So Bluette’s Employer was taking action. Red was already getting into trouble on Proton. But that didn’t change his own need to deal with her.
Stile ran on into the dome-area, now a shambles from the abrupt decompression. With luck he could catch Red during this initial period of confusion. All the occupants should be gasping, looking for long-neglected oxygen equipment, not paying attention to anything except their personal discomfort.
But as he entered, a vehicle charged out—a sand buggy with a bubbletop, painted red. She was taking off. Stile ran for the cellar section. Maybe there would be another vehicle. He had to have some way to follow. There were three other vehicles—all in flames. Red had made sure she would not be pursued.
Well, he had another avenue. Stile hurried to the curtain and stepped through, removed his abruptly inoperative oxygen mask, and looked about. Neysa was there, of course, pointing the way. “I’ll spell myself to a spot ahead of her, then recross,” Stile said.
But the unicorn nudged him, blowing a negative note.
She wouldn’t let him go alone.
“All right—we should stay together,” Stile agreed. “But I don’t want to wear thee out chasing after a Proton car. I’ll have to enhance the trip by magic.” Neysa still was not keen on magic practiced on herself, but accepted this as she had the horn-tail enchantment, 2 with equine grace. “We two proceed with smiles. Red’s direction fifty miles.” That made it possible to overshoot Red’s position, and land ahead—which was where he wanted to be.
They moved rapidly across the landscape, as they had when leaving the White Demesnes. In a moment they were there. It was a pleasant enough glade east of the Red Demesnes. Neysa’s directional horn pointed west; they had outdistanced the quarry.
“All I have to do now is cross back and intercept her, and—“ Stile stopped. “Oh, no!”
For the curtain was nowhere near there. “Well, we’ll just have to pace her until she intersects the curtain,” Stile said.
They paced her, moving near the limit of the unicorn’s capacity. It was a strange business, because away from the curtain they could not see Red at all; only Neysa’s horn pointed out her location in the parallel world. It was like following a ghost.
A ghost. Stile wondered whether there was a similar curtain-effect on other worlds. Back on Planet Earth, when the legends were being formed—could a curtain have ac-counted for the perception of ghosts? People or creatures that were and were not present? So much seeming fantasy could be accounted for, if—
Then Stile spied the curtain. “This is it!” he said. He tore off his clothes and set his mask back in place as he spelled himself through.
Red had evidently been heading for this intersection with the curtain. The car was slowing. It swerved almost immediately to charge him. Was she trying to drive him back across the curtain? Stile distrusted that, so he stayed put. The car had four choices; it could swerve to the left to catch him as he dodged that way, or to the right, or go straight ahead on the assumption he would risk standing still, or it could stop. He doubted it would stop. She in-tended to smash him if she could, and make him step back across the curtain otherwise.
She made a good effort. She feinted slightly to the left, then to the right, trying to provoke his motion. Stile stood still, and the car accelerated straight at him.
At the last moment. Stile leaped up. The car was sleek and low, more powerful than the dune buggy he had at first conjectured. It passed right under him. Sometimes it paid to be an acrobat. He landed neatly in the swirl of sand the vehicle had stirred up without even a twinge from his bad knees.
Now he saw another vehicle approaching. That would be Sheen, having obtained a car from her friends. No wonder Red was in a hurry; any delay, and the pursuit would catch up.
But why had Red wanted him out of Proton? If she planned to cross the curtain, why force him to cross too, when she knew he had the advantage in Phaze. That didn’t seem to make much sense.
Stile got ornery when unsatisfied. Red was up to some-thing, and wanted him out of the way so she could do whatever it was—and so he had better stay right on her. He hailed the second car, and sure enough, it was Sheen. She slowed to pick him up, then accelerated after the fleeing car.
