"You have found the way out!" Ik exclaimed, emerging from the bathroom.
"I guess so." Bandicut pulled his head back in. "But the way out to where?"
Ik stepped into the doorway to look. "I do not know. But if Li-Jared was here, then he most likely went out this way. And we must follow."
"Yeah. But Ik? What if he didn't come this way?"
Ik clacked his mouth. "Because of the changes in the portal? That is possible. But in that case, I know no other way to follow him, except to press onward. But recall your own belief that the meerkats were guiding us."
Bandicut remembered, and felt a sudden weight of responsibility. They didn't really know what the meerkats had in mind. He had trusted them, but purely by instinct.
Ik was gazing at him, eyes gleaming, perhaps guessing his thoughts. "John Bandicut, you should know—there is something about this world that—" Rasp. Rasp. He seemed to struggle with his thoughts. "Something that brings people together in unexpected ways. Eddies, or—" rasp "—turbulence. I cannot explain it. But—"
Bandicut stared at him, remembering the chaos calculators of the translator back on Triton, which had worked their way through seemingly infinitely complex calculations to find the cometary danger to Earth—and in consequence, had brought him here. Had all that happened by coincidence?
"Li-Jared and I have been separated before. But we have always found our way back together. Despite the very great magnitude of this world." Ik's eyes closed, and opened again, like some great lizard's.
"Then I guess we should go this way," Bandicut agreed. He decided not to mention the coincidence that had brought Ik along to Bandicut and his robots just when he was needed.
/// Mm. Indeed. ///
"Very well. Are you ready?"
Bandicut hoisted his backpack onto Copernicus, and secured it along with the other robot. "Can you carry all this?"
Copernicus drumtapped and rolled forward to join Ik in the open doorway.
"Have you learned anything at all about this place?" he asked Ik.
"Only that I think I know the type of place that it is." Stepping out into the corridor, Ik peered both ways.
Bandicut felt a rush of amazement as a bright, streaming light washed over him. It was like stepping into a holo special effect, and much brighter than it had seemed from the doorway. Liquid streamers of light rippled along both walls, conveying an impression of endless, high-speed movement around the bend in the corridor. The corridor was oval in cross-section, the walls curving up to an apex, where a darker strip with lighted cross-hatchings ran its length. Bandicut started to feel dizzy. It looked like a long corridor; the ribbons of light seemed to converge toward infinity.
Ik was studying the view in both directions, using his sighting glasses. Bandicut could see little to distinguish the two directions, but Ik murmured, "We can only go—hrrm, one way, if we wish to make any speed."
"Why's that?"
Ik swept his hand to the right. "It's a one-way transport field. There is probably another, somewhere, going the other way."
It was not just an optical illusion, then. Bandicut wondered if they ought to be on the lookout for speeding vehicles. Were they at risk, as pedestrians?
"I do not believe Li-Jared would have set out against the direction of flow, unless he had a specific reason."
"You think he was here, then?"
"I cannot be sure." Ik rubbed his chest. "But this looks like the sort of transport that might take us to . . . a control unit. He would expect me to look for him in such a place." Ik handed the binoculars to Bandicut.
He peered through the lenses, and found them perfectly focused down the streaming, psychedelic sightline of the corridor. He felt the magnification click up, and up, and up—each time revealing a dimmer and more distant stretch of the corridor—until, at last, it centered on a cluster of tiny, flickering, sparks of light very far down the corridor. Despite the distance, he imagined an intensity in the pulsations and color changes in the sparks.
/// That view!
It reminds me of something! ///
The quarx sounded breathless. With fear? Or excitement?
/Is it something that I ought to know about?/
/// I don't know.
I feel a great . . . pull toward it.
I want to go that way. ///
/Um./ He asked Ik, "What is that, way down there?"
"I cannot say for sure. But there is activity, at least. I think it wise to proceed that way."
Bandicut handed the binoculars back. "We're with you."
Ik snapped the binocs shut and tucked them away in his belt. Then he stood at the righthand edge of the corridor. He hrrm'd for a moment, brushing his fingers along the wall. His fingertips disappeared into the ripples of light, scattering silvery sparks into the light-slipstream. "Put your hand here."
Bandicut hesitated, his hand half extended.
/// Are you afraid of it? ///
/Mokin' foke. I don't want to be electrocuted./
/// It's safe, I think. ///
/You think./ Bandicut followed Ik's example, and felt a tingle.
"And—touch the robot."
"Coppy?" When the robot rolled closer, he put his other hand on top of its metal shell. A moment later, Copernicus extended a manipulator arm into the lightstream.
"Now . . . think about . . . traveling down the corridor." Ik turned and faced downstream.
"What do you—?" Bandicut began, but didn't finish, because the floor beneath him began flowing like a pool of molten mercury, and he was gliding silently forward, as if on skates. "Uh—" He looked up from his feet and was stunned to see Ik a considerable distance ahead of him, accelerating down the corridor. "Coppy?" he called, glancing over his shoulder. The robot was gliding right behind him. "Oh-kaaay." With the flicker of a wish, he felt himself speeding up, with no sensation of friction, to keep pace with Ik.
The crosshatchings in the ceiling flickered, then blurred with acceleration.
*
The corridor was a lot longer than he had guessed, even peering through the binocs. Judging by their apparent speed, it must have been hundreds of kilometers long. Periodically the streamers of light split apart like vertically-separated rail spurs, bracketing long stretches of window between them. The windows were darkened, but he caught glimpses through them of arcs of light and shadow. It gave him a sense of great, machinelike shapes and blazing discharges of energy, as though he were speeding along the overlook of a vast, mysterious factory.
Perhaps they were. Ik, alongside him, remarked, "There are many such sectors in this—" rasp "—continent. It is a very large place, and there is much to be constructed and maintained."
"Do you have any idea what that is over there?"
"Who knows? A power system? A continent-bridge? A star-spanner? Who can say?" A moment later, Ik leaned back against an invisible support and closed his eyes.
Bandicut stared in disbelief at his friend, snoozing as they flew headlong down the corridor of light. He was hoping for another glimpse of a window; but when none came after a minute or so, he hesitantly leaned back himself, and found that he could float quite comfortably as though in a reclining chair. After a moment, he closed his own eyes. No harm in resting a little, he thought. God knew he was in no danger of falling asleep.
*
He blinked his eyes open with a start. He didn't know what had awakened him, but he felt a tingle in his wrists. Both daughter-stones were flickering visibly.
/// They're recharging themselves
from the transport field. ///
/Oh,/ he thought dazedly. He thought he could see something sparkling ahead.
"Slowing," Ik said.
The cross-hatch blur overhead began to flicker again as they decelerated. The sparkles far ahead were visible to the naked eye now, but hard to gaze at for long. They reminded Bandicut of the tortured view he had once had of the translator back on Triton, and the feeling that the translator had seemed to exist on
a different plane of space-time from his own. He recalled thinking that it looked like an atom's eye view of a nuclear reaction. This thing ahead was like that, too.
/// Yes . . . ///
the quarx whispered, transfixed.
As they drew closer, he began to imagine that he saw shapes moving in the display: shadowy upright forms walking in otherworldly, flickering flames. /Shadrach in the fire,/ he muttered suddenly.
/// Say again? ///
/Shadrach in the fire. And—what were their names? I forget. Old Testament story./
/// What's an Old Testament? ///
/The Bible, you know? There's this story about these God-fearing guys who were thrown into a furnace by an evil king, because they wouldn't worship him./
/// Ah. And did they burn up? ///
/No. That was the good part. They walked around without getting a whisker singed. Those shadows up there remind me of the story. I wonder what they are./
/// People, I think. Shadow-people.
John, this is really . . . ///
The quarx sounded lightheaded, faint.
/What, Charlie?/
/// . . .resonating. ///
/Yeah?/ Bandicut squinted. The shadowy figures were becoming starker, and really were starting to look like people. Not human, necessarily, but people. "Ik—?" he started to ask.
"Hrrrm," said the Hraachee'an. "I think we are about to meet the local—" rasp "—maintenance crew."
*
They glided in like a train into a station. Before he knew it, they were surrounded by pulsing lights, and his skin tingled as though he were too close to lightning. Then they were surrounded by the shadow-figures, twitching like jerky animation characters as they floated to a stop. The shadow-people were dark and angular; up close they looked scarcely humanoid at all—more like clusters of fluttering black triangles stuck together like leaves. They looked like a surrealistic holo ad.
"Ik?" Bandicut murmured, "do you know how to talk to them?"
"I will try." Ik turned to two of the shadow-people, his hands opened but held close to his chest.
The shadow-people rustled and made vaguely musical sounds. One of them turned toward the other, and as it turned, showed an almost two dimensional aspect. They nearly vanished when they turned sideways, and Bandicut had the unsettling feeling that something had twisted dimensionally in his plane of sight. Almost as if they were . . .
/// Fractionally dimensional.
Yes, ///
Charlie whispered.
/Ah./
Ik said something that Bandicut didn't catch. The rasp of his stones indicated that they hadn't quite caught it, either.
The two shadow-people turned and twisted, and said something that sounded like a violin being tuned. Wheee-whooo. They seemed to quiver and almost contract out of existence, then expand again.
Ik said something else. Rasp.
The stones were trying, but getting nowhere.
It was unclear whether the shadow-people were understanding his words. After a moment, they swiveled and nearly vanished, then reappeared and sort of slid down the corridor a short distance toward a cluster of more shadow-people. Ik gestured to Bandicut with a sweep of his hand. They followed the shadow-people, Copernicus whirring behind.
/You said this was—resonating, Charlie?/
/// Yes, ///
the quarx said dreamily.
/What's it remind you of?/
He felt the quarx struggling to gather memories, powerful memories. They were too blurred for him to understand.
/// It's the kind of people they are.
John, they're fractal beings.
Like me. ///
Charlie spoke with a startling wistfulness.
Bandicut blinked and shivered, despite himself. /They spook the hell out of me. I wonder if we affect them the same way./
/// They seem spooked by something.
But I wonder if it's us. ///
Ik was approaching the cluster of shadow-people, with Bandicut about four steps behind. Ik started to say something, but was interrupted by a sound of violins being struck in sharp ascending notes. Whreeek! Whreeek! Whreeek! Black triangles twisted and waved in agitation.
"Ik—what is it?" Bandicut realized he was hanging back a little, and wasn't sure if it was out of deference or fear.
Rasp. R-rasp. "Not . . . trouble . . . meaning." He caught a halting rendition of Ik's voice, apparently directed not at Bandicut but at the shadow-people. Bandicut suddenly understood something: his comprehension of Ik's speech was aided not just by his own stones, but by a link with Ik's stones. And right now, Ik's stones were busy trying to talk to the shadow-people.
Whatever Ik had said, it didn't seem to make the shadow-people happy. They came back with more violin shrieks, and one of them fluttered toward Ik. The Hraachee'an backpedaled hastily.
Bandicut ducked out of the way, wondering what the hell was going on.
Rasp. Rasp.
Whreeek! Whreeek! Whreeek!
Ik raised his arms, waving them across each other. "No— no—didn't—" He was trying to dissuade them of something, but wasn't succeeding. The shadow-people fluttered their triangles, and one of them, who seemed taller and more sharply angular than the others, floated toward Ik. It swept an arm of triangles at Ik, and the Hraachee'an tumbled backward to the floor.
That was enough for Bandicut. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" he yelled, ducking away from the shadow-person's reach. The being paused, and drew back a meter or so. Furious, Bandicut crouched beside his friend. Ik looked stunned, but unharmed.
/// They seem angry about something.
But I can't tell what. ///
Before he could say a word, his thoughts were obliterated by a thundering, crackling, rocket-exhaust sound—followed by a bone-shaking BOOOOOM-M-M!
Chapter 9
Factory Floor
BANDICUT DUCKED INSTINCTIVELY, half shielding Ik with his body. When there was no further concussion, he looked up, trying to see what was going on. "Coppy! Can you tell what—?"
He was interrupted by a chorus of violin cries, and the sight of the shadow-people fleeing down the corridor like leaves on a whirlwind. They vanished through a curtain of pulsing light.
"Cap'n!" Copernicus called, his voice tinny against the din. "It came from ahead of us!"
Ik struggled to his feet. "That may have had something to do with Li-Jared! They seemed angry about him. We must follow!" With that, Ik set off at a run after the shadow-people.
"Let's go!" Bandicut cried hoarsely to Copernicus.
He half expected to be electrocuted when they passed through the pulsing barrier of light, and he did feel a momentary wave of dizziness. Then he felt himself shunted away from the corridor into a wide, gloomy, kidney-shaped space full of shadow-people and incomprehensible objects that looked like sculptures on pedestals. Shadow-people were fluttering from pedestal to pedestal, their cries changing timbre and rising and falling through the musical scales.
"—control station!" Ik was exclaiming.
Bandicut turned around in bewilderment. Were those pedestals consoles? For controlling what? He turned the other way, and his breath went out with a rush. A broad window had appeared on his left, carving a swath through the undulating shape of the wall. Through the window, arcs of lightning were jumping among vast, dark shapes of machinery. The factory. Did these consoles control the factory?
/// I believe the shadow-people may be
in charge of the factory floor. ///
Through the window, he thought he glimpsed billows of smoke, and a flicker of flame.
"They are very angry!" Ik cried, stepping to his side. "They believe Li-Jared caused that!"
"What do you mean? How? Ik, what's happening out there?"
"He may have tried—urrrm, who can say? I need to find out—or connect with—"
Ik was interrupted by a loud screech of tearing metal. A heartbeat later, Bandicut realized that it was the shadow-people, or perhaps
the consoles speaking to the shadow-people. They were growing more agitated than ever, and about half of them began crowding into an angled recess near the window. With a rippling flash, something seemed to open in the wall, and the group of shadow-people was gone.
Ik strode toward the tallest of the remaining shadow-people. It looked like the same one who had knocked him flat a minute ago. Rasp "—try to help!"
Whruueeeek! The shadow-person shook the fluttering shadow-leaves of one arm—it seemed to have three or four arms—and danced away from Ik toward a nearby pedestal. It, or he, seemed to be the leader—the foreman, maybe—of the factory crew. And he didn't look too happy about Ik's and Bandicut's presence.
/// I'm beginning to get a sense about this.
They're scared, really scared,
of whatever's gone wrong.
They clearly suspect that
we had something to do with
the malfunction. ///
/Well, Ik thinks Li-Jared did!/
/// I don't think that's what he— ///
The quarx's words were drowned out by another crackling roar, like the one that had preceded the explosion. Bandicut braced himself for another explosion, but the roar tapered off. The foreman-shadow spun away from the control pedestal. Heeeeuu! Heeee-r-r-ruu! It waved a cluster of leaves at Ik, who had stepped up to another pedestal.
Bandicut felt a twinge in his right wrist. ". . . infection . . . control . . . (bad bad) . . ." He blinked. What was that?
Rasp "—trying to help!" Ik barked.
Hriike! Hriike! ". . . other said . . . (bad bad) . . ."
/I'm not following./
/// The stones are starting to get a handle
on the violin-talk. ///
"John, there's a control malfunction out in the factory!" Ik shouted. "If Li-Jared ran afoul of something—"
Hriike! Hriike! Hreeeee! ". . . (bad bad) . . . danger . . . deaths . . ." The foreman-shadow danced threateningly toward Ik.
The Chaos Chronicles Page 42
