Starrigger

'Yes.'

'What about these Xs all over the place?'

'Open clusters, I think. Winnie calls them 'tangle-many-trees.' Thickets.'

'How charming. But there has to be more to it than this. What about this… this epic poem you mentioned? Can you recite some of it?'

'I'll try. Winnie's pidgin English is awfully difficult to render into something coherent. But parts of it go like this:

'These are the Paths through the Forest of Lights, and this way you shall go to find Home. In the land of bright water, keep the sun at evening on the right hand and follow the path to the great trees at the edge of the sky….''

'That's a portal, I take it?'

'Yes. 'Pass through them but do not touch, for they clutch like the' ? and here's an untranslatable word, but I think it's the name of a plant that preys on small animals ' ? and you will come to the land of white rock that is cold to the touch.''

'Now, that sounds like Snowball to me,' Van said.

'Yes.' Wilkes wasn't sure. 'Go on, Darla.'

''Again, at evening keep the sun, which is small and dim, at the right hand and follow the Path to the great trees which grow here out of the white rock. Pass through them, but do not touch, for they clutch…' That stanza keeps repeating. Anyway, it goes on like that, endlessly.'

'Not coherent?' Van laughed. 'It even scans.'

Silence, except for the sound of pacing.

Finally, Wilkes said, 'I'm not sure I buy it.'

'Corey, Darla's telling the truth.'

'I don't doubt her. Van. I simply doubt that this could be the map. Why hasn't anyone got wind of this before? Winnie couldn't be the only member of her race who's privy to this mythology.'

'No,' Darla said, 'but she could be one of an exclusive group of initiates. A secret order. Primitive human tribes have them.'

'I see what you mean. But why haven't the exopologists gotten any hint of this?'

'Lack of basic field research,' Darla explained. 'It's tough to get a permit to study anything on Hothouse.'

'And we know why that is,' Van said. 'The Authority doesn't want any scientific corroboration that the Cheetahs are truly sentient and deserve protection.'

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.