"Oh, that stuff’s common." Max was examining the bills avidly. "Not even charged or bonded. Remarkable. Could I have one of each denomination? The images are so exquisitely bombastic."
"Well, sure," said Frank uncertainly. There was nothing in Max’s hand larger than a twenty.
"We’d best be going." Mouse was looking out the windows. "We’re losing time."
"Yeah." Frank took back the excess dollars.
"Wonderful," Max was murmuring. "Paper money."
His wife was filling sugar shakers. "See something new every day, doncha, honey? Listen, you folks ever come back this way, you be sure and stop in for coffee and danish or something, okay?"
"Sure," Frank told her, "if we ever come back this way."
Max was holding a ten up to the light. "Unbelievable. Such a feeble material for a unit of exchange." He blinked, followed Frank and the others as they headed for the door. "Kinda hard to see through, though. I’m supposed to get new lenses in a week or so."
Frank hesitated by the exit as his family filed outside. "I’m not sure I can handle those pumps. They look a little funny."
"Oh, you’ll find one that fits," Max assured him. "We monitor dispensing from in here. Just go ahead and fill 'er up. And remember next time you’re back this way: the Conjunction never closes."
"I’ll keep that in mind."
Frank followed his family across the gravel, staring through the intersection at the starry void on the other side. As Max had promised, hidden among nozzles with peculiar shapes and openings was one that closely resembled a standard gasoline filler. As he lifted it from its support hook the word UNLEADED appeared in glowing letters on the metal of the pump housing. There was no visible meter: no digital readout, no rotating numbers. He shrugged, flicked open the filler cap cover, removed the cap, and shoved the nozzle in as far as it would go before pulling on the trigger. Gas began to flow. It stank like ordinary unleaded.
As he filled the tank he watched his family climb inside. Mouse and Burnfingers waited till last.
"Do you know this place?" he asked suddenly. "What’s this Conjunction, anyway?"
Mouse paused on the steps. "I imagine it’s just what they say it is. A conjunction." She looked thoughtful. "A place where different strands of reality come together." She smiled and followed Alicia inside. Burnfingers winked at him.
"Think of it that way, anyhow."
"I’d rather not think of it at all." The pump clicked off, indicating the tank was full, and Frank slipped the nozzle back onto its hook. As he was securing it he found himself looking back toward the cafe. The continuously changing sign over the entrance was a blur of icons and glyphs and letters.
He thought he saw a figure standing by one window. It was eight feet tall, completely covered in a glistening bronze fur, and wore a white apron. As he stared, it extended coppery cables from one arm to lift a sugar shaker off a table. The shaker turned into a tiny glass hydrant full of blue bubbles. Frank shook his head, looked again. When his eyes refocused they saw something like an anemic bear wearing a florid turquoise jumpsuit. It was clutching an armful of purple popsicles.
He could have looked again but decided it might be bad for his eyesight. Not to mention his sanity. Instead, he worked his way around to the front of the motor home and concentrated on checking the oil and coolant levels. It was with difficulty and determination that he kept himself from turning again toward the cafe.
Back inside, he slid down into the driver’s chair and distastefully studied the gravel lot. Beyond it lay half a dozen ephemeral roadways bordered on all sides by impossible emptiness.
"Which way?"
"Back onto the road we were traversing," Mouse told him firmly. "That’s the way. That’s the path."
"Seems to me I’ve heard that before." With a sigh he started the engine and pulled out of the lot.
As they left the pumps behind, another vehicle pulled in behind them. It looked like a broken sequoia and went whisper-whisper as it settled to the ground beside the row of pumps. Out of it drifted eyes attached to a thin body and gossamer wings. It removed a black wire from a pump and stuck it into the tree trunk. The odor of rotten eggs and fried pineapple filled the air behind them.
Frank didn’t even breathe hard as they sailed off the sand onto the highway that stretched out into nothingness. At first he found it hard to concentrate on the road because he was constantly glancing at the rearview mirror. The Conjunction did not vanish abruptly, as if in a dream. Instead, it faded slowly like an ordinary roadside pullout, a bright beacon of light and friendship and consciousness. The last of it to disappear from view was the mysterious many-tongued illuminated sign, flashing its simple welcome to everyone and anyone, a cosmic lighthouse in the middle of the Great Abyss.
Sorry as he was to leave it behind, he felt better than he had in quite a while. The motor home’s tanks were full of honest gas and their bellies full of honest food. He wondered if he’d ever again enjoy so fine a meal served by such congenial hosts.
He drove for an hour, two, before the road ahead began to lighten. At Alicia’s shout everyone crowded forward.
They were leaving emptiness behind. Sky appeared and beneath it low hills covered with trees. Piles of dark volcanic rock formed gullies and arroyos on both sides of the road that shut out the void. They had arrived somewhere.
Not home, though. The rocks appeared normal enough but the trees were distorted parodies of healthy growths. Their branches twisted and curled in defiance of gravity, which was not so surprising since none of them were rooted in the earth. They floated just above the surface, their roots dangling in air. Nor were they fixed in place. Each moved with extreme slowness, propelled by the feathery waving of fine rootlets. Occasionally they bumped off each other like birds flying in slow motion.
As they stared, half a dozen fish came flying by. They were about a foot in diameter, black with silver stripes. As the motor home approached, they suddenly veered leftward, their fins and tails rippling as they vanished into the distance. Alicia’s eyes were wide and Frank clung grimly to the wheel. He had to because the roadway was rippling beneath them, having turned the consistency of taffy. Somehow the motor home clung to the surface, the wheels hanging on with deep tread instead of fingers. Or maybe the rubber had grown claws. Frank didn’t look because he was afraid of what he might see. And it was imperative they stay on the road. He firmly believed that if they wandered off the pavement, the motor home might start drifting like the incredible hovering fish, a steel bubble floating forever through an unstable reality.
Another school of larger fish swam lazily across the road in front of them. A family of little round heads atop bodiless legs scrambled into a protective gully. Frank thought he could hear them bleating as the motor home went past.
Whether benign or malevolent, at least every reality line they’d visited thus far had exhibited the familiar constants like air, gravity, and internal logic. It was the same in Pass Regulus as it had been in Hades or at the Conjunction. Now they found themselves on a line somewhere between reality and chaos, where the simplest laws of nature appeared to have been repealed.
"What kinda place is this?" Steven’s face was screwed into an expression of distaste and puzzlement.
"I am sure I don’t know." Mouse was as intrigued as any of them.
"Maybe we’ll get through it quickly." Alicia glanced hopefully at her husband, found no reassurance there. Unable to come up with any explanations for his own questions, he had none to spare for her.
They drove past a grove of upside-down trees. These balanced themselves on delicate branches, their roots hanging in the air like the hair of an old woman. They grew among rocky outcrops that drifted above grass, which in turn grew half an inch above the soil. A flock of raucous birds erupted from the ground beneath one tree, assembled briefly on its roots, then dove beak-first back into the earth.
"Too weird," Wendy muttered.
The engine chose that moment to sputter
and miss. The motor home shuddered. Then the electronic ignition refired and they lurched forward.
Frank found he was sweating. If the engine died here they might never get it going again. In a place like this, where natural law seemed to be on a permanent vacation, a familiar internal combustion device might decide to start putting out ice cubes instead of heat. The word for this reality line was subversive.
"I’ve never been anyplace like this," Mouse was saying.
"I’ve never imagined anyplace like it." He kept resolutely to the pavement.
A tapping at his window brought his head around sharply. Three large angelfish drifted just beyond the glass, keeping pace without visible effort. He checked the speedometer, which read sixty. The fish in front was black with yellow stripes, while its companions were orange and white. The leader was tapping on the glass with a fin. Frank hesitated, then cracked the window a few inches. The fish drifted up to the gap.
"Pardon me," it said in perfect English, "but I don’t think I’ve seen you here before." Its fins rippled smoothly as it swam alongside.
"We’re just passing through." After all they’d experienced, it seemed almost normal to be conversing with a fish. If this variety fell in the water, he wondered, would it drown? "We’re on the right road, ain’t we?"
"You’re on the only road," the fish assured him. Silver-dollar-sized eyes pressed curiously against the glass.
"Peculiar creatures," opined one of the orange swimmers. "Strange habitat. Could we come inside? Just for a quick visit. We won’t stay long."
"I don’t know." Frank glanced back at Burnfingers.
"Some of my best friends are fish," came the reply. "Fishy, anyway."
Why the hell not? Frank wondered. He rolled the window down all the way.
Given their speed, the entering fish should have been accompanied by a stiff breeze, but there was no wind at all. They came in wiggling their fins. They poked curiously at everything and everyone, but they couldn’t do any harm because they had no hands.
"A nice shape," one of the orange visitors decided. "Next week it might be different, but right now it’s a nice shape."
"We’re very big on streamlining, you know," its companion declared. "It’s hard to be both elegant and streamlined."
"A machine," the other announced with satisfaction. It was poking at the stove like a bottom feeder hunting for worms. "We haven’t seen machines in — actually I can’t remember the last time I saw a machine. Or if I ever did."
"It’s nice to have visitors," said the first. "We don’t get many. This isn’t a very busy road."
"I can see why," said Frank fervently. "You might arrive looking like one thing and leave looking like something else. Or nothing else."
"It’s possible but not likely," said the black and yellow. "Just looking at you I can tell you’re all too tightly bonded for that. Your request self will never assert itself. At least not right away."
Frank was tempted to press a little harder on the accelerator but didn’t dare. The one thing they could not afford to do was lose control of the motor home. This was no place for reckless driving.
Flucca was keeping a wary eye on the floating fish as he spoke to Mouse. "Are you sure this isn’t Chaos?"
"Chaos?" The orange fish laughed, a bubbly, watery sound. "Goodness, no."
"Well, you don’t seem very organized here."
"Existence is wasteful without flexibility," the black fish told him. It made an effort to smile. "This isn’t Chaos. There are the Free Lands. Freedom is not Chaos, though there are similarities."
One of the orange floaters nodded. "Freedom is just Chaos with better lighting."
"It’s all in how you perceive reality." The black spun in a tight circle. "Best not to examine too closely the underlying truths. They can be upsetting. Speaking of which, you all are so nervous and uptight. Any stomach pains?"
"No," Alicia responded. "Actually I feel fine. It’s just that we’re in a hurry to get somewhere and these detours are kind of trying."
"No detours here, unless you want to take them." The orange fish were swimming toward the open window. The black hurried to join them. The unlikely trio exited together.
"Machines," one of them muttered disapprovingly.
"Wait, wait a second!" Frank waved anxiously. "How much farther does this road go?" There was no answer. The three angelfish were already falling behind as they swam in stately formation toward the floating mountains that dominated the distant horizon.
"Well," Alicia observed after some time had passed, "at least the natives are friendly."
"And maybe good to eat," said Burnfingers undiplomatically.
"I wonder what they look like when they’re not being fish?" Wendy mused.
"I don’t know." Frank kept his eyes resolutely on the road ahead. "But let’s not ask for any demonstrations. Uh-oh." He braked, disconnecting the cruise control. The motor home began to slow. Mouse moved up for a better look.
"What’s the matter?"
"Maybe it isn’t Chaos, but there’s a little too much freedom ahead."
They were coming to a split in the road. Not a fork or another off ramp. A hundred yards in front of the motor home, the pale pavement degenerated into a tangle of possible pathways. Some curved skyward at impossible angles. Others plunged into solid ground. A few curled round and round like endless corkscrews. If he drove onto one of those, Frank wondered, would he fall off when the road turned upside-down, or would they just keep on going?
In any case, he had no intention of plunging headlong into that mass of multidirectional spaghetti. There was no one in front of him, no one behind. He slowed, pulled off onto what he hoped was a paved shoulder, and stared.
"Did you ever see anything like that?"
"Sure. Lots of times," said Burnfingers. "On the reservation. Sheep guts." Behind him, Wendy made a face.
"How do I know which one to take? There aren’t any signs. Leastwise nothing I can read."
There were a good three dozen possible routes, provided one took into account suspension of certain natural laws. Objects floated around, over, and through several of the roadways. Some were even recognizable.
"We could ask the fish," Wendy suggested, "if they’d come back."
Her father looked to the side. A school of silvery shapes glided through the air half a mile distant. They showed no sign of moving closer.
"Maybe if we just wait," Alicia said hopefully, "someone will come along who can give us directions."
"Sure, and maybe we’ll all come apart like toys."
"Or turn into fish!" Only Steven was excited by the possibility. "I wanna be a tuna."
"You like to eat tuna," his mother reminded him gently, "but I don’t think you’d like to be one."
"I would if I could fly."
"Nobody’s flying anywhere," his father said sternly, "least of all in this motor home. This is our anchor, the one stable thing in this whole crazy place. Nobody turns into anything unless we all do so together." He looked at his wife. "I think you’re right, hon. I think we stay here until we can get or figure out directions, even if we have to ask an oak tree in Bermuda shorts."
But nothing much came by, certainly nothing likely to offer directions. Once a school of large sardines swam over the top of the motor home. They giggled ceaselessly while ignoring the bipedal entities trapped inside.
"Wish we hadn’t used up all the propane," Frank muttered as he nibbled on a sack of Doritos.
"We did not have much choice," Burnfingers reminded him. "We could not make a partial bomb. As for myself, I am enjoying the cold snack food. For a long time all the food I had to eat was hot."
"You think we’ll ever get out of here?" Flucca asked him.
"Of course we will." Burnfingers chewed on a pepperoni stick. "We have gotten out of every other place we’ve been."
"I wish I had your confidence." Frank stared morosely at the impossible interchange frustrating their progress.
; "Don’t worry, sweetheart." Alicia patted his arm. "We’ll make it. Hand me that box of raisins if you’re finished, will you?"
"Sure." He complied, found she was eyeing him strangely. "Something wrong?"
"I don’t know."
"Then what are you staring at?"
"Your arm."
"What’s wrong with it?"
"Nothing, I guess. Except you used to have only two."
He frowned at her, then down at himself. A third arm had grown from one shoulder. He raised it, watched the fingers respond to mental commands with a mix of fascination and horror.
"The fish." Mouse was staring at him, too. "The fish said something about our request selves."
"That’s neat, Dad," said Steven. "Can you grow another one?"
"What are you talking about? I don’t know. I don’t want to." As he finished, a fourth arm emerged, then two more. He tested them all, wiggling the fingers, the arms bending and moving gracefully. "This could be handy, except when you needed a new shirt."
"You always were the grabby type," Alicia told him.
"Don’t get funny. What about you? If I’m gonna look ridiculous I don’t want to do it alone."
"All right." She closed her eyes and strained. Her arms did not multiply, but a faint pink aura appeared in the air surrounding her, a rose-hued mist. "I’m sorry," she said. "I guess I can’t do it."
"But you did something else," Mouse told her. "Try again."
Alicia took a deep breath and concentrated. Soon a tremendous feeling of health and well-being filled the motor home, wiping away fear and concern, relaxing them all, reassuring and warming. It radiated from Alicia, a pure femininity encompassing sensuality and maternal affection. Frank recognized it right away. He’d felt it before, only nowhere near as powerfully. It was one of the things that had first attracted him to his wife. She’d always had it. The difference here was that instead of concealing it within, she could let it spread outward like a bracing pink wave.
She slumped, blinking. "That felt good, even if I didn’t grow any extra arms."
"It made all of us feel good." Mouse was smiling. "That’s a very special ability, Alicia. Maybe more than roads intersect at this place."
To the Vanishing Point Page 26
