Special Deliverance

29

It was just as well, Lansing told himself. He could travel easier and faster by himself. Since morning he had covered a lot of ground — more, he was convinced, than he would have covered if the other two had been tagging along. More than that, he hadn’t liked either one of them. Melissa was a whining bitch and Jorgenson was an unlovely bastard.

If he had regretted leaving anyone, it had been Correy. Though he had spent only a few hours with him, he had liked the man. He had given him somewhat more than half of the coins that still were left and had shaken hands with him. In accepting the donation, Correy had been studiously gracious, thanking him not for himself but for the band.

“I shall husband this sudden wealth in the common interest,” he had said. “I know, given the chance, everyone would thank you.”

“Think nothing of it,” Lansing had told him. “Mary and I may be back.”

“We’ll keep a place beside the fire for you,” Correy had told him. “I hope most sincerely you don’t have to come back. Life here is not a good prospect. Maybe you’ll find a way out. Some of us must. I hope you do.”

He had not thought until Correy had spoken so that there remained any hope of finding a way out of the situation. Long ago, he realized, he had given up such hope. His one hope had been to find Mary so that together they could face whatever was in store for them.

He thought about it as he trudged along. Correy, he knew, had spoken more cheerfully than he’d really thought, but the question still remained — could there yet remain some hope? Logic said that hope was slight, and he was a trifle disgusted at himself for entertaining any thought of it. Yet, as he walked along, he still could detect, deep inside himself, that small, faint glimmer of it.

The travel was comparatively easy. The hills were steep, but the forest was open. There was no water problem. Time after time he came on small creeks and rills running between the hills.

By nightfall he came upon the badlands. They were not, however, the colorful nightmare his band had traversed after leaving the city. These were small badlands, the beginning of badlands that had stopped before going far. Here the action of primeval water had not finished with its job. The rains had stopped, the massive erosion had been ended before full badlands had developed. There were small floodplains, a few deeply channeled gulches, fantastically carved formations that were not complete, as if a sculptor had thrown away his mallet and chisel, in frustration or disgust, before his work was done.

“Tomorrow,” Lansing said, speaking aloud to himself, “I will reach the city.”

He did reach it the next day, just after the sun had marked off noon. He stood on one of the high hills that ringed it in and looked out over it. Down there, he thought, Mary could be waiting for him, and when he thought it, he found that he was trembling.

He plunged down the hill and found a street that led to the city’s heart. It all had the old, familiar look to it — the red, eroded walls, the blocks of fallen stone cluttering the street, the dust over everything.

In the plaza he halted and looked around to orient himself. Once he had gotten his directions straightened out, he knew where he was. Over there to the left was the broken façade of the so-called administration building, with the single tower still standing, and down a street eater-cornered to it he would find the installation.

Standing In the plaza, be called for Mary, but there was no answer. He called a few more times and then he called no more, for the haunting echo of his voice, reverberating back to him, was terrifying.

He walked across the plaza to the administration building and climbed the broad stone stairs to reach the entrance hall where they had camped. His footsteps raised booming echoes that sounded like querulous voices crying out to him. He prowled about the hall and found evidence of their having been there, an emptied can or two, an emptied cracker box, a mug that someone had forgotten. He wanted to go down into the basement and look at the doors, but he was afraid to. He started several times and each time turned back. What was he afraid of? he asked himself — afraid that he would find one of the doors, perhaps the one to the apple-blossom world, had been opened? No, he told himself — no, no, Mary never would do that. Not now would she do it, maybe later on when all hope of finding him was gone, that and all other hope, but certainly not now. Perhaps, he thought, it would be impossible for anyone to do it. The Brigadier had carried away the wrench, probably had hidden it somewhere. Never again, the Brigadier had vowed, would a door be opened.

Standing silently, unmoving in the entrance hall, he seemed to hear their voices, talking not to him, but to one another. He tried to shut his ears to them, but the voices still persisted.

He had planned to camp there, but decided that he couldn’t. There were too many voices, the memories were too thick. So he moved out into the center of the plaza and began hauling in wood from wherever he could find it. All the rest of the afternoon he worked, building a good-sized woodpile. Then, as dark came down, he made a fire and fed it to make it bright and high. If Mary should be in the city, or approaching it or somewhere watching it, she would see the fire and know that someone was there.

On a smaller fire he boiled coffee and cooked some food.

As he ate, he attempted to work out a plan of action, but all that he could think of was to search the city, every street if need be. Although, he told himself, that would be wasted effort. If Mary was in the city, or even now be coming up on it, she would head straight for the plaza, knowing that anyone else who came to the city would do the same.

The Wailer came out on the hills when the moon came up and cried out its agony of loneliness. Lansing sat beside the fire and listened, crying out and answering with his own loneliness.

“Come down here to the fire, with me,” he told the Wailer, “and we can mourn together.”

It was not until then that the realization struck him that the loneliness might keep on and on, that he might never find Mary. He tried to envision how it might be to never see her again, to continue life without her, and how it might be for her. He quailed at the thought of it and huddled closer to the fire, but there was no warmth in it.

He tried to sleep; he slept but little. In the morning he started his search. Gritting his teeth against the fear, he visited the doors. None of them had been opened. He searched out the installation and went down the stairs that led to it. For a long time he stood listening to the song the machines were crooning to themselves. He searched streets haphazardly, inattentively, knowing that he was wasting time. But he kept on, for there was a need to keep busy, to keep himself distracted and somehow occupied.

For four days he searched and found nothing. Then he wrote a note to Mary and left it, weighed down by the mug someone had forgotten, beside the old campfire in the administration building, and took the trail back to the cube and inn.

How long had it been, he wondered, since he first had found himself upon this world? He tried to count the days, but his memory was hazed and he lost track each time he tried to count. A month, he wondered, could it have been no more than a month? Thinking back, it seemed half of all the time there was.

He tried to spot landmarks along the trail. Here we had camped, he’d tell himself, here is where Mary had seen the faces in the sky. Over there is where Jurgens had found the spring. Here is where I had cut the wood. But he was never sure if he was right or not. It was too deep into the past, he told himself, a month into the past.

Finally he came to a hilltop from which he could sight the cube. It still was there, as bright and classically beautiful as he remembered it. For a moment he was surprised to see it — not that he hadn’t expected to find it, but he would not have been greatly surprised if he had not found it. This world, during the last few days, had seemed to assume a phantom quality, with him walking through a vacuum.

He walked down the switchbacks that wound down the long, steep hillside and reached the hill-rimmed bowl where the cube was sited. As he came around the final bend in the road before it reached the cube, he saw that someone was there. He had not seen them before, but now there they were, the four of them sitting on the stone slab that he and Mary had uncovered, the slab that was located at the edge of the circle of white sand surrounding the cube. They sat there, cross-legged, and played their unending game of cards.

They did not notice him when he walked up to them, and he stood for a while to watch them at their play.

Then he said, “I think I should thank you gentlemen for throwing me the rope.”

At his words, they looked up and stared at him out of their white-china faces with the round, browless eyeholes and the black agates suspended in the eyeholes, the twin slashes for nostrils and the one slash for the mouth.

They said nothing, only stared at him, expressionless, although he thought that he saw some annoyance and rebuke in those smooth white faces, like white, round doorknobs with faces painted on them.

Then one of them said, “Please move on. You are standing in our light.”

Lansing backed up a step or two, then after a pause backed away until he was standing on the road. The four card players already had gone back to their play.

Mary had not been in the city, he thought; had she been she would have seen his fire and come to it. And she was not here. There was one more place to look.

Doggedly he went on down the road, with no hope left, but still driven by the necessity to continue his search until there was no place else to go.

Night had fallen when he reached the inn. No light showed in the windows, no smoke issued from the chimney. Somewhere in the woods a lonely owl was hooting.

Walking up to the door, he seized the latch. It did not respond to the pressure of his thumb; apparently it was locked. He knocked on the door and there was no answer. He ceased his knocking and listened for the scuff of feet across the floor within. Hearing nothing, he knotted his fists and hammered at the door. Suddenly the door came open and, leaning as he had been in his vigorous pounding, he stumbled across the threshold.

Mine Host stood just inside, one hand on the open door and the other holding a stubby candle in his massive fist. He lifted the candle so that its light fell full on Lansing’s face.

“So it’s you,” said Mine Host, in a terrible voice. “What is it that you want?”

“I am looking for a woman. Mary. You remember her?”

“She is not here.”

“Has she been here? Did she come and leave?”

“I have not seen her since you left.”

Lansing swung about and walked to the table by the dark fireplace, sat down in a chair. The wind was out of him. Quite suddenly he felt weak and worthless. This was the end of it. There was no place else to go.

Mine Host closed the door and followed him to the table. He set the candle on it.

“You cannot stay,” he said. “I’m leaving. I’m closing for the winter.”

“Mine Host,” said Lansing, “you forget your manners and neglect your hospitality. I am staying here for the night and you’ll find me food.”

“There is no bed for you,” said Mine Host. “The beds are all made up and I’ll not make one up again. If you wish, you may sleep upon the floor.”

“Most willingly,” said Lansing, “and how about some food?”

“I have a pot of soup. You can have a bowl of that. There is a mutton roast, or what is left of a mutton roast. I think I can find a heel of bread.”

“That will do quite well,” said Lansing.

“You know, of course, you cannot stay. In the morning you must leave.”

“Yes, of course,” said Lansing, too weary to argue.

He sat in the chair and watched Mine Host lumber toward the kitchen, where a dim light shone. Supper, he thought, and a floor to sleep upon and in the morning he would leave. Once he left, where would he go? Back up the road again, most likely, past the cube and then on to the city, still searching for Mary, but with slight hope of finding her. More than likely in the end he would wind up in the camp beside the river, with the other lost ones who were scratching out a life of sorts. It was a dismal prospect and one that he did not care to face, yet it probably was the only option that was left to him. If he should find Mary, what then? Would the two of them in the end be forced to seek refuge in the camp? He shivered, thinking of it.

Mine Host brought in the food and thumped it on the table in front of Lansing, then turned to leave.

“Just a moment,” Lansing said. “I’ll need to buy supplies before I leave.”

“I can let you have all the food you wish,” said the innkeeper, “but the rest of the merchandise is packed away.”

“That’s all right,” said Lansing. “It’s mainly food I need.”

The soup was tasty; the bread was days old and hard, but he dipped it in the soup and ate it. He had never cared for mutton, let alone cold mutton, but he ate several thick slices of it and he was glad to have it.

The next morning, after a bad night’s sleep and a breakfast of oatmeal, grudgingly provided by Mine Host, Lansing, after some haggling over payment, bought a supply of food and started up the road.

The weather, which had been fine and sunny during all the time since Lansing had first come into the world, turned cloudy and blustery. A sharp, cruel wind blew out of the northwest and at times there were short sleet squalls, the pellets of ice stinging his face.

As he came down the steep plunge into the bowl where the cube sat, a dull gray under the clouded sky, he saw that the card players were no longer there.

He reached the bottom of the hill and started across the level ground, aiming for the cube, head bent against the wind.

At the sound of a shout, he jerked his head up and there she was, running down the road toward him.

“Mary!” he shouted, breaking into a run.

Then she was in his arms, clinging to him. Tears ran down her cheeks as she lifted her head to take his kiss.

“I found your note,” she said. “I hurried. I was trying to catch up with you.”

“Thank God you’re here,” he said. “Thank God I found you.”

“Did the landlady at the inn give you my note?”

“She said you’d left one, but she lost it. Both of us looked for it. We tore the inn apart; we couldn’t find it.”

“I wrote you I was going to the city and would meet you there. Then I got lost in the badlands. I got off the trail and couldn’t find it again. I wandered for days, not knowing where I was, then all at once I climbed a hill and the city lay below me.”

“I’ve been hunting you ever since I got back to the singing tower. I found Sandra dead and—”

“She was dead before I left. I would have stayed, but the Wailer showed up. He kept edging in on me, closer all the time. I was afraid — Lord, how frightened I was. I headed for the inn. He trailed me all the way. I knew you would come to the inn to find me, but the landlady ordered me out. I had no money and she wouldn’t let me stay, so I wrote the note to you and left. The Wailer didn’t show up and it was all right, then I got lost.”

He kissed her. “It’s all right now,” he said. “We found one another. We are together.”

“Where is Jurgens? Is he with you?”

“He’s lost. He fell into Chaos.”

“Chaos? Edward, what is Chaos?”

“I’ll tell you later. There’ll be lots of time. Jorgenson and Melissa came back from the west, but they didn’t come with me.”

She stepped away from him.

“Edward,” she said.

“Yes, what is it, Mary?”

“I think I know our answer. It’s the cube. It was the cube all the time.”

“The cube?”

“I just thought of it, just awhile ago, walking down the road. Something that we overlooked. Something that we never thought of. It just came to me. I wasn’t even thinking of it, then suddenly I knew it.”

“Knew it? For God’s sake, Mary…”

“Well, I can’t be sure. But I think I’m right. You remember the flat stones that we found, the slabs of stone, the three of them, set into the sand? We had to brush them off to find them. They were covered with sand.”

“Yes, I remember. Yesterday the card players were sitting on one of them.”

“The card players? Why should the card players—”

“Never mind that now. What about the stones?”

“What if there were other stones? Stone forming a walk that led up to the cube? Three walks up to the cube. Put there so that anyone who wanted could walk up to the cube, safe from whatever it is that guards it. But covered by sand so the walks can’t be seen.”

“You mean…”

“Let’s have a look,” she said. “We could cut a tree branch or a bush and use it as a broom.”

“I’ll use it as a broom,” he said. “You stay back, out of the way.”

She said, meekly, “All right. I’ll be right behind you.”

They found a bush and cut it down.

As they approached the circle of sand, she said, “The sign is down. The warning sign, in Russian. You pounded it in again and now it’s down, mostly covered by the sand.”

“There’s someone here,” he said, “who works hard to make it tough on people. Notes are lost, signs are down, walks are covered. Which of the stones should we start with?”

“I don’t think it matters. If one doesn’t work out, we’ll try another.”

“If there are other stones, if there is a walk. What do we do when we get up to the cube?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

He walked out on the slab and crouched cautiously at the end of it, reached out with the bush to brush at the sand. Underneath the brushing another slab showed through. He brushed some more.

“You are right,” he said. “There is another stone. Why didn’t we think of this to start with?”

“A mental lapse,” she said. “Brought on by apprehension. Jurgens had been crippled and that business with the Parson and the Brigadier had us scared.” “I still am scared,” he said.

He cleaned the near end of the second slab, stepped out on it and swept the sand off the rest of it. Leaning out, he brushed at the sand in line with the second slab. Another slab appeared.

“Steppingstones,” said Mary. “Right up to the cube.”

“Once we get there, what happens?”

“We’ll find out then,” she said.

“What if nothing happens?”

“Look,” she said, “at least we will have tried.”

“I suppose there’s that,” he said.

“One more slab,” he said, wondering if there would be another slab. It would be just like the jokers who ran this business to lay out a path and leave it one stone short.

He leaned out and brushed, and there was another slab.

Mary moved up beside him and they stood together, facing the deep-blue wall of the cube. Lansing put out a hand and ran his palm flat across the wall.

“There is nothing,” he said. “I’ve been thinking all this time there might be a door. But there isn’t. If there were, you’d see at least a hairline crack. Just a wall, that’s all.”

“Push on it,” said Mary.

He pushed on it and there was a door. Quickly they stepped through it and the door hissed shut behind them.