Starrigger

'We took a walk back there. We hope it's available.'

'Number Seventeen. Nice! No one there now. FRONT!'

The bellhop came in from a back room. It was a squat but powerfully thewed, very hairy, anthropoid creature, a native. The species is regarded as borderline-sentient by most authorities. It had two large wide-set eyes that were owl-like, a wet, dark-lipped mouth splitting a short snout, and floppy long ears. Its feet were splay-toed, hairless, pink, and looked prehensile. Its three-fingered hands had what looked like opposable thumbs on either side. The creature had no tail.

'This Cheetah. She take you.'

Cheetah grabbed our bags, took the key from the woman, and scurried off through a vine-covered archway that led into a tunnel. We followed her.

At the end of the tunnel was an elevator door. It looked conventional, but the shaft, as it turned out, was nonexistent. Instead, we found an open-air car faked up to look like logs and sticks. It more than likely had a metal frame. We got on and it rose into the trees.

From the upper platform we debarked into a maze of sturdy rope bridges with plank walkways leading from tree to tree, cabin to cabin. Ours was bigger than it had appeared from the footpath, but still quite cozy, resting in the crook of three huge structural boughs. Inside, the decor was consistent with the rest of the place, early-RKO Pictures; floors, walls, furniture, and everything else were made of the native equivalents of wicker, rattan, and bamboo.

I slumped in the peacock Empire chair and sighed. The Eridani creature darted about, opening shutters, flicking on lights, turning down beds, and plumping pillows, all very briskly, and with far more dexterity than a Terran ape could muster. It was surprising, in away. More surprisingly, the creature turned to me and spoke.

'Huh?' was all I could reply.

'That all, sir? That all?'

'Uhhh…Darla?'

Darla smiled at the creature. 'Is there a gift shop or store here? I need some tissue paper.'

'I go get some! You need, I get!'

Darla offered her a credit note. Cheetah refused.

'No, no! Fwee! Soap, towel, keenex, fwee. No money!'

Cheetah left and closed the door quietly.

'Call me Bwana,' I said, not feeling particularly witty.

'She's cute. I've seen them before, at carnivals and things. They're really very intelligent.'

'Hmmm. And honest. She could have snagged that tenner.'

Darla laughed, scoffing. 'Do you actually think she needs money?'

'Why is she working here?'

That stumped her.

I got out Sam's key and buzzed him. 'Sam, we've set up housekeeping.'

'How is it?'

I turned on the microcam and panned the room for him. 'As you can see, charming. How're you?'

'I think I'm taking root. Seriously. I might need a little more camouflage around my back end. Can you see me from up there?'

I went to the window. Behind the shutters it was glazed with nonglare material. The cabin was completely sealed from the outside, and many degrees cooler.

'I can't see anything but vegetables.'

'How's this? I have my hi-intensities on.'

I saw a glimmer. 'There you are. Fine.'

'Maybe I'll be all right if I'm that hard to spot.'

'What about the hole you left in the scenery back in the parking lot? Suspicious, no? And it leads right to you.'

'I was watching the rear view. The stuff seemed to bound back up after we passed. Right now I can't tell the view ahead from the one behind. This jungle is alive, believe me.'

'Bit of luck. Okay. Now, what about our situation? I'm having second thoughts. Should we have made a break for it on the Skyway?'

'Negative, son. Much, much too easy to follow.'

'Right, just thought I'd ask. What next?'

'Well, we know they picked up our trail from the restaurant pretty quickly. I expected that. Not too hard to tail a rig. And we're pretty sure we lost them downtown.'

'How sure?'

'Reasonably sure.'

'Sam, how did you know about that dirt road that followed the edge of the marsh? I didn't think you knew Mach City that well.'

'Used to spend a lot of time here. There were these two women I knew, mother and daughter, and I… well, that's neither here nor there. Anyway, the city council's been squabbling about draining that swamp for years. I knew the idiots hadn't gotten around to it yet.'

'Another piece of luck. However, we are stuck here.'

'For the moment. But if we can sneak over to Ali's Garage, we've got a chance. He's an old friend of mine. We hole up at his place, I get that new emulsicoat you've been promising me, plus some other cosmetic changes. Then, with luck, we slip out.'

'Risky. We could be spotted going there.'

'Sure, but I can't see another way. Would've gone directly there, except we would have had to double-back through town to do it. They would've picked us up again easily.'

'So we sit here… for how long?'

'Until they get tired of looking, or until they're convinced we got through their net. Four Eri days.'

'That's also risky.'

'Sure. Wilkes is connected here. Hell, he might even own this place. But, have any better ideas?'

'Not at the moment.'

Cheetah returned men with Darla's tissue paper. Darla struck up a conversation with her, and they sat down on one of the double beds to chat.

'Well,' I said, 'I'll let you know if I get a brainstorm.'

'Right. Leave the key open.'

'Really, Dad.'

'Huh? Oh, sorry. Forgot about Darla.'

I hadn't.

Despite my disinclination to believe in such things, the possibility of a real paradox here loomed large; in fact, if Darla wasn't faking, the paradox was a fact as cold and adamantine as the roadmetal that had caused it. Will have caused it. But it was hard for me to swallow. On the Skyway, you hear wild stories every day. I've met people who will swear ? on any amount of Holy Writ you'd care to put in front of them ? that one day, out on some lonely stretch of road, they saw themselves coming the other way… or that they were vouchsafed the paradoxical apparition of a relative who'd passed on the year before… or that the skywayman who held up the Stop-N-Shop off Interstellar 95 last week was in fact their time-tripping doppelganger, not them. Sometimes, reports such as these make the news feeds ? as silly-season fillers. Up till now, I had thought this was all the credence they deserved. But now I was confronted with the possible reality of a situation which, according to the commonly accepted version of The Way Things Are Supposed to Work, was an out-and-out impossibility. My choices were either to accept it as a fact, or to try resolving the contradiction with every measure of rationality at my disposal. But there were problems with the latter option. Aside from waiting until I could catch Darla in a lie, there was little I could ''do to assure myself she was telling the truth. What were the alternatives? Chinese water-torture? Tickle her mercilessly until she 'fessed up? And just how does one go about tripping up a liar when one has no facts to throw in her path?