Red Limit Freeway

by John Dechancie

  “Well, I’m not asking your permission to take it.”

  I chuckled. “I’d like to see you try to separate that buggy from its owner. You know how young men are about their jalopies.”

  “Oh, I don’t think he’ll be too much of a problem.”

  I reached for the medicine chest, opened it, and took out the aspirin bottle. “Damn headache. Do you mind?”

  “Let me have a look at what you’re doing.”

  I held the bottle up to the camera-eye above the kitchenette, then shook two aspirin tablets into my other hand. “See?”

  “Okay.”

  “You seem to feel in control here, Corey, ordering me about and all.”

  “I am, Jake.”

  “You also sound like you’re expecting help. If the Roadbugs can’t find us, your buddies back there are going to have a rough time. That is, if they followed us through that last portal.”

  “We’ll see,” the voice said.

  “Answer me this, Corey. Say you get what you want from us. Where do you go from here?”

  “Eh?”

  “How the hell are you going to get back to T-Maze or wherever you want to go. We’re lost.”

  “Indeed we are. But I’m really not all that worried.”

  I popped the aspirin into my mouth, took a cup from the small cupboard, and filled it with water out of the sink tap. “You’re not? I am.” I took a drink and swallowed the pills.

  “I don’t see why,” Wilkes’ voice said. “You know you’re going to get back, if the Paradox is real.”

  “Then you’re bound to lose in the end, Corey. I’ll have the map.”

  “Maybe. I’m still thinking about that. Maybe I really don’t want the Cube. Maybe just the Chevy.”

  “It sounds as though you really don’t accept the reality of the Paradox,” I said, placing the aspirin bottle back into the medicine chest, and successfully, it turned out, palming the small vial of chlorpromazine tablets as I drew my hand away.

  “As I said, I’m still thinking about it, but emotionally I suppose I don’t. The way I see it, a paradox is an impossibility. Look what’s supposed to have happened in your case. Your future self hands the Cube over to somebody, who gives it to somebody else, and so on. Darla finally winds up with it, and she gives it to you. You go back in time and close the loop, handing it over to the first person again, etcetera, etcetera. Now, dammit, that Cube has to have an origin somewhere! But as long as the loop keeps recycling endlessly, there’s no possibility. There’s no entry point. The Cube just is, and there’s a smell of unreality to it all.”

  I went back to the cab carrying a cup of black coffee. As I passed through the hatchway, an area that wasn’t covered by any of Sam’s camera-eyes, I slipped the vial into my pants pocket and cracked it open. I withdrew my hand, palming two tablets.

  “I can’t argue with you, Corey,” I said, sitting in the driver’s seat.

  “I wish you would,” the voice said. “You have an absolutely incisive intellect, Jake. Why did you ever want to drive a truck for a living? Seems a waste.”

  “I like keeping people off-balance. Nobody expects a truckdriver to have any brains. It amuses me.”

  “Hell of a price to pay for amusement, I’d say.”

  “Nah. Very small.” I made as if to wipe the edge of the cup with my finger, and in doing so dropped the tablets into the coffee. Then I sipped from the cup.

  “It’s your life,” Wilkes’ voice said. “Anyway, getting back to the subject of where we go from here and why I’m not very concerned about it, let’s consider this. We have Winnie’s map and George’s map. We have the Cube, which might be a map. There are two very good technicians riding with the convoy following us, the same ones who tampered with Sam. They have some equipment with them, and they just might be able to crack the Cube. I’m not banking on it, mind you, but it’s a possibility. Last but hardly least, here we are on a Roadbug service planet. There has to be a portal leading back to Terran Maze, Reticulan Maze, or the Outworlds. Has to be. I’d be willing to bet anything on it.”

  “Yeah, but how are you going to find it?”

  “Don’t know that yet. Maybe we just ask the Bugs.”

  “They’ll probably tell you to go inseminate yourself,” I said, scoffing.

  “Maybe, but then we have all those other options.”

  “I don’t know why you think either Winnie’s or George’s map is an option. If we happen to luck back onto either trail, fine. But chances are we won’t.”

  “It just seems to me,” the voice said irritably, “that with all these stinking maps around we should be able to come up with something, for God’s sake.”

  I shook my head in pity. “That’s your biggest flaw, Corey. You design these grand schemes and sit back and admire them, thinking the details will take care of themselves. You’re a great strategist but a poor tactician. Wars are won in the trenches, my friend.”

  “Thank you, Karl von Clausewitz.” The voice gave a short, deprecating laugh. “Actually, you may not be too far off the mark. I’ve always tended to think big, big, big—and the bigger the thinking gets, the more my best-laid plans gang agley all over the punking place. Witness this current fiasco. But I’m not licked yet. Far from it. In fact, I feel I’m operating from a position of considerable strength at the moment. Most of the options may be iffy propositions, but they’re options nonetheless.”

  I sat and drank, gaze fixed on the camera-eye, intrigued by the fact that this simulacrum of Wilkes’ personality was far more introspective than the original. I wondered why.

  “I have another question,” I said. “Who put you together? Your programming, I mean. As far as being able to mimic emotions and personality traits, you seem to be the equal of Sam’s VEM. That makes you pretty unique. Terran AI programs just aren’t that good.”

  “Oh, I’m pretty good, all right, but I’m all homemade. By humans, that is. It was written and debugged in the Outworlds. I’m strictly domestic goods.”

  I worked one semidissolved chlorpromazine tablet into my mouth and swallowed it. “I’m surprised. Didn’t know they had that kind of expertise in the Outworlds.”

  “You would be very surprised. Brain drain, Jake. We attract some of the best talent in every field.”

  “My impression was things are pretty primitive there.” “They are. But did you ever try to build a civilization from scratch? Takes time.”

  I nodded. “I see.” I finished the rest of the coffee, and with it the remnants of the second pill, its bitterness sluicing over my tongue and down my throat. I set the cup down into a circular receptacle on the dash. “Okay, Corey. I think I’ve had about enough of you.”

  “Oh?”

  I switched on the intercom and bent to speak into the dashmouthed microphone. “Carl, Sean, hey, everybody. Emergency. Everyone into the cab, please. Except you, Carl. Get in your buggy and stand by. Acknowledge.” I switched to LISTEN. It was too quiet back there.

  “They won’t answer, Jake,” Corey Wilkes’ voice said. “Roland? John? Darla? … Anybody?” I leaned and yelled into the mike. “Hey, back there! Everybody up! Rise and shine!” Nothing except light snoring.

  I rose and started aft.

  “I wouldn’t go back there, Jake.”

  I stopped in the aft-cabin. Susan was sitting up, looking at me blearily.

  “What’s the matter, Jake?” she asked. Then she shook her head, clearing the cobwebs. “Who were you talking to? Is Sam back?”

  She looked at me even more strangely as I directed my voice toward one of Sam’s speaker-mikes in the corner. “What do you have working back there, Corey? A dream wand?”

  “No, not this time,” Wilkes’ voice said. “Just some knockout gas. Almost the same symptoms, though.”

  Susan’s right hand shot up to cover her mouth, and she pulled the ratty blanket up to cover her chest.

  “Hi there!” the voice said brightly. “Susan, is it? Last time we met, things were rather hectic.
I’m Corey Wilkes.”

  Susan uncovered her mouth and rasped, “Jake, how?” She was shocked, eyes fear-rounded and disbelieving.

  “It’s okay, Suzie,” I said, not very convincingly. The bogey-alert gong sounded.

  “We’ve got company, Jake.”

  I rushed to the ordnance locker, threw open the door, and rummaged through our stash of weapons. I tossed a pistol to Susan.

  Just then the hatch between the cab and aft-cabin slid down. I lunged vainly to catch it.

  “The whole rig’s booby-trapped, Jake,” the voice told me in an almost apologetic tone. “Really, I wouldn’t move an inch if I were you. You’re inhaling gas now. You could get hurt thrashing about.”

  I picked myself up and went over to the cot. I sat beside Susan. She threw her arms about me.

  “Seems the Roadbugs have escorted my friends here, Jake, old buddy. I was pretty sure they would.”

  I said, “I take back that comment about your being a poor tactician.”

  “Thanks. I get better all the time.”

  I pushed Susan down on the cot and covered her body with mine, burying my face in her silky hair.

  “Jake, I’m afraid,” she said into my ear as the darkness closed in.

  “Sleep, honey. Sleep,” I said softly, gently. With any luck, I thought, we’ll never wake up.

  20

  The Snark was big but fast. I chased it into a gathering whirlpool of darkness, gaining on it all the time but never catching it. It yawked and hooted up ahead somewhere, ever-elusive, a spastically-dancing figure against the coiling black lines of force whose current kept tugging me off balance as I ran. Stomach churning and head reeling, I teetered on into the dark.

  But soon the maelstrom swallowed me and there was nothing for a long time.

  I woke up nauseated, my head throbbing. I was on my back with my feet trussed together and hands tied behind, both arms gone numb and prickly. They had put me in the trailer behind some packing cases. I rocked back and forth until I rolled over, finding Darla face down next to me. Wilkes’ simulacrum had said that everyone had been knocked out with gas. That might have been true, but Darla’s symptoms were unmistakable—open glassy eyes, dull vacuous stare—which meant that a dream wand was in operation somewhere about. I realized that it might even be the one I had taken from Wilkes during the fight aboard the Laputa. Maybe the Rikkis had been carrying only one wand. And that’s why the knockout gas had been necessary. I knew that a wand’s effect could be thwarted by taking a simple tranquilizer; the chlorpromazine seemed to be doing its job, now that the effects of the gas had worn off, but I wondered how much time I had before the Reticulan mindcontrol device began to work its stupefying magic on me.

  I looked around. If anybody noticed I had moved they might guess I was temporarily immune. I could see someone’s big boots, probably Sean’s, sticking out from behind the left front tire of Carl’s buggy. No one else was visible from my vantage point. I waited until some circulation returned to my arms and rolled over on my back again. The trailer was silent. I listened for half a minute. It seemed no one had been charged with keeping an eye on us. I struggled to my feet and hopped away.

  The wand would have to be back here somewhere—No. I remembered that the device’s range was more than a city block, and walls didn’t seem to stop it. I searched the forward end of the trailer by the egg-crate section. Nothing there. Well, the drugs I’d taken should hold up for several minutes at least, time enough maybe to get free of the ropes.

  The small tool compartment had been emptied, doubtless by our captors as a precaution. Awkwardly holding up the lid with my bound hands, I looked over my shoulder inside to see if any of the debris at the bottom could be useful. Nothing but stray nuts and bolts, a few scraps of paper. Then I remembered a wickedly sharp edge on a piece of the astronomical equipment we were supposedly hauling (delivery was just a bit overdue), a big cabinet affair with a metal counter. I had nicked my finger on it during loading.

  A sideshow contortionist would have had an easy time of it. As it was, I nearly dislocated several joints angling myself to bring my hands up against the edge of the counter, which wasn’t as sharp as I had thought. They had done a good job tying me, even wrapping the forearms to prevent me from bringing my arms around by wriggling my butt and legs through. I didn’t have a knife edge to work with, but luckily I had some time. The rope material wasn’t strong either. It took ten minutes to cut through, and I was free.

  Everybody but Carl was back here, lying like corpses among the cargo: here Suzie, there John and Roland, Lori. They were probably questioning Carl about his strange vehicle. None too gently, I feared; but Carl was a tough kid.

  I had to do something fast, and quietly. The monitoring camera in the trailer was still out, victim of the mortar shell; we had never gotten around to repairing or replacing it. But no doubt they would be listening periodically for any sounds of movement. I checked my pockets. No, they hadn’t searched me and found the tranquilizers. Wilkes’ analog had probably reported I hadn’t had the chance to take any, but they might be back here at any moment to make sure.

  Ho ho.

  Why hadn’t Sean mentioned the shooting irons in his buggy? There they were, under the front bucket seats. Well, everyone carries weapons in their vehicle—no need to mention it. Our captors had been negligent in overlooking them; but then they had been relying on the wand. I chose a heavy beam weapon of Ryxxian make.

  The only plan of attack open to me, I thought, was a frontal assault—or backal, looking at it another way. I would have to crawl through the access tube and … do what, exactly? I felt a cold anger rising, an even more murderous version of what had come over me on Talltree. To be held against my will yet again, the fourth time in less than two months! It burned me. I was more than ready to just roll through the hatch and start blasting. I’d shoot all of them, every last one of the vermin. Moore, I’d do him first, just because of his conceited smirk and the sham friendliness he had shown me. Then Wilkes, if he was around. Him I’d hand-carve, slowly, giving Sam a ringside seat. And anybody else who was part of this would get what was coming to him. I’d see to that. The only thing preventing me from sliding right through and doing it was the possibility that Carl might get caught in the middle. So I crept, commandolike. At the far end of the tube I stopped. The hatch was slightly ajar, and I could hear voices.

  All too familiar ones.

  I eased the hatch open just the barest centimeter and peeked. Geof and Chubby were sitting at the breakfast nook playing cards. Standing over them, kibitzing, was our old friend Krause, the sociable sailor, who had given us a hard time back on Splash. I had more or less settled the score with these three, with Geof especially, though I regretted not shooting the bastard when I’d had the opportunity.

  Someone else came through the hatch into the aft-cabin. I couldn’t see him but knew whose voice it was.

  “You two’ll be playing hearts on bloody Doomsday!” Zack Moore growled.

  “Not really much to do, guv,” Chubby said lamely.

  “You can bloody well get us something to eat. You’ve a bloody kitchen here—or haven’t you noticed?”

  “Have a heart, Zack,” Geof said. “It was hard work cracking that safe.”

  “Shut up and get this out to Darrell and Jules,” Moore snapped.

  Geof dropped his hand of cards and caught the Black Cube. “You get some food on,” he added to Chubby.

  I pushed open the hatch and aimed the gun at Moore’s midsection.

  “Eat this, motherfucker.”

  A tableau: Moore, mouth agape, standing in front of the hatch; Chubby caught in mid-rise from the table; Geof holding the Cube, gawking; Krause petrified.

  Me on my belly with a monstrous weapon, wondering in the intervening few seconds whether I had it in me to cut a man down, even such a man as this, and the rest of them—mass murder? Would it be?

  Somebody make a move, I pleaded silently. It’ll make it easier.
/>
  But no one moved.

  “We … have your friend,” Moore said cautiously, gravely. Tentatively.

  “You are a dead man,” I stated.

  “I have more men,” Moore went on. “Outside. You’ll never—”

  “Dead,” I said. Silence.

  “Nothing I can do, Zack,” Corey Wilkes’ voice broke in finally.

  A question was forming in the air, hanging over the proceedings.

  So?

  The question slowly settled on me, became a vast weighty thing bearing down. Meanwhile wheels spun frantically in my head. My first shot should be to the CPU, knocking out Wilkes’ simulacrum, taking the horrible chance that Sam’s VEM wouldn’t be damaged. I knew approximately where it was. But the angle was bad. Think, think.

  “What do you want us to do, Jake?” Wilkes’ computerghost asked mildly.

  There was someone else, I knew, in the cab, waiting for Moore to either go down or get out of the way so as to get a shot off at me. I could shoot Moore and hose the hatchway, but Geof would in the meantime go for his gun. Or Krause, or Chubby.

  “Oh my God,” Wilkes’ voice said. “Here they come, and what a time.”

  “Bugs?” Moore asked.

  “The same.”

  Moore looked at me. “See here,” he said. “We’re not getting anywhere—”

  The next few moments were very confused.

  Here is approximately what happened. The lights dimmed a little: Things and people began to sail around the cabin. I found myself floating up off the bottom of the crawl tube and coasting out into the air, finding it extremely difficult to move. An invisible wrapping covered me, a rubbery, yielding envelope of force. Coming out from the tube, I rose, did a midair backward somersault and bounced gently off the ceiling. Krause was levitating below me, and Moore below him. Chubby and Geof were twirling in air over the breakfast nook, struggling frantically against the unseen bundling that covered them. Other things were afloat, every object in the cabin that had been loose: cups, spoons, cards, somebody’s sock—one of mine that had been left lying under the cot, I guess—and the Black Cube, which Geof had apparently let go.