“I don’t understand,” said Alicia.
“I barely understand myself. The way is difficult and complex. The Vanishing Point does not lie on a map, but rather beyond it.” She put a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “Do not worry about your son. He’s all right. I’m sure of it.”
“I wish I could believe that. I wish I could believe you. I’d feel better if I knew what this obulating was.”
“Someday I think he’ll explain it himself.”
Only exhaustion prevented Frank from driving straight through. After what they’d been through, what they’d experienced, it was a joy to eat ordinary food, to use plain cash and receive change in kind, and to talk with people who looked back at you out of eyes that did not glow. Even Burnfingers Begay, who insisted he needed no sleep, confessed to being tired.
So they spent the night in the town of Mohave, luxuriating in the sappy, reassuring programs and loud commercials on the TV in their room. Not even the rattle of the freight trains that rumbled down the tracks that paralleled the main street could prevent them from sleeping deeply and soundly. Nor could Frank’s unease at closing his eyes one more time in the desert.
He awoke with a start, to what he thought was growling outside their door. It was only a couple of college students starting up their aged, reluctant sedan. He slipped out of bed and cracked the door of their room. The morning smelled of desert dampness, old boxcars, oil, and grease, and coffee. All was as it had been when they’d turned out the lights and gone to sleep, with the addition of sun. He felt almost human as he gently woke Alicia.
He made himself linger over breakfast. Waffles and bacon, eggs and hashbrowns and toast. Burnfingers offered to pay for his own, but Frank grandly refused the proffered doubloon.
It was evening when they finally entered Los Angeles. A bad time to be on the road, but Frank didn’t mind. There were only two kinds of traffic in Los Angeles anymore anyway: rush hour and not quite rush hour. He delighted in the sight of the overloaded eighteen-wheeler that crowded him from behind, cheered the Corvette that cut him off in the slow lane. The freeway at rush hour was an old friend newly revisited, harbinger of normalcy, a great rough pet sucking in the sharp odor of unleaded gas and exhaling huge gouts of smog. The lungs of the city breathed around him, and he knew he was home at last.
All that was missing was a familiar, whiny, complaining face from the back of the motor home. Steven’s continued absence was proof that memory and imagination were not the same. Everything he remembered had happened. In his mind’s eye he saw his son happily paddling away into the sky accompanied by a school of oversized angelfish. Not the last image one expected to have of one’s youngest child.
What had been so fascinating? What pull had been strong enough to draw him away from his family? The fish? Obulating—whatever that was? Steven’s farewell had been a confident one. “I’ll be okay!” he’d insisted. How could he be so certain? What ten-year-old knew anything of the future and its prospects? Frank wondered if he’d ever see the overweight little rug rat again.
Of course, he reminded himself unsparingly, they could all four of them just as easily be dead. Or worse, if Mouse’s stories of the Anarchis were true. At least father, mother, and daughter were alive and together instead of chained forever in Hell, imprisoned by thugs in an otherworldly casino, or undergoing the torments nuclear-devastated mutants might devise.
Not at all the thoughts to have while cruising down Artesia Boulevard on a bright, sunny summer morn.
16
IT WAS MIDDAY when he left Sepulveda for the Peninsula road. How reassuring to see the Pacific once more, an endless expanse of steel-gray water stretching toward Asia. They cruised past the neighborhood shopping center, its tile roofs sweating in the sun. Malaga Cove was crowded with surfers. Then up into the Palos Verdes hills.
The openers for the electric gate that guarded the driveway were in the family cars. Frank had to exit the motor home and activate the iron barrier with a key.
“Quite a place you got here,” Burnfingers observed approvingly as they drove toward the house.
“Couple acres.” Frank was unduly modest. “I do pretty good. Work for it.”
Flucca stood by a window. “This is what it looks like on my reality line. The architecture’s different. I wonder what other realities are like? Maybe there are gardens full of unicorns and griffins.”
“Or like the old days when antelope and deer roamed the hills, unrestrained by fences, uncounted by game wardens.” Burnfingers bent to survey the well-tended grounds that formed a green California necklace around the single-story house. “Where men counted coup with clubs instead of H-bombs. Do you know, little singer, where you are now?”
Mouse shook her head. “I’ve never been here before. It lies on a path I must take for the first time.”
It was a rambling ranch-style structure. Lawn, bushes, and flowerbeds had all been recently trimmed. That meant the gardeners had been here within the past couple of days. They had only cutworms and beetles to battle, he mused. Hibiscus and geranium bloomed profusely. Iceplant turned one steep hillside facing the ocean a bright pink. It was all soothing and relaxing. He discovered he was looking forward to getting back to work with messianic intensity.
Sara wasn’t inside. The maid usually left after lunch. Alicia insisted on taking care of her home to the full extent of her abilities, hence they engaged only part-time help. It was just as well. Sara would have been surprised to see them back home so far ahead of schedule.
Frank set the brake, then joined the others in front of the main entrance. Burnfingers was eyeing the still-open gate.
“I expect I will be on my way now.”
“Nonsense! You come right inside and rest.” Alicia took his arm. “You too, Mr. Flucca. I promised I’d call some people on your behalf and I’m going to do exactly that, just as soon as we’ve all settled down a little.”
“Just show me the kitchen.” Flucca was rubbing his hands together in expectation. “It’s been so long since I’ve had a chance to cook with proper utensils I’m afraid I may have forgotten how. Leave dinner to me.”
Mouse was gathering her dress around her, tightening the silken folds. “And I must be on my way. My time is no less precious here than elsewhere.”
“You’ll make better time if you have a good night’s sleep and start fresh in the morning.” Frank knew that tone. His wife would not be denied. “We’ll pay your plane fare if necessary.”
“You forget. I cannot travel by plane.”
“Oh? Do planes upset you?”
“No.” She smiled. “Something about me tends to upset planes. I must continue on the ground. Still, you are right. A meal and a shower would be refreshing and speed me on my way. I am more confident now. The Vanishing Point cannot be far. I have managed to turn time and place back upon themselves. I am near enough to sense the Spinner’s presence now. Its agitation increases, but if I am not challenged or delayed further I believe I’ll be in time to do the necessary work.”
“Then it’s settled.” Alicia was pleased. “We have guests.”
Recently scrubbed and polished by Sara, the house smelled faintly of lemon oil and disinfectant. Wendy vanished into her room while Alicia and Flucca headed for the kitchen. Frank was giving Mouse and Burnfingers Begay a tour of the house when the tall man spotted the big swimming pool out back.
“A swim and a bath.” He sighed appreciatively. “Those are two things I badly need. You will have to excuse me from the rest of your tour.”
Frank had a moment of uncertainty over the “bath” part, then was deriding himself for his hesitation. If Burnfingers wanted to take a bath in the pool, or go swimming in the tub, or set fire to the furniture, he’d more than earned the right to do so.
He did not expect, when he returned from changing into clean clothes, to see the Indian and Mouse floating side by side in the shallow end of the pool, completely naked. Wendy was still in her room while Alicia was helping Flucca make dinner. So there was no one to prevent Frank from standing in the hall and staring as Mouse emerged from the water. He half expected to see tiny wings attached to her shoulders, but her body was perfect. Not a blemish or wrinkle marred her sleek torso. In pretty good shape for someone thousands of years old, he told himself. He was unaware of the grin that had spread across his face.
He watched motionless for a long time, drinking in the sight of her as she dried herself. Once he found himself wishing he was ten years younger. It took a moment to remember who and where he was, and what he was not. Then he headed for his office, a converted bedroom at the back of the house.
It required him to pass his son’s room. The door was shut. Frank found himself slowing, forced himself to hurry past. Concentrating on making it back to Los Angeles had helped him to forget a little. Now that he was safely home, emotions forcibly shunted aside returned in a rush.
Alicia had kept her composure by making constant small talk and by avoiding this part of the house. As for himself, despite a strong constitution, he knew that if he opened that door and saw the model spaceships dangling from the ceiling, the nature posters and charts on the walls, and the small but carefully labeled rock collection that filled its own bookcase, he’d lose control. So he didn’t slow down until he’d reached his office.
