1
They resumed their journey at dawn the next morning and in a little under an hour had crossed the band of trees to the shattered lands beyond.
The terrain was as Bob had described: a vast expanse of rocky ground rent by zigzagging fissures and pocked with deep pits. Barely visible on the horizon were trees and grassy hills.
“Which way should we go?” Adam asked Freud. “You said you could retrace your path.”
“Yes, but I shall have to find my exact point of egress from this maze.” He turned his head from side to side, then said, “I believe I exited farther north.”
They bore north along the edge of the rocky land. After fifteen minutes they came to a weathered wooden sign, merely a painted board nailed to an old broomstick, which read:
Welcome to the Badlands!
Assholes Go In…But They Don’t Come Out!
To emphasize the point, a yellowed skull was stuck to the end of the broomstick.
“Lovely,” said Maggie.
They walked on. After another twenty minutes, Freud stopped.
“Here we are,” he said, pointing to a swath of stony ground that looked exactly like every other swath of stony ground they had seen so far.
“How can you tell?” asked Bob.
“The configuration of the landscape perfectly matches the image stored in my memory.”
“What, like photographic recall?”
“In a manner of speaking. I retain every scrap of sensory input until I choose to delete it, which fortunately I have not yet done in this instance.”
“Well, then,” said Adam, “let us proceed. You, Freud, shall lead the way.”
“Of course.”
They set out across the Badlands. At first their course was relatively straight, with only occasional and very short detours around small fissures or pits, and some members of the group began to wonder if they needed Freud’s help at all.
But after half an hour, the pits grew large enough to swallow houses, and the fissures widened and lengthened and interconnected, necessitating longer, more extensive detours. And eventually the detours ceased to be detours at all as the winding, convoluted path they followed around the rifts and holes and heaps of rock became the only route there was.
They soon found themselves navigating narrow stone walkways with thirty-foot chasms on either side. Against her better judgment, Maggie glanced down into one of these chasms. At its bottom, the dry, white bones of some small animal lay atop a heap of jagged rocks that had eroded from the edges of the walkway above. She drew in a sharp breath as she imagined the seemingly solid rock beneath her feet suddenly crumbling. Would she scream as she fell? Would there be time? Or would her body be dashed to pieces on the stones below before she even knew what was happening?
“Don’t look down,” Bob said behind her. “It just makes it more difficult.”
She gave a nervous laugh. “Easier said than done. When you stand at a precipice, some perverse portion of the mind always insists on taking a look.”
“Yeah. It’s too bad we can’t all do what Dagmar’s doing.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Dagmar, who rode upon Kukalukl’s back, sitting up straight and proud like a queen on parade. It was only upon noticing the way she was gripping fistfuls of skin and hair on Kukalukl’s shoulders that Maggie realized the girl’s erect posture and upwardly tilted chin were the result of her not wanting to even risk looking down into the sheer drops on either side.
They walked on. Hours passed. The day, already hot, grew hotter as the sun reached its zenith and hung there for what seemed like an abnormally long time. Sweat poured from those who could sweat. Those who drank learned to keep their water bottles near at hand. The chasms grew deeper and deeper until their bottoms were lost in shadow. At times the faint gurgle of water could be heard in the depths. Once, Adam thought he saw a quick, furtive movement in the chasm-shadows, but when he raised a hand to shield the sun from his eyes and took a closer look, he saw nothing that might have accounted for it.
Shortly after the sun began its descent, they stopped to eat at a widening of the path just large enough for them to sit in a tight circle. Freud estimated that they were slightly more than halfway across the Badlands.
“I fail to see how the Marauders can cross this treacherous terrain,” Maggie said between bites of pork. She gestured at the stony ground beneath her. “These paths are far too narrow for their wagons.”
“Logically, there are only two possibilities,” Freud said. “They must either take a route wholly different from ours, or they detour around the Badlands altogether.”
“I hope it is the latter,” Adam said. “For by cutting straight across the Badlands while they travel far out of the way, we shall considerably reduce the lead they have on us.”
Maggie glanced at Kukalukl, who lay next to Dagmar, not eating.
“Are you certain you do not want any of our food?” she said. “I know it is not to your liking, but you must be very hungry.
“Thank you, but I would rather wait,” he said. “It will only be a few more hours. I have gone without food far longer than this. Three months, once.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” said Freud.
“It doesn’t matter what you believe. It happened. The biology of gods is nothing like those of other creatures.”
“But you still require fuel of some kind to power your body. Every action you perform burns energy, and you must replenish that energy when it gets depleted.”
Kukalukl sighed. “Has it not occurred to you—and given your mental capacity, I’m sure it hasn’t—that perhaps gods can store greater amounts of energy than other creatures, or that they have some means of generating energy that does not require food?”
“I suppose that is possible. Though outwardly you appear identical to the average jaguar (except for your melanism, of course), there may be aspects to your internal biology that are completely different. Even granting that, however, your being a god is a logical impossibility.”
Kukalukl, who had laid his chin on his crossed paws with sleepy satisfaction when Freud conceded his earlier point, now jerked upright.
“What in my own holy name do you mean by that?”
“Gods are, by definition, supernatural—that is, they transcend nature. But that is simply not possible. Everything must conform to natural laws; otherwise that thing could not exist in nature.”
“How can you say that?” said Maggie. “Surely all the strange and fantastical things we have seen and heard since the Cataclysm prove you wrong. And then there is the fact of the Cataclysm itself…”
“Ah, but simply because something seems strange and fantastical to us does not mean it lacks a perfectly natural explanation. Most of the strange creatures I have seen are simply life-forms with which I am unfamiliar. And the rest, such as the obelisk-bound entity that animated the stuffed animals, are most likely life-forms governed by natural laws of which we are simply ignorant at this time. Gods, by definition, are beings who transcend nature, and I do not believe such a thing is possible.”
Kukalukl snorted. “You sound exactly like the Incas in the empire’s latter days. Most of them had ceased to believe in gods, having abandoned religion in favor of science and technology. On the rare occasions I allowed them to encounter me they insisted that while I resembled the old mythological creature called Kukalukl, I was probably just a biological oddity—a jaguar blessed with the power of speech and unusual longevity thanks to some ill-defined genetic quirk.”
“How can you be certain they were wrong?” Freud said.
“It would be quite a remarkable ‘genetic quirk’ that enables a life as long as mine. As I told the priests, I recall the days when the Inca were a few dozen frightened savages living in crude huts on the banks of a river.”
“That proves nothing in itself. The real question is: How did you come to be? What was your origin?”
“I regret to inform you (well, not really) that the question is unanswerable, for
I have no origin, at least not in the sense you mean. The curtain of oblivion rose, and there I was, hunting in the jungle. That is all.”
“Or perhaps like all beings your earliest memories have dissipated over time. Given your longevity, it seems reasonable to conclude that the passing years have worn away more of your memories than those of shorter-lived beings, perhaps eradicating all recollection of childhood altogether.”
“I think your screws need tightening.”
Adam stood up. “We should continue. Your debate, while interesting, is best saved for later. If the Marauders did indeed circle around the Badlands, I would hate to fritter away the opportunity to gain ground on our quarry.”
“Of course,” said Freud.
Half an hour later, as they made their way along a particularly narrow walkway that formed a tight loop much like a backward C, Freud stopped so abruptly that Adam nearly ran into him.
“What is the problem?” Adam asked. “Why have you stopped?”
“Did you hear that sound?”
“What sound?”
“I heard something large and heavy moving down there,” Freud said, indicating the shadow-floored chasm to their right, which, being on the outer side of the C, extended also in front of and behind them. Beyond that, it branched off in dozens of different directions.
As she peered into this abyss, Maggie couldn’t help but feel uneasy at the way so many of the chasms had joined together into one sprawling totality. It was even possible that the paths they traveled were not solid all the way down, but contained tunnels that further linked the chasms. Why, the Badlands could really be a vast sunless underworld and the paths they walked merely its riven roof.
Despite the afternoon heat, she shivered.
“There!” said Freud. “I heard it again. Did you?”
Adam frowned. “I heard…something.”
“As did I,” Kukalukl called from the rear of the line. “It sounded like something heavy sliding against the rocks below.”
“I thought you said you saw no living things in these lands,” Adam said to Freud, anger rising in his voice. He wasn’t angry so much at the robot as at the thought that they might be slowed down yet again.
“I did say that,” Freud said. “And it was the truth. I saw and heard no living thing during my crossing of this land, save a few birds overhead.”
“That means a lot, coming from an unliving, inedible, and completely uninteresting being,” said Kukalukl. “Whatever lives down there probably just wisely ignored you.”
“Enough talking,” said Adam. “We don’t have—”
With a wavering hiss, a gigantic head rose up from the chasm ahead of them at the top of the backward C they stood on.
The head was the size of a compact car and reminded Bob of some of the weird, stylized dragons he had seen pictures of in Chinese restaurants. The eggplant-purple face had huge round yellow eyes with small, tight pupils in the centers. Where eyebrows would have been on a man were rows of short, fleshy tentacles that were the same purple as the face at their bases but faded to light pink at their tips. Instead of hair it sported a long, tangled mass of some whitish substance reminiscent of Spanish moss. If it had ears, they were not visible. Its nose was wide and black and spongy-looking like a dog’s, and directly below it were two long tentacles that curved out to well beyond the sides of the head like the world’s biggest waxed mustache. Rather than lightening to pink like the eyebrow-tentacles, these remained deep purple until their final third, at which point yellowish patches appeared, giving the ends of the tentacles a bruised look. Below the bases of these two tentacles was a wide mouth filled with teeth as long and sharp as butcher’s knives. Its chin was a mass of wiry pale-pink worm-like tentacles. The head sat atop another pale-pink tentacle, this one as thick as Adam’s torso.
The creature regarded them for a moment, its purple face glistening in the sun like the skin of a grape, its various tentacles waving gently like seaweed.
“Well well, look at you, little walkers,” it said in a soft, hissing voice reminiscent of sand slithering down the side of a dune.
“Hello,” said Granite. He had already pulled on his cowl and was ready to fight, but figured he should give diplomacy a shot first. “We’re just passing through.”
The creature’s head darted forward for a better look at Granite. Its tire-sized eyes looked him up and down.
“Passing through? Why here, why now, why why?”
“Well, we’re on a sort of quest…”
“Ohoho!” it cried with a roll of its eyes. “Questers they are. Fools, more like, yes yes. Only Marauders allowed here. No visitors. No questers. No no.” The head trembled slightly as it made a rasping sound that might have been laughter.
“We want no trouble,” said Adam. “We merely wished to pass through this land unmolested.”
“Why why? To seek the Marauders, I imagine. Silly silly. Think you that the path is unguarded? Or think that Centivert sleeps?”
“Are you Centivert, then?”
“Centivert we are, yes.”
“‘We’?” said Maggie.
“We,” said a deeper but equally snaky voice from behind them. They whirled and saw that a second head identical to the first had risen up from the chasm at the base of the backward C.
“Yes yes, we, us,” the second head said. It cocked itself atop its tentacle-stalk and added, “I say eat them.”
“Yes yes,” said a third voice, which was a little shriller than the first two, and a third head rose up at the midpoint of the C’s outer curve.
“Oh, dear,” said Freud. “We appear to be surrounded.”
The third head snickered. “Surrounded, it says. Surrounded, yes. We are all around. We are everywhere.”
“Please let us pass through in peace,” said Granite. “We mean you no harm.”
“Mean harm to the Marauders, you do, yes yes. No good, no good. Very bad, that is.”
“Very bad,” agreed the first head.
“Bad bad, bad bad,” said the second. “Eat them we must. Enemies they are.”
“Gulp their flesh,” said the third. “Crunch their bones.”
“Am I to take it that you are the Marauders’ watchdog?” said Kukalukl.
All three heads reared back as if smacked.
“Watchdog?” spat the second. “No no no, no watchdog, no watchdog. They help us, you see. They feed us old slaves, tired and worn-out ones, yes yes. In exchange we do what we love best, what we would do anyway.”
“Eat little men and women, yes yes yes,” said the third. “Little walkers, slow walkers, who intrude in our lands. Hate them we do.”
“We do,” echoed the second.
“Hate Marauders too,” said the first with a sly smile. “But they help us for now.”
“For now,” said the third. “But one day eat them as well, we will.”
“I think you shall find that eating us will not be as easy as you imagine,” said Adam. He was getting sick of the childish chattering of these three creatures. If there was going to be a fight—and it certainly looked inevitable now—he wanted to get it over with. Anna couldn’t be helped if they stood here listening to these babbling monsters all day.
The three heads rose up on their respective tentacles and looked at each other over the group.
“Ooh, tough and ruthless, they are,” said the first with mock terror. “Quaking I am! Quaking!
“I believe the yellow man is wrong,” said the second. “Eating them will be easy.” His round eyes fixed on Freud. “Except the metal one, perhaps.”
“Yes yes,” said the third. “Hard to digest he would be, we suspect. Hard to digest, oh yes, oh yes.”
“Crush him, then,” said the second. “Enjoy the groan of bending metal. Fun fun.”
“None of that will happen,” growled Adam. “We will pass through this land or you shall be crushed.”
He pushed past Freud, nearly knocking him into the chasm on the inner side of the C, and sa
id, “Come, my friends. We will leave these fools to prattle to themselves all day. And if they try to stop us, we will rip the tentacles from their faces.”
Lightning fast, the first head swooped down and laid its pink-tentacled chin on the path in front of Adam. Having no other choice, Adam stopped. His hands balled into fists and his massive frame trembled with anger, then he lunged forward to grab one of the mustache-tentacles and rip it from the creature’s face.
Centivert opened its mouth and a long, green-black tongue shot out. Its tip, as thick as a man’s head, rammed into Adam’s chest and sent him flying backward into Freud, who with a squawk banged to the ground with Adam on top of him.
“No escape, no no no,” Centivert said once its tongue had slid back into its mouth. “No escape from Centivert.”
“If you are Centivert, who are the other two?” asked Maggie. “If we are to be eaten, I should like to know their names.”
All three heads blinked at her, then burst out laughing.
“Others?” said the third head. “Others?”
“We are one, silly walker girl-thing,” said the first. “We are Centivert. Only one. Only Centivert.”
Intrigued, Kukalukl padded to the edge of the chasm and looked down. Dagmar, who still sat on his back, clapped her hands over her eyes and squealed, “Not so close! Not so close!”
“I see,” said Kukalukl, backing away from the edge. “It is indeed one single creature.”
“Creature?” said the second head. “We are no creature. We are Centivert. Centivert the magnificent. Centivert the unique.”
Freud, whom Adam had helped back on his feet, stopped patting the dust from his casing and swiveled his head around to stare at Centivert.
“I can just make out his body in the darkness below,” said Kukalukl. “It fills the bottom of the chasm for as far as I can see. It is vast and pale with darker blotches upon it. Countless tentacles sprout from its back and sides, but only three have heads. The rest are simply tentacles.”
“Yes yes,” said the second head. “Three heads we have, yes yes.”
“And eat three of you at a time we shall,” said the first, its wide mouth curling up in a grin that displayed its long, flesh-slicing teeth.
As it spoke, dozens of pale-pink tentacles as thick as a grown man’s thigh shot up from the chasm and darted toward the group.
“Oh, crap,” said Kukalukl as one grabbed his right front leg. He tried to pull away, but its grip was too strong, and it dragged him across the dusty rock toward the edge of the chasm. Dagmar started to tumble from his back with a yelp, but another tentacle gracefully snatched her by the right leg and lifted her into the air. She screamed for help.
The moment the tentacles appeared, Granite turned to stone. Several tentacles stopped a foot in front of him and hung there, swaying like hypnotized snakes. When one of them glided forward and prodded his stony body, Granite grabbed it and ripped it in two. The rest drew back out of his reach and resumed hovering and swaying, as if waiting for him to make a move. When Dagmar cried for help, Granite glanced over, saw the danger she was in, and started to race toward her. The tentacles, seeing their opportunity, slid between his feet and tripped him. Before he could get up, five tentacles grabbed him, lifted him, and carried him toward the chasm on the inner side of the C. He tried to break free, but without leverage it was impossible; Centivert’s tentacles seemed to be made of solid muscle.
Maggie drew her dagger to defend herself, but while she slashed at the three tentacles waving tauntingly in front her, a fourth snaked in on her left side and seized her around the waist. With a savage growl, she plunged the dagger into the tentacle again and again. Then one of the tentacles that had been in front of her snagged her wrist and twisted, producing a bolt of pain so sharp and sudden she dropped the blade. It clattered to the path, only inches from the chasm.
Adam grabbed the first tentacle that dared approach him, and squeezed it until the pink skin burst and a slightly caustic black fluid squirted out across his hands. A moment later two tentacles grasped his arms from behind and tried to pull them apart and back. Adam resisted their pull with all his might, bared teeth grinding together, the cords in his neck looking as if they were about to rip through his yellow skin.
Freud, the only one the tentacles ignored, stepped up to the first head, put his hands to his hips with a clank, and said, “You, sir, are a liar!”
All three heads reared up, eyes wide with outrage, and every tentacle stiffened. Those who had been lifted by the tentacles hung in mid-air like riders on a stalled Ferris wheel.
“What?” howled all three of Centivert’s heads, which produced a weird and disconcerting stereophonic effect.
“Little tin man dares to call Centivert a liar?” roared the first head.
“Kill it!” snapped the second.
“Crush it!” hissed the third.
“You claim to be unique,” said Freud. “But that is impossible. You must have had parents. All things that live have parents of some kind.”
The first head cocked itself slightly, as if trying to see Freud from a different perspective.
“Parents we had, yes yes,” it said slowly and doubtfully, suspecting a trick. “But then men came, men on horses, men wearing metal clothes—”
“Paladins!” spat the second head.
“Paladins, yes. Paladins came and slaughtered our parents with lances and swords. But Centivert escaped, oh yes, and later slaughtered the paladins and their old fat king, yes yes. Revenge he had. Sweet revenge.”
“I see,” said Freud. “And were there no others besides you and your parents? No brothers or sisters? No uncles or cousins? No distant tribes of…erm, whatever breed of creature you are?”
“Last of the line we are. Last of the Wurvelims. The nasty paladins wiped all our kind off the face of the Earth. All but Centivert, who spent lonely decades crisscrossing the world in search of others. But none could be found, and now Centivert avenges himself on the horrible walkers who made him alone. Eats them he does. Mmm, tasty tasty flesh they have.”
“Interesting,” said Freud. “And are you fully grown?”
The first head gasped in exasperation. “No more questions! Silly tin man talks too much. Now is the time for eating, not talking!”
“Aha! You resist my questioning. You attempt to change the subject. Which means, of course, that you fear to continue this line of discussion.”
The heads hissed.
“We fear nothing!” said the first.
“Do not listen to the metal man,” the second said to the first. “He is tricksy. Wants us to prove we are not afraid by talking more, giving his friends time to find a way to escape.”
“Stalling he is,” said the third. “Tricksy tricksy.”
“Not at all,” said Freud. “I would never be so foolish as to put my hope in such a plan, for given the sheer quantity and strength of your tentacles, there is clearly no way for us to escape unless you allow us to do so.”
All three heads stared at him for a moment, then looked at each other.
“Flattering us is he?” said the third head.
“Perhaps…” the second said with uncertainty. “But he tells the truth, yes yes. No escape from our tentacles. None at all.”
“True true,” said the first.
“I merely wish to understand you better,” said Freud. “For I think I can help you with your problem.”
“We have no problems!” said the first head.
“We will not fall for your tricks,” said the second.
“Want to save your friends you do,” said the third. “That is your plan, your intention, your goal.”
“I am Freud, Mechanical Analyst Number One,” said Freud. “My task is to psychoanalyze those who require it, and I believe that you fall into that category.”
The heads blinked at him.
“What does it say?” the first head asked the others. The others merely shook themselves.
“So in th
e interest of helping you,” Freud said, “I ask again: Are you fully grown?”
The first head just stared at him for a second, then nodded slowly.
“Yes,” it said. “Fully grown, yes. Of course, of course. Well past our two-hundredth year we are.”
“And you possess reproductive organs, do you not?”
All three heads shot upward, neck-tentacles stiffening with fury.
“Of course we do!” roared the first.
“Nasty questions he asks,” snarled the second.
“Eat him now,” said the third in a surly voice. “Before he mocks us more.”
“I am not mocking you at all,” said Freud. “I asked the question only because I am unfamiliar with your physiognomy. But now that you have confirmed my suspicions, we have reached the crux of your dilemma.”
“Dilemma?” said the first, fury giving way to testy confusion. “What dilemma?”
“We have no dilemma” the third said.
“Of course you do,” said Freud. “And I am surprised a creature as intelligent as yourself, and possessing a life-span long enough to afford much sober reflection on such important matters, should have failed to perceive it already. I refer, of course, to your desire to slaughter all life-forms other than yourself.”
“That is not a dilemma!” protested the first head.
“Perhaps you do not see it as such, but you must at least concede that it is unusual. The killing of other creatures to fulfill one’s nutritional requirements is normal, of course. Likewise, revenge-killing, while perhaps not something to be encouraged, is certainly normal, as well. You, however, wish to kill everyone and take great glee at the thought of doing so. I cannot help but wonder as to the origin of this gloating hatred and these murderous urges.”
“Our hate is all!” said Centivert’s first head. “It is born of itself. Pure and perfect it is.” It was trying to sound sure and aloof, but a note of uncertainty quavered in its voice.
“On the contrary,” said Freud, “nothing causes itself. Your hatred and your homicidal impulses are clearly the result of something else, something other than your parents’ death, for any hatred and lust for vengeance inspired by that event should have been satisfied by the deaths of your parents’ killers. No, your hatred has grown into a hatred for all living things. Any sane creature would ask why.”
There was a long pause. The heads stared at him in expectation. The members of the group, though still ensnared by the now-immobile tentacles, likewise waited for the answer, their own dilemma temporarily forgotten.
Finally, when it became clear that Freud was waiting for a response, the first head cleared its throat a little and in a tiny voice said, “Why?”
“Because although you are an adult of your species and possess fully functioning genitalia and no doubt possess the urge to mate, you lack an outlet for your sexual impulses. In other words, your libido is blocked. And as so often happens in cases where libidinous energy is denied its natural expression in healthy, live-affirming and life-generating sex, it seeks an outlet in the opposite direction, in the affirmation and generation of death. In other words, your lust for life has been transformed into a lust for death, a thanatic urge to destroy those who can have sex.”
“No no no!” said the first head. “Little metal man lies! He lies lies lies!”
“Lies, yes!” said the third. “We are hatred personified. We need nothing. We need no mates. We are sufficient unto ourself.”
The second head, which had remained silent while its fellows raved, now shook itself and said, “No, it…it speaks true. We want a female. We want to maaaate.” It spoke this last sentence in a plaintive whine.
“Shut up shut up shut up!” the first head hissed at the second. “You lie lie lie!”
The third said nothing for a moment. It looked back and forth between the other two heads, then hung itself low and sighed and said, “No, he tells the truth.”
“Shut up!”
“It is nothing to be ashamed of,” said Freud. “All creatures that live possess libidinous urges, which, if blocked, can lead to all manner of neurotic problems. But I believe your urges need not be blocked at all.”
All three heads perked up.
“What?” said the first. “What does the little tin man mean?”
“Let me ask you this: You say you searched the world for a mate, but have you done so since the Cataclysm?”
The first head frowned in bafflement. “What is this Cataclysm?”
“Fifteen years ago the Earth underwent a massive upheaval that reshaped geography and threw all manner of unusual beings together, including many believed mythical or extinct.”
“Oh-ho. That explains it. Lately many odd creatures have stumbled into our home. Some are tasty. Others…” It stuck out its long, muscular tongue and made a gagging sound.
“Yes,” said Freud. “But do you not see that given these events it is quite possible—almost certain, even—that other Wurvelims are now out there somewhere, and have been for over a decade. While you have lurked here in these dark pits, gnawing on your hatred and bitterness as a dog gnaws a bone, the world has changed all around you.”
The first head goggled at Freud in amazement. Then a light of realization dawned, and it glanced sheepishly at the other two.
“Told you we did!” the third shouted at the first. “Told you we should investigate after the shaking of the ground and the lights in the sky. But you said no, we should stay here, the outer world concerned us not.”
“How were we to know?” the first whined. “How?”
“It matters not anymore,” said the second. “We must now seek out a mate.”
“What of our feast?” The tentacles shook the members of the group.
“Surely you would not repay our help by eating us,” said Freud. “Besides, you should waste no time in starting your search for a mate. The other Wurvelims have a fifteen-year head start on you. And while the Cataclysm most likely made some new Wurvelims appear, it might not have made many appear. You really should find the females before the competition does.”
The three heads shot upright and roared in unison: “No!”
“We will brook no competition!” said the first.
“None!” agreed the second.
“Oh, stop yammering and hurry up,” the third snapped at the other two.
Without warning, Centivert dropped everyone, and its many heads and tentacles zipped into the chasm. As the members of the group sat up, rubbing bruised elbows and shins, there was a thick scuffing sound, as of some large, soft mass sliding against hard rock. The sound came first from the entire length of the chasm on the outer edge of the C, then only from the eastern end, then from far away, and then it was gone.
“Is everyone all right?” Adam asked in a gruff voice. Despite the question, he did not look around at anyone. He just sat on the stony ground, staring off into the distance.
“Yes,” said Kukalukl. “Aside, of course, from the mortification of having been rescued by the most pathetic robot ever created.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Maggie. “I thought he performed most admirably.”
“Agreed,” said Bob, tucking his cowl back under the collar of his shirt. “I mean, I still think psychoanalysis is a bunch of hooey, but it sure got us out of one heck of a jam just now.”
“Very true,” said Adam. He stood up and patted the rock dust from his clothes. His expression was blank and unreadable, even to Maggie. “But as long as everyone is all right, we should resume our journey immediately. Anna is still imperiled, and to be honest, I am not as certain that Centivert will not return as I would like to be.”
“Oh, he will not return,” said Freud. “At least not until he finds a mate. One must never underestimate the strength of the libido, especially one that has been repressed for centuries.”
Adam eyed the robot in silence for a moment, then waved his arm at the path and said, “Lead on.”
With that, they resum
ed their trek across the Badlands, which with Centivert gone surely weren’t all that bad anymore. It took them three tedious hours to reach the wooded hills on the opposite side. By then the sun was low in the west.
“We must be almost there,” Adam said, staring up at the hilltop directly ahead of them.
“Indeed,” said Freud. “The area in which I saw horse-tracks and other signs of nearby habitation is approximately a three‑hour walk due west.”
“That close?” said Bob.
Adam continued staring at the hilltop for a moment, then said, “We should rest up there amid the trees tonight. And we should try to rest well, because tomorrow…”
With the unspoken remainder of that sentence hanging over them like a thundercloud, the sextet made their way up the hill.
Chapter 8
The Storage Tank