NO TRESPASSING!
By Order of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department
By Order of the California State Police
VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED!
2
'Well, if you knew where we were,' Jack said, feeling simultaneously foolish and very relieved, 'why did you ask?'
'I just saw it,' Richard replied, and any urge Jack might have had to chaff Richard anymore over it blew away. Richard looked awful; he looked as if he had developed some weird tuberculosis which was working on his mind instead of on his lungs. Nor was it just his sanity-shaking round trip to the Territories and back - he had actually seemed to be adapting to that. But now he knew something else as well. It wasn't just a reality which was radically different from all of his carefully developed notions; that he might have been able to adapt to, if given world enough and time. But finding out that your dad is one of the guys in the black hats, Jack reflected, can hardly be one of life's groovier moments.
'Okay,' he said, trying to sound cheerful - he actually did feel a little cheerful. Getting away from such a monstrosity as Reuel would have made even a kid dying of terminal cancer feel a little cheerful, he figured. 'Up you go and up you get, Richie-boy. We've got promises we must keep, miles to go before we sleep, and you are still an utter creep.'
Richard winced. 'Whoever gave you the idea you had a sense of humor should be shot, chum.'
'Bitez mon crank, mon ami.'
'Where are we going?'
'I don't know,' Jack said, 'but it's somewhere around here. I can feel it. It's like a fishhook in my mind.'
'Point Venuti?'
Jack turned his head and looked at Richard for a long time. Richard's tired eyes were unreadable.
'Why did you ask that, chum?'
'Is that where we're going?'
Jack shrugged. Maybe. Maybe not.
They began walking slowly across the weed-grown parade ground and Richard changed the subject. 'Was all of that real?' They were approaching the rusty double gate. A lane of faded blue sky showed above the green. 'Was any of it real?'
'We spent a couple of days on an electric train that ran at about twenty-five miles an hour, thirty tops,' Jack said, 'and somehow we got from Springfield, Illinois, into northern California, near the coast. Now you tell me if it was real.'
'Yes . . . yes, but . . .'
Jack held out his arms. The wrists were covered with angry red weals that itched and smarted.
'Bites,' Jack said. 'From the worms. The worms that fell out of Reuel Gardener's head.'
Richard turned away and was noisily sick.
Jack held him. Otherwise, he thought, Richard simply would have fallen sprawling. He was appalled at how thin Richard had become, at how hot his flesh felt through his preppy shirt.
'I'm sorry I said that,' Jack said when Richard seemed a little better. 'It was pretty crude.'
'Yeah, it was. But I guess maybe it's the only thing that could have . . . you know . . .'
'Convinced you?'
'Yeah. Maybe.' Richard looked at him with his naked, wounded eyes. There were now pimples all across his forehead. Sores surrounded his mouth. 'Jack, I have to ask you something, and I want you to answer me . . . you know, straight. I want to ask you - '
Oh, I know what you want to ask me, Richie-boy.
'In a few minutes,' Jack said. 'We'll get to all the questions and as many of the answers as I know in a few minutes. But we've got a piece of business to take care of first.'
'What business?'
Instead of answering, Jack went over to the little train. He stood there for a moment, looking at it: stubby engine, empty boxcar, flatcar. Had he somehow managed to flip this whole thing into northern California? He didn't think so. Flipping with Wolf had been a chore, dragging Richard into the Territories from the Thayer campus had nearly torn his arm out of its socket, and doing both had been a conscious effort on his part. So far as he could remember, he hadn't been thinking of the train at all when he flipped - only getting Richard out of the Wolfs' paramilitary training camp before he saw his old man. Everything else had taken a slightly different form when it went from one world into the other - the act of Migrating seemed to demand an act of translation, as well. Shirts might become jerkins; jeans might become woolen trousers; money might become jointed sticks. But this train looked exactly the same here as it had over there. Morgan had succeeded in creating something which lost nothing in the Migration.
Also, they were wearing blue jeans over there, Jack-O.
Yeah. And although Osmond had his trusty whip, he also had a machine-pistol.
Morgan's machine-pistol. Morgan's train.
Chilly gooseflesh rippled up his back. He heard Anders muttering, A bad business.
It was that, all right. A very bad business. Anders was right; it was devils all hurtled down together. Jack reached into the engine compartment, got one of the Uzis, slapped a fresh clip into it, and started back toward where Richard stood looking around with pallid, contemplative interest.