Inside Outside

by Philip José Farmer

  Actually, it took about ninety seconds, if his rate of counting was correct. He found Fyodor waiting for him, holding his torch high and peering around. The light showed more tunnels and canals, just like those above. The torch he’d dropped was nowhere in sight. He presumed it had bounced off the walk and dropped into the sewage, just six feet below.

  “The air got cooler as we came down,” he said. “Feel that draft? And where’s the stink?”

  “Maybe we’re used to it by now,” said Fyodor.

  “No, it’s been replaced by a perfume. Can’t you smell it?”

  Fyodor shook his head. “I never did have much of a nose. I’m odordeaf, if you will pardon the term.”

  He wasn’t deaf to sound. He reacted just as quickly as Cull did to the vast bellow.

  “God’s sake!” Cull gasped. “What is it? Where…?”

  “That way, I think,” said Fyodor, pointing with his free hand down the tunnel behind Cull. His hand shook. He shook all over; his teeth chattered. Phyllis clung to the pole.

  ”Let’s go the other way,” Cull said.

  Another bellow boomed along the tunnel. This one came from the opposite direction in which Fyodor had pointed.

  Cull dropped the torch, pushed Phyllis so hard she sprawled on the floor, leaped upward and grabbed the pole. Surprisingly, the pole now felt dry; it furnished a good grip. He swarmed upward for about twenty feet, then stopped to look down. Fyodor was not following him but was standing beside the pole and looking up the shaft.

  “Now that you know you can get back up easily,” he said, “why don’t you come back down?”

  “Didn’t you hear that?”

  “I’m not going to quit now. If you quit, I’m going on alone. But I’d feel much better, braver, if you were with me.”

  Cull didn’t know why he did not keep on climbing. He didn’t really care about Fyodor’s opinion of him. Perhaps he was scared of going back to the surface alone. Or his curiosity may have been stronger than fear. He knew he’d never be satisfied unless he found out what was going on in the bowels of this world. So he slid back. And noted, as he did, that the pole became slick. Bipolarity of lubrication.

  Phyllis was on her feet again and holding her torch. After one glance at her scorn, he turned away.

  Fyodor leading, they went along the tunnel, which became wider with every few steps. Soon, the torches could not penetrate far enough for them to distinguish the other side. Suddenly, they were standing on a narrow ledge. About twenty feet below, a black sluggish river moved. Bubbles arose from its depths. Then, a bubble, larger than all the rest put together, rose. It was followed by a head.

  The head was about six times as large as Cull’s — a slanting forehead and no hair and four elephantine ears, two enormous black eyes. No nose. The mouth was broad, thick-lipped, and open, revealing a row of tigerlike teeth and two curving canines. The tongue ran out, seemingly endless, and its tip finally fell into the water. And they saw that the tongue was covered with hundreds of tiny sharp teeth.

  It was a demon, for the eyes shone in the torchlight as it turned its head.

  Cull didn’t know how deep the river was or how tall the monster might be. It was possible that it could jump out of the water, seize the edge of the walk, and pull itself up on to the walk.

  Just as he thought of that, the demon lifted its right hand out of the water. Rather, it was not a hand but a paw. The paw held a human leg. While they watched, the paw dropped the leg onto the tongue, and the tongue began running back into the mouth until it was well within the cavern of the mouth. Then, the lips closed, and there was a crunching as the lower jaw began grinding. The eyes, at least six inches wide, stared upward at them. They seemed to say, Next?

  Slowly, the three human beings began to move away, walking sideways while they watched it, afraid to take their eyes off it. They could have run, but there was nothing to keep it from swimming along in place with them, for the walk and the river followed the same tunnel.

  “Maybe that leg belongs to the demon we were chasing,” said Fyodor in a very low voice. “Demon eats demon. A demon will eat anybody or anything, given a chance.”

  “Let’s not give it a chance,” Cull whispered. He kept edging away. Suddenly, the monster opened its mouth and bellowed with laughter. Laughter! That was all that was needed. Panic overwhelmed them and they ran until their lungs burned; they sobbed, and their legs were turned into the jelly of utter fatigue.

  Then, sitting down, breaths soughing, they looked back along the oily water. No sign of the demon. But he could be under the surface just below them.

  When Fyodor’s panting had slowed enough for him to gasp out words, he said, “Demons have to eat. And there can’t be enough human flesh available for them. So…”

  He pointed at some excrement floating by, and said, “I think they must be scavengers. Keep the sewage fairly clean, anyway.”

  He was, Cull supposed, right. But that didn’t lessen the danger.

  Later, he knew that it wasn’t only demons that performed in these tunnels as sparrows, vultures, jackals, hyenas. They had resumed walking for about two miles when they heard voices. There was only one thing to do, keep going toward the source of the voices, which was ahead. And presently, they were looking down on four human beings(?) standing in water up to their chests. Two men, two women. All holding their hands over their eyes against the glare of the torches.

  Near them, about fifty yards away, was the first of the many islands they were to see in the river. This was an oval flat-topped island of the same greyish metal as the tunnel. It was fifty feet across and rose from the surface to a height of about a foot.

  What set Cull quivering was the thought that the fate of these people might be his. Had they, too, climbed into the sewers to discover what mysteries they held? And had they been unable to get out, become lost, been forced to live in the dark and to eat whatever was nourishing, if nauseating, that came along to them by the bounty of the sewage? Was this to be his doom?

  No, he swore, I’d drown myself in the river, fill my lungs with that loathsome clotted water before I’d become like them. Blind gropers for crap to eat, wet and shivering, stinking and half-sick.

  But what if they had drowned themselves, only to find themselves resurrected in the same place? What if no way out existed?

  Fyodor advanced to the edge of the walk. Leaning over, he said, “Don’t be afraid. We won’t harm you. In fact, we want to help. We have rope. We’ll let it down and pull you out of there.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Cull whispered savagely. “They’ll take our food away from us. Maybe throw us into the river and leave us there. We can’t take a chance. Let’s beat it!”

  There was no reply for a moment from the waders. They peered at them through the cracks between their fingers, as if their eyes were becoming somewhat adjusted to what must at first have been an intolerable glare. To them, the three must have been shadowy figures vaguely discerned in a painful blaze. But they must have seen those on the walk well enough for their purposes. One of the men reached out and grabbed an exceptionally large piece of dung. He hurled it at Fyodor. The Slav, too surprised to dodge swiftly enough, was struck in the beard and chest.

  Howling and hooting with laughter, the others imitated their companion. Cull and Phyllis ran out of range, but Fyodor was caught in the barrage.

  Speechless, quivering, his face red in the torchlight, Fyodor stood with his hands around the rope, half-uncoiled from its position around his waist. Then, when the four in the river reached for other means of bombardment, he ran.

  Cull expected him to start cursing, but Fyodor was praying softly, if somewhat incoherently. He seemed to be asking for mercy and deliverance for those who had attacked him after he had offered help.

  “Poor devils, Hell!” Cull said. “They’re not crazy. They like it here, they like what they have to eat! They didn’t want you to rescue them. You were a danger to them.”

  Fyodor’s littl
e blue eyes became wide, and he said, “You must be mistaken.”

  “Believe what you want to,” Cull said. “But I know that type of pervert.”

  “We must get them out, help them, even if they don’t want us to,” Fyodor said. He started to walk back toward them.

  But he stopped as a shriek came from one of the group. Cull looked down into the river and could just make out, near the edge of the light cast by the torches, what was happening. The sewage-dwellers, excited by the intrusion, had forgotten their customary vigilance. Now, a monstrous head had appeared above the surface, followed by the top of a long limbless body that ended in porpoise-like fins. The yardlong tongue of the demon had lashed out and wrapped around the arm of one of the women. The hundreds of tiny teeth on the tongue were hooked into the flesh of the victim, and the woman was being pulled into the deeper regions of the water. (Evidently, the bottom was shallow near the oval island.) The others, screaming and flailing their arms in the water, were wading toward the island as swiftly as they were able.

  The demon propelled himself backward into the deep, drawing the woman with him. He disappeared, and her head went under after him, cutting off a scream in the middle. A few bubbles, and that was that.

  Or so Cull thought. Some seconds later, she reappeared and began thrashing toward the island. Blood flowed from wounds all over her body, lancing the black waters with red.

  No use. The tongue twisted around one of her legs, back she went, and, in a short time, she was under again. The three waited for several minutes but saw no more of her.

  “Now,” Fyodor shouted, “will you let us help you?”

  “Go to Hell!” shrieked one of the men.

  Cull took Fyodor’s hand and pulled him, still protesting, on down the walk. Afterward, when he had quit sobbing and was calm enough to listen, Cull talked to him.

  “See. They enjoy their degradation.”

  “Why did she fight so hard for her life?” Fyodor said. “Wouldn’t you think she’d be glad to die?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  He looked searchingly at Cull, then said, “Why don’t you think so? Is it because you’re too much like them? Would you be the same if you stayed down here?”

  Cull didn’t answer.

  A moment later, he brushed against the wall of the tunnel. And he jumped as if bitten. Or burned.

  “The wall’s hot,” he said. “Well, not hot. Warm. Very warm.”

  From that point on, he kept the fingertips of his right hand on the wall. The warmth continued for about two hundred yards. Then, the temperature changed to normal. This lasted about two hundred yards. Suddenly, the wall became cold. Icy. With balloons of moisture clinging to the metal — if it were metal.

  For the next two hundred yards, the wall was cold. Then, neutral. Then, very warm again. After that, neutral. Then, cold. And so on.

  “Parts of these walls,” said Cull, “are the walls of hot or cold air shafts. They must be. It’s only logical. You know that many of the statues in the city contain ventilation shafts. Hot air goes into some. Cold air comes out of others. I always knew that and also knew why. This is an enclosed world with light furnished by a cold sun and heat provided by the radiation from billions of warm bodies. If there weren’t some means of cooling the air, we’d have all been cooked to death long ago from the accumulated heat of our own bodies.

  “Where does the cold air come from? Are there gigantic refrigeration devices buried deep below the surface? Or are other means used?”

  “There’s only one thing wrong with your theory,” said Fyodor. “When this world expands, and the cities are dislodged from their places on the surface, the air shafts would snap off. However, this doesn’t, obviously, happen. The hot-cold balance is maintained. So…?”

  “Sharp. Good point. Since the ventilation isn’t cut off, the shafts don’t break. If they do, they’re repaired or replaced. That doesn’t seem likely when you consider the enormous labor and materials involved. Not to mention the time. So…”

  “So?”

  “So I’d guess that…”

  Cull stopped because the metal beneath his feet was quivering. Fyodor’s eyes ballooned. Cull’s and Phyllis’ were bulging with panic, too. His hand, placed against the wall to steady himself, to combat the dizziness caused by the undulations of the floor, felt the wall also shake. And, looking down the tunnel as far as their torchlight shone, he could see a swell passing along the floor, a wave of metal.

  Moreover, the corner where the tunnel took an almost right-angle turn was going inward toward the other side. Then, like a stretched rubber band released, it snapped back to its original position. A second later, it again shot toward the other side. Or the other side was moving toward this side. Or both actions were taking place.

  He had a terrifying vision of the tunnel collapsing, burying them beneath the millions of tons of dirt and rock above them. Perhaps, the whole city would slide into a chasm suddenly opened beneath it, and they…

  No place to run. Besides, they had enough trouble keeping their balance; they could not have fled more than a few steps without falling down.

  All three shrieked with horror as the floor rose and twisted, and they fell from the floor against the side of the tunnel. The wall had suddenly become the floor.

  They continued shrieking as the river water poured over them. They fought to claw a hold in the metal to keep from being swept away in the current of the river.

  The water rose over their heads. Willynilly, they began floating alongside the wall.

  Just as abruptly as it had come, the water fell away from the wall, the three with it, and they were on a wave roaring toward the other wall. Cull could see what was happening. Though Fyodor’s torch had been doused, Cull had managed to hold his above the water with one hand while he thrashed with the other to keep himself afloat. Fyodor was to Cull’s right and a yard or so ahead of him so that Cull saw the other wall rushing at him. He could not find Phyllis. He struggled to get his feet in front:of him to enable them to take the impact.

  Then, just as he was about to crash, the water ran away from him. His momentum brushed him gently against the wall, he sank, and found himself standing on the walk alongside the wall. He also could, see by his torch that Fyodor (he was right beside him) was standing too and that the tunnel was righting itself. Phyllis, minus her torch, was a few yards away.

  They had quit shrieking; now, they were breathing harshly. Cull was, anyway. Fyodor’s mouth was open, and his chest was rapidly rising and falling. But Cull couldn’t hear him, for the river water was twisting and roiling too noisily.

  Then the turbulence began to lessen and the water started to regain its former oily smoothness. After a few minutes Cull could hear Fyodor gasping.

  “That answers your question about why the tunnels and shafts don’t snap,” Cull said between sobs. “This stuff stretches, bends, twists as no material ever built by man does. And it has a built-in self-alignment. Or so it seems.”

  “But isn’t there a limit to its ability to stretch?” Fyodor said. “I would think that…”

  The floor began to shake again. Cull started to get seasick. Swellsick, rather.

  It was like being inside a monster snake when the snake is going over the top of a steep sharp-peaked hill. The tunnel — their part of it — slanted upward. Ahead of them, about two hundred yards away, the tunnel straightened out for about forty yards. Then, it dipped out of sight, apparently bending downward.

  Immediately afterward, the tunnel slanted sideways. They yelled again as they slid across the walk. Just as they could no longer cling to the surface and were about to slide into the river, the slanting motion stopped. The tunnel straightened out. And the river, five feet higher than it had been before, a racing wall, roared down the tunnel.

  They were almost swept away. But they’d scrambled up to the wall as far away from the water as possible, and, though the edge of the water struck them and almost knocked them loose, they succeeded i
n not being carried off.

  With the abruptness of an elevator dropping, the tunnel leveled out and began righting itself.

  Fyodor screamed. Phyllis screamed.

  Cull whirled, and he screamed.

  The backward race of the river, caused by the leveling of the tunnel, had left behind a fearsome jetsam. A river demon was clutching the edge of the walk with its paws. Its lower jaw rested on the walk, and its tongue was curled around Phyllis’ right leg.

  Cull, shrieking with hate and hysterical fear, leaped at the huge head and kicked furiously at one of the great eyes. One of? The eye. It was a Cyclops; a single eye glared in the middle of its low brow.

  His toe drove into the eyeball. Again and again. The eyeball burst.

  Wheezing, the demon uncoiled the tongue from around Phyllis’ leg. The whale-like body rolled over, exposing a wound about a foot in diameter, a hole out of which blood gushed. This was what had saved them, not Cull’s blinding it. Crashed against some projection — probably an island — by the irresistible flood, the demon had been mortally wounded. Its grabbing of the woman had been a dying reflex.

  They hurried away. Something struck Cull’s head, and he cried with fear. Earth and smashed rocks fell around him.

  He jumped back, striking Phyllis, and looked upward. A large hole had been rent in the grey metal; out of it had fallen the dirt and rocks. But, as he looked, the wound in the metal began to heal. Slowly, the edges crawled toward the center.

  “In about five minutes,” he said, “the hole’ll be closed.”

  “Have you noticed how warm the metal is?” said Fyodor.

  “Friction. Heat from stretching and contracting.”

  They walked on for a minute, with Phyllis sobbing uncontrollably. Then Fyodor stopped.

  “Here’s a tremendous hole,” he said. He thrust the torch into the rent but snatched it back as its flame almost went out.

  “An air shaft.”

  Without sticking his head inside the shaft, Cull could feel the cold air. After estimating the rate of closure of the grey stuff, he put his head into the hole. There was light inside, enough for him to see to the top of the shaft and to the bottom. At the top was a great square of bright light, the outlet. It was so far above that the lower part of the shaft should have been in blackness. But it was not. Below, it was like twilight. Perhaps the interior of the shaft was coated with a light-reflecting agent. Moreover, from top to bottom, along one wall, within reach, was a series of rungs.