Paradox Alley

30

There isn't much left to tell.

Among the loose ends, there was the matter of rescuing myself from the Colonial Militia on a planet called Goliath. I remembered seeing someone who had my face standing over me in the cell, administering a shot of a drug that would bring me out of the quasihypnotic state I was in.

Here again was an opportunity to mess things up. We could simply decide not to do it. That would, theoretically, snap the whole chain of events that led up to and proceeded from the rescue… but no. I couldn't resist thrusting a hand through the glass to help my mirror twin. After all, he was in a bind, and he just might be in a position to do the same for me some day.

But there were problems. I didn't know how we could do it at all, much less do it quietly, efficiently, and without causing unwanted paradoxes. We had the means: the Reticulan dream wand, the mind control device that I'd taken from Corey Wilkes aboard the Laputa, which still lay almost forgotten in the glove box under the dashboard. It was a good guess someone had used the wand, or one like it, to knock out everyone in the Militia station.

But just how were we going to juggle all the balls?

The answer came when Arthur announced that the spacetime ship had completed its repair work.

"It's fine now. I've run some tests, and it's working very well."

We discussed the rescue operation, and Arthur had plenty of suggestions.

"Well, adapting the ship's auxiliary systems to duplicate the effects of the wand wouldn't be a problem at all," he said, "if you want to do it that way."

"That'd be swell," I said. "There're a few problems. We'll have to be in the vicinity, and we'd be vulnerable to the effect, too. The only antidote I know of is a good dose of a moderate tranquilizer-and the medicine chest is just about empty."

"Oh, that's no problem. I said we could duplicate the effects, as you've described them. That doesn't imply we have to use the same means, although they'll probably be similar. I'll just tune the beam so that it won't resonate with your particular brain scan. You'll be immune, and you can go in I there and do your duty."

"Well, that's fine I guess," I said, then snapped my fingers. "No, it isn't. Then my double will be immune, too. And history says he succumbed to the effect."

Arthur shrugged his negligible shoulders. "So, can't history give us a little break? The universe won't miss a few historical facts here and there."

"I dunno," I said, scratching my beard stubble. I was also running out of razor blades. "I really have no idea."

"Arthur," Sam said, "you must tune that gizmo to my brainpan and I'll go in and do what has to be done."

"No, Sam. It won't work. I didn't see you at the station."

"Wait a minute."

He went into the aft-cabin for a moment, then came back. He had done something to his hair, parted it differently, combed it to the side, something. I couldn't tell exactly what.

Zoya studied him, then looked at me. "You could pass for twins."

I conjured up the memory of the rescue, tried to see the mysterious face hovering above me. How could I have not recognized my father's face? Or was it that I could not bring myself, at the time, to believe it? Perhaps the explanation simply was that my recollection wasn't very clear. After all, the memory was half concealed in a hypnagogic fog, and always would be. So be it.

"What about the tranquilizer?" I said.

"We won't need it," Sam said.

I said, "Then why do you have to go in at all?"

"Oh, your double will need something to pep him up."

Arthur said. "I don't know about that dream wand gadget, but my technique is going to call for some chemical relief, if you want your double to be up and about, doing things."

And he would have things to do, to be sure. We did have one ampoule of amphetamine sulfate left. That would do nicely.

Still, there was the problem of getting there, and getting near enough to the station without causing no end of paradox problems. Arthur suggested we make the trip in the spacetime bus, and we took him up on it. I did not feel up to trying the Backtime Route again. Besides, I felt my connection with the Culmination growing ever more tenuous.

On a dusty planet with no name, Arthur unloaded the spacetime ship and inflated it. I drove the truck in, and we took off.

We had spent some time giving Arthur the most accurate temporal data we could, and with the help of the Roadmap, we were able to pinpoint the spatial coordinate exactly. Goliath was part of Ten an Maze, and the planet's star was known to Terran astronomers, albeit only as a catalogue number. It was enough; by the time we'd locked up the truck and gone to the control room, we had arrived.

"That fast?" I said in some amazement.

"Well, the ship makes all transitions-jumps-in zero time. What takes time is making successive jumps and setting up for them. However, Goliath wasn't all that far away, and I did it in one clean transition." Arthur looked proud.

I gazed at the dun-colored world turning below. It looked huge, untamable, and cruel; a big sprawling monster of a planet.

"Now I have to search for that city," Arthur said, his stubby plasticine fingers feeling the control box. "Oh, there it is." He laughed. "Well, of course. It's the only one on the planet. What's it called?"

"Maxwellville."

"A real cultural mecca, huh? Okay, here we go."

The dun-colored ball rushed to meet us, then became the vast arid world it was, its sky coloring to hazy blue, the various shades of its surface separating and becoming features, the most salient of which was a high plateau ringed by dark jagged mountains. Maxwellville sat up here in the cooler air. The surrounding plains were uninhabitable. We could attest to that-we'd nearly died out there.

We were a little hazy as to what time of day we were aiming for. As I remembered, I was interrogated sometime in the early morning, made an escape attempt, and got thrown in the jug around dawn. I spent maybe two hours in there before blacking out, and I estimated I was out for only a few minutes.

We seemed to have hit it right on the button. Goliath's fierce sun was still low in the sky. Maxwellville came into view, a raw, ugly little burg of quickie buildings and pop-up domes. It looked like any pioneer settlement. It took us a while to pinpoint the Militia station. The city was bustling with early-morning traffic, and there were a good number of pedestrians up and about at this hour. Everything would have to be done in broad daylight and in front of witnesses.

"Can the ship be seen?" I asked.

"Only if you look real hard," Arthur said. "Don't worry. Sam's going to raise a few eyebrows when I levitate him down, though."

"Can you extend the effect to cover a few blocks?"

"You mean so it will affect people outside the station?"

"Yeah, the less witnesses, the better."

"Well, sure. Any way you want to work it. But everybody is going to wonder what the hell happened."

"Let 'em wonder. I just don't want them to see anything."

"Can do, dearie."

I was ready to draw a map, from memory, of the inside of the station, but Arthur magically produced a piece of flimsy material on which was inscribed what looked like an architect's floor plan.

"The ship's probing devices don't miss much," Arthur said.

Sam familiarized himself with the layout. Then he crumpled the clothlike artifact, which had been extruded from the bottom of the control panel, and shoved it in a pocket.

"Well, I'm ready. Do I need burnt cork on my face? How 'bout I just take a bottle?"

"Wait a minute," I said. "Arthur, don't human brain scans change over time?"

"A little. Why?"

"Can't you tune the effect to exempt me but not my double?"

Arthur scowled. "Can't make it easy for me, can you? Well, I'll see."

Sam was eyeing me dubiously. "I'm going along, Sam," I told him.

"Whatever for?"

"Something tells me I should. Darla's down there."

"Okay. I guess you know what you're doing."

"Oh, sure," I said, wondering what the hell I was doing. Arthur found that he could indeed do what I had asked. We were ready.

Sam and I went out to the cargo bay and stood in front of the puckered valve that was the door. I held the communicator up and spoke into it.

"Any time, Arthur."

The door dilated. The city spread out before us, bright and busy in the morning sun. The smell of brewing coffee came to my nostrils on a fresh, cool breeze. We were about a hundred meters above the Militia station.

"We gotta jump, don't we?" I said.

"That's what the spook said."

We jumped. It was a fast trip down, and I nearly swallowed my heart. But we hit gently enough to take the impact with nothing more than a bend of the knees. I looked around. We were in the parking lot behind the station. Three pedestrians were sprawled on the near sidewalk. There were two Militiamen passed out in a parked police vehicle. Another constable had wrecked his bubble-topped interceptor into a heat pump, apparently having succumbed as he was driving into the lot.

We dashed in through the garage.

"What are you going to do?" Sam asked when we were inside.

I looked around at the blue-uniformed bodies slumped over desks, lying on the floor, collapsed in swivel chairs. "Go do it, Sam. I'll meet you here in five minutes."

I walked through the white, aseptic hallways. I knew where I was going, and didn't tarry. I had seen this movie before.

Darla was there, in Petrovsky's office. But there was something different. She was seated, her head down on the desk, her outstretched right hand seeming to reach for something in Petrovsky's left. It was Sam's key.

Details, details. Now I knew what I was here for. I took the black and orange plastic box from Petrovsky and slipped it into Darla's pocket. I lifted her head and held it in my arms.

"Hello again, darling," I said, after kissing her flushed cheek. Her eyes were open but unfocused. I looked into them, and they looked through me. Except for the briefest instant. Her lips moved almost imperceptibly. She moaned softly.

I looked at her for a while, then kissed her again. I rested her head on the desktop, trying to fashion her body into the position I had found her in, but her body seemed to have gone slack, and she wouldn't stay up. I checked my watch. I was running late, so I stretched her out on the floor in front of the desk, face down, head resting on her right arm.

"We'll meet again, darling," I said. I left. Sam was waiting for me.

"C'mon! H. G. Wells I ain't!"

We ran out into the lot. And there, standing almost where we'd landed, were two strange beings whom I knew to be members of a race called the Ryxx. It's a sort of combination whistle, chirp, and click.

"Greetings, Roadbrothers," one of them squawked through his translator box.

Sam tweeted a greeting, then said to me. "I guess Arthur's gadget doesn't work on nonhumans."

The other was holding a strange-looking weapon on us. The first looked up at the sky, its two round sad eyes searching. Finally its eyes fixed on something-the ship, presumably. I looked up and saw a shimmering in the air, nothing more.

"Superior technology," the first one said. Its fat ostrichlike body seemed to heave a sigh. "Very, very superior. We are puzzled and vexed."

"It's pretty hard to explain," Sam said. He whistled something.

The second birdlike creature said, "I am of her nest, although I am not an issue of her egg."

"Well, please convey my warmest compliments to (chirp whistle-click) for me. Tell her that the straw of my nest is always fresh for her visit, and that I hope the issue of her egg will be many and prosperous. That comes from Sam McGraw."

This seemed to impress the hell out of them.

"So, it is true," the first one said. "The many strange tales told of you and your egg. Is it true that you have the Roadmap?"

I said, "It is true. But hear me. You will never get it. No one will. I will never give it up, not to anyone in the universe. It is mine, and I will keep it."

"Hello?" came Arthur's voice from the communicator, which I held in my hand. "Hell-o-o?"

"Yeah, Arthur?"

"Um… want me to make fried chicken out of them?"

I glared at the two ungainly bird creatures. Their faces were impassive behind transparent atmospheric-assist masks. The one holding the weapon lowered his winglike arm.

"No," I said.

"Upsy daisy."

We rose into the air. On the way up, Sam said, "I've always wanted to start a religion, and God forgive me, if this keeps up, I just might:"

We tacked against the wind of time once more. The displacement was about eight months this time. We directed Arthur to a farm planet on the outskirts of Terran Maze. People I knew and trusted lived here.

Arthur landed on a deserted road, and I backed the rig out of the ship.

"Time to say good-bye," Arthur said. "It's been interesting, to say the least."

"Yeah," I said. "Thanks for everything, Art, old boy."

"Boy? You know I'm sexless. They say I'm missing a lot, but what the hell. Anyway…" He put his absurdly small hand on my shoulder. "Listen, I'm sorry you lost so much. There wasn't much I could do about it…." He seemed to drift off into thought.

"Here," I said, handing him the communicator.

"Uh, no. No. You go ahead and keep it. The ship has plenty. Keep it as a souvenir. Besides, you might want to call me someday."

I shrugged and put it in my pocket.

We watched the ship rise and become an olive drab dot in the sky. Then it was gone.

Sam slapped me on the shoulder. "Let's go see if Gil Tomasso is home. I hope his heart is strong."

Gil's heart was plenty strong, but he fainted when he saw Sam.

Our next few months weren't very busy. It was just a matter of laying low and waiting for the paradoxical crease in our universe to work itself out. Right now my double was on our farm back on Vishnu. On or about the fourth day of April, he would pick up a small shipment of astronomical equipment from an importer on Barnard's III and set off on a trip to deliver his cargo to Chandrasekhar Deep Space Observatory on a planet called Uraniborg. He would never deliver that equipment.

Actually, that was wrong. We would deliver it for him, more or less on schedule, and, we would do that when my double disappeared through a potluck portal on Seven Suns Interchange.

I had a duty to perform as soon as possible, though. I had to get rid of the cube. I still had it. (Was there a single person who coveted it now? Depends on what now means.)

Darla said that I had given the cube to a member of the Colonial Assembly by the name of Marcia Miller. She said I had simply walked into her office and plopped the cube down on the assemblywoman's desk.

I disguised myself, borrowed Gil's four-roller, got on the Skyway and drove to Einstein, the capital planet.

The Assembly Office Building was big and neoclassical and cost too much money, just like every other governmental barn in the cosmos. I strode down a carpeted, marble-walled corridor, looking at nameplates on doors. Most of the names were eastern European, a few oriental, one or two or three Anglo-Saxon.

"The Honorable Marcia B. Miller, Member of the Assembly," I read aloud, then opened the heavy blond wooden door.

There was a human receptionist, a young woman. I smiled as I stepped past her desk.

She looked up from her console and did a double take. "Kamrada? Sir? Do you have an appointment?"

"Honey, I've had an appointment for ten billion years."

"Sir, you can't go in there!"

I was through the inner door before she could extricate herself from her huge work station. I clucked at the lack of security in the place.

An annoyed Marcia Miller looked up from the screen she was reading. "Who the devil are you?"

"Does the name Daria Vance Petrovsky mean anything to you?"

Her face tightened, then slowly relaxed.

"Marcia, I'm sorry!" the receptionist wailed. "I've called Security!"

"No! No, cancel the call."

"But-"

Miller rose from her desk, still looking at me. "It's okay, Barb. Cancel the call."

Mystified, Barb retreated, closing the door.

Miller sat back down. "Of course I know of Daria Vance Petrovsky. Why shouldn't I recognize the name of the lifecompanion of a high-ranking Militia officer?"

"One who is a subversive and a fugitive from justice?"

"That is none of my-"

"Listen," I said, "I'll make this short. You'll think I'm a crank at first, but in time you'll. know I'm not. I'm Jake McGraw, and I've lived what most people dream. I've driven to the end of the Skyway and met the Roadbuilders. They gave me a map. Here it is." I drew the cube out and held it in my hand. "It's the key to the Skyway system. You'll be hearing about it, and me. Roadbuzz, road yarns, stories, rumors. They're all true. You'll hear my name spoken in bars and roadhouses. They'll say I drove into the fireball of the birthing universe, and they'll be right. It's true, and I even got a bit of a sunburn doing it. Everything they'll say about me will be true-so damn true it'll drive you crazy. And here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you this map, and I won't be doing you a favor. What you'll have to do is see that the dissident network protects Darla-Daria-at all costs. She is the key to this whole affair. Exactly how, I can't say. But you must do all in your power to protect her."

She began to lose patience, and I silenced her. "I know all about the dissident network," I went on, "and I know all about your involvement in it. Don't worry, I was told this office is debugged. It makes no difference if it isn't. I'm just a crank, right? So, forget it. Here." I dropped the cube on her desk. "Happy birthday, honey."

And then I left. The security guard at the front entrance smiled at me on my way out.

It was a pleasant few months. Gil Tomasso was a gracious host, and then Red Shaunnessey offered to put us up, so we drove over there. Sam and I passed the time repairing the trailer. John recuperated from his burns, and Zoya fell in love with Sam. It was inevitable, I thought. I remembered how well they had hit it off thirty years ago.

But eventually it became time to perform another duty, one I both dreaded and craved.

The trailer was fixed. I climbed in, and Sam saw me off.

"Do you know where?" he asked. "Exactly?"

"No, but there are only a few places on the starslab where hikers can hope to get a ride."

"True. Well, good luck."

"There's no such thing, Sam."

I found her on a planet called Monteleone. She was standing in front of a Stop-N-Shop on the Colonial highway, looking very pickupable. She was wearing her silver Allclyme survival suit and stood with her backpack parked at her feet.

She was beautiful, young, thin, unpregnant, and I was a total stranger to her.

I slid back the port. "You look like you're going somewhere," I said.

But she knew who I was. In fact, she was here for the specific purpose of getting picked up by me. I had acquired a shadow two days back, a blue-seater driven by a dark-haired young man. One of Darla's dissident comrades, probably. The dissidents were probably very confused by now, because they were getting conflicting reports that made it look as though I could be in two places at one time. They were also following my double. But I made it easier to follow me. And so I had swung by this Stop-N-Shop a few times over the past few days. And sure enough…

"Matter of fact, I am," Darla said, picking up her pack. "Are you going where I'm going?"

"Where is that?"

"To the other side of T-Maze. Here, there… everywhere." She smiled, and my heart melted.

"Sure. Hop aboard."

There was nothing strange about it. It was something I had to do. I had to meet Darla, for we had never been properly introduced. And she had to fall in love with me, because she said that she had, once, a long time ago, but I never remembered it, because I wasn't around at the time. It makes sense to me.

We drove around, not aimlessly, just unhurriedly. We toured Hydran Maze, then came back, spent some time on a park planet, camping out in the trailer.

Darla met "Sam" for the first time. "Sam" was the result of my dad's fiddling with the Wang A.I. He tuned up its personality programming and gave it a voice that pretty much could pass for Sam's former computer voice (which never sounded like Sam himself). It was a pretty good approximation-it spooked me. Mostly, the computer kept quiet.

We fell in love. I don't know where we were when we first made love. "Sam" was driving. You ought to try this sometime.

There was one planet… it was green, and it looked like Earth (but not really; they never do), and the sky was scrubbed so squeaky clean that sunlight just slid right down it, spilling into the clearing of a forest of quasioaks and maybe-maples and making the fuzzy seedpods on the tops of tall weeds look like a cloud of ectoplasm at the tip of a magic wand-or halos on angels-steeping the grass and trees and Darla and me and our love in the light of a faraway star, a warmth and a power that has lasted five billion years and will last five billion more. It was a nice place to eat a picnic lunch. And there were motels-cheap ones (I was just about broke), the kind that have the state-of-the-art entertainment gear and beds that squeak and smell of mildew and faintly, ever so faintly, of urine. And have bad water. And a broken ice machine. And a robot desk clerk that nearly pokes your eye out when it hands you the lock pipette. If I had a nickel for every one of those I've stayed in, I could go back to 1964 and spend them. But we made do, and made love. Mostly we kept to the truck, and kept on the road.

Soon, the time drew near to when we would part. She said nothing about it, but I knew. Her mission was not to fall in love with me, but gather information. Roadmap? Cube? Find out. On at least two occasions I heard her rummage through the cab and aft-cabin as I feigned sleep in the bunk. She asked "Sam" leading questions when I was supposedly out of earshot. She did her best, but got nothing. She would have to duck out, her mission a failure. But she would be back for a second try, that I knew. However, next time "I" would not be here.

Last chance, Jake, a voice said. (The divvil's, as Sean would say.) Last chance to smash the bubble. Take her, tell her, even if she doesn't believe. Point the rig toward the nearest potluck portal and put the pedal to the metal. Exit hero with heroine.

But I couldn't. Because, somewhere out there, there was a kid in a 'S7 Chevy who was lost and needed to get home. Because somewhere in the Outworids there was an orphan girl who worked for coolie wages on a strange ferryboat and who would fall in love with the kid in the Chevy. Because Sam was right now lying in bed with a beautiful woman who loved him, and you can't do that sort of thing when you're merely coughing up a little blood, much less when you're dead, which is what Sam used to be, but isn't now… and because if I did, the whole damn universe just might blow a converter manifold and wind up having to be towed home. And somewhere, somewhere, there were five gods who used to be human beings. What would they have to say about upsetting the whole apple cart? Bolts from Olympus I could do without.

But mainly I didn't because I had faith. Where I got it, I don't know. Faith in… what? I don't know. I think it was just an unspoken certainty that the universe has a purpose, despite all the reasons for insisting that it can't, and that this purpose is a good one. It was absolutely absurd of me to think that.

I didn't know exactly when she would leave. So I couldn't linger in a last kiss, a last embrace, couldn't know when such was happening. And I didn't know until one morning I got up and she wasn't there. Her pack was gone.

And so was Darla, gone for the last time.

Sam must have done more than he knew, because the computer kept saying "There, there, son." It said it over and over as I cried.

At last, we could go home. There were still a few loose ends, though. Gil Tomasso and his driving partner, Su-Gin Chang, would be at Sonny's Restaurant on Epsilon Eridani I to back my double up in the confrontation with Corey Wilkes. (God, Corey; you never die!) So would Red Shaunnessey. That would take care of… that.

Before we went to Vishnu, we delivered our load to Chandrasekhar Observatory. We were only a day late.

There was a problem with — John. He was fine physically, but emotionally he was foundering in deep water. Guilt was the obvious ballast, and he had a ton of it. Even confession didn't do him any good.

"You've known that I've been an Authority informer," he said to me in Red's kitchen before we left.

"Really?" I said.

"Yes. Of course. You knew that I reported regularly on the activities of the Teleologists."

I told him that I really didn't know that.

"I made my report to Colonel Petrovsky on Goliath, the night our camp was raided. I had to. No choice. I've never had a choice. It's my brother. Did you know he was a political prisoner?"

I told him I hadn't known that.

"Didn't you ever wonder why the Militia let us go that night?"

"Yes, I've wondered."

He stared at the plank tabletop for a full minute. "I'm a fraud, Jake."

"Because you gave into fear?"

"Because…" His face had tightened into a knot of pain. "Because I-"

"Take it easy, John. You were under no obligation to become a light of the universe."

"After a life of seeking the truth, trying to find some answer…"

"Forget it."

"And now what? The Militia will want my report! And I'll have to tell them you have the map!"

I laughed so hard I nearly choked on the sandwich I was eating.

It got to John; he laughed in spite of himself, then faded to depression again.

"You'll have to kill me," he said.

I shook my head. "John, give it up. Go home, make your report. Tell them that your group disappeared through a potluck portal on Seven Suns. That's the truth. Or tell them I have the map. It really doesn't matter, John. It never really has mattered."

It didn't help him. He rose slowly and went into his room. The next day he was gone. His clothes, his toilet kit, everything was still there. We never found him, never saw him again.

Home.

The farm was fine. After all, we had just left.

There was work to do; the fish tanks were foamy with algae, the paddies were dry, the reactor was on the fritz-everything I had been putting off for a year or so.

Sam was in disguise, so as not to terrify the neighbors. A pretty good one, too. Rumors were thick, though. The stories about us were at the peak of their circulation-but they would eventually die down. We hoped, but didn't know.

"Time to get off this mudball," Sam said, "Time to pick up and move."

"You're right, Sam," I said. I called a real estate agent the next day.

And one day I got the strangest, most miraculous letter of my life. The cover letter was from one Ernest E Blass, Esq., of the firm of Dolan, Musico, Shwartz, and Blass. It read:

Dear Mr. McGraw,

As I am informed that you are primarily an Inglo speaker, I will write this in English instead of Intersystem (which I must confess I prefer myself). The enclosed letter, addressed to you, will no doubt cause you as much bafflement as it has to us. It was discovered among the assets of a holding company which a corporate client of ours has just acquired. To trace the long history of this letter, and the long and circuitous route by which it came into our hands, and thus into yours, would be tedious and time-consuming at best. Suffice it to say that, on the face of it at least, this letter had been held along with other papers and instruments in a fiduciary trust, which itself can trace its history back at least over a hundred years. Now, Mr. McGraw, let me tell you straightaway that what I believe we have here is a hoax, pure and simple, for there is no possible way for…

Inside the manila pouch was a yellowed envelope with my name and address on it. I tore it open and saw it was a handwritten letter. It was from Carl Chapin: It was dated November 6, 2005.

And then, again in Carl's hand:

Home. We sold the farm very handily, turning a nice profit. After thirty years of sweat and strain and broken backs. So we packed up the truck and made ready to move. We would stay well away from Terran Maze for a while; maybe for good. I'm not political, but on a bad day my opinion of the Authority was about as low as it could get. Governments just don't come much more odious. Well, with any luck, the dissident movement would one day change things for the better.

But there is always hope, as I found out on the day we were to leave. Sam was out in the truck with Zoya, going over our itinerary (we were going to take a little vacation, visit a few nice spots), and I was in the farmhouse looking for things that we may have left behind. It was a nice day, and I was sort of taking my time saying good-bye to the place, when I heard, of all things, Arthur's voice coming from the cutlery drawer in the kitchen. I opened the drawer and saw an oblong piece of olive drab material. The communicator, and I had forgotten all about it.

"Jake? Come in, Jake. This is Arthur! Can you read me?"

"Arthur!" I yelled. "What the hell? Where are you?"

"Oh, good," Arthur said. "I have someone here who wants to see you, Jake. I'm hovering at about half a kilometer. That's your house down there? The tacky yellow one?'

"Get down here this instant!" I shouted.

I raced outside just in time to see the ship land.

"Darla!"

"Jake! Jake, darling!"

And again she was real in my arms, warm and real and alive. And not pregnant any more.

"You'll be wanting this," Arthur said, handing me my infant son.

I couldn't speak. Sam said, "The spitting image of somebody."

"Well, it was like this," Arthur said, "I was on my way back to Microcosmos, and I said to myself, you big idiot, here you are with a time machine-"

"The airborne bogey that was tailing us when the missile hit!" I blurted.

"Yeah, that was me. I got back a little before I left, is all. Nothing unusual. But what a mess! Darla was in bad shape, and I very nearly lost her to the cylinders! You can imagine what it's like flying near those things! Why, I almost lost the ship. Would Prime have been pissed! Anyway, so I snatch Darla up, and I streak back to the plant, and those darlings whip up a minihospital cum maternity ward in a blink of a gnat's eye, and…" Arthur slumped against the ship. "I'm pooped."

The road shot over brown sand and pink rocks, bisecting the plain and racing toward the potluck portal. The cylinders rose against the yellow sky like dark angels on judgment day, and through them lay all of eternity.

"How's our speed, Sam?"

"Don't ask me, I'm diapering a baby."

"Darla?"

"Warming this bottle, Jake. Just a minute."

"Hey, you people know I can't drive and read instruments at the same time. Zoya?"

"Thirty meters per second, Jake, and holding steady."

"Good. Can't you keep that kid quiet, Darla?"

"He takes after his father."

"And his grandfather," Zoya added.

"Son, we shoulda never allowed womenfolk aboard this vessel."

"Yeah, you're right, Sam. I've always said-" I took a better grip on the control bars. "Commit markers coming up. Everyone strap in! Now!"

Everything was right. The board was green. This was going to be the longest trip, and the best. The markers shot past. I looked back to see that everyone was strapped in tightly, even the baby, Samuel Jacob, in his little crash seat.

We shot into the portal, and the gates of eternity opened….