Stidge, it was.
The red-haired man’s eyes opened wide at the sight of Tom. “What the fuck. It’s the looney. Hello, looney, you fucking trouble-maker. How come Charley’s not right there holding your hand?”
“He was here. He got swept away by the mob.”
“That’s too goddamn bad, isn’t it?” Stidge said.
He laughed. He reached into his tattered jacket and drew out his spike. His eyes were gleaming like marbles by moonlight. He poked the tip of the spike against Tom’s breastbone, hard, once, twice, three times, a sharp painful jab each time. “Hey,” Stidge said. “Got you where I want you, looney. Charley beat me up once on account of you, you remember? That first day, out in the Valley, when you came drifting in? He kicked the shit out of me because I laid a hand on you. I never forgot that. And then there were other times later, when I got in trouble on account of you, when Charley talked to me like I was nothing but a piece of crap. You know?”
“Put the spike away, Stidge. Help me get loose, will you?” He pushed at the timbers pinning his leg. “Poor Tom’s foot is stuck. Poor Tom.”
“Poor Tom, yeah. Poor fucking Tom.”
“It’s the day of the Crossing, Stidge. I’ve got work to do. I have to find my helpers and send people where they’re meant to go.”
“I’ll send you where you were meant to go,” Stidge said, and flicked the stud on the spike to turn on the power. “Just like I did to that crazy jig on the bus back there. For once I got you and no Charley around, and—”
“No,” Tom said, as Stidge drew the spike back and jammed it toward Tom’s chest.
He brought his hand up fast and seized Stidge’s wrist, holding it steady for a moment, summoning all his strength to keep that deadly little strip of metal from touching him. He trembled against Stidge and for a long instant they struggled in stalemate. Then Stidge began forcing his arm forward, slowly, slowly, bringing the tip of the spike closer to Tom’s chest. It took all that Tom had to hold that thing away from him. Stidge was pushing it closer and closer. Tom was shivering. Fiery pain shot up and down his arm and into his chest. He looked into Stidge’s hard glaring eyes, right up against his own.
And Tom picked up Stidge’s soul and hurled it to Luiiliimeli.
He did it easily, smoothly, like skipping a stone across a pond. He did it all by himself, because he had to do it and his helpers were nowhere in sight. There was just no effort in it at all. He simply focused his energies and gathered the force and lifted Stidge’s soul and threw it toward the heavens. Stidge stared at him in astonishment. Then the surprise went from his face and the Crossing-smile appeared, and the spike dropped from Stidge’s dead hand, and he slumped down onto the pile of timbers.
Tom huddled over him, amazed, shaken, trembling, feeling sick to his stomach.
I did it all by myself, he thought.
It was just like killing him, he thought. I picked him up and threw him.
I never killed anybody before, he thought.
Then he thought, No, no, Stidge isn’t dead, Stidge is on Luiiliimeli now, in the city of Meliluiilii under the great blue star Ellullimiilu. They have him and they’ll heal him of all the sickness in his soul. It wasn’t a killing any more than the other Crossings were. The only difference is that I did it all myself, that’s all. And if I hadn’t, he would have killed me sure as anything with that spike, and then there would be no more Crossings for anyone.
You understand that, Stidge? I didn’t kill you, Stidge. I did you the biggest favor of your life.
Tom felt himself starting to calm down some. The queasiness left him. He probed at the scattered timbers, trying to get his foot free.
“Here. I’ll help you.”
It was the fat woman, climbing clumsily toward him. Her face was flushed, her eyes were strange. Her clothing was torn in two or three places. “Got my foot stuck somehow,” Tom said. “Give me a hand—here—here—”
“That’s the man who killed the other one outside the bus, isn’t it?” she said. “Everybody was looking for him. He’s dead, right?”
“He made the Crossing. I sent him to Luiiliimeli. I can do the Crossings without any help, now.”
“I think this is the one that’s holding you,” she said. “Here.” She wrenched a huge beam upward and tossed it aside. Tom pulled his leg free and rubbed his shin. She smiled at him. He felt the sadness coming from her, behind the smile.
He took her hand and said, “Where would you like me to send you?”
“What?”
“I can spare you now. I can give you your Crossing.”
She jerked her hand free of his as if his touch were burning her. “No—please—”
“No?”
“I don’t want to go anywhere.”
“But this world is lost. There’s nothing left here but pain and grief. I can send you to the Green World, or the Nine Suns, or the Sphere of Light—”
“It frightens me to think about that. It’s like dying, isn’t it? Or maybe worse.” Her face grew panicky and she knelt and scrabbled around at her feet, grasping at the spike that had dropped from Stidge’s hand. “I’m afraid. To start all over, to face a whole other world—no, No. I’d rather just die. You know?” The strangeness had gone from her eyes. She seemed to have come up out of some long tunnel into the open air. Her voice, which had always seemed to Tom like a little girl’s voice, was a normal voice now. She was still talking. “I’m sick of being me. Carrying around this great awful body. Always afraid. Always crying.” She was fumbling with the stud of the spike, trying to figure out how to use it. She didn’t seem to know how. But then it began to glow and Tom realized she had turned it on after all. She was holding it between her breasts. Her hand was shaking.
“No,” he said. He couldn’t let her do that. He clamped his hand around her fleshy wrist and sent her to the Fifth Zygerone World.
As she dropped her body it fell with a terrible crash, landing beside Stidge. But she was smiling. She was smiling, that was the thing. Tom picked up the spike and switched it off and hurled it as far as he could, off into the shrubbery.
He crouched for a moment, catching his breath, getting his balance. He glanced at the two smiling bodies in front of him, thinking, It was like killing, but I didn’t kill them, no, I just sent them away. Stidge would have killed me and she would have killed herself, and I couldn’t let either of those things happen. So I did what I had to do. That’s all. I did what I had to do. And this is the day of the Crossing, which is the most wonderful day in the history of the world.
He felt better now. He made his way carefully down from the fallen building. The riot was still going on. More buildings seemed to be burning. He looked straight ahead, through a clearing that had suddenly appeared, and saw the tall woman, the one who had been so kind to him, the doctor, the one who was called Elszabet, just across the way. She was staring at him.
Tom smiled at her. She seemed to be calling to him, beckoning him. He nodded and went to her.
8
“There he is,” Elszabet said. “I’ve got to talk to him. Will you wait for me?”
She turned toward Dan Robinson, toward Dante. But at that moment a bunch of howling, screeching rioters swept through the place where they were standing, and when Elszabet looked again neither one was in sight. She thought she heard Dan’s voice from far away, but she wasn’t sure: the sound was lost in the wind and the screaming of the mob. Well, Tom was the one she wanted now.
He was standing by himself in front of the ruins of the staff recreation hall. Like a miracle, she thought, seeing him suddenly appear out of the chaos that way. How peaceful he looks, too. Probably he’s been drifting around in all this craziness for hour after hour without even noticing what’s going on.