They flexed through the rest of the construct. It matched the diagram.
"As I make it," Tamme said, "We could be on this one instead of the six-faced one. In that case our starting point would be Seven, followed by One, Five, Two, Eight, Five, Two, One, and now Three. If so, both our next two stops may be new worlds, Six and Nine."
"Instead of repeats!" Veg said. "That's the proof right there. All we need to do is try it. If we don't like the new ones, we just skip on to Three, there in the loop -- that's here. Our map is still good."
"Unless this is actually a mere subsection of an infinitely large configuration," she cautioned. "In that case, it is only a hint of a route through it. But we could probably find our way back, though there is no longer any way to travel back the way we came." She paused, peering at him through the mist. "If something should happen to me, you use this diagram to return to your friends in the City."
"Not without you," he said.
"Touching sentiment. Forget it. Your philosophy is not mine. I will leave you instantly if the need arises."
"Maybe so," Veg said uncomfortably. "So far there hasn't been any real trouble. Maybe there won't be."
"I rate the odds at four to one there will be," she said. "Someone set up these projectors, and in at least one case it was another agent just like me. Of course I'm used to dealing with agents just like me -- but they have been Tara, Tania, and Taphe, not alternate Tamme's. I mean to find that other agent and kill her. That will be difficult."
"Yeah. Different philosophies," Veg said. He knew she read the disapproval in him. Maybe it would be better to leave her if it came to that.
"Precisely," Tamme said. And activated the projector.
They were in a curving hall. Checkerboard tiles were on the floor and a similar but finer pattern on the flat ceiling. The walls were off-white. Light shone down from regularly spaced squares in the ceiling pattern. It was comfortably warm, and the air was breathable.
"So you were right," Veg said. "A new alternate, a larger pattern. No telling how many agents in the woodwork."
"It is also possible that these are all settings on the same world," Tamme said. "That would account for the constancy of gravity, climate, and atmosphere."
"That blizzard wasn't constant!"
"Still within the normal temperature range."
"If they're all variations of Earth, that explains the gravity and climate. You said yourself they were different alternates. Trace distinctions in the air, or something."
"Yes. But perhaps I was premature. It could be as easy to regulate the air of a particular locale as to arrange for travel between alternates. Matter transmission from one point on the globe to another would cover it. I merely say that I am not sure we are actually -- " She stopped. "Oh-oh."
Veg looked where she was looking but didn't see anything special. "What's up?"
"The walls are moving. Closing in."
He didn't see any difference but trusted her perception. He was not claustrophobic, but the notion made him nervous. "A mousetrap?"
"Maybe. We'd better locate that projector."
"There's only two ways to go. Why don't I go down here, and you go there? One of us is bound to find it."
"Yes," she said. There was a slight edge to her voice, as if she were nervous. That was odd because agents had excellent control. They were seldom if ever nervous, and if they were, they didn't show it.
"Okay." He walked one way, and she went the other. But it nagged him: What was bothering her so much that even he could notice it?"
"Nothing," he muttered to himself. "If I pick it up, it's because she wants me to." But what was she trying to tell him?
He turned about to look back toward her. And stood transfixed.
The walls were moving -- not slowly now but rapidly. They bowed out from either side between him and Tamme, compressing the hall alarmingly. "Hey!" he yelled, starting back.
Tamme had been facing away. Now she turned like an unwinding spring and ran toward him, so fast he was astonished. Her hair flew out in a straight line behind her. She approached at a good thirty miles an hour: faster than he had thought it possible for a human being on foot.
The walls accelerated. Tamme dived, angling through just as the gap closed. She landed on her hands, did a forward roll, and flipped to her feet. She came up to him, not even out of breath. "Thanks."
"That mousetrap!" he said, shaken. "It almost got you!" Then: "Thanks for what?"
"For reacting in normal human fashion. The trap was obviously geared to your capacities, not mine. That was what I needed to ascertain."
"But what was the point?"
"The object is to separate us, then deal with us at leisure. No doubt it feeds on animal flesh that it traps in this manner."
"A carnivorous world?" Veg felt an ugly gut alarm.
"Perhaps, or merely a prison, like the City. We see very little of the alternates we are visiting."
"I'm with you. Let's find the projector and get out!"
"It will have to be in a secure place -- one that the walls can not impinge on."
"Yeah. Let's stay together, huh?"
"I never intended to separate," she said. "But I wasn't sure who might be listening."
Hence the edgy tone. He'd have to be more alert next time! "You figure it's intelligent?"
"No. Mindless, perhaps purely mechanical. But dangerous -- in the fashion of a genuine mousetrap."
"Yeah -- if you happen to be the mouse."
They moved on, together. The walls were animate now, shifting like the torso of a living python. They pushed in -- but the air in the passage compressed, preventing complete closure. There was always an exit for the air, and Veg and Tamme were able to follow it on out.
"But watch out when you see any air vent or duct," Tamme warned. "There the walls could close in all the way quite suddenly because there would be an escape for the air."
Veg became extremely interested in air vents.
Sometimes they encountered a fork in the way and had to judge quickly which branch would lead to a broader hall. But now that they understood this region's nature, they were able to stay out of trouble.
"Hey -- there it is!" he exclaimed. "The projector."
The walls were rolling back ahead of them, while closing in behind, as though herding them forward. A projector had now been revealed. It was on wheels, and a metallic ring surrounded it.
"Clever," Tamme said. "Wheels and a circular guard so that it always moves ahead of the wall and can't be trapped or crushed. So long as the walls do not close precisely parallel -- and that does not seem to be their nature -- it will squirt out. See the bearings on the ring-guard." She moved toward it.
Veg put out his hand to stop her. "Cheese," he said.
She paused. "You have a certain native cunning. I compliment you."
"Another kiss will do."
"No. I am beginning to respect you."
Veg suffered a flush of confused emotion. She did not kiss those she respected? Because a kiss decreased it -- or increased it? Or because her kisses were calculated sexual attractants, not to be used on friends? Was she becoming emotionally involved? This was more the way Aquilon reacted. The notion was exciting.
"The notion is dangerous," Tamme said, reading his sentiment. "You and I are not for each other on any but the purely physical level, strictly temporary. My memory of you will be erased when I am reassigned, but yours of me will remain. When emotion enters the picture, it corrupts us both. Love would destroy us."
"I'd risk it."
"You're a normal," she said with a hint of contempt. She turned to the projector. "Let's spring the mousetrap."
She brought a thread from somewhere in her uniform, then made a lasso. She dropped this over the switch, jerked it snug, then walked away. The thread stretched behind her, five paces, ten, fifteen.
"Hide your eyes," she said.
Veg put his arms up to cover both ears and eyes. He felt the movement as she tug
ged at the thread, turning on the projector.
Then he was on the floor. Tamme was picking him up. "Sorry," she said. "I miscalculated. That was an agent's trap."
"What?" He stared back down the hall, his memory coming back. There had been a terrific explosion, knocking him down --
"Directional charge. We were at the fringe of its effect. You bashed your head against the walls."
"Yeah." He felt the bump now. "Good thing that wall has some give. You people play rough."
"Yes. Unfortunately, I have been overlong on this mission. My orientation is suffering. I am making errors. A fresh agent would have anticipated both the trap and its precise application. I regret that my degradation imperiled your well-being."
"Mistakes are only human," he said, rubbing his head.
"Precisely." She set him on his feet. "I believe the blast stunned the walls temporarily. You should be safe here while I make a quick search."
"I like you better, human."
"Misery loves company. Stay."
"Okay." He felt dizzy and somewhat nauseous. He sat down and let his head hang.
"I'm back." He had hardly been aware of her absence!
She took him to a "constant" spot she had located: six metal rods imbedded in floor and ceiling, preventing encroachment. On a pedestal within that enclosure was another projector.
"This one is safe," Tamme said.
Veg didn't ask her how she knew. Probably it was possible to booby trap a projector to explode some time after use so that a real one could be dangerous, but that would be risky if the alternate-pattern brought the same person back again. Best not to mess with the real projectors at all! Like the way the desert Arabs never poisoned the water no matter how vicious the local politics got. Never could be sure who would need to drink next.
"I hope the next world is nicer," he said.
"Bound to be." She activated the device.
Chapter 12 - CUB
Cub finished his meal of fruit, roots, and flesh. He had gorged himself in case it were long before he ate again. Beside him Ornet preened himself, similarly ready.
Dec sailed in from his last survey. By minute adjustments of his mantle he made the indication: All is well.
Cub raised his wing-limb, flexing the five featherless digits in the signal to OX: We are ready.
OX expanded. His sparkling presence surrounded them as it had so many times before. But this time it was special. The field intensified, lifted -- and they were moving. Not through space; through time.
At first there was little change. They could see the green vegetation of the oasis and the hutch they had built there for shelter and comfort. Farther out there were the trenches and barriers they had made to foil the predator machine.
The machine. Mach, they called it. The thing had grown right along with them because it was part of the enclave OX had aged. It was a constant menace -- yet Cub respected it, too, as a resourceful and determined opponent. Had it been in his power to destroy it, he would not have done so because without it the group would be less alert, less fit, and bored.
Do we need adversity to prosper? he asked himself, linking his fingers so that he would not inadvertently signal his thoughts to the others. Apparently so. That ever-present threat to survival had forced them all to advance much faster and better than they would have otherwise. Perhaps, ironically, it was the machine more than anything else that was responsible for their success as a group. This was a concept he knew the others would not understand, and perhaps it was nonsensical. But intriguing. He valued intrigue.
Then the hutch vanished. The trees changed. They expanded, aged, and disappeared. New ones grew up, matured, passed. Then only shifting brush remained, and finally the region was a barren depression.
Cub moved his digits, twisting them in the language that Ornet, Dec, and OX understood. Our oasis has died, he signaled. The water sank, the soil dried, the plants died. We knew this would happen if we were not there to cultivate the plants and conserve the water they need. But in other frames water remains, for OX's elements remain.
A shoot formed within OX's field. This is temporal, it said, using its blinker language that they all understood. All alternates extend forward and back from any point. All are distinct, yet from any point they seem to show past and future because of the separation in duration between frames.
Obvious, Cub snapped with an impolite twitch of his fingers.
Ornet made a muffled squawk to show partial comprehension. He was a potent historian but not much for original conjecture. His language, also, was universally understood: Cub could hear it, Dec could see it, and OX could field the slight variations it caused in his network of elements.
Dec twitched his tail in negation: The matter was not of substantial interest to him.
I would include a geographic drift, OX's shoot flashed. But I am unable, owing to the limit of the enclave.
Nonsense, Cub responded. We're all advanced twenty years. In terms of real framework, we exist only theoretically -- or perhaps it is the other way around -- so we can travel on theoretical elements.
Theoretical elements? the shoot inquired.
Your elements were cleared out by the external patterns, Cub signaled. Once they were there, and once they will be there, instead of mere threads. They still exist, in alternate phases of reality, serving as a gateway to all the universe. Use them.
Theoretical elements? The shoot repeated.
Cub had little patience with the slowness of his pattern-friend. Make a circuit, he signaled, much as he would have told Ornet to scratch for arths if he were hungry. Analyze it. Accept this as hypothesis: We can theoretically travel on theoretical elements. There has to be an aspect of alternity where this is possible, for somewhere in alternity all things are possible. To us, geography may be fixed, for we are restricted to the enclave. Theoretically, that geography can change elsewhere in relation to ours just as time does. We have merely to invoke the frames where this is so.
Uncomprehending, OX made the circuit. Then he was able to accept it. Such travel was possible. And -- it was.
The geography changed as they slid across the aging world. They saw other oases growing and flexing.
Cub was surprised. He had been teasing OX, at least in part. He had not really believed such motions would work; the enclave isolation had prevented any real breakout before. But when OX made a circuit, OX became that circuit, and his nature and ability were changed.
Perhaps OX had at last transcended the abilities of the outside patterns. If so, a genuine breakout was now feasible. But Cub decided not to mention that yet, lest the outside patterns act to remedy that potential breach. It was not wise to give away your abilities to the enemy.
That was how they had given Mach the slip. Always before, OX had made certain preparatory circuits, which the machine had sensed. This time Cub had had OX make spurious shoot-circuits, deceiving Mach. Thus, when they were ready to move, the machine had thought it was another bluff and had not appeared.
But soon Cub became bored with flexing oases. Let's cut across the alternates, he signaled. See some really different variations. We can go anywhere now...
Another test -- but OX obliged. The oasis in sight stopped growing and started changing. The green leaves on the trees turned brown; the brown bark turned red. The bases thickened, became bulbous. Creatures appeared, rather developed from the semisentients already present. Like Ornet but with different beaks: tubular, pointed, which they plunged into the spongy trunks of the trees, drawing out liquid.
This was more like it! Cub watched, fascinated by sights he had never seen before and hardly imagined. A feast of experience!
The trees flowered, and so did the creatures. The flowers expanded until there were neither trees nor creatures, only flowers. The oasis itself expanded until there was no desert at all, only large and small flowers.
A streak appeared. Cub couldn't tell whether it was a wall or a solid bank of fog. It cut off some of the flowers. The
y did not wither; they metamorphosed into colored stones. The fog-wall increased until it concealed everything. Then it faded, and in its wake were planes, multicolored, translucent, and set at differing angles. Machines rolled up and down them, chipping away here, depositing there, steadily altering the details of the configuration without changing its general nature. Cub hardly bothered to question why; he knew that there would be too many whys in all alternity to answer without squeezing out more important concerns.
The planes dissolved into bands of colored light, and these in turn became clouds, swirling in very pretty patterns, developing into storms. Rain came down, then snow -- Cub recognized it, for snow fell on the enclave seasonally, forcing him to fashion protective clothing. But this was not only white; it was red and green and blue, shifting as the alternates shifted.
Of Man and Manta Omnibus Page 60
