Paradox Alley

9

There wasn't much else to do in the truck. I checked for vandalism, booby traps, and general damage. Nothing on all counts, Meanwhile, Carl and Lori had gone back to inspect the trailer, and before long we heard a blood-curdling yell. I dashed to the access tube and scurried through, Darla following. I somersaulted into the trailer.

"They took my car!" Carl was standing in an empty area of deck. Yesterday afternoon his 1957 Chevrolet Impala had been parked there. "It's Prime. I'm gonna kill him."

"No, you're not," I told him. "You'd like to, and so would I, but we can't. So, forget it. What we can do is confront him. I intend to do just that, so hold on until lunch."

Carl exhaled. "Shit."

"Don't worry."

He was suddenly very glum. "Maybe he'll give Sam back, but I can kiss that car good-bye. Whatever it was for, the job's done. It's not needed anymore. I'm not needed anymore."

"That means you can go home."

Carl sighed. "Yeah." Then a flash of indignation. "But they owe me a car!"

"Good luck."

Carl moped back to the access tube, crawled in and went through.

Darla was looking around the place. She clucked. "This is a mess. It smells in here."

She was right. I kicked an apple core away, bent and picked up a half-eaten chocolate bar. "Goddamn filthy tenants," I muttered. "I oughta raise the rent."

"Lori," Darla called, "there's a broom behind that junk over there, I think."

"Let's all pitch in," I said.

"No, Lori and I will handle it. You make sure this truck is Skyway-worthy. I want to get the hell out of this place."

"Me, too. But what about the others?"

Darla sneered. "They can stay here and become gods if they want to, the whole lot of them. I'm for leaving right now. Prime said he'd see that they got home. They can take their chances. We'll take ours."

"Don't you have any aspirations to superbeinghood?"

Her mouth curled into disgust. "Fuck."

I nodded. It was the first time I'd heard Darla use the word.

"Yesterday, you seemed to think our destiny was here."

She shrugged. "I guess I did. A lot can change in a day. And a night." Suddenly she threw her arms about me, her eyes wide and pleading. "Jake, I think our destiny is to get back. Let's go, take off. Just us. There must be a way back from this place."

"Where? How?"

"I don't know." She cast about in her mind for something. Her eyes lit up. "The Bugs! Where did they go? They headed toward Emerald City. We haven't seen them here-"

"This is a big place."

"But there might be a Skyway route back from here. There has to be."

"We didn't see a portal anywhere on the planet," I reminded her.

She chewed her lip. Then something hit her. "The other side!"

"The other…?" Then I got it. From space, we had only seen one face of the world-disk. "Yeah, maybe."

"Oh, Jake, let's do it. I want to get back on the road. You and me, Jake. I want that." She drew close, resting her head on my shoulder, and I held her.

"We can't just leave them, Darla."

"If they don't want to go, if they're going to stay here and get involved in things we can't begin to comprehend, why can't-" She took a breath, and lifted her head. "Is it Susan?"

"Huh? No, no, it's not just Susan. I couldn't just up and leave any of them stranded. I'm partly responsible for their being here."

"No, you're not, Jake. I am. I'm responsible for the whole thing."

"Enough of that. Look at me. I promise you that we'll get home. Do you believe me?"

"Yes, Jake. Yes, darling!"

She kissed me, then said, "I'm going to have your baby… I want it to be someplace normal, in a farm hut on some backwater planet, in a dingy motel room-anywhere! — anyplace that's not strange and frightening and totally alien." She buried her face in my jacket. "Oh, Jake, I don't have anything against anybody. Really, I don't. Susan can come with us, or any of them, I don't care. It's just that I'm so tired, darling. So very tired. I want to stop running. I want to go home."

"So do I, honey, so do I. But we've got a long road, ahead of us, and it might be a little while before we leave. Can you hang on?"

She knuckled her eyes dry, sniffling. "Sure."

I looked around. Lori was gathering some trash together behind Sean and Liam's battered magenta roadster. She had been trying not to eavesdrop, but was aware of my looking at her.

She grinned at me. "Place sure is a sty."

I gave her a wink. "Oink, oink." She laughed. Darla stooped to pick up some food wrappings. "Sure. you don't need a hand?" I asked.

"You men folk'll just be in the way," Darla said, smiling. "Seriously, I really want this truck to be ready to leave on a moment's notice. I'll feel much better knowing that."

"Yeah," I said.

"We'll get him back, Jake. Sam will be back."

I remembered the White Lady's pipette. "Speaking of finding a way back…"

Darla looked puzzled.

"Got something I want to check out," I said, and left her staring at at my back as I jogged to the access tube.

Carl was slumped in the shotgun seat, staring moodily out the port. I slid into the driver's chair.

"Buck up, kid. All is not lost." He gave an ironic snort.

I took out the pipette from a zippered pocket of my jacket and fed it into the pipette deck on the dash.

"Computer?"

"Yes?"

"Analyze this input."

"Very well. You have prohibited me from addressing you as sir. Shall I call you Mr. McGraw?"

"Call me Jake. And you're name's… Bruce. Got that?"

"Yes, Jake."

"And by the way, I'm sorry I was short with you a little while ago. Not your fault."

"Think nothing of it, Jake. It is a pleasure to be working with you."

"Thanks."

Most A.I. programs are pretty thick-skinned. No excuse for mistreating them, though.

I glanced at Carl. He looked very depressed. "Come on, kid. It'll be okay."

He exhaled slowly. "Oh, it's not that, really. I was getting tired of the damn car, anyway. It's… it's a lot of things."

"I'll bet."

"Lori," he said.

"Hm?"

"It's goofy, but. "

"What is it, Carl?"

"You know, when I first saw her, I thought she looked a lot like Debbie, but as time goes on-"

"Debbie," I said.

"Yeah, the girl who was with me the night I got kidnapped."

"Debbie! Your girlfriend. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead."

"Well…

"Were you in love with this girl?"

"I guess. We were… y'know, going steady. But it's not that. I mean, I miss her and everything, but-"

"Were you going to marry her? Engaged, maybe?"

"No, we weren't engaged. We loved each other. I mean, I really cared for her. She was… special."

"And you're starting to feel the same way about Lori?"

"Jake, you don't understand. It's none of that. I like Lori, and the reason is, she's a lot like Debbie. I mean, really a lot like her. In fact, it's giving me the creeps."

"Really? Teenage kids everywhere have a lot in common."

"Look, let me explain. When I first saw Lori, I thought, hey, she could be Debbie's little sister. The hair is different. Debbie has real dark hair, and it's long. But the face, and the voice… Jeez, the more I look at Lori, the more I think, if she dyed her hair and got about two years older… maybe not even that."

"How old was Debbie?"

"Sixteen. That's what she told me, anyway. Girls lie about their ages sometimes."

"Well, Lori can't be very much younger than that."

"Lori's skinny, too. Debbie had a few pounds on her. More rounded. You know?"

"I know exactly. Okay, so Lori could be Debbie's twin."

"Not `could be.' She is."

"You mean that literally?"

"I don't know what I mean. All I know is that it's been giving me the willies:"

"We've all got a bad case of the willies, kid." Carl shook his head slowly. "Probably a coincidence," I suggested.

"Nah," he barked, shaking his head emphatically. "Nothing about this whole crazy thing has been a coincidence."

And I knew exactly what he meant. I looked out the port. The garage was silent, cool, and alien.

Presently, it struck me that Bruce was overdue for a report. "Hey, Bruce. What's up?"

"Sorry, Jake. We have an anomaly here."

"What sort of anomaly?"

"The pipette is reading out more information than is possible for its capacity type."

"Okay. There may be a very good reason for that, which I won't go into. Is it formatted correctly?"

"Yes, it is formatted according to specifications with which our system is compatible. That is no problem."

"Okay. But there's a lot of data-is that it?"

"I have reached the limit of my available working storage space."

"Oh. Well, can you tell me what you've got so far?"

"I can, Jake. It is a map of the Skyway system."

"You recognize it as such?" I asked.

"There is no mistaking it. In layout and format it matches the maps we have available in our auxiliary storage, the maps of the Expanded Confinement Maze: There is one problem, however. None of the new map material coincides with any of the available material."

"You're saying that the new stuff shows unexplored, uncharted road?"

"Yes, Jake."

"Bingo."

"Pardon?"

"We found it."

"Yes, this would be very useful material if its authenticity and accuracy could be established."

"You're telling me," I said.

"Am I telling you? Yes, I am."

"What we have to do, then, is search the new data for congruences with the maps in storage."

"That would appear to be a potentially productive course of action."

"No doubt," I said. "Any problem in that?"

"No. I will simply erase and reload as I go. However, the job may take a good deal of realtime."

"Go to it," I told him.

"Yes, Jake."

"And Bruce? Lighten up, okay?"

"I'm sorry, Jake. Could you please phrase that differently?"

"Remind me to do some work in your basic vocabulary area."

"I'll log it now. Shall I cancel the command to `lighten up'?-which, I'm sorry to say, is not a valid command."

"Cancel." I laughed.

Carl was staring at me.

"So you finally got it," he said.

"Yeah. I got it, all right. I keep getting it, right in the seat of the pants."

"You got the Roadmap. The real one. Where did it come from?"

"A shining white goddess appeared unto me, saying, `Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, and a big pain in the butt. By the way, have a Roadmap."'

Carl nodded slowly. "Uh-huh."

"You think I'm kidding?"

"I'll believe anything."

"Then believe it. That's how it happened. Prime's not alone here. There's another force present. I figure it's a force opposing the Culmination. Or it could be another part of the Culmination, a dissenting faction, maybe. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, if I understand what the Culmination is supposed to be about, which I don't: So there you have it, whatever it is."

An hour later, Bruce was still hard at work. "A lot of data, huh?" I said.

"Yes, Jake."

"Well, keep at it."

"Yes, Jake."

While we waited, Carl and I gave the women a hand. We packed all the trash into plastic sacks, which we set out neatly on the floor of the garage. Maybe Arthur took out the garbage around here. Then we swept the place out, vacuumed, scrubbed, and generally tidied up. When the trailer was finished, we set ourselves to straightening up the cab and aftcabin, gleaning five more sacks of crap. I was surprised by the amount that had accumulated. But thirteen beings in a confined space produce quite a mess.

"Well, at least it smells a lot better," Darla said.

I sniffed. "Yeah, the dirty-sock odor is gone. I still get a whiff of our lumberjack friends, though."

Darla rolled her eyes. "Oh, those two, antiperspirant is a scarce commodity on Talltree."

"Or maybe sweat is plentiful." I sat down in seat. "Bruce, how's it coming?"

"Situation still anomalous. There is a great deal of data."

"Uh-huh."

"I've located a congruence."

Apparently the driver's

"Huh?"

"Just now. I've found a section of the Ten-an Maze."

"My God."

"Now I have all of the Terran Maze located. Yes. Yes. And here is the Expanded Confinement Maze. Reticulan Maze, Ryxx Maze, Beta Hydran Maze, and the rest of known Skyway routes."

"Now," I said, "your next job is to find Microcosmos."

"Microcosmos? Can you please define that?"

"The name of this world. You should have data on it in storage."

"Understood… searching… found. Yes, a section of Skyway is here. However, I see no indication of a portal."

"If you can find Microcosmos on the master map, there might be one indicated on the reverse face of the planet. Okay. What I want you to do is chart a route from Terran Maze to here, working backward. It won't be necessary to have a visual route layout. Just keep a tally of lefts and rights. That will be our way home."

"Understood," Bruce said. "Beginning job now."

I turned sideways and looked back at Darla, Lori, and Carl. "Well, we know a few things. For one, we know that the Skyway isn't infinite. I don't know how many gigabytes the complete map takes up, but it's a finite number."

"It has an end," Darla said. "We knew that, didn't we?"

"I think we're talking about a circle here. No beginning, no end. If your hunch is right, we can get off this platter and get back on the Skyway."

Bruce said, "Jake?"

"Yeah?"

"The new maps are a bit unusual in that they show some routes marked in a different manner from the rest. Comparing these with the data placed in storage by the previous supervisor program='

"Sam."

"Yes, that was its informal designation. Comparing these with Sam's data, I would say these are Roadbug service roads."

"Sounds like it," I told him.

"If these roads can be utilized, the route would be much more direct."

"No doubt," I said. "That's how we got here. But I don't know if we can go back that way. In fact, without Carl's car, I'm sure we can't."

"Then I will disregard them."

"Lunch, anyone?" Darla said. "I've whipped up something out of what was left of the rations."

"You're on."

We ate. The fare was a shade downscale from what Prime could offer, but somehow it felt good to have a meal in the truck again. Which was strange, since we had been on Microcosmos slightly less than twenty-four hours. My sense of time was completely out of whack. It seemed as if we'd been here a good deal longer. I thought about it, and decided it must have been the dream. The dream had spanned billions of years and unthinkable distances, and I had a lingering sense of having traversed those vast times and spaces.

Bruce finally completed his task. It had taken him two hours.

"Display the planetary layout of Microcosmos," I instructed him.

And there it was on the screen. It looked as though most of the prominent features were indicated, and I had a hunch we could depend on these maps to be accurate and comprehensive. There were other roads besides the ingress stretch of Skyway: They meandered across the terrain, some deadending near buildings and complexes, others going all the way to the rim. I searched out an efficient route to the edge of the planet.

"I wonder what you do here?" Carl asked. "Fall off the world?"

"I wonder." I eyed a thin ribbon of highway that seemed to have its start near Emerald City. "This looks interesting. But how do we get from Emerald City to the beginning of the road?"

"Beats me," Carl said.

"Okay, Bruce. Let's see the other side of the coin."

"I understand the metaphor."

Carl jumped. "Holy hell, is that a portal?"

"That's our back door." I laughed.

But it wasn't your average portal array. Bruce displayed the cylinder count: 216 of them, arranged in haphazard patterns, shot through with odd twistings of road. It looked like a connect-the-dots puzzle that an eight-eyed alien had given up an. Four major highways, converging from the points of the compass, fed into the spaghetti like mess of roads at the middle.

"This is interesting," I said. "There's almost no end to the various ways you could weave in and through there. Might mean that from here you could go almost anywhere in the Skyway system."

"But how do you know which way to zig and zag?" Lori asked, peering over my shoulder.

"Very simple," Bruce said.

"I'll bet," I scoffed. Then I shrugged. "Really?"

"Yes, Jake. Each section of the master map is numbered in binary. There is a table provided. Look-this is just a portion of it. Now, as you see, this is basically a hexadecimal core of a multidimensional, multivariable table, in which each.cylinder is given a number. Passages through and among various cylinders are given in a number sequence con gsponding to the cylinders involved. These sequences in turn correspond to the map section numbers. Now, as you can see, this is a very complex array, and processing could be hampered by core storage limitations, but by batching separate passes and by converting the data to a packed-decimal format in working storage, it should be possible to-"

"Wait a minute," I said. I couldn't make anything out of the flurry of numbers on the screen. "Are you saying that if I gave you x section of Skyway as a destination, you could tell me what combination of cylinders to shoot in order to make the jump there?"

"Yes, Jake, that is what I am saying. It would merely be a table lookup function."

I sat back and whistled. "Then that `way home' you spent two hours charting-that wasn't a way home at all. That was the way we came."

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Bruce said. "One could take that route, of course, but the transit time back to Ten-an Maze would be, assuming conventional speed averages and taking into account rest and maintenance stops, something on the order of thirty thousand Standard Years."