[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
It was somebody vaguely familiar. Another lumberjack
possibly one Daria had been talking to in the bar. I really couldn't be sure.
I had been so drunk that night... this night.
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/John%20DeChancie%20-%20Paradox%20All
ey.txt (247 of 269) [10/16/2004 4:41:31 PM]
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/John%20DeChancie%20-%20Paradox%20All
ey.txt
"I'll be back in just a minute," Daria said to him. "See you back in the
Vorpal Blade."
"Take a walk, mate," the guy said to me.
I punched him squarely in the chops, and he went over backwards into the
weeds. But I should have looked the other way.
That's always been my problem.
(TW^S
29
IT WAS LIAM who picked me up and shook me awake.
"Been in a punch-up, eh, Jake?" He laughed.
My head hurt like hell. I said, "Wha?"
"You all right, man?"
"Yeah," I said, leaning against the tree, holding my head. I
couldn't believe it. This was the second time that I'd been knocked cold, on
this planet, on this night. Good thing Liam had come along what would Moore
had done with two
Jakes? That would have disrupted the cycle in a way that I
didn't want at all. Good thing. But hadn't Liam just come
.from the bar? Hadn't he just seen me in there?
"Looks like it was a good whack on the head," Liam said.
"Are you sure you're all right, Jake?"
"Yeah, just give me a minute."
Maybe they'd already taken the other Jake out into the woods on the snipe
hunt, and Liam just figured I got lost and wound up here. But how to explain
the different clothes?
Suddenly it dawned on me.
I looked at him. He smiled back and I knew.
"You're Liam of the Culmination, aren't you?"
Page 185
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"The same. Sean thought I could give you a hand. I chased
Moore's lads away. I don't think they recognized you. It's dark back here."
I nodded. I had been lucky.
Liam chuckled. "Have you had your fill of tampering with the warp and woof of
the universe?"
"Yeah. I'm leaving that warp and that woof the hell alone."
He laughed. "There was no need of it. All's well, Jake.
All's well."
"But you can't say how all's well."
"Not really. I couldn't give you the specifics."
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/John%20DeChancie%20-%20Paradox%20All
ey.txt (248 of 269) [10/16/2004 4:41:31 PM]
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/John%20DeChancie%20-%20Paradox%20All
ey.txt
291
292
John DeChancie
I straightened up. "Well. Listen, thanks."
"Are you going home now?"
"Yeah, if I can get back. Have to drop Ragna and Oni off, though."
"You still might need help."
"I might. If we go ahead and shoot the portal to their world, they'll get back
before they left. That business again.
Can't have that, can we? I'm the only one who has the Pope's dispensation."
"I'll send someone, if you like," Liam said.
"Fine. Appreciate it. Good-bye, Liam."
"Good luck, Jake. Be well."
I got away from there. I felt remorse not for wanting to kill Moore, but for
not thinking. Pricking the bubble would have meant undoing Sam's good fortune,
canceling his new life. Had I thought of that? No. And Carl? Disrupting the
cycle would have spared him, but what about Lori? She had been an orphan here
in the Outworlds. A hard life. But now she was... No. Now she was long dead,
wasn't she?
I walked on through the woods, small things greeping and forking at me from
every bush and weed.
I really didn't know. What about Daria? Would her fate have been different as
a fugitive from the Colonial Authority?
Would she have died in a shootout with the Militia, died for her cause, the
dissident movement? I didn't know.
To say nothing of Susan, Scan, Roland, Liam, and Yuri.
And what about you, Jake? What about the person who experienced all this, who
lived inside the bubble for a brief moment or two. What would become of those
memories?
What would become of your love for Daria? Would the slate be wiped clean?
Would the moving finger erase a line and move on?
How the hell should I know. I'm no goddamn demigod.
I did know that Daria and I were possibly the only human beings in the history
of the race actually to have communi-
cated across the chasm that separates the living from the dead.
In that sense, our love was immortal.
A small voice in the forest: "Jake?"
I recognized it, but I could scarcely believe it. "Winnie?"
It was she, stepping cautiously out of the shadows. "Hello,
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/John%20DeChancie%20-%20Paradox%20All
ey.txt (249 of 269) [10/16/2004 4:41:31 PM]
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/John%20DeChancie%20-%20Paradox%20All
Page 186
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
ey.txt
PARADOX ALLEY
293
Jake," she said in the clearest voice imaginable. Not a trace of her usual
garbled enunciation.
"Hi, Winnie," I said.
"Can I walk with you?"
"Of course, honey. My, you've changed a great deal."
"I'm still me, Jake. How are you?"
"Still having problems, Winnie. Still having problems."
"I grieve for you, Jake."
Her double-thumbed hand in mine, we walked along the moonlit path.
I asked, "Tell me about the Guide Races."
"They were seeded along the Great Road to act as guides and travel companions.
An individual of these races does not know himself for what he is until he
reaches Home."
"I see. And you reached Home."
"With your help, Jake. Thank you very much. George thanks you, too."
"You sound like Winnie, even though I can understand you now," I said.
"But I am Winnie, Jake."
"I think so, but I think you're something more."
"That is also true."
She took her hand away and stopped. "I will help you later, Jake, if you need
it. I will be there."
"Thanks, Winnie."
"Good-bye, Jake."
"Good-bye, Winnie."
When I got back to the truck, Sam greeted me with a frown.
"That pink and purple spook took off after you," he said.
"Arthur?"
"Yeah, he fretted and fretted, then said he couldn't let you upset the apple
cart, in so many words, so he lit out into the woods. Without a flashlight,
either. Nothing I could do to stop him."
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]