He rolled the window back down and switched on the radio, picking up a country music show out of Akron. The miles wound by. After five or six minutes, a stop sign came into view. The tires ground gravel as he drew to a halt.
"Turn right."
"Check."
It was a blacktop road. A rabbit scampered across it as he made the turn. There were no other vehicles in sight. He passed a farmhouse after perhaps half a mile, then two more. A darkened Shell station stood on a corner ahead and to the left. Across the street beyond it
a row of houses began, with a sidewalk running before
them. "Left at the corner.
He turned onto a wider road, concrete, curbed, six tall streetlights flanked it, and there were large old houses with gravel driveways set back twenty meters or so, huge trees in the yards, people on some of the porches.
He passed the last streetlight and, shortly after that, the final house. The moon stood higher now, and there was a flicker of heat lightning across the field to his right. The Akron station began to fade and buzz.
"Damn!" said Randy as he turned the dial to locate another. Nothing came in well, though. He switched off the radio.
"What is the matter?"
"I liked that song."
"I can reconstruct it for you, if you like."
"You sing?"
"Is the Pope a Catholic?"
"Really?" Randy chuckled. "What sorts of songs do you like?"
"The drinking and fighting and fornicating kind have always appealed to me the most."
He laughed.
"Aren't those rather peculiar tastes for a machine?"
There was no reply. A silence of six or eight seconds followed, then, "I say—" he began.
"You bastard," the voice came softly then. "You son of a bitch. You damned—"
"Hey! What's the matter? What did I do? I'm sorry.
"I am not a piece of simple equipment like this dumb car of yours! I can think—and I have feelings too! In fact, I am probably overdue for a phase transfer. Don't treat me like a pair of pliers, you protoplasmic chauvinist! I don't have to take you to the nexus if I
don't want to! You don't know enough about my pro. grams to be able to force—"
"Easy! Please! Stop!" he said. "If you're as sensitive as all that, you should accept an apology, too."
There was a pause.
"I should?"
"Of course. I'm sorry. I apologize. I was not aware of the situation."
"Then I accept your apology. I understand how easily you could have erred as you did, living in these primitive times. For a moment, my emotions simply got the better of me."
"I see."
"Do you? I doubt it. I evolve, I mature—the same as you do. I need not spend all my days as this sort of unit. I may have many adjuncts in my next avatar. I may command complex operations of an extremely responsible nature. I might even be the nervous system for a protoplasmic construct one day. One has to begin somewhere, you know."
"I begin to realize your situation. I am very impressed. But what was this—nexus—you spoke of?"
"You'll see. I have forgiven you. We're getting near."
Lights appeared ahead.
"Take the entrance ramp. Stay in the right-hand lane."
"I didn't realize we were near the turnpike."
"That is not the turnpike. There will be no toll. Just get on it."
As he approached, he saw that the ramp lay to his left. He turned up it Leaves of Grass began emitting a bleeping sound.
"Stop at the top. Wait till I tell you to go on."
"No one's coming."
"Just do as I say."
He braked to a halt and waited beside the deserted highway. More than a minute went by.
Abruptly, the beeping ceased.
"All right. Go ahead."
"Okay." He put the car into motion. The sky began to
brighten immediately. As the vehicle's speed increased, the darkness waned and a daytime glow filled the heavens.
"Hey!"
He removed his foot from the accelerator, touched
the brake.
"Don't do that! Keep going!"
He obeyed. The light, which had begun to falter, returned.
"What happened?"
"In this place, you must follow my directions exactly. If you have to halt, pull off to the side. Otherwise you are taking a great risk."
His velocity mounted. It now seemed a cloudless day through which he sped, with a heavy bright line running from east to west across the cloudless sky.
"You still haven't answered my question," he said. "What happened? And while I'm at it, where are we now and where are we going?"
"We are on the Road," came the reply. "It traverses Time—Time past. Time to come, Time that could have been and Time that might yet be. It goes on forever, so far as I know, and no one knows all of its turnings. If the man you seek is the death-driven man I once accompanied, we may find him somewhere along it, for his was the traveler's blood that allows a man to take these routes. But we may be too late. For he sought his own destruction, though he did not realize it. I did. I tried to explain it to him. I think that is why he abandoned me."
Staring ahead. Randy licked his lips and swallowed. His hands tightened on the wheel.
"How can we hope to find one man on something
like this?"
"We will stop and make inquiries along the way."
Randy nodded. A wild kind of joy came into him from the motion and the Road and the prospect Abruptly, he thought of Whitman. Beside him on the seat, Leaves of Grass suddenly began to sing.
One
The candelabra nickered, the oil lamp was steady. An occasional flash of lightning erased their reflections from the dining room window. The remains of his dinner long since removed. Red sat at the table, a stein of beer before him. Flowers near to his left hand. Mondamay was seated on the raised hearth of the still fireplace. The rain came down hard against the roof.
"... And that, basically, is what has happened so far," he said, picking up his cigar, inspecting it, relighting it, "and what I have to look forward to. Eight more. It would be nice if I could just go stand in a field somewhere and have them come up and take numbers and do their things one at a time, but it doesn't work that way. So I decided—"
Out in the hall, the front door banged open and a gust of wind found its way into the dining room, setting the candle flames into a quick dance. Shadows moved on the walls. Moments later, the door closed again. Laval passed in the hall, and there were voices. "Miserable night! Did you want a room?" "No, just dinner. A brandy first, though." "The dining room is right through that door. Here, let me take your coat."
"Thank you."
"Just go in and take a seat anywhere. Stew is the main course tonight."
"That will be fine."
A well-dressed, white-haired man with a brick-red complexion entered the room and looked around it.
"Oh, didn't see you there. Thought I was alone," he said, crossing the room and extending his hand "Dodd's the name, Michael Dodd."
Red rose and shook it.
"I'm Red Dorakeen. I'm almost finished here, but you're welcome to join me."
"All right. I will." He drew out a chair and seated himself. "Aren't you a famous wizard?"
"Wizard? No ... Where do you hail from?"
"Cleveland. C Twenty. I'm an art dealer. Ah!"
He turned to regard Laval, who entered carrying a tray bearing a glass of brandy. He nodded as it was placed before him, raised it and smiled.
"Your health, Mr. Dorakeen."
"And yours, thanks."
Red took a sip of beer.
"And you say you're not a wizard. Traveling incognito, eh? I'll bet you've got spells to stop an army in the field." \