He fetched cord from the utility chest and bound Greg's hands behind his back. He tied his ankles together and ran a line from them to his wrists. Then he positioned him in the seat, reclined it part way, and tied him in place within it.

  He put the car into gear and headed toward Ohio.

  Two hours later Greg began to moan, and Tanner turned the music up to drown him out. Landscape had appeared once more: grass and trees, fields of green, orchards of apples, apples still small and green, white farmhouses and brown barns and red barns far removed from the roadway he raced along; rows of corn, green and swaying, brown tassels already visible, and obviously tended by someone; fences of split timber, green hedges, lofty, star-leafed maples, fresh-looking road signs, a green-shingled steeple from which the sound of a bell came forth.

  The lines in the sky widened, but the sky itself did not darken, as it usually did before a storm. So he drove on into the afternoon, until he reached the Dayton Abyss.

  He looked down into the fog-shrouded canyon that had caused him to halt. He scanned to the left and the right, decided upon the left, and headed north.

  Again the radiation level was high. And he hurried, slowing only to skirt the crevices, chasms, and canyons that emanated from that dark, deep center. Thick yellow vapors seeped forth from some of these and filled the air before him. At one point they were all about him, like a clinging, sulfurous cloud, and a breeze came and parted them. Involuntarily, then, he hit the brake, and the car jerked and halted, and Greg moaned once more. He stared at the thing for the few seconds that it was visible, then slowly moved forward once again.

  The sight was not duplicated for the whole of his passage, but it did not easily go from out of his mind, and he could not explain it where he had seen it. Yellow, hanging and grinning, he had seen a crucified skeleton there beside the Abyss. _People_, he decided; _that explains everything_.

  When he left the region of fogs, the sky was still dark. He did not realize for a time that he was in the open once more. It had taken him close to four hours to skirt Dayton, and now as he headed across a blasted heath, going east again, he saw for a moment a tiny piece of the sun, like a sickle, fighting its way ashore on the northern bank of a black river in the sky, and failing.

  His lights were turned up to their fullest intensity, and as he realized what might follow, he looked in every direction for shelter.

  There was an old barn on a hill, and he raced toward it. One side had caved in, and the doors had fallen down. He edged in, however, and the interior was moist and moldy-looking under his lights. He saw a skeleton, which be guessed to be that of a horse, within a fallen-down stall.

  He parked and turned off his lights and waited.

  Soon the wailing came once more and drowned out Greg's occasional moans and mutterings. There came another sound, not hard and heavy like gunfire, as that which he had heard in L.A., but gentle, steady, and almost purring.

  He cracked the door, to hear it better.

  Nothing assailed him, so he stepped down from the cab and walked back a ways. The radiation level was almost normal, so he didn't bother with his protective suit. He walked back toward the fallen doors and looked outside. He wore the pistol behind his belt.

  Something gray descended in droplets, and the sun fought itself partly free once more.

  It was rain, pure and simple. He had never seen rain, pure and simple, before. So he lit a cigarette and watched it fall.

  It came down with only an occasional rumbling, and nothing else accompanied it. The sky was still a bluish color beyond the bands of black.

  It fell all about him. It ran down the frame to his left. A random gust of wind blew some droplets into his face, and he realized that they were water, nothing more. Puddles formed on the ground outside. He tossed a chunk of wood into one and saw it splash and float. From somewhere high up inside the barn he heard the sound of birds. He smelled the sick-sweet smell of decaying straw. Off in the shadows to his right he saw a rusted threshing machine. Some feathers drifted down about him, and he caught one in his hand and studied it. Light, dark, fluffy, ribbed. He'd never really looked at a feather before. It worked almost like a zipper, the way the individual branches clung to one another. He let it go, and the wind caught it, and it vanished somewhere toward his back. He looked out once more, and back along his trail. He could probably drive through what was coming down now. But he realized just how tired he was. He found a barrel and sat down on it and lit another cigarette.

  It had been a good run so far, and he found himself thinking about its last stages. He couldn't trust Greg for a while yet. Not until they were so far that there could be no turning back. Then they'd need each other so badly that he could turn him loose. He hoped he hadn't scrambled his brains completely. He didn't know what more the Alley held. If the storms were less from here on in, however, that would be a big help.

  He heard a chuckle and was on his feet, the gun in his hand.

  There was no one in sight. It didn't sound as if it had come from the car, and it didn't sound like Greg's voice anyway.

  It had come from within the barn, though.

  With his eyes, he explored each pooi of shadow. Nothing.

  Then it came again, and this time his eyes moved upward.

  There was a loft.

  He raised the pistol toward the opening to the rear of the building and up. He pointed it toward the dark oblong framed with straw.

  "Come down!" he said.

  There was no reply, not until he'd fired two shots through the opening, and then a, "Wait! I'm coming!" was their echo.

  The man who hurried down the crosswise slats was covered with dark hair and rags. He was perhaps a foot shorter than Tanner, and he crouched with his back against the wall, shaking. His eyes were feral, and he held his hands before his chest, fingers hooking outward like claws.

  "Who're you?"

  The man's eyes darted from the barrel of the gun to Tanner's face and back again several times.

  "I said, 'Who are you?' mister!"

  "Kanis," said the man, "Geoffrey Kanis," and his voice was steady and loud. "I'm not a scientist," he added.

  "Who the hell cares? What were you doing up there, besides watching me?"

  "I came here when the rain started, to get out of it."

  "What was so damned funny?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Why were you laughing?"

  "Oh. Because you don't follow the rules of Batesian mimicry, and you should, you know."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm not a scientist."

  "You said that already."

  The man giggled, then recited, "It takes place in the same region and at the same season, according to Bates, and the mimicking species must not itself be protected, according to Bates, and it must be rarer than its model, Bates says, and it must differ from its own species by external characteristics clearly visible and able to create an illusion, Bates says that, too, and its mimicking characteristics should be only superficial and should produce no fundamental change in the species, Bates notes. He Worked with butterflies, you know."

  "Are you nuts?"

  "Yes, but I follow the rules."

  "Move over into the light, where I can see you better."

  The man did.

  "Yeah, you got a nutty look about you. What's this Bates crap?"

  "It's a thing certain creatures do for purposes of self-protection: Batesian mimicry. They make themselves look like something they're not, so nothing will bother them. Now, if you had been smart, you'd never have grown that beard, you'd wash your face and comb your hair, you'd garb yourself in a dark suit and a white shirt and a necktie, and you'd carry a briefcase. You'd make yourself look like everybody else. Then nobody'd bother you. Then you could do whatever you wanted without molestation. You'd resemble the protected species. You wouldn't be forced into danger."

  "How do you know I've been forced into danger?"

  "There is a look about you, a smell, a certain jumpiness..."

  "And if I'd looked square, this wouldn't have happened?"

  "Probably not."

  "What's your excuse?"

  The man laughed, seemed to relax.

  "Do you hate scientists?"

  "No more than anybody else."

  "What if I were a scientist?"

  "Nothing."

  "Okay. I'm a scientist."

  "So what?"

  "They lumped us all together. I'm a biologist."

  "I don't dig you."

  "It was the physicists who did this to us," he gestured upward, outward..."and some chemists and mathematicians. Not the biologists."

  "You mean the war?"

  "Yes. No! I mean the world, the way it is now."

  "I wasn't around when it happened. I don't know. Or care. What're you trying to say?"

  "You shouldn't have blamed all the professors in all the disciplines for what happened."

  "I didn't. I don't. I don't even know what happened. Not really. What _did_ happen?"

  "War, that's all. Mad and devastating. Lots of bombs and rockets, with a result nobody had predicted: This!" He gestured toward the outside once more. "Then what happened? Why, the survivors visited the remaining universities that I knew of and killed the remaining professors, English, sociology, physics, it didn't matter what they taught, because the professors had obviously been responsible, because they had been professors. That's why Batesian mimicry means so much to me. They shot them, they tore them apart, they crucified them. But not me. No. Not me. I was them, the mob. So I lived. I'm Biology, Room six-oh-four, Benton Building." He laughed again.

  "You mean you helped them when they killed your friends?"

  "They weren't my friends. They were in different disciplines. I hardly knew them."

  "But you helped?"

  "Of course. That's why I'm still alive."

  "So how's life?"

  The man raised his hands to his face and began to dig his nails into his cheeks.

  "I can't forget it," he finally said.

  "So that's what your damned mimicry gets you, hung up by trying to be something else, too much. No thanks. I know what I am."

  "What?"

  "I'm me. I'm an Angel. I don't have to pretend to be anything else. If they don't like me, they can cut me down, if they're able to. So far, they haven't been able to. So screw 'em all! I don't dig this mimic bit. No thanks. Not at all. They can go to hell, every motherin' one of 'em!"

  "A species can't make it that way."

  "Screw species. I'm out to preserve me."

  "That's the wrong attitude."

  "Who says?"

  "I don't know anymore." He continued to knead his cheeks, till the blood came forth and made his beard glis ten.

  "Stop that! You're bugging me! Where do you live, anyway?"

  "Noplace, everyplace, I wander. Wherever I try to stay, they drive me out after a time. It's not holy to be mad anymore."

  "There are settlements around here? People?"

  "Some, some..."

  "Well, go mimic the people living in one."

  "I can't. I'm mad."

  "Shave off your beard and bathe, and wear a dark suit and a white shirt and necktie, and carry a briefcase..."

  "They don't look that way anymore, I forgot. All that is changed..."

  "Well, go look however the hell they look."

  "They all have beards, and they're dirty, and they wear old clothes."

  "Then you're already mimicking them. So am I."

  "No!"

  "What's the difference, then?"

  "We're mad!"

  "Leave me out of this."

  "But it's true. Who else but a madman would be in this old barn in the middle of a storm that could become holocaust? A sane man would have a home, a safe place..."

  "Okay, you've got a point. I'm nuts too. Cigarette?"

  "Yes, please."

  Tanner tossed him the pack with his left hand, and then the matches. He held the gun steady with his right.

  Kanis lit a cigarette and returned the pack and the matches the way they had come.

  Tanner lit his own carefully, not taking his eyes off the smaller man.

  "I'm curious about your form of madness, though," said the man. "I've never seen a vehicle like that before. That's radiation armor, isn't it?"

  "Yes. I'm driving it to Boston."

  "Silly thing to do. It's dangerous."

  "I know. But the plague is there, and I'm carrying Haffikine antiserum."

  "The plague? I knew it! I knew it would come!"

  "Why?"

  "Malthus and Darwin said so. We're all going to die! War and disease take care of the population-food ratio. But it's ceased to be a problem, and we're no longer fit to survive. So it will keep up until the job is finished."

  "Nuts! They stopped the plague in L.A. That's why we had the serum out there."

  "Then something else will come along."

  Tanner shrugged. "I don't care what happens to them," he said.

  "You're one of them, though."

  "I am not. You said so yourself."

  "I was wrong. I'm mad."

  Tanner smoked awhile in silence.

  "What are you going to do with me?" Kanis asked.

  "Nothing. Keep pointing a gun at you till the storm lets up, because I don't trust you. Then I'm going to get into my car and drive away."

  "Why don't you trust me? Because I'm a scientist?"

  "Because you're mad."

  "_Touché_. You could kill me, though."

  "Why bother?"

  "Maybe I want to be dead."

  "Then do it yourself."

  "I can't."

  "Too bad."

  "Would you take me with you to Boston?"

  "Maybe. If you really wanted to go, and I thought I could trust you."

  "Let me think about it."

  "You asked me. Think all you want."

  Tanner listened to the rain on the roof.

  Finally, "No thanks," Kanis said. "They'd probably kill me, since I'm a scientist."

  "I don't think so. They wouldn't in L.A.…But I thought you wanted to die?"

  "Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. Have you got anything to eat? Anything you could spare? I'm terribly hungry?"

  Tanner thought about it. He reviewed the contents of the refrigerator and the lockers.

  "Okay," he said. "Walk ahead of me, and don't make any quick moves. I'll even leave you some rations."

  Kanis preceded him, all the way to the car.

  "Turn your back, and remember, there's a gun on it."

  Kanis did an about-face.

  Tanner crawled into the car, its door flung wide, and keeping his eye and his gun on the smaller man, he removed rations from their compartments and bore them back outside.

  "Here. Have yourself a ball," he said, and he set the containers down on the floor of the barn and backed away.

  He watched Kanis eat, until he couldn't believe that a man could be so hungry.

  Then, "How do you feel?" he asked.

  "A lot better, thanks."

  "I'm sure they won't kill you in Boston," he said. "If you want to come along, I'll take you with me. What do you say?"

  "No. Thanks. I feel better now."

  "Why, for God's sake?"

  "Because I've eaten."

  "I mean, why won't you come along?"

  "They'll hate me."

  "No they won't."

  "I helped, you know, when they burned the universities."

  "So don't tell them about it."

  He shook his head. "They'll know."

  "How, you dumb bastard? Tell me _how?_"

  "They'll know. _I_ know."

  "Man, you've got a guilt hang-up. I've heard of them, but I never believed it till now. Forget it! I'll take you there, you can do whatever you want to your butterflies from now till hell freezes over, and nobody'll give a damn."

  "No, thanks."

  Tanner shrugged.

  "Any way you want it."

  There came a flash of blue lightning. The force of the downpour increased, until it sounded as if a thousand hammers fell upon the rooftop. An unnatural glow illuminated the barn for a time.

  "What's _your_ name?" Kanis asked.

  "Hell."

  "I knew it," he said. "Do you believe in God, Hell?"

  "No."

  "I didn't, but I do now. 'Forgive me my trespasses..."

  "Don't give me that lineup," said Tanner.

  "I'm sorry. I..."

  There came a rumble of thunder, which drowned out his following words.

  Then, "... Kill me," said the man.

  Tanner stepped on his cigarette butt.

  "Will you?"

  "What?"

  "Kill me?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "Why should I?"

  "I'd like it."

  "Go to hell."

  "I have."

  "As you say, you're nuts."

  "That is off the point."

  "Do you want another cigarette?"

  "No, thanks."

  The rains relented a bit, and the thunders died. The lightnings fled away, and a natural quality of darkness returned to the quivering shadows.

  "Okay, forget it," said Kanis.

  "I already have."

  "I don't mean to be a nuisance."

  "I know. What do biologists do?"

  "I've a doctor-of-philosophy degree in biological science. I'm a botanist, actually..."

  "A doctor?"

  "Yes."

  "There's another guy inside my car, and he needs medical care. Will you take a look at him?"

  "I'm not that kind of doctor."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm a doctor, but not a medical doctor. All I know about is botany."

  "Biology is cutting up people and stuff like that, isn't it? Won't that help?"

  "Not really. I don't know anything about medicine."

  "Okay. I'll buy it. Too bad, though. He's bashed pretty bad."

  "Sorry."

  A certain brightness crept back into the day.

  "Seems to be letting up," said Tanner.

  "Yes."

  "So I'll be going now."

  "Now?"

  "Why not?"

  "It may start again."

  "And then again, it may not. I'll have to take my chances."