Mr. Gray stepped down on the gas, and although he did it gently, as Jonesy's file concerning winter driving suggested, all four of the pickup's wheels spun, and the truck began to jitter sideways, digging itself in.
Go on! Jonesy cheered from his position at the office window. Go on, stick it! Stick it right up to the rocker-panels! Because when you're stuck in a four-wheel drive, you're really stuck!
Then the wheels caught--first the front ones, where the weight of the motor gave the Ram a little more traction--then the back ones. The Ram trundled across Route 9 and toward the sign marked ENTRANCE. Beyond it was another: WELCOME TO THE BEST TRUCK STOP IN NEW ENGLAND. Then the truck's headlights picked out a third, snowcaked but readable: HELL, WELCOME TO THE BEST TRUCK STOP ON EARTH.
Is this the best truck stop on earth? Mr. Gray asked.
Of course, Jonesy said. And then--he couldn't help it--he burst out laughing.
Why do you do that? Why do you make that sound?
Jonesy realized an amazing thing, both touching and terrifying: Mr. Gray was smiling with Jonesy's mouth. Not much, just a little, but it was a smile. He doesn't really know what laughter is, Jonesy thought. Of course he hadn't known what anger was, either, but he had proved to be a remarkably fast learner; he could now tantrum with the best of them.
What you said struck me funny.
What exactly is funny?
Jonesy had no idea how to answer the question. He wanted Mr. Gray to experience the entire gamut of human emotions, suspecting that humanizing his usurper might ultimately be his only chance of survival--we have met the enemy and he is us, Pogo had once said. But how did you explain funny to a collection of spores from another world? And what was funny about Dysart's proclaiming itself the best truck stop on earth?
Now they were passing yet another sign, one with arrows pointing left and right. BIGUNS it said beneath the left arrow. And LITTLEUNS under the right.
Which are we? Mr. Gray asked, stopping at the sign.
Jonesy could have made him retrieve the information, but what would have been the point? We're a littleun, he said, and Mr. Gray turned the Ram to the right. The tires spun a little and the truck lurched. Lad raised his head, let fly another long and fragrant fart, then whined. His lower midsection had swelled and distended; anyone who didn't know better would no doubt have mistaken him for a bitch about to give birth to a good-sized litter.
There were perhaps two dozen cars and pickups parked in the littleuns' lot, the ones most deeply buried in snow belonging to the help--mechanics (always one or two on duty), waitresses, short-order cooks. The cleanest vehicle there, Jonesy saw with sharp interest, was a powder-blue State Police car with packed snow around the roof-lights. Being arrested would certainly put a spike in Mr. Gray's plans; on the other hand, Jonesy had already been present at three murder-sites, if you counted the cab of the pickup. No witnesses at the first two crime scenes, and probably no Gary Jones fingerprints, either, but here? Sure. Plenty of them. He could see himself standing in a courtroom somewhere and saying, But Judge, it was the alien inside me who committed those murders. It was Mr. Gray. Another joke that Mr. Gray wouldn't get.
That worthy, meanwhile, had been rummaging again. Dry Farts, he said. Why do you call this place Dry Farts when the sign says Dysart's?
It's what Lamar used to call it, Jonesy said, remembering long, hilarious breakfasts here, usually going or coming back from Hole in the Wall. And this fit right into the tradition, didn't it? My Dad called it that, too.
Is it funny?
Moderately, I guess. It's a pun based on similar sounds. Puns are what we call the lowest form of humor.
Mr. Gray parked in the rank closest to the lighted island of the restaurant, but all the way down from the State Police cruiser. Jonesy had no idea if Mr. Gray understood the significance of the lightbars on top or not. He reached for the Ram's headlight knob and pushed it in. He reached for the ignition, then stopped and issued several hard barks of laughter: "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
How'd that feel? Jonesy asked, more than a little curious. A little apprehensive, too.
"Like nothing," Mr. Gray said flatly, and turned off the ignition. But then, sitting there in the dark with the wind howling around the cab of the truck, he did it again, and with a little more conviction: "Ha! Ha, ha, ha!" In his office refuge, Jonesy shivered. It was a creepy sound, like a ghost trying to remember how to be human.
Lad didn't like it either. He whined again, looking uneasily at the man behind the steering wheel of his master's truck.
3
Owen was shaking Henry awake, and Henry responded reluctantly. He felt as if he had gone to sleep only seconds ago. His limbs all seemed to have been dipped in cement.
"Henry."
"I'm here." Left leg itching. Mouth itching even worse; the goddam byrus was growing on his lips now, too. He rubbed it off with his forefinger, surprised at how easily it broke free. Like a crust.
"Listen up. And look. Can you look?"
Henry looked up the road, which was now dim and snow-ghostly--Owen had pulled the Sno-Cat over and turned off the lights. Farther along, there were mental voices in the dark, the auditory equivalent of a campfire. Henry went to them. There were four of them, young men with no seniority in . . . in . . .
Blue Group, Owen whispered. This time we're Blue Group.
Four young men with no seniority in Blue Group, trying not to be scared . . . trying to be tough . . . voices in the dark . . . a little campfire of voices in the dark . . .
By its light, Henry discovered he could see dimly: snow, of course, and a few flashing yellow lights illuminating a turnpike entrance ramp. There was also the lid of a pizza carton seen in the light of an instrument panel. It had been turned into a tray. On it were Saltines, several blocks of cheese, and a Swiss Army knife. The Swiss Army knife belonged to the one named Smitty, and they were all using it to cut the cheese. The longer Henry looked, the better he saw. It was like having your eyes adjust to the dark, but it was more than that too: what he saw had a creepy-giddy depth, as if all at once the physical world consisted not of three dimensions but of four or five. It was easy enough to understand why: he was seeing through four sets of eyes, all at the same time. They were huddled together in the . . .
Humvee, Owen said, delighted. It's a fucking Humvee, Henry! Custom-equipped for snow, too! Bet you anything it is!
The young men were sitting close together, yes, but still in four different places, looking at the world from four different points of view, and with four different qualities of eyesight, ranging from eagle-eye sharp (Dana from Maybrook, New York) to the merely adequate. Yet somehow Henry's brain was processing them, just as it turned multiple still images on a reel of film into a moving picture. This wasn't like a movie, though, nor like some tricky 3-D image. It was an entirely new way of seeing, the kind that could produce a whole new way of thinking.
If this shit spreads, Henry thought, both terrified and wildly excited, if it spreads . . .
Owen's elbow thumped into his side. "Maybe you could save the seminar for another day," he said. "Look across the road."
Henry did so, employing his unique quadruple vision and realizing only belatedly that he had done more than look; he had moved their eyeballs so he could peer over to the far side of the turnpike. Where he saw more blinking lights in the storm.
"It's a choke-point," Owen muttered. "One of Kurtz's insurance policies. Both exits blocked, no movement onto the turnpike without authorization. I want the Humvee, it's the best thing we could have in a shitstorm like this, but I don't want to alert the guys on the other side. Can we do that?"
Henry experimented with their eyes again, moving them. He discovered that as soon as they weren't all looking at the same thing, his sense of godlike four or five-dimensional vision evaporated, leaving him with a nauseating, shattered perspective his processing equipment couldn't cope with. But he was moving them. Not much, just their eyeballs, but . . .
I think we can i
f we work together, Henry told him. Get closer. And stop talking out loud. Get in my head. Link up.
Suddenly Henry's head was fuller. His vision clarified again, but this time the perspective wasn't quite as deep. Only two sets of eyes instead of four: his and Owen's.
Owen put the Sno-Cat into first gear and crept forward with the lights off. The engine's low growl was lost beneath the constant shriek of the wind, and as they closed the distance, Henry felt his hold on those minds ahead tightening.
Holy shit, Owen said, half-laughing and half-gasping.
What? What is it?
It's you, man--it's like being on a magic carpet. Christ, but you're strong.
You think I'm strong, wait'll you meet Jonesy.
Owen stopped the Sno-Cat below the brow of a little hill. Beyond it was the turnpike. Not to mention Bernie, Dana, Tommy, and Smitty, sitting in their Humvee at the top of the southbound ramp, eating cheese and crackers off their makeshift tray. He and Owen were safe enough from discovery. The four young men in the Humvee were clean of the byrus and had no idea they were being scoped.
Ready? Henry asked.
I guess. The other person in Henry's head, cool as that storied cucumber when Kurtz and the others had been shooting at them, was now nervous. You take the lead, Henry. I'm just flying support this mission.
Here we go.
What Henry did next he did instinctively, binding the four men in the Humvee together not with images of death and destruction, but by impersonating Kurtz. To do this he drew on both Owen Underhill's energy--much greater than his own, at this point--and Owen Underhill's vivid knowledge of his OIC. The act of binding gave him a brilliant stab of satisfaction. Relief, as well. Moving their eyes was one thing; taking them over completely was another. And they were free of the byrus. That could have made them immune. Thank God it had not.
There's a Sno-Cat over that rise east of you, laddies, Kurtz said. Want you to take it back to base. Right now, if you please--no questions, no comments, just get moving. You'll find the quarters a little tight compared to your current accommodations, but I think you can all fit in, praise Jesus. Now move your humps, God love you.
Henry saw them getting out, their faces calm and blank around the eyes. He started to get out himself, then saw Owen was still sitting in the Sno-Cat's driver's seat, his own eyes wide. His lips moved, forming the words in his head: Move your humps, God love you.
Owen! Come on!
Owen looked around, startled, then nodded and pushed out through the canvas hanging over his side of the 'Cat.
4
Henry stumbled to his knees, picked himself up, and looked wearily into the streaming dark. Not far to go, God knew it wasn't, but he didn't think he could slog through another twenty feet of drifted snow, let alone a hundred and fifty yards. On and on the eggman went, he thought, and then: I did it. That's the answer, of course. I offed myself and now I'm in hell. This is the eggman in h--
Owen's arm went around him . . . but it was more than his arm. He was feeding Henry his strength.
Thank y--
Thank me later. Sleep later, too. For now, keep your eye on the ball.
There was no ball. There were only Bernie, Dana, Tommy, and Smitty trooping through the snow, a line of silent somnambulists in coveralls and hooded parkas. They trooped east on the Swanny Pond Road toward the Sno-Cat while Owen and Henry struggled on west, toward the abandoned Humvee. The cheese and Saltines had also been abandoned, Henry realized, and his stomach rumbled.
Then the Humvee was dead ahead. They'd drive it away, no headlights at first, low gear and quiet-quiet-quiet, skirting the yellow flashers at the base of the ramp, and if they were lucky, the fellows guarding the northbound ramp would never know they were gone.
If they do see us, could we make them forget? Owen asked. Give them--oh, I don't know--give them amnesia?
Henry realized they probably could.
Owen?
What?
If this ever got out, it would change everything. Everything.
A pause as Owen considered this. Henry wasn't talking about knowledge, the usual coin of Kurtz's bosses up the food-chain; he was talking about abilities that apparently went well beyond a little mind-reading.
I know, he replied at last.
5
They headed south in the Humvee, south into the storm. Henry Devlin was still gobbling crackers and cheese when exhaustion turned out the lights in his overstimulated head.
He slept with crumbs on his lips.
And dreamed of Josie Rinkenhauer.
6
Half an hour after it caught fire, old Reggie Gosselin's barn was no more than a dying dragon's eye in the booming night, waxing and waning in a black socket of melted snow. From the woods east of the Swanny Pond Road came the pop-pop-pop of rifle fire, heavy at first, then diminishing a little in both frequency and volume as the Imperial Valleys (Kate Gallagher's Imperial Valleys now) pursued the escaped detainees. It was a turkey shoot, and not many of the turkeys were going to get away. Enough of them to tell the tale, maybe, enough to rat them all out, but that was tomorrow's worry.
While this was going on--also while the traitorous Owen Underhill was getting farther and farther ahead of them--Kurtz and Freddy Johnson stood in the command post (except, Freddy supposed, it was now nothing but a Winnebago again; that feeling of power and importance had gone), flipping playing-cards into a hat.
No longer telepathic in the slightest, but as sensitive to the men under him as ever--that his command had been reduced to a single soldier really made no difference--Kurtz looked at Freddy and said, "Make haste slowly, buck--that's one saw that's still sharp."
"Yes, boss," Freddy said without much enthusiasm.
Kurtz flipped the two of spades. It fluttered down through the air and landed in the hat. Kurtz crowed like a child and prepared to flip again. There was a knock at the 'Bago's door. Freddy turned in that direction, and Kurtz fixed him with a forbidding look. Freddy turned back and watched Kurtz flip another card. This one started out well, then went long and landed on the cap's bill. Kurtz muttered something under his breath, then nodded at the door. Freddy, with a mental prayer of thanks, went to open it.
Standing on the top step was Jocelyn McAvoy, one of the two female Imperial Valleys. Her accent was soft country Tennessee; the face under the boy-cropped blond hair was hard as stone. She was holding a spectacularly non-reg Israeli burp-gun by the strap. Freddy wondered where she had gotten such a thing, then decided it didn't matter. A lot of things had ceased to matter, most of them in the last hour or so.
"Joss," Freddy said. "What's up with your bad self?"
"Delivering two Ripley Positives as ordered." More shooting from the woods, and Freddy saw the woman's eyes shift minutely in that direction. She wanted to get back over there across the road, wanted to bag her limit before the game was gone. Freddy knew how she felt.
"Send them in, lassie," Kurtz said. He was still standing over the cap on the floor (the floor that was still faintly stained with Cook's Third Melrose's blood), still holding the deck of cards in his hand, but his eyes were bright and interested. "Let's see who you found."
Jocelyn gestured with her gun. A male voice at the foot of the stairs growled, "The fuck up there. Don't make me say it twice."
The first man to step past Jocelyn was tall and very black. There was a cut down one of his cheeks and another on his neck. Both cuts had been clogged with Ripley. More was growing in the creases in his brow. Freddy knew the face but not the name. The old man, of course, knew both. Freddy supposed he remembered the names of all the men he had commanded, both the quick and the dead.
"Cambry!" Kurtz said, eyes lighting even more brightly. He dropped the playing-cards into the hat, approached Cambry, seemed about to shake hands, thought better of it, and snapped off a salute instead. Gene Cambry did not return it. He looked sullen and disoriented. "Welcome to the Justice League of America."
"Spotted him running through the wo
ods along with the detainees he was supposed to be guarding," Jocelyn McAvoy said. Her face was expressionless; all her contempt was in her voice.
"Why not?" Cambry asked. He looked at Kurtz. "You were going to kill me, anyway. Kill all of us. Don't bother lying about it, either. I can see it in your mind."
Kurtz wasn't discomfited by this in the slightest. He rubbed his hands together and smiled at Cambry in a friendly way. "Do a good job and p'raps you'll change my mind, buck. Hearts were made to be broken and minds were made to be changed, that's a big praise God. Who else have you got for me, Joss?"
Freddy regarded the second figure with amazement. Also with pleasure. The Ripley could not have found a better home, in his humble opinion. Nobody liked the son of a bitch much in the first place.
"Sir . . . boss . . . I don't know why I'm here . . . I was in proper pursuit of the escapees when this . . . this . . . I'm sorry, I have to say it, when this officious bitch pulled me out of the sweep area and . . ."
"He was running with them," McAvoy said in a bored voice. "Running with them and infected up the old wazoo."
"A lie!" said the man in the doorway. "A total lie! I'm perfectly clean! One hundred percent--"
McAvoy snatched off the watchcap her second prisoner was wearing. The man's thinning blond hair was much thicker now, and appeared to have been dyed red.
"I can explain, sir," Archie Perlmutter said, his voice fading even as he spoke. "There is . . . you see . . ." Then it died away entirely.
Kurtz was beaming at him, but he had donned his filter-mask again--they all had--and it gave his reassuring smile an oddly sinister look, the expression of a child molester inviting a little kid in for a piece of pie.
"Pearly, it's going to be all right," Kurtz said. "We're going for a ride, that's all. There's someone we need to find, someone you know--"
"Owen Underhill," Perlmutter whispered.
"That's right, buck," Kurtz said. He turned to McAvoy. "Bring this soldier his clipboard, McAvoy. I'm sure he'll feel better once he has his clipboard. Then you can carry on hunting, which I feel quite sure you're eager to do."