didn’t know if she could make any sense of them. She sensed vague fields of force, subtle influences, but nothing she could put her finger on.
“Not really.”
“They’re getting closer. Can you get up any more speed?”
Sheila’s arms felt like lead. “No.”
“Then I’m afraid we’re going to have to face them.”
Trent stopped swimming and reached out for her. He enveloped her in his arms, and she went limp, surrendering to the fatigue. She felt like she could never move again.
A huge gray form came in from the seaward side, its path still indirect, still exploratory.
“Trent, we’re going to die,” she said.
“Kiss me, Sheila.”
They embraced in the water, her legs wrapped around him, her tongue finding his.
Something nudged her in the back, and she didn’t care.
Trent looked over her shoulder. He said, “I think …”
“Darling,” she breathed.
“Dolphins.”
“Dolphins?”
“Or a reasonable facsimile.”
Sheila reached out and touched the rough skin of the thing. It was warm and resilient, like rubber. Another animal approached, and Trent grabbed its dorsal fin. The creature seemed to have no objection.
A head broke water in front of Sheila. It was the head of no dolphin or porpoise she had ever seen. The snout was blunt and wrinkled, and the eyes caninelike, large and intelligent. Sharp teeth protruded from the mouth. The animal was more like a seal or walrus than anything else, but sleeker, more streamlined, and the body more fishlike. In that respect it resembled a dolphin.
Trent’s animal suddenly bolted shoreward. Trent hung on for the ride momentarily, then let go. He wound up a good distance from Sheila.
“I think they want to escort us in!” Trent yelled.
Sheila stroked the dolphinoid’s bulbous head. The animal seemed to like this. Then it swung about and rolled its body slightly toward her, as if offering its dorsal fin as a handgrip. Sheila grabbed on with both hands.
Suddenly she was rocketing through the water, the force of the flow making it difficult to maintain her grip. But she did.
In no time the shore drew near. Reaching the outer edge of the surf, the animal turned back toward the open sea, and she let go.
She rode a wave in, then another. Finally her feet touched bottom, and she waded into the beach.
She collapsed, wet sand against her face, the sound of breakers washing her in and out of consciousness. The cry of a gull came; then, after an indeterminate time, footsteps at her back.
“Sheila?”
She turned and saw Trent’s smiling face.
“You okay?”
“Yes, Trent.”
“Sorry if what went on out there was just a paroxysm in the face of imminent death.”
She touched her body and found that she was naked before his gaze. She smiled up at him, holding out her arms. “Trent, darling.”
“Sheila.”
Fourteen
Long Island Expressway
Snowclaw never tired of watching the metal wagons roar up and down the stone road. His head snapped this way and that as they streaked by. Big ones, small ones, middle-sized ones. It was amazing.
He had left Trent’s house after thinking long and hard about what he ought to do. He knew there was such a thing as a telephone. He had heard of a telephone, and theoretically, at least, he knew what you were supposed to do with one. But he hadn’t the foggiest notion of how you actually went about using one. If so, he would have called Halfway House.
Yes, he had thought long and hard. And he came to the conclusion that he simply would have to walk to Halfway House. Of course, he hadn’t the slightest idea where Halfway was from here or how far it was, but he had an inkling its direction was due west, so he had left the house, put his back to the rising sun, and started walking.
He’d found this road and followed it. Human eyes regarded him curiously from the windows of the hurtling metal vehicles.
Distance wasn’t his only problem. Here, on Earth, he was incommunicado. He understood no one, and no one understood him. Trent had whipped up an impromptu translation spell, but that extended no farther than the confines of Trent’s house. Sheila’s shape-changing enchantment was still on him, though. That at least was something. He could imagine the dismay he’d cause if he had to go traipsing about in his natural state.
Gray clouds were gathering ahead. Rain? Snow? Another thing he knew nothing about: the weather of this world. To him it was comfortably warm, but he knew that snow could fall at this temperature.
More metal wagons whizzed by. Where were they all going? And so fast, too! Snowclaw couldn’t get over it. They were tearing up the road.
One of them, a long metallic gray affair with dark windows, abruptly slowed, wheels squealing, and pulled off onto the shoulder ahead. Snowclaw approached it warily. Could be trouble.
Two humans got out, one short, the other chunky. They waited for Snowy to come closer.
The small one spoke. “Look at him, Vinny. Didja ever see a guy that big?”
Vinny shook his head.
Snowclaw stopped and sized them both up. They’d be no problem, as long as they didn’t pull any magic. He’d heard there was powerful magic in this world.
“Hey, pal. What was you, a wrestler? Weight lifter?”
Snowclaw was surprised to discover that he knew more or less what the little human was saying. Gene had told him about this. Inside the castle, the running translation spell kept everyone in communication. But living under its influence for extended periods tended to produce side effects, the chief one being that some actual language learning took place. Snowclaw had heard a lot of English spoken in the last two years.
“Yeah,” Snowclaw said. “Wrestler.” His jaw had to work unnaturally hard to form the words.
“Yeah, where didja work? Professional wrestling?”
“Yeah. Pro-fesh-shunal.”
“Uh-huh.” The small human looked a little older than the big one. “Waddya think, Vinny?”
“I dunno, Nunzio. He got an accent.”
“So what? Hey, fella, what are you? You look like a Swede. You Swedish, or what?”
“Yeah, Swedish.”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh. Did your car break down? You don’t have a coat, neither. It’s cold. Aren’t you cold?”
“Jeez, Nunzio, the guy’s so big, he don’t need nothin’.”
“Yeah, hey. What’s your name, fella?”
Snowclaw thought about it. The only name he knew was the one his English-speaking friends called him.
“Snowy.”
“Snowy. Uh-huh. ’Cause of your hair, huh? It’s white.”
“Jeez, he’s big, Nunzio.”
“Yeah. You lookin’ for a job, fellah? I got one, if y’are. I need a bouncer at my club. The guy I had, one, he was doin’ a number with a waitress of mine — I mean, the little bitch was two-timin’ me, y’know? — two, him and
