All right, let's face the question. Exactly how the hell did Darla wind up in the Militia station with Petrovsky? Did they come and get her? Did she come down to try to arrange my release? She said that Petrovsky wanted her for questioning, but Petrovsky said…
Something large and dark was moving in the deep water behind Darla. I stood up and peered out. I didn't like it, and Darla was out too far. I called to her and told her to come in. She asked why with a questioning grin.
'Wow, Darla."
She got the message and shot forward into an Australian crawl, making it to shallow water in no time. Her stroke was very strong. Then a breaker took her straight in to me. I pulled her to her feet and pointed seaward. Just then something broke water out there with a boiling splash. I saw only a huge dark mass and a gaping mouth stuffed with more teeth than could possibly fit. Then the mouth sank, closing on something below the surface. The sea churned with the struggle, fins and flipperlike appendages thrashing up from the water over a wide area. Two very large animals were going at it.
Darla hadn't really been in danger, but had she been out a bit farther…
"That bastard!" Darla said bitterly, turning toward the beach. "He said it was―"
I looked. The man was gone.
She turned to me and wrapped her arms around her ribcage, suddenly chilled. "Weird," she muttered with a sour look. God preserve us from smirking weird bastards.
11
When we got back to the car, John was sitting in the front seat with his legs hanging out the door, grinning at us. Winnie was playing in the sand very near, drawing figures with a piece of shell. I grinned back, welcoming his change of mood.
"Where're your two kamradas?" I asked.
He pointed to the nearby tree, in the shade of which Roland and Susan lay wrapped up into a ball.
"They seemed to've patched things up," I said.
"Yes, they have," he said approvingly. There wasn't the least hint of jealousy. "How was the water?"
"Fine, but the sea life is a little too interesting."
'Trouble?"
"No, not really." I sat down on the front seat, wishing I had a cigarette. I tried to forget about it, looked up the beach to the causeway. No traffic as yet. I took the key from the dash and tried calling Sam. No answer. What if he didn't come through? I'd miss him, but we did have a vehicle. But no food… hmmm. And no money. What passed for coin-of-the-realm outside the known mazes? No doubt we'd find out. Food. God, was I hungry. How long? Supper last night, nothing since then. I sighed, then slipped the key into my pants pocket.
After a while, Roland and Susan gathered themselves together and walked over.
"Hi," Susan said to me, smiling a little sheepishly.
"Hello, Susan."
She seemed calm, even content. It was quite a change. "Well," she said brightly, "we seem to have… to've gone and done it, haven't we?"
"Yes, we have. I'm sorry."
She shook her head. "No need. I pretty much understand it all now. Roland is right about you. You're definitely a nexus for us." She laughed and crinkled her nose. "More Teelie talk. What it means is―"
"I think I understand," I said. Then, realizing I'd interrupted her again, I said, "Sorry, you were explaining. Go ahead."
"It doesn't matter. I get interrupted a lot mainly because I talk too damn much. I'll tell you later."
"Okay, but again, I'm sorry."
She drew near me and put her hand behind my neck, bent down, and was about to kiss me, but looked first toward Darla, as if to see if it was okay. Darla was crouching beside Winnie, watching her draw. Then Susan kissed me sweetly.
"You did what you had to do, Jake," she said. "It wasn't your fault. You have a Plan too."
"I do? And here I thought I was improvising so brilliantly."
"No, no. Your task is to discover the Plan first, then go with it, accept it."
"Uh-huh. Karma."
"No, not karma. Karma is another word for fate, predestination. A Plan is just that. A scheme, a plot, something to follow. Plans can be changed, but only if they have linkage ^vith the overall design of things."
"I see. Okay, I'll try." What could I say?
She kissed me again, then went over to see what Winnie and Darla were up to.
"Hmmmm." Roland's voice came from behind me.
I turned on the seat. He was studying the instrument panel again.
He looked at me. "I think I've finally figured out the beam weapon, if that's what this is all about," he said, indicating an area of readouts on the fire-control board. "By the way, did you notice that this whole business disappeared after we got through the portal?"
"No," I said, not oversurprised that Roland had had the presence of mind to notice anything amidst all the excitement.
"Must be automatic. Pops out when the defensive systems detect a threat ― that missile, for instance. But the driver can make it come out anytime. Here." He showed me a small button on the steering column. "Don't fret. Everyone was well away from the vehicle when I pushed it. That'll make the board appear when the driver perceives a danger that the car doesn't." He pointed to the beam-weapon controls. "Anyway, this thing…" He broke off and shook his head. '"Sic 'im, Fido'," he repeated. He turned to me with a bemused smile. "Isn't that the strangest thing?"
"Well, not really," I said. "The owner obviously wanted to confuse anyone who stole the car. Like us. Me."
"Then why label anything?"
"A good point. Poor memory?" Actually, the fact that the owner clearly had a sense of humor might explain it better, I thought.
"Well, who knows. At any rate, you choose a target simply by doing this." He touched a finger to the scanner screen, covering a blip with his fingertip, then withdrew it. Lines on the screen converged and the blip was centered in a flashing red circle. "That locks the system on target. And the fire switch is here."
"What have you got there?"
"The tree, I think. The thing's probably calibrated to ignore ground clutter, but that tree's a bit tall."
I looked around the immediate area. A few vehicles were parked a good distance behind us. The Weird Bastard's roadster was gone, and everyone in our party was toward the rear of the car. Then I looked at the tree. It was a shaggy, scrubby thing, not what you'd call attractive. The car was angled a little to the left of it.
"I take it the car's orientation doesn't matter."
"Doubt it," Roland said.
"Okay. Well, hold your fire for just a minute."
I got out, went over to the tree and took the grandest pee of my life. I'd been lucky to keep it in so long. Back on the Skyway there had been moments…
I walked back to the car and slid behind the wheel again. "Okay, Gunnery Sergeant. Fire when ready."
"Right." He hit the switch.
Something left the right underside of the car, something big and glowing, a writhing shape of swirling red fire, screeching like a hellbeast on the loose. The sound sent a cold twinge down my spine. The shape was vague, but there was something alive in there, a suggestion of a living form, limbs churning, legs moving over the ground, but the shape changed as it moved and parts of the phenomenon spun like a dust devil. It was big, at least three times as high as the car, and moved quickly, catlike, taking only a second or so to cover the distance from the car to its target. Furious flames enveloped the tree, then fiery arms surrounded it and tore it from the ground by the roots, flinging it up into the whirlwind where it was tossed and battered about as it burned. Flaming limbs flew in every direction. And all the while the shape of the cloud was shifting, changing, and the sound was like nothing you'd want to hear ever again. The tree was thrashed and ripped apart, tumbling in a vortex of demonic combustion. It went on for some time.