They were thunderstruck by this last option, since both of them had abandoned any hope of ever returning. Joe had often thought of it, of course, but he’d never expected to have the choice offered to him.
Marge smiled at Ruddygore. “No, I don’t think I want to return. Maybe someday for a visit, but never for good. I’ve been in this world perhaps only a year, but I’ve lived more than I have in all my previous life. It’s not the wondrous, romantic world of my fantasies, true, but it is a wonderful place nonetheless.” Both she and Ruddygore looked at Joe.
“You know, ever since I met you, I’ve been aching to go back. It’s all I dreamed about. But I don’t know. Call it inscrutable Indian perversity, or maybe just an old trucker’s whim, but there really is nothin’ there for me. The funny thing is, I might have still taken you up on it until we got back here.
Just seein’ folks like Macore, Houma, and Grogha you know, I got more friends in this world than I have in the other? And I’m still my own boss here, still on the move, only here one place ain’t so much like another.”
Ruddygore sighed and nodded. “All right, then, that’s settled. As for the other, perhaps I wasn’t playing quite fair with you.”
Both of their heads snapped up and looked at him suspiciously.
He sighed. “Remember back at the start of this thing? Remember, Marge, when you labeled it the start of an epic?”
She chuckled. “Yes, I remember. I didn’t know how true that was when I joked about it.”
“You still don’t,” he told her. “The Books of Rules, Volume 16, page 103, section 12(d).”
“Yeah? So what’s that crazy set say about us?” Joe wanted to know.
“All epics must be at least trilogies,” Ruddygore replied,
About The Author
JACK L. CHALKER was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on December 17, 1944, but was raised and has spent most of his life in Baltimore, Maryland. He learned to read almost from the moment of entering school, and by working odd jobs amassed a large book collection by the time he was in junior high school, a collection now too large for containment in his quarters. Science fiction, history, and geography all fascinated him early on, interests that continue.
Chalker joined the Washington Science Fiction Association in 1958 and began publishing an amateur SF journal, Mirage, in 1960.
After high school he decided to be a trial lawyer, but money problems and the lack of a firm caused him to switch to teaching. He holds bachelor degrees in history and English, and an M.L.A. from the Johns Hopkins University. He taught history and geography in the Baltimore public schools between 1966 and 1978, and now makes his living as a freelance writer.
Additionally, out of the amateur journals he founded a publishing house. The Mirage Press, Ltd., devoted to nonfiction and bibliographic works on science fiction and fantasy. This company has produced more than twenty books in the last nine years. His hobbies include esoteric audio, travel, working on science fiction convention committees, and guest lecturing on SF to institutions such as the Smithsonian.
He is an active conservationist and National Parks supporter, and he has an intensive love of ferryboats, with the avowed goal of riding every ferry in the world. In fact, in 1978 he was married to Eva Whitley on an ancient ferryboat in mid river. They live in the Catoctin Mountain region of western Maryland with their son David.
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