Gerald's depressed reverie was interrupted by a sudden convulsion in the floor of turtles.
"Over here!" cried Tapioca. "I'm stable -- this time."
Not having time to doubt the turtle, Antonio and Gerald crawled over onto his back while the rest of the floor buckled steeply. In the middle of the confusion, a turtle with bright blue eyes emerged. Then a girl, riding the blue-eyed turtle and carrying several parchment scrolls, broke through the shifting turtles.
"Sharon!" cried Gerald.
Sharon looked around her, distaste written all over her face, as she took in the fact that she had ended up in a prison cell. She was a pitiful sight. The nice dress she had put on that morning was all soiled by whatever adventures she had been through since. At least Gerald's bathrobe looked better, even if it was a bath robe that embarrassed Gerald yet again.
"How did you get yourself thrown into jail for the second straight day?" Sharon asked.
"I came here to rescue you from prison," Gerald answered, already feeling sheepish, "but Teriyaki lied to me about your being here."
"He did?" questioned the turtle with the blue eyes.
Gerald's mouth hung open.
"Do turtles with blue eyes tell the truth?" asked Gerald.
"Tetrahedron has been my faithful companion all day," said Sharon, "and I will not have you doubting him just because you got yourself arrested for trying to free me from prison when I wasn't even in prison in the first place."
"Blue-eyed turtles always tell the truth," said Tetrazzini, "unless a lie is more truthful than the truth."
"What made you think I'd been arrested?" Sharon asked.
"I -- er -- well. This morning two guys came into my apartment and tried to arrest me. But I escaped when a dragon came to my window and took me away. Then I thought maybe they came to arrest you, too, and that you were in jail, so I thought maybe I had to rescue you."
"Nobody has arrested me -- yet," said Sharon with a faint smile of satisfaction. "If they came to my apartment, they were too late. At least for me. You've got me worried about my parents, though."
"Well, how did you get here?" Gerald asked.
"To make the long story short, I was having breakfast with Mommy and Daddy. The news was on the radio and the news said that a special law was passed at midnight to make all maps illegal and anybody caught with a map of any kind would be arrested and put in jail. So I ran to my room to save my map, the one I bought at Tindy's. But when I opened the door to my room, it wasn't my room. It was a strange room with a lot of people in it running every-which-way. A man saw me and waved me in, saying he needed my help real bad. Then I recognized him as the man at Tindy's who sold me the map. So I ran into the room and he stuck all these maps into my arms and told me to run. Then a bunch of soldiers broke into the room and I ran real hard with the maps. When I got outside, I thought I'd never get away, but I saw these other people with maps in their hands jumping on these turtles, so I jumped on one who then introduced himself as Tetrahedron. Then he took me away. It was funny. I thought he was going at a snail's pace, but the soldiers couldn't keep up with me. The streets kept changing on them."
"Tindy's got changed into a gas station," said Gerald.
"So that what they did!" Sharon exclaimed. "How do you know?"
"I saw it. I was in a park with the dragon who rescued me, and buildings kept coming and going. Then the dragon catchers came and we had to get away. So, how did you come here?"
"I did a computer search for you, once I thought it might be nice to know where you were."
"And I did a computer search for you," said Gerald. "I ended up riding Teriyaki and he told me you were here, the liar!"
"Liar?"
Gerald looked at Sharon until something clicked in his brain.
"Okay, you're here now."
"It seems that I am. Therefore, Teriyaki found me and he told you the truth."
Oh," said Gerald. "I hope I get the chance to tell Teriyaki I'm sorry for calling him a liar."
"The probability that you will get that chance," said one of the turtles, "is 54.3 percent."
"I wish our circumstances were better," said Antonio, "but I am pleased to see you again."
"Thank you," Sharon replied. "I was pleased to meet you yesterday and I am pleased to meet you again. You were most helpful in our escape from prison."
"I wish I could be helpful again today, but so far, I have no idea of how we are to get out."
"Neither do I," said Sharon.
"Do any of your maps tell you?" asked Gerald.
"Let's see. Everybody pick a map and we'll start looking."
Gerald and Antonio each took a scroll and unrolled it while Sharon did the same. It didn't take long before all three prisoners were groaning with exasperation.
"Everything on this map keeps moving," Gerald complained.
"You'd think that somebody was erasing things and drawing new lines even as we look at it," observed Antonio.
"Which mean that even if something on one of these maps looks like the escape route," said Gerald, "the whole route will be changed before we can follow it and get away. Which means we're stuck here no matter what."
"Unless we try following a line that isn't an escape route in case it becomes one when we get to a certain place," suggested Antonio.
"I don't think these maps are going to help us right now," said Sharon. "Everything seems to be shifting too quickly for any maps to keep up."
"Which means we're stuck here," Gerald repeated.
"You might try thinking about it," suggested Tetrahedron. "What happened yesterday when they gave us all those maps?"
"We couldn't find our way anywhere," Sharon replied.
"What was happening?"
"Uh -- everything was going every-which-way."
"What is happening today?"
"Everything is going every-which-way -- only worse," said Gerald.
"It seems to me," said Antonio, "that if everything is going every-which-way, then maybe this prison is going every-which-way."
"Big help," said Gerald.
"Keep thinking," Tetrahedron urged.
"I've got it!" Sharon exclaimed. "If everything is going every-which-way and can be anywhere at any time, then we can go every-which-way and be anywhere at any time!"
"So we don't have to be in this prison!" Gerald crowed.
At that, all the turtles in the prison cell let out a loud cheer for the prisoners.
"It's about time you caught on," said Tetrahedron when the prison cell became quiet again. "There isn't any more time to lose, so you'd better climb on my back."
"Or on me," said Tapioca.
"Or me," said Tachycardia.
The prison cell was full of "On me"'s, but it was clear that Sharon was not about to forsake Tetrahedron and Gerald and Antonio were not about to take a chance of getting separated from her. As soon the three passengers were on the turtle's back, the prison cell underwent an instant upheaval. The wall tumbled down just as the door of the prison cell opened with an earsplitting creak.
"Stop! Thieves!" cried several soldiers who had poured into the prison cell.
The soldiers were quickly swamped by turtles falling on them so as to keep them at bay while Tetrahedron walked into the neighboring cell.
"How dare you invade my space?" cried an angry woman.
"We're just trying to get away from this prison. Want to join us?" Sharon replied.
"Every boundary in this universe is being torn down!" the woman complained. "I won't have it!"
The woman looked vaguely familiar to Gerald, Sharon, and Antonio.
"Hey!" cried Antonio, "Didn't you put us in jail yesterday for not having the right maps?"
"And a good thing I did," the woman snapped back, "or it would be worse for us than it already is !"
The prisoner was indeed the police chief-judge whom the three of them had faced the day before, but she looked a lot less impressive with just loose threads sticking out of what was left of her uniform where he medals had been, and her wig askew.
"Did they put you in jail for keeping your maps?" asked Sharon.
"Yes, they put me in jail for keeping my precious, authorized, maps," snapped the police chief-judge. "Do you think they put me in jail for disrupting the universe?"
"Stop! Thieves! Jail thieves!" cried the soldiers as they pawed their way out of the avalanche of turtles.
"We've got to go!" said Gerald.
"Quick! Get on if you want to escape!" Sharon offered.
"I will not contribute to the downfall of civilization which you are perpetrating!" the police chief-judge cried.
Gerald was dismayed over Sharon's offer and was rather glad the woman had turned it down, but he also felt sorry that the woman was so miserable. With the soldiers in hot pursuit, there was no time to try and change her mind. Tetrahedron walked through the far wall of the cell, tumbling down its walls and leaving the police chief-judge to wail over the destruction of her boundaries.
"Prison thieves! Stop them! Prison thieves!"
Even the prisoners in other cells joined the outcry, but their voices faded quickly as Tetrahedron plodded along a sidewalk in a neat suburban neighborhood where redbrick ranch-style houses lined the street. The soldiers continued poured out of the disintegrating prison and closed in on Tetrahedron so that Gerald and Sharon thought they were goners. But suddenly a street slipped by, and then another, while Tetrahedron lumbered along beside the cars, trucks, and busses that were remained stuck in a massive traffic jam. Car horns filled the air, but the noise didn't help any of the cars move any faster. A police officer in his patrol car spotted Tetrahedron, yelled at him through his bull horn and turned on his flashing blue light, but he couldn't move his car any better than anybody else could. Tetrahedron hiked on through forests and through marshes where a sheriff's posse chased after them and then plodded through more city traffic where army helicopters circled overhead. Unruffled, Tetrahedron kept on at his steady pace.
"Where should we go?" asked Sharon.
"Away from those guys!" said Gerald.
"Where to?"
"Any ideas from any of the maps?" asked Antonio.
"We can try again," said Sharon as she opened one scroll and then another. Gerald and Antonio looked over her shoulder eagerly.
"Everything is moving even faster than it was before," Gerald remarked.
"Maybe anything can be anywhere if we keep on going," said Antonio.
"That tree we climbed yesterday is on every map we've got," Sharon observed.
"The tree on this map is one thing that isn't moving around," added Gerald.
Sharon pulled out another map and looked at that.
"There's the tree, all right!" exclaimed Antonio. "And this one ain't moving either."
"Now that we've found the tree on all the maps," said Gerald, "how do we find it out here in reality?"
"By looking for it, I suppose," said Sharon.
"If everything in the maps is moving around and everything here in reality is moving around, and the tree is holding steady," said Antonio, "then maybe we'll get to it if we just keep going."
"Couldn't have thought of a better idea myself," said Tetrahedron. "Here goes."
Sirens filled the air and a convoy of police cars, their lights flashing, poured down an avenue that seemed reserved just for them.
"How do we get away from those guys?" asked Gerald.
"By staying on this street long enough for it to change?" suggested Gerald.
"If the tree holds steady, and we hold steady---" Antonio mused.
His voice was drowned out by the sirens. The police cars kept on coming until it seemed that Tetrahedron was about to be covered with them. Unruffled, the turtle kept on walking at his leisurely pace straight into two skyscrapers. Just when the fugitives thought they were trapped by the buildings and the police cares, the skyscrapers parted as if they were a pair of curtains being pulled apart, revealing the Tree towering above the city. There was no mistaking it. Only one tree had such a thick, rugged trunk. As Tetrahedron drew close to the tree, a group of soldiers, each man or woman wearing a different color uniform, jumped out from a drug store and sprang on the party.
Still nonplused, Tetrahedron, without a pause in his methodical pace, began climbing up the tree, exerting no more effort than he expended in walking along on streets. The soldiers, left behind, yelled ineffectually in frustration.
"Blue-eyed turtles climb trees," said Tetrahedron.
"Good thing, too," said Antonio.
Mobs of people jumped out of their cars and trucks and gathered to join the soldiers in their fury.
"You wrecked my office building!" yelled a man wearing a three-piece suit.
"You wrecked my favorite sidewalk for skateboarding!" cried a teen-age boy.
Sirens filled the air as fire trucks leaped over the jammed vehicles to close in on the offending tree. Tetrahedron calmly continued his upward journey. The trunk now seemed infinitely taller than it had appeared from the ground, with the lowest branches still far off. Down below, firemen jumped off the fire trucks, armed with hatchets, and began chopping at the tree.
"Better hurry," said Tetrahedron in his flat voice.
But Tetrahedron did not increase his pace in the slightest. The tree shook slightly from the first blows of the axes.
"They can't chop down a tree like this, can they?" asked Sharon.
"They'd better not," Gerald threatened.
"I can't believe a human being would even try," said Antonio.
"The probability that a particular human being would try to chop down a cosmic tree is three chances out of five point thirty-four and a half," said Tetrahedron, "and the probability is growing by the second."
"What's the probability that they will chop down the tree?" asked Gerald.
"The probability dissolves into irrational transfinite numbers deeper than the deepest roots of the tree," Tetrahedron answered.
At long last, Tetrahedron reached the lowest branches of the tree. It was adorned with fruits, flowers, nuts and pine cones. The branches stretched out in all directions further than Tetrahedron's riders could see. A village, complete with houses and shops, was perched on the branches. Near one cottage, a string quartet was playing away. On another branch, children were playing with a soccer ball.
"Where should I take you now that we're here?" asked Tetrahedron.
"How about the branch where those kids are playing?" suggested Gerald.
"How about the branch where the string quartet is playing?" suggested Antonio.
"I think we're supposed to go somewhere else," said Sharon hesitantly.
"How do you know?" Gerald asked.
"I just know," Sharon replied.
The tree shook slightly from the blows down below, but not enough to disrupt the game or the string quartet. Gerald had to admit that the music almost sounded interesting, even if there weren't any drums or guitars. Tetrahedron continued with his climbing as if he had some notion as to where he should take his passengers.
"Thank you for climbing up my trunk and into my branches," said the familiar deep voice welling up from the roots of the tree.
"You're -- welcome," said Sharon hesitantly.
The tree shook violently from the last couple of blows from the firemen who were now obscured from view by the branches and leaves.
"Ow!" cried Gerald as something hit him on the head.
"It's a pine cone!" cried Sharon as she cradled a golden pine cone in her hands.
"Not to speak of this hazelnut," said Antonio who had caught a treasure off of Gerald's head as well.
"Pardon the inconvenience of my shedding pine cones and hazelnuts," said the tree. "Please save these items for further convenience and regeneration of the cosmos."
Gerald rubbed his head, but he had to admit that neither the pine cone nor the hazelnut had hurt him very much. He wanted to ask for the pine cone since it had landed on him, but something about the way Sharon held it made him hesitate to ask.
"Please hold on to the air while my beloved enemies dynamite my trunk," said the tree.
And thin air was all Gerald had left to hang onto a second later when the explosion flipped over Tetrahedron. On his way down, Gerald had grabbed hold of a branch. He dangled in from the branch as it bounced up and down from the momentum.
"SHARON!" Gerald cried. "ANTONIO! TETRAHEDRON!"
But Sharon, Antonio, and Tetrahedron were nowhere to be found. Gerald tried to pull himself up to the branch, but he wasn't quite strong enough.
"HELP!" cried Gerald.