He worked his hands around to his stomach, up toward his chest. There was a sudden pang along the left side of his ribcage.
He caught hold of the fabric before him, scratched at it, dug in with his fingers, drew upon it. Slowly it parted. He adjusted his grip, pulled harder.
It tore open. He spread his arms and pushed downward. It came away from his shoulders. He began to crawl out. He heard Leila's voice calling his name. He saw her running toward him.
He turned away and looked down the slope to where his truck lay on its side, burning. He tried to rise, but his foot caught in the spongy material and he slipped back into a sitting position on the grass, catching himself with his arms. His side still throbbed.
"No," he said as he watched the truck burn. "No..."
A hand rested on his shoulder. He did not look up.
"Reyd?..."
"No," he repeated.
Below them, the truck suddenly blossomed into a ball of fire. Moments later, a wave of heat arrived. Red raised his left hand just as Randy came up and halted several paces away.
"You could have been in there .. ." Leila began.
His hand shot forward, a finger extended.
The flames fell back. A tower of smoke rose. Something seemed to be moving within it, traveling a slow spiral upward.
"There," he said. Then, "Now I understand."
A huge gray-green dragon-form rose above the smoldering vehicle.
"It was Chadwick whose time had come," she said. "All of your actions were meant to serve him."
Red nodded without taking his eyes from the twisting, drifting shape. All of its movements were graceful, and somehow verged on the erotic. It was an air-dance of freedom, release, abandon.
Abruptly, it halted and looked their way. It spread its wings and drifted toward them. When it was very near, it managed, somehow, to hover.
"Thank you, children," it said, in a voice rich and melodious. "You have done for me that which I did not know to do for myself."
It circled slowly above them.
"What is the secret?" Red asked. "I remembered more than you did. I thought I was arranging things for myself."
It looked upward to where another dark form was now drifting.
"Events, child. Events, and their unconscious manipulation," it replied. "I cannot advise you, for we are all different. Keep looking, if you feel you must. For you, that may be the way. But your time is not yet come. When it does, help may come from anywhere— a friend, an enemy, a stranger, a relative ... As for me, I am going home now. Let us hope to meet again one day."
It twisted sharply and began to rise in the morning light, its scales gleaming like golden mirrors. It began to move its wings, slowly at first, then faster, climbing, dwindling as they watched. Another winged form passed near it. Soon they were gone from sight.
Red lowered his face into his hands for a moment. The wind had shifted and the smell of his burning vehicle came to him now.
"Will someone please come and pick me up?" came a small voice from down the hillside, "before thisdamned vegetation takes fire?"
"Flowers?" he said, dropping his hands and beginning
to rise.
But the young man was there before him. He retrieved the book, encased in an ejection pod, and carried it back up the hillside. Red stared at him.
"Reyd, I'd like you to meet your son Randy," Leila
said.
Red frowned.
"Where you from, boy?"
"Cleveland, C Twenty."
"I'll be damned ....lake—or Carthage?"
"Yeah. But I'm using Dorakeen now."
Red stepped forward and took Randy by the shoulders, looked into his eyes.
"I'd say so, I'd really say so, and you're welcome to it. ' What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you. Leaves showed me the way. Then I met Leila—"
"I hate to break this up," Leila said, "but we'd better move that car up there before someone else comes along."
"Yes."
They turned back toward the feeder road.
"Uh— What should I call you? Father?"
"Red. Just Red." He looked at Leila. "My head is suddenly clear. Something like a fog seems to have gone."
"That was the last dark bird," she replied.
"You know, I'd have missed Randy here, if that had been me."
"Yes."
"Let's go to Ur for a beer. They always have good beer in Ur."
"Okay with me," Randy said. "There are a lot of things I want to ask you."
"Sure. There are plenty of things I want to ask you— and we have plans to make."