By the light of the moon

bankrupt but traditional
architecture of motel restaurants across the West, featuring a deep
overhang on the roof to shield the big windows from the desert sun,
low flagstone-faced walls supporting the windows, and
flagstone-faced planters full of vegetation struggling to survive
in the heat.
    This was the coffee shop adjacent to the motel out of which they
had just folded. Immediately south of them lay the motel
registration office, and beyond the office, a covered walkway
served a long wing of rooms, of which theirs was the next to last.
Shepherd had folded them a grand distance of four or five hundred
feet.
    'Shep is hungry.'
    Jilly turned, expecting to find an open gateway behind them,
like the one Dylan had described on the hilltop in California,
except that this one ought to provide a view not of the motel
bathroom, but of the empty bedroom that they had a moment ago
departed. Evidently, however, Shepherd had instantly closed the
gate this time, for only the blacktop parking lot shimmered darkly
in the noontime sun.
    Twenty feet away, a young man in ranch clothes and a battered
cowboy hat, getting out of a pickup truck that boasted a rifle
rack, looked up at them, did a double take, but didn't cry out
'Teleporters' or 'Proctorians,' or anything else accusatory. He
just seemed mildly surprised that he had not noticed them a moment
ago.
    In the street, none of the passing traffic had jumped a curb,
crashed into a utility pole, or rear-ended another vehicle. Judging
by the reaction of motorists, none of them had seen three people
blink into existence out of thin air.
    No one inside the coffee shop rushed out to gape in amazement,
either, which probably meant that no one had happened to be looking
toward the entrance when Jilly, Dylan, and Shepherd had traded
motel carpet for this concrete walkway in front of the main
doors.
    Dylan surveyed the scene, no doubt making the same calculations
that Jilly made, and when his eyes met hers, he said, 'All things
considered, I'd rather have walked.'
    'Hell, I'd even rather have been dragged behind a horse.'
    'Buddy,' Dylan said, 'I thought we had an understanding about
this.'
    'Cheez-Its.'
    The young man from the pickup tipped his hat as he walked past
them – 'Howdy, folks' – and entered the coffee
shop.
    'Buddy, you can't make a habit of this.'
    'Shep is hungry.'
    'I know, that's my fault, I should have gotten you breakfast as
soon as we were showered. But you can't fold yourself to a
restaurant anytime you want. That's bad, Shep. That's real bad.
That's the worst kind of bad behavior.'
    Shoulders slumped, head hung, saying nothing, Shep looked more
hangdog than a sick basset hound. Clearly, being scolded by his
brother made him miserable.
    Jilly wanted to hug him. But she worried that he would fold the
two of them to a better restaurant, leaving Dylan behind, and she
hadn't brought her purse.
    She also sympathized with Dylan. To explain the intricacies of
their situation and to convey an effective warning that performing
the miracle of folding from here to there in public would be
exposing them to great danger, he needed Shepherd to be more
focused and more communicative than Shepherd seemed capable of
being.
    Consequently, to establish that public folding was taboo, Dylan
chose not to explain anything. Instead, he attempted to establish
by blunt assertion that being seen folding out of one place or
folding into another was a shameful thing.
    'Shep,' said Dylan, 'you wouldn't go to the bathroom right out
in public, would you?'
    Shepherd didn't respond.
    'Would you? You wouldn't just pee right here on the sidewalk
where the whole world could watch. Would you? I'm starting to think
maybe you would.'
    Visibly cringing at the concept of making his toilet in a public
place, Shepherd nevertheless failed to defend himself against this
accusation. A bead of sweat dripped off the tip of his nose and
left a dark spot on the concrete between his feet.
    'Am I to take your silence to mean you would do your
business right here on the sidewalk? Is that the kind of person you
are, Shep? Is it? Shep? Is it?'
    Considering Shepherd's pathological shyness and his obsession
with cleanliness, Jilly figured that he would rather curl up on the
pavement, in the blazing desert sun, and die of dehydration before
relieving himself in public.
    'Shep,' Dylan continued, unrelenting, 'if you can't answer me,
then I have to assume you would pee in public, that you'd
just pee anywhere you wanted to