Chapin winced, a bit embarrassed. "Oh. Sorry."
"Natural enough mistake," John said good-naturedly. "You couldn't possibly have known."
I had pulled off toward the side of the road and had stopped, waiting for Lori to get squared away and for everyone to decide to continue the chitchat sitting down and strapped in. Finally, everyone did. We were short a seat and harness for Chapin, but he wedged himself in behind my seat, squatted on a tool box, and hung onto a handgrip. Suzie even managed to persuade Lori to bed down again. Lori didn't protest this time, not much anyway.
Something occurred to me. "Where's Winnie?" I hadn't seen her in hours. I yelled for her.
We heard the sauna stall door open. Winnie came into the cab, rubbing her eyes scratching her furred tummy, and giving us all a grimace-smile. "Here! Winnie here!"
"This is Winnie" I said to Chapin, twisting around to him.
"Winnie, Carl."
"Hi Winnie."
"Hi!"
Chapin held out his hand and Winnie took it, her double thumbed grip enfolding it warmly.
"Where are you from, Winnie?" Chapin asked her.
"Winnie extended an arm aft making a far-off motion. "Way back!"
Everyone laughed. We had all come a long way.
Winnie sat in Darla's lap, but when she saw that Darla would have some difficulty bearing up under the weight, she jumped over to John's, hugging him. Winnie's compactness was deceptive; she had a good deal of bulk on her.
"You've met Carl, then?" John asked Darla.
"Yes we talked last night, But I didn't get much out of him" She smiled at Carl.
"Neither did I," Susan said, strapping in.
"I notice he made a point to meet the women," I commented.
"Don't mean to be so secretive," Carl said. But he left it at that…
"Here we go," I announced. I goosed the engine and eased the rig forward down the steep incline.
Traffic whizzed by, two roadsters hot-rodding through the curves, braying annoyance at the big lumbering rig in their way. A little farther down, the curves got easier to handle, and I got a chance to look at the scenery. The sky was dark with a thick covering of greenish purple clouds. Here and there, big winged creatures soared just above tree level alighting now and then on lofty branches. No other large lifeforms in sight.
It was all very pretty and very alien. The road bottomed out and went straight following a long tree-lined corridor. Between the massive black tree trunks, undergrowth grew thickly even in the dim light. And a few lines came to me
If road yarns contained any truth, I had light-years to go.
For some unfathomable reason, I had become the protagonist of the wildest Skyway story yet. I knew only the outline of it; no one had related it in detail. It was the tale of a man, yours truly, who followed the Skyway clear out to the end. And came back. But in doing so, I returned paradoxically before I left.
There was more to it. I had come into possession of an alien artifact, the Roadmap, which delineated clearly and for all time the extent of the Skyway system and revealed a path leading to the lost civilization of the Roadbuilders and the secrets of their phenomenal technology.
And where did the Skyway lead, if followed out all the way to the "end"? ―As if an 'interconnected road system could have such. It led, so the stories said, to the beginning of the universe. Not to the end, mind you, in either sense―not the physical limit of the universe, or its final destiny, but to the beginning.
When I heard that (from Jerry Spacks, an old friend and former member of the Starriggers Guild), I'd asked if there was a good, motel there.
The beginning of the universe.
Bang.
Pack your sunglasses. And bring plenty of suntan lotion. That primeval fireball can bum you right through your pretty new beach outfit.
As farfetched as it all was, I had every reason―now―to believe it. True, I had only Darla's word that she had met me before―a meeting I did not remember―but I also was now in possession of a very strange object, the nature of which was not clear even to Darla, who had given it to me. I had the Black Cube. That was all it was, a palm-sized cube, black as the devil's heart, origin and purpose unknown. It might be the Roadmap; or it might not be.
There was other evidence: Back on Goliath, I had made good my escape from the Colonial Militia with the very timely help of what could only have been my doppelganger, my paradoxical self. I was fairly sure of that. I had seen him… me. True, a, tiny wisp of doubt still clung to that image of my own face hovering above me as I lay in my cell, being administered the antidote to the effects of the Reticulan dream wand…
I sat up in my seat. Where did my double get the dream wand he had used to knock out everybody at the Militia station? I opened the glove box under the dash. There it was a shiny green shaft with a bright metal ring around one end.
Of course. That's how "he" got it. I have it now!
I closed the box. Jesus, it was spooky.
Maybe there was no doubt after all.
"Hooray!"
A sign beside the road.
6KM TO THE FRUMIOUS BANDERSNATCH!
EATS!
GET DRUNK! WE MAIL YOU HOME, KEEP YOUR KEY
ROOMS, NOT TOO SORDID
TURN OFF SKYWAY I KM
FOLLOW RT. 22 EAST
"Oh, God, a bed," Susan said dreamily.
"The sign's in English," John said. "Oh, here's the Intersystem one. Odd, it's not as friendly in 'System."
"Frumious Bandersnatch," Roland muttered.
"Route 22" (I nearly missed it, even going at a crawl) was a dirt trail which intersected the Skyway, then meandered off into the forest. I turned off and followed it, bumping over mound and rut, stone and fallen log, for what seemed like 20km with no bandersnatchi evident. Nothing was evident but a kind of hokey enchanted forest scene, as in the animated epics you see in museum mopix programs. Except of course there was nothing ersatz about it; this was the real, otherworldly thing. Out there was the demesne of elves, dryads, unicorns, and nymphs-or their funny-looking alien counterparts, and they'd be doubly eldritch for that.
We came upon it suddenly. It was a big, rambling three-story building slapped together out of immense logs and raw board lumber, roofed over with half a dozen gables, a spacious canopied porch going all the way around, lots of small windows on the upper floors, all of it anchored by four or five huge stone chimneys coughing thin black smoke. There was a big parking lot hacked out of the forest on three sides, crammed with unusual off-road vehicles.
All in all, it had a great deal of charm. Right then, though, a holey tent with no ground cloth would've looked like home. Smells of grilled food were in the air―I had been about to check instruments for air content and quality when I saw two husky fellows reel bare-headed out the front door and stagger to their funny-looking land jumper. I let down the port and sniffed. Pleasant odors, some nameless, some familiar. I rather liked this place already.
"Anyone hungry?" I said.
"Hold out your arm," Susan answered, unstrapping hurriedly, "and don't bother with the salt."
I was pretty tired of hotpak dinners and moldy stuff from the cooler, too.
We were all packed up and out of the rig in nothing flat.
The bad roller looked pretty grim, afflicted with leprous white patches of crystallization. From here on in, every meter it rolled would be a risk. No matter; I was fairly sure there'd be a garage nearby. We'd put on the spare, and not give too much thought to how bad it was.
I stood at the edge of the parking lot, checking out escape routes. Habit. A second highway intersected Route 22 here, another logging road, or rabbit trail, I couldn't tell which. Sam had a clear path to leave on short notice, if necessary, unless someone parked next to him blocking the road. From the looks of these vehicles, though, he'd have no trouble nudging them aside if he had to. You'd have to see Sam up alongside your average four-roller buggy to appreciate how big he is.