"Right." I could see the tollbooths now―"Kerr-Tipler objects" is what they're formally called, though there are many names for them ― titanic dark cylinders thrust up against the sky like an array of impossibly huge grain silos lying along the road, some almost five kilometers high.
"Six kilometers and closing," Sam said. "On track."
"Check."
Signs were coming up. I signaled for English.
APPROACHING EINSTEIN-ROSEN BRIDGE APERTURE PORTAL #564 INTERSTELLAR ROUTE 80 to EPSILON ERIDANI I
DANGER! EXTREME TIDAL FORCES!
MAP AHEAD ― STOP IF UNCERTAIN
The map ― a big oblong of blue-painted metal sticking out of the sand ― looked new and obtrusive, as did the roadsigns, so obviously not an artifact of the ancient race that built the Skyway. The Roadbuilders Didn't believe in signs… or maps. We rolled on toward the aperture. I looked over to check if our passenger had strapped herself in correctly. She had. A veteran of the road, Sam kept reading out our speed as I kept the rig trimmed for entry. Another series of signs came up.
WARNING ― APPROACHING COMMIT POINT
MAINTAIN CONSTANT SPEED
EXTREME DANGER! DO NOT STOP BEYOND COMMIT POINT
"Right in the slot," Sam said. "Everything's green for entry."
"Check." The flashing red commit markers shot past and we were in the middle of a gravitational tug-of-war between the spinning cylinders of collapsed matter which created the E-R bridge. They heaved past, towering black monoliths spaced at various intervals alongside the road, their bases hovering a few centimeters off the crushed earth, all different sizes, invisibly spinning at unimaginable speeds. The trick was to keep your velocity constant so that the cylinders could balance out the conflicting tidal stresses they generated. If you slowed or speeded up, you were in danger of getting a head bounced off the roof or a port. Worse, you could overturn, or lose control and go off the road altogether. In either case, there'd be nothing left of you to send back to the folks but some squashed nucleons and a puff of degenerate electron gas, and it's hard to find the right size box for those.
At the end of the line of cylinders there was a patch of fuzzy blackness, a kind of nothing-space. We dove into it.
And got through. The desert was gone and we were flying over road that cut through dense green jungle under a low and leaden sky. We had a 500-kilometer stretch until we hit Mach City, where I had planned to stop for a sleeper. Sam took over and I settled back.
"By the way," Sam whispered, her name's Darla. Talked to her a bit while you were brooding aft. Told her I'd been flushed and reprogrammed, didn't have her name in my banks anymore."
I nodded. "So," I said, turning to her, "how's life been treating you, Darla?"
She smiled warmly, and those perfect white teeth brightened up the cab. "Jake," she said, "dear Jake. You're going to think I'm getting even with you for clamming up all that time back there… but I'm beat to hell. Would you mind awfully if I went back and tried to catch up on sleep?"
"Hell, no. Be my guest." That was that.
"You stopping at Mach City? We'll talk over dinner. OK?"
"Sure."
She batted long eyelashes at me for a second, flashing her supernova-bright grin, but I could see a shadow of uncertainty behind it all, as if she were entertaining doubts about who I was. She was obviously at a loss to explain my strange behavior. It's almost impossible to fake knowing someone when you don't, or more often, when you've met someone and don't remember. Awkward situations at cocktail parties. But in this case I definitely knew I had never seen her before. But the doubts were momentary. She blew me a kiss in one hell of an ingratiating way and went aft.
And left me to watch the scenery and ruminate.
"Well, buddy ―?" Sam meant for me to fill in the blank.
"I don't know. Just don't know, Sam."
"She could be a plant."
I considered it. "No. Wilkes is subtle enough to concoct a yam like that, but he wouldn't go to all that bother."
"Still…" Sam wasn't sure.
"She's giving a very convincing performance if she is." I yawned. "I'm going to wink out, too." I eased back the chair and closed my eyes.
I didn't sleep, just thought about times past and time future, about life on the Skyway. I may have dozed off for a few Minutes now and then, but there was too much to chew over. Most of what went through my head isn't worth repeating; just the usual roadbuzz. Anyway, it killed about an hour. Then the sign or Mach City whizzed by, and I took back the controls.
2
Sonny's motel and Restaurant is just off the road-to the Groombridge 34 portal. It's rather luxurious, in an upholstered-sewerish kind of way, but the rates are relatively cheap, and the food is good. I pulled into the lot and scrammed the engine. It looked like it was early rooming, local time. I woke Darla up and told Sam to mind the store while we tried to get something to eat. The lot was crammed and I anticipated a long wait for a table. Along with the usual assortment of rigs, there were private ground vehicles in the lot, all makes and models, mostly alien-built. On Skyway, the transportation market had been cornered long ago by a handful of races, at least in this part of the galaxy, and competition was stiff for human outfits trying to wedge in.
I paused to look Sam over. We had pulled in next to a rig of Ryxxian make, a spanking new one with an aerodynamic cowling garishly decaled in gilt filigree. A custom job, a little too showy for my taste, but it made Sam look sick, bedecked as he was in road grime, impact microcraters, a botched original
emulsicoat that was coming off in flakes around his stabilizer foils, and a few dents here and there. His left-front roller sported crystallization patches all over, its variable-traction capacity just about shot. I'd been collecting spot-inspection tags on it for a good while, had a charming nosegay of them by now, courtesy of the Colonial Militia, with the promise of more lovelies yet to come. They do brighten up a glovebox.
We went into the restaurant, and sure enough, there was a god-awful long wait. Darla and I didn't have much to say while we waited; too many people about. I was almost ready to leave when the robo-hostess came for us and showed us to a booth by the window, my favorite spot in any beanery.
Things were looking up until I spotted Wilkes with a few of his "assistants" in a far comer. They had an alien with them, a Reticulan ― a Snatchganger, if I knew my Reticulans. Rikkitikkis like humans especially. We have such sensitive nerve endings, you know, and scream most satisfactorily. If he had been alone (I knew it was a male, because his pheromones reached across the room, hitting my nose as a faint whiff of turpentine and almonds), he wouldn't have lasted two minutes here or anywhere on any human world. They are free to travel the Skyway, as is any race. But they are not welcome off-road in the Terran Maze, nor are they loved in many other regions of the galaxy.
But he was with Corey Wilkes, undoubtedly on business, which afforded him some immunity. Nobody was looking at them but me and Darla. Wilkes caught sight of me, smiled, and waved as if we were at a church picnic. I gave him my best toothflash and stuck my nose in the menu.
"What are you having, Darla? It's on me."
"Let me buy you dinner once. I've been working lately."
"This is breakfast." After a moment, I took the opportunity to ask, "What have you been doing?"
"For the last month, waitressing to keep body and soul together. Before that, singing, as usual. Saloons, nightclubs. I had a really good group behind me, lots of gigs, but they threw me over for a new chanteuse. Kept my arrangements and left me with the motel tab on Xi Boo III."