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and wondered what he was going to tell his mother when they got to Paradise Valley, for the only paradise it was was an industrial chemist's one; where the rain fell at two o'clock in the morning because that was when the refineries vented their tail-gasses into the atmosphere, where it was ethylene in the soil that made the plants shoot up overnight, then wither, then die, and where all the birds had succumbed long ago to toxic fumes and the ones that sat upon fingers were cunning mechanical duplicates, all part of the Company's public relations programme.
    He would worry about that nearer the time. Outside the polarized window was the thrilling red desert, a man's landscape, a gritty wonderland of raw rocks and minerals. He imagined himself riding across it on horseback, wrapped in serape and headcloths, his leather specimens case slapping against his back. Caught up in such reverie, it was not long before the gentle rocking of the train sent him off to sleep.
    He woke in pandemonium. Not the Pandemonium that was the name of the interchange for Paradise Valley, but the other, more dreadful sort. Valves were hissing, voices shouting, metal clanking against metal, and someone was shaking him by the shoulder, calling, "Sir, your mother, sir, wake up, sir, your mother, sir, sir, sir." He focused on the pale face of the steward. "Sir, your mother, sir." The Babooshka was not in her seat. All the luggage was gone. Mikal Margolis dashed to the window to see his mother gliding happily down the side of the track, waving along a slender young man with a beard grinning under a pile of parcels and cases.
    "Mother!" he roared. "Mother!"
    The Babooshka looked up and waved, a tiny, happy china doll of a woman. Her voice was as doll's.
    "Misha! Come on! Can't waste time. Have to find the other station."
    "Mother!" bellowed Mikal Margolis, "This is not the right stop!" But his words were lost in a billow of steam and the thunder of fusion engines powering up. Creakingly, agedly, the train began to roll. "Sir, sir!" cried the flapping steward. Mikal Margolis straight-armed him into an empty seat and dashed for the door. He jumped as the carriage passed the end of the makeshift platform.
     
    The Babooshka swirled up the platform in a storm of small indignation.
    "Misha, the shock you are giving me, your poor dear mother! Falling asleep on the train, no less. Come, we shall miss the mountain railroad."
    The cheeky porter-type had to put the bags down, he was laughing so hard.
    "Mother, where are the mountains?"
    "Behind the buildings."
    "Mother, you can see right over the buildings, they are so low. Mother, this is not the right station."
    "Oh, no? Then where is this your poor dear mother has put you?"
    Mikal Margolis pointed to some words laid out in pretty white pebbles by the edge of the track.
    "Desolation Road, Mother."
    "And this is the next stop, no?"
    "We were meant to get off at Pandemonium. The train was not supposed to stop here. This town is not supposed to be here."
    "Then blame the railroad company, blame the town, but not your poor dear mother!" fumed the Babooshka, and lambasted, lampooned, be-jasused and generally cursed the railroad company, their trains, their tracks, their signals, their rolling stock, their drivers, their engineers, their guards and anyone even remotely connected with Bethlehem Ares Railroads down to the meanest lavatory attendant, third-class, for approximately twenty minutes.
    Finally Dr. Alimantando, nominal head of Desolation Road, pop. 7, elev. 1250 m., "one step short of Paradise," arrived to settle the altercation so he could return to his chronokinetic studies in peace. Only the day before he had commissioned Rajandra Das, general factotum, sorcerer's apprentice, odd-job man and station porter, to spell out the name of the town in proud white pebbles so that any train that might pass would know that the people of Desolation Road had pride in their town. As if lured by a malicious sympathetic magic,