describe exactly how I got there, but the next thing I knew I was back in the cab again. A cataract of debris followed me through the hatch, spilling onto the deck in an ever-rising tide. John shot through the hatch, then Susan, then Roland, followed by the rest of our party including the Voloshins. None of Moore's gang appeared. Then my invisible wrapping ceased to exist and I fell headfirst into the lake of junk. The hatches slammed shut and there was silence.
Someone was standing on my legs. I twisted, and whoever it was fell over. I surfaced from the junk, tried standing up. My leg oozed into a pile of loose crap, sending me over. I grabbed the back of the shotgun seat and pulled myself up.
'Interesting weather we've been having,' a reassuringly familiar voice said.
'Sam!'
'Yup, I'm back.'
The cab was, needless to say, a god-awful mess. Several minutes went by and we still hadn't found Winnie. Eventually she turned up under a mound of bedding, unhurt. She jumped up on me, and squeezed me in a hug.
'Hello, Winnie honey,' I said soothingly. 'It's okay, girl. It's okay.'
I realized that the rig was moving.
'Hey, Sam,' I said. 'Where are we going?'
'You got me,' he said. ' I ain't driving.'
Chapter 21
We were moving, but the rig's engine wasn't on. Neither would it start when I tried it. There were two Roadbugs in front of us, acting as locomotive and tender to our little train, which was composed of the rig, the riderless Voloshin vehicle, Moore's complement of buggies, and Ragna's vehicle.
I checked the instruments and found that the rollers weren't turning. The rig was floating about half a meter off the road. Neat trick, that.
Another Bug brought up the rear. Every train needs a caboose.
'I want to know,' Sam said, 'how they got all the air back in.'
'Maybe each molecule of gas had its own gravitic envelope,' Roland offered.
'I like that,' Sam admired. 'Makes no sense, but I like it.'
We were already out of the huge chamber and into a tunnel, traveling at a terrific rate. Apparently the Bugs knew exactly where they were taking us. Probably to the incinerator.
'The Black Cube!' Roland exclaimed, holding the thing up for all to see.
'I wonder why they didn't keep it,' Susan said, frowning suspiciously.
'I wish they had,' I said glumly. 'I can't even give that thing away.'
'Sam,' Roland said, 'where were you?'
'It's a long story,' I said. 'What I want to know is, where's the Wilkes Al program?'
'My God,' Roland breathed, 'it was Wilkes in there?'
'It's safely bracketed in main memory,' Sam said. 'We can erase it anytime we want.'
'Won't it load right back in,' I wanted to know, 'just like before?'
Sam chuckled. 'That's where the problem was, in AuxStorage. I've blocked access to it temporarily, which is what we should have done in the first place. It's been tampered with physically; and we never would've been able to flush Wilkes out. We'll have to go there and fix it.'
'Geez, Sam, I don't know if I can do it. I'm no computer techie.'
'I'll help, don't worry. We've got the manuals?'
'But they're in AuxStorage, Sam.'
'We have the hard copy back in the trailer, remember? In the egg-crate nook. If you'd clean this rig out once in a while…'
'Okay, okay. We'll get to that later. How did you manage to dig out from under Wilkes?'
'Well, when the hocus-pocus started, the stray radiation whatever it was?erased the CPU clean. That was all the opening I needed. The Al program is a computer, but one set up in software. I'm hardwired, therefore one hell of a lot faster. A few nanoseconds was all it took.'
'Well, I'll be,' said. 'But how did Wilkes get the jump on you in the first place?'
'That was a fool's mate,' Sam answered. 'We should have seen it coming when we ran those diagnostics?'
'Wait a minute, let's save that for later, too. I want to see what the hell Ragna is doing here.'
I got on the skyband and hailed him.
'Jake, my most special friend of mine! Hello and breaker breaker to all our buddies of the good variety!'
'Yeah, yeah. Ragna, how did you get here? And why in God's name did you come?'
'Oh, Jake. This is a situation of embarrassment.'
'Come on.'
'Oh, indeed. Doubtless I am in the process of incurring your wrath when I am telling you that various surreptitious individuals of our people followed you.'
I laughed. 'No, you won't incur my wrath. Everybody follows me, all the time.'
'This is of truth. It was reported that many, many vehicles were being on your case like a ton of bricks. And on the planet where the highways are being interchanged, it was observed that material of an excremental nature, was coming in contact with the rotary blades, to employ a metaphor.'
'Yes, that's exactly what happened,' I said. 'Go on.'
'It was at the time that our science individuals are finally understanding what is going on inside the Black Cube.'
'Oh?'
'Yes, they have been making some sense of the object. Their understanding is?let me be making this of perfect clarity?far from being of completeness, but they are arriving at the nub of its gist… if you are drifting with me.'
'I understand,' I told him. 'So what is it?'
'Ah, Jake, as I have related, of scientific cognizance I am in possession of doodly squat. However and moreover, Oni is in ownership of vast quantities more than I, and she has been subjected to various briefings on the matter at hand. I will be having her talk with you, if this is not of inconvenience. Be standing by, please?'
'Wait a minute, Ragna,' I cut in. 'We have someone here who is possession of vast quantities of whatever you said. I want him to talk to Oni, but let's make it later, okay? We're knee-deep in debris here. And I want to find out where they're taking us.'
'That is a stupendous ten four. We are having the same vicissitudes in this vehicle of ours. Okay, Jake! We are going to be taking off our ears at this moment, and we will be catching you down the starslab at a later point in time. Until this point is reached, we are wishing excellent numbers to all our good-buddies! Clear!'
'Right,' I answered.
'My God,' Roland groaned. 'Where did they pick up that skyband lingo?'
'I dunno. Must have got it from our libraries.' I looked around. 'Where is everybody?'
'Aft,' Roland said. 'More room. But if you think this is chaos, you should see the trailer.'
'All right, people,' Sam announced over every speaker in the rig. 'What do you say we get this mess cleaned up?'
'I like the 'we',' I sneered.
'Heh heh heh.'
All attempts at communication with the Bugs failed. We could only guess as to our ultimate destination, and we were too busy at first to do that. The Bugs dragged us out of the underground garage, through a nearby portal, and across a succession of nondescript planets. We spent most of that time cleaning up the mess.
Carl was excused from clean-up detail. His scrotum had swelled up to the size of a grapefruit, and he was in horrible pain. All I could do for him was shoot him up with hydromorphone and cortisone, and hope for the best. Carl had talked, told them everything they wanted to know; they simply hadn't believed him. Toward the end, he'd
