'Artificial objects?'
'Gotta be.'
Soon, an interior feature revealed itself, a solid disk bisecting the sphere. We were viewing it almost edge-on. It had the albedo of a planetary body and reflected its light from the much smaller sunlike disk riding just below the outer surface of the sphere. Our magic spaceship changed course, and eventually the disk tilted up toward us. I got out the missile aiming sight, cranked it up to full gain and had a look.
The surface of the disk was a world.
There were blue areas and brown areas?seas and continents. Wisps of cotton floated just above the surface. Clouds. As we got closer, rivers, mountain ranges, and other details appeared. A patchwork of tans and browns and greens spread over the land masses and details of the coastal regions revealed themselves. There were deserts, plains, and areas of what seemed to be thick vegetation. All this geography, though, was on a smaller scale than one would expect. It looked like a planet in miniature.
'Five thousand kilometers in diameter,' Sam said. 'Exactly.'
'Nice round number.'
The star sphere was just that. It was like a glass bubble spattered with drops of luminous paint. Not everything in the skies above the planet-disk orbited in the same plane, though. The sun-thing, whatever it was, hung a little lower, and there were other points of light and a smaller, less luminous disk?a moon-thing??which looked as if they were borne along on inner concentric spheres.
The entire construct?it had to a construct?looked like a medieval astronomer's orrery.
'A damn planetarium,' Sam said.
'It's a working model of the Ptolemaic universe,' Roland said. 'Though I think even Ptolemy accepted a spherical Earth, so it's a mixture of ancient astronomies, probably alien ones at that.'
Beyond this, no one was willing to speculate.
The disk of the surface tilted full face toward us and we began our descent. We could see now that the back side of the sunlike object, also a disk, was dark.
In a few minutes we reached the surface of the star globe and found nothing there. Individual stars were still only points of light, all floating in exactly the same plane.
'What, no crystalline ethereal spheres?' Sam complained.
'Well, you wouldn't see them anyway,' Yuri pointed out, 'if I remember my ancient astronomy correctly.' He laughed. 'Imagine crashing into one and leaving a hole.'
'So all these screwy objects up here are just artificial satellites of this even goofier planet,' I said.
We dropped quickly. The sun object, which had become a dark oval when we got above it, turned its bright side to us again and we were in brilliant daylight. You couldn't look directly at it, and it looked for all the world like a sun, a Sol-type one at that. The stars faded and a blue canopy of sky came up, dark and cold at first, lightening and warming as we continued to drop.
The surface was a patchwork of every kind of terrain. There were deep forests, wastelands, mountains, grasslands, stretches that looked like alien planets, stranger areas where it was hard to tell what was going on. It was a crazy quilt down there. And there were signs of intelligent life. I could see roads now, though not many. Structures, too, some very big and very unusual ones, dotting the landscape at random. I didn't see any cities but there was an immense green-colored edifice below that seemed centrally placed. It could have been an arcology of some sort. The thought made my skin crawl.
The jumble and variety reminded me of something, and the notion was so incongruous, when juxtaposed with my expectations of what this place could possibly be, that I laughed aloud. I was reminded of what, in my day, used to be called disneyworlds. I forget what they're called now?in fact, I really don't know if there are any on the colonized planets. Amusement park is another and even older term.
Were we being taken on a school picnic?
In any event, we were about to land. I looked back at everybody. We were all armed, Lori included. Everyone had the same expression: a little fear mixed with expectation. We had discussed what to do at journey's end. We had no idea of what to expect, but we all knew it could be bad. That was one possibility. It was also possible that we could be greeted by brass bands and cheering crowds, and be hailed as intrepid explorers. We could hope. Of course, nobody had any delusions of defending ourselves against either the Roadbuilders, if they were down there, or the Bugs, if this was their home planet. But the slight glimmer of hope existed that we could be set free, and so could Moore and his gang. We simply did not know. In any event, and for any event, we were prepared.
I looked down and saw a familiar sight. The black band of the Skyway. So we never really did get off it. Just a detour, as Susan had said. But one thing we did not see on this planet was a portal. The Skyway was here all right, but this was it. This was Road's End.
Below, strange buildings lay along the highway. Maybe these were the ancient ruins Yuri and everyone had been looking for. But maybe not?from this height they didn't look ruined, just incredibly varied and uniformly strange and wonderful. Were they temples??palaces??residences? I hoped we would get to find out.
Our magic carpet was coming in for a landing.
'Okay, people, this is it,' I said. 'Whatever 'it' is.'
'I wouldn't be worried about Moore too much,' Sam tried to reassure us. 'I'd be wary, of course, but I suspect he and his boys are going to be on their best behavior. Wouldn't do to scrap in front of Roadbuilders, and I can't believe they'd be stupid enough to do it.'
'I'm half-inclined to believe you,' I said, 'but I wouldn't put anything past that slimeball.'
'Maybe they're dead,' Lori said. 'We haven't heard a peep out of them for a while.'
'That would be a bit of luck,' John said. 'We haven't had a fart's worth of good luck on this entire trip.'
'We're alive, aren't we?' Susan said.
'Are we? I hadn't noticed.'
We swooped over the roadway and came to a sudden stop, hovering momentarily before drifting down. There were docking ramps here, too, and the silver disk lined up over one of them and settled down. Our train was pointed toward the road.
As soon as we had landed, the Bugs dragged us off the disk, swung out onto the Skyway, and stopped. Then they decoupled us.
The rig's main engine groaned and turned over. A quick check of the instrument panel told me we had full power and total control of our weaponry.
The Bugs were pulling away. The three of them, locomotive, tender, and caboose, shot ahead and quickly disappeared. We were free.
But Moore and his gang were heading the other way. The rearview cameras showed all four vehicles wheeling around and tearing off down the road.
Twrrrll's vehicle followed them all, though the pursuit was halfhearted. The domed bubble-top of his buggy was opaque, but I could just imagine him looking over his bony shoulder, camera-eyes on extreme zoom, hoping to catch sight of his quarry one more time before he beat a hasty but strategic retreat.
'See?' Sam laughed. 'They're more afraid of us than we are of them.'
'Since when?' I said. 'They have a guilty conscience, is all. They're afraid of the Roadbuilders.'
'So am I,' Susan said. 'Let's get the hell out of here.'
'What, and miss shaking hands with the Mayor?' I said. 'Not on your life, Suzie.' I looked around. Susan was hunched over on the seat, thin arms wrapped tightly about her and holding the gun she abhorred tightly against her side. Her eyes were wide and worried, her face tight and strained.
I reached back, took her shoulder, and squeezed it consolingly. 'How far do you really think they'll get, honey?' I asked gently. 'Hmm?'
Gripping my arm, she bent her head and kissed my hand. 'I know,' she said quietly. 'I know.' She looked up. 'I'm just… you know, a little scared.'
'It's okay.'
We sat for a while. Nothing happened.
'You know,' I said finally, 'this is a high speed road. We should either pull over or get moving.'
'What'll it be?' Sam asked.
'I hate to sit and wait. If our destiny's down this road, let's go have a look at it. What say, everybody? Shall we take a vote?'
