavelength. I don't know. I'll start
a scan." .. "You did not introduce me, Mondamay said.
"Huh? Oh, he was so busy with John that I didn't want to interrupt him."
"Not the doctor. Flowers of Evil, here. I did not realize I was holding a sophisticated intelligence when you handed me a book."
"Sorry. Extenuating circumstances. Mondamay, I want you to meet Flowers of Evil. Flowers, this is Mondamay the killing machine."
"I am pleased," Mondamay said.
"Likewise. I find your plight extremely distressing— carrying around all those dead circuits, being deprived of function."
"Oh, it's not all that bad. I enjoy what I'm doing just as much as what I used to do."
"What is that?"
"I'm a potter, among other things. Any sort of precision work in the arts appeals to me."
"How fascinating. I think I'm almost ready for some degree of manual ability myself. At least I'd like to try. I'd love to see your pots sometime—"
"Flowers," Red asked, "have you spotted the broadcast unit yet?"
"Yes. It's affixed to the underside of the body a little
forward of the left rear tire." "Thanks."
Red moved to, the rear of the truck and crouched. "You're right," he said after a moment. "Here it is." Detaching the device, he crossed to the front of the
ground-effect car and fastened it to a spot within the
front bumper. He returned then to where Mondamay
stood leafing through Flowers.
"Just to let them know we caught it," he said.
"... And this Paysage is certainly a lovely one, Mondamay was saying.
"Thank you."
"It's nearly dinnertime," Red said. "Come keep me company and tell me how things have been. I've a 1ot I want to ask you."
"Delighted," Mondamay replied. "By the way, I'm sorry about this whole business."
"Not your fault. But I'd be grateful for some advice on it."
"Certainly. And I'm anxious to hear your story."
"Let's go then."
"Don't send a charge up there! It's called a tickle circuit... Stop it!" ;
Red halted.
"Huh?"
"Sorry. Didn't realize I was vocalizing. Flowers was curious about one of my subunits."
"Oh."
They crossed the veranda and entered the building.
Two
It was over. Randy had driven Julie to the bus station that morning, helped her with her bags, said good-bye. By now she was well on her way to her parents' home in Virginia. There was nothing of hers in sight in the apartment's small living room or kitchen, between which he wandered, preparing fresh glasses of iced tea and drinking them. He had taken the last of his final exams the previous day and gone with Julie to a good restaurant for a late dinner. He had even gotten a bottle of fine wine to go with it. Neither of them had said it was over, but the feeling was there. Now she was on her way back to Virginia, and he had to line something up for the summer. She had wanted him to go home with her; she'd said that her father could find him a summer job. But Randy had smelled a trap in this. He did not want any strings on him yet. The arrangement they had had was fine, with an agreement as to its temporary nature from the beginning. But she had tried to change the rules with her offer, and he was not ready for anything like that. In the back of his mind, thoughts of the search still lurked, though postponement had weakened that childhood resolution. And there was school. And all the things he wanted to do before he even thought about settling down. No. She
had offered. He had refused. Something had changed A different feeling was there. It was over.
He moved to the window and looked three blocks through the evening in the direction of the campus. He wore a T-shirt, Bermuda shorts and thong sandals. People on the street below were similarly clad. It had been a bright-skied, humid day with more such days forecast to follow. His arms and legs were coppery beneath scribblings of reddish hair. He drew the back of his hand across his broad forehead and it came away wet. He held the glass against his cheek and regarded the storefronts, parked cars, passing cars, bicycles. Insects still hummed within the trees. An orange cat licked at a melting ice cream cone on the sidewalk below.
Over ... He could work in construction again if he wanted to return to Cleveland. But that was bad too, He might have to live at home—Mr. Schelling had even gone out of his way to say how much they wanted him to—and that was no damn good. Even if he managed to get a place of his own, they would be after him. He had only met the man twice and could not bring himself to call him anything but "Mr. Schelling," even though he had been married to Randy's mother for almost six months now. It was not that he disliked him. It was just that he did not know him and did not care to. No, not back there. That was over too.
He sipped his tea and turned toward the bedroom. Too hot to think. They had been out late the night before and up early this morning. Sprawl on the bed and hope for a breeze, and maybe an idea would come for a summer job for a classics major. Or would it be linguistics in the fall? Or Romance languages? It would be neat to travel abroad as a secretary, an interpreter ...
As he passed the bookcase, his hand moved without premeditation and drew out the copy of Leaves of Grass.
Then it had been in the back of his mind—the search,
the promise...
He carried the book with him into the bedroom. He needed something to fill his mind in there. Maybe that was all there was to it.
He propped himself up with pillows, turned the pages and read. It was strange, though, the fascination the book held for him. He had consciously had to avoid it this past quarter, for it had attracted him each time he'd passed the bookcase. It was the only thing he owned that had belonged to his father.
It was dark when he finished reading, and the bedside lamp burned beside him. The moist rings from his glass had not evaporated, but lay like Venn diagrams upon the nightstand. He thought about his father, whom he had never seen. Paul Carthage had lived with his mother briefly and departed before Nora even knew she was pregnant. Where was he now? He could be dead. He could be anywhere. Randy turned to the back of the book, where he kept the only photo he had of him. A monochrome, it showed a wide-shouldered, large-handed man with a mass of curly hair; he had a heavy brow over rough but regular features, and he was smiling despite the fact that he looked uncomfortable in the light suit and tie. Transportation ... He had told Nora he was in transportation. That could mean anything from a cab dispatcher to an airline pilot. Randy sought himself in that face, looked away with recognition. He had to find him. He wanted to see him and talk with him and learn what he was, where he had come from, what he did, whether he had sired others and what they were like. Paul Carthage ... He wondered whether that was even his real name. But there were no clues Randy had ever been able to uncover. When he had departed that night in his blue Dodge pickup truck, the only things he had left behind were his marked-up copy of Leaves of Grass and an embryonic Randy.