The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  He returned to Fellirian, who had not moved. She was still sitting on the floor, head bowed, breathing in lengthy deep sighs. Morlenden knelt behind her and began kneading the muscles of her back, neck, shoulders. He felt a shiver ripple across the spare, graceful frame he knew so well, better than anyone else, better almost than he knew himself. She sank forward to the floor and lay, facedown, groaning.

  After a while, she turned her face to the side and said, “Once of that in a lifetime is enough. I feel as if I’d been beaten.”

  Morlenden lay down alongside her, turning his head to face her. “And I also.”

  “It’s too close to childbirth to suit me. It’s not fair, me going through that: my time was over long ago. Done. Even if this was all in the mind, not in the body.”

  “It is a birth, that’s a fact.”

  “Except this is all at once, you don’t have that year and a half to get ready for it43. . . . What does she seem like to you? You put her to bed.”

  “Mixed, Eliya. Some ways, like a very young child. Other ways, like an adolescent, but with odd pieces left out.”

  Then they no longer spoke. They lay side by side for a long time, in a halfway state between sleep and wakefulness, conscious enough to be aware of the deep, regular breathing of the girl, and also to hear the faint but undeniable snoring of Krisshantem. They felt the motion of the vehicle carrying them at what unknown velocity through the bowels of the earth, through rock and dirt, far from the sky, the tube-train adjusting magnetically to tiny irregularities in its roadbed, a motion curiously alive and animal-like, more like careful walking than anything else.

  After a time, Fellirian moved closer to Morlenden, whispering, “I hate to speak of it, but I think we should depart this machine at the stop before the Institute terminal.”

  “Why so? Errat seemed manifestly uninterested in Mael. . . .”

  “Only seemed. I am certain that we have been monitored in various ways since we left Vance’s office; it’s their way, but they’re sloppy about it, so I doubt we’ve given anything away. They don’t watch the tubes, they think they’re secure enough if they control the entries. But I sensed planning in the way they tossed her off onto us; they expect us to make certain moves. It is my intent to confuse and muddy those predictions. But there’s a problem.”

  Morlenden asked, “Which is?”

  “The tickets they use are always coded magnetically for a specific destination. The numbers are integrated into the material; you can’t see them. So if we just try to get off on our own at another stop, we’ll set off an alarm and they’ll spot us for sure.”

  “We’re stuck with them, then.”

  “No, there may be a way . . . yes. The ones who came with us, the agents. They would have to have some way to override the destination register.”

  “If they are in fact agents.”

  “They’re agents, all right. Trust me in this.”

  “Do you know how they override it?”

  “Yes, I remember. I heard Vance talking about it once, long ago, to someone else. I was very young. Before we wove.”

  “So somehow we must get them to open the doors.”

  “Yes, exactly. And the stop before the Institute is a busy one. Not for us, but for them. Big factory town. I know this local will stop there, never fear.”

  “But they’ll soon find out we’re not where we are supposed to be.”

  “So let them. All we need is a little head start. I know the way. We can cross into the reservation by climbing the fence, in the northeast provinces. We’ll have a hard walk, perhaps a run, ahead of us, and what’s more, after what we have just done. And Schaeszendur out of condition as well, but there’s no cure for it. I know ever more surely that if we stay with these two primates we’ll never see the inside again. It’s been too easy. And I don’t want them to see what we’ve done for her, either, even if I did insist on building her as we rode. Do you see why, now? She must be able to walk on her own. We could not carry her all that way. And she would also have to respond to simple instructions.”

  “Eliya, have you been planning it this way all the way along?”

  “Not completely. . . . It really didn’t dawn on me completely until after we built her back up, since we received her from that Errat . . . the whole situation smells like a trap set to catch more victims, some who might talk, in place of one who didn’t.”

  “You think she did that on her own?”

  “Absolutely. They don’t have the facilities to cause it. She was facing something she couldn’t handle, and she made sure the secret of the Inner Game never got out from her. Or that no association be made between those instruments and any living Gameplayer.”

  “So you say. But even now, you and I, we know in fact very little.”

  “They don’t know that. And we have suspicions, too.”

  “How much time do we have to get ready?”

  “Not very much, dear. I lost track of time while we were deep in it back there, and afterward . . . wait a moment.” Very quietly, Fellirian got to her feet, opened the compartment door, looked out, adjusting her overshirt. She left for a moment, and did not return for some time.

  But she did return, slipping into the compartment as quietly as she had left it. She bent close to Morlenden, whispering softly, “Not so much time as I thought we’d have. We’ll have to wake Kris and Maellenkleth-Schaeszendur, get them ready. While I do that, you go up into the next car and collect Kaldherman and Cannialin; bring them here, quietly, quietly. Be a sneak for once. And you and I, too; you’ll like this, Mor.”

  FOURTEEN

  Everything you have ever done is training or the next moment.

  —M.A.F., Atropine

  OUTSIDE IN THE corridor, Morlenden and Fellirian waited and watched through the single window for the appearance of the next underground station platform; they saw unrelieved darkness passing, a blurred blank wall, illuminated only by the dim running-light glow of the tube-train corridor, light leaking out through the few windows. There was not enough light to distinguish any details, and what few were there were blurred by the terrific speed with which they were hurtled through the tunnels in the earth.

  They could not sense any change in elevation in the train, or increase or reduction of its unknown speed; if there was any it was too gradual to be distinguished. But apparently change was coming, for without warning, a series of bright lights flashed by the window, too fast for more than a glance. Whatever message the lights conveyed, it was not verbal, as the patterns did not form any letters Fellirian could recognize. And shortly after the lights, they began to feel the train slowing, as simultaneously a slight pressure told them that they were rising. The train slowed more, obvious now, and then the walls nearby fell away from the window, first into an empty blank void of darkness, and then into a more open space, dimly illuminated by fixtures set at intervals along the ceiling. The chamber was low-ceilinged, the fixtures long out of repair; many of them did not work at all. The train slowed now to a walking pace, and they could make out a large, dingy sign painted on the concrete underground wall, which red CPX010. And the tube-train stopped.

  As Fellirian had anticipated, there was considerable coming and going all along the length of the train, in fact more than they had seen earlier in the day at Region Central. The activity suggested an air of busyness and relaxed conventions, but after a moment, this early impression corrected itself under closer observation; the procedure was formal, deliberately interrupted, highly formatted all around. Patrons who wished to depart the train walked up to the sliding doors, inserted their tickets in a convenient slot beside the doors, and waited for the doors to open. And when they did, and the waiting patron departed, they hurried over the doorsill, and the door closed smartly behind them, with enough force to injure one who was unlucky enough to be laggard in his motions. So one lurched through, a jerky, graceless motion, which they nevertheless performed with the expertise of those who made such motions through similar doorway
s often, daily.

  Fellirian watched carefully, until most of the traffic in the underground terminal had died down. There were yet some people scattered along the platform, but they seemed either to be idlers, or else deeply engrossed in their own affairs. They were completely uninterested in the train, or any of its passengers. At a signal from Fellirian, all the members of the party assumed their positions: all save Morlenden and Fellirian hid themselves carefully in the compartment. They all paused, took deep breaths. Morlenden rapped loudly on the door of the agents’ compartment. And, oddly, it took some time to get a response out of them; apparently both of their guards either had gone to sleep or had been dozing.

  The older agent, most probably the senior man, appeared at the door, bearing an attitude composed of nine-tenths irritation and one-tenth suspicion. “Yes, yes, what is it, what is the problem?”

  Morlenden hoped that he sounded panicky. He cried out, blurting, “It’s the girl! She’s gone! We finished with our rite and slept—everything seemed to be in order. But when the motion of the train at the stop here woke us, we saw that she was gone! Fellirian thought she heard the compartment door closing, but we had just awakened and could not be sure. It could have been some other noise.”

  “Gone? Where the hell could she go?” The irritation slid into apprehension, and the apprehension glissaded into stark panic. “Gone?” he repeated idiotically, as if she would reappear by magic and prove him wrong. “Gone? That’s impossible! Someone would have had to . . . Shit! They did! Well, she can’t get very far by herself, nor can anyone else carrying her.” He turned aside, back to his own compartment, saying to his partner, “Bill! Here, get it up now!” A moan rewarded his efforts. He reiterated, “Come on, bones! The girl’s gone and you know what that’ll mean. Go and check it out, starting with their compartment, then we’ll do the rest of the tram. She may not be off it yet.”

  The second agent appeared, dull with rudely interrupted sleep. And Morlenden and Fellirian watched the pair very closely, while they let their plans mature.

  The older one commanded, “You go to their compartment, I’ll hold the tram. Quick, they can’t have got far, her and whoever’s helping her. She’ll have to have help. Look for at least two, most likely three!”

  Now he turned to Morlenden. “There were three of you besides the girl; you two and the boy. Where’s he now?”

  Morlenden shrunk, diminishing his smaller stature even further, hoping to appear embarrassed. He said slowly, as if he hated or feared to admit it, “Well, I don’t exactly know that. We haven’t been able to find him either. I thought he might have wandered off down the way, looking for the public convenience, but he’s not in this section, and I . . .”

  The senior agent suddenly looked ugly. A flash of desperation rebounded across his already homely countenance.

  Fellirian added, “They were lovers, beforetimes. He has been a bit unstable.”

  The agent interrupted her. “Where would they go?”

  “I don’t know. None of us know Complex Ten at all, and I know for a fact that those two don’t.”

  Now the second agent appeared, arranging his clothing, and ill-concealing a yawn, still addled with heavy sleep. The senior agent hurried to the exit doors, removing a red ticket from within a little wallet inside his coat and inserting it in the slot. The doors opened, remained open, as he muttered to himself, “Damn it all, anyway! My last override spent on this goddamn wild-goose chase, and they’re harder to get every day. Have to sign your life away now just for one, the chintzy bastards.”

  Meanwhile, the junior agent had pushed the door of the other compartment open and looked within, carefully enough for the brief time he had spent in looking. But he saw nothing. He turned to the senior, still standing in the doorway, and said, “Nobody here.”

  “All right. You stay here and watch this car.” He looked menacingly at Morlenden and Fellirian, towering over them. “And you two also. I’ll check outside, just to be sure. They won’t get far in Ten, and that’s a fact!”

  He turned abruptly and hurried through the opened door. The second agent looked on for a moment uneasily and uncertainly, as if something were escaping him as he stood there, something nagging at his mind which he should have noticed, but had not. Fellirian made nervous little motions with her hands, breaking her tension, hoping that she looked worried and afraid enough to convince this one. The junior agent looked from one to the other, at Fellirian, at Morlenden, who was nervously watching the terminal outside the car; and back, tentatively, at the compartment. And at the compartment again. He turned suddenly and returned for one more look, this time actually walking into the compartment, the one vacated by the ler. They heard him start to say something, but what he might have said was never finished. “Oh, yeah, there’s a b—!” There was a sudden silence, followed by faint rustling sounds, and presently the four from inside appeared: Kaldherman, Cannialin, Schaeszendur, Krisshantem. Kris was last, and he carefully locked the compartment door as he left, but retaining the key in his hand. He said, “How much time now?”

  “No time!” she hissed. “Quick, now! Into the terminal!”

  They all filed out into the terminal, quietly and sedately, into the concrete caverns. Sounds echoed along the concrete, faded into the dimmed distances. This place was smokier than Region Central. Fighting the urge to run, they walked almost disinterestedly to an empty kiosk along the wall, half in shadows, its own lighting disconnected. They could not all hide in it, but they concealed themselves as best they could, standing very still, just as Kris had showed them, still and silent as stones. And almost before they had had time to assume their positions, the senior agent returned, blundering down the grimy stairwell, leaving a trail of noisy footfalls they could all follow with their ears. He wore tiny metal taps on his shoes. He appeared, breathing hard, still in a half-run, and without looking either to the right or the left, still muttering to himself, he boarded the tube-train, flipped open the wallet containing the tickets, and inserted a green ticket into the door-slot. The door closed, and almost immediately, the train started moving, softly and slowly at first, but all the time accelerating rapidly. They could see him easily through the moving windows: he went into his own compartment without looking, slamming the door, making the plastic of the window bulge. The train began moving off into its tunneled darkness under the earth, at the end of the terminal platform. Outside, in the kiosk, they stood absolutely still. As the section in which they had been riding began to approach the tunnel mouth, far down the platform, they observed through another window how a figure suddenly burst out of a compartment, frantically looking up and down the corridor. He vanished, apparently into their compartment. As he went past the window, he looked out, sweeping the platform with his practiced agent’s eye, a well-trained glance, yet his glance had been trained to record motion against a stilled background, contrast. And for human subjects, the stained gray concrete walls made a fine background against which to pick up nervous, jerky motions, people wearing dark clothing. That was exactly the intent ingrained into people, and the dark clothing the only kind available. But the six ler were still and quiet, although standing openly visible; but their winter overshirts and cloaks were gray, and to him they were virtually invisible, and would have been even if the train had been standing still in the station. He had not seen them, and it was apparent from his panic that he had found nothing in the upper world of Complex Ten, either.

  The train glided onward, supported on magnetic fields, increasing its speed, sliding, and suddenly the last coach was disappearing into the dark mouth of the tunnel entrance. And it was gone. The tunnel gaped, empty. A butterfly valve doorway closed silently on the tunnel portal. Above the portal, an orange light remained illuminated a moment, then turned green, and then went out.

  Morlenden, not yet daring to move, said, out of the side of his mouth to Fellirian, “As you said, a good trick. Yes, I liked it. Now how much time?”

  “More. Maybe an hour. With
some luck, which means mistakes on someone else’s part, still more. These agents are now normally issued only one override ticket at a time. They were abusing the privilege, so they were made to sign for it; it was an awful issue a few years ago. But now that the train is moving, it must go on to the next local stop; it can’t stop in closed sections of the tunnels, and it can’t back up. Of course he can communicate, through his comment interconnect, but before he makes his report, he’ll have to figure out what happened. By the way, the other one: you didn’t kill him, did you?”

  Kris answered, “No, although your Braid afterfather was frowning like a cat licking gravy off a hot basting brush, and your aftermother was fingering her chicken-slitting knife and leering. No, he’ll sleep, with bad dreams, and feel the worse for it. And they may have a problem communicating, for I palmed the unit you are talking about, I think. The second one was carrying it.”