Several times the Commander had to pause and wait for Brink to catch up, but overall the scientist maintained the pace surprisingly well. Either he'd done some running, Low mused, or else the life crystal he'd absorbed was keeping him going. It didn't matter to Low.
Both men were exhausted by the time they emerged from the subway. Stopping to catch their breath, they took time out to repeatedly bellow the journalist's name.
They kept calling to her as they cautiously entered the spire. Familiar cases and containers loomed around them. Only this time, instead of revelation, the sea of wonders concealed an unknown danger.
Instead of leading them deeper into the complex, as Low had expected, the communicator's locate function angled sharply to the right, pointing toward a series of holes or open doorways. When they reached the wall, Low walked back and forth until he was sure which of the openings the communicator was singling out.
"I don't like this." Pulling the small flashlight from his service belt, Low flicked it to life and entered the poorly lit tunnel. Here the light emanating from ceiling and walls was feeble, barely strong enough to illuminate the damp floor's conspicuous downward slope. Their compact beams were a welcome supplement. "Last time I was in a tunnel, I ended up playing dodge-em with a serious nightmare."
Brink was inspecting their surroundings. "Maintenance passage, I suspect. How did you escape your nemesis, Commander?"
Low smiled grimly. "Gave it a nightmare of its own. Do you hear water running?"
"Yes. Be careful. The floor is growing slippery." He sniffed. "Saltwater. This tunnel must run out under the ocean. Given the limited amount of space on each island, it would not be surprising to discover that much of this interisland complex's infrastructure exists below sea level. It is the way I would do it."
"I'll keep that in mind next time I need to build me a university, or whatever the hell this setup is supposed to be." As Low ducked beneath a leaky conduit, cold seawater dripped down the back of his neck and he found himself shivering.
"We must try to break through!" insisted several of the mind-forms which had followed the visitors' progress from the very beginning. "Otherwise they will all, despite having come so far and accomplished so much, perish here."
"Break through?" Five hundred perceptions puzzled the problem. "We have tried to break through for a thousand years. There is no breaking through."
An image formed before them all. It was a representation of the first to encounter the travelers. As a reminder of what they had once been, it was a powerful stimulant.
"We can at least try," declared the first. "Who will try with me?"
A hundred volunteered. Choosing a comparatively stable nexus in space-time, they sought out the most prominent fracture and pushed, compressing selves into self as they did so. The rip was nanoscopically slim, as they all were, but under the combined and determined effort it gave, ever so slightly.
"Look, over there." Low pointed to where flashes of light had appeared in the darkness. Fragments of fluorescence, they flowed together for the briefest of instants to form an outline, a recognizable shape. Straining, they sought to show, to reveal, to illuminate. The effort involved was inconceivably immense.
"Air currents." Brink was casually dismissive. "Phosphorescent gas. A harmless by-product of all this heavy engineering. I suspect as we move deeper, we may encounter other interesting effects."
"I expect you're right." Ignoring the frantic flickerings, the two men pressed on.
With a collective sigh of remorse, the disappointed and discouraged hundred abandoned their efforts.
"Observe." The vast host of nonparticipants was equally disenchanted. "We are no nearer solution than we have ever been. It is hopeless."
"Nothing is hopeless where there is life," promulgated a succession of the first's supporters. "Better to have tried and failed than not to have tried."
"Salvation lies not in solipsisms," riposted those who throve on doubt.
"Is there life here?" A substantial number of active onlookers posed the relevant interrogatory, which resulted in the vast majority drifting off into elaborate but wholly spurious discourse.
Only the tenacious remained proximate, following the visitors' progress with unflagging interest. "First we became irrelevant to our dimension, then we became irrelevant to this one. Now we risk becoming irrelevant to ourselves." The first was adamant. "Something must be done, or consciousness will go the way of our physical forms."
But having tried and failed to break through, there was little they could do. Philosophy was a poor weapon with which to confront muscle and sinew. As it was, they could not even assist the bipeds with a lingering notion, much less a complete thought.
"Down this way." Continuously monitoring the readout on the communicator, Low turned to his left. There was no telling how deeply they had gone, nor how far out under the seabed. Pipes and tubes, conduits and siphons snaked everywhere. Low felt as if they were descending into a bottomless bowl of steel spaghetti. No stylish use of metallic glass here, he saw. Only straightforward, prosaic metal and plastics, with hints of some dark ceramic alloy.
Water was everywhere; trickling from elderly leaks, condensing off the cold pipes, running in foreboding rivulets along the floor. He tried not to think of the millions of tons of rock hanging over his head, or the billions of gallons of seawater it was holding back.
Brink turned sharply to his right. "I thought I heard something."
Low nodded. "I heard it too." Turning in the direction of the noise, they resumed their cautious advance. Their boots splashed aside water several inches deep. Long black wriggling things squirmed away from their approach, seeking safety in the dark places.
"Watch it." Aiming his beam downward to illuminate the source of his concern, Low took a long stride forward. "There's some sticky stuff here. Mucus or something."
Brink used his own light to scrutinize the disgusting mass as he followed Low's lead, carefully stepping around the glistening heap. In appearance it had the look of glue-slathered television cable that had lain too long in the sun.
It wasn't cable.
Proof came when they turned a corner and came face-to-face with the long-absent Maggie Robbins. Unable to move, she stood facing them, wrapped up in more of the same stringy gook as neatly as a Christmas turkey. Slime was still congealing around her limbs as they rushed to free her.
Imprisoned in length after length of the gummy material, she didn't look very professional. She looked, in fact, utterly terrified. Her face was drawn, and the dark circles under her eyes hadn't been there the last time Low had seen her. They were not the result of an absence of makeup. Something had left her not only entrapped but scared out of her wits.
As they struggled to free her, her eyes kept darting in all directions. "Get away! Get out while you can." She hesitated a moment, blinking hard, before continuing. "No! What am I saying! Get me out of this gunk before it comes back!" She stared at Brink. "Nothing personal, Ludger, but aren't you supposed to be dead?"
"I was. Now I am not. It will be explained to you later." He tore at her bindings.
"Man, I sure hope so." Low had her upper arms and head free, but she still couldn't move. Her legs were pinned to the wall and to each other.
"Before what comes back?" Brink inquired.
"Do you think I did this to myself? For a supposed scientist you sure overlook a lot of the obvious. Before the—" She stopped in midsentence and did something very unprofessional, though perfectly understandable under the circumstances. Her eyes grew wide and she screamed.
Both men whirled, and there it was: a disjointed, chitinous, crablike hulk. Ominously it had scuttled around in the darkness to interpose itself between them and the exit.
Despite the danger, Low was fascinated by the monstrosity. He could clearly see where the silken glue-saturated fibers emerged: not from spinnerets at the base of some bulbous abdomen but from specialized organs at the tips of two forward-facing legs. As it studie
d them, the creature rocked slowly back and forth on multiple jointed limbs. The local underground life here, Low decided, was all spasms and twitches.
That the gargoylish head was fully aware of them he did not doubt, despite the absence of visible eyes. The guardians he had left battling each other in the tomb spire were first cousins to this ambulatory nightmare. All clearly belonged to the same taxonomic family: the one you'd never invite home.
The principal differences between this beast and the tomb guardians were that this one was bigger, uglier and equipped with weaponry much more sophisticated than mere tooth and claw. It was a thoroughly revolting entity that hovered near the bottom of Mother Nature's beauty list.
"Don't just stand there gawking." Robbins would have kicked him if she could have freed a leg. "Get me out of this!"
"I am open to suggestions, Maggie." Brink was remarkably calm. Probably too busy trying to assign the creature a classification to be properly frightened, Low thought. That would come later, when it was sinking its fangs into his chest.
He wished fervently for some kind of weapon. Even a kitchen knife would have been welcome. But they had nothing, sidearms not being deemed essential equipment for spacewalks. He would gladly have traded his pension for the digger they had used to bore the original blast holes in the surface of the asteroid. Everything attached to his service belt was necessarily small and inoffensive. He supposed that Robbins carried something like pepper spray in her purse, but for some reason she had neglected to bring that along on her EVA.
All he had on him were the communicator, some generic medicinal tablets, a few food concentrates and their lights. With nothing else to point, he aimed the bright, narrow beam at the creature. Without knowing where the sight organs were located, or even what range of the spectrum they could detect, he couldn't very well blind it.
But when he shifted the circle of illumination to one side, the monster's head swiveled to follow it. Again he flashed the head and then let the beam drift to the right. Once more the bony skull turned to follow. He felt an entirely irrational surge of hope.
"The beam distracts it! Use your flashlight, Ludger." The admonition was unnecessary, as Brink had already noted Low's success.
But while it readily followed the dancing lights with whatever organs it used for sight, it would not move from its position.
Similarly, it did not advance. They had achieved no better than a standoff.
"This isn't working," Low remarked.
"I commend your powers of observation, Commander." Brink favored his companion with a dry smile. "There is no point in continuing this. Eventually our batteries will be drained and the creature will have us. It is distracted by the lights but not overcome by them. Perhaps a combination of light and motion will prove more effective."
So saying, and before Low could divine his intent, the scientist splashed forward. Waving his arms, he yelled as loudly as he could. The assortment of English, German and Russian curses, not to mention a few in Latin, made no impression on the monster. But all the noise and moving light did. Sputtering ferociously, it lurched in Brink's direction.
"Ludger, no!" Low started toward him, but Brink wasn't to be dissuaded. Whether his newfound bravery was prompted by unnatural impulse or a desire to experiment, Low didn't know. More likely he just wanted to get his life crystals back.
Crabbing forward but never falling, the monster pursued the source of sound and light. Brink led it away from the imprisoned journalist. If he fell, Low knew the creature would be on him in an instant.
"Never mind him now!" Robbins shouted to get Low's attention. "If he wants to be a hero, let him. Just don't let it go to waste."
Brink was of like mind. "This reminds me of my student days, Commander, but I can't keep it up forever. No lolly-choking!"
"Lolly-gagging," Low corrected him as he turned back to Robbins. Clipping his light onto his belt, he started tearing at the sticky shackles. Robbins helped as best she could.
"I couldn't get away." Straining, she succeeded in pulling one leg free. "It was too quick for me. I couldn't—"
"It's all right," he told her. "It doesn't matter. All that's important now is getting you out of this and making it out of here."
"Okay, I'll go with that."
For all her wry commentary, Low could see that she was on the verge of hysteria. Only a lifetime of difficult experiences had kept her from losing it completely. Working his way down her legs, he almost entangled himself in the incredibly adhesive mess.
This wouldn't do, he thought impatiently. It wasn't going fast enough.
Looking around, he located several lengths of loose metal. One had a sharp edge, the other a curved tip that would make a serviceable hook. With these he was able to pry and dig much more effectively at the incomplete cocoon, particularly at the fibers that had already dried. They were strong, but one by one they eventually parted under his single-minded assault.
With Robbins pushing from within and Low ripping and tearing from the other side, one strand after another gave way, until he was finally able to fling the stiff length of metal aside and lift her clear. Dried residue covered her from head to foot, but everything worked.
His face was very close to hers, but neither of them thought anything of it. Circumstances hardly allowed for a romantic interval.
"You okay? Can you stand?"
"I think so."
"Good." He forced himself to smile. "If you'd listened to me from the start, this wouldn't have happened."
"No?" She managed to smile back. "Didn't you say we should stick together?"
"Not literally." As he stepped clear, he remembered something momentarily forgotten. "Ludger."
There followed a welcome, even energetic, response to their simultaneous cries.
"I'm all right! It's closer, but still unsure whether to strike first at me or the light. I'm hoping it will choose the latter. Incidentally, I must point out that I am running out of space. Any assistance would be most welcome. Don't linger."
Low took Maggie's hand and together they followed the sound of Brink's voice. He was still shouting and cursing to draw the glue-spitter's attention.
It didn't take long to find him. He'd been backed into an alcove by the spitter, which hovered on the edge of indecision. Low doubted it would remain that way forever.
"Use your light," Maggie urged him. "Lure it away."
"We can't keep doing that. Our batteries will quit. We have to try something else."
She looked up at him expectantly. "Like what?"
"Like I don't know." He scanned their surroundings. "What do you suppose that is?"
"What, what is?" Turning, she saw that his beam had settled on a large, puffy pink mound attached to one wall. Thick cables supplied additional bracing, and it was covered with a thin layer of glistening mucus.
"Egg sac?" She wracked her brain for memories of anything similar. "Food storage? Sleeping nest?"
"Could be any one of those, or something else. Or all three." Picking up another metal shaft, he directed Maggie to do likewise. "Whatever it is, it's important. Look at the care with which it's been constructed, at the thickness of the support strands."
"If your assessment is correct and we attack it outright, that thing will be on us like a crow on roadkill."
"You're right." Once again Low anxiously searched their surroundings. "This way."
He led her to a nearby conduit through which a powerful stream of water could be heard rushing. Water seeped profusely from a broken seam.
"Work on that."
Under his direction they used the lengths of metal to dig and pry at the crack, until water began to flow in a steady stream from the enlarged breach. The entire conduit quivered as if ready to give way at any moment.
"Over here!" he directed her.
Bracing their feet against another pipe, they both pushed as hard as they could at the point Low had selected. Nothing happened.
"Harder! Use your weight!"
"Watch your language." More seriously she added, "What if this just snaps? It could blow up in our faces."
His expression was contorted as he strained against the heavy pipe. "You have any better ideas?"
She resumed pushing. "No. In fact, I don't even have your idea. What are we trying to do, anyway?"
"You'll see ... I hope."
A weak cracking noise sounded above the deep rush of running water, and then the conduit snapped. The pent-up force of the liberated stream knocked them both down. With the power of a high-pressure fire hose, water shot across the gap to smash into the blob of sticky strands. Gluey filaments went flying.
Within arm's reach of Brink, who had retreated as far as possible, the creature whirled. Emitting a high-pitched keening and exhibiting far more speed and agility than Low suspected it possessed, it scrambled madly in the direction of its inundated nest.
"Ludger, this way!" Rising, Low and Robbins waved wildly in the scientist's direction.
With the monster distracted by the roaring water, Brink was able to rejoin them safely. Together they started out of the abyss and back toward the clear, compelling light of the museum spire.
Robbins quickly fell behind. "Come on, Maggie," Low urged her.
"Can't." He saw that she was limping. "Too long in one position. My leg muscles are knotting up."
The two men flanked her. Putting her arms across their shoulders, she allowed them to carry her out, using her legs whenever recalcitrant quadriceps allowed. The keening whine of the monster and the thunder of escaping water gradually faded behind them.
Eventually they reemerged into the pale luminescence and half-familiar surroundings of the spire. Robbins gingerly sat down on one of a thousand identical enigmatic containers, each of whose contents would be priceless on Earth. Wincing, she began massaging her thighs.
Low hovered close. "You doing any better?"
She smiled weakly. "I'm out of that hellhole, so I'm not too concerned about anything else right now." Experimentally, she kicked out her right leg. "It's loosening up. I'll be all right." Moving down from the lower thigh, she began working on her right calf. Low considered contributing his help, decided against it. Such an offer might easily be misconstrued. It would have surprised him to know that it would have been gratefully accepted.
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