"These—dragons of Bel'kwinith—you think that they you—whoever—built the Road?" "They didn't exactly build it. They sort of composed it, or compiled it, like an index for a book." "And we are driving down an abstraction? Or a
dream? "I don't know what you'd call it."
"I have to stay with you now, Red. Till you get your
wits back." "This is why I would have preferred not telling you
as much as I have. I foresaw this reaction. I can't convince someone else of the existence of a version of reality that is temporarily my subjective vision. But I know I am stable."
"You say 'as much as I have,' meaning that there is more to tell, and I still do not know why you want to get rid of me. Let's have it all."
"This is just what I was trying to avoid .. ."
The truck creaked loudly. To his right, the seat buckled and folded toward him. The steering wheel began to elongate and twist in his direction like a strange, dark flower. The roof pressed down upon his head. A clawed arm emerged from the glove compartment, reaching for him. Outside, a shadow on the truck's bed twisted like seaweed in a current.
"I can deliver you to the nearest human service station for a complete physical and psychiatric workup, unless you show me why I should not."
"I would like to avoid that too," Red said. "You have made your point. Okay. Ease up and I'll satisfy your circuits."
The clawed arm retreated into the glove compartment and emerged again moments later holding a lighted cigar, which it extended to him while the steering wheel resumed its normal form, the roof rose and the seat settled.
"Thank you." He accepted it, puffed upon it.
Suddenly, Flowers recited:
"Toute 1'ame resumee Quand lente nous 1'expirons Dans plusieurs ronds de fumee Abolis en autres ronds
Atteste quelque cigare Brulant savament pour peu
Que la cendre se separe De son clair baiser de feu
Ainsi Ie choeur des romances A la levre vole-t-il Exclus-en si tu commences Le reel parce que vil
Le sens trop precis rature Ta vague litterature"
He chuckled.
"Apt, I suppose," he said. "But I thought you were programmed for Baudelaire, not Mallarme."
"I am programmed Decadent. I am beginning to see why. No matter what you do, you are slumming."
"I never looked at it that way—consciously. Maybe you have a point."
"The point is in the poem. Puff your cigar and dis pense with reality."
"... And your depths amaze me." "Cut the flattery. Why do I have to go?"
"To put it simply, you are a sentient being whom I like. I am trying to protect you."
"I am built better than you are when it comes to taking punches."
"It is not just a matter of danger. It is a matter of almost certain destruction for you—" "I repeat-"
"You're never going to get the information you want if you keep interrupting me." "I wasn't getting it the other way, either."
"I don't know. Whether this is the dream, whether
the other is the dream—I don't know. It doesn't matter.
I do know that I am that other of whom I dream. A
woman with whom I was once old had a notion I only today realized to be correct. Before those of my blood can reach maturity, we must be set upon the Road to
grow young—for we are born crabbed and twisted and old and must discover our youth, which is our maturity, in this form. This may in fact be the reason for the Road, and I begin to suspect that all who can travel it must be somewhat of our blood. But this I do not
know for fact."
"Save the speculations for later, okay?"
"All right. Leila became progressively more selfdestructive and dangerous to be about, though our paths have a strange way of continuing to cross. It began with her sooner than it did with me—and I only spotted it in myself later and tried to keep it under control. She always was more sensitive than me—"
"Stop. Leila is the woman back at C Sixteen—who started the fire—the one to whom you referred as someone with whom you were once old?"
"Yes. There's corroboration there, if you ever meet her again. First we sought—together, then apart—for the way back to the place from which we had come. No luck. Then I decided one day that it was because things had changed from my earliest memories of dispositions along the Road itself. So I set out to alter the picture, to bring it back into accord with my recollections—hoping to find the lost route once everything was back in place. But the world is too messy and hard to work with. I realize now that I can't just fiddle with it here and there and get it to behave the way it used to, back when I was old. I guess I had actually begun to realize this some time ago. But I couldn't figure any other way to go about it, so I persisted. Then Chadwick declared black decade against me and things slowly began to fall into place."
"Should I begin to see how?" "No."
Red took a puff on his cigar and stared out of the window. A small black vehicle passed. As he watched it diminish before him, he continued, "Once my life was threatened, my spells became more frequent and my dreams increased in intensity. I saw more and more iclearly which dreams were true—and I suddenly realized that it was this threat that was causing it. I considered my past. I had experienced similar reactions to danger throughout my life. Back at the camp before the attack, when I was drowsing, it occurred to me that Chadwick was accidentally doing me a favor with this vendetta. Then, as we fled, I thought, supposing it is not an accident? Supposing—unconsciously, perhaps— he is trying to help me? It seems possible that we are of
the same breed and that he somehow knows what it takes..."
He let his voice trail off.
"I really think that last spell messed up your thinking
a bit. Red. You're not making sense. Unless there is something you are leaving out."
"Well, I have a number of friends, and the word is out as to what is going on. It is possible that someone may try to remove Chadwick so as to do me a favor. I
would like to prevent that, which has now become the reason for this trip."
"Hm. A red herring. If I buy your crazy logic, I can understand your sudden desire to save the life of the man who has been trying to kill you. But that is not what I meant. You said it just then to distract me.
There is something that you are not saying and I'm getting close to it. Come on!"
"Flowers, you've been with me too long. There was another unit such as yourself that I actually had to
abandon because she was beginning to think too much like me."
"I guess I'll have to bear that in mind and be sure I leave you first. In the meantime..."
"Actually, I thought she was beginning to flip out. Now I wonder whether she might not have been more perceptive than—"
"You can't distract someone with a memory core like mine! What are you hiding?"
"Nothing, really. I am looking for the way back, to the existence I begin to remember more clearly. You know that. This search has been a constant thing for me. I've a feeling—if that's what you're after—that I may be finding it before much longer,"
"Aha! Finally. Okay, I suspected as much. Now give me the rest of the news. How is this to happen?"
"Well, I believe that this existence has to be, ah, terminated, before the other resumes."
"You know, all along I sort of felt that you were getting at something like that It is the most bizarrely justified death-wish I've ever heard described—and my Decadent programming is very thorough. Anything
you'd care to add? Have you decided yet how you'll go about it?"
"No, no. It's nothing like what you're implying. I've never thought of myself as suicidal, or even accidentprone. This is something more in the nature of a premonition—I guess that's the best way to put it. It's just that I feel now that this is what must happen. I also feel that it can't be just any old place or time or means. there is a proper manner in which the translation must occur, and it has to happen at just the right spot."