"Concerning what?"
"Little matter of that young man's automobile."
"I was wondering when you were going to get around to that. You want it?"
"Yes, I think I do," the voice said after a slight hesitation.
"Why?"
"I'm not sure. I don't think it has anything to do with the Roadmap affair, but it is an amazing artifact… and Carl's story about his abduction is very intriguing indeed. That machine of his should be worth something to somebody. I think I should have it to keep in reserve to sort of strengthen my bargaining position vis-…-vis the Authority, should I choose to deal with them again."
I got up and walked to the aft-cabin. Standing at the kitchenette, I loaded the coffee brewer and started it working. "The car doesn't belong to me, Corey."
"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 parodox 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. I 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 dash-mounted 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.