To the Vanishing Point

8

Frank drove easily. Alicia had swiveled her chair around in order to talk with Wendy, who kneeled on the floor next to her mother.

"He was so good-looking I didn’t see his eyes," she was saying. "Or maybe I did and I just ignored what was there."

Alicia stroked her daughter’s hair. "It’s all right. It doesn’t matter now."

Mouse stood nearby, staring out the windshield. "Do not berate yourself, child. It is difficult much of the time to tell devils from men. Most devils have a little man in them, and most men a little devil in them. What one has to learn is how to judge proportions."

Alicia smiled tolerantly. "A very clever metaphor."

"Oh, no, not at all," said Mouse innocently. "It’s the literal truth."

"I take it, then, you’ve had a lot of experience with men?" As soon as she said it Alicia was sorry. That wasn’t her style at all. It was one of the main reasons she hated attending the parties thrown by Frank’s business associates. The women who came had raised bitchiness to a high art, and she wanted no part of it.

She needn’t have worried. It affected Mouse not in the slightest. "As a matter of fact I do know quite a bit about men. I’ve known men who were intelligent and handsome, men who were witty, men who were evil, a few who were everything. I’ve also known some devils, and I say again there are times when it is hard to tell them apart." She smiled warmly down at Wendy.

"Don’t think you are the first woman who has had trouble making the distinction. The only difference in your case was that the differences were more clear-cut than usual."

"I can tell you’ve had a lot of experience," Wendy replied, "but really, how old are you?"

"Four thousand two hundred and twelve."

Alicia laughed: a short, sharp giggle that brought her hand quickly to her lips. "Sorry. I didn’t mean that."

"Laughing is good for you. Now especially."

Alicia didn’t dispute that. It had been awhile since she’d laughed aloud. You had to appreciate the joke. Given the talents Mouse had already demonstrated, a figure of fifty or sixty might have been acceptable. After all, Lena Horne was in her sixties and didn’t she look wonderful? Four thousand, though, made the gag work.

"You don’t look a day over three thousand. What’s your secret? I’m having cellulite trouble already."

"The secret," Mouse told her somberly, "is to see time coming and to step around it. Laughing at it helps a great deal. Time is very sensitive, you know. It can cope with almost anything except laughter." Vast violet eyes turned back to Wendy. "Remember that always, girl. When you see time coming at you, laugh at it and it will retreat. You see, it knows how absurd it really is."

Wendy considered this, though it was impossible to tell if any of it stayed with her. "What happens if you don’t make it to this Spinner? Will the fabric of existence keep unraveling?"

Mouse nodded. "Completely. As you have seen, it has already begun, like a rope fraying at the edges. Right now we are on an intact thread, though it’s impossible to tell whether it is running true or twisting about another line entirely."

"What happens if it all unravels?" Alicia asked her.

"Then the Anarchis will have final victory and order will dissolve into Chaos. Confusion will reign supreme forever, nothing will be certain or stable, and logic and reason will become naught but memories, themselves unsecured."

"You mean the world will come to an end," Wendy said.

"Not to an end: rather to a confusion. All the threads will break and intertwine and twist and contort about themselves."

"I think I understand. Everything would stay the same only it would be different. You wouldn’t be able to be sure of anything. Like driving to Baker and ending up in Hades Junction instead."

Mouse nodded. "Only it will be worse than that. Much worse. The little things will be as severely disrupted as the big things."

Wendy nodded solemnly.

Burnfingers Begay had lumbered forward, ducking to clear the ceiling of the motor home. He gazed at the dash. The instruments were partly obscured by Frank’s body.

"How are we doing on gas, my friend?"

"If the stuff that old guy sold us is burnable at all, we’ll be okay. This dinosaur has double tanks. Should be able to steam right through to Vegas without stopping. The fridge is full. Poke around near the back, you might even find a beer."

"I would appreciate that," said Burnfingers gravely.

Alicia was staring past him. Her son sat on the convertible sofa. He was bending forward concentrating on his hands. "What were you telling Steven?"

Burnfingers glanced back at the boy, then forward again. "Nothing, really. Little tricks to keep him amused. Desert survival techniques. One or two amusements I have acquired in my traveling."

"So you’ve been around?"

"Yes. He is a traveler." Mouse was eyeing the big man appraisingly. "An experienced traveler."

"I have spent my life trying not to be bored, Ballad-Eyes."

"How old are you, Burnfingers?" Alicia asked.

"About forty-five. Why?"

"Nothing." Alicia sounded disappointed. Perhaps she’d been hoping he would respond with another outrageous claim the way Mouse had. "That’s what I’d guessed."

"Drat. I was hoping you would think I was thirty-five." He touched a rough hand to his cheek. "Genetic wrinkles. White people think every Indian they see looks dignified. We do not understand that."

Wendy settled her legs under her. "If you’ve traveled, where have you been?"

"Everyplace, just about. I’ve fought alongside African rebels, worked rice paddies in a Communist commune in China, dived with great white sharks off Dangerous Reef in Australia. I’ve circumnavigated Greenland and found remnants of a civilization the archaeologists don’t know existed, buried deep beneath the ice, where their instruments haven’t reached. One of these days they are going to be surprised, boy. I’ve lived with the Inuit and their Siberian relations, gone swimming off the Ross Ice Shelf, and crossed the Rub' al Khali in the dead of summer, when the Bedu insisted it couldn’t be done without frying your brains. Of course, being crazy, that did not worry me much."

Wendy laughed and Alicia, though she disapproved of such facile prevarication, couldn’t keep from grinning herself.

"Your home, now, I have yet to visit," he concluded, looking down at Mouse.

"If you can get there you will not soon forget it."

"Bet you’ve met some interesting people," Wendy said.

"Soon-woman, I have been with sturgeon fishermen in the Black Sea and Lake Superior both. I’ve talked with representatives of every Indian tribe on both the north and south continents, including some the anthropologists don’t know about. In Patagonia a tribe keeps young ground-sloths for pets and hides them from visitors. I’ve gathered giant pearls with divers from a lost linguistic group on an uncharted island in the South Pacific, dug out sapphires the size of hen’s eggs from river gravel in the mountains of Sri Lanka, and spent time with a lama in Bhutan who insisted he could teach me how to levitate."

Wendy’s eyes widened. "Could he really do that?"

"Oh, that he could, but only upside-down." Burnfingers shook his head sadly. "It’s not a very useful thing to know. After a while all the blood rushes to your head and all you want to do is throw up."

Alicia smiled easily this time. Another joke, clearly one of many, cleverly designed to amuse them and relieve the tension in the motor home. Burnfingers knew what he was doing.

"What will you do now? I mean, once we drop you off in Nevada," she asked him.

"Find another job."

"In Las Vegas?" Wendy wondered.

"Why not? It is a very interesting place, good for studying people. That always interests me. A good place to find people like myself."

"You mean other Indians?" said Wendy.

"No. I mean other crazy people. Vegas is like the Mad Hatter’s tea party, only with neon."

Wendy giggled. This charming older man was helping her to forget the unhappy ordeal she’d suffered at the hands of their hellish captors. It all seemed like a bad dream now. Maybe she would wake up and find out that that was just what it had been. Only if that turned out to be the case, Burnfingers Begay would vanish like part of a dream, too, and she didn’t want that.

"Know anybody in Vegas?" Frank inquired casually.

"Don’t worry about me. I can get a job anyplace."

Frank didn’t doubt Begay’s word. He checked his watch. Hades Junction lay far behind them. Probably below them as well, if half of what Mouse said about reality lines twisting and bending was accurate. The cars that passed them in the fast lane were filled with people. Anxious certainly, but not yet damned. Maybe they weren’t going to go mad, after all.

"What time do you think we’ll hit Las Vegas, dear?" Alicia appeared to have completely recovered from their recent otherworldly encounter. A resilient gal, his spouse, Frank mused. He checked the clock on the dash.

"If we don’t run into any more detours, we’ll be at the hotel before midnight."

"Want me to drive for a while?"

"Naw, not yet. Lemme take it for another hour. Then we’ll switch."

"If you folks get tired, I’m a pretty good driver."

Frank glanced back at their oversized companion. "Thanks. I think we can manage." Despite everything he’d done for them, Frank had no intention of letting Burnfingers Begay behind the wheel of the motor home. Wasn’t he a self-confessed crazy?

As for Mouse, she anticipated his next thought. "I am not very good with mechanical things. I’m far more comfortable with what you might call the citizenry of the natural world."

"Everyone to their taste," Frank jibed. "Give me a four-forty any day." Of them all, only the motor home itself had emerged untouched by their experience. He found himself wondering what happened to old machines when they passed on. Was there a mechanical hell, a place where devilish mechanics ran sugar through engines and deliberately overtightened nuts and screws?

There he was, doing as Alicia did, ascribing human characteristics to inanimate objects. She had a word for it. Anthro — anthrosomething. The habit infuriated him. "Oh, that poor chair!" she’d wail when it was time to discard a crippled piece of furniture. "It’s been in the family for years!" At such times he would have to try to explain patiently that the chair was not dear, old Uncle Ned but simply a collage formed of wood and plastic. A soulless assemblage.

Like Burnfingers Begay? But if Begay was right and soulless, could not a machine have one in his place?

He wasn’t aware when he did it that he’d given the Winnebago a comforting pat on the steering wheel.

Steven was hungry, a sure sign everything was back to normal. Wendy had slithered back into her headphones and was twitching to some unheard electronic rhythm. And Alicia, sweet Alicia, was humming to herself.

But when the hour had come and gone and it was time for her to drive he did something he hadn’t done previously. Instead of stopping he made certain the road ahead was clear, then rose and stepped behind her, holding on to the wheel until she was able to take his seat, letting the cruise control handle the accelerator for them. When he’d said earlier that they weren’t stopping until they reached Vegas he’d meant exactly that. And when they got there he was going to drop his family off right on the main steps before parking the motor home. Though Hell had been painfully bright he planned on avoiding dark places for some time to come.

"As it seems all is well again, would you like for me to sing you a song? One of delight and relaxation this time, not of rejection and defense."

Burnfingers answered her before his host and hostess had a chance to reply. "I would like that very much. A cappella."

She looked at him in surprise, but only a little surprise. "Yes, of course. I’ll sing you a song," she murmured, her expression turning dreamy, "of the far places you’ve never been. Wispy landscapes visible in dreams alone, seascapes beyond any blue paint, the worlds writers fight for words to describe. I’ll sing of the shadow folk who live on the fringe of reality, and of my own people, my own land. My home."

And, as she sang, she soon had all the adults humming softly along with her. Wendy’s music remained hers alone and Steven went unnaturally silent, munching like a chipmunk in the woodwork on a sack of chocolate-covered raisins. Within the solid, middle-class rectangular world on wheels all was peace and contentment.

It relaxed Frank’s spirit if not his determination. One of the reasons he was rushing Vegasward was to be rid of their strange little passenger. Be it club, garbage can, manhole, or bus stop on the way to somewhere else, they would find her Vanishing Point and deposit her there. Let the fabric of existence unravel around her. He was convinced that if they could separate themselves from her, despite her warnings, they could distance themselves from her problem. Hadn’t she confessed to being some kind of focal point on which Evil and Chaos concentrated their efforts? If she needed to travel beyond Vegas, let her find another ride. She’d as much as promised to do that and he intended to hold her to her promise. So while he absorbed her wonderful music and smiled frequently and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the subtle melodies that poured effortlessly from her throat, the true joy he felt sprang from the vision of finally being rid of her.

No one suggested stopping in Needles for dinner, despite the tempting beacons of the billboards and road signs that announced the town’s presence like so many frozen TV screens. They roared past both off ramps, the gas gauge holding steady and the engine running cool. As they accelerated into Nevada, the desert night descended on them, clothing everything except the starry sky in black velvet.

Frank was driving again and the onset of night troubled him, though he didn’t show it. It was impossible to tell now if anything was crawling or flying or hopping toward them out in that vast dark emptiness. He was glad he wasn’t a particularly imaginative man. Better to be persistent and hardworking. This way he was able to drive steadily onward without glancing too often out the window in search of improbable manifestations. The road led northeastward, comfortingly eggshell-white in the glare of the headlights.

He decided he preferred the near total darkness to the shadows a full moon would have thrown up. The motor home droned on, trailing the scent of its own high beams.

Steven was sound asleep in back and Wendy drowsed in her own bed. Their original intention had been to use the motor home as a mobile hotel room, moving from trailer park to trailer park. The hotels maintained elaborate facilities for visitors who preferred to spend their time on wheels. Now he couldn’t wait to turn it in to the local representative of the rental company. Even though it was paid for, they were going to check into a hotel tonight. He’d ask for a noisy room, in the middle of the hotel, surrounded by hundreds of other rooms and thousands of people. He wanted to bathe in light and conversation and mumbled banalities. In his present state of mind, turgid reality was far preferable to the least excitement.

They’d had enough of that to last a lifetime. For the next ten days he planned to bury himself in activities utterly devoid of social value. Alicia could buy all the junk she desired and he wouldn’t say a word. His daughter could display herself in her less-than-there swimsuit and he wasn’t going to complain. Steven might personally send the price of sugar futures soaring without a single objection from his father. Let them all indulge themselves. He would derive his pleasure from watching them. It was an attitude that made him a good husband and father.

As for himself, he’d lounge around the pool squinting through his sunshades at showgirls and rich men’s mistresses and beauty-contest runners-up from Iowa and Tennessee, trying to keep his gut sucked in while not perishing from self-induced asphyxiation. Alicia would smile tolerantly on such behavior, knowing that all her husband would ever do was look.

They would be safe in Las Vegas, that mildly risque middle-class Disneyland. Even the temptations of the casino posed no threat. Frank could gamble sensibly. He was too good a businessman to lose severely. Hard work was the best vaccination against gambling fever. So he would usually break even at craps, Alicia would lose on roulette, and he would make a little of it back at blackjack, where years of manipulating figures gave him a slight edge over his fellow gamblers.

The long miles tired him, but he became wide-awake when the glow from the lights of an approaching city lit the underside of lingering clouds not far ahead. Alicia sat up straighter in her seat.

"There it is. There it is." The reality of it put paid to the last lingering memories of nightmare.

Sleeping soundly, the children didn’t react. Burnfingers Begay didn’t look up from the book he was reading as he sat cross-legged on the floor near the kitchen. Mouse might have nodded as she stared out a side window at the night. Big as her eyes were, Frank mused, maybe she could see in the dark.

A big green highway sign loomed up out of the darkness. Frank leaned slightly forward, grumbling, "Now what?"

The detour was clearly marked. Uneasy at the thought of leaving the main highway, he thought of running the barricade, but there were ample signs of heavy equipment at work not far ahead. Arc lamps illuminated a distant section of road. It made perfect sense. Naturally the highway department would try to do all its repair work at night, when it was cooler and there was less traffic.

A vehicle had paused just ahead of him. Now he followed it, as it turned right to travel the detour. It was a sleek, expensive-looking sports car. Ferrari or Lamborghini or something like that. In seconds it had accelerated into the night and was gone, though he could still see its lights moving long after the car itself was no longer visible. Ahead, the narrow road was so bright it might have been lit from within. Brand-new paving, he told himself.

"Must be a new way into town, or they’ve upgraded an older road to take some of the traffic off the highway," he surmised aloud. "Not even oil-stained yet."

There was a distinct absence of traffic. Of course, it was well after midnight. And what did he know of traffic patterns in and out of Las Vegas? They were used to flying in, not driving. Probably most drivers were already busy pumping their hard-earned quarters into hungry slots, or groaning over craps tables.

They could see the city now, coming into view off to the left. Alicia stared and sounded mildly disappointed.

"Won’t we drive in down the Strip?"

"If it’s lights you want to see we can take a cab and do it tomorrow night. Right now I just wanna get rid of this tank and find us a hotel."

Mouse had come forward to join them in gazing at the distant, glowing towers. "Is something the matter? I heard you talking."

Funny, he thought. Your ears don’t look as big as your eyes. "Main road into town’s all torn up. We’re on a detour." As they began curving toward the city, the lights of the Strip receded, their place taken by the silhouettes of dark, squat structures from which few lights gleamed.

"Looks like we’re coming in the back way. Vegas isn’t all gambling."

"Industrial park, maybe," said Alicia thoughtfully.

They were alone on the road. As they moved among the buildings, Frank found himself wishing they’d spent more time driving around the city on previous visits. He had no idea where he was. In this dark, dingy part of town it would be easy to miss a road sign. Detours didn’t always provide adequate directions, especially for strangers.

Fortunately they couldn’t get completely lost. The lights from the distant Strip were a constant glow against the sky. All they had to do was keep going in that direction.

As he was consoling himself with that thought, the road abruptly came to a dead end. He braked, angry at himself for obviously having missed the right turn. Ahead, the roadway became a driveway leading into a large factory lot.

Not quite a dead end, he told himself. Narrower but perfectly passable roads split off to right and left, paralleling the factory. But which way? The lights of the city illuminated the air directly ahead, and that way was denied them.

"Damn! Don’t know how I missed the turnoff. If they’re going to detour you off the highway, you’d think they’d put up more signs."

"What’s going on?" A glance in the center rearview mirror showed Steven sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. After hours of steady highway cruising, their coming to a halt had awakened both children.

"We’re here," said his sister tiredly. "Isn’t that obvious?"

"That’s right." Alicia tried to see past the dark bulk of the factory. "But your father seems to have missed a turn somewhere."

In his frustration he spoke more sharply than he intended. "I did not miss a turn!" Then, more gently, "All right. So maybe I did. Any suggestions?"

"Go left, I think. The lights look brighter over that way."

He shrugged. "Good enough." He backed up slightly to make sure the motor home would have enough space to clear the curb, then tugged the wheel to port.

Several blocks on, they found themselves driving slowly past a dark park. Strangely thin trees sprouted from among blades of thick blue-green grass.

Walking on the edge of the grass was an elderly gentleman clad in a thin coat of some shiny, silvery material. It would have to be thin, Frank knew. This time of year Vegas was warm even late at night. His shoes matched his coat and he carried a cane, which he was giving a jaunty twirl. Golden tassels trailed from the back and one side of a gray beret.

The outfit would have drawn laughs in south Los Angeles, but this was Las Vegas. He might be a visitor out for an evening’s stroll, or a casino employee enjoying his midmorning break. Many of the bigger hotels required the wearing of special uniforms by their employees, the flashier the better.

"Let’s ask him," Alicia said.

The same thought had already occurred to Frank. He slowed and pulled toward the curb. Alicia lowered her window.

The old man stopped to look up at them. There was no concern in his expression, only curiosity. If he lived or worked in this neighborhood he was probably used to encountering lost tourists.

Alicia leaned out. "Excuse us, but is this the right way to downtown?"

He nodded. With his full mustache and beard he resembled a slightly anorexic version of that old character actor, Monty Woolley.

"Sure is." Funny accent, Frank thought. European of some kind. The man was pointing up the street with his cane. "Just keep on the way you’re headed. The road will curve to the right, then fork. Take the left-hand fork. That’ll put you right back on the main road." Now he turned his attention to the motor home.

"Interesting contraption you got there. Internal combustion, is it?"

Frank could take a joke as well as any man. "Naw. Nuclear-powered."

The riposte didn’t faze the nightwalker. He sniffed. "Don’t smell nuclear. Can’t tell much anymore." He touched the side of his nose. "Sinuses. You know what desert pollen can do to you when it’s in season."

"Tell me about it," Frank replied. "We’ve been to Vegas every year about this time for the past five years."

The oldster’s eyebrows drew together and the mustache twitched. "Vegas?"

"Las Vegas," said Alicia encouragingly.

Suddenly Frank saw the light. No wonder the old guy was out walking by himself in the middle of the night. He was slightly off.

"We had to take a detour," his wife was saying.

"Must’ve been some detour." The oldster scratched at his nose, sniffed again. "Never heard of this Las Vegas." He gestured with his cane once more. "This is Pass Regulus."

"Maybe in your language," Frank told him, positive now of the man’s foreign origins, "but it’ll always be Vegas to us."

The old man thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "Like you say, it’s that kind of town. Guess there are lots of names for it, depending on where you hail from."

"Exactly," said Frank with satisfaction. "Depending on where you’re from. That was straight on, curve right, take the left-hand fork?"

Their guide nodded. "You got it."

"Can we give you a lift?" asked Alicia. Frank growled and she pretended not to hear him. It didn’t matter.

"No, thanks. I’m on duty."

That at least explained what he was doing out here all by himself in the middle of the night. "What kind of duty?" Frank inquired.

"Night watchman. You folks have a nice time, now. Try not to lose too much money."

"We’ll do our best. We’re not big gamblers anyway. I’d rather sit by the pool and people-watch."

"That’s the way to do it." The old man nodded approvingly. "Take care now, and remember: left-hand fork."

"Thank you." Alicia sent the window up as Frank pulled back out into the middle of the street. "Didn’t you think he was kind of old to be working as a night watchman, dear?"

"Naw. Some of those old guys might not be able to run down purse snatchers, but that doesn’t mean they still can’t shoot straight."

She nodded, then said thoughtfully, "I wonder what language Pass Regulus means Las Vegas in?"

"Beats me, sweets. Hungarian or something." He glanced at the rearview. "Mouse?"

"The name is unfamiliar to me, Mr. Sonderberg."

"What about Italian, Pops?" Wendy suggested.

He shook his head. "I don’t think so."

"How would you know?" His daughter’s voice had regained its normal, healthy smart-ass tone.

"Because your mother and I have eaten at Mama Genovese’s over in Long Beach ever since we were dating, and this guy didn’t sound anything like Mama Genovese."

The argument over accents continued as Frank followed the curving road until they came to the fork, just as the old man had predicted. The city lights were brighter than ever. Frank turned left. A few minutes later they found themselves out of the industrial area and cruising down a main street.

Alicia stared in puzzlement at the casinos and hotel towers. "I don’t recognize any of this."

Frank didn’t reply immediately. They were surrounded by slowly moving traffic and he was trying to concentrate on his driving. "I don’t, either, but remember we usually come straight from the airport to the hotel. We’ve never been in this end of town."

"Maybe that’s why everything looks so different. But you’d think we’d have seen at least one familiar place by now. The Golden Nugget or Silver Dollar or someplace."

"Any minute, now. You’ll see. Maybe there’s been a lot of redevelopment in the past year."

Alicia looked dubious.

"Oh, wow, look at that, look at that!" Wendy was gesturing excitedly to the sidewalk on their right. "There must be a science-fiction convention in town!"

Frank managed a brief glimpse of the crowded sidewalk beneath the neon. Scattered among the mass of people were a few visions lifted from a fever dream. Two figures a good head taller than the rest of the crowd boasted eyes on the tips of wobbling stalks and orange-hued skin beneath loose green vests. Behind them strolled a dozen tall bluish shapes. White stripes ran down their backs and they wore robes of saffron satin. No heads were visible.

Hari Krishna asparagus, Frank thought, laughing to himself.

Other figures wore thick fur despite the warmth of the night. Dog-faced dwarfs that must have been children in costume wore incongruously bright kilts. He tried to penetrate the exquisitely designed masks, but it was difficult, what with having to concentrate on driving. Whoever had fashioned the masks and costumes had done a superb job. They looked loose and natural.

Only then did he let his gaze shift to the humans in the crowd. That was at once more reassuring and more disturbing. They were undeniably people, but not one wore anything familiar. If this were New Orleans at Mardi Gras it might have made sense, but this was Vegas, where visitors tended to the outre in their habits, not their attire. The street people’s clothing was as outrageous as the alien costumes.

For that matter, the hotels and casinos didn’t look quite normal. Alicia was right about that. Oh, they were every bit as flashy and glitter-plated. But at the same time they were somehow different. Some of the neon signs appeared to float in midair, attached to nothing, like holograms, only brighter. Instead of mere concrete the sidewalks were paved in spots with bright tiles that flashed different colors and filled the air with music when they were trod upon.

As they cruised slowly down the road, hemmed in by smaller vehicles on all sides, he searched in vain for the Tropicana, the Flamingo, the Dunes. There was no sign of the older hotels, Vegas landmarks since the fifties. As for the newer ones, they were remarkable and elaborate. Only the names were missing. Most had signs in languages other than English. Those that did identified themselves as the Gloryhole and Eruption and Coraka. At that moment he would have given a hundred bucks to see a sign reading Hilton.

As if in response to his unvoiced wish they came up on still another grandiose structure. The huge glowing sign seemed to drift unstably twenty feet above the sidewalk. It read HULTON, but for Frank that was close enough. As he pulled out of the street into the parking lot he saw that the bottom floor was perfectly transparent. Beyond he could make out strange fish and other sea creatures, along with more swimmers in costume. They wore no scuba tanks.

The knot that was growing in the pit of his stomach doubled in size.

Forty stories of hotel were mounted on water enclosed by glass. As they drove farther into the lot they could see people traveling between floors in glass elevators. Fish scattered to avoid the moving lifts.

"It’s like Vegas." Alicia’s tone was soft, hushed. "But it’s not. It’s someplace else. Where’s Circus Circus?" She leaned forward. "It should be near here, near the end of the strip."

"It better be." He pulled back out into the street, continued westward.

Circus Circus wasn’t where it ought to be. In its place was an equally outlandish casino-hotel complex. Instead of the long pool intended to imitate an ancient Roman bath, they found a stream filled with pure blue light. Yellow steam rose from the liquid like dry ice from a tropical drink. The stream was flanked on both sides by tall statues of beetles and reptilian things in formal suits.

A long line of vehicles was waiting to unload passengers at the main entrance, beyond the spring, which fed the stream of blue light. Some cars had wheels, others did not. A long low bus sported a pair of humming wings. No wonder the old watchman they’d encountered had been curious about the motor home.

"Gee, Dad. Do you see that?" Steven had his face pressed up against one window as he stared. He was gazing not at the hotel or the strange vehicles but at the night sky.

Trying to control his trembling, Frank leaned forward and twisted his head to peer up and out. What he saw were four moons, each a different size, all hanging in an impossible sky. He wondered what the sun would look like when day finally broke over this place. Would it be yellow or some other alien color? And would it have cousins, like the moon? His hands clung tightly to the wheel lest it metamorphose beneath his fingers.

"Let me guess," he said quietly. "Another thread twisted?"

Mouse nodded, though he couldn’t see her. "Another thread."

"Right." He sat up straight, so sharply Alicia was startled. He began turning the wheel. "I’ve had enough! I don’t give a damn where the real Las Vegas is or what this place is, but we’re going home. Now, tonight."

"Aw, Dad!" Steven whined. "This place looks neat!"

"We’re going home, like your father says." Somehow Alicia held on to her composure, not to mention her sanity.

While Steven folded his arms and pouted, his father accelerated away from the taunting lights of the city. "Airport. Gotta be an airport. Every city has an airport. We’ll fly home, right now."

Half a mile past the last casino they found the sign. It proclaimed, in perfect English: AIRPORT. An arrow pointed down a road leading out into the desert.

Frank sent them skidding wildly around the corner. The lights of the city continued to shrink behind them. That’s when he saw the thing that made him slow down, then pull over to the side of the road and park. He ignored the profusion of remarkable vehicles that alternately whizzed, whistled, squeaked, and roared past the idling motor home.

Rising in the distance was a tower of cool purple flame atop which sat an elaborate flattened dirigible. Bright lights glistened along its side like the running illumination of some deep-sea fish. It was at least as big as the Empire State Building. As they stared, it tilted to its right. When it was climbing at a forty-five-degree angle, a loud boom echoed across the desert and it vanished into the night.

A moment later two smaller ships took its place in the sky. They were only as big as 747s. Ovoid-shaped, their lights were concentrated along the top. They were descending instead of rising, on puffs of bright red light.

"I cannot be certain," said Burnfingers Begay quietly, "but I do not think you will be able to get a plane to Los Angeles from here."

Frank let out a long slow breath, slumped over the wheel. Alicia was instantly concerned.

"Hon, are you all right?"

He looked over at her without straightening. "No, I’m not all right. I’m sick and tired. Aren’t you?"

She hesitated. "I guess, I guess I am. I guess none of us is all right."

Wendy’s voice was a mixture of awe and fear. "Daddy, where are we?" Her father finally sat up, staring blankly through the windshield at the distant spaceport.

"Pass Regulus. Wherever the hell that is."

"I know a star called Regulus," said Steven.

"Star. That’s a big help." Steven looked hurt and Frank was instantly contrite. The kid had little enough self-confidence as it was. "Sorry, kiddo. I’m just a little upset right now, understand?"

Steven spoke reluctantly. "Yeah, sure. I understand. Gee, Dad, don’t you think since we’re here we oughta look around a little?"

"Doesn’t look like we have any choice. But I’m still going to concentrate on getting us home."

A metallic squeak indicated the side door was being opened. He glanced around sharply, but it was only Burnfingers Begay leaning out for a look. Satisfied, he shut the door behind him.

"Constellations are all mixed up. I don’t recognize a one my grandfather taught me. Maybe one of them up there is our sun. Or maybe this is our world and it is all changed around."

Frank was learning that when reality was dissolving around you like a pat of butter in a baked potato it was best not to try to define anything too precisely.

"So what do we do? Grab the first ship to Pluto or someplace close? What the hell am I supposed to do?" He was too tired to raise his voice.

"We must keep close to the road," declared Mouse. "It is the nearest thing that remains to a constant. Like all roads, this one is a thread of sorts."

Alicia turned to her. "What do you think we should do? Should we try and drive back to Los Angeles?"

"No. It is more important than ever for me to move quickly to the Vanishing Point. Reality is degenerating ever more rapidly. It is regrettable," she concluded apologetically, "that the Anarchis has chosen to concentrate its efforts on me, but that only proves how close I am to reaching my goal of soothing the Spinner. My fellow singers must be in even more difficulty than I am."

"Aren’t we just lucky we happened to pick you up," said Frank sarcastically.

"It is a grand thing you are doing in helping me."

"Let me guess. You said this Vanishing Point was near Vegas. Am I right in assuming it isn’t actually in Vegas, after all? Or this Pass Regulus place, either?"

"No. I said it lay in this direction. This is true. It lies onward. That is the way we must go. If we retreat now we run the risk of encountering the same twisted thread that nearly destroyed us before."

He nodded resignedly. "I thought it might be like that. So we can’t go back, either. Unless we want to pay another visit to Hell."

"We must go on."

"To where?" He shifted in his seat. "To this Vanishing Point? Next big town is Salt Lake City. I suppose you’re going to tell me it lies beyond that, too. Then what? Cheyenne?"

"No." She concentrated, closing her eyes. "Not that far. Surely not that far."

"I suppose I should be relieved, right?"

"So what you’re saying," said Alicia, "is that if we can get you as far as this Vanishing Point, you’ll be able to make everything right again."

"If I can soothe the Spinner, yes. If it is not already too late."

Alicia turned to her husband. "We have to go on, Frank. I thought maybe we could walk away from this, but we can’t. Not if everything’s going to keep changing. I thought it would be all right when we got to Las Vegas. Now we aren’t even going to be able to do that. We don’t have any choice."

"The hell we don’t! I’m not heading out into nowhere again tonight. I can’t drive anymore, and you shouldn’t, either."

"I could drive, Dad," said Wendy.

He smiled at her. "Thanks, sweetheart, but I think I’d rather be behind the wheel myself in case we run into any new surprises. This boat’s a little harder to handle than your XR-7."

"Then what are we going to do, dear?" Alicia asked him.

He sighed. "A city’s a city."

"Perhaps it would be best for us to rest awhile," said Mouse.

"Frank’s right." Burnfingers nodded back toward town. "Maybe Pass Regulus is not Las Vegas, but it looks to be a close facsimile. They should welcome us at one of the hotels."

"What about money?" Frank asked him. "They may not take credit cards here."

"What they take might surprise you. If nothing else we always have my gold."

"But you’ve been saving that for something special," said Alicia. "To make your jewelry, or whatever it is you intend to make."

"I can always get more gold. When we are safely back in our reality you can pay me back."

"You’d do that for us?" said Frank.

"It will be a cold day in Hell when Burnfingers Begay shies from helping his friends. I am looking forward to seeing what kind of entertainment this city offers."

Mouse eyed him. "There’s no guarantee gold is worth anything on this reality line. It might be quite common."

"Not my gold. Mine is uncommon gold. Though I cannot dispute what you say."

"It’s worth a try, anyway." Frank checked the road behind them. Both lanes were empty. He swung the big motor home around, kicking sand from the opposite shoulder, and headed back toward town. Momentarily he found himself wondering at the difference between common and uncommon gold. Then it was forgotten as he concentrated afresh on the traffic that began to gather around them.