Purpose and the Higher Random… or perhaps there is no Random beyond a certain level,we suspect that may be the case, but we have no real way of telling.
We do know that it is something from one of these higher levels that has interested itself in Ed, and that something else from up there made a countermove. That countermove is you, Ralph and Lois.] Lois gave Ralph a dismayed look that he hardly noticed. The idea that something was moving them around like chess-pieces in Faye Chapin’s beloved Runway 3 Classic-an idea that would have infuriated him under other circumstances-went right by him for the time being. He was remembering the night Ed had called him on the telephone. You’re drifting into deep water, he’d said, and there are things swimming around in the undertow you can’t even conceive of Entities, in other words.
Beings too hideous to comprehend, according to Mr. C and Mr. C. was a gentleman who dealt death for a living.
They haven’t really noticed you yet, Ed had told him that night, but if you keep fooling with me, they will. And you don’t want that.
Believe me, you don’t, Lois: [“How did you get us up to this level in the first place? It was the insomnia, wasn’t it?”] Lachesis, cautiously: [Essentially, yes. We’re able to make certain small changes in Short-Time auras. These adjustments caused a rather special form of insomnia that altered the way you dream and the way you perceive the waking world. Adjusting Short-Term auras is delicate, frightening work. Madness is always a danger.] Clotho: [At times you may have felt that you were going mad, but neither of you was ever even close. You’re much tougher, both of you, than you give yourself credit for.] These assholes actually think they’re being comforting, Ralph marvelled, and then pushed his anger away again. He simply had no time to be angry now. Later, maybe, he could make up for that. He hoped so. For now he simply patted Lois’s hands, then turned to Clotho and Lachesis again.
[“Last summer, after he beat his wife up, Ed spoke to me of a being he called the Crimson King. Does that mean anything to you fellows?”] Clotho and Lachesis exchanged another look, one which Ralph at first mistook for solemnity.
Clotho: [Ralph, you must remember that Ed is insane, existing in a delusional state-” [“Yeah, tell me about it.”] “but we believe that his “Crimson King” does exist in one form or another, and that when Atropos cut his life-cord, Ed Deepneau falls directly under this being’s influence.] The two little bald doctors looked at each other again, and this time Ralph saw the shared expression for what it really was: not solemnity but terror.
A new day had dawned-Thursday-and was now brightening its way toward noon. Ralph couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought the speed with which the hours were passing down there on the Short-Time level was increasing; if they didn’t wrap this thing up soon, Bill McGovern wouldn’t be the only one of their friends they outlived.
Clotho: [Atropos knew that the Higher Purpose would send someone to try to change what he has set in motion, and now he knows who. But you must not allow yourselves to be sidetracked by Atropos,you must remember that he is little more than a pawn on this board.
It is not Atropos who really opposes you.] He paused and looked doubtfully at his colleague. Lachesis nodded for him to go on, and he did so confidently enough, but Ralph felt his heart sink a little, just the same. He was sure the two bald doctors had the best of intentions, but they were pretty clearly flying on instruments, just the same.
Clotho: [You must not approach Atropos directly, either. I cannot emphasize that enough. He has been surrounded by forces much greater than himself, forces that are malignant and powerful, forces that are conscious and will stop at nothing to stop you. Yet we think that, if you stay away from Atropos, you may be able to block the terrible thing which is about to happen… which is, in a very real sense, happening already.] Ralph didn’t much care for the unspoken assumption that he and Lois were going to do whatever it was these two happy gauchos wanted, but this didn’t seem like exactly the right time to say so.
Lois: [“What is about to happen? What is it you wantfrom us?
Are we supposed to find Ed and talk him out of doing something bad?”] Clotho and Lachesis looked at her with identical expressions of shocked horror.
[Haven’t you been listening to-] I-you mustn’t even think of-] They stopped, and Clotho motioned Lachesis to go ahead.
[If You didn’t hear us before, Lois, hear us now.-stay away from Ed Deepneau! Like Atropos, this unusual situation has temporarily invested him with great power. To even go near him would be to risk a visit from the entity he thinks of as the Crimson King… and besides, he is no longer in Derry.] Lachesis glanced out over the roof, where lights were coming on in the dusk of Thursday evening, then looked back at Ralph and Lois again.
[He has left for I ____________________No words, but Ralph caught a clear sensory impression which was part smell (oil, grease, exhaust, sea-salt), part feel and sound (the wind snapping at something-perhaps a flag), and part sight (a large rusty building with a huge door standing open on a steel track).
[“He’s on the coast, isn’t he? Or going there.”] Clotho and Lachesis nodded, and their faces suggested that the coast, eighty miles from Derry, was a very good place for Ed Deepneau.
Lois tugged his hand again, and Ralph glanced at her, [“Did you see the building, Ralph?”] He nodded.
Lois: [“It’s of Hawking Labs, but it’s near there. I think it might even be a place I know-“] Lachesis, speaking rapidly, as if to change the subject: [Where he isor what he might be planning really doesn’t matter. Your task lies elsewhere, in safer waters, but you still may need to use all of your considerable Short-Time powers to accomplish it, and there still may be great danger.] Lois looked nervously at Ralph.
[“Tell them we won’t hurt anybody, Ralph-we might agree to help them if we can, but we won’t hurt anybody, no matter what.”] Ralph, however, told them no such thing. He was thinking of how the diamond chips had glittered at Atropos’s earlobes, and meditating on how perfectly he had been trapped-and Lois along with him, of course. Yes, he would hurt someone to get the earrings back.
That wasn’t even a question. But just how far would he go? Would he perhaps kill to get them back?
Not wanting to tackle that issue-not wanting to even look at Lois, at least for the time being-Ralph turned back to Clotho and Lachesis.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she got there first, [“There’s one other thing I want to know before we go any further. “I It was Clotho who replied, sounding slightly amused-sounding, in fact, remarkably like Bill McGovern. Ralph didn’t care for it much.
[What is that, Lois?] [“Is Ralph in danger, too? Does Atropos have something of Ralph’s we need to take back later on? Something like
Bill’s hat?”] Lachesis and Clotho exchanged a quick, apprehensive glance.
Ralph didn’t think Lois caught it, but he did. She’s getting too close for comfort, that look said. Then it was gone. Their faces were smooth again as they turned their attention back to Lois.
Lachesis: [No. Atropos has taken nothing from Ralph because, up until now, doing so would not help him in any way.] Ralph: [“What do -you mean, ’up until now’?”] Clotho: [You have spent your life as part of the Purpose, Ralph, but that has changed.] Lois: [“When did it change? It happened when we started seeing the auras, didn’t it?”] They looked at each other, then at Lois, then-nervously-at Ralph.
They said nothing, and an interesting idea occurred to Ralph: like the boy George Washington of the cherry tree myth, Clotho and Lachesis could not tell a lie… and at moments like this they probably regretted it. The only alternative was the one they were employing: keeping their lips zipped and hoping the conversation would move on to safer areas. Ralph decided he didn’t want it to move on-at least not yet-even though they were dangerously close to allowing Lois to find out where her earrings had gone… always assuming she didn’t know that already, a possibility that did not strike him as at all remote.
An old carny pitchman’s line occurred to him: Step right up, gentlemen… but if you want to play, you have to pay.
[“Oh no, Lois-the change didn’t happen when I started to see the auras. I think a lot of people catch a glimpse ’ into the Long-Time world If in of auras every now and again, and nothing bad happens to them. I don’t think I got knocked out of my nice safe place in the PurPose until we started to talk to these two fine fellows. What do you say, fine fellows? You did everything but leave a trail of breadcrumbs, even though you knew perfectly well what was going to happen. Isn’t that about the size of it?”] They looked down at their feet, then slowly, reluctantly, back up at Ralph. It was Lachesis who answered.
[Yes, Ralph. We drew you to us even though we knew it would alter your ka. It’s unfortunate, but the situation demands it.] Now Lois will ask about herself, Ralph thought. Now she must ask.
But she didn’t. She only looked at the two little bald doctors with an inscrutable expression completely unlike any of her usual Our Lois looks. Ralph wondered again how much she knew or guessed, marvelled again that he didn’t have the slightest clue… and then these speculations were swallowed in a fresh wave of anger.
[“You guys… man oh man, you guys… “He didn’t finish, although he might have, if Lois hadn’t been standing beside him: You guys have done quite a bit more than just mess with our sleep, haven’t you? I don’t know about Lois, but I had a nice little niche in the Purpose… which means that you deliberately made me an exception to the very rules you’ve spent your whole lives upholding. In a way, I’ve become as much a blank as this guy we’re supposed to find. How did Clotho put it? “All bets are off “How very fucking true.
Lois: [“You talked about using our powers. What powers?”] Lachesis turned to her, clearly delighted at the change of subject.
He pressed his hands together, palm to palm, then opened them in a curiously Oriental gesture. What appeared between them were two swift images: Ralph’s hand producing a bolt of cold blue fire as it cut the air in a karate chop, and Lois’s forefinger producing bright blue-gray pellets of light that looked like nuclear cough-drops.
Ralph: [“Yes, all right, we have something, but it isn’t reliable.
It’s like-”] He concentrated and created an image of his own: hands opening the back of a radio and removing a pair of AA batteries encrusted with blue- gray crud. Clotho and Lachesis frowned at him, not getting it.
Lois: [“He’s trying to say we can’t always do that, and when we can, we can’t do it for long. Our batteries go flat, you see.”] Understanding mixed with amused incredulity broke over their features.
Ralph: [“What’s so damned funny?”
Clotho: [Nothing… everything. you have no concept of both strange you and Lois seem to us-incredible, wise and perceptive at one moment, incredibly naie at the next, Your batteries, as you call them, need never go flat, because the two of you are standing next to a bottomless reservoir of power. We assumed that, since you have both already drunk from it, you must surely know about it.] Ralph: [“What in the world are you talking about?”] Lachesis made that curiously Oriental hand-opening gesture again.
This time Ralph saw Mrs. Perrine, walking stiffly upright within an aura the color of a West Pointer’s dress uniform. Saw a shaft of gray brilliance, as thin and straight as the quill of a porcupine, poke out of this aura.
This image was overlaid by one of a skinny woman encased in a smoggy brown aura. She was looking out a car window. A voiceLois’s-spoke: Oooh, Mina, isn’t that the dearest little house? A moment later there was a soft, indrawn whistle and a narrow ray of the woman’s aura poked out from behind her neck.
This was followed by a third image, brief but strong: Ralph reaching through the slot in the bottom of the information booth and gripping the wrist of the woman with the brambly orange aura… except that all at once the aura around her left arm no longer was orange. All at once it was the faded turquoise he now thought of as Ralph Roberts Blue.
The image faded. Lachesis and Clotho stared at Ralph and Lois; they stared back, shocked.
Lois: [“Oh, no! We can’t do that! it’s like-”]
Image: Two men in striped prison suits and little black masks tiptoeing out of a bank vault, carrying bulging sacks with the $ symbol printed on the sides.
Ralph: [“No, even worse. It’s like-”] Image: A bat flies in through an open casement window, makes two swooping circles in a silvery shaft of moonlight, then turns into Ralph Lugosi in a cape and old-fashioned tuxedo. He approaches t sleeping woman-not a young, rosy virgin but old Mrs. Perrine in a sensible flannel nightgown-and bends over to suck her aura.
When Ralph looked back at Clotho and Lachesis, both of them were shaking their heads vehemently.
Lachesis: [No No, no, no! You couldn’t be more wrong! Have you not wondered why you are Short-Timers, marking the spans of your lives in decades rather
