Departures

The first choke point was on the Santa Ana Freeway, where it narrowed from four lanes to three a little south of the junction with the Long Beach Freeway. Traffic crawled along, but by moving from lane to lane Kahn was able to stay right at sixty. He blinked; he couldn’t remember holes opening up so conveniently. He was not about to complain, though.

“We are passing cattle?” Lasoporp Rof asked.

“We’re passing trucks,” Kahn said. He glanced over at his passenger. “Don’t you know the difference between animals and machines?”

“What is a machine?”

Defeated, Kahn gave his attention back to the road. The Santa Monica and Hollywood freeways branched off the Santa Ana a little east of downtown. He took the Hollywood. That was the shortest route, even if it always did knot up just north of the civic center.

And it was knotted, except that, as before, spaces kept appearing like magic for Kahn. Other drivers looked at him with envious disbelief as he slid from one to the next. He had never seen anything like it. The second time he had that thought, his head snapped around toward Lasoporp Rof. He’d never ridden with a time traveler before, either.”Do you have anything to do with this?” he demanded.

“With what?” Lasoporp Rof asked. “Oh, do you mean am I helping us get through the herd? I find this nomadic excursion grows boring after a while, so I’m exerting a slight probability distortion to help us along. I can take it off if you like.”

“That’s all right,” Kahn said hastily. He did not even bother correcting Lasoporp Rof about the right name for the traffic jam; plenty of times he’d felt like one wandering sheep in a million. “I wish I could do it, that’s all.”

“Can’t you?” Lasoporp Rof said, surprised yet again. “Here, let me induce you. It will help pass the time.”

He put his hand on the back of Kahn’s head. As the tech writer drove, he began to have a feel for where a hole in traffic might be, could be, would be, was. Guiding the car into that hole was as easy as breathing. They were nearly at the junction of the Hollywood and Ventura freeways when Lasoporp Rof said, “Now you’re doing it all yourself.”

“Am I? By God, I am!” Maneuvering the Toyota as if it were a halfback dodging clumsy tacklers, Kahn felt grateful enough to do anything this side of human sacrifice for Lasoporp Rof. He even thought about putting the time traveler on a plane to North Carolina to meet his father. To him, though, anything to do with his dad was not this side of human sacrifice.

He had an idea. Instead of staying on the westbound Ventura, he went north on the San Diego Freeway several miles to Devonshire, got off, went up to Chatsworth Boulevard, then headed west. He was whistling when he pulled into the parking lot.

“This is your yurt? No, your condo, you called it?” Lasoporp Rof asked.

“No, this is a Mongolian barbecue place, a restaurant that serves Mongolian-style food,” Kahn said. When Lasoporp Rof looked blank, Kahn went on. “When you go back to whenever your own time is, won’t you want to be able to tell everyone about the authentic”-well, sort of authentic, he amended mentally-”Mongol feast you had back in the First Primitive? You wouldn’t even be lying.”

For the first time since Lasoporp Rof had discovered Kahn was not a world conqueror and mass murderer, the time traveler actually looked happy. “Thank you, T.G.; perhaps I may yet bring some valuable knowledge with me, after all. Yes, let us go in.”

A bored Oriental woman seated them and handed them menus. “She does not even recognize my costume,” Lasoporp Rof said plaintively. “How can she be a real Mongol?”

“She probably isn’t. Mongolia and the United States-this country-aren’t friendly with each other.”

“Ah, still you live in fear of the savage Mongol horsemen!”

“Not quite,” Kahn said, and was saved from disappointing Lasoporp Rof with further explanations when the waitress came back. He ordered tea for both of them and steamed rice, then pointed to the trays of meats and vegetables lined up in front of the barbecue, saying, “We’ll build our own.” That was what most people did; she nodded and left.

Kahn led Lasoporp Rof up to the food. After they had taken bowls, the tech writer said, “There’s lamb, beef, pork, and turkey. Help yourself.” He wielded the set of aluminum tongs in each tray.

Imitating him, Lasoporp Rof said, “These are sliced thin so as to cook quickly?”

“That’s right.” Kahn grinned; it was the first question the time traveler had asked that actually made sense. Kahn added sliced onions, bean sprouts, celery, and cilantro to his bowl, then splashed hot barbecue sauce and curry sauce over the contents. “Spicy,” he warned, but Lasoporp Rof again followed suit.