The Dancers of Noyo Read Online Free PDF Page A

chance that he'd be unable to stop and would go whamming into the fence and over on the rocks below. But my bike had good brakes.
     
                  " Whyn't you stop following me?" I demanded. "You know I'll make the Grail Journey. I promised to."
     
                  "No, I don't," he said. "I—" He wouldn't look me in the eye. He bent over the bike's handlebars and began fidgeting with something.
     
                  "Get off my bike," I said with sudden resolution. "We can't play tag with each other all the way down Highway One to Gualala. Get off my bike."
     
                  He dismounted slowly. When both his feet were on the ground he aimed a wide, loose haymaker at me. I ducked, and aimed a blow of my own at his jaw.
     
                  It connected, but not as solidly as I had expected. I must still be tireder than I realized. He blinked but stood firm, and before I could take another swipe at him I saw there was a gun in his hand. Brotherly Love was threatening me with a gun.
     
                  You cannot imagine what a shock this was to me. Firearms, like the other destructive gadgets of the old culture, are anathema to the tribes. I'd never seen a gun before, except in a comic book I'd found behind the desk in the lobby of the Noyo Inn. I felt like a Victorian lady confronted with a lewd drawing chalked up on a wall.
     
                  Surprise made me speechless. BL must have read my outrage in my face, for he said, "I'm sorry to have to use the gun. You can walk along pushing the bike, and I'll walk along beside you. But we can't take any chances. I've got to stay with you until—"
     
                  "Until what?" I demanded. "I wish I could think of something adequate to call you."
     
                  "Never mind names. I have to stay with you until I'm sure, unh, sure you won't turn back."
     
                  I felt he was lying. His rather stupid face, under the beard, was contorted with the effort of his falsehood. But I didn't know what he was waiting for. He must be sure by now that I wouldn't turn back.
     
                  "I refuse to push my own bike," I said, and then, without a pause, "That's why the light bothered her so. Her eyelids were unusually thin."
     
                  My remark seemed perfectly reasonable to me. There was an autopsy going on, and the girl's eyelids had been dissected and found to be of few microns thinner than most people's.
     
                  BL looked at me. I had the sensation of having said something gauche ,, something that passed the limits of good taste.
     
                  "OK, then," he said at last, "you go on by yourself, and I'll go back to Noyo."
     
                  "How do I know you can be trusted? You started back to Noyo once before. And she had that constant pain in the side because the sciatic nerves were actually inflamed."
     
                  "Well, I can. Be trusted, I mean." He put the gun back in his clothing and got astride my bike once more. "Go on, McGregor. I won't follow you anymore. We'll be expecting you back in Noyo in about six weeks."
     
                  He turned the bike in a wide arc and shot off back up the highway—still, I thought, on my bike. I couldn't imagine what had made him change his mind so abruptly. I wondered what die final result of the autopsy would be.
     
    -
     

Chapter III
     
                  Alvin Biggs was a CBW worker. I was Alvin Riggs. The identity was absolute and perfect. But, since I subsequently went back to being Sam McGregor, I shall narrate my experiences as Riggs, and my experiences in my other extra-lives, in the third person.
     
                  I had been walking along watching the autopsy and wondering vaguely why Brotherly had elected to turn back, when I began to be Alvin.