“Dan?” she said.
He glanced at Tom casually, without interest, almost as though he had not recognized him. To Elszabet he said in a dull toneless voice, “We should have cleared out an hour ago. There’s shooting going on now. They’ve got guns, lasers, God knows what. They’ve all gone nuts since their leader was murdered.”
“Dan—”
“Every way out of here is blocked. We’re all going to die.”
“No,” she said. “There’s still one way out.”
“I don’t understand.”
She indicated Tom. “The Crossing,” she said. “Tom will send us away from here. To the Green World.”
Robinson stared.
“This place is done for,” Elszabet said. “The Center, California, the United States, the whole world. We blew it, Dan. We got in our own way, we tripped flat on our face, we fouled our own nest. Everything’s gone crazy. How long do you think it will be before they start dropping the hot dust again? Or the bombs, maybe, this time? But that’s only going to happen here, on Earth. Out there everything will be different.”
He was gaping. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely serious, Dan.”
“Incredible. You think you can go to some other world, just like that?”
“Ferguson did. April. Nick.”
“This is completely insane.”
“You can see the smiles on their faces. It’s pure bliss. I know they’ve gone to the star worlds, Dan.”
Robinson turned to Tom and studied him in astonishment. Tom was smiling, nodding, beaming.
“You actually believe this, Elszabet? He snaps his fingers, and off you go?”
“Yes.”
“And even if it’s true? You can just drop everything, run out on all responsibilities, skip off to your Green World? You could do that?”
“What responsibilities? The Center’s been smashed, Dan. And if we stay here we’re going to get killed in this riot anyway. You said so yourself two minutes ago, remember?”
He looked at her; he seemed bewildered.
“I’ve thought it through,” she said. “Even if we could get away from this mob I don’t want to stay here any more. It’s all over for me here. I did my best, Dan. I tried, I honestly tried. But it’s all smashed. Now I want to go away and make a second start somewhere else. Doesn’t that make sense? Tom will send us to the Green World.”
“Us?”
“Us, yes. You and me. We’ll go there together. Here, put your hands in his. Just do it, Dan. Go on. Put your hands in his.”
Robinson stepped back and thrust his hands behind him as if she had tried to pour burning oil on them. His eyes were bright. “For Christ’s sake, Elszabet!”
“No. For our sakes.”
“Forget all this nonsense. Look, maybe we can still escape through the forest somehow. Come with me—”
“You come with me, Dan.”
Again she reached for him. He pulled farther back. He was shivering, and his skin had taken on an almost yellowish tinge.
“We don’t have any more time, Elszabet. Come on. The three of us, out the back way down the rhododendron trail—”
“If that’s what you want to do, Dan, you’d better go.”
“Not without you.”
“Don’t be absurd. Go.”
“I can’t leave you here to die.”
“I won’t die. But you might, if you don’t get going now. I wish you well, Dan. Maybe I’ll see you again someday. On the Green World.”
“Elszabet!”
“You think I’m absolutely crazy, don’t you?”
He shook his head and scowled, and reached for her as if to drag her off by force into the forest. But he couldn’t bring himself to touch her. His hands hovered in mid-air and halted there, as though he feared that any direct contact with her might somehow hurl the two of them careening off toward the stars. For a moment he stood frozen in silence. He opened his mouth and no words came out, only a muffled sob. He leaned close and gave her one last look, then turned and darted away between two of the shattered buildings and was lost to her sight.
“All right, then,” Tom said. “Are you ready to go now, Elszabet?”
“Yes,” she said. And then she said, “No. No—”
“But you were ready a moment ago.”
She waved him back. The roaring in her ears had returned, even louder this time. She peered into the rain swept dimness, trying to see Dan Robinson. But he was gone. “Let me think,” she said. Tom began to say something, and she gestured again, more urgently. “Let me think, Tom.”
You actually believe this, Dan had said. He snaps his fingers, and off you go?
I don’t know, Elszabet thought. Do I actually believe it?
And then Dan had said,You can just drop everything, run out on all responsibilities, skip off to your Green World?
I’m not sure, she thought. Can I do that? Can I?
Tom was watching her, saying nothing, letting her think. She stood wavering, lost in doubts.
Do I believe? Yes, she thought. Yes, because there is no real alternative. I believe because I have to believe.
And can I shrug off my responsibilities here and go? Yes, my responsibilities here are ended. The Center has been destroyed. My patients are gone. There’s no work left here for me to do.
She scanned the distance once again for Dan Robinson. It would have been so beautiful, she thought, if he had come with her. The two of them, starting their lives over on the Green World. Learning to live again, learning to love. It would have worked, she thought. Wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it? But instead he had run off into the forest. All right. If that’s what he needs to do, let him do it. He doesn’t understand. His Time hasn’t come, not yet.
“I think you’re ready now,” Tom said.
Elszabet nodded. “Let’s both of us go, Tom. You and me together, to the Green World. Wouldn’t that be a fine thing? We’d both be crystallines together, and we’d stroll down to the Summer Palace and we could laugh and talk about this day, all the rain, the mud everywhere, the craziness all around us. Yes? Yes? What do you say? When you send me, send yourself along too. Will you?”
Tom was silent a long time.
“I wish I could,” he said at last, softly, tenderly. “You know, right now that’s the one thing I want more than anything. To go to the Green World with you, Elszabet. I wish I could. I wish I could.”
“Then do it, Tom.”
“I can’t go,” he said. “I have to stay here. But at least I can help you. Here, give me your hands.”
Once more he reached for her. She was shaking all over. But this time she didn’t pull back. She was ready. She knew it was right.
“Good-bye, Elszabet. And-hey, thanks for listening to me, you know? His voice was very gentle, and there was a note in it that was close to being mournful, but not really. “That meant a lot to me,” he said. “When I’d go to your office, you’d listen to me. Nobody ever did that, really, except Charley, some of the time, and that was different, with Charley. Charley isn’t like you.”
How sad, she thought. I can go and Tom, who has done all this for us, has to stay.
“Come with me,” she said.
“I can’t,” he said. “You have to go without me. Is that all right?”
“Yes. All right.”
“Now,” he said.
He gripped both her hands. Elszabet drew her breath in deeply, and waited. A sense of happiness, and grace, welled up in her. She was wondrously calm and certain. She had done her best here, but now it truly was time to leave. A new life would be beginning for her on a new world. It seemed to her that she had never known such certainty before.