Van Doren shrugged. "Your car." He reached down and picked up the bottle, wo
bbled it slightly, provoking a spike of fear to my mild stirring of panic, t
urned and maneuvered it onto the passenger seat. As he stood up, his face wa
s red and blotchy. "Out of shape," he said. "Tom, don't take this wrong, but
that water smells a little off. You're not planning to drink it, I hope."
"Tom," Carl said, "Don't worry too much about Joshua at the moment. He'll be
fine. The Yherajk are pretty much indestructible by our standards, and I do
ubt that the coyotes or whatever are going to get a bite out of him. Joshua
can make a skunk seem like a bed of roses. He and ...Ralph?" -- He looked fo
r confirmation; I nodded -- "are probably just roughing it or something. You
didn't tell me that he had made friends with a dog."
"The audition is that bad?" I said.
"Christ, Tom," Roland said. "You sure know how to pack your five minutes."