“Had a brain-cramp, I guess,” Brodsky says. “Too many things to do and not enough time to do them in. Come on, son, keep up with me.”

Cambry keeps up. Brodsky resumes his divided conversation convoy there, Cambry here-but remembers something else, some third conversation, one that is now over. Unusual or not? Probably not, Brodsky decides. Certainly nothing he could talk about to that incompetent bastard Perlmutter-as far as Pearly’s concerned, if it isn’t on his ever-present clipboard, it doesn’t exist. Kurtz? Never. He respects the old buzzard, but fears him even more. They all do. Kurtz is smart, Kurtz is brave, but Kurtz is also the craziest ape in the jungle. Brodsky doesn’t even like to walk where Kurtz’s shadow has run across the ground.

Underhill? Could he talk to Owen Underhill?

Maybe… but maybe not. A deal like this, you could get into hack without even knowing why. He’d heard voices there for a minute or two-a voice, anyway-but he feels okay now. Still…

At Hole in the Wall, Jonesy roars out of the shed and heads up the Deep Cut Road. He senses Henry when he passes him Henry hiding behind a tree, actually biting into the moss to keep from screaming-but successfully hides what he knows from the cloud which surrounds that last kernel of his awareness. It is almost certainly the last time he will be near his old friend, who will never make it out of these woods alive.

Jonesy wishes he could have said goodbye.

I don’t know who made this movie, Jonesy says, but I don’t think they have to bother pressing their tuxes for the Academy Awards. In fact-

He looks around and sees only snow-covered trees. Eyes front again and nothing but the Deep Cut Road unrolling in front of him and the snowmobile vibrating between his thighs. There was never any hospital, never any Mr Gray. That was all a dream.

But it wasn’t. And there is a room. Not a hospital room, though. No bed, no TV, no IV pole. Not much of anything, actually; just a bulletin board. Two things are tacked to it: a map of northern New England with certain routes mapped-the Tracker Brothers routes and a Polaroid photo of a teenage girl with her skirt raised to reveal a golden tuft of hair. He is looking out at the Deep Cut Road from the window. It is, Jonesy feels quite sure, the window that used to be in the hospital room. But the hospital room was no good. He had to get out of that room, because

The hospital room wasn’t safe, Jonesy thinks as if this one is, as if anyplace is. And yet… this one’s safe-er, maybe. This is his final refuge, and he has decorated it with the picture he supposed they all hoped to see when they went up that driveway back in 1978. Tina Jean Sloppinger, or whatever her name had been.

Some of what I saw was real… valid recovered memories, Henry might say. I really did think I saw Duddits that day. That’s why I went into the street without looking. As for Mr Gray… that’s who I am now. Isn’t it? Except for the part of me in this dusty, empty, uninteresting room with the used rubbers on the floor and the picture of the girl on the bulletin board, I’m all Mr Gray. Isn’t that the truth?

No answer. Which is all the answer he needs, really.

But how did it happen? How did I get here? And why? What’s it for?

Still no answers, and to these questions he can supply none of his own. He’s only glad he has a place where he can still be himself, and dismayed at how easily the rest of his life has been hijacked. He wishes again, with complete and bitter sincerity, that he had shot McCarthy.

A huge explosion ripped through the day, and although the source had to be miles away, it was still strong enough to send snow sliding off the trees. The figure on the snowmobile didn’t even look around. It was the ship. The soldiers had blown it up. The byrum were gone.

A few minutes later, the collapsed lean-to hove into view on his right. Lying in front of it in the snow, one boot still caught beneath the tin roof, was Pete. He looked dead but wasn’t. Playing dead wasn’t an option, not in this game; he could hear Pete thinking. And as he pulled up on the snowmobile and shifted into neutral, Pete raised his head and bared his remaining teeth in a humorless grin. The left arm of his parka was blackened and melted. There seemed to be only one working finger remaining on his right hand. All of his visible skin was stippled with the byrus.

“You’re not Jonesy,” Pete said. “What have you done with Jonesy?”

“Get on, Pete,” Mr Gray said.

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you.” Pete raised his right hand-the swooning fingers, the red-gold clumps of byrus-and used it to wipe his forehead. “The fuck out of here. Get on your pony and ride.”

Mr Gray lowered the head that had once belonged to Jonesy (Jonesy watching it all from the window of his bolt-hole in the abandoned Tracker Brothers depot, unable to help or to change anything) and stared at Pete. Pete began to scream as the byrus growing all over his body tightened, the roots of the stuff digging into his muscles and nerves. The boot can lit under the collapsed tin roof jerked free and Pete, still screaming, pulled himself up into a fetal position. Fresh blood burst from his mouth and nose. When he screamed again, two more teeth popped out of his mouth.

“Get on, Pete.”

Weeping, holding his savaged right hand to his chest, Pete tried to get to his feet. The first effort was a failure; he sprawled in the snow again. Mr Gray made no comment, simply sat astride the idling Arctic Cat and watched.

Jonesy felt Pete’s pain and despair and wretched fear. The fear was by far the worst, and he decided to take a risk.

Pete.

Only a whisper, but Pete heard. He looked up, his face haggard and speckled with fungus-what Mr Gray called byrus. When Pete licked his lips, Jonesy saw it was growing on his tongue, too. Outer-space thrush. Once Pete Moore had wanted to be an astronaut. Once he had stood up to some bigger boys on behalf of someone who was smaller and weaker. He deserved better than this.

No bounce, no play.

Pete almost smiled. It was both beautiful and heartbreaking. This time he made it to his feet and plodded slowly toward the snowmobile.

In the deserted office to which he had been exiled, Jonesy saw the doorknob be in to twist back and forth. What does that mean? Mr Gray asked. What is no bounce, no play? What are you doing in there? Come back to the hospital and watch TV with me, why don’t you? How did you get in there to begin with?

It was Jonesy’s turn not to answer, and he did so with great pleasure.

I’ll get in, Mr Gray said. When I’m ready, I’ll come in. You may think you can lock the door against me, but you’re wrong.

Jonesy kept silent-there was no need to provoke the creature currently in charge of his body-but he didn’t think he was wrong. On the other hand, he didn’t dare leave; he would be swallowed up if he tried. He was just a kernel in a cloud, a bit of undigested food in an alien gut. Best to keep a low profile.

Pete got on behind Mr Gray and put his arms around Jonesy’s waist. Ten minutes later they motored past the over-turned Scout, and Jonesy understood what had made Pete and Henry so late back from the store. It was a wonder either of them had lived through it. He would have liked a longer look, but Mr Gray didn’t slow, just went on with the Cat’s skis bouncing up and down, riding the crown of the road between the two snow-filled ruts.

Three miles or so beyond the Scout, they topped a rise and Jonesy saw a brilliant hall of yellow-white light hanging less than a foot above the road, waiting for them. It looked as hot as the flame of a welder’s torch, but obviously wasn’t; the snow just inches below it hadn’t melted. It was almost certainly one of the lights he and Beaver had seen playing in the clouds, above the fleeing animals coming out of The Gulch.