Paradox Alley s-3

by John Dechancie

  Finally we got out. When we were back on Roscoe Boulevard, I checked in with Arthur.

  "Lori is now bearing generally south," Arthur informed me. "But she's on a road paralleling that big express highway down there."

  Darla leafed through the map of L.A. "Sepulveda," she confirmed. "It intersects with Mulholland about a mile south of Sherman Oaks."

  I turned left at the intersection of Sepulveda and Roscoe, heading south. We underpassed the Ventura Freeway and hit Ventura Boulevard, continuing straight. Sepulveda narrowed to two lanes, winding its way up into the Santa Monica Mountains. House lights glowed in canyons to either side.

  Darla turned on the dome light and looked at the analog wristwatch she had bought. "Eleven-thirty," she said, and turned the light off.

  We had no timetable: Carl had said that he didn't remember exactly what time the abduction had occurred. He guessed that it had happened around midnight.

  A pair of headlights grew in the rearview mirror. Carl passed us, doing at least seventy miles an hour. The original ' Chevy was a hot vehicle, too. I floored the pedal, and Dave's VW coughed and gave its all, which was pitifully little. We chugged along in Carl's wake until his tail-lights vanished around a bend.

  "Well, hell," I said. "There goes the monkey wrench into the works." I handed the communicator to Darla. "Check in with Arthur."

  "Turn west off of your present route," Arthur instructed us. At least that much was going according to plan. Carl had pinpointed the kidnapping site as being somewhere near San Vicente Mountain, the peak of which overlooked Mulholland west of Sepulveda.

  I missed the turnoff before the tunnel and had to double back. We went up a short ramp and got onto a dirt and gravel road-Mulholland Drive. It led us into a surprisingly remotelooking area. You'd never guess that one of the biggest cities the world had ever seen was just down the mountain. It wasn't exactly desolate, but you, got the feeling that you were a long way from everything.

  The road was edged with scrub brush and an occasional prickly pear, and wound through groves of live oak and juniper. We drove along for several kilometers without seeing anything.

  "Jake? Darla?"

  "Yes, Arthur," Darla answered.

  "The signal source has stopped at a point due west of you. You're almost on top of it."

  I slowed, though I couldn't see thing. I coasted down a slight grade, searching my side of the road.

  "Arthur, where are you?" Darla asked.

  There was a slight delay, then: "Right above you. I have the phony airplane lights turned off."

  "We don't see the car," Darla told him.

  "It's parked about fifty meters off the road. Just to the right, up ahead."

  I saw a gap in the brush-a narrow side road. I stopped. Darla said, "Arthur, are there any other vehicles in the area?"

  "None that I can see or detect."

  "Let's make sure," I said, starting forward again and turning off onto the side road, which was little more than a horse trail leading us around the base of a hill. We passed under a large brooding tree and came out into a hollow.

  I saw a glint of candy-apple red in the sweep of the headlights as I turned around.

  "There they are," Darla said. "Unless it's Carl."

  "You're right on top of the signal," Arthur said. No other vehicles were in sight.

  "Okay, this is it," I said. "Arthur?"

  "Yes, Jake?"

  "Are you ready?"

  "As ready as I'll ever be." He sighed. "Dearie me, how do I get myself into these predicaments?"

  "Did Carl ever mention another vehicle being nearby when it happened?" Darla asked with some concern.

  "Not that I remember. Let's head back around the hill and park. We'll come back on foot."

  I headed out of the clearing, following the trail back almost to where it made its T with Mulholland. I wedged the VW between two junipers and killed the motor.

  "You got that flashlight?"

  "Yup." Darla held it up.

  I shut off the headlights and the night deepened around us. We got out and walked back up the trail. Insects clicked and snapped in the weeds. The city was a glow on the horizon, and a faint, distant roar. The air was dry and cool. Darla played the flashlight beam from side to side, searching. About halfway to the hollow we found a path leading up the hill, making its way among big gray boulders. Darla shut off the flashlight and we climbed up to the first switchback and hid behind the rocks. We looked down and listened.

  "Carl may have gotten cold feet," I whispered.

  Darla nodded. "Let's hope so."

  We went down and continued on the trail, stopping when we reached the tree with the weeping branches. I put the communicator next to my lips.

  "Any time, Arthur."

  "Roger."

  I looked up through the branches, but couldn't see anything. Nevertheless I somehow sensed the craft's descent, felt its immense bulk growing black-on-black against the sky like some dark angel auguring doom. A shiver ran through me, and I began to appreciate the extent of the trauma Carl must have suffered. I couldn't blame him a bit for having been scared out of his wits.

  I heard a voice coming from the parked Chevy. It was Carl Two. A door slammed, and the engine roared to life. The back tires spun briefly, then the engine died. The starter whined futilely, again and again. There was a shout. In the dim scattered light of the city-glow we saw the Chevy begin to levitate from the ground, its front end rising. We heard Lori's voice, but she wasn't screaming. She was shouting something at Carl.

  Suddenly there was a rustling in the brush above us, and the sound of running feet coming down the hill.

  Darla gasped, "Oh, no-"

  Carl One burst into the clearing, running toward the car, which by now had lifted a good two meters into the air. The passenger-side door had opened and Lori had one leg dangling out, holding the door open with both arms. Carl leaped and grabbed onto something-either the door or Lori's leg, or both. I couldn't see. He began to rise with the Chevy, hanging on.

  Lori was screaming now, frightened and shocked and confused. Slowly, the three of them, two layers of a core sample of the same human being and the woman they both loved, floated up into the still California night.

  "Jake?" came Arthur's voice. "What's happening down there? I have an extra body in the scoop beam."

  "It's Carl One," I said. Darla and I hadn't moved; neither of us could think of a thing we would dare do.

  "Well," Arthur said with annoyance, "I've stopped trying to figure out what's supposed to happen here. Two of them fell out, so I'm going to set them down after I've stowed the automobile in the bay."

  I slumped against the tree and closed my eyes. I could hear the Paradox Machine. It howled and shrieked and it sounded like Lori's screams.

  Presently, I was aware of Darla hugging me, her face against my back, and I realized that Lori's screaming had stopped.

  I turned around and held Darla for a moment, then took the flashlight from her and thumbed it on. Her face was drawn and pale, her eyes frightened.

  "Oh, Jake, it was so awful."

  "Yes."

  "And we did it. We perpetrated it. We're guilty."

  "Of what?"

  "I don't know."

  "Of doing what we had to do?"

  "Did we have to do it?"

  "We thought we did."

  "Jake, I just don't know. I just… don't know any more."

  "I never did, honey. I never knew the tune, but I keep trying to hum along."

  We walked out into the clearing. Two bodies came down from the sky like stage deities on invisible wires. They landed gently on their feet.

  Lori and Carl.

  Our Carl. He was holding her, her face pressed against his shoulder. She was trembling violently.

  "Hi," Carl said as we approached.

  "Hi," I said. I didn't know what else to say.

  "It happened like it was supposed to happen," Carl said. "I knew something else went on that night
. I finally remembered what Debbie had shouted at me when the car began to lift. She told me not to be scared. I was stunned. Here was this thing coming down out of the sky at us, and here was the girl I loved acting as if she knew what was happening. That's what I blanked out of my mind. It was a fact I couldn't explain. It made me afraid just to remember it. I didn't want to believe that the girl I had met and fallen in love with could have had anything to do with the kidnapping. And I could never understand why she tried to jump out of the car, like she was leaving me. I tried to stop her. But she was being dragged out… by someone else. I couldn't see who." He stroked Lori's tinted hair. "It was me. It was the only person it could have been."

  Lori's trembling had subsided. She turned her head up to Carl.

  "You did, didn't you?" Carl said. "You tried to tell him. You saw that he was scared out of his mind and you tried to tell him that he'd be all right."

  She nodded, closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest.

  "I felt awful," she said. "Like I was doing something evil. I set him up, I went along with it. And then… when you…" She sniffed and wiped her eyes. "And when you came out of nowhere, Carl, I thought I was going crazy. I didn't know what to do. I was so scared."

  Carl took a deep breath. "It all happened exactly as it was supposed to. Everything."

  I spoke into the communicator. "Arthur?"

  "Yes?"

  "How is he?"

  "Out like a light. Fainted dead away. He's fine, though. Just frightened."

  "Did you speak to him in Prime's voice?"

  "Yes, but I don't think he heard me."

  "Well, if he comes to, just do your Prime routine and say something comforting."

  "Oh, I will, I will, but he'll still be scared shitless. I'm going to try something on him. It's a mechanism that was formerly used to tranquilize wildlife specimens. It shouldn't hurt him, even if it doesn't work."

  "Okay. Meet you back at Dave's place. How is Dave, by the way?"

  There was a delay. "He says the only thing he regrets is that he can't ever use this in a script. Lacks verisimilitude."

  18

  I'm bad at good-byes. But I did my best.

  It was about five in the morning. Carl, Lori, and Dave saw us off.

  Lori hugged Darla, then me. I shook Carl's hand and then Darla kissed Carl and Lori. Then Lori hugged me again and kissed me. This went on for some time. Dave just stood by and smiled oddly.

  "Jeez," Carl said, "I'm going to miss you people."

  "Us, too," I said.

  "I can't say I'm going to miss being nine zillion miles from home," he added. "I'm glad to be back. You can have the future. It's yours. I don't belong there."

  "Future? No such thing," I said. "No future, no past. Time is one big wide-open amusement park. We proved that."

  "Yeah, I guess."

  Lori was sniffling. I stroked her cheek and said, "You're sure you want to stay, Lori?"

  She pulled Carl closer. "Yes. I'll put up with smog, tooth decay, and this character. There's really nothing for me back where I come from. I kind of like it here. This is a nice place… a nice time to be alive."

  I nodded. "Yes, it is. It seems peaceful, in a way, compared with what history says about it."

  The eastern sky was growing milky. A few birds were tuning up in a nearby copse of sumac trees. Behind us the ship hovered silently; Arthur was standing by to take us away from Earth in the waning summer of a year long past.

  Carl began, "I wish…" He chewed his lip, thinking.

  "What is it, Carl?" I asked.

  "I wish there was some way of contacting you," he said, then shook his head. "Somehow, but… it's impossible. Right?"

  "Send me a letter. Mark it: Jake McGraw; Postal Slot 7836, Administrative Zone Twelve, Vishnu, Colonial Planets. That's my address. Figure out a way to delay delivery for about a hundred and fifty years. Should be easy enough."

  Carl laughed. "Yeah, sure." Then he stopped laughing and had me repeat it. I did.

  Arthur's voice came through the communicator. "Are you quite ready?"

  I walked over to Dave. "Thanks," I said, shaking his hand. "We couldn't have done it without you."

  "I still think there's an outside chance that I've hallucinated this whole thing," he said. "By the way, Arthur doesn't look anything like Gort." He stared at the ship for a moment, then sighed. "The future. I've dreamed about it, written about it. And here it is, right in front of me. You know, Jake-you haven't really told me much about it. Nothing about what's really going to happen in the next few years here."

  I said, "You mean like stock market quotations?"

  "No." He glanced at Carl and Lori, then said, "Tell me, is there going to be a-" He stopped, then shook his head. "No. Don't tell me anything. At least I know there's going to be a future. Sometimes that prospect looks very dubious. And judging from the little you've let on, it's going to be a pretty interesting future."

  "Never a dull moment," I said.

  "People…" Arthur said impatiently.

  "Keep your pants on," I yelled.

  "I won't say the obvious," Arthur said.

  "Well," Dave said, offering his hand again. "Good luck."

  "Thanks. "

  There was more hugging and kissing, and Lori started crying again, so I dried her eyes and kissed her and told her to be a good girl. Which was silly; for she was now a woman.

  "I'll always remember you, Jake," she said.

  "And how could I forget my little Lorelei?" I said.

  "Debbie," she corrected. She whispered in my ear, "I hate that name!"

  "Which one?"

  "Both, actually. Debbie the most."

  "It looks good on you."

  Presently there was nothing more to say.

  I took one last look at Earth, at Earth's sun showing its face to a new day, at the grass and the trees and the kind skies of the birthing place of humankind.

  And then I left that world, that time.

  Earth dwindled in our wake as Arthur piloted the ship through the gravitational vortices of the solar system and out into deep space, where we could, as he put it, "do a good clean jump."

  "Where to?" he added. "Back to Microcosmos?"

  "Not just yet," I said. "We have to dump Carl off somewhere. And the sooner the better."

  "He'll be okay. That tranquilizer mechanism seems to have done its job. Where did you have in mind?"

  "Look. This is a spacetime machine, right?"

  "Right."

  "We can go anywhere, any time?"

  "Well, more or less. There are some limitations."

  "Can we jump forward in time about one hundred and fifty years and drop him off on the Skyway somewhere?"

  "Just anywhere?"

  "Terran Maze would be a good idea."

  "Right you are. Just point out a likely planet and I'll shoot for it."

  Bruce helped him do that. We picked Omicron Eridani II, and Arthur got his bearings from the Earth-based astronomical data that was stored in that tiny but powerful robot brain of his. We picked a date that was about a year before I met Darla on the Skyway. All would go according to plan.

  Arthur asked, "Are you all getting off there?"

  "No, just Carl. We're going back to Microcosmos with you."

  Darla drew me aside. "Jake, do you realize that if we did get off, the Paradox would be complete? You'd be back in T-Maze before you left-before any of this happened. Don't you think-"

  "No, Darla. The story's not over yet. I have to go back and get Sam."

  She nodded; and didn't mention it again.

  We had given a lot of thought to the subject of setting Carl loose on the Skyway. Our Carl-Carl One-had tried to describe his experiences immediately after the kidnapping. But his memory of the whole period aboard ship was hazy to say the least-which accorded exactly with the way things were going for Carl Two, who was at the moment slumped in the seat of his magic Chevy in the small cargo bay. He was catatonic, and it was hard to
say whether this was the result of the "tranquilizer" beam or the trauma of the kidnapping. Probably a little of both. I was worried.

  Carl One had told us that "Prime" had spoken to him during this period. We induced Arthur to do his impression of Prime for Carl Two at regular intervals.

  "What do I say?" Arthur had demanded to know.

  "Be soothing. Be a nice person."

  "Oh, great."

  But he did it. We had no idea if any of it got through to Carl. I had the feeling that it did.

  According to Carl's story, when the mental haze lifted, he found himself in his car on the Skyway. And when he saw a portal for the first time, he somehow knew what it was and how to shoot it.

  Arthur pondered this problem for a while. Then: "I can come up with something akin to dreaniteaching by modifying the tranquilizer beam circuitry. I think."

  I asked, "Don't you need tools or equipment or something to do that?"

  "You're thinking in terms of conventional technology: It won't be a simple task, but it's not a matter of tinkering with anything physical, at least not on the scale of ordinary objects. This ship has the capacity to reprogram its auxiliary mechanisms for any function desired, within limits. Trust me."

  "Oh, I do," I said. "You exude trustworthiness."

  "I'll have to change my deodorant."

  So it was that we set Carl off on the road between the worlds to seek his destiny, which was to find me and go home. He had nothing more than his car, the clothes on his back, and a little over 1000 Universal Trading Credits' worth of gold (my entire stash-I was now broke) in the trunk.

  It was a grungy mudball of a planet with lowering skies and mud-colored rocks-but just beyond the portal was Adonis, a very nice world indeed, well-populated and civilized. We landed on the Skyway a few kilometers from the portal's commit boundary. Arthur opened the bay door and nudged the Chevy out. Carl sat there in the middle of the road for a minute. Then he started the engine and drove off. He never looked back.

  The Chevy dwindled to a candy-apple red dot and vanished between the towering jet-black columns of the portal.

  Carl had shot his first portal and survived. Arthur's modified dream-teaching gadget had worked.

  "Good-bye, Carl," Darla said in a murmur. "For the second time, good-bye. And good luck."