More pacing. "But how long will the knowledge stay secret?"
"I'm not worried," Van said. "I doubt that the Authority will ever lift its de facto ban on exopological field studies on Hothouse as long as the planet is a source of drugs. Of course, there's always a chance someone may find out, but it's a calculated risk."
Again, a shadow crossed my field of vision.
"Corey, you may have your doubts about Winnie's map, but I have my own as to whether this is the best way to go about preventing this map, or any map, from getting wide circulation. This Paradox business, I mean."
"Do you still think we can do anything back in T-Maze?"
Van sighed. "No, I suppose not. From what Darla's told us, Grigory wasn't any closer to ferreting it out of the dissident network than we were. That's why he went after Jake. Right, Darla?"
"Grigory was never convinced that the map was more than a myth," Darla said. "But it's true that the map is in the hands of the dissidents. Jake as much as gave it to them when he plunked it down on Assemblywoman Miller's desk."
"And why in the name of God did he do that?" Wilkes wondered, more to himself than to anyone. "At any rate, this was after he returned from his… quest, heroic journey, back from the future or the past or wherever the hell he went." Wilkes began pacing again. "But Miller is in a psych motel, isn't she?"
"She doesn't have the map, nor does she know where it is," Darla said. "By now it's probably been copied and recopied several times over. No telling how many people have it now."
"Which is why," Wilkes said pointedly, "we're doing it this way. Stop Jake here, intercept him and get the map, and it never gets back to T-Maze. Things go back to the way they were before."
"Or the whole universe disappears, us with it," Van said gloomily.
"In that case, we'll never know what hit us. As painless a death as you could hope for. But that's doubtful. Paradox is built into the Skyway, if you believe legends, and I do. The universe can surely survive a Paradox or two."
"But… it already happened," Van persisted, unconvinced. "They have the map. I just don't see how we can change that one immutable fact. And as long as the dissidents have it and the Authority doesn't, everything's fine. Why fiddle with it?"
"How can you think like that, when at least a dozen dissident leaders were arrested not a few days ago? The Authority's closing in. Van."
"Yes, I suppose it is," Van said dejectedly. "I was hoping against hope that somehow we could avoid all this."
"So was I," Wilkes said. "But even if what Darla says is true and the Authority doesn't know about the Roadmap yet, surely Grigory will be able to convince them sooner or later."
"That's what I don't understand. How can he convince them if he isn't convinced himself? Darla?"
"You must understand," Darla explained, "that Grigory had been acting pretty much on his own. He was kicked upstairs to his job, and he resented it, but his professional dedication was unswerving. You know how he1 is, Van. It's essentially a public-relations job, investigating strange phenomena and manufacturing explanations for public consumption. Not a day goes by when someone doesn't report having a visitation from the Roadbuilders. You've heard the stories. Usually no reliable witnesses, no corroborating evidence. Just wild stories. The Roadbuilders will return someday and make the road free again, abolish all oppressive governments, open up the entire Skyway to every race. That sort of thing. If you believe the stories, the Roadbuilders have handed out hundreds of maps to humans and nonhumans alike, but no authentic artifacts have ever materialized. It was Grigory's job to debunk all the stories, kill the hope that generates them, the hope that people have of someday getting the Authority off their backs. That's why the Authority can't really bring itself to believe in the map unless it has its nose nibbed in it. I agree with Van that Grigory ― if he's alive, which I doubt ― won't be able to convince the Authority, even if he comes to believe in the map himself, which I also doubt."
Wilkes said, "And this Eridani creature is the key to the whole thing. Is that what you'd have us believe?"
"As far as I can tell, she is."
"Well, I have no problem with that," Van said. "There's certainly something to it. Maybe it's not a complete map, or an accurate one, but it's a map."
"As I said," Darla told them, "I haven't had the time or the
opportunity to study Winnie's drawings. You'll have to make the final judgment, based on the evidence."
"If only we had more to go on," Wilkes complained.
"Only Winnie can give us more information," Van said. "But we have to find her first."
"We'll find her," Wilkes said confidently. "Darla, can you be sure that Winnie's joumey-poem clearly reveals that there's a way back to T-Maze through Reticulan territory?"
"No. That fragment was all I had time to translate. Lots of distractions, and then Jake spirited her away. But back on the island I specifically asked her if she knew a way home. That's when she started reciting the poem."
"A way home," Wilkes repeated. "Hmm."
"I think he's coming around."
It was like a camera coming into focus, suddenly, and there in front of me was the tall, white-haired man I'd seen at Sonny's, Dr. Van Wyck Vance, wearing a midnight-blue jumpsuit. He was smoking a cigarette wrapped in tan-colored paper, blowing smoke at me. I looked at him. It was just like the last time; I was abruptly awake, aware… but this time I could recall clearly what had happened when I was under. The entire preceding conversation settled into my forebrain as if it had been recorded and just now fed in.
Wilkes was seated in an armchair to my right, Darla on the bed across the room. Vance was standing in front of me.
"Hello, Jake," Wilkes said.
I nodded, then turned to Vance.
"I don't think we've been introduced," he said. "I'm Van Wyck Vance."
"I know," I told him. "I've met your daughter, Daria. She speaks highly of you."
They turned to Darla, who shook her head.
"How did you know?" Vance asked.
"A little birdie told me."
Vance took a thoughtful puff on his cigarette, then shrugged. "Well, you said he was resourceful, Corey."
"Yes, he is," Wilkes said.
Darla said, "Jake, Daria is a name I rarely go by. Van always called me Darla."
"Her mother named her," Vance said, sitting down next to his daughter. "I never cared for it. I remember when she used to come home in tears ― her schoolmates were teasing her by calling her 'Diarrhea.' Remember, Darla-darling?"
"I'm glad to say I've repressed that."
Vance laughed.
I was sitting in another armchair with nothing binding me, and I thought now would be a good time to get up. I started to.
"Roadmap!" Wilkes said sharply.
I was startled enough to plop back down, then looked around for someone with a gun. Nobody was holding one on me. I felt weak. My head felt like a ball of fuzz sitting on my shoulders.
"You won't be able to get up, Jake," Wilkes informed me. "I planted the posthypnotic suggestion while you were under. Actually, I should say posthypnogogic. This thing doesn't induce a standard hypnotic trance." He held up a thin bright-green tube about half a meter long. "Subjects are ten times more suggestible under it. Even consciously being aware of the plant doesn't break the spell."
"The Reticulans are very good at mind-control technology," Vance said.
"Unfortunately," Wilkes said, "they don't know enough about human physiology yet to make this thing really useful. Twrrrll tells me they're working on it, but we're still as much a mystery to them as they are to us. If you were a Rikki, Jake, you'd be my obsequious slave, and would tell me anything I'd want to know, or do anything I'd want you to do. As it is, all the wand does to humans is either knock 'em out or turn them into shambling hulks in a highly suggestible state ― and I'm not enough of a psychometrician or a hypnotist to always get the results I need." He brandished the wand at me in the manner of a headmaster reprimanding a wayward pupil. "You're a tough customer, mister, I'm not at all sure I could make you tell me where you've hidden your little alien friend ― and even if I could, I have the sneaking suspicion I'm going to need your active cooperation to actually get hold of her. You've got her stashed with somebody on board, somebody ― a group, I bet ― with whom we can't readily punk around. A gaggle of Buddhist nuns… boy scouts… the damn Archbishop of Sea-home and his acolytes. I wouldn't be surprised. You're slippery, Jake. Slippery. No, I'm afraid I'll have to resort to old-fashioned methods of persuasion. Meantime…" He stroked the wand lovingly. "This gizmo will keep you right where I want you."