No, it’s not all, Ralph thought. She also took him because she thought it would be safe, with Pickering and his Daily Bread crackpots all dead. it must have seemed to her that the worst she’d have to protect her son from tonight would be a bunch of sign-waving pro-lifers, that lightning couldn’t possibly strike her and her son twice on the same day.
Ralph had been gazing off toward Witcham Street. Now he turned back to Clotho and Lachesis.
[“You’re sure he’s there? Positive?” Clotho: [Yes. Sitting in the upper north balcony next to his mother with a McDonald’s poster to color and some storybooks. Would it surprise you to know that one of the stories is The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins?]
Ralph shook his head. At this point, nothing would surprise him.
Lachesis: [It’s the north side of the Civic Center that Deepneau’s plane will strike. This little boy will be killed instantly if steps are not taken to prevent it… and that can’t be allowed to happen.
This boy must not die before his scheduled time.] Lachesis was looking earnestly at Ralph. The fan of blue-green light between his fingers had disappeared.
[We can’t go on talking like this, Ralph-he’s already in the air, less than a hundred miles from here. Soon it will be too late to stop him. That made Ralph feel frantic, but he held his place just the same.
Frantic, after all, was how they wanted him to feel. How they wanted both of them to feel.
[“I’m telling you that none of that matters until I understand what the stakes are. I won’t let it matter.”] Clotho: [Listen, then.
Every now and again a man or woman comes along whose life will affect not just those about him or her, or even all those who live in the Short-Time world, but those on mani, levels above and below, the Short-Time world-These people are the Great Ones, and their lives always serve the Purpose. If they are taken too soon, everything changes. The scales cease to balance. Can you imagine, for instance, how different the world might be today if Hitler had drowned in the bathtub as a child? You may believe the world would be better for that, but I can tell you that the world would not exist at all If it had happened. Suppose Winston Churchill had died of foodpoisoning before he ever became Prime Minister? Suppose Augustus Caesar had been born dead, strangled on his own umbilical cord? Yet the person we want you to save is of far greater importance than any of these.] [“Dammit, Lois and I already saved this kid once!
Didn’t that close the books, return him to the Purpose?”] Lachesis, patiently: [Yes, but he is not safe from Ed Deepneau, because Deepneau has no designation in either Random or Purpose.
Of all the people on earth, only Deepneau can harm him before his time comes. If Deepneau fails, the boy will be safe again-he will pass his time quietly until his moment comes and he steps upon the stage to play his brief but crucially important part.] [“One life means so much, then?” Lachesis: [Yes. If the child dies, the Tower of all existence will fall, and the consequences of such a fall are beyond -your comprehension.
And beyond ours, as well.] Ralph stared down at his shoes for a moment. His head seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. There was an irony here, one he was able to grasp easily in spite of his weariness.
Atropos had apparently set Ed in motion by inflaming some sort of Messiah complex which might have been pre-existing… a by-product of his undesignated status, perhaps. What Ed didn’t see-and would never believe if told-was that Atropos and his bosses on the upper levels intended to use him not to save the Messiah but to kill him.
He looked up again into the anxious faces of the two little bald doctors.
[“Okay, I don’t know how I’m supposed to stop Ed, but I’ll give it a shot.
Clotho and Lachesis looked at each other and smiled identical (and very human) broad smiles of relief. Ralph raised a cautioning finger.
[“Wait. You haven’t heard all of it.”] Their smiles faded.
“I want something back from you. One life. I’ll trade the life of your four-year-old boy for-“] Lois didn’t hear the end of that; his voice dropped below the range of audibility for a moment, but when she saw first Clotho and then Lachesis begin shaking their heads, her heart sank.
Lachesis: [I understand your distress, and yes, Atropos can certainly do as he threatens. Yet you must surely comprehend that this one life is hardly as important as-Ralph: [“But I think it is, don’t you see? I think it is. What you two guys need to get through your heads is that to me, both lives are equally-”] She lost him again, but had no problem hearing Clotho; in the depth of his distress he was almost wailing.
[But this is different! This boy’s life is different.] Now she heard Ralph clearly, speaking (if speech was what it was) with a fearless, relentless logic that made Lois think of her father.
[“All lives are different. All of them matter or none matters.
That’s only my short-sighted, Short-Time view, of course, but I guess -you boys are stuck with it, since I’m the one with the hammer.
The bottom line, Is this: I’ll trade you, even-up. The life of yours for the life of loise. All ’You have to do is promise, and the deal’s on.”] Lachesis: [Ralph, please.” Please understand that we really must not!] There was a long moment of silence. When Ralph spoke, his voice was soft but still audible. It was, however, the last completely audible thing Lois heard in their conversation.
[“There’s a world of difference between cannot and must not, wouldn’t you say?”] Clotho said something, but Lois caught only an isolated [trade might possibly bel phrase. Lachesis shook his head violently. Ralph replied and Lachesis answered by making a grim little scissoring gesture with his fingers.
Surprisingly, Ralph replied to this with a laugh and a nod.
Clotho put a hand on his colleague’s arm and spoke to him earnestly before turning back to Ralph.
Lois clenched her hands in her lap, willing them to reach some sort of agreement. Any agreement that would keep Ed Deepneau from killing all those people while they just stood here yattering.
Suddenly the side of the hill was illuminated by brilliant white light. At first Lois thought it came down from the sky, but that was only because myth and religion had taught her to believe the sky was the source of all supernatural emanations. In reality, it seemed to come from everywhere-trees, sky, ground, even from herself, streaming out of her aura like ribbons of fog.
There was a voice, then… or rather a Voice. It spoke only four words, but they echoed in Lois’s head like iron bells.
[IT MAY BE SO.] She saw Clotho, his small face a mask of terror and awe, reach into his back pocket and bring out his scissors. He fumbled and almost dropped them, a nervous blunder that made Lois feel real kinship for him. Then he was holding them up with one handle in each hand and the blades open.
Those four words came again:
[IT MAY BE SO,]
This time they were followed by a glare so bright that for a moment Lois believed she must be blinded. She clapped her hands over her eyes but saw-in the last instant when she could see anything-that the light had centered on the scissors Clotho was holding up like a two-pronged lightning-rod.
There was no refuge from that light; it turned her eyelids and upraised, shielding hands to glass. The glare outlined the bones of her fingers like X-ray pencils as it streamed through her flesh. From somewhere far away she heard a woman who sounded suspiciously like Lois Chasse, screaming at the top of her mental voice: [“Turn it off! God, please turn it off before it kills me!”] And at last, when it seemed to her that she could stand no more, the light did begin to fade. When it was gone-except for a fierce blue afterimage that floated in the new darkness like a pair of phantom scissors-she slowly opened her eyes.