Red Limit Freeway

Chapter 3

Our rooms on the second floor were primitive, but again there was antique charm in the rough wall paneling, the quaint lamps, the handmade furniture―beds, nightlamps, armoires, and chairs. The beds were especially nice, with simple floral carvings on the headboards. However, Susan didn't like hers.

"Lumpy as hell," she griped, "and the sheets are gray."

"Be patient, Princess," Roland teased. "We'll get the pea out from under the mattress later."

"Everyone I know is a comedian. Let's go eat."

They all went downstairs. There was a mirror behind the door to the room, and I paused to look myself over. I was wearing what is for me formal dress: my maroon starrigger's jacket with its jazzy piping, rakish cut, and little pockets with zippers all over the place. Usually, my attire is medium-slovenly, but all my casual clothes had been left behind on various planets. This jacket and the fatigue pants were about all I had left, except for shorts and things I wear when lounging about the rig. The jacket made me feel faintly ridiculous. I looked like a goddamn space cadet.

I went down the narrow stairs to the lobby, where the gang was waiting for me. We started for the Vorpal Blade. There were even more people in the lobby now, trying vainly to get in. Just as we hit the edge of the crowd, the desk clerk intercepted us.

"We have a table for you and your party, Mr. McGraw. If you'll follow me."

"A table?" I said incredulously. "In there?"

"Yes, sir, right this way."

I turned to my companions, but they weren't at all surprised. So we followed him as he made a swath for us through the clot of people pressing around the entrance to the bar. He seemed to know just about everyone he either politely brushed by or summarily shoved out of the way, none too gently, when

the parties concerned weren't immediately cooperative. His size, even when compared to these beefy loggers, gave him all the authority he needed, if he didn't own the place to boot.

The Vorpal Blade was dark, smoky, and noisy, redolent of spilled beer and cooking grease. A huge bar took up one side of the room. The walls were of barkless log, milled flat on the inside, and the ceiling joists were squared-off and planed. There were plenty of tables and chairs, but too many damn people, loggers mostly. The decor was apropos―walls hung with odd varieties of saws, axes, cutting tools of every sort, pairs of spiked climbing boots, ropes, and such. It was a sweaty, muscular, pewter-and-leather kind of place, awash with good fellowship and camaraderie. Everybody was singing, including the bartenders, and they were busy.

The clerk actually had a table for us, with room for all, against the far wall near the bar and directly athwart a huge stone fireplace. We all sat, and I thanked the clerk. I asked him his name, silently wondering if I should tip him. I reached into my pocket.

"Zack Moore, sir. And save the gratis for the help. Enjoy."

"Thank you, Zack."

On his way out he shooed a buxom barmaid over to us, then waved and left.

"Hello, there! What're you people having today?"

The others started ordering. I was noticing the alien grain of the wood. It was almost geometrical, oddly shot through with greens and purples, but the overall color was a dark brown. Didn't look as though the wood had been stained. I knocked a knuckle against the wall. It felt like iron. I turned around, sat back, and listened to the group sing-along. Odd lyrics. A group at a table near the bar sang the verses, the rest of the crowd taking up the chorus, which went something like:

Each verse grew progressively more absurd and off-color. Transvestism and other variations were broadly hinted at. Individual poetasters stood up and sang their own verses, each more outrageous than the last. The crowd howled. After the last verse, they'd sing it all over again, adding more verses. I asked the barmaid where the song had come from. She didn't know, but said in so many words that it was most likely traditional. She'd been hearing it ever since she came to Talltree as a child (last Tuesday, from the looks of her―but, hell, maybe I'm just getting old).

We all listened while waiting for our order to come. By the time the beer arrived, Suzie and John were convulsed, with Darla and Roland smiling, a little unsure. Carl loved it, too. Winnie and Lori were trying to talk above the din.

The beer was Inglo style, dark, bitter, served at room temperature, but the high alcohol content more than made up for it. I drained my pewter mug in three gulps and refilled it from the glazed crockery pitcher.

Only when the food came did I think about Winnie. She certainly couldn't eat this stuff-braised pork ribs, roast game hen, fried potatoes and vegetables, sliced warm bread with mounds of fresh butter. The barmaid told us that almost nothing on the planet was edible without extensive processing. All the fare before us had been raised on local farms.

Lori came over and shouted in my ear.

"Winnie wants to go outside. Says she can find something to eat."

"Here?" I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. "Well, okay, but I should go with you."

"We'll be fine. You go ahead and eat, I'm not very hungry."

"How's your head? Still feeling woozy?"

"Nah, I'm fine."

"Okay, but be careful." I was reluctant to let them go, and briefly considered asking Roland to tail them and keep an eye on them, but I knew Lori was fiercely independent for her age, and more and more I had come to consider Winnie the equal of an adult human in intelligence and maturity―maybe even more than equal. Lori could do very well on her own; however, I still wanted her to be checked over by a competent medic, if one could be found. That was a minor problem. The big one was what the hell to do with her. With the Laputa either lost or pirated, she had no place to go except to her former foster parents' home on a planet named Schlagwasser, which lay on Winnie's Itinerary. Unfortunately, Lori had not been on good terms with her foster parents, and had run away.

But it wasn't certain that the Laputa had been lost. Good for Lori… maybe… but not good for me. At least three groups of people and beings aboard that strange ship-animal wanted my blood. In regard to the alien party, that could be taken quite literally. The Reticulans practiced ritual hunting in bands known as Snatchgangs, and dispatched their captured quarry by ceremonial vivisection. If Corey Wilkes, their human ally, had survived, he'd still be teamed with the Rikkis to get the Roadmap from me. And then there was the Laputa's master Captain Pendergast, who had been in cahoots with Wilkes and Darla's father, the late Dr. Van Wyck Vance, in a scheme to run antigeronic digs into the Outworlds. To those who wanted to keep these Consolidated Outworlds isolated from Terran Maze and independent of the Authority, the Roadmap represented a threat. Doubtless Pendergast viewed it as such, but he might yet be unaware of Wilkes' betrayal; Wilkes wanted the map to give to the Authority in return for, among other things, amnesty for his part in the drug operation. Pendergast was not alone in his desire for a free Outworlds. He most likely shared it with every inhabitant of this maze. After all, everyone here had taken a desperate gamble in shooting a potluck portal to get here. There was a way back to Terran Maze by Skyway. Problem was, it went through Reticulan Maze, where few humans, or any rational human who wanted to keep his skin intact, dared to go. But it was a fair possibility that a bold or foolish few had braved the trip back and had lived to tell of what was on the other side of the potluck portal on Seven Suns Interchange, though that might be only one of several portals leading into the Outworlds.

The upshot: if the Laputa had made it, the problem of what to do with Lori would evaporate, but I just might, too.

Problems, problems.

What would the Teleologists―John, Susan, and Roland―do now? That would take priority on the agenda, after we had eaten.

The food was great―ribs spicy and done just right, the game hen crispy-skinned and juicy inside. The bread was golden brown with a thick crust, flaky and tender. And the vegetables were there to pass the time between bouts of wolfing down the entrees, with draft after draft of beer to sluice it all down the pipes. If this was bar food, I wondered what delights the dining room offered. The waitress kept bringing side dishes, compliments of the house, she said. Along with free rounds of beer came bowls of sliced pickled beets, onions, pickled eggs and cucumbers, multi-bean salad, assorted condiments, and piles of bread and butter.

On the down side, we were getting stared at: It wasn't our table manners; in that regard we fit right in. Word had spread, I thought, as to who I was―which immediately brought to mind the question of just who the hell I was. Jake McGraw, Olympian god-type, who came back through time to bring the secret of the Roadbuilders to mankind? Just a man around whom a cloud of wild rumors had settled? Or was I being confused with someone else?

No, the latter two possibilities were out; the Black Cube, the paradox of Darla, and other realities spoke volumes about the rumors being true. Some of them, anyway. That left the Olympian hero. Anybody got a fig leaf?

Finally the singing stopped, and all the food was gone. I was stuffed, and halfway drunk. I don't like doing things halfway. We ordered more beer.

"My God," John breathed, sitting back and massaging his stomach, "I can't remember ever eating so much at one time. Hope I won't―" He burped liquidly. "Ohhh. Excuse me."

"Bring it up again and we'll vote on it," Lori said, returning with Winnie

"I can't believe you found food," Darla said.

Winnie smiled and waved a handful of plum-sized pink fruit with blue speckles all over them. Lori dumped a pile of leaves and stems down on the table, and sat down.

"Eat up, folks!"

Everyone groaned. "Here, honey, I saved you some chicken," Susan said, sliding a plate toward her.

"Kinda small for chicken, but thanks."

"It's game fowl, Susan," Roland corrected. "Raised domestically."

"Whatever."

"How did Winnie know…?" John motioned vaguely at the pile of vegetation.

"How does Winnie know everything," Roland countered, "including accurate descriptions of planets she's never visited?"

"I'll have to talk it over with her," Darla said thoughtfully. "Apparently there's more information in that poem hers than I've been able to get out."

"Maybe the poem and the map and this kind of information," John offered, "what to eat along the way and that sort of thing―maybe you could consider it all a… well, what would you call it? A tourist guide kit?"

"Very good, John," Roland said. "Very good."

"Boy, those woods out there are spooky," Lori said through a mouthful of game hen. "Kept getting. funny… I dunno, feelings."

"Did, you see any white rabbits?" Roland asked.

"Nah, didn't actually see anything. Hey, this is good."

"You should eat, honey," Susan said motheringly. "You haven't taken a bite all day."

"I'm eating, I'm eating!"

"Sorry, Lori. I didn't mean―!'

"Oh, it's okay. I'm sorry."

We watch Winnie tale a tentative bite of fruit and roll it around her tongue. Not bad. She chewed it briskly and popped the rest into her mouth.

We all looked at one another and shrugged.

John leaned back. "Well," he said as if to start something off.

"Yes; well," Roland seconded.

"What are you folks going to do now?" I asked.

"I've been thinking," John began.

"Thought I smelled something burning," Lori mumbled. I think she had John pegged as somewhat of a stuffed shirt, which he was.

Susan tittered, and Roland smiled before he said seriously, "I'm for keeping with Jake. I think if you examine all our options, it's the best one."

"Hold off, now," John cautioned, raising hand. "Why don't we examine then all and see?"

"The linkages are there," Roland asserted. "Everything seems to have gone according to Plan."

"I'm not so sure of that."

"It's fairly obvious."'

"Not to me, I'm afraid," John said gently. "Forgive me, Roland."

Roland sighed. "I suppose my task is to make you see the overall design."

"I want to learn from you, Roland. I really, do. But… please, let's make it an exchange. Agreed?"

Roland nodded. "You're right. I have been doing a lot of pontificating lately." He gave John a conciliatory grin. "Let's go over our options."

"Well, for one…" John slapped the table. "We can try to find, the planet where the Ryxx launch those ships. We may be able to get back to Terran Maze that way."

The second way to get back from a supposedly one-way portal: go through normal space. Back in Terran Maze, nobody knew of this, and the Ryxx must have taken great pains not to let on, probably in order to protect their monopoly on trade with the Outworlds, though they could have had other reasons. I knew of no other race who bothered to build starships; the Skyway made them superfluous. The Ryxx would probably hold their monopoly even if everyone knew they were doing it.

"That may be worth exploring," I put in, "just to satisfy your curiosity and cover all bets, but I wouldn't hold out any great hopes for it. How much money have you got?"

John gave me a dour look. "Jake."

"Sorry. Just trying to point out that passage on a sublightspeed starship has to run high. Even if they do take passengers, which I somehow doubt, there could be a long waiting list. From the little I know of starship design, weight and space would be critical."

"Didn't Wilkes say he was going?" John asked.

"I wouldn't take anything Wilkes said without a truckload of salt; He may have been lying, maybe not. Keep this in mind. He was; or is still, for all I know, a very well-connected man. He may have cut a special deal."

"Maybe…" John drummed the table with spidery fingers. "Well, I don't know, maybe we could get jobs, work up our passage money, approach the Ryxx and make a deal ourselves. Plead our case."

The corner of Susan's lips curled sourly. "We have a great sob story."

"I'm simply outlining the alternatives, Susan."

"Oh, go ahead, John. Don't mind me."

"Bear with me, please. Now, back on Splash―"

"I wouldn't go back there," I said.

"Maybe not Splash. Some other place. Here, for instance. There's always the option of settling here, or on some world where we can get a community going."

"The three of us?" Roland said skeptically.

"Three, or two, or even one, Roland. Isn't that what Teleological Pantheism is all about?"

Roland acknowledged the point with a tilt of his head.

John ruminated for a moment, then went on, "I see what you're saying. We'd be cut off. No funds, no communication with our group on Khadija, or with the organization back on Terra. It would be difficult."

"Rather. No money, no immediate prospects of getting any, no place to stay, except with Jake. We need supplies and literature to stock a reading center―"

John turned to me. "I think I told you we do no proselytizing. But one of our chief functions is to open up and run a reading room and consultation center. That's what we were about to do when we had the mishap with the Militia back on Goliath. After visiting our colleague in the hospital, we were going to see about renting a little storefront in town."

Susan had been thinking. "What about sending a message back by starship? If we could only let Sten or somebody know what happened to us."

"Yes," John said, the idea dawning on him, "yes, that's a marvelous thought! Don't know why I didn't think of it. We simply must get word back somehow. If we could let our community know that there's something here on the other side…"

"Again," I said, "you can try, but again I doubt it would work. The Ryxx don't seem to want anyone to know about the Outworlds. They may have been willing to take Wilkes back, but that might only have been because they were in on the drug operation. Anyway, I seriously doubt whether they're in the mail business."

John and Susan looked deflated.

"I wouldn't give up hope," I hastened to add. I didn't want to be too hard on them because what I had to tell them next would be pretty rough. "We know nothing for sure. And the most important thing we're not clear on is whether any of us are safe anywhere in the Outworlds."

Susan's face blanched. "What do you mean; Jake?"

Although I was nearly drunk, I, had been giving, the whole matter some thought "'First of all, we don't know what became of the Laputa." I turned to Lori. "What would've happened if the Arfie pirates had taken over the ship?"

"I don't know. It never happened before."

"You have no idea what would have become of the passengers?"

"No, but I wouldn't put it past Arfies to do something terrible. Some of them are okay, but others…"

"But the ship has always managed to beat off these attacks. Right?"

"Yeah."

"So," I went on, turning back to John and his confreres, "there's every possibility that everyone aboard that ship who was hot on my tail is alive and well and desirous of my blood. All of you are in danger because of your association with me. And that goes for Lori, too… and Carl."

John shook his head slowly, exasperation in his voice. "But surely there's somewhere in the Outworlds we could hide. I simply can't believe―"

"Hide? From the Reticulans?"

The three Teelies looked grimly at me, then at each other.

"I hate to bring it up," I said, "but we're going to have to proceed on the assumption that all of us are sacred quarry."

That put a damper on the conversation for a while. I remembered I hadn't checked in with Sam.

"About time."

"Sorry. We were discussing what we should do. I think we've agreed that everyone should stick together for now."

"A good idea."

"And we should try to get word on what happened to the

Laputa. Is there anything on the air here in the way of news?"

"No commercial or government stations, but there's an extensive skyband and amateur radio network. I've been monitoring all channels. Nothing on the Laputa so far."

"Well, there's a lot of traffic between here and Splash, and that ferryboat served a vital function. If she were lost, it'd be big news. Something should turn up."

"Right, I'll keep monitoring. Leave the key open, okay?"

"Sure." I put it on the table and activated the microcamera to give him something to look at.

"Nice place. The food any good?"

"Great," Darla told him.

Someone in the crowd had stood up and was speaking. He was like the rest: thick-thewed, long mussy hair, dressed in a plaid flannel shirt and dungarees.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen! And ladies, if I may use both terms so loosely." He leered and stroked his wiry red beard.

Rude noises from the crowd.

"I now call this joint, plenary meeting of the Brotherhood of the Boojum and the Sorority of the Snark to order!"

Shouts, jeers, applause.

"Order! I will have order! Sergeant at Arms, will you please see to it that any objectionable behavior is dealt with according to the bylaws of this organization?"

Something hulking in a sheepskin jacket stood up and surveyed the crowd menacingly. He got no takers. Everyone shut up.

"Thank you, Brother Flaherty." The hulk sat down as the one with the red beard took a long pull from his mug, draining it. "The bar is now closed!" he pronounced, banging the mug down on the tabletop.

"Booo!"

"Be reasonable, old man!"

"Who cares? We got three pitchers."

He ignored it. "I now call upon Brother Finch to read the minutes of the last meeting."

Another logger lurched to his feet. "The bloody stupid meeting was called to order by Acting-President Brother Fitzgore. The minutes of the last bloody stupid meeting were read. Weren't any old business, weren't any new business. The bloody stupid meeting was adjourned and we all got drunk as bloody skunks." Brother Finch sat down heavily.

"I thank Brother Finch for that succinct, bare-to-the-bones summation of the salient developments of the last meeting. Do I have a motion to accept Brother Finch's report as it stands?"

"I so move!"

" I second the motion."

"The motion has been made and seconded to read Brother Finch's report into the record without emendation. May I now assume that the membership will assent to do so without a vote? Are there any objections?"

Someone stood up. "I object to the minutes of the last meeting being exactly the same as the minutes of the proceeding meeting, and the one before that. In fact, they're always the same damn minutes!"

Fitzgore raised an imperious eyebrow. "Do you take issue with the contents of Brother Finch's report?"

"No, the report is accurate as it stands. I merely object to his lack of originality and literary style."

"It is not Brother Finch's duty to be original, but to record the facts accurately and without bias!" Fitzgore bellowed. He took a deep breath. "And as for style, I think Brother Finch's prose is almost Homeric in its brilliant use of epithet."

"Almost what?"

"What the hell's an epaulette?"

"At any rate," Fitzgore continued airily, "your objection is overruled."

"This is not a court of law. I demand that my objection be entered in the record."

"So be it," Fitzgore acceded. "Let it be noted in the record that Brother MacLaird has objected to Brother Finch's literary style, or lack thereof."

"I ain't got a bloody pencil," Brother Finch said.

Someone threw a pencil at him. He caught it neatly, snapped it in two between thumb and forefinger, and threw it back.

"Who the hell are these weirdos?" Sam said.

"Is there any old business?" Fitzgore asked.

"I go' a boil on me bum!"

"Any new business?"

"I still go' a boil on me bum!".

Laffs.

"I move we adjourn!" someone shouted.

"Since no new business has been brought up by the membership, I would like to call the following matter to the membership's attention, if I may be permitted."

"According to the rules of procedure, the Acting-President must always entertain a motion to adjourn from any member!"

"Not," Fitzgore retorted, "when said Acting-President can beat said member's arse to a bloody pulp any time he so desires."

"You and what regiment of the Home Guard?"

Cheers for the Home Guard.

"This matter can be settled later, but as for now…"

"Outside in five minutes, Fitzgore."

"I will be honored," Fitzgore acknowledged. "As I was saying―"

"Oh, not again. Last time they were so snockered they couldn't see to swing at one another."

"As I was saying!" Fitzgore roared. Then he cleared his throat and wiped his forehead with a sleeve. "Brothers and Sisters," he said quietly. "It is not often… rather I should say, it is unprecedented for us to have among us as a guest…" He paused for effect as heads turned, searching the room."… a figure of―how shall I put it?―A figure of such epic stature. But that is the case."

"Who?" someone wanted to know, but many eyes were on me.

"The Skyway," Fitzgore continued in stentorian tone, "abounds with legends, myths, tall tales, apocrypha, and general foolishness, all of which are to be taken with a grain of salt, if not the whole bloody cellar and the bloody mine it came from."

"I think I'm going to puke," Sam declared.

"But it is rare that one has the profound honor, the exhilarating pleasure, of meeting a protagonist of one of these sagas in the flesh. However, that is our honor and our pleasure this day. Brothers and Sisters, may I present to you―and would you join me in drinking a toast in honor of―"

"You closed the punking bar, you dolt!"

Fitzgore refilled his mug from a nearby pitcher. "Then I open it again!"

Everyone raised his mug.

"Join me in a toast to that giant of legend, that king of the Skyway, the man who drove into the raging fires of the birthing universe and lived to tell the tale―"

He turned to face me.

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you… Jake McGraw!"