"He'll be flattered," Tesla said, and put the phone down. "You've got yourself an admirer," she told Raul. "Ron thinks you're very s.e.xy."

Raul's look was less perplexed than she'd antic.i.p.ated. It made her ask: "Are there gay apes, do you suppose?"

"Gay?"

"h.o.m.os.e.xual. Men who like other men in bed."

"Is Ron?"

"Is Ron?" she laughed. "Yes, Ron is. It's that kind of neighborhood. That's why I like it."

She started to measure out the coffee into the cups. As she heard the granules slide from the spoon she felt the vision beginning in on her again.

She dropped the spoon. Turned to Raul. He was a long way from her, across a room that seemed to be filling with dust.

"Raul?" she said.

"What's wrong?" she saw him say. Saw rather than heard; the volume had been turned down to zero in the world she was slipping from. Panic set in. She reached out for Raul with both hands.

"Don't let me go-" she yelled at him. "-I don't want to go! I don't-"

Then the dust came between them, eroding him. Her hands missed his in the storm and instead of falling into his solid embrace she was pitched back into the desert, moving at speed across by now familiar terrain. The same baked earth she'd travelled twice before.

Her apartment had disappeared completely. She was back in the Loop, heading through the town. Above her, the sky was delicately tinted, as it had been the first time she'd travelled here. The sun was still close to the horizon. She could see it clearly, unlike that first time. More than see, stare at, without having to look away. She could even make out details. Solar flares leaping from its rim like arms of fire. A cl.u.s.ter of sun-spots marking its burning face. When she looked back to earth she was approaching the town.

With the first flush of panic over she began to take control of her circ.u.mstances, reminding herself sharply that this was the third time she'd been here, and she should be able to grasp the trick of it by now. She willed her pace to slow, and found that indeed she was slowing, giving her more time to study the town as she came to its fringes. Her instinct, seeing it for the first time, had been that it was somehow fake. That instinct was now confirmed. The boards of the houses were not weather-beaten, nor even painted. There were no curtains at the windows; no key-holes in the doors. And beyond those doors and windows? She told her floating system to veer towards one of the houses, and peered through the window. The roof of the house had been improperly finished; sunlight darted between the cracks and illuminated the interior. It was empty. There was no furniture, nor any other sign of human habitation. There was not even any division of the interior into rooms. The building was a complete sham. And if this one, then the next too presumably. She moved along the row to confirm the suspicion. It was also completely deserted.

As she drew away from the second window she felt the pull she'd experienced back in the other world: Kissoon was trying to bring her to him. She hoped now that Raul made no attempt to wake her, if indeed her body was still present in the world she'd left. Though she had a fear of this place, and a profound suspicion of the man who'd called her here, her curiosity laid stronger claim upon her. The mysteries of Palomo Grove had been bizarre enough, but nothing in Fletcher's hurried transfer of information about the Jaff, the Art and Quiddity went far towards explaining this place. The answers lay with Kissoon, she'd not the slightest doubt of that. If she could dig between the lines of his conversation, oblique as it was, she might have a hope of understanding. And with her newfound confidence in this condition she felt easier at the thought of returning to the hut. If he threatened her, or got a hard-on, she'd simply leave. It was within her power. Anything was within her power, if she wanted it badly enough. If she could look at the sun and not be blinded, she could certainly deal with Kissoon's fumbling claims on her body.

She started on through the town, aware that she was now walking, or had at least decided to present herself with that illusion. Once she'd imagined herself here, as she'd done the first time, the process of bringing her flesh with her was automatic. She couldn't feel the ground beneath her feet, nor did the act of walking take the least effort, but she had carried with her from the other world that idea of how to advance, and was using it here whether it was necessary or not. Probably not. Probably a thought was all that was required to whisk her around. But the more of the reality she knew best that she imported into this place, she reasoned, the more control she had over it. She would operate here by the rules she'd a.s.sumed were universal, until recently. Then, if they changed, she'd know it was not her doing. The more she thought this through the more solid she felt. Her shadow deepened beneath her; she began to feel the ground hot beneath her feet.

Rea.s.suring as it was to have natural senses here, Kissoon clearly did not approve. She felt his pull on her strengthen, like he'd put his hand into her stomach and was tugging.

"All right..." she murmured "...I'm coming. But in my time, not in yours."

There was more than weight and shadow in the condition she was learning; there was smell and sound. Both of these brought surprises; both unwelcome. To her nostrils a sickening smell, one she knew without doubt to be that of putrefying meat. Was there a dead animal somewhere on the street? She could see nothing. But sound gave her a second clue. Her ears, sharper than they'd ever been, caught the seething of insect life. She listened closely to discover its direction, and guessing it, crossed the street to another of the houses. It was as featureless as those whose windows she'd peered through, but this one was not empty. The strengthening stench and the sound that came with it confirmed that instinct. There was something dead behind that ba.n.a.l facade. Many things, she began to suspect. The smell was getting to be overpowering; it made her innards churn. But she had to see what secret this town concealed.

Halfway across the street she felt another tug on her stomach. She resisted it, but Kissoon wasn't quite so ready to let her off the hook this time. He pulled again, harder, and she found herself moved down the street against her will. One moment she was approaching the House of the Stench, the next she was twenty yards from where she'd been.

"I want to see," she said through gritted teeth, hoping that Kissoon could hear her.

Even if he couldn't he pulled again. This time she was ready for the tug and actively fought against it, demanding that her body move back towards the House.

"You're not going to stop me," she said.

In reply, he pulled once more, and despite her best efforts hauled her even further from her target.

"f.u.c.k you!" she yelled out loud, furious at his intervention.

He used her anger against her. As she burned energy in her outburst he pulled yet again, and this time succeeded in moving her almost all the way down the street to the other end of the town. There was nothing she could do to resist him. He was quite simply stronger than her, and the more furious she became the more his grip strengthened, until she was moving at some speed away from the town, prey to his summons the way she'd been the first time she'd come into the Loop.

She knew her anger was weakening her resistance, and calmly instructed herself to control it as the desert speeded by.

"Calm yourself, woman," she told herself. "He's just a bully. Nothing more. Nothing less. Chill out."

Her advice to herself worked. She felt self-determination beginning to swell in her again. She didn't allow herself the luxury of satisfaction. She simply exercised the power she'd claimed back to show herself once more. Kissoon didn't relinquish his claim, of course; she felt his fist in her gut pulling as hard as ever. It hurt. But she resisted, and went on resisting, until she had almost come to a dead stop.

He'd succeeded in one of his ambitions at least, however. The town was a speck on the horizon behind her. The trek back to it was presently beyond her. She was not certain, even if she began it, that she could resist his tugging for such a distance.

Again, she offered herself some silent advice: this time to stand still for a few moments and take stock of her situation. She'd lost the fight in the town, there was no two ways about that. But she'd gained a few sticky questions to ask Kissoon when she was finally face to face with him. One, what the source of the stench actually was, and two, why he was so afraid of her seeing it. But given the strength he clearly possessed, even at this distance, she knew she had to be careful. The greatest mistake she could make in these circ.u.mstances was to a.s.sume any government she had over herself was permanent. Her presence here was at Kissoon's behest, and whatever he'd told her about being a prisoner here himself he knew more about its rules than she did. She was prey every moment to his power, the limits of which she could only guess. She had to proceed with greater caution, or risk losing what little authority she had over her condition.

Turning her back on the town she began to move in the direction of the hut. The solidity she'd earned in the town had not been taken from her, but when she moved it was with a lightness of step utterly unlike anything she'd experienced hitherto. A moonwalk of a type: her strides long and easy, her speed impossible even for the fastest of sprinters. Sensing her approach Kissoon no longer hauled on her gut, though he maintained a presence there, as if to remind her of the strength he could use should he turn his will to it.

Ahead now she saw the second of the landmarks here: the tower. The wind whined in its tethering wires. Again she slowed her pace, so as to study the structure better. There was very little to see. It stood perhaps a hundred feet high, was made of steel, and had atop it a simple wood platform covered on three of its sides by sheets of corrugated iron. Its function defied her. As a viewing platform it seemed singularly useless, given that there was so little to view. Nor did it seem to be serving any technical purpose. Besides the corrugated iron up top-and some parcel hanging between-there was no sign of aerials or monitoring apparatus. She thought of Bunuel, of all people, and of her favorite of his films, Simon del Desierto, a satiric vision of St. Simon tempted by the Devil as he sat in penitence on the top of a pillar in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps the tower had been built for a similarly m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t saint. If so, he'd gone to dust, or G.o.dhood.

There was nothing more to be seen here, she decided, and moved on past the tower, leaving it to its whining, enigmatic life. She could not yet see Kissoon's hut, but she knew it couldn't be far. There was no dust storm on the horizon to keep it from sight; the scene before her-the desert floor and the sky above-was exactly as she remembered it from her last trip here. The fact momentarily struck her as strange: that nothing whatsoever seemed to have changed. Maybe nothing ever changed here, she thought. Maybe it was forever, this place. Or like a movie, re-run and re-run, until the sprocket holes snapped or the picture burned up in the gate.

She'd no sooner imagined constancy than a rogue element she'd almost forgotten came into view. The woman.

Last time, with Kissoon drawing her to the hut, she'd had no chance to make contact with this other player on the desert stage. Indeed Kissoon had attempted to convince her that the woman had been a mirage; a projection of his erotic musings, and to be avoided. But now, with the woman close enough to call to, Tesla thought the explanation a likelier fantasy than the woman. However perverse Kissoon was, and she didn't doubt he'd had his moments, the figure before her was no masturbatory aid. True, she was close to naked, the shreds of clothing wrapped around her body pitifully inadequate. True, she had a face luminous with intelligence. But her long hair looked to have been torn out in several places, the blood dried to a dirty brown on her brow and cheeks. Her body was thin, and badly bruised, scratches on her thighs and arms only partially healed. There was a more profound wound, Tesla suspected, beneath the sc.r.a.ps of what might have once been a white dress. It was glued to the middle of her body, and she hugged herself there, almost bent double with pain. She was no pin-up; nor a mirage. She existed in the same plane of being as Tesla, and suffered here.

As she'd suspected Kissoon was aware that his warning had been ignored, and had begun to tug on Tesla once more. This time she was completely prepared for it. Instead of raging against his claim on her she stood quite still, preserving her calm. His mind-fingers fought for purchase, then began to slip through her innards. He s.n.a.t.c.hed at them again; slipped again, and s.n.a.t.c.hed. She didn't respond in any way, but simply kept her place, her eyes fixed on the woman all the time.

She'd stood upright, and was no longer holding her belly, but let her hands hang by her sides. Very slowly, Tesla began to walk towards her, preserving as best she could the calm that was denying Kissoon his hold. The woman made no move either to advance or retreat. With every step Tesla took she got a better impression of her. She was fifty, maybe, her eyes, though sunk in their sockets, the liveliest part of her; the rest was fatigue. Around her neck she wore a chain on which hung a simple cross. It was all that remained of the life she might once have had before she'd become lost in this wilderness.

Suddenly, she opened her mouth, a look of anguish crossing her face. She started to speak, but either her vocal cords weren't strong enough or her lungs large enough for the words to cover the s.p.a.ce between them.

"Wait," Tesla told her, concerned the woman not exhaust what little energy she had. "Let me get closer."

If she understood, the woman ignored the instruction, and began to speak again, repeating something over and over.

"I can't hear you," Tesla shouted back, aware that her distress at the woman's distress was giving Kissoon a handle on her. "Wait, will you?" she said, picking up speed.

As she did so she realized that the look on the woman's face was not anguish at all, but fear. That her eyes were no longer looking at Tesla, but at something else. And that the word she was repeating was "Lix! Lix!"

In horror, she turned, to see the desert floor behind her alive with Lix: a dozen on first glance, twice that on second. They were all exactly the same, like snakes from which every distinguishing mark had been struck, reducing them to ten-foot lengths of writhing muscle, coming at her at full speed. She had thought the one she'd glimpsed previously, pulling open the door, mouthless. She'd been wrong. They had mouths, all right; black holes lined with black teeth, opened wide. She was readying herself for their attack when she realized (too late) they'd been summoned as a distraction. Kissoon clutched her gut and pulled. The desert slid away beneath her, the Lix dividing as she was hauled through their throng.

Ahead, the hut. She was at its threshold in seconds, the door opening on cue.

"Come on in," Kissoon said. "It's been too long."

Left behind in Tesla's apartment, Raul could only wait. He had no doubt of where she'd gone, or who'd claimed her, but without a means of access, he was helpless. Which wasn't to say he didn't sense her. His system had been touched by the Nuncio twice, and it knew she was not that far from him. When, in the car, Tesla had attempted to describe what her trip into the Loop had felt like, he'd badly wanted to articulate something he'd come to understand in the years he'd spent at the Mission. His vocabulary was not equal to the task, however. It still wasn't. But the feelings had borne strongly upon the way he now sensed Tesla.

She was in a different place, but place was just another kind of being, and all states could, if the means were found, speak with every other state. Ape with man, man with moon. It was nothing to do with technologies. It was about the indi--isibility of the world. Just as Fletcher had made the Nuncio from a soup of disciplines, not caring where science became magic, or logic nonsense; just as Tesla moved between realities like a dreaming fog, in defiance of established law; just as he had moved from the apparently simian to the apparently human, and never known where one became the other, or if it ever did, so he knew he might reach now, if only he had, the wit or the words, which he didn't, through to the place where Tesla was. It was very close, as were all s.p.a.ces at all times; parts of the same landscape of mind. But he could shape none of this into action. It was beyond him, as yet.

All he could do was know, and wait, which in its way was more painful than believing himself forsaken.

"You're a f.u.c.khead and a liar," she said when she'd closed the door.

The fire was burning brightly. There was very little smoke. Kissoon sat on its far side, staring up at her, his eyes brighter than she remembered. There was excitement in them.

"You wanted to come back," he said to her. "Don't deny it. I felt it in you. You could have resisted while you were out there in the Cosm but you really didn't want to. Tell me I'm a liar about that. I dare you."

"No," she said. "I admit it. I'm curious."

"Good."

"But that doesn't give you the right to just drag me here."

"How else was I to show you the way?" he asked her lightly.

"Show me the way?" she said, knowing he was infuriating her deliberately but unable to get the sensation of helplessness out of her head. She hated nothing more vehemently than to be out of control, and his hold of her made her mad as h.e.l.l.

"I'm not stupid," she said. "And I'm not a toy you can just pull on when it suits you."

"I don't mean to treat you as either," Kissoon said. "Please, can't we make peace? We're on the same side after all?"

"Are we?"

"You can't doubt that."

"Can't I?"

"After all I told you," Kissoon said. "The secrets I shared with you."

"Seems to me there's a few you're not willing to share."

"Oh?" Kissoon said, his gaze moving from her to the flames.

"The town, for instance."

"What about it?"

"I wanted to see what was in the house, but no, you just hauled me away."

Kissoon sighed. "I don't deny it," he said. "If I hadn't, you wouldn't be here."

"I don't follow."

"Don't you sense the atmosphere there? I can't believe you don't. The sheer dread."

Now it was she who expelled breath, softly, between her teeth.

"Yes," she said. "I felt something."

"The Iad Uroboros has its agents everywhere," Kissoon said. "I believe one of them is in hiding in that town. I don't know what form it takes, and I don't want to know. But it would be fatal to look, I suspect. Anyway, I'm not about to risk it, and you shouldn't either, however curious you are."

It was difficult to argue with this point of view when it so closely approximated her own feelings. Only minutes ago, back in her apartment, she'd told Raul she sensed something about to happen in that empty Main Street. Now Kissoon was confirming her suspicion.

"I suppose I have to thank you then," she said reluctantly.

"Don't bother," Kissoon replied. "I didn't save you for your sake, I saved you for more important duties." He took a moment to dig at the core of the fire with a blackened stick. It blazed higher, and the hut was illuminated more brightly than ever. "I'm sorry," he went on, "if I frightened you when you were last here. I say if. I know I did and I can't apologize enough." He didn't look at her through this speech, which had a rehea.r.s.ed quality to it. But coming from a man she suspected had a major ego, it was doubly welcome. "I was...moved, shall we say...by your physical presence in a way I hadn't quite taken account of, and you were right to be suspicious of my motives." He put one hand between his legs and took his p.e.n.i.s between forefinger and thumb. "I'm chastened now," he said. "As you can see."

She looked. He was quite limp.

"Apology accepted," she said.

"So now, we can get back to business I hope."

"I'm not going to give my body to you, Kissoon," she said flatly. "If that's what you mean by business, no deal."

Kissoon nodded. "I can't say I blame you. Apologies sometimes aren't enough. But you must understand the gravity of this. Even now, up in Palomo Grove, the Jaff is preparing to use the Art. I can stop him. But not from here."

"Teach me then."

"There isn't time."

"I'm a quick learner."

Kissoon looked up at her, his face sharp.

"That really is a monstrous arrogance," he said. "You step into the middle of a tragedy that's been moving towards its final act for centuries and think you can just change its course with a few words. This isn't Hollywood. This is the real world."

His cold fury subdued her; but not much.

"All right, so I get feisty once in a while. Shoot me for it. I've told you I'll help but I won't do any of this body-swapping s.h.i.t."

"Maybe, then..."

"What?"

"...you can find someone who is willing to give themselves over to me."

"That's a tough call. What am I supposed to tell them?"

"You're persuasive," he said.

She thought back to the world she'd stepped out of. The apartment building had twenty-one occupants. Could she persuade Ron, or Edgar, or one of her friends, Mickey de Falco perhaps, to step back into the Loop with her? She doubted it. It was only when her seeking centered on Raul that she glimpsed a little hope. Might he dare what she wouldn't?

"Maybe I can help," she said.

"Quickly?"

"Yes. Quickly. If you can get me back to my apartment."

"Easily done."

"I'm not promising anything, mind you."