“I still don’t understand why we were sent out to High Ridge,”

she said. “They never even came right out and said that was what we were supposed to do, but we know-don’t we, Ralph?-that that was what they wanted from us. And I want to understand. if we’re supposed to be here, why did we have to go out there? I mean, we saved some lives, and I’m glad, but I think Ralph’s right-a few lives don’t mean much to the people running this show.”

Silence for a moment, and then Dorrance said, “Did Clotho and Lachesis really strike you as all-wise and all-knowing, Lois?”

“Well… they were smart, but I guess they weren’t exactly geniuses,” she said after a moment’s thought. “At one point they called themselves working joes who were a long way down the ladder from the boardroom executives who actually made the decisions.”

Old Dor was nodding and smiling. “Clotho and Lachesis are almost Short-Timers themselves, in the big scheme of things. they have their own fears and mental blindspots. They are also capable of making bad decisions… but in the end, that doesn’t matter, because they also serve the Purpose. And ka-tet.”

“They thought we’d lose if we went head-to-head with Atropos, didn’t they?” Ralph asked. “That’s why they talked themselves into believing we could accomplish what they wanted by using the buck door… the back door being High Ridge.”

“Yes,” Dor said. “That’s it.”

“Great,” Ralph said. “I love a vote of confidence. Especiillo when-”

“No,” Dor said. “That’s not it.” Ralph and Lois exchanged a bewildered glance. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s both things at the same time. That’s very often the way things are within the Purpose. You see… well…” He sighed.

“I hate all these questions. I hardly ever answer questions, did I tell you that?”

“Yes,” Lois said. “You did.”

“Yes. And now, bingo! All these questions. Nasty! And useless!” Ralph looked at Lois, and she looked back at him. Neither of them made any move to get out. Dor heaved a sigh. “All right… but this is the last thing I’m going to say, so pay attention. Clotho and Lachesis may have sent you to High Ridge for the wrong reasons, but the Purpose sent you there for the right ones. You fulfilled your task there.”

“By saving the women,” Lois said. But Dorrance was shaking his head. “Then what did we do?” she nearly shouted. “What? Don’t we have a right to know what part of the goshdamned Purpose we fulfilled?”

“No,” Dorrance said. “At least not yet. Because you have to do it again.”

“This is crazy,” Ralph said. “It isn’t, though,” Dorrance replied. ’He was holding for Love tightly against his chest now, bending it back and forth and looking at Ralph earnestly. “Random is crazy. Purpose is sane.” All right, Ralph thought, what did we do at High Ridge besides save the people in the cellar? And John Leydecker, Of course-I think Pickering might have killed him as well as Chris Nell if I hadn’t intervened. Could it be something to do with Leydecker?

He supposed it could, but it didn’t feel right.

“Dorrance,” he said, “can’t you please give us a little more information? I mean-”

“No,” Old Dor said, not unkindly. “No more questions, no more time.

We’ll have a good meal together after this is over… if we’re still around, that is.”

“You really know how to cheer a fellow up, Dor.” Ralph opened his door. Lois did the same, and they both stepped out into the parking lot. He bent down and looked at Joe Wyzer. “Is there anything else?

Anything you can think of?”

“No, I don’t think-” Dor leaned forward and whispered in his ear.

Joe listened, frowning.

“Well?” Ralph asked when Dorrance sat back. “What did he say?”

“He said not to forget my comb,” Joe said. “I don’t have the slightest idea what he’s talking about, but what else is new?”

“That’s okay,” Ralph said, and smiled a little. “It’s one of the few things I do understand. Come on, Lois-let’s check out the crowd.

Mingle a little.”

Halfway across the parking lot, she elbowed him so hard in the side that Ralph staggered. “Look!” she whispered. “Right over there!

Isn’t that Connie Chung?”

Ralph looked. Yes; the woman in the beige coat standing between two techs with the CBS logo on their ’jackets was almost certainly Connie Chung. He had admired her pretty, intelligent face and pleasant smile over too many evening meals to have much doubt about it.

“Either her or her twin sister,” he said.

Lois seemed to have forgotten all about Old Dor and High Fidge and the bald docs; in that moment she was once more the woman Bill McGovern had liked to call “Our Lois.”

“I’ll be darned!

What’s she doing here?”

“Well,” Ralph began, and then covered his mouth to hide a jawcracking yawn, “I guess what’s going on in Derry is national news now. She must be here to do a live segment in front of the Civic Center for tonight’s news. In any case-” Suddenly, with no warning at all, the auras swam back. Ralph gasped.

“Jesus! Lois, are you seeing this?”

But he didn’t think she was. If she had been, Ralph didn’t think Connie Chung would have rated even an honorable mention on Lois’s attention-roster. This was horrible almost beyond conceiving, and for the first time Ralph fully realized that even the bright world of auras had its dark side, one that would make an ordinary person fall on his knees and thank God for his reduced perceptions.

And this isn’t even stepping up the ladder, he thought. At least, I don’t think it is. I’m only looking at that wider world, like a man looking through a window. I’m not actually in it.

Nor did he want to be in it. just looking at something like this was almost enough to make you wish you were blind.

Lois was frowning at him. “What, the colors? No. Should I try to? Is there something wrong with them?”

He tried to answer and couldn’t. A moment later he felt her hand seize his arm in a painful pincers grip above the elbow and knew that no explanation was necessary. For better or worse, Lois was now seeing for herself.

“Oh dear,” she whimpered in a breathless little voice that teetered on the edge of tears. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh jeer Louise.”

From the roof of Derry Home, the aura hanging over the Civic Center had looked like a vast, saggy umbrella-the Travelers Insurance Company logo colored black by a child’s crayon, perhaps.

Standing here in the parking lot, it was like being inside a large and indescribably nasty mosquito net, one so old and badly cared for that its gauzy walls had silted up with blackish-green mildew. The bright October sun shrank to a bleary circle of tarnished silver. The air took on a gloomy, foggy cast that made Ralph think of pictures of London at the end of the nineteenth century. They were not just looking at the Civic Center deathbag, not anymore; they were buried alive in it. Ralph could feel it pressing hungrily in on him, trying to overwhelm him with feelings of loss and despair and dismay.

Why bother? he asked himself, watching apathetically as Joe Wyzer’s Ford drove back down toward Main Street with Old Dor still sitting in the back seat. I mean hey, really, what the hell is the use?

We can’t change this thing, no way we can. Maybe we did something out at High Ridge, but the difference between what was going on out there and what’s happening here is like the difference between a smudge and a black hole. If we try to mess in with this business, we’re going to get flattened.

He heard moaning from beside him and realized Lois was crying.

Mustering his flagging energy, he slid an arm around her shoulders.

“Hold on, Lois,” he said. “We can stand up to this.” But he wondered.

“We’re breathing it in.” she wept. “It’s like we’re sucking up death! Oh, Ralph, let’s get away from here! Please let’s just get away from here! “The idea sounded as good to him as the idea of water must sound to a man dying of thirst in the desert, but he shook his head.