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new perception. Otherwise, would she have succumbed to Orlando? Would she have
decided that quantum computers must become self-aware? And now that those same
computers were a door to the afterlife?
Jack realized that he was a witness to an alteration in the mind-set of
someone he loved, and that his own mind-set had shifted too, so that he was
now in love  not simply feeling friendship and desire for Clare, but
infatuation and delight and pent-up, temporarily frustrated, ardour.
Love, love such as he had felt for Heather once upon a time; and lost.
 Everything has changed, Jack.
 And I love you, he whispered. The air was becoming stale and stifling under
the sheet. Heaving himself up, and the sheet away from their heads, he leaned
over to kiss her on the peach-scented cheek, and lay back.
Briefly she turned to him. She sighed almost silently,  Everything except San
Francisco has changed & 
How unlikely it was, now, that he would pay visits to any of those many names
in his personal organizer.
Clare s realization might be a private hallucination. It was also the sort of
idea which, if she publicized it, might influence millions of people & Readers
of the
National Investigator
, and such &
77
It had taken all day to reach signs to North Hollywood and Beverly Hills and
Glendale and Burbank. Jack was exhausted and Clare was numb.
The hotel which they found was called the Stardome. Framed photographs of
Richard Gere and Demi
Moore and other stars decorated the lobby  which was full of sweaty men in
camouflage uniforms, humping heavy bags of gear. Were these real soldiers or
extras for some movie?
When Jack and Clare were finally able to arrange for a room, the reception
clerk explained that the soldiers were National Guardsmen mustering for annual
training. Maybe staying at the Stardome was a perk, or urban guerrilla warfare
was on the training schedule.
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Doors were open along the third floor corridor. Part-time soldiers clumped
about, clutching cans of beer.
Party time was under way. The view from the room was of a massive water tank
on stilts.
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[1/10/2005 1:11:12 AM]
Hard Questions
They had not been conscious of being trailed, but all the time in the car they
had felt inhibited, unable to confide in one another. Clare was still adamant
that they should change their vehicle. It would be like washing one s hands.
That night, they cupped together again.
 You do believe me, don t you? About our identities surviving  
A light touch seemed best.
 Well, you know my field. New beliefs, new attitudes. How gears shift in the
mind.
 Are you researching me now? she asked mischievously.
Oh yes, this was his desire. She was his desire. Unfulfillable tonight  but
tomorrow night, yes. Till then, a light touch.
The psychologist in him recalled the syndrome of folie à deux
 the pattern of behaviour whereby two people who are emotionally close to
each other can come to share a common delusion.
The next morning, study of the phone book and of the city plan in a drawer in
their room disclosed a
Hertz agency only a few miles away.
After checking out, they drove there, losing their way a couple of times.
The returned Toyota easily passed muster. Good as new. The service charge for
delivering the car elsewhere than agreed went on to Jack s Visa card.
The clerk called a taxi for them.
The driver was a grinning Greek, and they asked him to find a diner a few
miles away.
On the way, a mangy cat darted into the roadway. The Greek just missed the
animal. A car behind skidded, and clipped an oncoming van, which skidded too.
Bit of a snarl-up behind.
From the diner, Jack phoned for another taxi.
 We want to stop at a bank with a cash machine, Jack told the black woman
driver of the next taxi. Yes, draw out enough cash to pay a big deposit for a
hire car, and thus avoid using a credit card which could be traced. Then take
us to a car rental agency that isn t Hertz.
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[1/10/2005 1:11:12 AM]
Hard Questions
 Did Hertz offend you or something?
 I didn t like the colour of any of the cars, Clare said airily.
 You got a thing about colour?
 Oh God, I didn t mean that
. I m sorry!
The woman drove in sullen silence. After a while she pulled over at a branch
of the Bank of America with an automatic teller machine in its wall.
Clare extracted twelve hundred dollars in twenties against her Mastercard,
then the black woman drove on, racking up the fare, so it seemed. When they
did arrive at a small company called RoadKing, Jack felt obliged to overtip
their driver, and received no thanks, though the woman blew an ironic kiss to
the clerk in the office, a gangly young black man.
The clerk would have preferred fifteen hundred dollars as an alternative to a
credit card blank. After a couple of twenties had eased his attitude, he
compromised on twelve hundred plus damage and liability insurance.
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A notice boasted of RoadKing offices in San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco,
all the Sans.
Presently they drove off in a blue Ford Taurus. Onwards to Shangri-la, by way
of San Jose.
78
By late afternoon they had left Interstate 5, crossed the northerly limb of a
great reservoir and passed by a dam to join Highway 101 near somewhere called
Gilroy. A placard boasted that Gilroy was the Capital of
Garlic. A frieze of giant painted garlic cloves clarified the message.
Clare had wound down her window and sniffed.
 Gilroy was here, she joked.
Although the drive had been tediously long and had missed all the coastal
sights by seventy miles or so, it had also been so much more relaxed than the
previous day s ordeal. Clare was cheerful. She had talked about her
Realization.
Jack could readily visualize a best-selling pop-science book:
Quantum Survival or some such title.
Perhaps
Universe of Ghosts
.
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[1/10/2005 1:11:12 AM]
Hard Questions
 Will animal identities survive too? he had asked.  Cats and dogs and
monkeys?
After a moment s thought Clare had nodded.
She laughed.
 It seems hard to draw a line when there s infinite storage space & 
Hard indeed.
Fanatical seriousness was absent. Holiday was in the air; and love. Passion
and affection. A sharing of spirit and flesh. Almost blanked out from Jack s
mind was the prospect of returning to Cambridge in a week s time, and Orlando
and Heather and other bothersome aspects of reality.
He certainly wouldn t spend time in San Francisco interviewing alternative
therapists and New Age sweat lodge shamans. His whole study would be of Clare
herself, in passionate depth.
Presently they were passing through mile after mile of dormitory town, in
heavier traffic. To the east foothills rolled upwards towards high hazy peaks.
To the west the sun was dipping behind other hills beyond which, twenty miles
or so away, would be the huge Pacific.
San Francisco was only about seventy miles away now.
How absurd it would be to phone Glen Chang, to arrange to tour the Tin Man lab
making interested noises, to waste a night and a morning in San Jose, when
they could be at Angelo s empty place by ten or eleven and awaken tomorrow
together in Shangri-La!
If Clare were to tour the lab, how could she stop herself from prattling about
her Realization?
They might decide she was nuts.
Yet she had to see the place where a quantum computer was most likely to
awaken to self-awareness 
and forge the link with ghost universes.
According to the map Chang had sent her, this would involve only a minor
detour off Highway 101. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]