"All right, I remember being an old man," he began. "Very old ... I was walking through a rocky wasteland. It was nearly morning, and it was foggy. My feet were bleeding. I was carrying a staff, and I leaned on it a lot."
He shifted the cigar from one comer of his mouth :
to the other and looked out of the window.
"That's all," he said.
"All? That can hardly be all," Flowers broke in. "Are you trying to say that you grew up—or grew to wherever you are—backwards? That you started out as an old man?"
"That's what I just said. Yes," Red answered irritably.
"Watch the curve. —You mean that you remember nothing whatsoever before being old and walking through a waste? Or— What did you gain this time?"
"Nothing rational. Just a few delirium-dreams of odd shapes moving about me in the fog, and fear and so forth—and I kept going."
"Did you know where you were going?"
"No."
"And you were alone?..."
"At first."
"At first?"
"Somewhere along the way, I acquired company. I'm still hazy about the circumstances, but there was an old
woman. We were helping each other over the rough
spots: Leila."
"There was a Leila with you years ago, on one occasion when you visited me. But she was not an old
woman ..... "The same. Our ways have parted and rejoined many
times but her situation has paralleled my own with respect to the reversed aging business."
She was not involved in your dealings with Chadwick?"
"No, but she knew him.
"Do either of you have any idea where you are headed in your strange course of growth?"
"She seems to think that this is only a phase in a larger life cycle."
"And you do not?"
"Maybe it is. I just don't know."
"Does Chadwick know all this about you?"
"Yes."
"Could he possibly know more about it than you do?"
Red shook his head.
"No way to tell. I suppose anything is possible."
"What is his reason for being so down on you?"
"When we parted company, he was upset that I was destroying a good business arrangement"
"Were you?"
"I suppose so. But he'd changed the nature of the business and it wasn't so much fun anymore. I messed up the operations and left."
''But he is still a rich man?"
"Very wealthy."
"Then I suspect the possibility of a motive other than the economic. Jealousy, perhaps, at your improving well-being."
Possibly, but nothing turns on it. It is his objective rather than his motive that concerns me."
"I am just trying to understand the enemy, Red." "I know. But there isn't much else to tell."
•'^
He swung through the underpass and turned left up
the access ramp. A shadow which fell upon the vehicle
did not depart when he entered the light, "Your room was quite a mess this morning," Monda may observed. ^ "Yes, it was. That always happens."
"What about that design that looked like a Chinese
character burned into the door? Is that a customary
accompaniment?" "No. It was just—a Chinese character. It meant
'good fortune.'" "How do you explain it?" "Don't. Can't. Strange." Mondamay made a high-pitched, broken whistling
noise. "What's funny?" "I was thinking of some books you once left—with
pictures you had to explain to me." "I'm afraid..." "Cartoons, with captions." Red relit his cigar. "Not funny," he said. The strange shadow clung to the truck's bed, Monda may whistled again. Flowers began to sing.