To the Vanishing Point

by Alan Dean Foster

  "Hey, look at me, everybody!"

  They all turned. Flucca stood in the middle of the motor home, gesturing excitedly. "Watch this." As they stared, two Fluccas ran toward each other and melted together, like a trick on television.

  "Do that again," Burnfingers asked him.

  "No problem." Snapping his fingers for effect, the dwarf executed a neat pirouette. One of him jumped left, the other to the right, and once more there were two of him. The first jumped on the second’s shoulders. Four stubby arms extended parallel to the floor.

  "I always knew I was a normal-sized person. But there was only half of me in the real world."

  "Maybe more than half," Burnfingers suggested. "Try it again."

  "Really? You think so?" Both Fluccas spoke simultaneously. It was purer than stereo. Both snapped their fingers at the same time, jumped — and the back of the motor home was occupied by four very short Mexican chefs.

  "That’s enough," said Frank. Looking at the four Fluccas hurt his head.

  "The unending Niccolo." Burnfingers’s voice had fallen to a whisper. "I wonder how many of him there really are?"

  "More than meets the eye, which is what I’ve been telling people for years." Like the cards in Alice in Wonderland, he jumped back together until only one of him stood before them. "Always was my own best company."

  "What about you, Mouse?" It was Alicia who posed the query. "What can your secret self do?"

  "I am a singer. I am a singer here, I was a singer in your reality, I would be a singer on any reality line. Nothing more or less."

  Disappointed, Alicia looked past her. "Then what about you, Burnfingers?"

  "I do not know." He peered back at Flucca. "What should I do? Snap my fingers, or turn a circle, or hold my breath?"

  "Try and let your inner self emerge," Mouse told him. "I think that’s what the fish meant."

  "All right. Hey-ah."

  He stood up, smiling. A serious smile this time, not sappy or half-cocked. As they looked on, he began to grow. Slowly at first, then more rapidly. His head bumped the ceiling.

  "Maybe I had better go outside."

  "I dunno." Frank hurriedly checked the windows.

  "The fish are not going to carry me away." He opened the door and stepped outside.

  As he grew, his body diffused. The ground did not splinter under his weight. In minutes he was a thousand feet tall and several hundred wide. It was possible to see through his vapor-thin feet.

  "That’s enough, Burnfingers!" Alicia had rolled down her window and leaned out to watch. Now she yelled worriedly. Frank crowded behind her while the children, Mouse, and Flucca spread themselves from the door to the rear windows.

  A thin voice drifted down to them from up among the clouds. "I can’t stop. I cannot stop myself."

  "You gotta stop!" Frank shouted.

  "Please, Burnfingers! It’s not funny anymore!" Alicia screamed.

  "It never was very funny." They couldn’t see his face anymore. "But it sure is enlightening."

  Then he was gone. Or it seemed he was gone. They argued about it. Neither Frank nor Alicia could see anything, but Mouse insisted Burnfingers Begay was still standing there, his position unchanged.

  Frank straightened. "I knew he shouldn’t have gone outside. I knew it. The only reality we’ve got left is in here. As soon as he went out, that was all she wrote. No more links with his own reality."

  "He’s still there," said Mouse, disagreeing fervently.

  "Yeah? Where?" Frank made a show of studying the terrain outside. "I don’t see him."

  "He kept growing," she insisted. "As he grows, he becomes more spread out, until the atoms of his body are so far apart it’s the same as if he’s become transparent. Now he is an echo of a shadow of an outline."

  "Solid like a brick," Frank muttered.

  "Say, rather, less than an echo but more than a memory." She stood in the open doorway, staring at the strange land beyond.

  "What do we do now?" There was sadness in Alicia’s voice. Though at first suspicious of him, she’d grown quite fond of Burnfingers Begay, and not only because he’d risked his life to help rescue her and her children from the mutants of a devastated Salt Lake City. She’d come to like him for himself.

  "We stay here until we’re sure which road to try or until our food runs out, whichever comes first. That’s all I know how to do. Mouse?"

  She didn’t reply, just kept staring out the open door.

  15

  They waited in vain for a sunset. If there was a sun hereabouts, it worked longer hours than their own. Rather than coming from a source in the sky, the light of this country was evenly distributed, like particles suspended in water. Eventually they slept despite the ceaseless illumination.

  Frank was dozing when Steven’s excited voice woke him.

  "Dad, Mom, everybody, wake up!"

  Frank’s eyelids rose ponderously. "What is it? What’s the matter, kiddo?"

  "It’s Burnfingers! He’s coming back!"

  "Steven, no!"

  Ignoring his mother, the boy threw open the door and dashed outside. Everyone in the motor home rushed for the windows.

  Steven stood on the grass that grew half an inch above the ground. He had his head tilted back as he stared skyward, using his cupped hands to shield his eyes. Everyone else looked up as the body of Burnfingers Begay seemed to coalesce out of thin air.

  As they watched, he shrank and solidified. Soon he was no more than an Everest-sized Burnfingers, then hillside-size. His legs became opaque as he filled up the space where he’d been. Finally he was as he’d been before. He picked up Steven and tossed him into the air, catching him easily. Steven was still laughing as they walked back to the motor home together.

  "I got big," he said in response to the questions on their waiting faces. "I just kept growing and growing and spreading myself out." He glanced at Frank. "Better to grow extra arms, I think."

  "We thought you’d evaporated or something," said Alicia, relieved.

  "Or come apart," Flucca added.

  "Nope. I just got bigger. Than this place, than this world, than this whole reality line. I got so big I could see several reality lines at once. There’s a lot to see in just one reality. I got so big I could see right into our own reality. It looks real fine, let me tell you, and damned if it didn’t make me a little homesick.

  "When I started to come back into myself I made sure to take a good look at part of all the realities I could see. Particularly the roads." He turned and nodded toward the windshield. "I know which line leads to your Vanishing Point," he said to Mouse.

  "Did you see anything else?" she asked him intently. "Could you see how the Spinner was doing?"

  Burnfingers shook his head. "I guess that was too far up the road. All I could see was that it was the right one. All the roads led to the same place, but this was the one that got there the quickest."

  "All realities end there," she murmured. "That’s why it’s called the Vanishing Point. Are you sure that’s what you saw?"

  "Sure I’m sure. It was impressive, let me tell you. Enough to drive a person insane. But since I am already crazy it did not bother me at all."

  "I’m just glad you’re okay." Frank extended a hand. Burnfingers slapped at it and Frank returned the high five. He didn’t even mind when Alicia gave their startled guest a surprise kiss and hug.

  "All right, then. We know which way we have to go to get where we’re goin'. Let’s go there and get this taken care of."

  "What is really amusing," said Burnfingers, "is that the road to the Vanishing Point leads right back through Los Angeles."

  "Now that’s funny." Frank was feeling better than he had in some time. "That’s the last place in the Cosmos where you’d think reality would be strong."

  "A matter of perception," Mouse commented. "Many realities twist back on themselves. I’m not surprised I have to return to where I’ve been in order to get where I wasn’t. It may even be possible f
or me to leave you at your home and continue the rest of the way myself."

  "Let’s not worry about that now." Alicia patted Mouse’s hand reassuringly. "We’ve come this far together. If we have to, we’ll see you through the rest of the way, too."

  "Don’t promise so quickly. Once back among familiar surroundings, you may not be so eager to give them up."

  "One thing at a time. Let’s get back to L.A. first."

  Alicia looked past Mouse and Burnfingers. "Wait a minute, Frank. Don’t forget Steven."

  "That’s right." Wendy retreated to look out the door. "He’s still outside, Mom. I’ll get him."

  She walked to the doorway, stopped to stare. Her little brother was standing again where he’d gone to meet Burnfingers, but he wasn’t alone. He was talking to angelfish. A whole school of them. They swam in close formation around him, a whirlpool of orange and black and red and yellow fins and scales. They were talking to him, and he was talking back.

  When Wendy said nothing, Alicia finally rolled down her own window. As soon as she saw what was going on she leaned out and yelled, "Steven! Get back in here! Right now!"

  Frank leaned over his wife, the small hairs on the back of his neck rising when he saw his son engulfed by fish that were swimming in air instead of ocean. He rushed to the door.

  "Steven! You heard your mother. Get over here!"

  The boy turned toward the motor home, peering between the circling fish. His tone was apologetic. "Sorry, Dad. I can’t. See, I’ve been talking to my friends and I’ve gotta go with them."

  Frank stood frozen in the doorway, gazing, dumbfounded, at his precocious, overweight son. "This isn’t a game, kiddo, and we don’t have time to play. We’ve got to be on our way. We’ve got to get home."

  "Oh, I know that. You guys go on ahead and I’ll catch up."

  "Catch up? What do you mean, catch…"

  The sentence died away. He found himself standing and staring, without a net of reason to support him. Ascending at a sharp angle, the school of angelfish climbed into the western sky. Wearing a broad, innocent grin, Steven dog-paddled furiously after them.

  "Steven!" Alicia had left her chair and crowded in the doorway beside her husband. "Oh my God, what’s happening! Steven, this is your mother! You get back here right now!"

  The boy had caught up to the school, was surrounded by softly waving fins. He called back apologetically. "I can’t, Mom and Dad. I’m really sorry, but I have to go." He was at once astonishing and comical as he hung there, treading air. "See, these guys are my friends. They wanna help me find something. Something important."

  At any moment Frank expected his son to plunge earthward. He was a hundred feet above the ground and had to shout to make himself heard.

  "See," Steven was telling them, "this is the place where everybody finds out what they can do, what they’re really about. Dad, you can grow extra arms, and Mom, you’re just Mom, only more so. Mr. Flucca can copy himself, and Burnfingers can get as big as he really is, and Wendy just stays scared a lot, and Mouse — Mouse sings, just like she’s been telling us all along. Now it’s my turn, but I’ve got to go with these guys." He gestured at the milling, impatient school. "They’ve promised to show me the important stuff, but I have to go with 'em."

  "Steven, you aren’t flying anywhere with a bunch of maybe-fish to see anything." Frank tried to make himself sound stern and threatening, but he was too frightened to do a really good job of it. "We’re going right now, and you’re coming with us."

  The boy shook his head. "Sorry, Dad. It’s okay, they’re friends. I’ll catch up. I’ve gotta go with 'em. I’ll come back as soon as they’ve shown me how to do the stuff."

  "What kind of stuff?" Alicia didn’t really want to know but didn’t know what else to say. There was no way for her to go and get him.

  Steven’s grin got even wider. He sucked in his belly and puffed out his chest. "I can obulate!"

  With that he turned and resumed his dog-paddling as the angelfish convoyed him in steady procession toward the clouds.

  "Steven, Stevie!" Frank jumped out of the motor home and started running, trying to chase the fleeing flock — or was it school? — on foot. "Steven, come back here!"

  "It’s all right, Dad." The little-boy voice was confident but very faint now. "Everything’s gonna be okay. You guys go on. Don’t worry about me, and tell Mom not to worry, too. I’m with my friends."

  It didn’t take Frank long to run out of breath. He slowed, stopped, bending over and sucking air as he rested on the grass that grew above the ground. He lifted his gaze and stared until the school became tiny specks surrounding a slightly larger speck. Then there was only a single speck.

  Then there was nothing.

  Forcing down the lump in his throat, he turned and walked slowly back to the motor home. They were all waiting for him, silent. He ignored everyone’s eyes but Alicia’s.

  "We have to go after him," she said softly.

  "How?" It was a frustrated growl. "This is a Winnebago. Not a spaceship, not an airplane."

  "Well, we have to do something. We can’t just leave him here." She was looking past him toward the horizon.

  He leaned against the doorjamb. "What do you suggest we do?"

  She had no reply to that. It was left to Mouse to comment. "We must go on." The words were painful in the stillness of the day. "Remember, if we linger too long in any one place it will enable the Anarchis to locate us. Then all will be lost."

  Frank turned to her, his tone bitter. "What about my son?"

  "Little warrior did not look to be in danger." Burnfingers, too, was staring into the distance. "He said they were his friends. He was very certain. I think they are, and I think they will take care of him."

  "But he’ll be marooned here if we drive off! He’ll be stuck on this reality line with no way of finding his way home."

  "He seemed sure he would." Burnfingers looked down at his distraught companion. "Always children have to trust their parents. I think maybe this time you are going to have to trust him."

  "Trust him? Trust him to what? A bunch of refugees from some airborne aquarium?"

  "I think they are more than what they seem."

  "What," asked Alicia numbly, "is obulating?"

  No one knew. No one even had an idea. Not Burnfingers Begay, not even Mouse.

  "It must be something really unique or special for him to leave his parents over it," Flucca observed.

  "He’s just a kid," Frank snapped. "He doesn’t know what’s going on here. He doesn’t know what anything’s about. To him it’s all a big game."

  "No, Dad." Wendy put an arm around her father’s shoulders. She was looking out past him, in the direction her brother and his friends had gone. "He knows it’s not a game. Steven’s, like, a pain sometimes. I guess all little brothers are. But he’s pretty smart. He didn’t think Hell was a game, and I know he didn’t think that place we just left was a game, when we were in that cage, and I don’t think he thinks it’s a game now."

  She was interrupted by a distant rumbling, the throaty purr of something darker than hunger on the prowl. Flucca scurried to the rear of the motor home to peer out the back window.

  "It’s getting dark in back of us, folks, and it doesn’t look like nighttime that’s coming up on us."

  Mouse looked. "The Anarchis. It’s too close, much too close." She turned bottomless eyes to Frank. "We must go now. If we’re trapped here it will be the end of everything, including hope. The end of my mission to help the Spinner, of your chance to see your son again, of all of us. Do you know anything about the Unified Field Theory?"

  "Huh, what?" Frank shook himself, blinked, turned away from the far horizon that had swallowed his boy.

  "The Anarchis is kind of a unified field. It’s Chaos and Evil personified. If we don’t get away from here fast we won’t do your son any good at all."

  "But if it’s coming this way," Alicia said, "and Steven’s still here…"

>   "I think he’s gone." Mouse nodded toward the horizon. "With his friends. And I don’t think he’s coming back to this spot whether you’re here or not." It was a cold thing to say, but with the entire sky behind them blackening rapidly Mouse had no time to lavish on tact. "He’s gone away with his friends, obulated or whatever it is they do. The only way you can help him now is by helping yourselves. We must go on."

  "All right." An uncaring numbness had taken hold of Frank. His son was gone. Having accepted that, he found he didn’t much care what happened anymore. Not on this reality line or anyone else’s. All he wanted was his boy back.

  But he was intelligent enough to realize he was out of his depth, caught up in a maelstrom of implausibilities beyond his or anyone else’s experience. Without any knowledge or ideas of his own he had to rely on people like Mouse and Burnfingers Begay to tell him what to do. Mouse said they had to go on. So he would go on. He climbed inside and moved purposefully toward the driver’s seat.

  Alicia followed closely. "Frank …?"

  He shook off her hand, grimly inspecting the instruments. "Mouse says we can’t stay here. So we’ve got to go."

  "If we leave this reality he’ll never find us. We’ll never see him again, Frank."

  He looked up at his wife. He couldn’t smile. His mouth wasn’t working properly. But he tried to sound reassuring anyway. "We don’t know that. Just like we don’t know anything else here." He started the engine. At least something responded to his wishes, he told himself.

  "Frank, he’s only a ten-year-old boy. If he doesn’t know where he is now, how will he ever know where to find us?"

  "Maybe the damn fish will show him. How the hell do I know?" Seeing the hurt on her face, he softened his tone. "Look, sweetheart. We don’t have any choice. We can’t stay here. Even if we could, I don’t think the kid’s coming back right away anyhow."

  "Dad’s right, Mom." Wendy tried to comfort her mother, who was on the verge of tears. "I don’t like leaving the little brat here, either, but like Mouse says, we don’t even know if he’s here anymore. This is the craziest place we’ve been yet. Maybe — maybe he’s on his way home already. Maybe that’s where the fish took him. He might even be waiting for us." She made herself sound cheerful. "What if that’s what obulating is? Finding the way home?"