Crinkle-green turned to the savage who had gathered himself together and stood straight and still, his hands clasped around his little bundle. 'Don't be afraid,' I heard Crinkle-green say, though his lips didn't move that way. 'Let me fear,' said the savage in a voice that wavered and then steadied. 'It is a good fear. To bear it one time or maybe two is to be strong. To bear it more is to be mad and a shouting voice of confusion to the others.' He held out the little package on the flat of his hand. 'Touch my Luck that I may be a leader to my people, to tell them there is something else to live by besides the hunt and the belly.' Crinkle-green reached toward the Luck. The green intensified until it became almost audible. Then it paled and the savage, with tender reverent hands, tucked the Luck away inside his garment again. 'Now,' said Crinkle-green briskly. 'We'll put you back just after your kill. Good feasting! Short winter!' And he flicked his fingers. The savage was gone. 'A worthy fore-runner of David,' said Crinkle-green. 'King David, that is-' 'I know David,' I said, reflecting that my utterance was quite an anticlimax after the savage's well-rounded phrases. We lose a lot by being afraid to be emotional or corny nowadays! And there I was, left alone by the water hole with my bob-tailed car and two angels. Angels! One of which was, in effect, vacuuming the sand wash of any remnants of the vanished savage. 'You don't look very angelic,' I mentioned casually. 'Ever try to tidy up three continuums-continua-umm-three linearities while wearing a white robe and a halo and-and-a harp!' Crinkle-cerise was reading my ideas-and incidentally, speaking direct without the unsynchronized bit-and ended up on an incredulous yelp. 'You've got to dress for the part, especially when it's a combination-or equivalent-well, we're sort of-well, plumbers, electricians, jacks-of-all-trades-one thing for sure, I've got to get in on a refresher course in terminology!' 'I thought angels spent most of their time in praising God-' I began. 'What else is honest work?' retorted Crinkle-cerise. 'But getting back to the matter in hand-' 'But I want to know!' I protested, questions swarming like hornets without my being able to lay a tongue on a one. 'Like what?' asked Crinkle-green as he began pushing; my car back through the side of things. 'Characteristic,' reminded Crinkle-cerise, combing the sand for any of my personal debris. 'Always in this era their curiosity is so strong they forget to be scared-' 'Like how can a pattern of a cloverleaf puncture-' 'Well, look,' said Crinkle-green, 'or maybe I should say `behold'?' He looked at me. I shook my head. He shook his. 'Wrong terminology again. That goes with `Fear not'. Well, look then. Everytime is so close to everytime-as close as if they were painted on plastic film, one on each side-' 'You mean the past and the present and the future are all simultaneous?' I asked. Crinkle-green sighed again. 'You'd have to define your terms. Boy! Talk about loaded! Past present future- simultaneous! Anyway, being so close, they naturally interact. That's as it's supposed to be. But intermingling throws all kinds of monkey wrenches. So when this traffic exchange pattern evolved, we found it penetrated-well, you see for yourself. So we have to go around and restore linearity and sign the spots against recurrence.' 'Sign them?' I asked. 'You can make a sign to end something like this?' 'Sure,' said Crinkle-cerise. 'If he's not forgotten his sign manual, too!' 'Aw, cut it out,' protested Crinkle-green. 'I outpointed you in the qualifiers:' 'Yeah, three points!' retorted Crinkle-cerise. 'And you must have put a squitch on the Recorders to do that!' Crinkle-green suddenly remembered me and coughed delicately behind a somewhat grubby hand. 'You were asking-?' He gave me his full attention. 'The sign,' I reminded. 'Oh, yes,' he said matter-of-factly. 'Any sign is an inplace-of-something. In-place-of words, or in-place-of an action, or in-place-of a function. We use the tripartite sign of creation.' He paused, but noticed that I was still waiting expectantly for an explanation. 'Uh-' His lips moved silently, and I supposed he was galloping down another terminology list. Finally he brightened and suggested, 'Trinity?' 'Trinity, like in church?' I asked, taken aback. 'Yes,' he nodded, pleased. 'Unless you are more familiar with-' But my ears gave me no clue to the movement of his mouth. 'Trinity,' he said, nodding again. 'So when we get the linearity straightened out, we just sign it and the function implicit in the sign holds everything secure!' He ended triumphantly. 'Now, your vehicle,' said Crinkle-cerise briskly and the two finished shoving my car back through the rip. I felt a little lonely as I heard its reluctant slooop. Long bands of tension twanged from it to me as it moved. 'And you-' Crinkle-cerise lifted his fingers to flick me out. 'Wait! Wait!' I put out a protesting hand. 'Wait a minute!' The two exchanged patient looks. 'Yes?' said Crinkle-cerise. 'Why couldn't that fellow's ZAPT hurt me? And yet the savage could wound both of us with his arrows!' I asked, grabbing at one of the million questions that swarmed around me. 'Oh, that,' said Crinkle-cerise. 'Because the invention of the arrow pre-dated both of you. Neither of your weapons had any effectiveness against the savage, but he could have killed both of you, and you could have killed the other fellow, but he, poor kid, couldn't have killed either of you, not by firing his ZAPT. His weapon couldn't penetrate any time before his-not as an effective agent, anyway. See?' 'Oh,' I said blankly. 'Yeah. Okay. But then-well-' I felt my face tighten with awkwardness. 'Are you two really angels?' 'Angels!' The answer rolled around me like distant thunder. 'And you've actually been in the presence of God?' 'The presence of God!' The voices multiplied against the hills. I blinked against the dazzle of their faces. They weren't my contemporaries any more. They were timeless. 'And you've actually seen Him in all His glory?' 'All His Glory!' It was as though a multitude of the heavenly hosts augmented the answer and the two were too bright for me to look at. 'And you've been touched by His loving hands-?' 'His loving Hands!' The morning stars joined in the hallelujas that were one surge of joy with no noise at all. 'Then-then-' I gasped as I covered my eyes with the curve of my arm. 'Let me-let me touch you!' 'You can't.' Flatly the words spatted me back to the dullness of sand and the sullen glint of water. 'Why not!' I cried sharply, anger the obverse of ecstasy. 'Don't misunderstand,' said Crinkle-cerise, nineteen again, or maybe twenty-one and in his lineman's outfit. 'We didn't say we wouldn't let you. You just can't. We only stated a fact. See?' He held out his hand to me and I tried to take it. I couldn't. I didn't even stub my fingers against anything. I flipped my own hand around, through, and among his hand, but I couldn't touch it. 'Sorry,' he said. 'That's linearity for you. Penetration makes too many problems. Have to have special permits, and on our level, we don't even aspire to such a thing.' 'Then you're not here,' I said, feeling cheated, 'Or else I'm not there-' 'Here-there!' Crinkle-cerise smiled. 'Loaded words again.' And his fingers flicked. Again-again-again– The whispered echo ran around the horizon. I was standing by my car just off the pavement on the far side of the cloverleaf, repeating, 'Again, again, again!' pleadingly. A second later I shook my head sheepishly and blinked around me at the familiar scene, feeling oddly light, freed from the ever contracting and expanding bands of tension. 'Well!' I thought, getting back into the car, 'I met an angel! Two of them!' So. That was it. I go over the whole experience every once in a while, to my own comfort, especially after very loud, dark headlines. It's been a help all these years knowing that there is a sign by which a cloverleaf can be set right. Because, if a cloverleaf, surely vastly more important things are under control, too. So I try to practice patience instead of panic. It's pleasanter. The sign? Oh, I found out about that. It can be found somewhere on every traffic exchange. Even the builders don't know why it's there, and sometimes don't even know it's there. It's scrawled somewhere on the steel innards of the structure. Or maybe built into the pattern of a guard rail. Or sometimes it's the contractors' name
