"We better start up," Vic said, sliding away. "Want me to drive? I could. Did he stick the bumper strip on?"
"Yes," Ragle said.
"I wonder how long it'll be before he gets word to them about us."
Ragle said, "We would have had to let him out eventually." For another hour they passed no sign of activity or habitation. Then, suddenly, as the truck came out of a sharp descending curve, a group of bright bluish lights flashed ahead of them, far off down the highway.
"Here's something," Vic said. "It's hard to know what to do. If we slow down or stop--"
"We'll have to stop," Ragle said. Already, he could make out the sight of cars, or vehicles of some sort, parked across the road.
As the truck slowed, men appeared, waving flashlights. One of them strode to the window of the cab and called up, "Shut off your motor. Leave your lights on. Get down."
They had no choice. Ragle opened the door and stepped down, Vic behind him. The man with the flashlight had on a uniform, but in the darkness Ragle could not make it out. The man's helmet had been painted so that it did not shine. He flashed his light into Ragle's face, then Vic's face, and then he said,
"Open up the back."
Ragle did so. The man and two companions hopped into the truck and rummaged about. Then they reappeared and jumped down.
"Okay," one of them said. He held something out to Ragle, a piece of paper. Accepting it, Ragle saw that it was some sort of punched form. "You can go ahead."
"Thanks," Ragle said. Numbly, he and Vic returned to the cab, climbed in and started up the motor, and drove off.
Presently Vic said, "Let's see what he gave you."
Holding the wheel with his left hand, Ragle fished the form from his pocket.
CERTIFICATE OF ZONE BORDER
CLEARANCE 31. 4/3/98
"There's your date," Ragle said. April third, 1998. The balance of the form consisted of IBM-style punches.
"They seemed satisfied with us," Vic said. "Whatever it was they were looking for, we didn't have it."
"They had uniforms."
"Yes, they looked like soldiers. One of them had a gun, but I couldn't tell anything about it. There must be a war on, or something."
Or, Ragle thought, a military dictatorship.
"Did they see if we had the bumper strip on?" Vic said. "In the excitement I didn't notice."
"Neither did I," Ragle said.
A while later he saw what appeared to be a town ahead of them. A variety of lights, the regular rows that might be street lights, neon signs with words... somewhere in his coat he had the card the driver had given him. This is where we're supposed to call from, he decided.
"We got through the border clearance okay," Vic said. "If we can do that, with them shining their lights right on us, we ought to be able to walk into a beanery and order a plate of hotcakes. I didn't have any dinner after work." He rolled back his sleeve to read his wristwatch. "It's ten-thirty," he said. "I haven't had anything to eat since two."
"We'll stop," Ragle said. "We'll try to get fuel while we're here. If we can't get it, we'll leave the truck." The gauge showed the tank to be almost empty. The level had dropped surprisingly fast. But they had gone quite a distance; they had been on the road for hours.
It struck him, as they passed the first houses, that something was missing.
Gas stations. Usually, on highway approaches to a town, even a tiny unimportant town, a solid line of gas stations could be seen on both sides. Before anything else. None here.
"It doesn't look good," he said. But they had seen no traffic, either. No traffic and no gas stations. Or kerosene stations, if that was the equivalent. Suddenly he slowed the truck and turned onto a side road. He brought the truck to a halt at the curb.
"I agree," Vic said. "We better try it on foot. We don't know enough to drive this thing around town."
They got warily out and stood together, in the dull light of an overhead street lamp. The houses appeared ordinary. Small, square, one story, with lawns that were black in the night darkness. Houses, Ragle thought, haven't changed much since the 'thirties anyhow. Especially if seen at night. One taller shape might have been a multiple unit.
"If they stop us," Vic said, "and ask for identification or some such, what should we do? We better agree on it now."
Ragle said, "How can we agree? We don't know what they'll ask for." The driver's remarks still bothered him. "Let's see," he said, and started off in the direction of the highway.
The first lights resolved themselves into a roadside diner. Within, sitting at the counter, two boys ate sandwiches. High school boys, with blond hair.
Their hair had been wound up into topknots. Tall cones of hair, each with a sharp, colorful spike stuck into it. The boys wore identical clothes. Sandals, wrap-around bright blue togalike gowns, metal bracelets on their arms. And when one of them twisted his head to drink from a cup, Ragle saw that the boy's cheeks had been tattooed. And, he saw with disbelief, the boy's teeth had been filed.
Beyond the counter, the middle-aged waitress wore a simple green blouse, and her hair had been trained in a familiar manner. But the two boys... both he and Vic stared at them, through the window, until at last the waitress noticed them.
"We had better go on in," Ragle said.
The door opened for them by electric eye. Just like the supermarket, Ragle thought.
Both boys watched them as they self-consciously seated themselves in one of the booths. The interior of the diner, the fixtures and signs and lighting, seemed ordinary to him. Ads for a number of foods... but the prices made no sense. 4.5, 6.7, 2.0. Obviously not dollars and cents. Ragle stared around him, as if he were trying to decide what he wanted. The waitress began to gather up her order pad.
One of the boys, nodding his topknotted head toward Vic and Ragle, said audibly, "Necktie-fellows, them smell frightfright."
His companion laughed.
The waitress, stationing herself at their booth, said, "Good evening."
"Good evening," Vic muttered.
"What would you like?" the waitress asked.
Ragle said, "What do you recommend?"
"Oh, depends on how hungry you are," the waitress said.
The money, Ragle thought. The damn money. He said, "How about a ham and cheese sandwich and coffee."
Vic said, "The same for me. And some pie a la mode."
"Pardon?" the waitress said, writing.
"Pie with ice cream," Vic said.
"Oh," she said. Nodding, she returned to the counter.
One of the boys said in a clear voice, "Necktie-fellows, many old thing-sign. You s'pose--" He stuck his thumbs in his ears. The other boy snickered.
When the sandwiches and coffee had been brought, and the waitress had gone off, one of the boys swiveled around in his chair to face them. The tattooing on his cheeks, Ragle noticed, had been carried out in design on his arm bracelets. He gazed at the intricate lines, and at last he identified the figures. The designs had been copied from Attic vases. Athena and her owl. Kore rising from the Earth.
The boy said directly to him and Vic, "Hey, you lunatic." The flesh at the back of Ragle's neck began to crawl. He pretended to concentrate on his sandwich; across from him Vic, sweating and pale, did the same.
"Hey," the boy said.
The waitress said, "Cut it out, or out of here for you."
To her, the boy said, "Necktie-fellow." Again he stuck his thumbs in his ears. The waitress did not seem impressed.
I can't stand it, Ragle thought. I can't live through this. The driver was right. To Vic he said, "Let's go."