He shifted the cigar from one comer of his mouth :
to the other and looked out of the window.
"That's all," he said.
"All? That can hardly be all," Flowers broke in. "Are you trying to say that you grew up—or grew to wherever you are—backwards? That you started out as an old man?"
"That's what I just said. Yes," Red answered irritably.
"Watch the curve. —You mean that you remember nothing whatsoever before being old and walking through a waste? Or— What did you gain this time?"
"Nothing rational. Just a few delirium-dreams of odd shapes moving about me in the fog, and fear and so forth—and I kept going."
"Did you know where you were going?"
"No."
"And you were alone?..."
"At first."
"At first?"
"Somewhere along the way, I acquired company. I'm still hazy about the circumstances, but there was an old
woman. We were helping each other over the rough
spots: Leila."
"There was a Leila with you years ago, on one occasion when you visited me. But she was not an old
woman ..... "The same. Our ways have parted and rejoined many
times but her situation has paralleled my own with respect to the reversed aging business."
She was not involved in your dealings with Chadwick?"
"No, but she knew him.
"Do either of you have any idea where you are headed in your strange course of growth?"
"She seems to think that this is only a phase in a larger life cycle."
"And you do not?"
"Maybe it is. I just don't know."
"Does Chadwick know all this about you?"
"Yes."
"Could he possibly know more about it than you do?"
Red shook his head.
"No way to tell. I suppose anything is possible."
"What is his reason for being so down on you?"
"When we parted company, he was upset that I was destroying a good business arrangement"
"Were you?"
"I suppose so. But he'd changed the nature of the business and it wasn't so much fun anymore. I messed up the operations and left."
''But he is still a rich man?"
"Very wealthy."
"Then I suspect the possibility of a motive other than the economic. Jealousy, perhaps, at your improving well-being."
Possibly, but nothing turns on it. It is his objective rather than his motive that concerns me."
"I am just trying to understand the enemy, Red." "I know. But there isn't much else to tell."
•'^
He swung through the underpass and turned left up
the access ramp. A shadow which fell upon the vehicle
did not depart when he entered the light, "Your room was quite a mess this morning," Monda may observed. ^ "Yes, it was. That always happens."
"What about that design that looked like a Chinese
character burned into the door? Is that a customary
accompaniment?" "No. It was just—a Chinese character. It meant
'good fortune.'" "How do you explain it?" "Don't. Can't. Strange." Mondamay made a high-pitched, broken whistling
noise. "What's funny?" "I was thinking of some books you once left—with
pictures you had to explain to me." "I'm afraid..." "Cartoons, with captions." Red relit his cigar. "Not funny," he said. The strange shadow clung to the truck's bed, Monda may whistled again. Flowers began to sing.
Two
Randy watched the day pulse on and off, each beat growing longer, until a chill, drizzling morning hung about them as they entered the service plaza. Golden and red-leafed maples dripped beside the frost-paned buildings. They drew up beside a fuel pump.
"This is crazy," he said. "It's summer, not autumn."
"It is autumn here. Randy, and if you wanted to take the next exit and keep heading south, you could get yourself shot at by the Army of the Confederacy—or the Union Army, depending of course on just where you wind up."
"You are not joking?"
"No."
"I didn't think so. Unfortunately, I'm beginning to believe you. But what's to prevent Lee's men from marching along the shoulder there and taking Washington—say, Coolidge's Washington? Or Elsenhower's? Or Jackson's?"
"Did you ever come upon the Road by yourself, or even hear of it?"
"No."
"Only certain people or machines can find it and travel it. I do not know why. The Road is an organic thing. This is a part of its nature, and of its travelers'."
"What if I hadn't been one of them?"
"I might have been able to bring you, anyhow. Much can depend on the guide."
"Then I still don't know whether I could have traveled it solo?"
"No."
"So, supposing one of Lee's officers did know about it and could travel it? What then?"
"Those who know about it tend to keep it to themselves, as you will learn. But even so, supposing he could? Supposing you took the next exit, as I'd suggested, and kept heading south? Supposing you'd run over Stonewall Jackson?" :
"Okay, I'm supposing."
"... And then you had turned around and come back. You would have noticed a fork in the Road where there had been none before—off there somewhere in the hinterlands—another way merging with your own, to form the route back here. Thereafter, on re;
turning this way, you could take the branch to the place where that accident had occurred, or the other, to the place where it did not. The former would be a very bad road, however, and would probably disappear through disuse before too long. On the other hand, if
it became sufficiently well-traveled, then the other might fade. This is unlikely, but if it were to occur, you would find it increasingly difficult to locate various later routes—Cs back up the Road—and there would be new ones, somewhat different from those you had known. It would be possible to lose yourself down some byway and never get back to your point of departure."
"But traces of the other routes would still be there, fallen into disuse?"
"Theoretically, yes—rutted, weed-grown, cut by rivers, smothered by fallen rock—but the traces should remain. Finding them is the trick, though."
"It would seem easier to try to reopen them by un doing whatever had been done—or doing something
else." "Try it sometime. Go back to the place that is no
longer as you recall it and try to subtract everything that makes it different. Altering the single pivotal event may no longer be sufficient. The new alteration may have other effects also, depending on how you go about it You would probably simply establish another route —though, of course, it may be close enough to the original to suit your purposes. Then again, maybe not."
"Stop. Right there. Let me digest it. I'll ask you more later. Why did we stop here, anyway? We don't have to get gas yet."
"We stopped because this one is self-service. If you will open me to page 78 and place me face down in that box beside the pump, I will act as a credit card, drawing on my former employer's account. I will know in a moment whether the account is still active. I may also be able to discover where he last fueled, and we can head for that point."
"All right," Randy said, raising Leaves and opening the door. "Mind telling me what name that account would be under?"
"Dorakeen."
"What sort of name is that?"
"I don't really know."
He moved around the vehicle, inserted the volume into the unit. A light came on within.
"Go ahead and top it off," said Leaves's muffled voice. "The account is still active."
"Seems sort of like stealing."