particular.' He crumpled an empty hotpak and stared at it moodily.
After an uncomfortable silence, Zoya sighed.
'I must apologize for both of us,' she said. 'The strains of the journey…' She looked at me. 'Please understand.'
'It's completely understandable, Zoya,' I said, 'and you don't have to apologize. We've been biting each others' heads off lately and we haven't had half the trouble you've had.'
'Thank you, Jake. Still, we should not have quarreled in public.'
'Think of us as family, Zoya. For better or worse, all we have is each other. It's better to get these things out in the open. We don't want to let resentments fester.'
I finished off my bottle of S & L and set it aside. 'I'd rather ride with a truckload of brawlers than a bunch of smoldering volcanos. Besides, when the fists fly, it's kind of fun to watch.'
Both Darla and Susan reddened slightly.
John recited,
'I was angry with my friend,
I told my wrath, my wrath did end;
I was angry with my foe,
I told it not, my wrath did grow.'
'Blake, I think,' he said, smiling, 'though you might amend that second line to read, 'I punched him up, my wrath did end.' '
'Or,' Roland said, ''I kicked his arse, and that was the end. ' '
This drew a laugh from everybody and generally eased the mood.
In a rich dramatic tone, Sean recited:
'And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.'
'Yeats,' he said, cracking open another bottle of beer.
John regarded him sardonically. 'Was that apropos of anything in particular?'
'No,' Sean answered, 'but when someone starts quoting bloody English poets I feel the urge to reassert my ethnic heritage.'
'Some animosities never die,' Roland said.
'Surely you don't disapprove of William Blake,' John said to Sean.
'Of course not. But we Irish never forget.'
'Not even since the Reunification?' Roland asked.
'Fat lot of good the Reunification does us out here. I'll never walk the streets of Derry again,'
'Why did you emigrate?'
'Why does any Irishman leave the Old Sod? To get a bleeding job.'
I said, 'Maybe that line about Byzantium is apropos. This place isn't exactly my idea of a holy city, but it's some kind of big deal, and we've come a long way to get here.'
'The Holy City of the Roadbugs,' Sean intoned. 'A veritable buggy Mecca, and here we are stranded, infidels to a man. Bloody dangerous spot to be in.'
'That may be,' I said, 'but I'm inclined to doubt it. I don't think for a moment that we're completely safe here, but it seems to me that there's only one way to wind up on the wrong side of a Roadbug, and that's to break a rule of the road. As far as we know, we didn't do that.'
'We did a bit of vandalism, didn't we?' Liam put in.
'And there were witnesses,' John added.
'Good point. But since no one up to this point has ever been able to do damage to a Roadbuilder artifact, vandalism may not be against the law. Understand? In other words, the Bugs aren't programmed to deal with it.'
'But can we be sure of that?' Sean asked. 'And can we be sure that someone at some point didn't manage to blow a portal to smithereens?'
'Yuri's our newly resident Skyway expert,' Susan pointed out.
Yuri thought a moment, then said, 'So far as I know, Jake is right. Any damage we encountered was due to geological forces… damage to the roadway, that is. I can't imagine what would damage a portal.'
'But geological forces don't really destroy the road,' I argued. 'Do they? I mean, they just sometimes make the road impassable.'
'True. Now, I have heard of stretches of Skyway where the portal is missing.'
'We've run into that,' I said. 'A planet named Splash in the Consolidated Outworlds.'
'I'd be very interested in visiting it someday.'
'If you ever do, don't go near the water.'
'A low-landmass planet?'
'Yeah. Parts of the Skyway are submerged, and one spur, I was told, is a dead end. No portal.'
'Is the spur submerged?'
'I believe so.'
'I see. Very interesting indeed.'
'Very,' I said. 'The seas rose, and… What happened? Did the portal short out? Explode?'
'Well, if the machinery that suspends the cylinders were to fail…' Yuri smiled and chuckled. 'Well, according to conventional thinking, the cylinders would drop and burrow themselves to the center of the planet, where they would do some very nasty things.'
'Scratch one planet,' I said.
'Eh? Yes, absolutely. But I have my own theories on what would happen.'
'I'd love to hear them, maybe later. But to get back on the main track, let me ask you this: Can the roadbed be damaged, or is it impervious to any known force? Everyone knows the road surface doesn't seem ever to wear.'
'Not impervious,' Yuri said. 'There have been some experiments…'
'Results classified, I suppose,' Susan said.
Yuri grunted. 'Of course. I have seen them, however, and I somehow don't feel constrained to maintain security, under the circumstances. A small fusion device could do considerable damage to a Skyway roadbed.'
'Then vandalism is possible,' John said.
'Nonsense,' Susan scoffed. 'Who'd do it, and for what reason?'
'You have a point, Susan,' John said.
'I rest my case,' I said, 'if you can call it that. Which brings us back to what Carl's Green Balloon did to the barrier.'
We all turned to face Carl. Lori was asleep in his arms, resting her head on his chest.
Carl grinned. 'Lori's last comment was, 'These people sure talk a lot.' '
'Let's talk a little more,' I said. 'Carl, who built your car?'
'I don't know.'
'You don't? But you said?'
'I never saw them. They never showed themselves to me, never told me who they were or why they were doing what they were doing to me… which was to abduct me?kidnap me, dig?' Carl's jaw muscles tensed. 'Y'understand what that means? Have you ever been kidnapped, taken against your will? Do you know what it's like to be so scared…' He stopped and lowered his head, nestling his face in Lori's short blond hair. Lori stirred but didn't awake.
'Yes, Carl,' I said gently, 'I do know what it's like.'
Carl raised his head and looked sheepish. 'You're right. You do, don't you? I completely forgot. Sorry.'
'It's okay. Go ahead, Carl.'
'It's hard.'
'I know, but it could help. Us as well as you.'
I got off the metal canister and sat on the floor, stretching my legs and crossing them, propping my back against a crate of freshwater jugs.
'You said something before about a flying saucer. Did you mean an alien spaceship?'
