Ralph, in his turn, looked grimly at Lachesis.

[“You better not hurt her.”] [Neither of you will be hurt, Ralph.

Take my hand.] I’m a stranger in paradise, Ralph’s mind finished.

Then he sighed through his teeth, nodded to Lois, and gripped Lachesis’s outstretched hand. That shock of recognition, as deep and pleasant as an unexpected encounter with an old and valued friend, washed over him again, Apples and bark; memories of orchards he had walked through as a kid. He was somehow aware, without actually seeing it, that his aura had changed color and become-at least for a little while-the gold-flecked green of Clotho and Lachesis.

Lois took Clotho’s hand, inhaled a sharp little gasp over her teeth, then smiled hesitantly.

Clotho: [Complete the circle, Ralph and Lois. Don’t be afraid.

All is well. Boy, do I ever disagree with that, Ralph thought, but when Lois reached for his hand, he grasped her fingers. The taste of apples and the texture of dry bark was joined by some dark and unknown spice. Ralph inhaled its aroma deeply and then smiled at Lois.

She smiled back-no hesitation in that smile-and Ralph felt a dim, far off confusion. How could you be afraid? How could you even hesitate when what they brought felt this good and seemed this right-, I empathize, Ralph, but hesitate am,way, a voice counselled.

[“Ralph? Ralph."’] She sounded alarmed and giddy at the same time. Ralph looked around just in time to see the top of the door of Room 315 descending past her shoulders… except it wasn’t the door going down; it was Lois going up. All of them going up, still holding hands in a circle.

Ralph had just gotten this through his head when momentary darkness, sharp as a knife-edge, crossed his vision like a shadow thrown by the slat of a venetian blind. He had a brief glimpse of narrow pipes that were probably part of the hospital’s sprinkler system, surrounded by tufted pink pads of insulation. Then he was looking down a long tiled corridor. A gurney cart was rolling straight at his head… which, he suddenly realized, had surfaced like a periscope in one of the fourth-floor corridors.

He heard Lois cry out and felt her grip on his hand tighten.

Ralph closed his eyes instinctively and waited for the approaching gurney to flatten his skull.

Clotho: [Be calm! Please, be calm.” Remember that these things exist on a different level of reality from the one where you are now.”

Ralph opened his eyes. The gurney was gone, although he could hear its receding wheels. The sound was coming from behind him now.

The gurney, like McGovern’s friend, had passed right through him.

The four of them were now levitating slowly into the corridor of what had to be the pediatrics wing-fairy-tale creatures pranced and gambolled up and down the walls, and characters from Disney’s Aladdin and The Little mermaid were decaled onto the windows of a large, brightly lighted play area. A doctor and a nurse strolled to ward them, discussing a case. I “-further tests seem but only if we can make at least ninety percent sure that-” The doctor walked through Ralph and as he did Ralph understood that he had started smoking again on the sly after five years off the weed and was feeling guilty as hell about it. Then they were gone.

Ralph looked down just in time to see his feet emerge from the tiled floor. He turned to Lois, smiling tentatively.

[“It sure beats the elevator, doesn’t it?”] She nodded. Her grip on his hand was still very tight.

They rose through the fifth floor, surfaced in a doctor’s lounge on the sixth (two doctors-the full-sized kind-present, one watching an old F Troop rerun and the other snoring on the hia’eous Swedish Modern sofa), and then they were on the roof.

The night was clear, moonless, gorgeous. Stars glittered across the arc of the sky in an extravagant, misty sprawl of light. The wind was blowing hard, and he thought of Mrs. Perrine saying Indian summer was over, he could mark her words, Ralph could hear the wind but not feel it… although he had an idea he could feel it, if he wanted to.

It was just a matter of concentrating in the right way…

Even as this thought came, he sensed some minor, momentary change in his body, something that felt like a blink. Suddenly his hair was blowing back from his forehead, and he could hear his pants cuffs flapping around his shins. He shivered. Mrs. Perrine’s back had been right about the weather changing. Ralph gave another interior blink and the push of the wind was gone. He looked over at Lachesis.

[“Can I let go of your hand now?” Lachesis nodded and dropped his own grip. Clotho released Lois’s hand. Ralph looked across town to the west and saw the pulsing blue runway lights of the airport. Beyond them was the gridwork of orange arc sodiums that marked Cape Green, one of the new housing developments on the far side of the Barrens.

And someplace, in the sprinkle of lights just east of the airport, was Harris Avenue.

[“It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Ralph?”] He nodded and thought that standing there and seeing the city spread out in the dark like this was worth everything he had been through since the insomnia had started.

Everything and then some, But that wasn’t a thought he entirely trusted.

He turned to Lachesis and Clotho.

[“All right, explain. Who are you, who is he, and what do you want us to do?”] The two bald docs were standing between two rapidly turning heat ventilators which were spraying brownish-purple fans of effluent into the air. They glanced nervously at each other, and Lachesis gave Clotho an almost imperceptible nod. Clotho stepped forward, looked from Ralph to Lois, and seemed to gather his thoughts.

[Very well. First, you must understand that the things which are happening, while unexpected and distressing, are not precisely unnatural.

My colleague and I do what we were made to do,-Atropos does what he was made to do,-and you, my Short-Time friends, will do what you were made to do.] Ralph favored him with a bright, bitter smile, [“There goes.freedom of choice, I guess.”] Lachesis: [You mustn’t think so! It’s simply that what you call freedom of choice is part of what we call ka, the great heel of believing.

Lois: [“We see as through a glass darkly… is that what ’You mean?”] Clotho, smiling his somehow youthful smile: [The Bible, I belier,l(.

And a very good lea-of putting it.] Ralph: [“Also pretty convenient for guys like you, bul I(,is puss 0/1 that for otv. We have a saying that isn’t from the Bible, gentlemen, but it’s a pretty good one, just the same.-Don’t gild the lilly. I hope you’ll keep it in mind.”] Ralph had an idea, however, that that might be a little too much to ask.

Clotho began to speak then, and he went on for a fair length of time.

Ralph had no idea how long, exactly, because time was different on this level-compressed, somehow. At times there were no words at all in what he said; verbal terms were replaced with simple bright images like those in a child’s rebus puzzle. Ralph supposed this was telepathy, and thus pretty amazing, but while it was happening it felt as natural as breath.

Sometimes both words and images were lost, interrupted by puzzling breaks -in communication. Yet even then Ralph was usually able to get some idea of what Clotho was trying to convey, and he had an idea Lois was understanding what was hidden in those lapses even more clearly than he was himself.

[First know that there are only four constants in that area of existence where your lives and ours, the lives of the -[overlap.

These four constants are Life, Death, the Purpose, and the Random. All these words have meaning for you, but you now have a slightly different concept of Life and Death, do you not?

Ralph and Lois nodded hesitantly.

[Lachesis and I are agents of Death. This makes us figures of dread to most Short-Timers,-even those who pretend to accept its lid oar fiction are usually afraid-I pictures the are sometimes shott,n (is i e skeleton or a hooded figure ttihose face ca of be see Clotho put his tiny hands on his white-clad shoulders and pretended to shudder. The burlesque was good enough to make Ralph grin.