Tom O'Bedlam Part 31

The man said, "Is that what happened to the other man, the one in the dormitory?"

"He went to the Double Kingdom," Tom said. "I have sent some to Ellullimiilu today also, and some to live with the Eye People. The whole universe is open to us now."

"Send us to the Nine Suns!" the woman said.

"Lacy . . ." the man said.

"No, listen to me, Barry. This is real, I know it. They join hands and he sends you. You see the smiles on those faces? The spirit went out of him, you saw that. Where did it go?

I bet it went to Maguali-ga."

"The man's dead, Lacy."

"The man has left his body behind. Listen, we stay here any longer, we'll get trampled to death anyway. You see how they're pulling the place apart since they saw the Senhor get killed? Let's do it, Barry. You said you had faith, that you had seen the truth. Well, here's the truth. Here's our moment, Barry. The Senhor had it upside down, that's all.

The G.o.ds aren't coming to Earth, you see? We're supposed to go tothem. And here's the man to send us."

"Come," Tom said. "Now."

"Barry?" the woman said.

The man looked stunned. He was afraid, untrusting. He blinked, he shook his head, he stared around. To help him, Tom sent him a vision, just the edge of one, the nine glorious suns in full blaze. The man drew in his breath sharply and pressed both his hands against his mouth and hunched his shoulders up, and then he seemed to relax. The woman said his name again and put her hand on his arm, and after a moment he nodded.

"All right," he said quietly. "Yes. Why the h.e.l.l not? This is what we were all looking for, wasn't it?" To Tom he said, "Where are we going to go?"

"The Sapiil kingdom," Tom said. "The empire of the Nine Suns."

"To Maguali-ga," said Menendez.

Tom reached for the hands of the fat woman and the Mexican. He rocked back and forth on his heels a moment.

"Now," he said. Both at once, this time. He took the energy from the fat woman and the Mexican and pa.s.sed it through himself and sent the man and the woman to the Sapiil. The ease of it surprised him. He had never done that before, two at the same time.

The man and the red-haired woman slid to the ground and lay face up, smiling the wonderful Crossing-smile. Tom knelt and lightly touched their cheeks. That was a beautiful smile, that smile. He envied them, walking now among the Sapiil under those nine glorious suns. While he was still here slopping around in the mud. But that was all right, Tom thought. He had his tasks to do first.

He started down the hill again. All about him were people screaming and shouting and waving their arms hysterically in the air. "Peace to you all," Tom said. "It is the Time of the Crossing, today, and everything is going well." But the people came rushing past, confused and angry. For a moment Tom was swept up in the confusion, jostled and buffeted, and when he was in the clear again he could no longer see the fat woman or the Mexican. Well, he would find them again sooner or later, he told himself. They knew he was heading toward the bus, and they would go there to wait for him, because they were his a.s.sistants in bringing about the Crossing, they were part of the great event that was unfolding here today in the rain and the mud and the chaos.

Someone caught him by the arm, held him, stopped him.

"Tom."

"Charley? You still here?"

"I told you. I was waiting for you. Now come on with me. We got the van still sitting out there in the forest, in the clearing. You got to get yourself away from here."

"Not now, Charley. Don't you understand that the Crossing is going on?"

"The Crossing?"

"Six, eight people have set out on the journey already. There will be many more. I feel the strength rising in me, Charley. This is the day I was born for."

"Tom -"

"You go to the van and wait for me there," Tom said. "I'll come to you in a little while and help you make your Crossing, as soon as I can find my people, my helpers. You'll be on the Green World an hour from now, I promise you that. Away from all this craziness, away from all this noise."

"Man, you don't understand. People are getting killed here. There are trampled bodies all over the place. Come on with me, man. It isn't safe for you here. You don't know how to look after yourself. I don't want to see anything happen to you, Tom, you know?

You and me, we've traveled a long way together, and - I don't know, I just feel I ought to look after you." Charley took Tom's arm again and pulled gently. Tom felt the warmth of this man's soul, this scratcher, this wandering killer. He smiled. But he could not leave, not now. He peeled Charley's hand from his arm. Charley scowled and shook his head, and started to say something else.

Then the crazy mob came swirling back in their direction and Charley was borne away, carried off by the tide of humanity like a twig on the breast of a raging river.

Tom stepped out of their way and let them go thundering past. But he saw it was impossible to get to the bus now. Things were too wild, down there in the middle of the lawn.

He thought he saw the fat woman off toward one side, and went off in her direction. But as he was clambering over the tumbled boards of some shattered little cabin he lost his footing on the slippery wood and slid downward into the shambles of planks and joists.

For the moment he was stuck, his leg jammed deep down into it. There was a stirring in front of him and someone began to crawl out from the pile of wood.

Stidge, it was.

The red-haired man's eyes opened wide at the sight of Tom. "What the f.u.c.k. It's the looney. h.e.l.lo, looney, you f.u.c.king trouble-maker. How come Charley's not right there holding your hand?"

"He was here. He got swept away by the mob."

"That's too G.o.dd.a.m.n bad, isn't it?" Stidge said.

He laughed. He reached into his tattered jacket and drew out his spike. His eyes were gleaming like marbles by moonlight. He poked the tip of the spike against Tom's breastbone, hard, once, twice, three times, a sharp painful jab each time. "Hey," Stidge said. "Got you where I want you, looney. Charley beat me up once on account of you, you remember? That first day, out in the Valley, when you came drifting in? He kicked the s.h.i.t out of me because I laid a hand on you. I never forgot that. And then there were other times later, when I got in trouble on account of you, when Charley talked to me like I was nothing but a piece of c.r.a.p. You know?"

"Put the spike away, Stidge. Help me get loose, will you?" He pushed at the timbers pinning his leg. "Poor Tom's foot is stuck. Poor Tom."

"Poor Tom, yeah. Poor f.u.c.king Tom."

"It's the day of the Crossing, Stidge. I've got work to do. I have to find my helpers and send people where they're meant to go."

"I'll send you where you were meant to go," Stidge said, and flicked the stud on the spike to turn on the power. "Just like I did to that crazy jig on the bus back there. For once I got you and no Charley around, and -"

"No," Tom said, as Stidge drew the spike back and jammed it toward Tom's chest. He brought his hand up fast and seized Stidge's wrist, holding it steady for a moment, summoning all his strength to keep that deadly little strip of metal from touching him.

He trembled against Stidge and for a long instant they struggled in stalemate. Then Stidge began forcing his arm forward, slowly, slowly, bringing the tip of the spike closer to Tom's chest. It took all that Tom had to hold that thing away from him. Stidge was pushing it closer and closer. Tom was shivering. Fiery pain shot up and down his arm and into his chest. He looked into Stidge's hard glaring eyes, right up against his own.

And Tom picked up Stidge's soul and hurled it to Luiiliimeli.

He did it easily, smoothly, like skipping a stone across a pond. He did it all by himself, because he had to do it and his helpers were nowhere in sight. There was just no effort in it at all. He simply focused his energies and gathered the force and lifted Stidge's soul and threw it toward the heavens. Stidge stared at him in astonishment. Then the surprise went from his face and the Crossing-smile appeared, and the spike dropped from Stidge's dead hand, and he slumped down onto the pile of timbers.

Tom huddled over him, amazed, shaken, trembling, feeling sick to his stomach.

I did it all by myself, he thought.

It was just like killing him, he thought. I picked him up and threw him.

I never killed anybody before, he thought.

Then he thought, No, no, Stidge isn't dead, Stidge is on Luiiliimeli now, in the city of Meliluiilii under the great blue star Ellullimiilu. They have him and they'll heal him of all the sickness in his soul. It wasn't a killing any more than the other Crossings were.

The only difference is that I did it all myself, that's all. And if I hadn't, he would have killed me sure as anything with that spike, and then there would be no more Crossings for anyone.

You understand that, Stidge? I didn't kill you, Stidge. I did you the biggest favor of your life.

Tom felt himself starting to calm down some. The queasiness left him. He probed at the scattered timbers, trying to get his foot free.

"Here. I'll help you."

It was the fat woman, climbing clumsily toward him. Her face was flushed, her eyes were strange. Her clothing was torn in two or three places. "Got my foot stuck somehow," Tom said. "Give me a hand - here - here -"

"That's the man who killed the other one outside the bus, isn't it?" she said. "Everybody was looking for him. He's dead, right?"

"He made the Crossing. I sent him to Luiiliimeli. I can do the Crossings without any help, now." "I think this is the one that's holding you," she said. "Here." She wrenched a huge beam upward and tossed it aside. Tom pulled his leg free and rubbed his shin. She smiled at him. He felt the sadness coming from her, behind the smile.

He took her hand and said, "Where would you like me to send you?"

"What?"

"I can spare you now. I can give you your Crossing."

She jerked her hand free of his as if his touch were burning her. "No - please -"

"No?"

"I don't want to go anywhere."

"But this world is lost. There's nothing left here but pain and grief. I can send you to the Green World, or the Nine Suns, or the Sphere of Light -"

"It frightens me to think about that. It's like dying, isn't it? Or maybe worse." Her face grew panicky and she knelt and scrabbled around at her feet, grasping at the spike that had dropped from Stidge's hand. "I'm afraid. To start all over, to face a whole other world - no, No. I'd rather just die. You know?" The strangeness had gone from her eyes. She seemed to have come up out of some long tunnel into the open air. Her voice, which had always seemed to Tom like a little girl's voice, was a normal voice now. She was still talking. "I'm sick of being me. Carrying around this great awful body. Always afraid. Always crying." She was fumbling with the stud of the spike, trying to figure out how to use it. She didn't seem to know how. But then it began to glow and Tom realized she had turned it on after all. She was holding it between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her hand was shaking.

"No," he said. He couldn't let her do that. He clamped his hand around her fleshy wrist and sent her to the Fifth Zygerone World.

As she dropped her body it fell with a terrible crash, landing beside Stidge. But she was smiling. She was smiling, that was the thing. Tom picked up the spike and switched it off and hurled it as far as he could, off into the shrubbery.

He crouched for a moment, catching his breath, getting his balance. He glanced at the two smiling bodies in front of him, thinking, It was like killing, but I didn't kill them, no, I just sent them away. Stidge would have killed me and she would have killed herself, and I couldn't let either of those things happen. So I did what I had to do. That's all. I did what I had to do. And this is the day of the Crossing, which is the most wonderful day in the history of the world.

He felt better now. He made his way carefully down from the fallen building. The riot was still going on. More buildings seemed to be burning. He looked straight ahead, through a clearing that had suddenly appeared, and saw the tall woman, the one who had been so kind to him, the doctor, the one who was called Elszabet, just across the way. She was staring at him. Tom smiled at her. She seemed to be calling to him, beckoning him. He nodded and went to her.

8.

"THEREhe is," Elszabet said. "I've got to talk to him. Will you wait for me?"

She turned toward Dan Robinson, toward Dante. But at that moment a bunch of howling, screeching rioters swept through the place where they were standing, and when Elszabet looked again neither one was in sight. She thought she heard Dan's voice from far away, but she wasn't sure: the sound was lost in the wind and the screaming of the mob. Well, Tom was the one she wanted now.

He was standing by himself in front of the ruins of the staff recreation hall. Like a miracle, she thought, seeing him suddenly appear out of the chaos that way. How peaceful he looks, too. Probably he's been drifting around in all this craziness for hour after hour without even noticing what's going on.

"Tom?" she called.

He sauntered toward her. He seemed in no hurry at all. Looking beyond him, Elszabet saw a couple of figures sprawled on a pile of scattered timbers as though they were asleep. One was April. The other seemed to be the red-haired scratcher who had killed the cult leader on the steps of the bus. They lay motionless, not even stirring.

It seemed to Elszabet that she and Tom were the only two people on the grounds of the Center just now. A sphere of silence appeared to surround them.

"It's Miss Elszabet," Tom said. He was smiling in a weird exalted way. "I was hoping I'd find you, Elszabet. Do you know what's been happening? This is the time I told you would come. When the Crossing begins to happen. As the Kusereen intended for us, all along."

"What did you do to Ed Ferguson?"

Still the strange smile. "I helped him make the Crossing."

"You killed him, is that what you're saying?"

"Hey! Hey, you sound angry!"

"You killed Ed Ferguson? Answer me, Tom."

"Killed? No. I guided him so that he would be able to drop his body. That's all I did.

And then I sent him to Sapiil."

Elszabet felt a chill spreading along her arms and legs.

"And April?" she said. "You guided her the same way?" "The fat woman, you mean? Yes, she's gone up there too, just a minute or two ago. And the Indian man. And Stidge there, when he tried to kill me. And I've sent a lot of others, all morning long."

She stared, not believing, not wanting to believe. "You killed all those people? My G.o.d . . . Nick, April, who else? Tell me, Tom, how many of my patients have you killed so far?"

"Killed?" He shook his head. "You keep saying killed. No. No, I haven't killed anybody.

I've just been sending them, that's all."

"Sending them," Elszabet repeated in a flat voice.

"Sending them, yes. This is the day of the Crossing. At first I needed four helpers to do it. And then two. But now the power is very strong in me."

Elszabet's throat was dry and tight. There was a terrible pressure in her chest, a kind of silent shout fighting to escape. Ferguson, she thought. April. Nick Double Rainbow. All dead. And probably most of the others too. Her patients. Everyone she had tried to help.

What had he done to them? Where were they now? She had never known such a crushing feeling of helplessness, of emptiness.

Quietly she said, "You've got to stop, Tom."

He looked amazed. "Stop? How can I stop? What are you talking about, Elszabet?"