"He's dead," said Ryan. "Gotta be. The girl, Krysty, said a sticky chased him. The sticky came back but the scaly guy didn't. What more d'you want?"

J.B. said, "His head." He added, "I just got a feeling."

Ryan felt he'd known J. B. Dix for a long, long time: an age, a lifetime. He had joined the Trader's band only a year or so after Ryan himself had signed up, and had proved himself utterly indispensable as the Trader's weapons master. Thin and intense, slightly melancholic, he rarely said much; what he did say was short and to the point. Whereas others might yell and rage to push their argument, J.B. just got gruffer, his sentences more clipped. Ryan respected this incisiveness, his singular mind.

Even so...

"Ah, come on!" Ryan punched him on the shoulder lightly. "If that mutie can take the train solo, he can have it. He'll have earned it. We oughta sign the bastard on!"

They began to move off down the slope, Abe veering left, the others heading for the small convoy on the road.

The Trader yelled, "Don't forget. Every hour, on the hour."

Abe waved. "We'll be there."

The Trader said, "Hey, J.B., you tell the guys to check their boots?"

Dix didn't reply.

In a huge, high-ceilinged room with a gallery running around its walls midway up, and tall windows now cloaked with rich, wine-red velvet hangings, and a door at the far end similarly masked, lit by light lancing down in an intense cone from a single spot concealed in one of the corner angles high above, a man of indeterminate age, clad in a faded and filthy black coat that reached to his thin shanks, and black pants, cracked knee-length boots, a shirt that perhaps centuries ago might have been white but now was a mottled brownish-yellow, and with a tall hat on his head, the brim chipped and worn, the crown sagging sideways as though it had half-snapped off, capered and danced and recited in a cracked tenor:

The shades of night were falling fast,

As through an, ah... something, ah, ah, Alpine — yes!

Alpine village passed

A youth who bore, ah, ah... something-ice,

A banner with a — no, the... thestrange device,

Excelsior!

He skipped a couple of steps, jerked off his hat so that greasy locks trumbled over the back of his neck, and waved it. Then he jammed the hat back on, took it off again and bowed away from the door, facing into the spotlight's glare, sweeping the hat around with a flourish. He straightened slowly, a nervous smile on his stubbly face. His lips came back, revealing unexpectedly white teeth. His eyes were narrowed against the light.

"Come on, come on. That ain't the end!"

The voice came from the darkness, impenetrable to the man in the ragged black clothes, somewhere under the spotlight.

"No, indeed. By, ah... no means." The old man's voice was now richer, deeper, more of a baritone. It was clear that the cracked and reedy tenor was reserved for abnormal rather than normal speech.

"Get to the bits about her tits!" bawled another voice. There was a rustle of subdued laughter.

"The, ah... tits. Yes." The man in the black clothes pondered this, a hand to his brow. Close-up, he could be seen to be sweating, the rivulets of perspiration cutting shallow channels through a good deal of grime. "Yes. It is... somewhere... somewhere here. Up in the, ah... cerebrum..." he laughed, somewhat apologetically. "One forgets, my dear sirs. One forgets so easily."

"Get on!"

"Yes. Yes, by all means. Was it not... the girl? The girl warning him? Warning the traveler? Ahh..." He held one hand in the air, forefinger upstretched, pointing toward the ceiling. On his face was a singular expression, the eyes now bulging, a terrible frown concentrated on his brow. He intoned,

Beware the pine tree's withered, ah... branch!

Beware the, ah... awful avalanche!

Beware...

He paused, squeezed his eyes suddenly shut. His hand dropped to his brow, the fingers digging into the flesh as though trying to claw their way into his brain. He was shaking, shuddering as though in the grip of an ague. His left hand now shot up from his side to his head, the fingers clamping themselves around the hand already there. A sound like a steam whistle came from his mouth.

Near the spotlight muzzle-flashes flared twice. The roar of a handgun crashed through the room, reverberated around it, the sound of the two shots running together. The rounds smacked into the floor inches from the man, whined off into the darkness beyond the light's penumbra. There was a wild yell from the side.

"Nukesucker! Watch what ya doin'!"

At the sound of the shots the man in the ragged black clothes came alive again and skipped backward. It was as if he had been expecting something of the sort, as if the experience was by no means a new one.

"I have it! I have it!" he cried. "The maiden is warning him, warning him of the fearful disasters that may befall a lone traveler amid those eternal Alpinic snows!" Again the hand shot up, forefinger quivering.

"O stay," the maiden said, "and rest

Thy weary head upon... my breast!"

There was a howl of laughter and a roar of obscenities from the hidden watchers around the huge room.

Which suddenly died to silence as another man strode into the spotlight.

Tall and gaunt, he, too, was dressed in black, though his clothes were not shabby but clean and pressed, his black riding boots sending off a sparkle of highlights from their polished surfaces. His head had a fringe of dark hair at the back but was otherwise bald except for a line of mustache on his upper lip. His skin was yellowish, the flesh drawn over the bones of his face like thin parchment. His eyes were narrowed slits; his lips were drawn back into a grin that held no humor whatsoever.

Reaching the center of the room he halted. The man in the ragged clothes watched him warily, licking his lips.

"Pathetic!" spat out the man with the skull-like face. "You've got it wrong again, you old fool."

The other shook his head, a look of abject terror now sliding across his grimy features.

"No, sir. No, Mr. Strasser, I... I don't believe so." His voice was pitching higher even as he spoke. "I... I may misremember the odd word, sir. Here and there. Now and then. But I don't believe I..."

Strasser lashed out suddenly with his right foot, the toe of his boot cracking into the other's right knee. The man screamed, staggered, collapsed on the floor and clutched his knee in agony.

Strasser bent over him, hissed at him, "We shall have to put you in with the sows again, Doc."

The man on the floor cringed away from his tormentor, his voice a whimper of mingled horror and revulsion. "Please. Not that, Mr. Strasser. Please just tell me, tell me where I went wrong."

Strasser stood and stared down with a cold smile on his face.

"The maiden," he said softly. "You always get it wrong, Doc. The maiden implores the lone traveler — not to put his headon her breast, but his hand."

The man called Doc blinked up at him, still clasping his knee with one hand, a puzzled expression creasing his face.

"Are... are you sure, Mr. Strasser?"

"Positive! The maiden wants the lone traveler to squeeze her breast. Both breasts, in fact. With both hands. She is yearning for this, you old fool. Her entire body is quivering with lust for him. She tells him that she is wet for him, that only his lips, his tongue, can assuage her desire." He paused, pursed his lips thoughtfully. He said quite pleasantly, "You do remember this, don't you, Doc?"

"Why, yes...yes." The man on the floor swallowed a couple of times, licking his thin lips again, his brow corrugating into a frown. "Yes, I... I do believe you're right, Mr. Strasser. Curious that I should forget Longfellow's immortal lines. So stupid of me..."