John DeChancie - Paradox Alley

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I DON'T KNOW if God wears a beard. I've never had the plea-

sure of meeting Him. Frankly, I hope to delay that happy

occasion for as long as possible.

The individual whose acquaintance I had just made didn't

quite look the part, but I could have been persuaded otherwise

right then. We had come a long way—all the way, it seemed,

to the end of the universe. And here to greet us had been a

surpassingly strange and beautiful creature possessed of a

Serenely transcendent, almost beatific aura. His foppish duds

worked against the God image, though; I couldn't imagine the

Supreme Being going around dressed like a Galactic Emperor

out of some video space opera. And Carl, who stood beside

me wearing a darkly subdued look, his fury temporarily spent,

had seemed mighty sure of the identity of the person whose

lights he had just punched out. I was fairly sure that Carl

didn't think the guy was the King of Creation.

Even so, we had a problem on our hands. Judging from his

patrician bearing and sartorial finery, the person Carl had as-

saulted looked very important. Extremely important. He quite

possibly was in charge of this place, this world to which we

had very recently been shanghaied. He had greeted us warmly,

welcomed us. He'd invited us to lunch. What do we do? Quite

without provocation, we smack the guy in the chops and

knock him out. We were very possibly in deep trouble. Very

possibly our ass was grass. I hoped that our host didn't own a

power mower.

I looked down at the still form of the being—and he ap-

peared for all the world to be a human being of the male

persuasion—who had called himself Prime. He was lying

prone, face in the grass, the back of his head partly hidden

2 John DeChancie

beneath bunched folds of his expansive green cape. The rest

of the garment was spread out to his left over the ground.

I glanced around. No lightning bolts, no clap of doom. I

looked across the valley. No activity immediately apparent in

the vicinity of the immense green crystalline fortress that sur-

mounted the hill on the other side. Could Prime possibly be

alone here? The notion struck me as absurd, but anything was

possible on this strange artificial planet.

"Carl," I said, "I can't take you anywhere."

"It's him," he answered flatly. "The voice that talked to me

aboard the flying saucer. He's the one that nabbed me."

"Can you be sure? After all, you never actually saw him.

Did you?"

Carl frowned and stared at the ground, thought a moment,

then turned to me. "No, but it has to be him. I'll never forget

that voice."

"Did the voice call itself Prime?"

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"No. I don't remember it ever calling itself anything."

"Then you really can't be sure, can you?"

Carl shrugged, then grudgingly acknowledged the point

with a tilt of his head. "I guess. Maybe." Then, quickly and

with finality: "Nah. It's him."

"That's hardly the issue," said John Sukuma-Tayler behind

us.

We turned. John stepped away from the rest of our com-

panions, who were standing in a tight little knot. They were

all shocked by what Carl had done, eyes edgy and expectant. I

probably looked the same way, but was trying to hide it. Lori

still stood with her hands cupped over her mouth. Susan was

aghast; she looked ill. Sean was shaking his head. The rest of

them gazed silently at Prime.

John, however, was angry. "Carl, that was an extremely

stupid thing to do." He stopped and threw up his arms in

exasperation. "As if we hadn't enough problems! No, you

have to hit him. How could you? Carl, how could you do

something so..." He groped for the appropriate superlative.

"... so monumentally imbecilic? So..." He cast about for

words, then brought up his hand and slapped his forehead.

"Carl, you incredible idiot!"

It was slowly dawning on Carl. "Yeah. I guess it was a

dumb thing to do."

PARADOX ALLEY 3

" 'A dumb thing to do,'" John repeated hollowly. He turned

and appealed to the group. "'A dumb thing to do,'" he said

again, nodding in mock approval. I had never seen John this

ironic. He snapped his head around to fix Carl with a look of

utter contempt. "You have a gift for understatement. Unfortu-

nately, it makes your stupidity all the more colossal."

Carl scowled. "Ah, come off it. I just punched him. If

he'd've done to you what he did to me—"

"That's hardly the point. Did you stop to consider what the

consequences might have been for us—the rest of us? Did

you stop a single instant and think? No. No, you—"

"Hold it, John," I said.

"Jake, you can't possibly think he was justified."

"No, it was dumb. But he's young. At his age, I might've

done the same thing."

"No excuse."

"Probably not. But the whole question's kind of moot, isn't

it?"

John's shoulders slumped. "Unfortunately, yes."

Liam detached himself from the group and walked toward

us. "Isn't anybody going to see if he's all right?"

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I knelt beside Prime. Gingerly, I uncovered his head. I put

my hand on his copper-colored hair. It was as soft and silky as

a baby's. I moved his head to the right and looked at his face.

The eyes were closed, the face serene. With my thumb—gen-

tly, very gently—I pried the left eyelid open. The iris was coal

black with tiny flecks of purple. The pupil didn't respond to

light, and the eye wasn't moving. I reached for his wrist.

Rolling up the pleated cuff proved to be difficult, so I ran a

middle finger under his jaw, tracing a line along the left neck

muscle near the throat, trying to find the carotid artery. The

skin was smooth, sleek, and dry. He was warm, but his body

temperature was slightly lower than normal, or so I thought.

But who knew what was normal for him?

No carotid pulse. I looked at his left eye again, then swi-

veled his head to examine the right. Then I stood up.

"He might be dead," I said.

"Good God," John murmured.

"That's crazy," Carl said in almost a whisper.

"Oh, my." John came over to stand beside me. "Jake, are

you... are you quite sure?"

4 John DeChancie

"No. But he doesn't have a heartbeat, leastways none that I

can detect. He's not breathing, I don't think. We should roll

him over and... hell." I slapped my forehead. The past sev-

eral minutes had been so disorienting that I had slipped into a

sort of semiparalysis. Here, ostensibly, was a human being in

need of help, and we were all standing around like dummies. I

came out of it. "Daria! Run and get the medikit—know where

it is?"

"Yes." She ran back to the truck.

I got out the key and called Sam.

"This has all been very interesting," Sam observed.

"Sam, set up to monitor this guy's life signs."

"If he has any. Is he human?"

"Maybe, maybe not."

Carl was slowly shaking his head in disbelief. "Crazy. I

just poked him one. It couldn't have been enough—"

"It was enough," John said acidly. Then he bent over

slightly and peered at Prime's face. "Of all the bloody, beastly

luck." He straightened and let out a long sigh. "Well, that's it,

isn't it? We're all dead."

"Not yet," I said. "And he might not be either. My guess is

he's not human. But human or not, Carl didn't hit him hard

enough to kill him."

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"But if he's not human, how do you know what it would

take to kill him?"

"You have a point."

"I wish I didn't."

The others were edging forward now. Zoya and Yuri drew

up closer and stopped.

"I wonder who he is," Yuri said. "What he is."

Daria came running with the medikit. I tore it open and

took out two remote monitoring transponders.

"Help me roll him over, John."

We were about to do so when Lori screamed.

I whirled. Carl was lying on the ground. Sean evidently

had caught him, and was now cradling Carl's head in his

arms.

"What happened?" John said.

Scan gently cuffed Carl's cheeks a few times. "Fainted

.dead away, he did. Just keeled over."

I went over and crouched beside them, took Carl's wrist

PARADOX ALLEY 5

and felt for his pulse. It was slow and thin, dangerously so.

"Is he okay?" Susan asked.

"Hard to tell," I said noncommittally. "Funny that he'd

pass out like that. Let me get a transponder for him."

"Carl?" Lori took my place as I got up. "Carl? Oh, no."

"He'll be all right, girl. Run and fetch some water."

Lori ran off.

"He's out cold, though," Sean said with concern. "Dead

out."

"Jake," John said, indicating Prime. "What about... ?"

"If he doesn't have a pulse, there's not much I can do for

him. And if he doesn't have a heart, all bets are off anyway.

I'm more worried about Carl."

"Well, finding out you've just killed somebody has to be a

shock."

"Maybe. Carl's not the type to faint dead away, though."

"He's young—just a boy, really."

"Not that young. And I don't like the feel of his pulse."

I moved Lori aside and opened Carl's shirt. After removing

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the protective backing from the transponder, I stuck the disc-

shaped device on his chest, positioning it over the left pectoral

muscle. I prepared another and affixed it to the right pectoral,

then went back and got two more transponders and put them

on either side of his abdomen, just below the rib cage. I took

the key out of my pocket.

"Sam? Are you getting any readings?"

"Yup. Pulse forty-four, with some irregularity in the atrial

and ventricular rhythms. Got some inverted P-waves, too, and

the QRS complex looks kind of wacky."

"What do you make of it?"

"Well, my medical program is telling me his heart is in

trouble. And... wait a minute. Yeah. It's getting worse."

"What does the program say to do?"

"It's recommending things we can't do."

"Is it an infarct or something?"

"Doesn't look like it. Actually, it's shaping up to look like

congestive heart failure. Whoops, you're getting really bad

irregularities now. If he goes into fibrillation we can zap him

—but that's not going to correct whatever the hell's wrong

with him."

I felt my own heart frost over. He was dying.

6 John DeChancie

"Not possible," Sean said, shaking his head. "A healthy

lad like him?"

Susan knelt beside me and squeezed my upper arm. "Jake.

Do something."

"Sorry," was all I could say. Then into the key: "Sam,

congestive heart failure is a long-term process. How could it

happen this fast?"

"Good question. The med program doesn't know, and nei-

ther do I."

"But what the hell is it telling you?"

"Easy, son. It just keeps flagging things with Anomalous

Event. It's pretty clear somebody's doing this to him, isn't

it?"

"Very clear," John said. "Obviously, this world deals in

swift retribution."

Susan shot him a fierce look. "You don't have to say it

with such satisfaction."

"I have none, Susan, I assure you."

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file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/John%20DeChancie%20-%20Paradox\%20Alley.txtff^wc-s1IDON'TKNOWifGodwearsabeard.I'veneverhadtheplea-sureofmeetingHim.Frankly,Ihopetodelaythathappyoccasionforaslongaspossible.TheindividualwhoseacquaintanceIhadjustmadedidn'tquitelookthepart,butIcouldhavebeenpers...

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John DeChancie - Paradox Alley

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