been properly introduced. And she had to fall in love with me, because she said that she had, once, a long time ago, but I never remembered it, because I wasn't around at the time. It makes sense to me.
We drove around, not aimlessly, just unhurriedly. We toured Hydran Maze, then came back, spent some time on a park planet, camping out in the trailer.
Darla met 'Sam' for the first time. 'Sam' was the result of my dad's fiddling with the Wang A.I. He tuned up its personality programming and gave it a voice that pretty much could pass for Sam's former computer voice (which never sounded like Sam himself). It was a pretty good approximation-it spooked me. Mostly, the computer kept quiet.
We fell in love. I don't know where we were when we first made love. 'Sam' was driving. You ought to try this sometime.
There was one planet… it was green, and it looked like Earth (but not really; they never do), and the sky was scrubbed so squeaky clean that sunlight just slid right down it, spilling into the clearing of a forest of quasioaks and maybe-maples and making the fuzzy seedpods on the tops of tall weeds look like a cloud of ectoplasm at the tip of a magic wand-or halos on angels-steeping the grass and trees and Darla and me and our love in the light of a faraway star, a warmth and a power that has lasted five billion years and will last five billion more. It was a nice place to eat a picnic lunch. And there were motels-cheap ones (I was just about broke), the kind that have the state-of-the-art entertainment gear and beds that squeak and smell of mildew and faintly, ever so faintly, of urine. And have bad water. And a broken ice machine. And a robot desk clerk that nearly pokes your eye out when it hands you the lock pipette. If I had a nickel for every one of those I've stayed in, I could go back to 1964 and spend them. But we made do, and made love. Mostly we kept to the truck, and kept on the road.
Soon, the time drew near to when we would part. She said nothing about it, but I knew. Her mission was not to fall in love with me, but gather information. Roadmap? Cube? Find out. On at least two occasions I heard her rummage through the cab and aft-cabin as I feigned sleep in the bunk. She asked 'Sam' leading questions when I was supposedly out of earshot. She did her best, but got nothing. She would have to duck out, her mission a failure. But she would be back for a second try, that I knew. However, next time 'I' would not be here.
Last chance, Jake, a voice said. (The divvil's, as Sean would say.) Last chance to smash the bubble. Take her, tell her, even if she doesn't believe. Point the rig toward the nearest potluck portal and put the pedal to the metal. Exit hero with heroine.
But I couldn't. Because, somewhere out there, there was a kid in a 'S7 Chevy who was lost and needed to get home. Because somewhere in the Outworids there was an orphan girl who worked for coolie wages on a strange ferryboat and who would fall in love with the kid in the Chevy. Because Sam was right now lying in bed with a beautiful woman who loved him, and you can't do that sort of thing when you're merely coughing up a little blood, much less when you're dead, which is what Sam used to be, but isn't now… and because if I did, the whole damn universe just might blow a converter manifold and wind up having to be towed home. And somewhere, somewhere, there were five gods who used to be human beings. What would they have to say about upsetting the whole apple cart? Bolts from Olympus I could do without.
But mainly I didn't because I had faith. Where I got it, I don't know. Faith in… what? I don't know. I think it was just an unspoken certainty that the universe has a purpose, despite all the reasons for insisting that it can't, and that this purpose is a good one. It was absolutely absurd of me to think that.
I didn't know exactly when she would leave. So I couldn't linger in a last kiss, a last embrace, couldn't know when such was happening. And I didn't know until one morning I got up and she wasn't there. Her pack was gone.
And so was Darla, gone for the last time.
Sam must have done more than he knew, because the computer kept saying 'There, there, son.' It said it over and over as I cried.
At last, we could go home. There were still a few loose ends, though. Gil Tomasso and his driving partner, Su-Gin Chang, would be at Sonny's Restaurant on Epsilon Eridani I to back my double up in the confrontation with Corey Wilkes. (God, Corey; you never die!) So would Red Shaunnessey. That would take care of… that.
Before we went to Vishnu, we delivered our load to Chandrasekhar Observatory. We were only a day late.
There was a problem with — John. He was fine physically, but emotionally he was foundering in deep water. Guilt was the obvious ballast, and he had a ton of it. Even confession didn't do him any good.
'You've known that I've been an Authority informer,' he said to me in Red's kitchen before we left.
'Really?' I said.
'Yes. Of course. You knew that I reported regularly on the activities of the Teleologists.'
I told him that I really didn't know that.
'I made my report to Colonel Petrovsky on Goliath, the night our camp was raided. I had to. No choice. I've never had a choice. It's my brother. Did you know he was a political prisoner?'
I told him I hadn't known that.
'Didn't you ever wonder why the Militia let us go that night?'
'Yes, I've wondered.'
He stared at the plank tabletop for a full minute. 'I'm a fraud, Jake.'
'Because you gave into fear?'
'Because…' His face had tightened into a knot of pain. 'Because I-'
'Take it easy, John. You were under no obligation to become a light of the universe.'
'After a life of seeking the truth, trying to find some answer…'
'Forget it.'
'And now what? The Militia will want my report! And I'll have to tell them you have the map!'
I laughed so hard I nearly choked on the sandwich I was eating.
It got to John; he laughed in spite of himself, then faded to depression again.
'You'll have to kill me,' he said.
I shook my head. 'John, give it up. Go home, make your report. Tell them that your group disappeared through a potluck portal on Seven Suns. That's the truth. Or tell them I have the map. It really doesn't matter, John. It never really has mattered.'
It didn't help him. He rose slowly and went into his room. The next day he was gone. His clothes, his toilet kit, everything was still there. We never found him, never saw him again.
Home.
The farm was fine. After all, we had just left.
There was work to do; the fish tanks were foamy with algae, the paddies were dry, the reactor was on the fritz-everything I had been putting off for a year or so.
Sam was in disguise, so as not to terrify the neighbors. A pretty good one, too. Rumors were thick, though. The stories about us were at the peak of their circulation-but they would eventually die down. We hoped, but didn't know.
'Time to get off this mudball,' Sam said, 'Time to pick up and move.'
'You're right, Sam,' I said. I called a real estate agent the next day.
And one day I got the strangest, most miraculous letter of my life. The cover letter was from one Ernest E Blass, Esq., of the firm of Dolan, Musico, Shwartz, and Blass. It read:
Dear Mr. McGraw,
As I am informed that you are primarily an Inglo speaker, I will write this in English instead of Intersystem (which I must confess I prefer myself). The enclosed letter, addressed to you, will no doubt cause you as much bafflement as it has to us. It was discovered among the assets of a holding company which a corporate client of ours has just acquired. To trace the long history of this letter, and the long and circuitous route by which it came into our hands, and thus into yours, would be tedious and time-consuming at best. Suffice it to say that, on the face of it at least, this letter had been held along with other papers and instruments in a fiduciary trust, which itself can trace its history back at least over a hundred years. Now, Mr. McGraw, let me tell you straightaway that what I believe we have here is a hoax, pure and simple, for there is no possible way for…
Inside the manila pouch was a yellowed envelope with my name and address on it. I tore it open and saw it was a handwritten letter. It was from Carl Chapin: It was dated November 6, 2005.
