"They took my car!" Carl was standing in an empty area of deck. Yesterday afternoon his 1957 Chevrolet Impala had been parked there. "It's Prime. I'm gonna kill him."
"No, you're not," I told him. "You'd like to, and so would I, but we can't. So, forget it. What we can do is confront him. I intend to do just that, so hold on until lunch."
Carl exhaled. "Shit."
"Don't worry."
He was suddenly very glum. "Maybe he'll give Sam back, but I can kiss that car good-bye. Whatever it was for, the job's done. It's not needed anymore. I'm not needed anymore."
"That means you can go home."
Carl sighed. "Yeah." Then a flash of indignation. "But they owe me a car!"
"Good luck."
Carl moped back to the access tube, crawled in and went through.
Darla was looking around the place. She clucked. "This is a mess. It smells in here."
She was right. I kicked an apple core away, bent and picked up a half-eaten chocolate bar. "Goddamn filthy tenants," I muttered. "I oughta raise the rent."
"Lori," Darla called, "there's a broom behind that junk over there, I think."
"Let's all pitch in," I said.
"No, Lori and I will handle it. You make sure this truck is Skyway-worthy. I want to get the hell out of this place."
"Me, too. But what about the others?"
Darla sneered. "They can stay here and become gods if they want to, the whole lot of them. I'm for leaving right now. Prime said he'd see that they got home. They can take their chances. We'll take ours."
"Don't you have any aspirations to superbeinghood?"
Her mouth curled into disgust. "Fuck."
I nodded. It was the first time I'd heard Darla use the word.
"Yesterday, you seemed to think our destiny was here."
She shrugged. "I guess I did. A lot can change in a day. And a night." Suddenly she threw her arms about me, her eyes wide and pleading. "Jake, I think our destiny is to get back. Let's go, take off. Just us. There must be a way back from this place."
"Where? How?"
"I don't know." She cast about in her mind for something. Her eyes lit up. "The Bugs! Where did they go? They headed toward Emerald City. We haven't seen them here-"
"This is a big place."
"But there might be a Skyway route back from here. There has to be."
"We didn't see a portal anywhere on the planet," I reminded her.
She chewed her lip. Then something hit her. "The other side!"
"The other…?" Then I got it. From space, we had only seen one face of the world-disk. "Yeah, maybe."
"Oh, Jake, let's do it. I want to get back on the road. You and me, Jake. I want that." She drew close, resting her head on my shoulder, and I held her.
"We can't just leave them, Darla."
"If they don't want to go, if they're going to stay here and get involved in things we can't begin to comprehend, why can't-" She took a breath, and lifted her head. "Is it Susan?"
"Huh? No, no, it's not just Susan. I couldn't just up and leave any of them stranded. I'm partly responsible for their being here."
"No, you're not, Jake. I am. I'm responsible for the whole thing."
"Enough of that. Look at me. I promise you that we'll get home. Do you believe me?"
"Yes, Jake. Yes, darling!"
She kissed me, then said, "I'm going to have your baby… I want it to be someplace normal, in a farm hut on some backwater planet, in a dingy motel room-anywhere! — anyplace that's not strange and frightening and totally alien." She buried her face in my jacket. "Oh, Jake, I don't have anything against anybody. Really, I don't. Susan can come with us, or any of them, I don't care. It's just that I'm so tired, darling. So very tired. I want to stop running. I want to go home."
"So do I, honey, so do I. But we've got a long road, ahead of us, and it might be a little while before we leave. Can you hang on?"
She knuckled her eyes dry, sniffling. "Sure."
I looked around. Lori was gathering some trash together behind Sean and Liam's battered magenta roadster. She had been trying not to eavesdrop, but was aware of my looking at her.
She grinned at me. "Place sure is a sty."
I gave her a wink. "Oink, oink." She laughed. Darla stooped to pick up some food wrappings. "Sure. you don't need a hand?" I asked.
"You men folk'll just be in the way," Darla said, smiling. "Seriously, I really want this truck to be ready to leave on a moment's notice. I'll feel much better knowing that."
"Yeah," I said.
"We'll get him back, Jake. Sam will be back."
I remembered the White Lady's pipette. "Speaking of finding a way back…"
Darla looked puzzled.
"Got something I want to check out," I said, and left her staring at at my back as I jogged to the access tube.
Carl was slumped in the shotgun seat, staring moodily out the port. I slid into the driver's chair.
"Buck up, kid. All is not lost." He gave an ironic snort.
I took out the pipette from a zippered pocket of my jacket and fed it into the pipette deck on the dash.
"Computer?"
"Yes?"
"Analyze this input."
"Very well. You have prohibited me from addressing you as sir. Shall I call you Mr. McGraw?"
"Call me Jake. And you're name's… Bruce. Got that?"
"Yes, Jake."
"And by the way, I'm sorry I was short with you a little while ago. Not your fault."
"Think nothing of it, Jake. It is a pleasure to be working with you."
"Thanks."
Most A.I. programs are pretty thick-skinned. No excuse for mistreating them, though.
I glanced at Carl. He looked very depressed. "Come on, kid. It'll be okay."
He exhaled slowly. "Oh, it's not that, really. I was getting tired of the damn car, anyway. It's… it's a lot of things."
"I'll bet."
"Lori," he said.
"Hm?"
"It's goofy, but. "
"What is it, Carl?"
"You know, when I first saw her, I thought she looked a lot like Debbie, but as time goes on-"
"Debbie," I said.
"Yeah, the girl who was with me the night I got kidnapped."
"Debbie! Your girlfriend. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead."
"Well…
"Were you in love with this girl?"
"I guess. We were… y'know, going steady. But it's not that. I mean, I miss her and everything, but-"
"Were you going to marry her? Engaged, maybe?"
"No, we weren't engaged. We loved each other. I mean, I really cared for her. She was… special."
"And you're starting to feel the same way about Lori?"
"Jake, you don't understand. It's none of that. I like Lori, and the reason is, she's a lot like Debbie. I mean, really a lot like her. In fact, it's giving me the creeps."
"Really? Teenage kids everywhere have a lot in common."
"Look, let me explain. When I first saw Lori, I thought, hey, she could be Debbie's little sister. The hair is different. Debbie has real dark hair, and it's long. But the face, and the voice… Jeez, the more I look at Lori, the more I think, if she dyed her hair and got about two years older… maybe not even that."
"How old was Debbie?"
"Sixteen. That's what she told me, anyway. Girls lie about their ages sometimes."
"Well, Lori can't be very much younger than that."
"Lori's skinny, too. Debbie had a few pounds on her. More rounded. You know?"
"I know exactly. Okay, so Lori could be Debbie's twin."
"Not `could be.' She is."
"You mean that literally?"
"I don't know what I mean. All I know is that it's been giving me the willies:"
"We've all got a bad case of the willies, kid." Carl shook his head slowly. "Probably a coincidence," I suggested.