Red Limit Freeway

Chapter 10

Near as I could figure it, the mortar shell had detonated a meter or so in front of the rear door as the door was sliding shut. The blast had buckled it, and it was stuck about two-thirds of the way dawn. The ramp was bent and could not be retracted manually. Minor damage, really, considering what could have happened. The door had absorbed most of the concussion, and Ariadne had been well inside the trailer when it had hit. In fact, Ariadne's brakes were in as good shape as the rest of her―Sean had had trouble stopping, with the result that some of the cargo had been unartfully rearranged. No great damage here either, except far six or seven smashed cases of beer. The astronomical gear in the egg-crate section was untouched, thank God.

Of course damage was the least of our worries. We were marooned on the far side of a hope-to-Jesus hole. You don't get a round-trip ticket when you go through one of those.

But we still had one operable vehicle, Carl's car-well, one and a half, if you — counted the crippled Ariadne. After lengthy debate, we decided to send out a scouting party to find out if this world was inhabited, and by whom. If it turned out that nobody lived here, we'd be faced with the ticklish option of shooting a portal, gambling that it wasn't a one-way shot. We could do that until we found an inhabited planet and help. The Great Debate was really about who should go and who should stay behind.

"But nobody has to stay behind if we use both vehicles," Sean protested.

"Trouble is," I countered, "that auxiliary engine of yours breathes air. What if we hit a non-oxy world"

"Well, yes, it would be a problem. Didn't think of it."

"But we can't all fit into the Chevy," John put in. "Can we? There are ten of us."

"With a little shoving, we could," Carl said. "I think it's the best way to go."

"It may be the only way to go," I said. "I don't want to leave anyone stranded here… including Sam. I'll stay."

"Jake, you can't," Darla said.

"Forget it, Jake," Sam said. "Just take out my VEM and put it in your pocket. You'll find something to load me into eventually."

"And leave behind all your programming? To say nothing of the rig? Nothing doing, Sam," I said. "You people squeeze in that buggy and take off. Sam and I will be all right."

"You'd have us leave behind the leader of this expedition?" Roland said mock-indignantly. "Not likely."

"I seem to have the knack of leading this expedition into one disaster after another," I said. "Besides, if I am the leader, you should follow my orders without question."

"Every order but that one, I'm afraid," John said apologetically. "Sorry, Jake, but I suppose I've finally come 'round to Roland's way of thinking. As far as I can see, everything has den going according to Plan."

Again, the Teleologist buzz word. Their constant use of it had always bothered me, but now, in the stuffiness of the overcrowded aft-cabin, it was beginning to rankle.

"You know," l said, "almost by definition, anything that happens is part of the 'Plan.' Hasn't it ever occurred to you that your reasoning is a little specious, logically speaking?"

"Looking at it from a traditional viewpoint, yes, perhaps it is specious. But Teleological Pantheism is a process whereby one learns to adapt to different viewpoints. From a different perspective, you can view the entire history of logical discourse as leading to but one conclusion-that truth, ultimately and finally, transcends reason."

"Funny you should use the word 'conclusion.' It implies you have an argument going, which means you're using logic reason. In other words, you're saying that you've used logic to arrive at the conclusion that logic is no good."

John considered it a moment. "Perhaps I am saying that. Again, it's a matter of perspective. Let's employ a metaphor. I've used a ladder to ascend to a higher level, at which point I throw the ladder away. It was useful to a point, but isn't any longer."

"Interesting," I said. "But metaphors can be tricky."

"Do we have time," Carl said, "for all this philosophical horseshit?"

"We have all the time in the world," I said. "For once, nobody's chasing us. Let's take it slow and think things out. We have plenty of food, loads of power to run the life-support… Matter of fact, Sam, it's getting pretty close in here." I squirmed in my chair at the breakfast nook. "Take the temp down a bit. Okay? And the CO2 level, while you're at it."

"Will do, though ten bodies are putting a strain on the air-conditioning, which is all I'm using. It's high noon, local time, and the temperature out there is thirty-seven-point-five degrees Celsius."

"Sorry for that remark, Jake," Carl said. "It's just―"

"Forget it. We've all been strained to the breaking paint lately, including me. I owe all of you an apology for the way I've been acting. It isn't like me, and I can only plead extenuating circumstances."

"You're forgiven, Jake," John said. "But Carl had a point. We should get back to the issue at hand-which is that it wouldn't be wise to separate."

"Well, it wouldn't be desirable, that I'll grant you. But it might be necessary. Carl, you say we should shove all ten of us into that buggy of yours―"

"I'm not saying we wouldn't be uncomfortable."

"How about the strain on the life-support systems?"

"It'd handle it."

"You sure? We know the technology has its limitations."

"How so?"

"Well, it didn't get the shell that hit us."

Carl, who was squatting on the deck by the kitchenette, rubbed the adolescent stubble on his jaw. "Yeah, I was wondering about that, too. But I'm inclined to believe that any limitations were deliberately built in."

"What do you mean?" Roland asked.

"Well, the manufacturers wanted the car to attract as little attention as possible, as far as its superior technology is concerned."

"So they built a 1957 Chevrolet Impala. What did you call the color? 'Candy-apple red'? Very inconspicuous," I said.

Carl smiled sheepishly. "The look of the car was my idea. Psychological reasons, mostly. I was homesick."

We all looked at him, awaiting an explanation.

When it didn't seem to be forthcoming, I said, "Carl, who built your vehicle? And why?"

The smile turned apologetic. "I really don't know if I'm ready to tell you my life story. Sorry, but I just can't go into it right now."

"Well," I said, "you're under no obligation. It's your business."

"Thanks, I appreciate it." He stood up. "Think I'll go out to the car and check over the beam weapon controls. You know, it just may be that I didn't have it set up right. Like I said, I don't know all there is to know about that vehicle. It keeps on surprising me." He stretched. "Getting cramped in here anyway. Lori, you want to come?"

"Sure."

After they left, Sean came in from the cab.

"Sean, what do you make of him?" I said.

He fingered his sinuous red worm of a mustache. "A strange one. Passing strange."

"We know that," Roland said.

"You mean his vehicle?" Sean raised his massive shoulders and turned a palm up. "I'd wager the thing comes from outside the known mazes, but beyond that…" He upended the beer bottle into his mouth, wiped his face with a hairy arm. "He's an anachronism, that I know."

"Yes," John agreed. "His accent, speech idiosyncrasies." He turned to me. "You know, Jake, until I met Carl, I would have said that you have the quintessential American accent. But Carl sounds like a character out of some ancient mopic. Humphrey Beauvard, someone like that."

"Humphrey Bogart," I corrected him.

"Whoever."

"He's a time traveller!" Susan blurted.

"You mean," Roland said, "he comes from 1957?"

Susan shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

"How did he get from Earth, circa 1957, to here and now?"

"Starship,"

"Starship," Roland said, nodding, then rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, Relativity, time dilation and all that."

"Do you mean to say," Roland said, his voice larded with irony, "he left Earth in 1957… in a starship?"

"Don't be so damn snotty. Why not?"

"Because there weren't any starships in 1957. There aren't any now."

"Maybe the Ryxx kidnapped him! I don't know! Do you have to pounce on me every time I―"

"But we're talking about a hundred and fifty years ago, Susan."

I said, "The Ryxx have been on the Skyway for something like three hundred years; Roland. No telling when they achieved interstellar travel."

Roland shook his head skeptically. "I'd be willing to bet it was very recently."

"Why don't we simply wait," Liam broke in, poking his head through the hatch, "for Carl to tell us? Whatever the explanation is, I'd lay odds it's involved."

"Or maybe he has something to hide," Roland said.

"What?" I wanted to know.

"That's the question, isn't it?"

"Well, if you're speculating he's a spy or something-"

"Well, not a spy."

"Then what is he? Remember it wasn't his idea to tag along with us. I dragged him into all of this by stealing his car."

Roland had his chin propped up on one arm, chewing the nail of-his little finger. "I just have a strange feeling about him," he murmured.

"Don't know what could've caused that," I said. "He seems like your average bloke to me,"

Susan tittered, then slid her hand down my thigh to massage the inside of the knee.

Silence for a moment.

"Well," John said, "what shall we do?"

"About Carl?" I asked.

"No. About the scouting party,"

"I'm still very reluctant to leave Sam," I said.

"I can understand that, Jake. I can certainly understand how you feel about leaving your fath―" Tongue-tied for second, he motioned vaguely in the direction of the cab. "Uh…"

"My father."

"Yes. Yes, your father. Um, it's rather difficult sometimes―"

"It's okay. By the way, Sam's location is more or less here," I said, pointing to a small bulge in the rear bulkhead of the cabin. "That's his CPU, Central Processing Unit. His auxiliary storage is wedged in the bulkhead between the cab and the cabin. And of course there are various input and output units all over the place."

"The Entelechy Matrix," Roland said. "That's in the CPU?"

"Right. Sorry, John. You were saying…"

"I was more or less trying to say that if we lost you, Jake, there'd be no hope for the rest of us."

"I hardly think that's the case."

"But you have the Black Cube."

It was the first time in a good while that anyone had mentioned the strange artifact, probably because no one knew what to say about it. Everything that had happened, everything, it seemed, that would happen, revolved around the enigma that the Cube represented. Putatively, it was the Roadmap, the object of all the chases, the intrigue, the hugger-mugger. In the drama of the Paradox, it occupied center stage. At John's mention of it, the irony of our situation hit home. Here we were, lost and rollerless on uncharted road, with the key to the, entire Skyway system in our possession… supposedly.

Well, if the Cube rues the legendary Roadmap, we had no way to read it. There was no way to even begin to read it. Although we had not tried tampering with the thing, it looked dauntingly inviolable. Its impenetrable blackness seemed to say, Don't even think about it. It was hard to imagine that it could merely contain useful information. Dark secrets, maybe. That Which Man Was Not Meant To Know. But a roadmap indicating the better-class motels and scenic points of interest? Nah.

"You have no idea, John," I said, "how close I've come to chucking that damn thing out the port."

John nodded gravely. "It's a lightning rod."

"Precisely. And we've been zapped one too many rimes. So, what makes you think you'd be better off sticking around it?"

"I don't want to… 'stick around' the Cube so much as I want to dog your every step until you bring the bloody thing back home."

"Yeah? What are you going to say to your doppelganger when you meet him?"

"My paradoxical self? I should think we'd have much to talk about. However, I don't ever remember myself coming the other way. Therefore, if I do make the trip back, I won't bother seeking myself out. I didn't, so I won't. I don't see a parallax there."

Roland had been thinking. "What if you did, John? What if you did try to find yourself?"

"I'd fail."

Roland jabbed a finger at him. "But what if you didn't fail?"

"But I will. It's history."

"Excuse me, Suzie," I said, making a move to get up.

"Sure."

I wriggled out of the nook and made my way to the safe, which was in the bulkhead by the bunk, where Darla was stretched out. She had been complaining of nausea.

"Feel any better?" I asked her as I stooped to let the lock read my thumbprint.

"Much. I'm all right."

"But you have free will," Roland was saying, continuing the argument. "There'd be nothing to prevent you from going back to Khadija and presenting yourself."

"But I wouldn't."

"I would."

John was genuinely shacked. "You would?"

"Of course. Couldn't resist it."

John shook his head, appalled. "Good God. Tempting the fates like that. It's…" He shuddered. "There must be some Greek myth to cover this sort of thing."

"The Greeks didn't have time machines."

"Well, I meant morally analogous. Oedipus, perhaps."

"Should I poke out my eyes after I do it?"

"I should think your double's eyes would come popping out by themselves."

"Explain that," I broke in, plunking the Cube down an the table in front of John, "without a paradox."

"I couldn't begin to."

"What the bloody hell is that?" Liam said.

"Good question," I said.

"It's the thing that can't possibly exist," Roland said. "But it does."

"How so?" Liam wanted to know.

"It's the thing I supposedly brought back from my time trip and gave to somebody… who gave it to somebody who gave it to Darla―"

"Who gave it to you. I see. It's the Roadmap."

"Maybe."

"I doubt it," Roland said, picking it up and holding it close to peer at its featureless surface.

"Why?" John asked.

"Well…"

"That's the blackest… black I've ever seen," Liam said, after he'd sidled past Sean to get nearer to the table. "Even the cylinders…"

"Well," I said, "you always see those from a distance. Up close like this it's a little disconcerting."

"It must be a Roadbuilder artifact," Sean stated. "They seem to've preferred the color."

"If it isn't the Roadmap," John said, "what could it possibly be?"

"Funny," Roland said, his right eyeball practically touching the cube, "you can't actually see the surface. It's… I mean, you can't really―"

"But if it isn't the Roadmap," John went an, more or less to himself, "then…" The notion plunged him into deep thought.

Darla got up and came to the table. She put her hand on my shoulder.

Roland set the Cube dawn, and we all looked at it for a longish moment.

"What the hell is that thing?" I said, finally.

Sean said, "Hmph."

After another thoughtful interlude, John said, "We keep straying from the main line of discussion."

"You're right," Susan said. "What are we going to do?"

"I have a suggestion," Sam broke in over the cabin speakers.

"Shoot," I Said.

"Send out Carl to scout this world, see if there's anybody around. Then decide what you want to do."

"Have you picked up anything on the air?"

"Nope, but that doesn't necessarily mean the place is deserted. Granted, it's not promising, but just to be sure, someone should have a look around first."

"Have you been scanning with the drone?"

"Yeah, but nothing's showed up."

"I guess it wouldn't hurt to drive around. We have time."

"Sure, why not? As you said, we should take time to think things through for once. It'd be a nice change of pace. No use going off half-cocked if we can avoid―" He broke off, then said, "I spoke too soon."

"Someone shot the portal?"

"No, somebody's walking across the desert toward us. Looks human."

There was no proverbial sigh of relief.

"Humans here, too," John muttered. "We're everywhere."

"How many?" I asked.

"Just one. Let me train the exciter on him, just to be sure."

"Doesn't he look friendly?"

"He's carrying something. Can't tell what."

"Jake? Come in." Carl's voice came from the cab speakers.

"Patch me through, Sam."

"You're on."

"Yeah, Carl?"

"We got company."

"We know. Sam spotted him. Are you and Lori locked inside the car?"

"You bet."

"Does he have anything that looks like a weapon?"

"He's too far away to yell. He's wearing a pressure suit, though."

"Pressure suit?"

"Same kind of protective suit. Armor, maybe? Looks like―Hey! He just took off. "

From out in the desert came the hollow whine-and-wail of jet exhaust. We all got up and filed out to the cab.

"He's got same kind of rocket backpack. Jesus Christ, just lake Commander Cody."

"Commander who?" I said when I got my headset on. "Where the hell is he?" I looked out over the desert to the right. A white dot floated against the hazy sky just above a butte about half a kilometer away. A cloud of dust was settling over the area where he had apparently launched himself.

"You see him?"

"Yeah. What did he do before he took off?"

"Nothing much. Looked like he was searching for something out there. Had some kind of weird equipment. Then he spotted us and blasted off. Took a good look at us first."

The white speck disappeared behind the butte.

"What do we do?" John asked.

"We wait," I said.

We waited, ten minutes. Then he returned, this time piloting a strange variant of a landjumper. He came across the desert at reckless speed, bouncing over rocks and rises, staying around five or ten meters off the ground. From the sound the craft made, I judged the engines to be of a rather primitive jet turbine design. The craft was big and bulky, but had room for at most two passengers and the driver.

"Have him covered, Sam?"

"I've got everything trained on him but missiles, of which we ain't got any."

He zoomed in, stopped, and hovered over a hollow between dunes, then set the craft gently down.

Instead of passengers, he was hauling a load of stuff―boxes, sacks, miscellaneous parcels. He picked up a sack and another thing that looked like an animal skin, and came toward us.

It was plain now that our visitor wasn't human. He… it was much too thin and the arms had two elbows. Generally humanoid, but the proportions were all wrong. It wore a white reflective suit with what looked like a backpack respirator. The helmet was covered with the same sort of cloth as the suit. We couldn't see a face behind the darkly tinted viewscreen. It stopped and looked the rig over, checked out the Chevy, then looked at us again. Apparently the rig seemed a bit intimidating. It went over to Carl, stooping to peer into the driver's side window. The creature was man-high, which had led us to mistake it for a human being at a distance.

Surprisingly, it greeted Carl with a raised right hand. I couldn't see if Carl returned the gesture. The creature then reached into one of the sacks and pulled out what looked like a folded piece of paper, which he unfolded and presented to Carl, pointing out various markings and lines.

"Hey, Carl."

"Yeah."

"What's he trying to sell you?"

"I think it's a roadmap."