"It's a Bulb!" Owen exclaimed. "Just like the Guardian's relic of Light Almighty!"
Jared's memory resurrected more of the beliefs:
So compassionate was the Almighty (it was the Guardian of the Way's voice that came back now) that when He banished man from Paradise, He sent parts of Himself to be with us for a while. And He dwelled in many little vessels like this Holy Bulb.
There was a noise somewhere among the living quarters.
"Light!" Owen swore. "Do you smell that?"
Indeed Jared did smell it. It was so offensively alien that it made the hair bristle on his neck. He rattled his clickstones desperately, backing off all the while.
The echoes brought an incredible, jumbled pattern of sound-impressions of something human, but not human; unbelievably evil because it was different, yet arresting because it seemed to have a pair of arms and legs and a head and stood more or less upright. It was advancing, trying to take them by surprise.
Jared reached into his quiver. But there were no more arrows. Then, terrified, he cast his bow away and turned to flee.
"Oh, Light!" Owen moaned, scrambling back toward the exit. "What in Radiation is it?"
But Jared couldn't answer. He had all he could do trying to find the way out while keeping his ears on the unholy menace. It was reeking more terribly than a thousand soubats.
"It's Strontium himself!" Owen decided. "The legends are true! The Twin Devils are here!" He turned and bolted for the exit, his own bewildered shouts providing the guiding echoes.
Jared only stood there, paralyzed by a sensation altogether beyond comprehension. His auditory impression of the monstrous form was clear: it seemed the thing's entire body was made up of fluttering sheets of flesh. But there was something else-a vague yet vivid bridge of noiseless echoes that spanned the distance from the creature and boiled down into the depths of his conscious.
Sounds, odors, tastes, the pressure of the rocks and material things around him-all seemed to pour into his being, bringing pain. He clamped his hands over his face and raced after Owen.
A zip-hiss cleaved the air above his head and a moment later Owen's voice rose in a cry of anguished terror. Then Jared heard his friend collapse, falling at the entrance to the Original World.
He reached the spot where Owen lay, slung the unconscious form over his shoulder and plunged on.
Zip-hiss.
Something grazed his arm, leaving droplets of moisture clinging to the flesh. In the next instant he was tripping, failing, picking himself up and racing on under the burden of Owen's dead weight. And he was seized by a sudden grogginess he couldn't explain.
Deaf now, he staggered against the piled boulders that formed the passage's left wall and groped his way around one of the huge rocks. Then he stumbled into a crevice between two outcroppings and fell with Owen on top of him, lapsing into unconsciousness.
Chapter Two
"Good Light! Let's get out of here!"
Owen's whisper jarred him awake and Jared struggled erect. Then, remembering the Original World and its terror, he lurched back.
"It's gone now," the other assured.
"You certain?"
"Yes. I heard it listening all around out here. Then it left. What in Radiation was it-Cobalt? Strontium?"
Jared crawled from among the boulders and reached for a pair of clickstones. But then he thought better of making any noise.
Owen shuddered. "That smell! The sound of its shape!"
"And that other sensation!" Jared swore. "It was like something-psychic!"
He snapped his fingers softly, evaluating the reflected sounds, and continued around a great hanging stone that cascaded in graceful folds, flowing into a mound which strained up from the floor like a rearing giant.
"What other sensation?" Owen asked.
"Like all Radiation breaking loose in your head. Something that wasn't sound or smell or touch."
"I didn't hear anything like that."
"It wasn't hearing-I don't think."
"What made us pass out?"
"I don't know."
They went around a bend in the passage. Now that they had put some distance behind them, Jared began using his clickstones. "Light!" he exclaimed, relieved. "But I'd welcome even a soubat now!"
"Not without weapons you wouldn't."
And, as they crossed the Barrier and continued on alongside the wide river, Jared wondered why his friend hadn't experienced the same uncanny sensation he had. As far as he was concerned, that phase of the incident was even more frightening than the monster itself.
Then his lips grew grimly taut as an alarming possibility suggested itself: Suppose his Original World experience had been a punishment from the Great Almighty for his blasphemous belief that Light was something less than God?
They headed into more familiar territory and he announced, "We've got to report this to the Prime Survivor."
"We can't!" Owen protested. "We broke the law in coming here!"
Which was a complication Jared hadn't considered. Owen, to be sure, was in enough trouble as it was, having let the cattle get in the manna orchard last period.
Several hundred breaths later, Jared led the way around the final major hazard-a huge pit without bottom. He put his pebbles away. Not long afterward he hissed for silence, then drew Owen over to a recess in the wall.
"What's wrong?" the other demanded.
"Zivvers!" he whispered.
"I don't hear anything."
"You will in a few heartbeats. They're going down the Main Passage ahead. If they turn this way we may have to run for it."
The sounds in the other tunnel were more audible now. A sheep bleated and Jared recognized the pitch. "That's one of our animals. They raided the Lower Level."
The Zivver voices reached maximum volume as the pillagers passed the corridor intersection, then fell off.
"Come on," Jared urged. "They can't ziv us now."
He went not more than thirty paces, however, before he drew up and cautioned in his lowest voice, "Quiet!"
He held his breath and listened. Besides his own pounding heartbeat and Owen's fainter one, there was yet a third- not too far away, weak, but pumping violently with fright.
"What is it?" Owen asked.
"A Zivver."
"You're just getting the scent from that raiding party."
But Jared edged forward, weighing the auditory impressions, sniffing out other clues. The scent of the Zivver was unmistakable, but it was of minor proportions-that of a child! He drew in another whiff and detained it in his nasal chamber.
A girl Zivver!
Her heartbeat was distinct as he clicked his pebbles once to sound out the details of the cleft in which she was hiding. She stiffened at the noise, but didn't try to escape. Instead, she started crying-plaintively.
Owen relaxed. "It's only a child!"
"What's the matter?" Jared asked solicitously, but got no reply.
"What are you doing out here?" Owen tried.
"We're not going to hurt you," Jared promised. "What's wrong?"
"I-I can't ziv," she finally managed between sobs.
Jared knelt beside her. "You're a Zivver, aren't you?"
"Yes. I mean-no, I'm not. That is-"
She was perhaps thirteen gestations old. No older, certainly.
He led her out into the passageway. "Now-what's your name?"
"Estel."
"And why are you hiding out here, Estel?"
"I heard Mogan and the others coming. I ran in here so they wouldn't ziv me."
"Why don't you want them to find you?"
"So they won't take me back to the Zivver World."
"But that's where you belong, isn't it?"
She sniffled and Jared heard her wiping her cheeks dry.
"No," she said despondently. "Everybody there can ziv except me. And when I'm ready to become a Survivoress there won't be any Zivver Survivors who'll want me."
She began sobbing again. "I want t
o go to your world."
"You can't, Estel," Owen tried to explain. "You don't understand what the sentiment is against-I mean-oh, you tell her, Jared."
Jared brushed the hair off her face when the reflection of his voice told him it was hanging there. "Once in the Lower Level we had a little girl-just about your age. She was sad because she couldn't hear. She wanted to run away. Then, one period, all of a sudden she could hear! And she was glad she had been smart enough not to run away and get lost before then."
"She was a Different One, wasn't she?" the girl asked.
"No. That's just the point. We only thought she was Different. And if she'd run away we never would have found out she wasn't."
Estel was silent as Jared led her toward the Main Passage.
"You mean," she asked after a while, "you think I might start zivving?"
He laughed and halted in the larger corridor beside a gurgling hot spring that sent its moist warmth swirling all around them. "I'm sure you'll start zivving-when you least expect it. And you'll be just as happy as that other little girl."
He listened in the direction of the Zivver raiders and readily picked up the sound of their receding voices. "What do you say, Estel-want to go home?"
"Well, all right-if you say so."
"Good girl!" He gave her a pat and propelled her in the direction of the other Zivvers. Then he cupped his hands and filled the passage with his voice. "There's one of your children back here!"
Owen shifted nervously. "Let's get out of here before we get stomped."
But Jared only laughed softly. "We'll be safe long enough to make sure they pick her up." He listened to the girl groping toward the returning Zivvers. "Anyway, they can't ziv us now."
"Why not?"
"We're standing right by this hot spring. They can't ziv anything too close to a boiling pit. That's something I learned on my own, gestations ago."
"What's a hot spring got to do with it?"
"I don't know. But it works."
"Well, if they can't ziv us, then they'll hear us."
"Point Number Two about Zivvers: they rely too much on zivving. Can't hear or smell worth a damned."
Soon they reached the entrance to the Lower Level World. Jared listened to Owen strike off for his own quarters, then he headed toward the Administration Grotto. He had made up his mind to report the Original World menace without implicating his friend.
Everything seemed normal-too normal, considering that Zivvers had just staged a raid. But then, the attacks were not so infrequent that the Survivors couldn't take them in stride when they did come.
Off to his left he caught Randel's scent and traced his climb up the pole to rewind the echo caster's pulley. Presently there was a speed-up in the mechanical clacking of the stones. And Jared listened to the more complete impressions the accelerated echoes provided. He made out the details of a work party spreading compost in the manna orchard, another digging out a new public grotto. Against the distant wall women were washing cloths in the river.
What struck him most, though, was the relative silence, which testified that something had happened. Even the children were drawn into small, voiceless clusters in front of the residential recess.
There was a groan on his right-from the Injury Treatment Grotto-and he altered course. The central caster's reflected clacks told him someone was in front of the entrance. When he got closer he heard the feminine outline of Zelda.
"Trouble?" he asked.
"Zivvers," she said tersely. "Where were you?"
"Out after a soubat. Any casualties?"
"Alban and Survivor Bridley. Just roughed up though." Her voice filtered through hair that protectively draped her face.
"Any Zivvers get hurt?"
She laughed-a bitter outburst, like the twang of a bowstring. "You kidding? The Prime Survivor's been listening for you."
"Where is he?"
"Meeting with the Elders."
Jared continued on over to the Administration Grotto, but quietened his steps as he neared the entrance. Elder Haverty had the floor. His high-pitched, faltering voice was easily recognizable.
"We'll close up the entrance!" Haverty pounded the slab. "Then we won't have to worry about either the Zivvers or the soubats!"
"Sit down, Elder," came the authoritative voice of the Prime Survivor. "You're not making sense."
"Eh? How so?"
"We're told that was tried long ago. It only choked off the circulation and ran the heat up into the sweltering range."
"Least we could do," Haverty persisted, "is close it up some."
"Ought to be bigger as it is."
Jared eased up to the grotto entrance, but stood to one side so he wouldn't block any of the direct sounds from the caster. That would betray his presence even to the most insensitive ears.
The Prime Survivor was absently tapping the meeting slab with his fingernail, producing unobtrusive echoes.
"However," he said, "there is something we can do."
"Eh? What's that?" Survivor Haverty asked.
"We couldn't do it by ourselves. It's too big a project. But we might undertake it as a joint enterprise with the Upper Level."
"We never had any joint enterprises with them before." It was Elder Maxwell's voice that entered the discussion.
"No, but they know we're going to have to pool our resources."
"What's the pitch?" asked Haverty.
"There's one passageway we might seal off. It wouldn't disturb the circulation in either the Upper or Lower Level. But, still, it would block us off from the Zivver World, as far as we know."
"The Main Passage," Maxwell guessed.
"Right. It'd be quite a job. But with both Levels working at it, we could do it in maybe half a pregnancy period."
"What about the Zivvers?" Haverty wanted to know. "Won't they have anything to say about that?"
Jared heard the Prime Survivor shrug his shoulders before continuing: "The two Levels far outnumber the Zivvers. We could keep adding material to this side of the barricade faster than they could haul it away from the other side. Eventually they'd give up."
Silence around the slab.
"Sounds good," Maxwell said. "Now all we got to do is sell the Upper Level on the idea."
"I think we can do that." The Prime Survivor cleared his throat. "Jared, come on in. We've been waiting for you."
The Prime Survivor might be getting old, Jared conceded, entering. But his ears and nose hadn't aged any. From the uninterrupted fingernail tapping, Jared received a composite impression of all the faces at the slab turned in his direction. There was a figure standing behind the Prime Survivor, he sensed.
The man moved into the clear and Jared picked up his features-short and somewhat stooped despite the comparative youthfulness his breathing suggested; hair flowing down past his forehead and around the sides of his face, with irregular openings to accommodate his ears and nose-mouth region. The fullest fuzzy-face in the Lower Level-Romel Fenton-Spur, his brother.
After the amenity of Reasonable Time for Recognition and Reflection had been observed, the Prime Survivor cleared his throat. "Jared, it's about time to apply for your Survivorship, don't you think?"
Jared's impulse was to brush aside the prosaic matter and launch into his revelation of the menace lurking in the Original World. But his presentation would have to be rational, so he decided to put it off a while. "I suppose so."
"Ever think of Unification?"
"Radiation no!" Then he pinched his tongue. "No, I haven't given it any thought."
"You realize, of course, that every man must become a Survivor and that the principal obligation of a Survivor is to survive."
"That's what I've been told."
"And surviving doesn't mean merely preserving your own life, but also passing it down through the generations."
"I'm aware of that."
"And you've found no one with whom you'd like to Unify?"
There was Zelda; but she was a fuzzy-face.
There was Luise, who was both open-eyed and bare-faced to the clickstones. But she was always tittering. "No, Your Survivorship."
Romel snickered in anticipation of something or other and reproachful gestures were audible around the slab. For Jared, the sardonic giggle was reminiscent of earlier days when Romel's malicious pranks usually took the form of a swish-rope that would lash out from behind a boulder, twine around his ankles and snatch him off his feet. The fraternal antagonism was still there. Only, now it managed to find other adult-well, almost adult-forms of expression.
"Good!" the Prime Survivor enthused, rising. "I think we've found a Unification partner for you."
Jared sputtered a moment, then shed his respect with an oath. "Not for me you haven't!"
How could he tell them he had no time for Unification? That he had to be free to continue what he had started out to do long pregnancy periods ago? That he doubted their religious beliefs? That he wanted to spend his life proving Light was something physical, attainable in this existence- not something restricted to the afterlife?
Romel laughed and said, "That's for the Elders to decide."
"You're no Elder!"
"Neither are you. And, Jared, you're forgetting the Eminence of Seniority Code."
"To Radiation with the code!"
"That'll be enough," interrupted the Prime Survivor. "As Romel suggests, your Unification is for us to decide. Elders?"
Maxwell proposed, "Let's hear more about this arrangement first."
"Very well," the Prime Survivor went on. "Neither I nor the Wheel have let this get out yet, but we're both sold on the idea of joining hands between the two worlds. The Wheel thinks that end can be helped along by Unification between Jared and his niece."
"I won't do it!" Jared vowed. "The Wheel's just trying to pass off some spook of a relative!"
"Have you ever heard her?" the Prime Survivor asked.
"No! Have you?"
"No, but the Wheel says-"
"I don't care what the Wheel says!"
Jared drew back and listened. The Elders were rumbling impatiently. They weren't too happy over his stubbornness. If he didn't do something-anything-soon, they'd have him hooked!
Dark Universe Page 2
