And I got lost. That’s all. I needed that tracker but I had figured I could get along without it and Pod had to have it. I got hopelessly lost. There wasn’t breeze enough for me to tell anything by wetting my finger and that polarized light trick for finding the Sun is harder than you would think. Hours after I should have reached the ring road I was still skirting boggy places and open water and trying to keep from being somebody’s lunch.
And suddenly there was the most dazzling light possible and I went down flat and stayed there with my eyes buried in my arm and started to count.
I wasn’t hurt at all. The blast wave covered me with mud and the noise was pretty rough but I was well outside the real trouble. Maybe half an hour later I was picked up by a cop car.
Certainly, I should have disarmed that bomb. I had intended to, if everything went well; it was just meant to be a “Samson in the Temple” stunt if things turned out dry. A last resort.
Maybe I should have stopped to disarm it as soon as I broke old Gruesome’s neck-and maybe Jojo would have caught both of us if I had and him still with a happy-dust hangover. Anyhow I didn’t and then I was very busy shooting Jojo and deciding what to do and telling Poddy how to use that gun and getting her started. I didn’t think •bout the bomb until I was several hundred meters from I he house-and I certainly didn’t want to go back then, even if I could have found it again in the smog, which is doubtful.
But apparently Poddy did just that. Went back to the house, I mean. She was found later that day, about a kilometer from the house, outside the circle of total de-Mruction-but caught by the blast.
With a live baby fairy in her arms-her body had protected it; it doesn’t appear to have been hurt at all.
That’s why I think she went back to the house. I don’t know that this baby fairy is the one she called “Ariel.” It might have been one that she picked up in the bush.
But that doesn’t seem at all likely; a wild one would have clawed her and its parents would have torn her to pieces.
I think she intended to save that baby fairy all along and decided not to mention it to me. It is just the kind of sentimental stunt that Poddy would do. She knew I was going to have to kill the adult-and she never said a word against that; Pod could always be sensible wheni absolutely necessary.
Then in the excitement of breaking out she forgot to I grab it, just as I forgot to disarm the bomb after we no I longer needed it. So she went back for it.
And lost the inertial tracker, somehow. At least it; wasn’t found on her or near her. Between the gun and her purse and the baby fairy and the tracker she must have dropped it in a bog. Must be, because she had plenty of time to go back and still get far away from the house. She should have been ten kilometers away by then, so she must have lost the tracker fairly soon and walked in a circle.
I told Uncle Tom all about it and was ready to tell the Corporation people, Mr. Cunha and so forth, and take my medicine. But Uncle told me to keep my mouth shut. He agreed that I had fubbed it, mighty dry indeed-but so had he-and so had everybody. He was gentle with me. I wish he had hit me.
I’m sorry about Poddy. She gave me some trouble from time to time, with her bossy ways and her illogical ideas — but just the same I’m sorry.
I wish I knew how to cry.
Her little recorder was still in her purse and part of the tape could be read. Doesn’t mean much, though; she doesn’t tell what she did, she was babbling, sort of:
” — very dark where I’m going. No man is an island, complete in himself. Remember that, Clarfcie. Oh, I’m sorry I fubbed it but remember that; it’s important. They all have to be cuddled sometimes. My shoulder — Saint Podkayne! Saint Podkayne, are you listening? UnkaTom,