A voice at Tom’s elbow said, “It was the real thing, wasn’t it? The actual Crossing?”
Tom looked down and saw the priest. “Yes.”
“Where did he go, do you know? Ferguson.”
“The Double Kingdom,” Tom said. “I’m certain of it.”
“And which is that, then?”
“One sun is blue, and one is red. It is a world of the Poro, who are subject to the Zygerone. Who are ruled by the Kusereen, who are the highest masters of all, the kings of the universe. They have gathered him in. He is among them at this moment.”
“Already there, do you think?” Alleluia asked. “So far away?”
“The journey is an instant one,” Tom said. “When we Cross, we move at the speed of thought.”
“One sun is blue, one is red,” Father Christie murmured. “I know that place! I’ve seen it!”
“You’ll see them all,” said Tom. He spread out his arms to them. Down below on the lawn, cars and trucks were smashing against each other with idiotic fury. “Come, follow me. We’ll go out there and find other people who are ready to Cross, and we’ll guide them to their new homes. But first we have to see where our other helpers have gone. The fat woman, the Mexican—”
“There’s April,” Father Christie said. “Outside the dormitory.”
Tom nodded. She was standing on the porch in the rain, turning from side to side, smiling uncertainly. Tom ran over to her. “We need you. For making the rest of the Crossings.”
“I’m supposed to wait here for my sister.”
“No,” Tom said. “Come with us.”
“Jill said she’d be right back. She went down that way, where all the people are running around and shouting. Are you going to send me to some planet?”
“Afterward,” Tom said. “First you’ll help to send others. And then, when I can spare you, I’ll send you after them.” He reached for her hand. Her fingers were plump and limp and cold, like sausages. Her hand lay squidlike in his. He tugged at her. “Come. Come. There’s work for us to do.” In a slow shuffling way she followed him out into the rain.
5
The lawn in front of the dorm was a sea of mud. Jaspin, sloshing along behind Jill, had a sudden vision of it all turning to quicksand, everybody sinking down beneath the surface of the earth and disappearing, and the whole place restored to peace again.
Jill was moving like a demon, clearing the way, shoving, pushing, elbowing. Jaspin followed along in her wake. A kind of general screaming was going on, nothing coherent, simply an all-purpose roar of confusion that sounded like the grinding of giant machinery. Little openings formed in the crowd, just for a moment, and closed again. A couple of times Jaspin stumbled and nearly went down, but he kept his balance by grabbing the nearest arm and hanging on. If you fall you die, he thought. Already he could see people crawling around at ground level, dazed, unable to get up, vanishing in a forest of legs. Once it seemed to him that he had trampled someone himself. But he didn’t dare look down.
“This way,” Jill yelled. She was practically to the Senhor’s bus now.
Someone’s flailing arm caught him in the mouth. Jaspin felt a jolt of pain and tasted salty blood. He struck back instantly, automatically, bringing the sides of his hands down like hatchets on the man’s shoulders. Maybe not even the one who had bumped him, he realized. He heard a grunt. Jaspin couldn’t remember the last time he had hit anyone. When he was nine, ten years old, maybe. Strange how satisfying it felt, striking out like that in response to the pain.
Just ahead Jill was struggling with a big hysterical farmboy-looking guy who had caught hold of her right in front of the door to the bus. “Maguali-ga, Maguali-ga,” he was roaring, gripping her with his arms around her waist. He didn’t seem to be defending the Senhor’s bus or doing anything else that had any purpose; he was just out of control. Jaspin came up behind him and hooked his arm around the big man’s throat. He squeezed hard until he heard a little hoarse yoiking gagging sound.
“Let go,” Jaspin said. “Just take your hands off her.”
The man nodded. He let go and Jaspin swung him around and heaved, sending him reeling off in the other direction. Jill dashed up the steps and into the bus, Jaspin right behind her.
The interior of the bus was an island of weird tranquility in the maelstrom of chaos. Dark and silent, smelling of sour incense. Flickering candles. The heavy draperies seemed to filter out the drumming of the rain and the booming cries of the mob. Cautiously Jaspin and Jill moved to the rear of the antechamber and pulled back the brocaded curtains that concealed the middle section of the bus, Senhor Papamacer’s chapel.
“Look, there he is,” Jill whispered. “Oh, thank God! Is he all right, do you think?”
The Senhor appeared to be in a trance. He sat immobile in his familiar lotus pose, face to the wall, staring rigidly at an image of Chungirá-He-Will-Come. Around his neck was the enormous golden breastplate, studded with emeralds and rubies, that he wore only on the most solemn occasions. Plainly he was off on some other world. Jaspin started to go over to him; but then he heard a sound like a panicky whimpering cry coming from the farthest room, the living quarters of the Senhor and the Senhora. A woman, crying out in some unknown language—an unmistakable plea for help—
Jill turned to him. “The Senhora’s in there, Barry—”
“Yeah.” He took a deep breath and lifted the curtain.
On the far side, the innermost kingdom of the Senhor, everything was in disarray. The draperies were dangling, the wooden images of Maguali-ga and Chungirá-He-Will-Come had been knocked over, and the Senhor’s storage cabinets were overturned. The contents of the cabinets had been spilled out helter-skelter onto the floor—ceremonial robes, ornate helmets and sashes and boots, all the flamboyant regalia of the tumbondé rites.
In the rear corner of the bus Senhora Aglaibahi stood backed up against the wall. Just in front of her was the stocky red-headed scratcher, the one whom Jill had seen clambering into the side window of the bus. The Senhora’s white sari was ripped down the front and her heavy breasts, gleaming with sweat, had tumbled into view. Her eyes were bright with terror. The scratcher was holding her by one wrist and was trying to get hold of the other. Probably he had come into the bus with burglary in mind, but there must not have been anything here that he considered worth taking, so he was turning his attention now to rape.
“Leave her alone, you son of a bitch,” Jill said in a voice of such ferocity that Jaspin was momentarily astounded by it.
The scratcher whirled around. His eyes went from Jill to Jaspin and back to Jill. It was the look of a cornered beast. “Watch it,” Jaspin said. “He’s going to come right at us.”
“Stay back,” the little man said. He was still gripping Senhora Aglaibahi by the wrist. “Get over there, by the wall. I’m getting out of here and you aren’t going to try to stop me.”
Jaspin now saw a weapon in his other hand, one of those things they called spikes, deadly little things that delivered lethal electrical charges.
“Careful,” he said quietly to Jill. “He’s a killer.”
“But the Senhora—”
“You stay back,” the little man said again. He tugged at the Senhora’s arm. “Come on, lady. Let’s you and me get off the bus, okay? You and me. Let’s go.”
Jaspin watched, not daring to move.
The Senhora began to wail and howl. It was a high keening unearthly cry that might have been the song of Maguali-ga himself, an intense rising-and-falling screech, a terrifying sound that very likely could be heard all the way to San Francisco. The red-haired man shook her arm fiercely and said, “Cut that out!”