Paradox Alley

29

It was Liam who picked me up and shook me awake. "Been in a punch-up, eh, Jake?" He laughed.

My head hurt like hell. I said, "Wha?"

"You all right, man?"

"Yeah," I said, leaning against the tree, holding my head. I couldn't believe it. This was the second time that I'd been knocked cold, on this planet, on this night. Good thing Liam had come along-what would Moore had done with two Jakes? That would have disrupted the cycle in a way that I didn't want at all. Good thing. But hadn't Liam just come from the bar? Hadn't he just seen me in there?

"Looks like it was a good whack on the head," Liam said. "Are you sure you're all right, Jake?"

"Yeah, just give me a minute."

Maybe they'd already taken the other Jake out into the woods on the snipe hunt, and Liam just figured I got lost and wound up here. But how to explain the different clothes? Suddenly it dawned on me.

I looked at him. He smiled back and I knew. "You're Liam of the Culmination, aren't you?"

"The same. Sean thought I could give you a hand. I chased Moore's lads away. I don't think they recognized you. It's dark back here."

I nodded. I had been lucky.

Liam chuckled. "Have you had your fill of tampering with the warp and woof of the universe?"

"Yeah. I'm leaving that warp and that woof the hell alone." He laughed. "There was no need of it. All's well, Jake. All's well."

"But you can't say how all's well."

"Not really. I couldn't give you the specifics."

I straightened up. "Well. Listen, thanks."

"Are you going home now?"

"Yeah, if I can get back. Have to drop Ragna and Oni off, though."

"You still might need help."

"I might. If we go ahead and shoot the portal to their world, they'll get back before they left. That business again. Can't have that, can we? I'm the only one who has the Pope's dispensation."

"I'll send someone, if you like," Liam said.

"Fine. Appreciate it. Good-bye, Liam."

"Good luck, Jake. Be well."

I got away from there. I felt remorse-not for wanting to kill Moore, but for not thinking. Pricking the bubble would have meant undoing Sam's good fortune, canceling his new life. Had I thought of that? No. And Carl? Disrupting the cycle would have spared him, but what about Lori? She had been an orphan here in the Outworlds. A hard life. But now she was… No. Now she was long dead, wasn't she?

I walked on through the woods, small things greeping and borking at me from every bush and weed.

I really didn't know. What about Darla? Would her fate have been different as a fugitive from the Colonial Authority? Would she have died in a shootout with the Militia, died for her cause, the dissident movement? I didn't know.

To say nothing of Susan, Sean, Roland, Liam, and Yuri. And what about you, Jake? What about the person who experienced all this, who lived inside the bubble for a brief moment or two. What would become of those memories? What would become of your love for Darla? Would the slate be wiped clean? Would the moving finger erase a line and move on?

How the hell should I know. I'm no goddamn demigod.

I did know that Darla and I were possibly the only human beings in the history of the race actually to have communicated across the chasm that separates the living from the dead. In that sense, our love was immortal.

A small voice in the forest: "Jake?"

I recognized it, but I could scarcely believe it. "Winnie?" It was she, stepping cautiously out of the shadows.

"Hello, Jake," she said in the clearest voice imaginable. Not a trace of her usual garbled enunciation.

"Hi, Winnie," I said.

"Can I walk with you?"

"Of course, honey. My, you've changed a great deal."

"I'm still me, Jake. How are you?"

"Still having problems, Winnie. Still having problems."

"I grieve for you, Jake."

Her double-thumbed hand in mine, we walked along the moonlit path.

I asked, "Tell me about the Guide Races."

"They were seeded along the Great Road to act as guides and travel companions. An individual of these races does not know himself for what he is until he reaches Home."

"I see. And you reached Home."

"With your help, Jake. Thank you very much. George thanks you, too."

"You sound like Winnie, even though I can understand you now," I said.

"But I am Winnie, Jake."

"I think so, but I think you're something more."

"That is also true." She took her hand away and stopped. "I will help you later, Jake, if you need it. I will be there."

"Thanks, Winnie."

"Good-bye, Jake."

"Good-bye, Winnie."

When I got back to the truck, Sam greeted me with a frown.

"That pink and purple spook took off after you," he said.

"Arthur?"

"Yeah, he fretted and fretted, then said he couldn't let you upset the apple cart, in so many words, so he lit out into the woods. Without a flashlight, either. Nothing I could do to stop him."

I knew exactly where he'd gone. And I didn't know if I wanted to stop him. But I took a torch and dashed back toward the Bandersnatch, hoping the warp and the woof would tolerate a little more tampering.

A half hour later I was creeping through the undergrowth, the torch doused. Familiar voices all around. I was somewhere near the 'Snatch, but I didn't know where.

I knelt under a sapling and listened. There was some thrashing off to my left.

I waited. More thrashing in the bushes.

Then I heard, "Oh! Dearie me! Goodness gracious!"

A short commotion m the undergrowth, then something big came running down the trail at me. I turned on the torch, briefly.

"Yawp!" Arthur yawped.

"Ssh!"

"Jake? Is that you? I mean, the real one. I mean-"

"Yeah, it's me. Shut up. This way."

We got away from there. When it was safe enough, turned the torch on.

"Oh, dearie me, that was horrible!" Arthur wailed. "I thought it was you, and it turns out to be your double! I knew my mistake the moment I got close to him! You left in that rag of a sweater and that tatty cap-"

"Are you kidding? This is the new look for fall."

"Oh, my. Do you think I screwed it all up? I mean, he saw me.

"Forget it. I saw you. I remember."

"Well, of course, you should remember it, but what I mean is-"

"Forget it. I have."

"You found him," Sam said, his tone implying that he maybe wished I hadn't.

"Let's blow this mudball," I said.

We drove all night and blew that mudball, which left us still in the Outworlds, where we didn't want to be, so we left by a potluck portal and used the Roadmap to find Ragna's planet. Before we shot the portal, I got back in the driver's seat-Sam had been relieving me and conjured up the Backtime Route again. As I drove, I sensed Winnie's presence in the truck. I didn't turn around to look.

We arrived in bright desert daylight.

"Is best to be playing it safely," Ragna said to me. "There is an alternate entrance to our caves which we should be using. I, for one, am not fond of meeting myself and passing the time of day withal."

"Withal?"

"So to speak. Be making a right up here, if you please, Jake."

I went off the road onto loose sand, and had some trouble until the ground firmed up. Then we hit rock and everything was fine. The alternative entrance was at the base of a sheer cliff. You could hardly see it, but Ragna picked if out. He said that he knew the route back to the main Ahgirr living areas, and I believed him. There was a problem, though. We had no idea what time frame we were in. Ragna couldn't come up with a way to find out without going up to somebody, tapping them on the shoulder, and asking the date-and that would involve the risk of paradox.

"We will stay in the lower caves for a good while, then will come up and risk."

Sam suggested we drive to the local faln and find out the date-but that might have been a risk for us. We'd had trouble the last time we'd visited one of those immense desert arcologies. No, Ragna felt more comfortable in his caves. I couldn't help, because my time traveling was purely intuitive. I had no accurate way of measuring how far forward in time we'd gone. The slippage factor involved, if memory served, was only a matter of a month or so. We'd left Talltree a few days after our troubles there, spent a day or so traveling, then had come here and stayed five weeks. It turned out that I still needed some practice driving the Backtime Route.

Sam stayed in the truck with the recuperating John while Arthur and I entered the caverns with our Ahgirr friends, carrying what supplies and equipment we could. We walked for kilometers, it seemed, but it was pleasant. The caves were cool and quiet, and as beautiful as I remembered them to be. Susan and I had spent some pleasant times in this subterranean world.

Susan. I missed her sorely.

Ragna chose a charming little grotto near one of the underground streams that flowed through these caverns. We set up camp. There wasn't much to do, but there were two army cots to put together-they came in the box disassembled. (They must have belonged to Sean and Liam, as those two had taken along just about all their worldly possessions. They'd cleaned out the farm. The trailer was still full of their junk.) After I got them put together, I noticed that Arthur wasn't around.

"The creature is going off in that general direction," Oni said. "But it is not taking a light with it."

"It's really a robot, not a creature," I told her. "He can probably see in the dark pretty well. I wonder why he took off." I scratched-my head. "Oh, well. Ragna? What about these emergency food stores you were telling me about?"

"They are being hidden in various parts of caves. Is old custom among Ahgirr in case cave is invaded by unfriendly sorts-retreat and survive."

"Oh. And you know where these stores are?"

"Assuredly."

"Good. Well, I hope you'll be comfortable here."

"We will be jim-dandy, and we will be thanking you."

I laughed and took Ragna's smooth-skinned hand. I had come to know and love these aliens, and I would miss them, too.

We hard a squawk. Turning, I saw Arthur rushing out of the darkness. He looked flustered.

"I don't believe it happened again!" he shouted.

"What?" I said.

"You're here. You. Again, it happened. He saw me."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "I remember that, too."

"Well, for pity's sake, this is getting ridiculous."

"Why did you go wandering off like that?"

"Just wanted to explore. This is the first vacation I've had in six million years. I'm loving this little jaunt, and I wanted to see the sights."

"Well, you saw another ghost. Consider yourself lucky. Hard to book a tour with those on the itinerary."

Ragna and Oni accompanied us back to the entrance. They now knew exactly how long they would have to lay low. When they finally showed themselves, they would have some explaining to do, though.

"Everyone will be listening politely," Ragna said, "then will be thinking, Ragna has finally attained craziness. But Oni and I will be writing our memoirs and be selling them to publishers for big bucks."

We said our good-byes. They cried, I got a little dampeyed.

What could be more human?