Paradox Alley

6

The dreams came that night.

Our rooms seemed to be a full kilometer from the dining hall, or maybe our "butler" didn't use any of those spatiotemporal shortcuts Prime had talked about. It turned out that the distance wasn't quite that much; it seemed like a long way, though, what with all the twisting and turning. We saw nothing new en route, just more gizmos and gadgets lying about.

The rooms were something. There were six of them-six main ones, anyway. They were spacious, with alcoves and walk-in closets adjoining each. The major spaces communicated by means of wide L-shaped passageways. There were no doors except those to the six bathrooms. The fixtures in these were strange but usable. What was remarkable was how the place was furnished.

"Look at this bed!" Susan squealed.

It was circular and big enough to park the rig on. Mounds of fancy cushions covered it. Overhead hung a tent-like canopy, and a translucent fabric screen ran around it.

"You could have an orgy in here," Susan said. "What do you say, gang?"

"You go first," Darla told her.

There were other beds, most not as large, but big enough, three to each room, along with smaller daybeds, couches, recliners, and other things you could rack out in. More than enough for everybody. There were tables, chairs, settees, ottomans, and other pieces, everything executed with exquisite craftsmanship. The place was lavish. There were imaginative lamps, painted screens, inlaid tables, tapestries, intricately woven rugs, and shelves of objets d'art. Nothing in any of the rooms was done in a recognizable style. Some things were faintly oriental, others functionally modern. A few looked positively antique. All were tasteful and seemed to complement one another. The shiny black floor and the lucent green glass walls made the place absolutely striking. A showcase.

"Nice," Lori said after touring the suite.

"I wonder if all this was here," Liam said, "or Prime had his lads bring it up from the cellar."

"Had it manufactured special," Sean ventured. Then he yawned, scratching his unruly red beard. "Mother of God! I could sleep for a week. After all that time in the truck…" He lowered himself onto a purple velvet chaise longue and plumped a pillow. He sighed and smiled, then keeled over.

He was right. Those beds looked inviting. Too inviting, maybe. But what else was there to do? We had some time to kill.

"Okay, children," I said. "Nap time. I'll stay up, then. Carl? How about you taking second watch?"

"Yeah," he said through a yawn. "Sure."

I caught it, and yawned, too. "Jeez, everybody stop doing that. I'll never stay up."

Ten minutes later, after everyone had had a chance to go to the head, they were all conked out and I was left stalking the suite like a ghost. I considered the possibility that the food had been drugged. But I had probably eaten more than anyone, and though I was tired as hell, I wasn't on the verge of passing out. I felt capable of staying up as long as I needed to. As long as I didn't lie down.

There wasn't much to do: Hanging in one of the rooms was a landscape painting, done with watery colors in an impressionistic style. I spent a few minutes examining it. It had been done on a hard oval board with no frame. The scene was of a pleasant, semi-arid planet, stunted trees fringing on a low hill to the right, jagged rocks up on a high ridge on the other side, a rock-strewn dry streambed meandering through the middle. A heavily cratered half-moon, far bigger than most I'd seen, looked over the hill in a hazy, dark-pink sky. I speculated as to where and when this planet existed or had existed. Inhabitants? No signs.

I don't know at what point I realized that this wasn't a painting. The more I looked at it, the more real it became. Edges got gradually sharper, detail came into focus. This was

a photograph of some kind. Perhaps. Something different, maybe.

The scene reminded me of a place I knew, certain areas of a planet called Osiris, I forget the catalogue number. The moon was a little too big, though. But Osiris has a pink sky. I remember eating lunch one day on Osiris. I'd pulled off the Skyway and had opened the hatches, letting in warm, dry air. Pleasant smells, quiet. I'd come by way of an ice world, and the sudden shift in climate was soothing. I've always liked that aspect of the road. Radical contrasts, abrupt changes. Yes, the place did look a lot like Osiris. Those rocks should be a little more on the beige side, though. Yeah, like that. And the trees were a little different. Make them a little taller and color the foliage russet-there we go. Come to think of it, Osiris's moon is pretty big at that, but smoother. Not as many craters-make it look more like a baked potato with acne scars, that's it. And

I jumped when I realized what was happening. There was the surface of Osiris-beige rocks, russet trees, potato moon. I had changed the painting.

I walked away. Or the painting had been reading my mind. Yuck. I don't like things that hang on walls and read my mind. Don't like it at all. Call me stodgy and conventional.

I meandered on. There were other things to look at, other pictures on the wall, but I was spooked a little. I did stop to examine some pottery. The stuff could have come from anywhere. From Earth even. It had a vaguely American Indian feel to it-but I'm no expert, and really couldn't tell for sure.

The gang had all zonked out in one of the big rooms. George and Winnie were rolled up into a ball; Carl and Lori, too. Susan and Darla had stretched out side by side on the circus-tent bed, with long, skinny John prone and perpendicular to them, the three of them forming the Greek letter pi. Roland had curled up on a divan. Yuri and Zoya occupied separate day beds. Those two were not a pair. I wondered how long they'd been married. Must've been sheer hell. But then, their long, desperate journey must- have put a considerable strain on things. Even so, I half regretted having picked them up. Sometimes their bickering got to me.

I checked them all, looking for signs of drugged sleep, and didn't suspect anything. I found out how to douse some of the lamps. Each was different, none seemed to work by electricity. I left one glowing-it was a goose-necked thing with a bright painted-paper shade-and walked out of the room, nearly tripping over Liam's leg sticking out over the edge of a low couch.

There wasn't much else to do. There wasn't any reading matter about, or none that I recognized as such. I hadn't thought to bring a deck of cards.

Somehow I found myself in a room I hadn't seen before, and this one had a terrace and a view.

And what a view.

Here was Microcosmos at sunset spread out magnificently to world-rim, kilometer after kilometer of it in swatches of varying color and texture. The sky was blue ink to the "east," an explosion of orange and fleshy red in the "west," sun-disk just now slipping below the infinite horizon, moving very quickly. I watched as night fell faster than it could on any other world. It was like a door slamming shut. The sun slid under the flat plane of the world, and bang, it was night. The stars came on like beacons, wheeling in their crystal spheres. The land was dark. No. Here and there a stray light. Inhabitants? Automated lighting? No telling. I watched the heavens turn for a while, thinking.

I yawned. This was going to be rough. I really needed to stretch out and get eight hours.

A night chill began to seep into my joints, and I walked back inside, noticing a slight but abrupt temperature shift as I did so. The room was still warm. Must be some sort of barrier to keep out the cold. There was no apparent way to seal the room from the outside.

Ten minutes later I realized that I was lost, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me how that had happened. I couldn't find our suite. I ran through a series of sparsely and oddly furnished rooms, then came to an area occupied by more artifacts. I called out. No answer. I hadn't gone up or down stairs, I still had to be on the same floor. I ran around, and all I did was get more disoriented.

I found a room with a lone bed in it. It was little more than a spongy mattress raised a few centimeters off the floor. I sat on it and crossed my legs. How had I gotten so lost so quickly? Well, Prime had warned us. What was I going to do?

Prime had said he would call on us in three hours. How much time had passed? He'd be around sooner or later. Maybe.

I was a little worried. But there was nothing to be done. We were at Prime's mercy, if he wished us ill. Remote possibility that Moore and his men were about. But they'd probably be as lost as I was if they were stumbling around the castle. If they were here, Prime had them quartered somewhere. They'd probably stay put.

No. There was nothing to do but lie down. The room was bare and dark, stray light leaking from the hallway. Silence. An alien, whispering silence. I could hear my heart beat, feel blood pounding through me. A sense of being unimaginably fat away from home overcame me. How long had I been away? A few months, actually. It felt like eons.

God, I was tired. Yes, we've established that. Go to sleep.

The dreaming began… It was like this:

There were dark suns and burnt-out suns, suns that had collapsed, exhausted, after eons of fierce life. The universe was old, dying. It was cold between the cinders and cold between the still-burning stars. The warm dust clouds that had once given birth to new suns had long ago spawned the last of their progeny. The galaxies were far apart now, still flying outward from the ancient burst of energy that had sent them on their way. Still gradually slowing down from that initial impetus, they would never completely stop. Time would never really have a stop. Time would go on until it simply didn't matter any longer.

The universe wheezed and sighed. It was growing old. The heat-death was upon it, and there was no hope.

On a planet of a sun that had shriveled to a cold white pinpoint in the sky-a planet that was a construct composed of the reprocessed material of most of what had been its solar system-a meeting took place. The date had been set four thousand years in advance. The meeting commenced on time.

It was contended that something should be done to give a rounded graceful finish to the grand story, the Universal Drama. Surely it was not in accord with esthetic principles to let the tale simply peter out. There was a need for a proper ending. What had all the struggle been for? To what purpose? Why had a thousand billion races evolved, developed, matured, withered, and died. For what end?

There was this reply: Why can it not end as it surely willby itself, when there is no more to tell, at its proper time? The rejoinder: There is no more to tell, yet it has not ended. The universe is exhausted, and hobbles on its useless way to oblivion. There is no race living that lacks the will to continue the quest. It is commonly accepted that everything that can be done, and is worth doing, has been done, that everything knowable and worth knowing is already known. Came this riposte: But those deeds and truths are ends in themselves. You spoke of the achievements of many races…. One day those achievements will be dust. The very particles of which that dust is composed will decay, fly apart into random noise…

And so? There will be no one about to mourn….

It need not be so. There exists a possibility that something new may be achieved, something totally revolutionary. There is the potential that this thing will survive even the death of the physical universe….

Can this be?

Yes. It is possible.

We will take your word for it. Granted that it is a possibility, there is no need for it. Again, we wish to speak of the attainments of past epochs. Look:

Towers of transparent metal so high that spacecraft docked at their tops, once, billions of years ago… the Crystal Towers of Zydokzind still stand…

So, too, stand the Works of the race with the name that means Shining Consequence. None know what these Works are or what they mean, but they populate a vast black plain and are as various as they are beautiful. Some are structures, some are mechanisms, some are the remnants of acts or events. Most are indescribable. The Works must be seen and felt and experienced. Many have traveled to the planet of the Shining Consequence to do these things…

Immediately after the first singing of the Great Glad Song of the race of the Dreaming Sea of Ninn, the song was repeated, note-for-note, by the poet's nearest neighbor, who thought it the most beautiful thing ever heard. The song was taken up by another, and was passed along from individual to individual around the planet. The Great Glad Song was sung continuously for thirteen million years, each generation learning it, passing it on, never allowing a lapse in the chain of perpetual repetition. The last survivor of the race died singing it. Hear it now…

In a globular cluster of a galaxy called Wafer there exists a religion which undergoes constant theological transformation. The pantheon of gods constantly shifts; old deities are deposed and new ones installed on an almost daily basis. The body of canonical dogma is vast and complex. The rituals and ceremonies which this religion prescribes are beautiful and compelling. There are only fourteen living adherents to this religion. Their faith is adamantine. There never have been more than thirty-six practitioners living at any one time in this sect's 400,000-year history…

There was once a race that spent most of its resources in devising a means by which a star may be moved. This they learned how to do, and did. They rearranged some of the constellations seen from their home planet. How this was done is unknown. The motive was not religious or superstitious in nature, but derived chiefly from esthetic concerns…

Enough. There is more.

We understand. But there must be further growth and development.

Granted that this is necessary, what exactly do you propose?

We propose the creation of a new kind of conscious entity. There already exists the physical instrumentality needed in order to bring it into being. We need but the willing participation of enough individuals.

What will be the nature of this proposed entity? We cannot know that until it is brought into being. What purpose will it serve?

Whatever purpose it chooses, discovers, or invents. We understand the essence of the idea. We will assist. So quickly?

The thing is too dangerous to leave to those who are enthusiastic to do it.

Then we are agreed. We shall begin at once…

* * *

A starburst of light grew in the darkness.

I bolted to a sitting position, awake, fragments of the dream clinging to my consciousness. An eddy of force then carried the remnants away, and I was fully awake.

The white starburst did not disappear, and kept growing. Light filled the chamber, the star formation reflected deep within the four walls.

There was a flash. Something materialized in the air about a meter off the floor-a figure. I squinted, shielding my eyes. "On your knees, mortal," I heard a woman say. The voice was about three times louder than normal.

I rolled off the mattress and jumped to my,feet with gun in hand.

"On your knees! Is that not how your kind shows obeisance?"

My eyes could pick out some detail now. It was a woman dressed in white robes. Her hair was red, her skin as white as her garments. She floated amid an aura of lambent light.

"Not this mortal," I said. "Who are you?"

"Then what is your manner of making homage?"

"Who wants to know?"

"You are impertinent. Not like the others. You show a weapon."

"Sorry. I'm like that until I've had my coffee."

The lady didn't respond. I backed off a little, toward the door.

"You are afraid of me, though," she said.

"Call it wary," Isaid. "What do you want?"

"I wish you no harm."

"Fine with me."

I could see her better now. Small white feet, the toenails painted bright green, dangled from beneath the hem of her robe. Her eyes were watery gray. She kept her arms to her side, one hand angled on her slender hip, the other holding something that looked familiar-a small gray cylindrical object.

"You are the leader of your tribe," she told me, then waited for a response.

It wasn't a question, but I answered, "That's pretty much the wrong word. Expedition would be more like it."

"Of course. Your journey has been a long one. You have come far, seeking."

"Lady, I'm not seeking a blessed thing. I never wanted to make this trip. We're here because we were brought here."

"Yes. Your case is special. You carry the Origin Experiment."

"What's that, if I may ask?"

"A black cubical object. Do you have it?"

"Uh… not on me."

"Can you get it quickly?"

"Not very quickly."

She seemed disappointed. "I desire to possess it. You will give it to me."

"I will?"

"You will. I will give you something in return. This." She held up the cylindrical object.

"What is it?" I asked.

"That which you seek. The key to the road you call the Skyway."

"Lady, that's the last thing I want."

She was silent a moment, regarding me. "I find that difficult to believe. The others want it very badly."

"What others?"

"Those others of your kind who came here. They are your enemies, are they not?"

"Yes, they are." I saw no use in denying it.

"You wish to see them obtain this thing?"

I considered it, and decided I really didn't know what to think about that. "Not especially."

"Then take it."

The object floated out of her hand and drifted toward me. I reached and grabbed it. It was ordinary-looking computer pipette, a conventional data recording and storage device.

"I thought you wanted the Black Cube," I said.

"I do. You will give it to me. I give you this thing as a token of good faith. I-"

Something seemed to disturb the air. The woman's image flickered.

"I must leave," she said. "I will tell you this. Do not listen to the being who calls himself Prime. He is… misguided. His plans for you will come to no good."

The image wavered again, blurred and grew dim, then brightened and sharpened again., But, I thought, it can't be just an image, unless the pipette in my hand was an image, too. It felt real enough.

"I must leave you now. I have other artifacts which you may want. Other things. Believe in me and you will prosper. Farewell."

Another flash blinded me. When I could see again, the room was dark and empty, and the smell of ozone came to me. I looked at the pipette. If the White Lady could be believed, this was the Roadmap.

The real one. "Oh, hell," I said.