The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(85)

I think I know how it turns out.

Yeah. Just a pure analytical proposition I suppose. Requires no knowledge, just definitions. You get a sea view here do you?

A distant one.

The Kid rose and stretched. I would think this place would give you the morbids. Why dont we go for a stroll on the beach? Stretch the legs. You might even feel up to unburdening yourself a bit.

A stroll on the beach.

Sure. Get your jacket. We’re losing the light.



* * *



—

They walked on the beach, but the Kid looked thoughtful. Bent forward with his flippers clasped behind his back. Out at sea the ragged wire filaments of lightning stood briefly and then again along the darkening rim of the world. You’re something of a fucking puzzle, the Kid said. What, you got no questions? I thought it would be fun to have a guy inquiring about his sister’s sanity from the sister’s own hallucinations.

Do you really know anything about her?

Why not? I’m a split-off piece of her psyche aint I?

I dont know. Are you a piece of mine?

Dont know. It’s just a plague of fucking mysteries aint it?

She said that you always got everything wrong.

It was mostly just a way of taking her mind off things. Throw her a bone why not.

I’m not sure I believe you.

Boy. That’s rich.

Why is that?

Why is that? Because you’re talking about something of which there is no nothing is why is that.

I thought you were here to answer my questions.

Okay. Sure. Why not?

Where are we going?

Going for a walk on the beach. Get some air.

He sniffed deeply.

I thought I saw you once before.

Yeah?

On a bus going up Canal Street.

Well, you get a lot of people look like me.

They trekked out through the sand. The slow combers rolled in from off shore, pale in the dark. The storm was moving in and the lightning flared again. The hot chains of ignition falling broken into the sea. The Kid was bent over, preoccupied. In the glare Western could see his small eggshaped skull and the visible commissures of the plates through the papery skin. The chewed-looking ears.

So where’s your questions?

Okay. How old are you?

The Kid stopped and stood. Then he went on, shaking his head.

All right. How about: How did you find me?

You asked me that.

How did you?

I asked around.

You asked around.

Sure. I been on the street for years. Wouldnt have it any other way.

What’s the strangest thing you ever beheld? In your travels.

The Kid shook his head. That’s not what we’re here to discuss. In any case, you wouldnt believe me. There’s a lot of wreckage out there. Lot of sparclingers. But they cant cling forever. You got people who think it would be a good idea to discover the true nature of darkness. The hive of darkness and the lair thereof. You can see them out there with their lanterns. What is wrong with this picture?

A thin crack of thunder rolled down the black sky.

Storm’s coming in, said the Kid. We need to truck it along.

I was hoping to see some of the horts.

Yeah, well. Probably not. What was it that woke you?

I dont know. The lightning.

You sure you werent dreaming?

I’m not sure now.

Let me rephrase the question: You sure you werent dreaming?

Western slowed. The Kid trudged on. He had been dreaming. At some last reckoning a child’s name had been called but the child did not answer and the ship of heaven plowed on all alight into eternity leaving her alone on the darkening shore forever lost. He hurried to catch up.

Can I ask you a question?

That is a question. You got another one?

Where do you go when you leave here?

Elsewhere.

Elsewhere.

Absolutely. Look. I’m here on my own dime. I dont think you get it. Here we are. Not a soul in sight. You need to think about that.

I dont know what you want.

What I want? Jesus. I told you. It’s my day off. How long do you think I’m going to be here? You wont even act on your own beliefs.

What beliefs?

There you go.

The Kid strode on. Boy, he said. I didnt expect to find such a goddamned boob. You’re walking along the beach with this entity you think is some part of your dead sister’s geist and you want to chat about the fucking weather.

I never mentioned the weather.

Or whatever. He gestured at the black and lapping sea. Suppose the floor gave way and the whole fucking thing drained off into some unguessed world of caverns deep in the earth? Vasty and black. You could walk down to the bottom and have a look around. Just a huge great chowder flailing around in the muck. Whales and squids. Your plate-eyed krakens with their eighty foot long testicles. Then a big smell and then nothing. Whoops. Where’d everybody go?

I really dont know what to ask you.

Of course you dont. You’re a fucking imbecile.

He hauled out his watch and tried to see the time in the darkness. He waited for lightning. What a dumb fucking idea this was.

What would have happened if you and your little friends had simply left her alone?

Hey. A question. Kind of a dumbassed question but what the fuck. I think she’d be just as bloody dead except—I flatter myself—sooner. You wouldnt believe the fucking Chautauquas we had to come up with. And damned little thanks into the bargain. I think half the time she thought I was there just to pick her brain. Well fuck it. Maybe I was. Half the time. Some evil little shit from some heretofore unknown hinterworld to ferry data back to Base One to gear up for the big one.