"Yeah, I know," Carl grumbled. "Shit. We can still make it, though."
"Maybe, if we have to. But I'm not ready to leave just yet."
"Right, right. I'm sorry. We gotta get Sam back, I know." I studied Carl for a moment. The scared kid inside him was peeping through. He was farther from home than any of us.
I looked back at the tunnel, which exited from the base of a steep hill. "Well, we can't go down the up-ramp, that's for sure. Bruce, can we get back to the Skyway using these secondary roads?"
"No, Jake, there's no connection."
"You can't get there from here." I sighed. "That's odd. Can we go off-road?"
"Perhaps, Jake. The maps are not so detailed that I can make that judgment with any degree of authoritativeness."
"Damn. I don't want to go overland, but that through-the-mountain bit seems like the only way into the city by road."
"And who's to say," Darla added, "whether they'll lift up the mountain and let us in again?"
"Right. So I guess we cruise around a little and see if we can find some nice little rabbits who'll let us conk them over the head."
I was hungry: I'd just picked at breakfast, which seemed like days ago, and Darla's quickie lunch had vanished into the void. Nothing to be done about it now, though. And sitting here would accomplish less than nothing. So I eased back onto the road and brought the rig up to sight-seeing speed, just moseying along.
"They know where we are, of course," Darla said.
I nodded. "Of course. They've known our every move. But they haven't stopped us yet."
"Yes, but I'm still not ready to believe that Prime meant what he said about letting us leave any time we want to."
"Yeah, couple of things bother me about that," I said. "Consider all the stuff that's here. All those exotic vehicles, the wondrous gadgets, the technology. Just sitting around, waiting to be pilfered by disenchanted Culmination candidates."
"Maybe it's supposed to be pilfered," Darla suggested.
I thought about it. "Maybe. Haven't seen any signs of plundering, though."
"It may be we were the first ever to make it to the end of the Skyway."
"Gosh. Think of that."
Darla ruminated, then said, "You don't think anyone could get away with swiping anything from this place, do you?"
"Not for a moment. I can't believe the Culmination would let this stuff get dispersed anachronistically throughout all of spacetime. Most of it is from the far, far future. It would stick out like a sore thumb back where we come from. Talk about paradoxes."
"What about knowledge leaking out? All that data in the library. Taking back any of that would be anachronistic in itself."
"You have a point. Then, I guess, the knowledge doesn't leave here, either."
We looked at each other.
"I don't like the implications of that," Darla said worriedly. "Neither do I."
The sky was a pretty, purplish blue, appearing as if it had been colored in by crayon. The strange, artificial look probably had something to do with the atmosphere being a lot shallower here than it would be on a standard planet-or so I guessed-although it was deep enough to support a few puffy clouds. No doubt the weather was controlled. I wondered if it ever rained.
We rolled down a gradual grade and out onto flat grasslands. Structures came into view. Up ahead a side road diverged, leading to a featureless golden dome. Farther on another road branched off to a complex edifice that looked like a collision between a chemical plant and a Mogul palace.
"So many things…" Darla said out of a reverie.
"Like what?" I asked.
She sighed and shook her head. "So many unanswered questions. Little things, as well as big. Like, why isn't there any Skyway to the master portal?"
"To slow us down. Make us think twice about leaving. Or it's because this was such a pretty place, they didn't want to mess it up with new construction."
"All of the above," Darla said. "Or none of the above."
"You got it," I said. "Don't hold your breath for complete explanations. Mystery is the essence of life."
She rolled her eyes. "Let me write that down."
"Okay. It's M-Y-S-T-E-R- Huh? Why are you laughing?"
"Jake, you're getting more batty with every kilometer you drive."
"I'm being driven batty. I knew there was an explanation." For the next half hour we followed the road and saw the sights. There was plenty to look at. The vegetation changed; trees became more numerous, thickening to forest for a stretch, then thinning out a little to look like an orchard. More buildings in various architectural styles. There were other things, too, among which was a huge statue of a winged, four-legged animal resembling a gryphon, except that the head looked rather feline. The statue sat atop a cylindrical base and must have risen to more than sixty meters. An alien god-a mythical animal? Or was this the likeness of a once-extant sapient being? No telling. There were other monuments which gave the impression of being tombs or cenotaphs. One was a diamond-shaped mass of metal that stood balanced, impossibly, on one of its apexes, resting point to point with the tip of a pyramidal base. Another was a giant glass needle, a thin, tapering crystalline shaft that shot up over a hundred meters. There were obelisks, stelae, slabs, monoliths, and other masses, all of various geometrical shapes.
More buildings. One looked very familiar. In fact, we were shocked. I pulled off the road and stopped.
"The Taj Mahal!" Darla blurted.
And it was, if memory served. Though I'd been in India, I'd never laid eyes on it. But the Taj is one of those universal picture-postcard images that has engraved itself in the mass mind. No mistaking those serenely graceful turnip-top domes, the slender minarets, that classical symmetry and sense of proportion. In a word, beautiful.
"My God," Darla said, "what's it doing here?"
"Part of the collection," I said.
"Do you think there are more Terran artifacts here?"
"Possibly."
"Maybe it's just a replica."
"Maybe. Looks new, doesn't it? Probably restored or reconstructed."
I got us moving again. Farther along we came to an intersection. The other road was narrower but was made of the same blue-green material. I stopped, checking traffic. There was none, so I crossed and continued on.
I should have waited, because a few kilometers down the road I saw a blip on the rear scanner screen.
11
I tromped the power pedal. "Bruce," I said, "we got trouble."
"Noted, Jake. Bandit at six o'clock, closing fast."
Maybe it was Prime, come to fetch us back. But I doubted it. "In camera range?" I asked.
"Extreme telephoto. Can you make it out?"
I looked. It was a dun-colored dot, growing rapidly, soon resolving into a paramilitary vehicle with familiar camouflage markings. One of Zack Moore's buggies.
"Incoming message on the Skyway citizens' band," Bruce said calmly.
"Put it through."
"… McGraw, breaking for Jake McGraw. Come back."
I recognized the voice. It was Krause, who had been an officer aboard the ferryboat Laputa: I had had a minor run-in with him, and a major one with his skipper, Captain Pendergast.
I put my headset on. "Yeah, you got McGraw."
"Hi, there! Where've you guys been?" Krause's chummy manner rang as false as a bell made of papier-mache.
"What's it to you, asshole?" I had decided not to be civil about this.
"Hey, now, is that any way to talk? After all we've been through together?"
"Back off," I said, "or you're a dead man."
"Don't be so paranoid. I just want to talk. What's it like inside that castle, anyway?"
"Good food, good service, and a great game room. Any other questions?"