standing stock still and staring stupidly. “God, god, god.”
“Now that you’ve reaffirmed the Trinity,” Dorothy said sharply, “is there something in particular you wish?”
“No, sir,” the man said. He was shook. “Come on, Lizzy, let’s find our car.” Pulling the woman behind him, he quavered off into the parking lot.
The circus people went into a huddle to discuss ways of retrieving Adolphus And believe me, you haven’t seen a huddle until you’ve seen one with a centaur in it. I took a step closer to Chester.
“Do you swear it?” I whispered.
“What?”
“No altering of my perception: No LSD, no DMT, no PJ, no reality pill, no pot, no hash....”
“Now you know pot couldn’t do this.”
“After you’ve had hold of it for a while, anything could do everything. I remember that meatloaf you made....”
“Here’s what we’ll do,” Dorothy announced, breaking up the huddle. “We have to find Adolphus as soon as possible, preferably before morning. We’ll break up into separate search parties. The two natives will go with Sylvia, since the fifing might attract him. Back down the twisty road toward camp. The rest of us will have to scatter through the woods. Have you all your silver whistles?”
Each of the circus people-cyclops-centaurs produced a thin silver whistle and brandished it in the air. Sylvia was wearing hers on a fine silver chain around her neck.
“Fine,” Dorothy continued. “If you find Adolphus, or have any trouble, use the whistle.”
A pair of headlights swung silently around the lot, and an electric pulled up to us. Our frightened friends were in it. The man stuck his head out and stared intently at us for a long moment. “I shall write to The Barb about this,” he said in a tight voice.
“Don’t be silly,” the woman said as the car pulled away. “You know you can’t write.”
Giganto went off into the woods, chanting “Haroom, haroom,” under his breath like a rehearsing foghorn. Ronald adjusted his tie, nodded, and trotted away.
“I’d like to thank you for helping us,” Dorothy said. “I’ll see that you both get free passes. Good luck.” She shook hands with each of us. “Watch out for Sylvia, if you would. She’s very bright and capable, but she does tend to be a bit impulsive.”
“I’ll stay close to her,” I assured Dorothy.
“Now, Dorothy, I can take care of myself. It’s Adolphus we should worry about. He’s never been in the wild before.” Sylvia smiled up at me. “But I thank you, good sir, for your assistance.”
“And your friend for his beauteous tootling,” redheaded Dorothy added. “Would you consider a short gig with our circus while we’re here in Nueva España?”
“Gig?” I asked.
“That’s circus for job,” Sylvia told me.
“I know,” I said. “But somehow—”
“Nueva España?” Chester asked.
“Go off, people. We’ll talk later.” Dorothy shooed us down the narrow path leading away from the parking lot.
“Chester,” I said, feeling the gravel crunch under my feet, “how long has this path been here?”
“Why,” he said. Then he stopped. “Wait a second.”
“What is it?” Sylvia asked, turning back to us.
“There’s a stone wall all around the parking lot.”
“No there isn’t,” Sylvia said.
“Right,” I agreed. We plunged into the darkness, following the luminescence of the path. “Sylvia, tell me something about the circus.”
“What sort of something?”
“Where the—acts—are from. Like that.”
“Well...Adolphus is a mute, of course. Rhan Kik’hik Pyrtmyr is from Arcturus.”
“Ran—”
That’s Giganto. That’s his real name. Ronald is from somewhere in the Quagdirian Federation. He’s here writing his thesis on Pre-Human Religion. Something about the emergence of the centaur myth. The circus is just a way of earning money while he’s here; his grant isn’t too liberal.”
“I understand his problem. And the unicorn is a mute. Is that mutant?”
“Do you know of any unicorns that aren’t?”
“The young lady has a point,” Chester said, pausing between versus of “Barkus Is Willing.”
“Time travel?” I again suggested.
“I don’t know. Sylvia, tell me: what year is this?”
“That’s silly,” said Sylvia. “Nineteen thirty-six.”
“I should have guessed,” Chester said, regarding his recorder strangely..
“I think I hear something,” Sylvia said. “Please don’t play for a moment.”
“Parallel I time tracks,” I said. “Each moving at a slightly different speed. I remember a story....”
“Maybe they just number the years differently,” Chester suggested.
“Hush!” Sylvia whispered. “Listen to that. It certainly doesn’t sound like a unicorn.”
It certainly didn’t. A thin, high whistling sound with undertones of bass honk, it seemed to come from all around us.
“Look,” Chester said quietly.
I looked. Up in the air, slightly off to the left, hung a thing. A long, cigar-shaped thing with portholes giving off blue flashes. It was etched in the sky so sharply in red light that it gave the impression of being outlined in neon tubing. It wasn’t moving.
“Look at what?” I asked Chester nonchalantly. “The flying saucer?”
Chester took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All right,” he agreed. “Look at the flying saucer. Isn’t it wonderful how all you have to do is label something to understand it?”
“What is that thing?” Sylvia asked.
“It’s not one of yours then,” I said, “from the circus or somewhere?”
“It is not,” she assured me. Her eyes were getting wide. I think this was the first time she realized there was something wrong besides a missing Adolphus.
“How far away do you think it is?” I asked Chester.
“That
