Paradox Alley

19

"Hello Jake," Sam said.

He was sitting at the dining room table with John and Zoya, having coffee and rolls. He got up with a smile that lived in my memory. The face was my father's face, but it was one I hadn't seen since childhood, for the man coming toward me with arms extended was my father as he had been as a young man, around thirty-five. His hair was dark brown, almost black, his eyes the color of slate. He was about six feet tall (lately I'd fallen into using that antiquated system of measure), plus an inch or two. His jaw was strong, his shoulders broad, and his hands and feet, like mine, were a bit oversized. His lips cut a thin line over a markedly cleft chin. His nose, thin and straight, was prominent but not large. Altogether a handsome figure of a man. He was dressed in a trim gray two-piece utility suit with a black belt, and he wore black hiking boots.

He embraced me, and I could not speak. Although Arthur had done his best to prepare me, there is little that can serve as an adequate buffer against the shock of your life.

"Son," he said, "it's good to see you again."

"Dad," I finally croaked. I put my head on his shoulder and shut my eyes tight against the flow of tears.

I think I was a little irrational for a few minutes; it was a total state of shock. I don't remember what was said, or who said it, but sooner or later I noticed Prime standing off to one side, observing us with approval.

"Welcome back!" he said brightly.

I nodded and looked around. Ragna and Oni were seated at the table along with John and Zoya. Ragna smiled, his wide pink eyes gleaming. Zoya beamed at me. John looked bored.

Another wonder-so what?

Darla had been standing off to one side. She walked over and said, "So we finally meet in the flesh."

"Come here, Darla darling," Sam said. They hugged.

I couldn't help keeping one arm around Sam, could not relinquish the feel of his flesh, his corporeality. If I hadn't been used to having Sam's disembodied personality around, the sight of him like this, reborn, reincarnate, would probably have been enough to stop my heart. I would have died on everybody right there.

As it was, I had trouble fully regaining my powers of speech.

"How… was it done?" I gasped at Prime.

"An artificial body is nothing miraculous," he said. "The problem lies merely in effecting an adequate interface between it and the artificial brain that controls it, which in this case is the Vlathusian Enteleehy Matrix. You are aware of the many resources on this planet. I simply used those needed to accomplish the job. And I think we were quite successful. Wouldn't you agree, Sam?"

"I sure would." Sam slapped his chest. "Never felt better in my life." He turned to me. "I'm told that this isn't your garden variety human body."

"No," Prime said. "It doesn't have some of the biochemical subtleties of a natural organism-even science at its height can't duplicate the genius of the Creator. For instance, Sam will never have another son, nor any more progeny. But his body does have a number of advantages. Sam will never grow old. He won't suffer illness-"

"But I'm not immortal," Sam said.

"No," Prime said, walking over to us. "I offered to tell Sam the body's estimated life span, but he didn't want to hear it."

"Even if it were a million years, or only a week," Sam said, "I wouldn't want to know. I'll be damned if I'm going to spend my second life counting down the days. You can't live like that."

"I understand and agree," Prime said.

I asked, "How did you get this body to look like his former one?"

"The imaging entailed using a number of sources-but chief among them was a three-dimensional photograph of you and Sam that was stored in the on-board computer's auxiliary memory. Did you know it was there?"

I said, "Yeah, I do seem to remember having an old holo scanned into pixels and stored away."

"Your memories of Sam also were useful," Prime added.

"Okay," I said, rather absurdly, as if we'd been talking about the weather. I sat down and poured myself a cup of coffee. I couldn't keep my eyes off Sam, who seated himself and took a sip from his cup.

He winked at me. "Who says you only go around once, eh?"

"Sam, did you have any choice in this?" I asked.

"Not in getting shanghaied out of the truck. When I came to, I found that I'd been loaded into some weird kind of computer… I think." Sam looked to Prime for corroboration.

"It was a computer, in essence," Prime said.

"Anyway," Sam went on, "I was in contact with our host here, and he asked me if I wanted to join the Culmination. I said thanks, but no thanks. He said, okay, then how about a new body? I said, sure, why not?"

I laughed. "Sure, why not."

"I was getting a little tired of being a trailer truck. I like this just fine."

"I can't blame you. Your turning up missing like that gave me quite a scare, though."

Prime had seated himself at the table. "Our apologies. But had I told you our intentions, I doubt you would have believed me."

"You could have tried," I said.

"I did try," Prime said, "and would have succeeded if you hadn't left rather abruptly."

Aside from pointing out about a half-dozen holes in Prime's reasoning-for instance, hadn't he ever heard of radio communication? — I had little to say to that. It seemed that in any given argument, Prime had a subtle way of manipulating the emotional tug-of-war so that he always wound up oil solid ground, leaving his adversary in quicksand. I couldn't figure exactly how he did it, but you simply couldn't argue with him, and I didn't feel like going through the motions with him now.

"Where have you guys been?" Sam was curious to know. I looked around.

"How long have we been gone?"

"About five days," Zoya said. "We were worried." Darla filled them in while we breakfasted.

"So Carl finally got home," Sam said. "Well, good. And I think Lori will be happy back there." He pushed his coffee cup away and sat back. "Imagine," he said wistfully. "Earth, way back when. It must have been something to see. Nineteen sixty-four. Let's see, that was almost seventy years before I was born."

Darla changed the subject with, "I can't get over how much you two look alike." She swiveled her gaze back and forth between us. "And with your looking just about the same age, you could almost be twins."

I was about to remark that I'd always been accused of being Sam's clone when I suddenly realized that amidst the confusion and shock I had completely forgotten about the most important topic of all.

"Where the hell is Susan and everybody else?" I blurted.

"That's hard to say," Sam said, rubbing the blue-black stubble of his chin. He had always had a heavy beard. He looked at Prime. "Do you want to tell him what you told us?"

"I'd be glad to," Prime said as he buttered a croissant. "Ah… John, would you please pass me the marmalade?" John passed him the marmalade.

"Thank you. Jake, Darla… let me first assure you that your friends are fine. Alive and well, fit and hale, and all of that. They are under no-"

"Okay, okay," I said curtly, "I'll take your word for it. Just tell me where they are."

"That brings up the perennial problem of communication again. But let me try-"

"Look," I cut in. "I'm getting awfully weary of these huge philosophical barriers that keep preventing you from answering the simplest of questions-like, where are my friends? Are they here, or are they somewhere else?"

Prime interrupted the job of applying marmalade to his croissant long enough to turn his head and ask, "Do you want to visit them?"

"Of course."

"Then sit back and relax." I tried.

"Open your mind and call your friends. One or all of them."

l stared at him.

"Just do as I say," Prime instructed.

I leaned back and pictured Susan's face in my mind. Nothing happened.

Prime smiled, his black eyes twinkling. "Keep trying."

So I kept trying… to do exactly what, I didn't know. I began to feel faintly ridiculous sitting there, staring off into space, but then something began to happen. Hard to describe. The environment around me began to dissolve, like a film, into another scene. It startled me at first, and the process halted and reversed-the dining room, the table, and everyone in the room reappeared. But then I relaxed and let go, discovering that I could control whatever was happening. I let the scene around me fade again.

I found myself sitting on a ledge on a steep rocky slope. Far below was a fog-filled valley ringed by snow-tipped peaks. Above was a jagged mountaintop against a gray sky. I stood and breathed in. The air was cool, fresh enough to have been created the instant before. Looking around, I saw stunted trees clinging to the slope, along with an occasional bush. The slope was steep but not difficult to climb, set with wide flat stones in uneven steps. I hopped to a higher outcrop and looked around. Deciding to climb the mountain and perhaps get a better view of what was going on, if anything, I began the ascent.

A cold wind rose. Eventually the slope leveled off to a wide ridge graced with an occasional tree. I walked along the edge, gazing down, until the way narrowed to a ledge just big enough to walk on without having to turn and sidestep. I paced slowly along it. The ledge narrowed some more, and I considered going back; but I kept on. Soon the ledge was barely as wide as my feet were long. I inched along sideways, the wind strong enough to tug at my open jacket but not enough to unbalance me. Far below a lake of mist swirled at the bottom of the cliff.

Eventually I came to a crevice splitting the wall behind me in a crooked V. I stepped back into it. It was a corridor cut back into the mountain, widening into a descending pass. I walked for a few minutes, came out the other side of the mountain, and found a gentle slope leading down to the edge of a forest. I took a path that led me down through tall conifers bearing enormous cones. A soft trilling came from the treetops; birds, maybe. Maybe something else.

I came to the bottom of the hollow and found a swiftly running brook. I turned downstream and followed it, jogging over the smooth boulders that lined its banks. When the forest thinned out, I left the rocks and took a path that paralleled the stream and wound amongst miniature trees and tended shrubbery. The path became stone-paved and bore away from the main stream, following a small tributary and cutting through rock gardens. A dwelling lay up ahead: a cottage, done in a vaguely oriental style, fronting on a quiet pond. Susan was there. She was sitting on a stone bench near the edge of the pond, reading from a slim volume bound in blue cloth.

She glanced up and saw me, smiled, then got up and ran to me.

We embraced. Her brown eyes shone. "Jake! It seems like years," she said, beaming.

"It does seem like it's been a long time," I said, running a hand through her straight, light-brown hair.

This was all very strange. It wasn't a dream, but it couldn't be real, I thought. Not altogether real, at any rate.

"Where are we?" I asked. "What is this place?"

"This is a place where I stay… sometimes," Susan told me, taking my hand and leading me back toward the bench by the pond. "It's quiet, and I can think here."

"About what?"

"Anything that I think is worth thinking about."

"I see."

We sat. Pink and yellow flowers floated on the pond's surface, bobbing gently, and reflections' of overhead boughs shimmered deep within. Rushes grew at the pond's edge. A trilling cooing sound came from the trees. Other than the murmur of a brook, all was quiet.

"Where are we?" I asked again.

"It's a space and a time I sort of like," she said. "Isn't it nice?"

"Very. Tell me-does joining the Culmination mean that you can never give a straight answer again?"

She laughed. "No. Jake, I really don't know where or when this is, exactly. It's somewhere and when outside of all space and time-or maybe I created it. I don't really know. I haven't given it much thought. Does it matter?"

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"What was that about straight answers?"

"Sorry," I said. "Fair is fair. Okay, it doesn't matter. But how did I get here?"

"I gave you access to the Consensus Metaphysical Substratum. Go ahead, ask what that is."

"What is it?"

"I'm still learning, but basically it's a reality that everyone can agree on. But it isn't necessarily the true reality."

"The true reality of what?"

"Of everything. Real reality."

I nodded, then turned my head and stared into the pool. There was something dark at its bottom.

"It's hard to explain," Susan told me.

"I'm sure."

She patted my hand, and I took hers in mine. "Are you real?" I said. "Are we really here, or is this an illusion?"

She pinched the back of my hand. "Feel that?"

And I did. "Yes. But it occurs to me to ask what that's supposed to prove. A pinch can be dreamed, too." I looked into her eyes.

She said, "I'm really here, Jake. And so are you."

I had never noticed that there were little flecks of green in her irises. "I must be," I said.

A ripple crossed the pool, and a faint reflected wave flowed back.

"Where have you been?" Susan asked. "You guys took off the other day."

"Earth," I said, "for a vacation."

She nodded as if she'understood. "Did everything work out?"

"More or less."

"Good."

She was wearing what she always wore, her gray and brown survival suit with soft gray deck boots. Her hair was a little mussy, as always.

I said, "I guess it wouldn't do any good to ask you to tell me what the Culmination really is, or what it's like being part of it."

"Would you like to be a part of it, Jake?"

I shook my head. "No."

She nodded again, smiling, and again she understood, this time only too well. "It's not your kind of thing, Jake. You're not a joiner. The idea of it goes against your grain."

"I guess so."

"But you're wrong, Jake. The Culmination is nothing like anything you've ever experienced before."

"There's something in me that dreads the loss of individuality."

She took both my hands and gazed at me intently. "Jake, look at me. Am I any different? Do I act differently?"

"No, you seem fine."

"I am. I feel wonderful. And I'm the same Susan you knew before. Nothing's changed. I haven't lost myself in some endless ocean of consciousness. It isn't like that at all. It's… it's like being reborn."

"I've heard that before."

She let go my hands, leaned back and sighed. "No. You see? I'm as inarticulate as ever."

"I understand," I said. "I think."

"It's not all that difficult to grasp."

"By the way, where are the others?"

"Oh, they're around." She looked over my shoulder. "As a matter of fact…"

I turned to see Sean strolling down the garden walk. "Jake, me boy!"

We shook hands, and he slapped my back. He seemed substantial enough; he almost fractured my spine.

"I knew you'd be back," he said. "We were a mite worried, though."

"I was worried about all of you."

"No need. We're getting on rather well." He glanced around. "Nice place, Susan. Very nice indeed."

I said, "Oh, you don't hang out here?"

"No, I have my own place. So do the others, I suspect."

Susan nodded. "I've been to Roland's. It's on a mountaintop."

"Roland's a philosopher in the grand tradition," Sean said, grinning. "Waiting for his Zoroastrian flash of understanding. Mine's a shed in the woods. So's Liam's. Loggers to the last."

"So," I said. "What you people do basically is hang out and… what, have each other over for tea?"

Sean chuckled. "Among other things." Sean walked to the pond's edge and surveyed the scene. "Very nice place indeed." Susan and I reseated ourselves.

"Tell me something, Suzie," I said. "Why did I have to climb a mountain to get here? If this is some Never-never-land, why couldn't you have just materialized me right here?"

"I didn't materialize you, I just let you into my space. I want people to have a sense of having traveled some to get here. Next time, though, I'll eliminate that part of it, if you like."

"No, no," I said. "It was interesting. Beautiful, actually."

"Yes, a journey is always beautiful."

"Some of ours haven't been."

"There've been some bad things," she admitted. "But it's all been an experience."

"I suppose you can say that about anything that happens."

"You can, but it's true."

I looked off into the quasi-Zen rock garden. I wasn't learning much. But then, I really had stopped caring so much about finding the key to all this. I was convinced that Susan and the rest were okay, were under no compulsion or duress, and that was all I needed to know. I decided right then that if the four of them wanted to stay, I wouldn't argue with them. I was going home; if they wanted a lift, fine. If not, fine.

Still, I wondered what would become of Susan, and felt obliged to find out.

She seemed to be in tune with my thoughts. "Jake, would you like a small taste of what it's like?"

"Is that possible?"

"Sure. I don't see why not."

"A free home trial, no obligation?"

She giggled. "So to speak."

I nodded. "Let me ask you this: Were you offered this sort af thing?"

"Uh-huh."

"And you took Prime up on it, right?" She nodded.

"Was everyone asked to take a trial run?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"And did anyone besides you four take it?"

Susan chewed her lip. "You know, I don't believe anyone but us did."

I bent over, rested my elbows on my knees, and watched a circular wave propagate across the pond. Well, I had at least one piece of evidence, circumstantial though it may have been.

"He's thinking we were hooked, Suzie," Sean said.

Susan nodded solemnly. "Funny that it worked out that way. But it's not true, Jake."

After a long moment's contemplation, I said, "There's only one way to find out."

But I thought, should I risk it?

I turned and looked deep into Susan's eyes, trying to see through to some core of her that might have been hollowed out and filled with something that was not Susan at all. I searched, but saw nothing but the warmth, affection, and trust I had come to know was there.

"Take me for a ride," I told her.

She smiled and took my hand. "Let's walk," she said, rising.