He wasn’t kidding.
He’d said something about lesser gravitation, but I didn’t feel that light. I knew I was strong, but I had my doubts about being able to raise the rear end of a Mercedes.
But on the other hand, I had to try, since he seemed to expect it of me, and I couldn’t tip him off as to any gaps in my memory. So I stooped, squatted, grasped, and started to straighten my legs. With a sucking sound, the rear wheels freed themselves from the moist earth. I was holding my end of the car about two feet above the ground! It was heavy, damn! it was heavy!—but I could do it!
With each step that I took, I sank about six inches into the ground. But I was carrying it. And Random was doing the same with his end.
We set it down on the roadway, with a slight jouncing of springs. Then I took off my shoes and emptied them, cleaned them with swatches of grass, wrung out my socks, brushed off the cuffs of my trousers, threw my footgear into the rear seat and climbed back into the front, bare footed.
Random jumped in, on the passenger’s side, and said, “Look, I want to apologize again—”
“Forget it,” I said. “It’s over and done with.”
“Yes, but I don’t want you to hold it against me.”
“I won’t,” I told him. “Just curb your impetuosity in the future, when it involves life-taking in my presence.”
“I will,” he promised.
“Then let’s get rolling,” and we did.
We moved through a canyon of rocks, then passed through a city which seemed to be made entirely of glass, or glass-like substance, of tall buildings, thin and fragile-appearing, and of people through whom the pink sun shone, revealing their internal organs and the remains of their last meals. They stared at us as we drove by. They mobbed the corners of their streets, but no one attempted to halt us or pass in front of us.
“The Charles Forts of this place will doubtless quote this happening for many years,” said my brother.
I nodded.
Then there was no roadway whatsoever, and we were driving across what seemed an eternal sheet of silicon. After a while it narrowed and became our road, and after another while there were marshes to our left and our right, low, brown, and stinking. And I saw what I’d swear to be a Diplodocus raise its head and stare down upon us. Then, overhead, an enormous bat-winged shape passed by. The sky was now a royal blue, and the sun was of fallow gold.
“We’ve now got less than a quarter tank of gas,” I commented.
“Okay,” said Random, “stop the car.”
I did this and waited.
For a long time—like maybe six minutes—he was silent, then, “Drive on,” he said.
After about three miles we came to a barricade of logs and I began driving around it. A gate occurred on one side, and Random told me, “Stop and blow your horn.”
I did so. and after a time the wooden gate creaked upon its huge iron hinges and swung inward.
“Go on in.” he said. “It’s safe.”
I drove in, and off to my left were three bubble-headed Esso pumps, the small building behind them being one of the kind I had seen countless times before, under more ordinary circumstances. I pulled up before one of the pumps and waited.
The guy who emerged from the building was about five feet tall, of enormous girth, with a strawberry-like nose, and his shoulders maybe a yard across.
“What’ll it be?” he asked. “Fill ’er up?”
I nodded. “With regular,” I said.
“Pull it up a bit,” he directed.
I did, and asked Random, “Is my money any good here?”
“Look at it,” he told me, and I did.
My wallet was stuffed with orange and yellow bills1 Roman numerals in their corners, followed by the letters “D.R.”
He grinned at me as I examined the sheaf.
“See, I’ve taken care of everything,” he said.
“Great. By the way, I’m getting hungry.”
We looked around us, and we saw a picture of a gent who sells Kentucky Fried Chicken in another place, staring down at us from a big sign.