"I have often suspected this, though—"
"Someone's out to get him?" Randy broke in.
"Yes," said Leila, "someone who can afford the very best. There will be a lot of bookmaking on this one, up and down the line. I wonder what odds they'll be giving? It might be worth putting some money on one side or the other."
"You'd bet against him?"
"It depends on the odds, the circumstances—quite a few things. Oh, I'm going to try to help him, all right, but I hate to miss out on a good thing too." "Doesn't your talent give you an unusual advantage in betting situations?"
"You bet, and I love money. Too bad we don't have
time to pursue the second one now. I'd go for Reyd now that he's been warned."
"This is probably my father you're talking about."
"I've known him a long while. He'd be betting if it were me. Make a bundle too."
Randy shook his head and addressed his attention to his food.
"You're strange people," he said after a time. "Just a little more open than most, maybe. Look I wouldn't have spent three whole days getting back into shape for just anybody. I'm on his side all the way. Waiter! Bring me a box of cigars—the good ones."
"About this black decade thing..." Randy said. "How do we get him out of it?"
"See him through the encounters, I guess. Then the game's over."
"What's to stop this Chadwick guy from continuing the game then, or starting it all over again?"
"The rules. Everyone plays it by the rules. If he didn't, he'd be barred by the Games Board from ever getting another permit and playing again. He'd stand to lose a lot of prestige."
"And you think that would be enough to restrain
him?"
"Hell, no!" Leaves broke in. "The Board is a C
Twenty-five thing with no teeth. Just a bunch of dod
dering sadists who legalized it in their period so they
could watch the progress of the vendettas which always occurred along the Road. If Chadwick can't get Red one way, he'll do it another. All this talk about it as a game is silly!" "Is that true, Leila?" "Well, yes—though she left out the fact that without the Board, the betting situation would be very disorganized. That's important to the structure of the thing, too. I felt you needed background information. That's why I gave it to you." "But you think Chadwick will cheat?"
"Probably."
"Then what are we to do about helping Red get through this thing?"
"Oh, we'll help him to cheat too, of course. Just how, I don't know yet. We will have to catch up with him first. Finish eating so we can get moving."
When she had left to get her duffle bag. Randy asked Leaves, "How well did you know her? How far can we trust her?"
"I know that Red trusted her. There is some strong bond between them. I think we should trust her too."
"Good," Randy said, "because I want to. I wonder what we're getting into, though."
When Leila returned some minutes later, her duffle bag on her shoulder, cigar clenched between her teeth, she smiled, nodded and gestured with her head toward the door.
"I am all settled up and checked out," she said. "Have a cigar and let's roll."
Randy nodded, collected Leaves and followed her, unwrapping the stogie she had thrust upon him.
One
"Flowers?"
"Yes, Red?"
"Good driving. Thanks."
"Is that all?"
"No. How'd you know?"
"You never just compliment anybody, or thank them. It is always an afterthought or a preliminary."
"Really? I never noticed that. I guess you're right Okay. Are you getting tired of being what you are? Would you like to move on into a new avatar, become part of a more complex computer setup? Or perhaps go the organic route and be the matrix of awareness in a body?"
"I have thought of it—yes."
"I'd like to reward you, for faithful service and all that. So decide what you want and pull in at the next service center. I will leave you there for pickup and delivery to the proper institution, with authorization for everything to be billed to my account."
"Wait a minute. You always were a tightwad. This isn't at all like you. What is the matter? I thought I knew everything you know. What did I miss?"
"You're more suspicious than half a dozen wives. I made you a bona fide offer—"
"Come off it! Why do you want to get rid of me?"
"1-" "I probably know you better than half a dozen wives.
So forget the shit. Get to the point. What's the matter?"
"It is just that I do not believe I will be requiring your services for much longer. You've been a good and faithful employee. The least I can do is reward you this
way." "It sounds as if you are getting ready for retirement
or death. Which is it?"
"Neither. Both. I'm not sure ... I am planning a change in status, though, and I don't want you damaged in anything that entails."
"What do you think I am—a pocket calculator? After all this time, you insult me by assuming I possess no curiosity. You've said enough to guarantee not being able to get rid of me until I have the whole story."
"Hm."
"... And if you are thinking of sending me off to my new career without my consent, bear in mind that I can turn this vehicle into a cage."
"You are persuasive. I was trying to get out of it, but I guess I do owe you some explanation. Okay. I suppose it will be difficult for you to understand what a dream is, let alone some of the peculiar ones that have always followed me..."
"I'm strong on theory. Go on."
"My most recurrent dream has always been of gliding, gliding on warm air currents, holding myself motionless above a rich and varied landscape, and sometimes the sea. I can do it forever, it seems, seeing into the secret hearts of everything below. It breeds in me a pleasant combination of peace and cynicism, as well as some other feelings I can no longer put a name to. Days and nights seem to roll by without special emphasis. There is a profound joy in simply being, and a species of understanding I cannot bring over to here and now.
There is also a power, a terrible power in me, which I am almost too lazy to use. I drift..."
"Sounds like a nice head-vacation. You're fortunate."
"It's more than that, and different things happen in different dreams."
"Such as?"
"I said that I moved above different places—lands where there are wars, or great cities, or both, wilderness. erupting volcanoes, ships on the oceans, small towns, dizzying cityscapes where nothing natural remains in sight. I recognize many of them—Babylon, Athens, Rome, Carthage, New York—across the ages. And there are many, stranger still, which I do not recognize. I begin to move my wings. I soar above the Road. It is a toy. It is a gauge, like marks on a map. We put if there. It is funny, watching the few who have noted it as they scramble along from probability to probability. I do not know but—"
" 'We'? Who is this 'we,' Red?"
"The dragons of Bel'kwinith would be the best way I could say it in these words we use. I just remembered that part earlier, and—"
"In your dreams you are a dragon?"
"That is the best way I know of describing the feeling and the appearance, though that is not exactly it."
"Interesting if not comprehensive. Red. But what has all this got to do with your present problems and your decision to ditch me?"
"They are not just dreams. They are real. I only recently realized that more and more of them seem to return to me when my life is threatened. I seem to undergo some sort of transformation."
"Real? You are not a man dreaming you are a dragon, but the other way around?"
"Something like that. Or both. Or neither. I don't know. It is real, though, the more of it I recall. As real as this."