Everything rose, tumbling, wobbling, spinning lazily. At about the height of fifty meters, the ascent stopped. Everything then proceeded to form into a vast swirling cloud like a flock of migrating birds, orbiting about a point on the floor of the chamber around which the Bugs were arranging themselves into a circle.
The scene was dreamlike; everything transpired in perfect silence. I could hear myself as I shouted and called out to everyone, but no sound conducted through the vacuum between individual force-envelopes. No reason why it should, I thought, so I shut up.
The cloud of junk and people began to order itself, forming spiraling lines leading down. During the reshuffling, I was astonished to see Wilkes―the genuine flesh-and-blood Corey Wilkes―go wafting past. He was naked from the waist up and wore white pajama bottoms. His chest was wrapped with white bandages. He looked as if he was having trouble breathing. His eyes seemed to find me as he passed. Dim recognition formed in his expression for a moment, then his eyes closed and he floated out of my ken. It was a reunion up there. Twrrrll, the surviving Reticulan, ghosted by, zoom-lens eyes fixing me in an insensate stare.
If Wilkes had been a shock, the sight of Ragna coming in for a docking maneuver had me reeling. In spite of myself, I yelled out, "Ragna! What the hell are you doing here!!??"
Well, he answered, and what he said was probably something like "Greetings, Jake, my friend of the bosom! Is this not of immense interestinghood?" or words to that effect, if his idiotically effusive smile was any indication. A slight perturbation of his orbit took him away, with his wife Oni following. I groaned.
I saw men I didn't recognize; other members of Moore's gang of cutthroats no doubt.
Above the circle of Roadbugs a gigantic cyclonic funnel took shape. Currents of force carried junk in spiraling patterns down to make a wide circuit in front of the Bugs, then back up again through the funnel and into the hovering cloud of people and debris. It seemed the Bugs wanted to inspect us and every doodad and whatnot we owned. I found myself in the funnel in short order, and began a dizzying descent in a quickly tightening gyre. As I neared the bottom, though, everything stopped.
They had found the. Cube.
The circle of Bugs drew tighter. In the dim light of the chamber I could barely see a black dot making the inspection circuit by itself, pausing briefly in front of each Bug before moving on. The Cube made the circuit twice, and that seemed to be enough. The funnel cloud began twisting downward again and I found myself parading before the assembled inspectors, floating single file with an assortment of digging tools. I had a momentary fantasy, imagining what was going through the Bugs' minds―if they had minds―as they categorized and cataloged everything.
Inanimate: implement; inanimate: foodstuff; inanimate: (unclassifiable); animate: being (semisentient, bipedal, mammalian); Inanimate: apparel (covering for pedal extremities)…
They found me of little interest but paused for a moment to better scrutinize George and Winnie. Then I gravitated up into the cyclone again, a helical course until I returned to take my place in the huge swirling galaxy of stuff and people above.
I looked down. Carl's Chevy was rising on its own special updraft. When the funnel cloud had dissipated, it floated down to rest on the floor in the middle of the circle. The Bugs crowded even closer together to get a better look at it―if that was what they were doing. None of the car's hatches opened and none of its contents came out. They spent a good ten seconds looking it over, then backed off, apparently either satisfied with what they saw, or despairing of ever making sense of it.
The strip-search was over―none too soon, because I was finding each succeeding breath more difficult to draw.
What happened next happened quickly. The cloud of stuff broke apart, its elements falling precipitously, but gathering into a dozen or so individual streams. I fell, my stomach flipping over even though the sensation wasn't like an ordinary fall. I started tumbling, tried to stop but couldn't. Blizzards of junk accompanied me. Somebody's shirt covered my face and I brushed it off. Then a tool box bumped into my protective envelope but didn't hit me. I grew disoriented and slightly nauseated. The last few moments of the ordeal were mercifully quick, and I can't describe exactly how I got there, but the next thing I knew I was back in the cab again. A cataract of debris followed me through the hatch, spilling onto the deck in an ever-rising tide. John shot through the hatch, then Susan, then Roland, followed by the rest of our party including the Voloshins. None of Moore's gang appeared. Then my invisible wrapping ceased to exist and I fell headfirst into the lake of junk. The hatches slammed shut and there was silence.
Someone was standing on my legs. I twisted, and whoever it was fell over. I surfaced from the junk, tried standing up. My leg oozed into a pile of loose crap, sending me over. I grabbed the back of the shotgun seat and pulled myself up.
"Interesting weather we've been having," a reassuringly familiar voice said.
"Sam!"
"Yup, I'm back."
The cab was, needless to say, a god-awful mess. Several minutes went by and we still hadn't found Winnie. Eventually she turned up under a mound of bedding, unhurt. She jumped up on me, and squeezed me in a hug.
"Hello, Winnie honey," I said soothingly. "It's okay, girl. It's okay."
I realized that the rig was moving.
"Hey, Sam," I said. "Where are we going?"
"You got me," he said. " I ain't driving."
Chapter 21
We were moving, but the rig's engine wasn't on. Neither would it start when I tried it. There were two Roadbugs in front of us, acting as locomotive and tender to our little train, which was composed of the rig, the riderless Voloshin vehicle, Moore's complement of buggies, and Ragna's vehicle.
I checked the instruments and found that the rollers weren't turning. The rig was floating about half a meter off the road. Neat trick, that.
Another Bug brought up the rear. Every train needs a caboose.
"I want to know," Sam said, "how they got all the air back in."
"Maybe each molecule of gas had its own gravitic envelope," Roland offered.
"I like that," Sam admired. "Makes no sense, but I like it."
We were already out of the huge chamber and into a tunnel, traveling at a terrific rate. Apparently the Bugs knew exactly where they were taking us. Probably to the incinerator.
"The Black Cube!" Roland exclaimed, holding the thing up for all to see.
"I wonder why they didn't keep it," Susan said, frowning suspiciously.
"I wish they had," I said glumly. "I can't even give that thing away."
"Sam," Roland said, "where were you?"
"It's a long story," I said. "What I want to know is, where's the Wilkes Al program?"
"My God," Roland breathed, "it was Wilkes in there?"
"It's safely bracketed in main memory," Sam said. "We can erase it anytime we want."
"Won't it load right back in," I wanted to know, "just like before?"
Sam chuckled. "That's where the problem was, in AuxStorage. I've blocked access to it temporarily, which is what we should have done in the first place. It's been tampered with physically; and we never would've been able to flush Wilkes out. We'll have to go there and fix it."
"Geez, Sam, I don't know if I can do it. I'm no computer techie."
"I'll help, don't worry. We've got the manuals―"
"But they're in AuxStorage, Sam."
"We have the hard copy back in the trailer, remember? In the egg-crate nook. If you'd clean this rig out once in a while…"