Page 41

I wave to her as she leaves and head back to my bucket, suddenly wanting to be alone.

I take off my coat, roll it up, and put it under my head. Settle down for a nap. The last thing I think before drifting off to a slightly dizzy whiskey sleep is, Daja’s a lot more interesting than I thought. But I really am going to have to kill her.

A few hours later in whatever counts for morning around here, someone knocks on the side of the bucket. I sit up, a little cramped from my steel crib. The Magistrate leans on the edge of the earthmover’s bucket, a bottle of water in his hand. He tosses it to me. I catch it, unscrew the top, and take a drink. It feels good. Whatever was in that flounder whiskey last night left me with a headache, but the water eases it. I finish the whole bottle.

“Good?” says the Magistrate in his clipped diction.

“Very. Thanks.”

“I’m glad. Come. Take a walk with me.”

I crawl out of the bucket and follow him. The camp looks like a tornado passed through during the night. I don’t see a stick of furniture that isn’t broken, cracked, or burned. Gambling tables are overturned or were propped up and used for target practice. The havoc is scattered on the ground, in the backs of vehicles, or on the remnants of the furniture. It’s like a company picnic that turned into Altamont and everybody loved it.

Me and the Magistrate walk out of camp and into the desert. A nice open space to kill someone. But which one of us is it going to be?

We’re about fifty yards out when he stops. He stares out into the distance not looking at me. He seems completely relaxed. But he doesn’t say a word. Finally, I can’t stand the silence anymore.

“Nice magic show yesterday.”

“What?” he says distractedly. “Oh, that. Yes. Another interest of mine. You see those mountains in the distance?”

“There’s nothing else out there.”

“What do you think they are made of?”

I look hard and say, “Rocks?”

He takes out his telescope and scans the horizon. When he finds what he’s looking for, he hands me the glass and points to a spot in the distance. I don’t see anything but more of the monotonous land that we’ve passed through.

“I don’t see a damned thing.”

He points again.

“Your answer was more correct than you think. You said rocks rather than the more logical ‘stone.’ In fact, what surrounds us are not mountains, but rocks. Brilliantly huge rocks that giants might have used to mark the edges of their domain.”

“Are you saying there are giants out there?”

He shakes his head.

“No. Those rocks weren’t thrown by giants, but by angels. During the first war in Heaven, they were hurled at the fallen angels as they plummeted to their new existence below.”

“I thought the angels fell into Hell.”

“Falling bodies tend to drift as they spin through space.”

“Nine days is a long time to drift. I guess they could fall all over.”

“Exactly.”

“I never heard of ecclesiastic geology before. Daja said you knew something about everything.”

“Ecclesiastic geology. I will have to remember that,” he says. “Yes. Daja told me that you two had a talk last night.”

“She was doing most of the talking.”

“I doubt that. In any case, when she gets an idea in her head, it is hard to dissuade her.”

“What idea does she think about me?”