Eschaton?”
It didn’t cheer him up. He gave me a three-snake shrug. “Perhaps it is something to be used when the Eschaton comes.”
“Yeah, but,” I said, “nothing physical is going to survive to the Eschaton, is it? Isn’t everything supposed to go back into a kind of a point at the Big Crunch? So how would they get it there without its turning into a mess of quarks or something?”
He shrugged again. “I do not know. The cousins have not yet shared that kind of knowledge with me.”
Pirraghiz didn’t know, either. Neither did the wounded Doc. If the Dopey knew, he wasn’t telling. I added that to the lengthening list of questions I was not likely to get answers to any time soon.
Anyway, other things were beginning to jostle for attention in my mind.
Like Pat. Very much like Pat. I was deeply, excitingly aware that every minute that passed was getting me closer and closer to the minute when I could actually see and touch her again.
And although that was fine, it wasn’t all fine. Another itchy little needle of reality was beginning to force itself upon me.
Pat already had a Dan Dannerman. What was she going to do with me?
As we approached New York’s Lower Bay I got one more of those nasty little stabs of reality.
Pirraghiz assured me that the other Doc had assured her that, yes, it would be possible to bring the sub close enough to the surface to be awash, and yes, there was a hatch that I could use to get out of, and then—
Well, then what should I do? Wave to a passing Staten Island ferry and hitch a ride to shore? Use a flashlight-if I could find anything like a flashlight-to send a message in Morse code-if I could remember the Morse code-to—
Well, to whom?
And what about security?
The sub’s display was really great stuff. I could see the wide-open mouth of the bay, Coney Island on one side, Sandy Hook on the other; I could see little splotches that had to be Ellis Island and Liberty Island; I could even see the long old piers that stuck out into the Hudson from every side. And I could also see objects moving around that I supposed were tankers and cruise liners and excursion boats, and what was I going to be doing about them? Not to mention any U.S. Coast Guard stuff that might be patrolling against just such a Horch sub as ourselves; no doubt the human race had figured out that the Beloved Leaders had sneaked in underwater vessels that had given them the opportunity to kidnap and bug a lot of mariners.
According to Wrahrrgherfoozh, the Horch stealth capabilities were a lot more effective than any primitive human sonars. But I didn’t want to take the chance of being depth-bombed by some jumpy lieutenant in a Coast Guard corvette.
I studied the display. “Change of plan,” I said.
Both Beert and Pirraghiz turned to me, Pirraghiz’s expression wondering, Beert’s merely resigned.
“I don’t think we’d better get into all that traffic,” I told them. “Better if we can find some quiet bay somewhere along the shore. Show me what’s down-here.”
I put my finger on the barrier island that began around the Highlands and went south. Why did I pick there? I don’t know. Maybe I thought we might just pull in at Uncle Cubby’s old boat dock and knock on his door.
I didn’t think it long. Uncle Cubby was long dead. I had no idea who owned his house, and didn’t want to investigate. “There’s a bay,” I said, pointing between the Sea Bright barrier island and the shore. “Let’s take a look.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
It wasn’t a bay. It was the mouth of a river that I had forgotten about, but that was just as good.
Slowly and carefully the Christmas tree piloted us upstream on this nice, wide river with no boats visible anywhere on its surface. I never took my eyes off the display. Not far ahead I saw something that stretched clear across the river, which worried me for a moment. A dam? So we’d have to go back and try again?
But it was a bridge. And off to one side of it was a system of docks with small objects moored to them: a boat basin,
“That’ll do,” I said, hoping I was right.
In fact, it did very well. The Christmas tree brought us to the surface, the robot opened the hatch and I climbed out into a cold, wet-but Earthly!-drizzle.
I saw lights up on the road. I found a little driveway that led up to them, and when I was at street level, there, right across the road, was a large and lighted seafood restaurant.
When I was inside the cashier gave me a thoroughly funny look-reasonably enough; I was tattered, unwashed and long unshaven-but she pointed me to a telephone anyway. There was a scattering of diners in the place, curiously, most of them in uniform. They were staring at me, too. I turned my back on them.
Naturally I had no encryption facilities. I didn’t even have a payment card, and the restaurant’s smells of good, hot human food were driving me crazy. But I managed to get a collect call through to the Bureau in Arlington.
The duty officer must have thought I was crazy, too, but she listened as I talked: “This is Senior Agent James Daniel Dannerman calling. I’m the one that-ah”-I tried to figure out how to put it-“the one you haven’t seen for quite a while because I’ve been away. A long way away. Relay this information immediately to Colonel Hilda Morrisey or Deputy Director Marcus Pell. I require immediate pickup and a full squad to take charge of important assets.”
There was a moment’s silence while she thought that over. “I thought Brigadier Morrisey was dead,” she said doubtfully.
