Red Limit Freeway

Chapter 17

"Or a garage planet," Roland went on. "One of many in a vast network servicing the whole Skyway system."

"With a web of service roads connecting them," I said. "Stands to reason."

"I wonder if this is the main garage for the Milky Way―do you think?"

"Maybe," I answered, "if we're still in the Milky Way."

Roland looked through the forward port at the sky. "No telling where we are, but if we're still in our galaxy, we may be very near the galactic nucleus."

"Let's hope not too near. A galactic-core black hole throws out a lot of hard radiation."

"If you're worried," Sam said, "the counters are absolutely silent. Not even cosmic-ray background. Either we've got equipment failure―which would contradict what I'm reading―or this planet has radiation shielding."

"Interesting," I said. "Wonder what it means?"

"Imagine a radiation shield covering a whole planet," Roland marveled. "And one that can stop high-energy particles, too." He shook his head. "But why? What needs to be protected here?"

"Maybe the fact that we're in a different region of the galaxy has something to do with it," I suggested. Then I shrugged.

"Who knows? And who cares, for that matter?" I folded my arms, snuggled into the seat and closed my eyes. "I'm going to try to catch a wink or two."

"You do that," Sam said cheerily. "Nothing to eyeball out there anyway. Best to let me handle it."

So I did for about the next ten minutes. I didn't sleep, though. The matter of what happened to the Green Balloon reasserted itself, and I realized something. The technology of Carl's automobile was at least equal to if not greater than the technology of the Roadbuilders. This was nothing less than a revelation. Such a state of affairs was unprecedented in the known sections of the Skyway. The technological achievements of the Roadbuilders were generally thought to be unequalled in the universe. No one had any hard evidence in support of the notion, but there was an intuitive feel of truth to it. The portals were impossible constructs, yet they existed. It was difficult to conceive that the race who had created them had not had mastery of the basic forces of the universe.

Fact: Cruising along behind us was an artifact, a machine, which had neutralized a Roadbuilder security mechanism.

Fact: The owner, or supposed owner, of this artifact was a twenty-year-old human being who claimed to have been born on Earth over one hundred and fifty years ago, and who also claimed to have been shanghaied by some sort of time-traveling extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Fact: The artifact was in the form of an antiquated vehicle, specifically that of a 1957 Chevrolet Impala (!).

Supposition: The occupants of the extraterrestrial spacecraft had built the artifact according to its present owner's specifications and quite possibly at his behest. (Carl had said only that "aliens" had built his automobile, but based on what Carl had implied, the inference that his captors had built it for him was easy enough to draw, unless I was misremembering.)

Item: Carl talked, acted, and appeared to be who and what he said he was: an American of the twentieth century displaced in time and space. (Not a fact, but a series of observations.)

Hypothesis: Carl was kidnapped by the Roadbuilders.

But to what end? Insufficient data.

Hypothesis: Carl was abducted by beings who had no direct access to the Skyway and who had developed interstellar space travel.

Why? To check out the Skyway.

Why did they bag Carl? They needed a spy.

Huh?

This was getting me nowhere. Obviously a long talk with Carl was in order. Until then…

Something out there against the star-field… black shapes outlined in glowing gas…

Sam swung us hard to starboard before I could grab back the controls.

"You saw it too, huh?"

"Yeah! Jesus."

We had been approaching the portal array from the side. You ought not to do that sort of thing.

"Well," I said, "we're off the beaten path, if there is one."

"Now we know that Roadbugs don't need roads," Roland commented.

"Here's a question," Sam said. "How are we going to shoot a portal without a straight road for an approach path, a guide lane, commit markers, and the rest of it, when we can't even see the cylinders?"

"Carl's instruments can probably handle it," I said. "I hope. Let's ask him."

I got on the horn and did.

"No problem," Carl said confidently. "This car has ways of detecting cylinders nobody else has."

The cylinders are tricky things to read. They suck up just about everything in the way of electromagnetic radiation and emit almost nothing that can be picked up without sensitive laboratory equipment. This side of the commit point, however, you can register small tidal stresses that can give you a fairly good idea of how to approach the portal. Personally, I don't trust most commercial instrumentation. I have relied on instruments when weather conditions have dictated it, but in those instances the orientation signals from the commit markers had made things fairly easy. Here, there were no commit markers. I had never negotiated a portal on cylinder-scanning instruments alone.

We sailed on into the starlit night for a while, discussing the ramifications of Carl's automobile's astonishing capabilities. Roland and John agreed that the car's technology had to be a match for the Roadbuilders'.

"But who could the manufacturers have been?" John said. "Some race in the Expanded Maze? The Ryxx, perhaps?"

"The Ryxx have starships," I said, "but rumor has it that they're fusion-powered sub-lightspeed crafts."

"That would explain the time-traveling aspect of Carl's story," Roland said, "but if the Ryxx are limited to sub-lightspeed technology, they couldn't have built Carl's buggy."

"I would tend to think not, but there's no way of knowing. Maybe faster-than-light travel is impossible, just like Einstein said. From what I know of recent work in theoretical physics, Relativity's been taking quite a beating, but no one's been able to deliver a knockout blow yet."

"Well, 'beating' may not be the appropriate word," Roland said. "Most of the last century has been spent trying to reconcile Relativity with twistor theory and other such things.

Actually―"

"HANG ON!" Sam yelled.

The rig veered sharply to the left, the G-forces nearly snapping my neck. Just as we were straightening out, a black shape shot across our bow, visible for the barest fraction of a second before it vanished into the half-light.

"What the hell was that?" I asked after my heart had resumed beating.

"A Roadbug," Sam told me. "Doing around Mach three. Never seen one go quite that fast."

"Where the hell was he going? Holy smokes, that was close!"

"I don't know where he was going, but I do know he's turning to come after us."

"Step on it, Sam."

"Will do."

"Jake, what was that thing?" It was Carl.

I checked the rearview screen and saw three pairs of headlights maneuvering back into formation. "Sorry about the sudden course change, folks, but we almost got creamed by a Roadbug."

"Guess he wonders what the heck we're doing here," Carl said.

"Very likely," I answered. "I don't think we can outrun him. Maybe we should stop and tell him we're lost, act innocent."

"Could he know about what we did to the barrier? I suppose not, huh?"

"Don't see how, but I'm a little nervous about what he'll do in any event."

"Me, too. He could just decide to zap us."

"Eventually, maybe, but he'll conduct a quickie trial first―ask us how we got here."

"What'll we say? Best get our stories coordinated."

"We'll just say, 'What barrier? We didn't see any barrier!' or words to that effect. In fact, let's not say anything except that we're lost and we had no idea this was a forbidden zone. Got it? Sean, Yuri―are you listening?"

They were.

"Is the Roadbug listening?" Sean asked pointedly.

"Oh, God, who knows what they can do," I said. "I've never heard one speak English, which means nothing. But I'm fairly sure even they can't decipher cross-band frequency-shift scrambling based on random number generation unless they have the reassemble code."

"Makes sense."

"Should we pull over then?" Carl asked. "He's completed his turn… vectoring in on us now."

"I don't see what choice we have," I said. "Except… well…"

"I could sic a Green Balloon on him."

"The thought had occurred to me. Matter of fact, let's do it."

"What about the risk of retaliation?" Sean said, sounding worried. I didn't blame him one bit.

"Sean," I answered, "I'm the only person I know who's had the monumental stupidity to fire on a Skyway Patrol vehicle. Did it quite recently, it so happens. There was no retaliation. They don't have human motivations. Now, I'm not saying I can predict what this one's going to do, but odds are he won't smear us for taking a potshot at him. Besides, those balloons look so damned innocuous, he might not even recognize it as a weapon―unless it has an effect on him, in which case we can get away. Sound logical?"

"Logical or not," Carl said, "here goes. I'm going to drop 'way back so you guys don't catch it."

The rearview screen showed another translucent green egg disgorging itself from the roof of Carl's buggy. It drifted up and went off screen.

My eyes were beginning to adjust to the strange half-light and the even stranger surroundings. I could see the tops of cylinders blotting out the star-daubed sky on the horizon. They seemed to be everywhere, but none in proximity except the one we had dodged a moment ago. The surface under us continued in featureless uniformity. It was hard to focus on, but the more I looked at it the more it looked metallic and artificial. The whole place looked like an immense video studio, darkened and bare, surrounded with a painted cyclorama. The floor glowed an eerie violet-blue, like a white surface under ultraviolet light.

The rear scanner showed a big blip approaching fast, and the readout had its speed at Mach 1.3 and decelerating. He'd be on us in twenty seconds. The balloon didn't register at all.

"Sam, give it all you got," I said.

"I'm givin' it."

Suddenly, the blip started veering off. It swooped off to our left for a few seconds, then began wobbling, its speed dropping greatly. It appeared to be disoriented, unsure.

"I think I can see him," Roland said, peering through his port out into the twilight. "He's pacing us. It's as if he can't see us. Remarkable."

From the rear came a dim greenish glow as Carl launched another balloon in the Roadbug's general direction. I took my eyes from the scanner for a moment to watch it scoot outward. Carl was about three hundred meters behind us now.

The blip drifted away from us, describing a meandering arc. Carl fired another balloon after it for good measure.

"Carl, old pal, old buddy," I said, "you have done what nobody in the known universe has ever managed to do. You told a Bug to go punk-off."

"Yeah, get lost, ya asshole!"

"Bugger off, Bug!" Sean contributed.

"Okay," I said. "I'm for getting off this cue ball immediately. Let's turn back toward that near portal and shoot the motherpunker right now. Carl, get yourself up here and take point so we… Oh hell."

Another blip was vectoring toward us from the left. No problem, really; Carl fired another balloon at it, producing almost the same effect. This Bug, however, didn't drift off. It continued to close with us, albeit slowly, effectively blocking us from turning toward the portal. By that time the first Bug was cautiously approaching again, having seemed to recover control of itself. Carl fired again to the right, but this time the first Bug dropped back suddenly, apparently waiting for the balloon to drift out of range. We continued like this for several kilometers, running as hard as we could while keeping the Bugs at a safe distance. Either the Bugs did not have long-range weapons or were not using them for some reason. More blips appeared on our screens. Word seemed to have gotten out about us. The Bugs kept pace with us, paralleling our course but keeping at a prudent distance. Occasionally one would swoop in daringly near, then scamper away.

"What do we do now?" Carl asked glumly.

"Find a portal right quick," I answered. "I get the feeling they're herding us toward something, but I don't see a portal in the direction we're heading."

"Let's change course then."

"Okay. Turn right forty-five degrees. Acknowledge."

"Right forty-five degrees, roger."

We turned and the Bugs followed us.

"Well," I said, "we're heading toward a portal at generally the right angle. Carl, you're going to have to take the lead sooner or later. We'll need your instruments to shoot the hole."

"Right. Want me to do it now?"

"If you want… Hey!"

A blinding white fireball erupted from the surface ahead and a few degrees to the right. Sam turned sharply, dodging its expanding edge and bringing us back to our original heading. There was no concussion and the explosion had caused us no damage so far as we could tell.

"That was a warning shot across our bow, I suppose," Sam said.

"They are herding us," I said angrily. "Rats."

"Let me get off a salvo of balloons at 'em," Carl suggested eagerly.

"No, Carl. Too many of them, and they're wise now. You say you don't have any offensive weapons at all?"

"I do, but l have to be under attack directly for them to work… which I guess makes 'em defensive, actually. The Tasmanian Devils are offensive, that I know. Trouble is, I only got two left."

"Save 'em," I said. "Are you running out of Green Balloons?"

"No, I can generate an indefinite number of those."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Pretty sure."

"Okay. Let's continue on this course until we figure out what to do next."

Ten minutes and no ideas later, something appeared up ahead.

At first it was a thin dark line which grew to become a long notch set into the surface, deepening toward its farther end. We were headed straight for the beginning of the gradually narrowing ramp that descended into it. I could guess where it led.

"Let's try to turn off again," Carl said.

"No time," Sam said.

And there wasn't. With no visual cues outside there had been little sensation of speed, but a quick check of the instruments told me that Sam was roaring along at a terrific clip. In very short order we entered the mouth of the ramp. Sam braked as we descended. We could see the end of the notch now, a sheer wall into which was set a hemispherical opening.

A tunnel.

"Wonder how much to park down here," Sam said. "Have any spare change?"

"Where's the guy who hands out the tickets?" I asked.

"I hope we can get out of here," Carl said worriedly.

"There's got to be a way out," I said. "Actually, this may be a good thing. The Green Balloons will be more effective underground. No way to duck 'em."

"I guess we really don't have a choice."

"Couldn't take a chance that they'd stomp us. They could have. Obviously they're curious―maybe they want to talk."

The tunnel was large, its walls glowing with the same spooky blue light that dimly lit the surface. The passage continued straight for about half a kilometer, still gently descending, then went into a wide banked turn to the right.

"Carl,"

"Yeah?"

"Fire a balloon back up the tunnel."

"Will do."

He did. A greenish light came from behind, then faded.

"That should slow 'em down, if they follow," I said. "Shoot a few more for insurance."

"Roger."

The turn became an interminably descending spiral. The turning radius was enough to preclude dizziness, but at about the twelfth circuit I began to get a little disoriented. I thumbed the toggle that gave me back manual control of the rig and slowed down. We descended still farther, about ten more levels, until the tunnel straightened out, ran along for a few hundred meters, then debouched into a huge circular cavern. Spaced evenly along the walls were entrances to passageways radiating outward. I swung the rig sharply to the left and aimed for a tunnel-mouth that took my fancy.

For the next half-hour we wandered aimlessly through a maze of gigantic rooms connected by ramps and passageways. Here and there we passed huge empty bays cut into the walls going back at least a hundred meters. There was nothing at all in them, no equipment or machinery. After finding at least a dozen of them, something occurred to me.

"Everyone on auxiliary motors," I ordered.

"Good time to test ours under field conditions," Sean said, referring to the strange new backup engine which Ahgirr technicians had retrofitted Ariadne with. From what I had gathered, it was a thermoelectric motor powered by the controlled burning of oxidized fuel pellets―sort of like a solid-propellant rocket running in slow motion. I didn't entirely understand how it worked, but Sean reported good numbers on his readouts. It was working, more or less. (Ahgirr technology was odd in that it was highly advanced in some areas, like electronics, and clumsily jury-rigged in others.)

"Good thinking, Jake," Carl said. "Neutrinos can travel through solid rock like it wasn't there."

"Should have thought of it earlier."

"They probably have other ways of tracking intruders."

"I'm inclined to think they don't get many intruders here, or don't expect to," I said. "Anyway, we might as well eliminate the obvious method."

"One problem, though."

"What's that?"

"This buggy doesn't have an auxiliary motor."

"No? Do you have any idea how the power plant works?"

"Not the foggiest. If you look under the hood, you'll see that it looks like a chrome-plated internal combustion engine. In fact, it's a ringer for a Chevy 283 with fuel injection."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"That means it has a 283 cubic-inch displacement, and instead of a carburetor it has… Never mind all that. Doesn't mean a thing, because the engine's a dummy."

"Well…" I sighed, resolving once again to get to the bottom of Carl's mystery somehow, even if I had to beat it out of him. "Hell. Shoot that weird goddamn thing into the trailer and shut it off."

"Hey, don't talk about my car that way." Carl was highly offended.

I squelched the mike and cocked an eyebrow at Roland. "Touchy bastard, isn't he?"

"I've always thought that most Americans have odd neurotic quirks," Roland said in all seriousness.

I stared at him for a moment. "Roland?"

"What?"

"Go to hell."

He shrugged it off. "Talk about touchy," he mumbled. "Simply an observation."

"Sorry about that, Carl," I said when I had turned the mike back on. "Didn't mean anything by it."

"I should be the one to apologize. l was totally out of line. It's just that―"

"Forget it. I'll evac the trailer. Sam?"

When Sam didn't answer, I reached up to the trailer control panel and did it myself. "Sam?"

No answer.

I tapped Sam's voice synthesizer module. "Sam? You there?"

I withdrew the module, blew lightly on the contacts, and reinserted it.

"Sam? Can you hear me? Blink your function light if you can."

The tiny red light under his camera-eye on the dash remained steady.

I flipped down the keyboard on the terminal, punched up Sam's diagnostic display and ran a quick program: The problem wasn't immediately apparent. The readings were strange, though. I blew air through my lips and sat back. "We got problems."

"Serious?" Roland asked.

I shook my head slowly, staring dolefully at the screen. "Don't know."

Carl's signal came a little weakly, bouncing out of the trailer and off the walls. "I'm in."

"Sean? Get your buggy in there, too."

"Right you are."

After Sean had climbed up and in, I lowered the rear door, retracted the ramp, and recycled. When there was enough air in the trailer to carry sound, I switched my feed to the intercom. "Stay in your vehicles a bit. Going to look around for a dark comer to hide in, then we'll palaver. We gotta decide what we're going to do." I flipped off the mike, then flipped it on again. "Besides panic."

"What about Yuri?" John asked from the back.

"Ah, Yuri," I said. "Mind's preoccupied." I reached and switched over to the comm circuits. "Yuri?"

"Yes, Jake?"

"Are you using your auxiliary engine?"

"Yes, we are."

"Good. Just follow me."

"Affirmative."

Our tour of the area continued desultorily. We rolled by several kilometers of empty bays… until we found one occupied.

By a Roadbug.

Rather, one-and-a-half Roadbugs.

"It's dividing!" Roland gasped in wonder. "Reproducing itself!"

I yelled for everyone to come forward.

The thing in the bay had developed a deep rift down its back and had expanded to half again its normal width. It was a stunningly simple and effective method of parturition.

"Now we know they aren't machines," John said in awe.

"Do we?" I asked.

Roland shook his head at the immense bifurcated blob within the enclosure. "But complex organisms can't reproduce that way! They just don't!"

"Maybe they're all one cell," Sean suggested.

"Impossible," Roland answered, sounding less than certain.

"My question is," Susan said, "are they the Roadbuilders? And is this their home planet?"

"Everything points to it," John said. "The barrier, the obviously artificial nature of the planet, the dozens, maybe hundreds of portals…"

"I wouldn't jump to conclusions, John," Roland cautioned.

"They act like bloody machines, though," Liam said thoughtfully. "And they function like machines. Yet…" He tugged at his untidy beard and pursed his lips.

"Yet there it is," Darla said. "They're organisms in the sense that they reproduce. But that doesn't rule out their being machines."

"A Von Neumann mechanism," I said.

Sean squinted one eye and looked at me askance. "I've heard of that somewhere. Self-reproducing machines―is that the concept?"

"More or less," I said. "But I'm inclined to believe that we're looking at something here that obliterates the borderline between organism and mechanism, between the organic and the inorganic." I turned to Susan. "As to your question about whether they're the Roadbuilders, I'd say no. It's just a hunch. Bugs may be highly intelligent, maybe enough to have constructed the Skyway, but take it from an old starrigger―they're cops. There's an air of the bullet-headed civil servant about them. Whoever caused the Skyway to be constructed had some very good reason―sublime or practical, I don't know which. But it's all part of a grand scheme. These guys"―I cocked a thumb at the featureless silvery shape within the bay―"don't know from grand. They're functionaries. They have a job to do and they do it."

"Couldn't they be a specialized class of Roadbuilder?" Darla asked.

"Maybe, but if they are, they're different enough to occupy a separate species slot within the genus. My guess is that Roadbugs are artificial beings, probably created by the Builders."

We all continued watching the thing until Roland said, "Aren't we taking a chance just sitting here? This one seems to be immobilized, but―"

"Not too smart, are we? You're right," I said. "Let's move."

We wandered about for the next hour or so, encountering neither birthing-bay Roadbugs nor ones that were up and about. The layout of the place changed. We roamed through an expansive multileveled area, a tiered arcade built around a bottomless central well. Spiral ramps connected the levels. We plied these, up and down, trying to find a way out. Giving up, we tried doubling back but took a wrong turn and lucked into a different area, this one an immense circular arena with a domed roof at least 500 meters high at the apex. A short tunnel led out of there into an identical room, from which we took a passageway into yet another vast airless crypt, this one cubical in shape. Like everything else in this subterranean necropolis it was without distinguishable features and without discernible function.

"Hell," I said, "this is as good a place as any. Let's stop here."

"I suppose we should all go into the trailer," Roland said.

"Good idea. Yuri and his friends will have to suit up and come in through the cab―if they have suits."

They did.

A few minutes later I stood at the aft-cabin control panel and pressed the switch that brought down the air-tight door between the cab and aft-cabin, then hit the evac button. When I had good hard vacuum out there, I opened the cab's left gull-wing hatch. Watching through the viewplate, I saw three utility-suited figures climb in. The two adult-size ones looked around, caught sight of me and waved. The smaller figure didn't look like a child, but it was humanoid and there was something strangely familiar about it. I closed the hatch and repressurized.

The two humans were doffing their helmets as we filed into the cab. First to reveal himself was a shaggy-haired, bearded man of about my age.

"Jake, I presume," he said, smiling and extending a gloved hand. His manner was warm and amiable. Deep wrinkle-lines at the corners of his brown eyes gave his face a big-friendly-bear look. He was no taller than me, but the tight-fitting utility suit revealed a powerfully built body that lent the impression of height. There were other lines to his face: those of worry, fatigue, and the emotional exhaustion of a long and difficult journey, all now partially smoothed by relief.

"You presume correctly," I said, shaking his hand. "You look well, but tired."

"We are." He looked around at everybody in the crowded cab. "I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to see new faces. I am Yuri Voloshin." He bowed deeply, "Allow me to present my colleague…"

My jaw dropped as the woman took off her helmet and smiled at me across the suddenly narrowed chasm of thirty-odd years.

"Zoya!" I gasped.

"You remembered so quickly!" Zoya said, throwing her arms about me. "I didn't think you would. I recognized your voice instantly… So many years, Jake, so many. Wonderful to see you!"

I withdrew my face from the curls of her chestnut-brown hair, took hold of her arms and looked at her, my jaw still slack.

"Zoya," was all I could say.

"Remarkable!" Voloshin said. "Two old friends, I see! Remarkable." He turned to the crew. "As I said, I would like to present my colleague―and lifecompanion―Doctor Zoya Mikhailovna Voloshin. And this―"

He bent to help the non-human off with its helmet.

"This is Georgi, our guide."

From the rear of the cab came a squeal from Winnie such as I had never heard from her.

Georgi could have been her twin brother.