backstreet where a park sided the road, he lost control and destroyed six saplings before stopping and cautiously working back toward the pavement.
The city seemed mostly deserted. It was this lack of witnesses which kept him from being apprehended and detained by the police. His vehicle moved quietly, and after any small collision, he was soon gone, whispering down an alleyway in search of exit.
In the morning, it would appear to some that a gremlin had been about wreaking havoc on those who had somehow engaged its anger.
In time, he found a ramp and took it. The truck left the city for the wide, featureless plains of the little-used superhighways which he and Pertos had traveled so much in these last five years. The sight of that uniform gray without the sharp clutter of buildings on either side was almost a religious experience. He turned right, tramped the accelerator. The truck swept down the road, whined under the widely spaced arclights. Ten miles later, the city limits passed and there was no illumination but what the headlamps provided.
He didn't get sleepy, for a change. He could not remem= ber another night when he had not been sleepy earlier in the evening. There was that ballooning excitement in him now, and it crowded out his exhaustion.
The wind picked up eventually, and lightning snapped along the undersides of the clouds.
"Tell me about— 'bout them," he said.
He waited.
Only the thunder answered.
"About stars," he explained.
He could only see two or three stars through the blanket of the storm clouds. They were lovely.
"Stars?" he repeated.
When he received no answer, he turned to look at Pertos. It all came back again, and he almost lost control of the truck.
He didn't speak again. Or look to his right as he drove.
Sometime toward morning, when the first light broke along the horizon and sent glassy, bright fingers higher into the sky, piercing the balloons of the clouds, he realized that he had no idea where he was going. This depressed him, perhaps more than it should have, for early morning on an empty highway can be a miserably lonely time.
It was raining now. His wipers thumped rhythmically back and forth, sloshing the water into the drain-channels below the glass.
He listened to the drumming pellets of water beating furiously on the roof of the cab.
He didn't know where he was going, might as well face that. Worse yet, he did not know of any place he could go. He tried to think of the names of other cities, but his mind refused to spit up that information. He thought of pulling over at one of the regularly spaced rest stops to allow himself to think things through, but panic took him every time he considered such a thing. Somehow, he was certain that, once he had stopped, he would never start again. And so he drove, the rotars beating steadily beneath him, their noise consolation of a sort.
He had changed his story, he realized. He was not living the same life that he had always lived before. He had gone against the script. And it became painfully evident as the scenery flashed by in a monotonous gray-green monocolor, that he was not a puppet master, not capable of taking Pertos' place.
What then?
He was very much afraid. And he was somehow certain that the spider had found its way out of the cellar and onto the truck-and that he was carrying the spider with him and that it was spinning its web somewhere nearby and that it was waiting, waiting—
October and November
It was a beautiful land, restored to what it had been centuries ago, clean and untainted. The pines were tall and sturdy, and the floor of the earth beneath them was carpeted with brown needles. Because of the dense shadow they threw, there was not much that grew beneath them. All day, the sky seemed like a roof over the earth, low and blue,
The city seemed mostly deserted. It was this lack of witnesses which kept him from being apprehended and detained by the police. His vehicle moved quietly, and after any small collision, he was soon gone, whispering down an alleyway in search of exit.
In the morning, it would appear to some that a gremlin had been about wreaking havoc on those who had somehow engaged its anger.
In time, he found a ramp and took it. The truck left the city for the wide, featureless plains of the little-used superhighways which he and Pertos had traveled so much in these last five years. The sight of that uniform gray without the sharp clutter of buildings on either side was almost a religious experience. He turned right, tramped the accelerator. The truck swept down the road, whined under the widely spaced arclights. Ten miles later, the city limits passed and there was no illumination but what the headlamps provided.
He didn't get sleepy, for a change. He could not remem= ber another night when he had not been sleepy earlier in the evening. There was that ballooning excitement in him now, and it crowded out his exhaustion.
The wind picked up eventually, and lightning snapped along the undersides of the clouds.
"Tell me about— 'bout them," he said.
He waited.
Only the thunder answered.
"About stars," he explained.
He could only see two or three stars through the blanket of the storm clouds. They were lovely.
"Stars?" he repeated.
When he received no answer, he turned to look at Pertos. It all came back again, and he almost lost control of the truck.
He didn't speak again. Or look to his right as he drove.
Sometime toward morning, when the first light broke along the horizon and sent glassy, bright fingers higher into the sky, piercing the balloons of the clouds, he realized that he had no idea where he was going. This depressed him, perhaps more than it should have, for early morning on an empty highway can be a miserably lonely time.
It was raining now. His wipers thumped rhythmically back and forth, sloshing the water into the drain-channels below the glass.
He listened to the drumming pellets of water beating furiously on the roof of the cab.
He didn't know where he was going, might as well face that. Worse yet, he did not know of any place he could go. He tried to think of the names of other cities, but his mind refused to spit up that information. He thought of pulling over at one of the regularly spaced rest stops to allow himself to think things through, but panic took him every time he considered such a thing. Somehow, he was certain that, once he had stopped, he would never start again. And so he drove, the rotars beating steadily beneath him, their noise consolation of a sort.
He had changed his story, he realized. He was not living the same life that he had always lived before. He had gone against the script. And it became painfully evident as the scenery flashed by in a monotonous gray-green monocolor, that he was not a puppet master, not capable of taking Pertos' place.
What then?
He was very much afraid. And he was somehow certain that the spider had found its way out of the cellar and onto the truck-and that he was carrying the spider with him and that it was spinning its web somewhere nearby and that it was waiting, waiting—
October and November
It was a beautiful land, restored to what it had been centuries ago, clean and untainted. The pines were tall and sturdy, and the floor of the earth beneath them was carpeted with brown needles. Because of the dense shadow they threw, there was not much that grew beneath them. All day, the sky seemed like a roof over the earth, low and blue,
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