Paradox Alley

by John Dechancie

  “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 dead-ending 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 corresponding 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 Terran Maze would be, assuming conventional speed averages and taking into account rest and maintenance stops, something on the order of thirty thousand Standard Years.”

  10

  THE LONG WAY home,” I said.

  “Indeed,” Bruce said calmly. “However, as I have said, we have a much more efficient route at our disposal.”

  “If we can shoot that portal without getting smeared. Looks pretty tricky.”

  “It may require computer-assisted driving, if not complete computer control.”

  I sat back and sighed. “No one needs us humans anymore. Think you can handle it, Bruce?”

  “I am not sure. I am not a machine chauvinist. The task may very well call for the sort of hand-eye coordination and intuitive timing that only human beings possess.”

  I smiled. “Well, thank you, Bruce. Are you just saying that because you’re programmed to avoid bruising our poor little egos, or do you really feel that way?”

  “I’m sorry, Jake. That question is a little ambiguous, and would be very difficult to answer.”

  “Probably right. Okay, Bruce, you did a very good job.”

  “Thank you, Jake. It has been a pleasure working with you.”

  I turned in my seat. “Well, gang? What do you want to do now?”

  “Let’s go,” Darla said. “We have the map.” Then her shoulders slumped. “Sorry, Jake. Forgot about Sam. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “We’re short on some things, too,” I said. “No provisions. We’re okay on fuel, but I’m reading low lubrication levels here, and we need coolant, water—”

  “Sounds like it’d be a short trip back,” Carl said. “Maybe we could get along on next to nothing.”

  I shook my head. “You’re forgetting the trip to the portal over alien terrain. Not only that—something tells me we have miles to go before we sleep. I have some unfinished business back home. Things to do. Trouble is, don’t know what to do about maintenance. Unless…” I looked out at the garage.

  And I saw Arthur shuffling toward us through the gloom. He waved and came over to the driver’s side port.

  I thumbed a toggle and the port hissed back into its slot. “Hi, Arthur!” I said brightly. “Say hello to Bruce, here.” I slapped the dash. “You two should have something in common.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Bruce said.

  “Hello, Brucie.” Arthur poked his dog-nose snout into the cab. “What are you all up to?”

  “Housecleaning,” I told him. “Getting things shipshape for a quick getaway.”

  Arthur smiled, the corners of his mouth turning up to reveal smooth rounded teeth. The funnel-shaped ears elevated as he did so. “Good thing I locked up the silverware. Are you leaving soon?”

  “Well, no,” I said. “I don’t think so. There’s a little matter of something that was stolen from me. Couple of things, actually.”

  The ears drooped. “Really? What was stolen?”

  “An Artificial Intelligence module belonging to this vehicle’s on-board computer. It
was quite an advanced type, and its name was Sam. Know anything about it?”

  Arthur was a little miffed. “I certainly do not. I hope you don’t think I swiped it. Wouldn’t think of it.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply an accusation. It’s just that I don’t have a long list of suspects.”

  Arthur nodded. “I see what you mean. But I really can’t help you. I’m sorry it happened.”

  “I intend to speak to Prime about it.”

  “Oh, well, of course you should,” Arthur said with a sincere nod of his ungainly head. “I hope things get straightened out.” His sloping forehead furrowed. “You said a couple of things were stolen.”

  “Yeah. One of them I really can’t complain about, since I never wanted the thing in the first place. The Black Cube. Know what it is?”

  “The Origin Experiment. I know it by name, but that’s about all I know. I just work here.”

  I grunted.

  “You’re very upset about this, aren’t you?” Arthur said sympathetically. “I’m really very sorry.”

  “I appreciate your concern.”

  “Well, it’s my job to see to your general comfort and welfare.” Arthur stepped back and looked the rig over. “Nice truck,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Are you people coming upstairs soon?”

  “Eventually,” I told him. “How are the others doing?”

  “Oh, they’re having fun. You missed a nice lunch, too.”

  “Sorry, but we were occupied. Was Prime there?”

  “Actually, no,” Arthur said. “He’s attending to some pressing business.”

  “Will he be at dinner?”

  “No, he won’t. I was told to give you his regrets and inform you that he wouldn’t be dining with you tonight. Busy, busy, and all that.”

  “Busy, busy?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Sounds like a convenient excuse.”

  Arthur shrugged noncommittally.

  “I know,” I said. “You just work here.” “Room and board, no salary,” Arthur said.

  I snorted, then remembered I was talking to a robot. “Right.” I looked around. “Any way to get some service in this garage?”

  “What do you need?”

  “General scheduled-maintenance stuff.”

  “Well,” Arthur said, “I’m no mechanic, but if you just wheel the truck into one of the maintenance bays, I’m sure you can get what you want.”

  “Where?”

  I fired up the engine, and Arthur waved me across the garage and into a narrow channel lined with banks of machinery. I squeezed into the space and parked, scramming the engine. Almost immediately, things began to happen. We heard whirring and clicking, then a steady hum. Suddenly, a many-segmented mechanical arm, bright and glittering, snaked across the forward port, its business end bristling with strange tools and attachments. Of and by itself, the forward cowling unfolded and flew back, exposing the engine. The tool head hovered for a moment, rotating its attachments until an appropriate one was centered, then dipped out of sight. More arms appeared, busying themselves here and about. Brightly colored tubes wriggled out and attached themselves to valves and petcocks.

  Bruce’s voice was vaguely troubled. “Jake, I don’t quite know what is happening.”

  “We’re getting super service,” I said.

  More arms shot into view, all crisscrossing but never touching, each going about its task with blurring speed. Zip, snap, click, bang. Sparks flew, tiny wisps of steam trailed off, vapors rose amid a writhing tangle of mad mechanical appendages.

  It was over in less than a minute. Everything retracted, the cowling slammed shut, a deep gong sounded. And there was silence.

  I checked all the readouts. The fuel tanks were full. Lubrication and coolant levels were maximum, the water tanks were brimming, all batteries showed a full charge.

  “All systems A-O.K., Jake,” Bruce pronounced.

  “Looks like,” I said.

  “I wonder if they give free dishes,” Carl said.

  “Maybe this is the elusive place that gives green stamps—whatever the hell they are … or were.” I pulled out of the maintenance bay, wheeled out onto the floor of the garage, and parked. Arthur started walking toward us.

  “You guys want to go back upstairs?” I said.

  “Let’s stay in the truck tonight,” Darla said.

  “Yeah, let’s,” Carl seconded.

  Lori nodded, and I said, “Okay.”

  “It’s all the same to me,” was Arthur’s response. “Less bodies to look after. Have fun.” He turned to leave.

  “Hey, Art?” I called after him. “Er… Arthur.”

  He halted, looking back over his narrow shoulder. “Arthur I can put up with,” he said with weary tolerance. “Art is a little too much.”

  “Sorry. Do you have a proper name?”

  “Does a duck quack? Never mind, you couldn’t pronounce it.” Arthur turned around. “What do you want?”

  “How do you get out of this place?”

  Arthur pointed off to the right. “Just follow that green line across the floor there. It’ll take you to an exit tunnel.”

  “That line there?”

  “Is there another one? Yes, that line there, dearie.”

  “And that’s the way out?”

  Pensively, Arthur rubbed the underside of his snout. “Well, let’s see. Exit tunnel. Exit. Hmmm. Now, the last time I looked, I thought for sure the word exit meant a way out.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I wanted your assurance that we weren’t going to be tricked. Stupid of me to ask, I suppose.”

  “Do I look so untrustworthy?”

  “Frankly, yes.”

  “My, aren’t we paranoid. I think I’ll leave in a huff.” And he did.

  Shaking my head, I watched him disappear into the half-darkness. “He’s supposed to be a composite of all our personalities. What I want to know is, which one of us is the smartass?”

  Darla laughed. “Funny, but I can see a lot of your sardonic humor in him, Jake.”

  “Me?” I yelped. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Actually, it does make sense that he would have an effeminate personality.”

  “Well, it doesn’t make any damn sense to me at all.”

  Lori had been thinking. “Do you think John and Roland and the rest will be okay?”

  “Who knows,” I said. I rubbed my jaw. “But I know one thing. I know we’re being manipulated.”

  “How so?” Darla asked.

  “What Arthur said about seeming untrustworthy. Actually, I lied. He appears to be anything but a danger. It’s hard to take him seriously at all. He’s a cartoon figure, a big, gangling improbability, with a seriocomic personality. And look at Prime. He’s everything a superbeing should be—wise, kind and gentle. But think of it. He could take any shape. He’s not a being. He’s a tool. At least that body is. The persona he’s presenting seems a little too tailormade, too contrived.”

  Darla nodded. “I know what you mean. He seems to be bending over backward to make us feel safe, to convince us of his good intentions.”

  “Precisely,” I said. “And that tactic backfired on me from the very start. Just the way I am, I guess.”

  “Me, too.” Darla sat in the shotgun seat and brooded. Presently she said, “But what do they want from us?”

  “Maybe the part about wanting us to join the Culmination is true,” I said. “However, I don’t intend to stick around long enough to find out whether it is.” I pushed the start button, and the engine turned over.

  “Are we leaving?”

  “Not just yet. I want to check out this escape route first. Then we’ll see about provisions. If we can pilfer some food, we’ll be set to leave at a moment’s notice. Everyone strap in.”

  I rolled the rig across the smooth floor of the garage, following the solid green line Arthur had pointed out. It led straight toward a clutch of vehicles, then arched to the left.
It took us past some more exotic machinery, skirted another maintenance bay, bent to the right and proceeded into darker regions of the garage. I turned on the forward lights. The line weaved among stacks of crates and containers, tall gantries hulking in the shadows behind them. Presently we came to a clear area. The walls of the chamber narrowed, feeding us into a tunnel and complete darkness. The tunnel floor sloped downward for a stretch, then leveled off. I slowed down, feeling cautious and a little edgy. The fear of getting lost again began to gnaw. The line ended, but the tunnel continued for a length until the headbeams showed what at first looked like a dead end, which turned out to be the floor swooping up sharply, too sharply, I thought, and braked. But something was wrong; there came a sudden surge of speed. The rig got sucked into the mouth of the tube and shot upward, propelled along like a shell inside the barrel of a fieldpiece. The angle wasn’t as steep as that of the pedestrian escalators, but it was a thrilling trip up, too thrilling, because I was convinced that this time we’d blundered into something we couldn’t get out of—maybe this was a missile firing tube, or a catapult that launched aircraft. Imagine our embarrassment when we got to the top.

  But it was okay. The ramp leveled off sharply and we could see daylight-the tunnel’s end. The invisible force set us loose, and we rolled out into bright late-afternoon sun, traveling a gray-green, two-lane highway.

  I pulled off the road and let the engine idle. We were among low grassy hills. A stand of trees fringed a rise to the right, and an arrangement of rounded pink boulders sat off the mad on the other side. Through the rearview parabolic mirror I could see Emerald City atop its escarpment. No other structures lay in sight, but the view was limited by the terrain.

  “Now,” I said, sitting back. “How do we get back inside?”

  “Forget it,” Carl said disdainfully. “Who needs that fairy palace?”

  “You can’t complain about the food,” I said. “And it looks like we could go a long time between meals out here.”