thought they were coming around to buying his story about the saucer abduction, but he wasn't sure. Mercifully, though inadvertently, the Bugs had intervened. Lori was in a state, alternating between fits of crying and tantrums in which she'd smash things against a bulkhead and screamingly relate in detail the parasurgical procedures she would perform on the bastards who'd tormented her boyfriend. In a day or two, Carl was much better and she calmed down.
The clean-up lasted three days. We took inventory and found nothing missing. Sean's and Liam's vehicle was undamaged, as was Carl's of course, but Carl's car was now behind the magenta roadster, which was better, I thought. We might need to get the Chevy out quickly at some point. I regretted now ever having Carl drive it aboard. Talk about bad moves?I had made my share.
When it became apparent that we were in for a long trip, we settled down to a routine, sleeping and eating in shifts, standing watch at the instrument panel in turns, generally setting up some semblance of housekeeping. Thirteen bodies make living in a trailer truck an exercise in the art of the social contract. The truck was big, but with the vehicles and all the cargo, there was limited living space. Toes got constantly stepped on, elbows jammed into ribs, and there was a waiting list for the toilet. Nevertheless, at one point Darla and I found ourselves alone in the aft-cabin. I took the opportunity to sound her out on a few things. I sat her down on the bunk.
'Wilkes told me, or rather his analog told me, that he hadn't heard of the Black Cube until he actually saw it through Sam's eyes here in the truck. That make sense to you?'
Darla raised her eyebrows slightly and said, 'I guess. Otherwise he wouldn't have been so keen on finding Winnie aboard the Laputa. He didn't know I had the Cube. Nobody did.'
'Nobody except the person who gave it to you. Who was that person?'
'That person is dead. His name was Paavo and he was a very good friend of mine. He died in the shootout I escaped from on Xi Boo.'
'Are you sure he died?'
'Paavo always vowed never to be taken by the Authority.'
'Did you see him die, or hear for sure that he did?' I asked.
'No. Is it important?'
I nodded. 'I think. I'd like to know exactly at what point the Authority learned of the Cube's existence.'
'I'd always thought that they found out from running the Delphi on Marcia Miller.'
'Probably,' I said, 'but when was that? When was she arrested? Sam and I can't find anything in our news files that would fix the date?which isn't surprising, because it was probably a secret arrest.'
'Most likely it was. But why is the timetable so important?'
'Let me go into something else first.' I leaned back and rested my shoulders against the bulkhead. 'You never told me any of the details about what happened at the Teelies' farm that night, after they took me away, that is.'
She shrugged. 'I gave up, they took us all in.'
'You were with the Teelies all the time up until Petrovsky questioned you?'
'No, they took me to the hospital first to get my burns treated. I insisted on it and they grudgingly gave in. I think one of the Militiamen took a fancy to me. I never saw the Teelies after that until we met them on the street in Maxwellville.' She frowned and shook her head. 'Funny, I expected to find them at the Militia station, or at least get some indication they were there, being held, questioned, something. The cops didn't seem to be very interested in them.'
I filed that datum away, then said, 'Okay. Now, Petrovsky didn't know you had the Cube. Right?'
'That surprised me to no end. He didn't even search my pack.' Darla gave a little sarcastic grunt and smiled strangely. 'Of course, he had a personal interest in my case.'
'Even so, if he'd known you were carrying the Cube he would have searched you and found it. No?'
'Yes.' She nodded emphatically, 'Most assuredly.'
I wove my fingers together and put them behind my head. 'So: Petrovsky didn't know about the Cube, and Wilkes didn't, if he isn't lying again. My question is, who did the Authority send to get it? Who is the person representing their interests in all this?'
Darla thought about it a long time. Then she said, 'There does seem to be a void in that area. Grigory must have been acting completely on his own. His career was ruined. I ruined it. They would have told him nothing. He was investigating your case as a matter of routine.' She considered it a bit more. 'But maybe it's a question of the timetable. Maybe whoever they sent just didn't catch up to you in time.'
'Or to you.'
'Me?'
'Yes,' I said. 'You were, and are, a fugitive. Maybe the Authority knew exactly who had the Cube, and they knew it all along. You had it, and they caught you! On Maxwellville! It may be that Petrovsky's and the Authority's paths converged there. Grigory was having a devil of a time getting cooperation from the local cops. But he was the ranking officer, and before Reilly, the nominal CO, could get authorization to shove Petrovsky aside, we were sprung by my mysterious doppelganger. Or whoever did it.'
Darla bit her lip and shook her head slowly.
I looked at the ceiling. 'Then again, I could be wrong. But I've had this growing feeling lately, the feeling that something is missing. Or someone. Someone who's playing it very close to the vest.'
Darla looked at me, puzzled; then a startling possibility occurred to her. 'You don't mean… one of the Teelies?'
I sat forward. 'Funny you should say that,' I said.
Her eyes were wide and disbelieving. 'No, they couldn't…' Then her face fell and her shoulders slumped. A look of profound exhaustion came over her, and she leaned against me.
'Oh, Jake, I'll never make sense of all this. I thought at one time I knew what was going on. But I don't know anymore. I just don't know.'
'Neither do I,' I said. 'Who can make sense of a paradox?'
We sat unmoving for a while. The rig seemed unusually quiet; no engine sounds, no voices near us, just the ever-present whistle of the slipstream as we were towed through another alien wind.
Presently I noticed my shoulder was moist. I tilted Darla's chin up with one finger and watched a big, round tear roll down her cheek.
'What's wrong, Darla?'
She wiped the tear away and straightened up. 'I've got something to tell you,' she said. 'I'm pregnant.'
Coming from vast eternities ahead, the wind whistled cold and drear.
'How could you…?'
She laughed mirthlessly. 'How?'
'I mean, how could you let it happen?'
'I'm on the cusp of a three-year pill. I wasn't in the position to go into a clinic for another one, and I couldn't get one. They're very expensive, you know. There wasn't much of a chance?I still had a month of 80 percent effectiveness left, 60 percent after that. But…' She shrugged. 'It's been known to happen.'
'How late are you?'
She shook her-head. 'Doesn't matter. I have a pregnancy test kit in my pack. I knew forty-eight hours after.' A slow, bittersweet smile crept across her face. 'It may have been the night before, but I think it was that day on the beach.'
I kissed her then; I didn't know why. Perhaps because, simply, I loved her.
The Bugs should have gone into the railroad business. The ride was transcendentally smooth, incredibly fast. Planets whooshed by so quickly you couldn't look out the ports for any length.of time without getting a little dizzy. Lori, John, and Liam came down with motion sickness, which fortunately responded well to the drugs we had. Roland seemed to enjoy the ride. He spent hours in the shotgun seat, looking out, smiling enigmatically (I hesitate to say inscrutably).
A week went by.
Every once in a while we'd come out on another service planet. The first time it happened we thought we had arrived at our destination?but no, the Bugs shot us through another portal, and our fateful journey continued.
We passed some of the time gabbing, at one point speculating as to why the Bugs had put Moore's gang back in their vehicles but had deposited the Voloshins with us. The concensus was that the Bugs somehow knew that the
