"As a matter of fact I haven't been there for three or four days," Ransom said. "The roads are rather crowded, I felt I could better come to terms with certain problems here. I'll have to leave eventually."
"You really think you will?" Lomax drawled. "Perhaps. Certainly everything is going to be very changed here, Charles."
Ransom lifted his valise off the floor. "I've grasped that much." He pointed to the dusty villas along the river. "They look like mud huts already. We're moving straight back into the past."
Lomax shook his head. "You've got your sense of direction wrong, my boy. It's the future each of us has to come to terms with now." He straightened up. "Why don't you come and live here?"
"Thank you, Richard, no."
"Why not?" Lomax pressed. "Let's be honest, you don't intend to leave-I can see that in your face a mile off. The servants will be back soon, for one damn good reason, if no other-" his eyes flashed knowingly at Ransom "-they're going to find the sea isn't quite so full of water as they think. Back to old Father Neptune, yes. They'll look after you, and Quilter's a willing lad, full of strange notions, though a bit tiresome at times. You'll be able to moon around, come to terms with Judith-"
Ransom walked to the door. "Richard, I already have done. A long time ago. It's you who's missing the point now."
"Wait!" Lomax scurried after him. "Those of us who stay behind have got to rally together, Charles. I'm damned if I'm going to the sea. All that water-a material I despise, utterly unmalleable, fit only for fountains. Also, you'll be able to help me with a little project of mine."
"What's that?"
"Well…" Lomax turned his face slyly to the city. "A slight divertissement I've been toying over for some time. Rather spectacular, as a matter of fact. I'd like to tell you, Charles, but it's probably best to wait until we're more committed to each other."
"Very wise." Ransom watched Lomax pivoting on his white shoes, obviously delighted with the idea and only just managing to keep it to himself. The red smoke billows rose from the city, reflected in Lomax's suit and pale puckish face, and for a moment transforming him into a dapper grinning Mephistopheles.
"What are you planning to do?" Ransom asked. "Burn the city down?"
"Charles…" A smile crossed Lomax's face like a slow crack around a vase. "That's a suggestion worth bearing in mind. What a pity Quilter isn't here, he adores ideas like that."
"I daresay." Ransom went over to the door.
This time Lomax made no attempt to stop him. "You know, your idea _does_ have a noble sweep, it's touched my imagination! Great fires have always been the prelude to even greater futures. What a phoenix!"
Ransom left him rhapsodizing on this notion. At the bottom of the staircase he began to cross the hall. The last sucking sounds of the tanker's pump came from the swimming pool.
"Quilty! Is that you, Quilty?" A woman's voice called sleepily from the veranda overlooking the swimming pool.
Ransom hesitated, recognizing the sharp, childlike tone. Trying to disguise his footsteps, he walked on toward the door.
"Quilty! What are you creeping around for-oh, who the hell are you?"
Ransom turned and looked back. Miranda Lomax, the architect's sister, her white hair falling like a shawl around her robe, stood barefoot in the entrance to the hall, scrutinizing Ransom with her small eyes. Although twenty years younger than Lomax-though was she really his sister, Ransom sometimes speculated, or a distant cousin, the castoff partner in an ambiguous _ménage a deux_-her face was an almost perfect replica of Lomax's, with its puckish cheeks, its hard eyes, and the mouth of a corrupt cupid. Her long hair, white as the ash now settling on the lawn outside, made her look prematurely aged, and she was in fact like a wise, evil child. On their occasional meetings, when she arrived, chauffeur-driven, at the hospital on some unspecified errand, he always felt a sharp unease, although superficially she was attractive enough. Perhaps this physical appeal, the gilding of the diseased lily, was what warned him away from her. Lomax's eccentricities were predictable in their way, but Miranda was less self-immersed, casting her eye on the world like a witch waiting for the casual chance.
"Dr. Ransom…" She seemed visibly let down, and turned to go back to the veranda. Then, out of boredom, she beckoned him across the hall. "You look tired, doctor." She slouched off into the veranda, the soiled beachrobe trailing behind her.
The double windows were sealed to keep out the dust, and obscured the green hull of the tanker at the far end of the pool. Despite its length the veranda was claustrophobic, the air dead and unoccupied. A peculiar scent hung about, coming from the foliage of the half dead tropical plants suspended from the wall, their limp fronds outstretched as if trying to reach Miranda on their last gasp.
Miranda slumped back on one of the wicker divans. A basket of fruit spilled across a glass-topped table. She munched half a grape, peering critically at the pip, then waved Ransom in.
"Come on, doctor, don't stand there trying to look enigmatic. I won't compromise you or anything. Have you seen Quilter?"
"He's hunting your houseboy with a couple of dogs," Ransom said. "You may need me later. I'll be at home." Miranda flicked the grapeskin across the floor. He tapped his valise. "I've got to go."
"Where?" She waved his objections aside contemptuously. "Don't be damn silly, there's nowhere to go. Tell me, doctor, what exactly are you up to in Larchmont?"
"Up to?" Ransom echoed. "I'm trying to hold what's left of my practice together."
As she poked among the half-eaten fruit, Ransom looked down at the dirty cuffs and collar of the beachrobe, and at the soiled top of the slip she wore loosely around her breasts. Already she was beginning to look as derelict and faded as her plants-once she ceased to serve Lomax's purposes he would lose interest in her. Yet her skin was of an almost albino whiteness, unmarked by any freckle or blemish.
She noticed him gazing down at her and gave him an evil smirk, pushing back her hair with one wrist in an almost comically arch gesture. "What's the matter, doctor? Do you want to examine me or something?"
"Most definitely not," Ransom said evenly. He pointed to the tanker by the pool. The mechanic was winding the hose onto its winch. "Is Lomax selling his water?"
"Like hell. I wanted him to pour it into the ground near the highway!" She glanced up sharply. "Has Lomax told you about his plan? I suppose he couldn't contain himself with laughing like a small boy?"
"Do you mean his bonfire party? He invited me to take part."
"Doctor, you should." Miranda looked around with a flourish, the white hair veiling her face like a medusa's crown. "Let me tell you, though, I have a little plan of my own."
"I'm sure you have," Ransom said. "But I'll be leaving for the coast soon."
With a weary shake of the head, Miranda dismissed him. "The coast," she repeated scornfully. "There isn't any coast now. There's only _here_, you'd better face that." When he reached the door she called after him: "Doctor, have you ever seen an army of ants try to cross a stream?"
From the steps Ransom looked out across the dusty rooftops. The smoke pall hung over the distant city, but the air was brighter, reflected off the white ash that covered the chalklike bed of the river.
The mechanic opened the door of the tanker and climbed in. He pulled a rifle from the locker behind the seat and propped it in the window. A small stooped man with a patch over one eye, he glanced suspiciously at Ransom.
Ransom walked over to him. "Are you with the army?" he asked. "Have they started to requisition water now?"
"This is a private gift." The driver glanced up at Lomax's suite, as if unsure of his motives. "For Mount Royal Zoo."
Ransom recognized the green overalls. "Who's in charge now? Dr. Barnes?"
"He's gone. Flown like a bird. Only two of us are left."
"Do you mean that some of the animals are still alive?" Ransom asked. "I thought they'd all been destroyed by now."
"Why?" The driver peered down sharply. "Why should they be?"
Surprised by his aggressive tone, Ransom said: "Well, for their sake, if not for ours. This water won't last forever."
The driver leaned on the sill, pointing a sharp finger at Ransom. Although obviously not a man given to argument, he seemed to have been irritated by Ransom's remarks.
"They're all right," he said. He gestured at the dusty landscape around them. "This is what they like. A few weeks from now and maybe we'll be able to let them _out!_"
His one eye gleamed in his twisted face with a wild misanthropic hope.
Chapter 4 – The Drowned Aquarium
For half an hour they drove on toward Mount Royal Zoo, winding in and out of the deserted streets, making detours across the gardens and tennis courts when their way was blocked. Ransom sat forward on the seat beside Whitman, trying to remember the maze of turnings. The zoo was three miles from the center of the city, in what had once been a neighborhood of pleasant, well-tended homes, but the whole area now had the appearance of a derelict shanty town. The husks of trees and box hedges divided the houses from one another, and in the gardens the smoldering incinerators added their smoke to the ash-filled air. Abandoned cars lay by the roadside, or had been jerked out of the way onto the sidewalks, their doors open. They passed an empty shopping center. The storefronts had been boarded up or sealed with steel grilles, and a few lean dogs with arched backs picked among the burst cartons.