"Yes, I've considered it," I said, "but we won't find a backtime route following standard roadmaps."
Roland sighed. "True. Still it seems that there should be some other alternative to just blindly shooting potluck after potluck."
"If you think of one, let me know."
Roland sat back. "I will."
Chapter 15
Interchange world.
This one was big; bigger than most I'd seen. Like most, it was the desolate moon of a gas giant. Judging from the apparent distance to the horizon, I guessed this one to be about twice Luna's size, which made it a full-fledged planet. It had an atmosphere, a haze of biotic soup. No life forms were evident, but you never know; you could be walking along out there and some sapient crystal could tap you on the shoulder and ask the time of day. Or if you would like to rent his sister. Nevertheless, the place looked lifeless and bleak: flatlands of dirty white ice cut by an occasional low spine of dark rock running diagonally to the road. The sky was gray with a tiny molten point tow and directly ahead. A distant sun. Forty-five degrees to the right, the gas giant cut the grayness with a milk-white crescent.
We hit some traffic as our ingress spur merged with others. Outr‚ alien vehicles overtook us, wiggling and weaving between lanes. The shapes were as various as they were strange, some rounded and bulbous, some starkly geometrical, others sleek, low, and lean. A few were almost indescribable. What looked like a loosely associated collection of giant soap bubbles wobbled by, emitting a tinkling warning tone. Farther along, a miniature contraption resembling a mechanical dog scampered past us like a runaway child's toy. A glowing blue polyhedron paced us for a stretch, then accelerated and lost itself in traffic.
We were on a straightaway running across the icy flats. The first cutoff likely would be about thirty kilometers distant. Signs appeared, asquiggle with nervous lettering. We were in a civilized, organized maze. Whose, I didn't know; I did not recognize the symbols as Nogon script. We had probably left the Nogon Maze proper, and now were in the Expanded Maze to which it belonged. Ragna's crazy maps had not made the demarcation clear.
"'What say we take the first cutoff?"
"Fine by me," Sam said.
"That all right with everybody?"
It was fine. I called Carl and Sean, told them what was up.
"Sounds okay to me, Jake," Carl told me. "Lori thinks it's a good idea, too."
"All the same to us," Sean concurred. "We'd as lief roll the dice now as drive ten kiloklicks and do it then."
"Okay, then," I said. "We take the first cutoff. Acknowledge."
"Affirmative!"
"Ditto!"
I leaned back and eased off the power pedal. It's nice to have things settled. Roll them bones.
"Sam," I said, "what about some music?"
"'You must be in a particularly good mood. What'll it be?"
I rarely play music while driving. Not that I don't like it-on the contrary, I love music and find it uncomfortable when I can't devote my full attention to it. I don't believe in using it as wallpaper. Other reasons: my tastes tend toward classical, which makes me singular among my colleagues in the fraternity of truck owner-operators. Though I don't really care what they think, being known as a bit of a flake can be a liability, and since can't stomach the glop that passes for pop music these days, I usually opt for silence.
But in the wake of Darla and Susan's set-to, the silence had begun to feel a little stony.
"What about a little Bach? Something from the Two-Part Inventions would be nice."
"Comln' up "
"Wait. On second thought, maybe we should have something more appropriate to the weird scenery. How about Bart¢k's Concerto for Orchestra?"
Sam complied with the request.
I looked back and found myself the object of bemused stares.
"Bart¢k?" Roland mouthed silently, eyebrows arched in detached, academic surprise.
"You're a strange man in many ways," John commented.
"John," I replied, "how would you like to walk to the Big Bang?"
"Apologies."
I wasn't really miffed by the remark. Used to it by now. So I drive a truck and like serious music. So kiss my ass.
"I've always wondered," Sam said, "how I ever managed to raise a longhair for a son."
"Sam…"
"What?"
"Never mind," I said.
Traffic thickened up a bit more and things got a little hairy as reckless alien vehicles swerved and skittered all around us. I thumbed the warning alarm a few times and swerved intimidatingly in return. Everyone decided to give us a wide berth. Wise decision, as I am not above making ham salad of roadhogs.
"Roland," I said, "can you see the cutoff yet?"
Peering out into the soup, Roland answered, "No."
"Keep an eye out, okay?"
"Check."
I looked back at Susan. She was crying quietly now. She grew aware of my gaze and looked at me questioningly at first, then gave a quick shake of the head that said, just leave me alone.
Okay, I would.
I was hugging the extreme right edge of the fast lane. The fast lane is actually two lanes wide by Terran standards. The rest of the road is taken up by the "doubleback" or return lane, reserved for opposing traffic, and two shoulder lanes on either side. The doubleback track is only about a lane and a half wide, since most traffic on the Skyway is moving in the same direction. There are no lines painted on the road; Skyway roadmetal doesn't take paint. But if you run over into the doubleback lane or onto the shoulder, you get annoying vibrations. Rumble strips, probably, though no grooves or projections are visible on the road surface. After many a klick of Skyway, though, you actually start seeing the lanes, oddly enough. I could, and can. Strange. Pushy alien drivers had been passing us on the right, using the shoulder lane, so I decided to run on the shoulder to prevent being blocked from making the cutoff. The vibrations can give you a headache after a while, but we'd be off the lane very shortly.
"See it yet?"
"No," Roland said. "This atmosphere's pretty thick, isn't it.
"Sam, can you paint any blips moving off to the right up there?"
"No, too early. Maybe ten klicks more. Keep your eyes peeled, though."
"No need, really. If we miss it, we miss it. This is a dice roll, remember? Any portal will do."
"You're the captain."
"I like the cut of your jib, Sam."
"The which of my what?"
"The rake of your spinnaker, or whatever."
"I think your terminology's confused."
"Well, I never rubbed elbows with the sail set."
"No? Seems to me you did go sailing with the nubile daughter of some bureaucrat or another, back in your college days. Long time ago-lessee, what was her name? Zoya?"
"My God' do you have a memory."
"Zoya. That was it, right?"
"I think so. Sure, I remember. Zoya Mikhailovna Bubnov."
"Talk about memory," Sam marvelled.
"I remember she had great bubnovs. Beautiful girl. Wonder whatever became of her."
"You should have married her. She was head over heels in love with you, if I recollect. She came to visit at the farm once."
"I believe she did," I said. "That was a long time ago. I couldn't have been more than twenty-one at the time. That would have made her around seventeen."
"Ah, sweet bird of youth."
"Horsefeathers."
"Yep, you should have married the girl. Think where you'd be now."
"In a psych motel."
"You'd be sitting pretty, that's where you'd be."
"Sitting prettily."
"Huh? Oh, fudge. So what are you?―a truckdriver. A bright kid like you, dragging freight from mudball to mudball, swilling beer…"
"Damn, I could use a beer. We got any?"
"Don't change the subject."
"You brought it up! Hey, back there? Any beer in the cooler?"