The creature barked with laughter, waving three tentacles and jittering on the remaining four. ‘That’s what I call an assumption. Now I’ll tell you one. If that’s true, what you just said, how come this place is getting more and more crowded all the time. You tell me that?’
‘Hmmm,’ mused the ape as he read the menu posted on the wall above the counter. ‘Do I need to answer in order to get two butterfilk sandwiches and a couple of pints of bitter?’
‘Not at all,’ the vendor replied, filling their order with alacrity. ‘I thought it might amuse you, that’s all. He who laughs last.’
‘Well, it does. If the place is getting more and more populated all the time, it would mean A) that more and more people are playing the game or B) that more and more people are unable to complete the game or C) that more and more people have no desire to complete the game. If the former is true, there are so many implications it would be difficult to list them all. If the latter is true, it could be because A) they enjoy the ambience of this particular place more than wherever they are from or B) the act of completing the game is, for some reason, unacceptable to them.’
The vendor twinkled in their direction as it provided woe cones in various flavors to an ill-assorted group of travelers. ‘Unacceptable is mild, stranger, mild, but clever of you, nonetheless. Easy come isn’t always easy go. For that little exercise in extrapolation there, I can offer you dessert. Cheese cake? Hot mud sundae? A nice piece of ripe squap?’
‘Melon,’ said the ape.
‘Perhaps an apple,’ said the tortoise, her head in the bottom of the bitter glass where she was attempting to sup up the last few drops.
‘Don’t you want your sandwich?’ asked the ape.
‘Not really,’ sighed the tortoise. ‘What I’d really like is a bowl of earthworms and some lettuce.’
The vendor removed the sandwich and supplied the requested articles, from which the ape averted his eyes. Only when he heard the first crunch of the apple did he look back again. The worm bowl was empty and the vendor was staring at the tortoise with contemplative eyes.
‘One man’s meat,’ he murmured to himself or to them. ‘You’d love Cattermune’s Worm Pits. You really would.’
The ape shuddered, delicately, as the tortoise nodded. ‘We’re together,’ she said. ‘Though I might relish a visit to the pits, I’m afraid the ape wouldn’t like it.’
‘Strange bedfellows,’ sighed the vendor, wrapping each of their empty glasses in a tentacle and dousing them in a bucket of soapy water.
‘Speaking of bed,’ said the ape. ‘I’m suffering from jet lag.’
‘And what might that be?’
‘I can’t remember,’ said the ape, ‘except that I’ve got it.’ He turned and climbed the stairs to the balcony, carrying the tortoise under one arm, where he found two adjacent cots. ‘Half an hour’s nap,’ the ape said. ‘Then we’ll go wait on the platform.’
They slept longer than half an hour, but the train was still there when they gained the platform. Thereafter, it was not as long a wait as they had feared. The train, consisting of a number of open cars like those on a roller coaster, stood at the platform untended, gradually filling up as this one and that one sat down and strapped itself in with every indication of staying until the device moved. Behind each seat was hinged a clear bubble, obviously designed to protect the bodies of the passengers from the lash of air or from something falling from above. The train was held back by a barricade of heavy wooden planks. When the last seat had been filled, the barricade pivoted outward and up, and the train slowly began to roll beneath it. When the last car had passed, the barricade rotated into place once more with a sonorous clang. The Down Line Express was under way.
It was not unlike a roller-coaster ride, except that there were long stretches of virtually level track and the few major inclines were brief. There was an initial drop to pick up speed, and from that point on, the cars rolled silently forward into what appeared to be limitless space. Ahead and behind the tracks ran into infinity, slender lines extending into forever, crosshatched by ties which were tied, thought the ape, to nothing at all.
Far away to the left was a tumbled glory of clouds and precipices, interspersed with rays of many colored lights. The aspect of this area changed from moment to moment, at one instant lending itself to interpretation as a landscape and at the next seeming to be an enormous garden of moving flowers.
‘The Illusion Fields,’ cried the scaled being behind them, reaching forward to point with a lengthy talon. ‘I was there once.’
‘Only once, though, isn’t that right?’ asked the ape. ‘You can’t go back again?’
‘True,’ said the being sadly. ‘The time for the Illusion Fields is ten thousand years. It was a very long time, but not bad. Better than ending the game, that’s for sure.’
‘What is this business about ending the game,’ drawled the tortoise. ‘I don’t like it at all, Ape.’
‘It does give one pause,’ replied the ape. ‘As I recall, it was our intention to get to the end of the game and await our friend there. We may have to change that intention.’
‘Our friend,’ mused Tortoise. ‘That would have been Mouse, would it not?’
‘It would indeed. Mouse. Malachite mouse. Who is now either behind us or ahead of us. Who could be anywhere at all. Who could be in the Illusion Fields, where she would stay for ten thousand years.’ The ape chewed a knuckle gloomily. ‘I have the feeling that all is not what it seems to be in this place.’
Some time passed. Ahead of them and still to the left they made out a mass, extending from illimitable space below to endless space above, vaguely man-shaped, the feet dwindling away into a bottomless chasm, the head lost in mist. ‘Gerald,’ commented their co-traveler. ‘I’ve never been there.’
‘Never been to Gerald?’
‘On Gerald. Or perhaps in. I’ve never been to George, either, but I suppose I’ll have to go sometime soon. I’ve been almost everywhere else. As we go past Gerald, take a good look off to the left, slightly up, and you’ll catch a glimpse of the Dinosaur Zoo. Sometimes the express stops for a while on a siding so the passengers can enjoy the view.’
‘A whole zoo of dinosaurs,’ marveled the tortoise.
‘For dinosaurs,’ corrected their guide.
The tortoise started to say something, then thought better of it.
Gerald grew larger and larger on their left until he filled the entire sky, the top button of his striped trousers even with the tracks on which they ran. Far below, dwarfed to baby bootees by the distance, were Gerald’s shoes, which even from this height could be seen to need polishing. As the train ran on, Gerald grew smaller once more behind them.
Another structure evidenced itself before them, also to the left, a clutter, a ragtag of color and movement, a confettilike swirl, suspended as though it were cloud, except that its edges were definite and unchanging. It came closer, growing larger in their view. The train slowed and ran off on a platformed siding on which were mounted a number of coinoperated telescopes. A conductor with a change dispenser moved along the cars, passing out coins in various denominations. The company apologizes for a brief delay,’ it intoned in a funereal voice. ‘The company offers free viewing of the Dinosaur Zoo while you are waiting.’ It dropped coins into the ape’s hand and moved on. The company apologizes …’
‘Would you like to see the zoo?’ Ape asked the tortoise.
‘Go ahead,’ said the tortoise faintly. ‘I’ll wait here.’
The ape put a coin in one of the telescopes and stared through it at the distant zoo, surprised at how close and immediate it appeared. It was a rather old-fashioned zoo, with rows of cages rather than ‘habitats,’ and strolling viewers dressed mostly in striped jackets and straw hats or shawls and bonnets, depending, he supposed, upon sex. They were all of the upright type of dinosaur with heavy hind legs and kangaroolike tails which served as props when groups of them stopped, as they frequently did, to chat together
or share refreshments.
After gaping at the dinosaurs for a moment, the ape turned his attention to the inhabitants of the few cages he could see clearly. One was occupied by a large furry pig and its family; another by a very large bird with legs like an elephant; two more by several dozen serpents of various colors and diameters; and finally a malachite mouse in a cage by itself.
The ape left the platform hastily, returning in moments with the tortoise. ‘Is that her?’ he asked. ‘I never saw the mouse. It looks like a malachite mouse, but there might be more than one. Or perhaps not …’
‘It does look like her,’ replied the tortoise somewhat doubtfully. ‘If she has the matchbox, we’d be sure.’
The mouse took a golden matchbox from her pocket, removed something from it, and made the unmistakable motion of throwing dice. The mouse had only time to seize the dice before she vanished.
‘That was her,’ said the tortoise slowly. ‘That was her.’
‘I don’t suppose you could see how the dice fell,’ asked the ape plaintively.
‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t,’ answered the tortoise.
This is madness,’ responded the ape in a fretful tone. ‘A kind of madness which has no equal in any world I have yet contemplated. Complete madness. It’s like trying to go up on a down escalator.’
‘Wouldn’t that be a descalator?’ Tortoise asked. ‘From the word “descend.”’
‘All on board,’ cried the conductor. ‘Close the noiseproof hoods over your seats, please. We will be passing under the Puce Polemic. All on board!’
They hastily strapped themselves back in, lowered the clear, noiseproof hoods over their heads, watched as the conductor gave the train a small push to get it started, then reconciled themselves to the dubious pleasure of the Puce Polemic and what could not but be an interesting arrival in Frab Junction.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Mouse arrived at the Dinosaur Zoo, she was relieved to find herself behind bars. An onlooker peered at her with a large and saurian eye, one which inevitably reminded her of that vast, moonlike orb which had been about to spy her as she so precipitously left G’nop, and she cowered timorously for a moment until she realized both that the bars were stout and that the creature staring at her was a civilized being. The first observer turned away to be replaced by two bonneted saurians, and when they noticed her discomfort, they politely averted their gaze and moved on. The dinosaurs were certainly courteous. A sign just inside her own cage made it clear that the zoo cages were occupied by transients. The sign read, ‘Time of transit, Dinosaur Zoo, from three to twenty-two hours.’ Next to this notice was a map of the game with a red arrow marked, ‘You are here,’ pointing to the zoo and a number of cards which Marianne did not bother to examine.
A large, furry pig in the next cage asked, rather breathlessly, ‘Where from, dearie?’
‘G’nop, most recently,’ replied the mouse.
‘Oh, by my own blessed piglets,’ the pig cried. ‘I spent the worst three minutes of my entire existence at G’nop. Lost three out of the litter and would have been gone, myself, if the time hadn’t run out.’
‘Do you know the game well?’ Marianne asked politely.
‘As well as anyone. They change it from time to time, but I’ve been around three times, including all the sidings except Moebius, thank the Alltime Boar, and take my word for it, avoid Banjog’s Mooring if you possibly can.’
Mouse nodded thoughtfully. ‘Let’s suppose I hadn’t thrown the dice, there at G’nop. What would have happened?’
‘Why, you’d have had another three minutes, dearie. I thought everyone knew that.’
‘And, if I were in the Illusion Fields, and ten thousand years passed, and I didn’t throw?’
‘You’d be in for another ten millennia. You want to watch your step there. Along about nine thousand and eight hundred years, you want to start paying very close attention to the passage of time! If you want out, that is.’
‘And if you throw a square where you’ve already been?’
‘Automatic skip over to the next square where you haven’t. Unless it’s a junction, of course. It’s all very simple, really.’
‘What if that square’s a Forever?’
‘If you land on a Forever, we all say ta-ta. Ta-ta, dearie, and it’s been nice to play with you. Forever’s pretty well gone and lost forever, dreadful sorry, pal of mine.’
‘It sounds to me as though the safest bet is just to stay in the Illusion Fields time after time,’ the mouse remarked in a depressed voice.
‘Oh, but so dull! I hate to say it about my own kind, but piggishly dull, dearie. Somnolent, slovenly, sluggardly, lie-about, do-nothing, dreadfully dull. One gets so sick of special effects! Along about the seven thousandth year, one gets absolutely fed up!’
The mouse sighed. ‘I didn’t intend to play this game just now. You see, I’m pregnant.’
‘Well so was I, dearie, when I began. And here you see me with what’s left of the litter, still getting along. Don’t fret. Everything will happen in its own time.’
‘Which is what?’
The pig shrugged, a most expressive gesture when done with furry shoulders, furry hips, furry ears and snout. ‘You mean time inside versus time outside? But, dearie, who knows? Who knows?’
‘Some think they know,’ said a ponderous voice from the cage on the other side. Mouse turned to meet the scrutiny of round, golden eyes in a vast, owllike head that was perched on a dumpy feathered body supported by elephantine legs. ‘Some think they know how long in-here is how long out-there, but then the question arises, doesn’t it, which out-there one is speaking of and which in-here one is speaking of also.’
‘There would be that,’ agreed the mouse.
‘Feeding time here at the zoo is in about an hour,’ the bird advised. ‘You still have time to fill out your menu selection and put it on the outside of the door.’
‘Thank you very much,’ breathed the mouse, suddenly aware of hunger. ‘I don’t think I’ve eaten in a very long time.’
‘Exactly,’ said the bird. ‘That’s how some people think they know.’ He or she then turned its back on the mouse and settled into a squat, as though sleeping.
‘That’s the aepyowl. Been here for simply ages,’ the pig whispered. ‘Refuses to throw the dice. Says it likes the food. And the food is very good, dearie. Do what it said. Fill out your menu card.’
Mouse settled on a seafood bisque, a green salad, and hot buttered rolls, with coffee to follow. The meal was delivered by a short, liveried staurikosaurus who wheeled in a low, rolling table, chatted about the weather, ‘Unusually fine for this part of the game,’ and poured the coffee before leaving. When the mouse had eaten, she felt much better. As she sipped the last of the coffee, she saw something far off in the sky, rather like a contrail. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, attracting the pig’s attention and pointing upward.
‘Hmmm?’ The pig ambled over to get a better look. ‘Down Line Express, dearie. It goes right by here on its way to Frab Junction. Everybody in the game gets to Frab Junction sooner or later. You’ll find if you try, you can throw any number you really want to. Also, you need to have the direction you’re going in mind before you throw. Try real hard to throw a seven from here and concentrate on a left turn at Cattermune’s House. You’ll end up at the junction, sure as sure. Interesting places, junctions.’
‘What makes them interesting?’
‘There are nine junction squares – not counting the Forever one – and they aren’t like anyplace else in the game. You can go there twice or three times or a dozen. You can meet people you’ve met before. Catch up on what’s happening in all the squares. Find out who the current Grisl Queen is, and who G’nop’s swallowed recently. Hear the latest on Gerald and George. Find out what’s going on at Cattermune’s House.’ The pig shuddered delicately. ‘It’s just interesting.’
The mouse patted its whiskers on the napkin which had been provided with dinner and watch
ed the Down Line Express come nearer. It seemed to be running on a dim tracery, like the faintest cobweb stretched across the sky. When it was at its closest point it stopped. Various creatures, dwarfed by distance, got off the train and stared toward the zoo. There was something about one or two of them that tickled at Mouse, worrying her. Where had she seen those shapes before? She stared and stared, almost but not quite recognizing them.
With an exclamation of impatience, Mouse got the dice out of her matchbox. Surely at least three hours had passed since she first entered the zoo! Remembering the advice of pig, she concentrated on what she was doing and threw a seven.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘I can’t understand how you got here so quickly,’ exclaimed the tortoise. ‘We passed you, way back there, behind the Polemic.’ Tortoise still had shreds of Polemic caught on her back claws, and she shuffled them on the pavement. The stuff was like chewing gum!
‘I know you did,’ answered the mouse, who had remembered them the minute she had seen them up close.
‘Mouse threw the dice when she saw us go by,’ said the amethyst ape, thoughtfully, stroking the malachite mouse with both hands. ‘Oh, lovely Mouse, are you well, are you coherent, are you in one piece, are you all right?’
‘Perfectly all right,’ the mouse said with a tiny catch in the voice, like the smallest possible sob. ‘I spent eight interminable years in Buttercup. I was almost eaten in G’nop. I did, however, have an excellent supper in the Dinosaur Zoo, and I am here, so, yes, I’m all right.’
They were sitting on a bench just outside the terminus of the Down Line Express, among a fuming welter of passersby, hawkers, mongers, and kiosk-holders, all greeting one another or calling out their wares in loud and uninhibited voices. Beyond this hubbub were streets full of wanderers and windows full of watchers. A streetcar clanged busily up a hill, striking sparks from the wires strung above the street, its bell ringing frantically. Food carts offered roast nuts, ethnic dishes, and brightly colored galoshes for those traveling to the Puce Polemic, the Worm Pits, or the Six Howlers. A newsmonger was doing a brisk business and the ape went to fetch one of the red lettered tabloids. ‘NEW GRISL QUEEN REIGNS AS BUTTERCUP I,’ headlined the front page, subheaded by ‘DOGS ARE LATEST ROYAL FAD,’ and ‘DOG IMPORTERS DO BRISK BUSINESS.’ Other front page headlines included, ‘SELDOM SIDING TRANSIENTS IN RIOT DEMAND MORE FREQUENT SERVICE,’ and ‘PUCE POLEMIC SEEN AS HEALTH HAZARD.’