Dhalgren

with…

Kid stepped back again, turned, hurried up the balcony.

Tak, the lame folded over his arm, squatted by another box. 'I got everything I need. Find anything interesting?'

From where Kid stood, looking down, the visor masked the engineer's eyes.

The terrible thing, Kid realized, is that I'm too scared to ask!

'Hey, are you all right?' Tak raised his head. The shadow bobbed on the top half of his face. 'You're not going to go into another one of your flip-outs, are you?'

Kid tried to say, I'm all right. All he did was expel another breath.

From the carton Tak removed some square piece of metallic equipment and stood. 'Let's go.' He sighed.

Halfway down the stairs Kid managed to say, 'I'm all right.' It hung detached in dusty light, blunted by echoes. Tak gave him a sarcastic glance.

Is this, Kid thought, one of the things that, a minute hence, will slip from the register of memory to take some inaccessible address beside my name? (He closed his mouth, and the roar he had moved through for the last minutes ceased.) More likely it is one of those things that I will never be able to speak of, and never forget.

They were halfway to the door before the first voice proportioned with amusement yawned somewhere and inquired, Never? then giggled, turned over, and went to sleep.

Well not for a hell of a long time.

But he felt a little bit better.

'Did you see those?' Tak nodded down another aisle of crates.

'What?' Kid's heart still beat very fast. He felt light-headed.

'Come on.' Tak led him along.

The orchids hung on wooden racks pegged over with dowels.

Kid walked to one stand. 'This is… the fancy kind.' He looked back. 'Like you have, isn't it?'

'Plain ones are over there.' Tak stepped beside him. 'I really thought you'd probably been in here before.'

To Kid's questioning glance, Tak took down the nearest. Beneath it was lettered:

BRASS ORCHIDS

Kid laughed. It made a weak sound in his 'throat, but echo lent it body. 'Here, let me see that?' Kid took the scrolled contrivance and turned it around and around. 'I guess it would be okay if I took this one… wouldn't it?'

Tak shrugged. 'Why not?'

Kid folded his fingers together and pushed them through the wrist band. 'I left my other one back at the nest. Might as well have two — one for special occasions.' He made a sudden feint at Tak. 'You like that?' He laughed again.

'Come on.' Tak had not moved at all. 'Let's go.'

They were in sight of the door when Kid got another attack of gooseflesh. But this one just made him grin. He looked up at the skylight, hunched his shoulders, and hurried after Tak. I'll probably never be able to find this place again, he thought. To steal a souvenir (he looked down at the yellow blades about his hand) seemed suddenly the ultimate cunning.

Outside, Tak smoothed the folded material across his arm. 'Since this is going to be your girl friend's ball gown, I shouldn't show you how it works. But it's sort of neat. Just a second.' He took out of his pocket the piece of equipment — a metal box the size of a cigarette pack with three dials, two knobs, and a small light on one corner. 'Give me a loan of the battery in your shield.'

'Oh, sure.' Kid fumbled the sphere through the blades. The projector clicked open. 'I only got one hand. You take it out.'

'Right.'

Tak opened the back of the box and put the battery in.

'Now watch.'

He turned a knob.

The light on the box's corner flickered argon-orange.

'Here we go.'

He turned another.

The cloth over Tak's arm — at first Kid thought Tak was shaking it — turned purple.

'Huh?' Kid said.

The metallic scales from which the cloth was made all seemed to have reversed. Some reversed again, and a blot of scarlet grew in one corner, occluded the purple, till it in turn was swept by glittering green.

'Oh, hey…!' Kid stepped back. 'That's going to be a dress?'

'Pretty, isn't it?'

The parti-colored flicker, like insect wings, resolved to blue that deepened, and deepened more, to black.

Tak turned off the box. Most of the cloth fell into dull silver. He shook it; and it was all one metallic grey.

'You know how it works?'

'Um-hm.' Tak put the box back in his pocket. 'It's simple, really. Hey, don't tell Lanya I showed you this. She wanted it to be a surprise.'

'Oh, sure,' Kid said. 'Sure.' He looked back at the warehouse. 'Hey, Tak, who…?'

'Now that question,' Tak said at his shoulder, 'if I knew the answer to, I would have already told you.'

'Oh,' and Kid began to list those to which that could have been an adequate response.

'You want to come up and have a drink?'

Kid said, 'Hey, let me see how that stuff works again. That's what I want to see.'

Tak sighed. 'Sure.'

'…gonna kill you, motherfucker!' shrieking like a baby in pain. Kid leaped from the loft, pivoted around the door jamb. Dollar danced in the hall, swinging the plank above his head.

'Hey…!' Copperhead stepped back, his arm before his face.

'— Kill you if you don't leave me alone!'

Copperhead ducked. The plank hit the wall.

Three scorpions (two black, one white) crowded the living room doorway. Two (one man, one woman) stepped in, staring, from the service porch.

Dollar's head went back.

Kid lunged and grabbed; his hand tangled Dollar's hair. He grasped the scorpion's shoulder and spun him back against the wall. Dollar crashed, and clicked his long teeth. The plank corner hit Kid's shoulder and clattered to the floor, while Dollar opened his mouth again. His lips strung out gummy saliva. Dollar tried to shove forward, gasping, Copperhead was trying to pull Kid away.

Kid jammed his elbow back. 'Get off!'

'I'm gonna kill 'im!' Dollar shrieked in Kid's face. 'He won't leave me alone. I'm gonna kill 'im! He knows I'm gonna kill 'im! I'm gonna kill 'im! I'm gonna kill—'

Kid flung himself against Dollar, spread-eagled them both on the wall. Then his shoulder, still stinging from the plank, exploded in pain, so surprising he couldn't cry out. He just grunted and clawed at Dollar's head. Dollar's teeth came open with a rush of air. He heard Dollar's skull hit the wall twice, and realized he was pounding it. He felt blood dribbling bis arm. Dollar's eyes were unfocused. He was trying to shake his head. His upper teeth were filmed with blood, his lower lip flecked with it.

'You gonna let me take care of him?' Copperhead's voice came out a fifth too low; his words wobbled. 'This fuckin' loony is gonna hurt somebody! And then there ain't gonna be no telling. You gonna let us take care of him?'

Kid looked back. Copperhead's bearded chin was buried back in his neck. His freckled fists opened and closed, and he swayed and panted.