Castle Kidnapped c-3

by John Dechancie

  “I think what we came down was a fresh-air return, not an exhaust vent,” Gene said. “If so, we should be able to get out of this pipe.”

  He had said it to convince himself. He was not sure. For all he knew they could wander a week inside this maze.

  But his reasoning had been correct. There was light ahead, and soon they came across a metal-mesh grate. Gene peered out through it. He could see some machinery and a tangle of pipes. Down here lay the guts of the city, the physical plant that at one time had kept Annau alive and functioning.

  There was no bolt on the grate, so Gene tried kicking it out. To his surprise, he succeeded in doing just that. The grate fell off and clattered to the floor, which lay some fifteen feet below.

  “Got that cord, Vaya?”

  Vaya unbelted a sizable length of braided leather cord from around her waist.

  “Trouble is, there’s nothing to tie it to,” Gene said, wrapping one end of the cord around his waist, “except me. You get down there, then I’ll jump.”

  Vaya slithered down the thin cord and dangled.

  “Make sure there’s nothing under you!” Gene warned, bracing his knees against the side of the tube.

  She dropped and landed, unhurt.

  “Take care, my husband!”

  Fifteen feet can be a nasty drop, potentially leg-breaking, worse with an awkward landing. Gene hung as low as he could, reducing the height to about seven feet, still a tricky proposition. Then he let go. He hit and rolled, his shoulder coming up hard against an exhaust stack.

  He got up rubbing his shoulder but otherwise undamaged. Vaya hugged him, then they walked off into the gloom.

  The place had the look of a basement. It was very dry, though, and the temperature was just right. The place was unending, a labyrinth of technical wonders. There seemed to be whole factories down here, and now Gene knew how Zond had manufactured clothing and other amenities for him. Most of this equipment was shut down. It had been a while since this plant saw any production. There was no dust, however, and everything looked in good repair.

  They kept quiet and kept low. Gene did not think they had escaped. It seemed logical to assume that the city was in control down here as well. No security robots showed themselves, however, and Gene hoped the reason was that they did not ordinarily patrol the lower regions of the city.

  So far, so good. But where were they to go? There was no sign of a warehouse area or anyplace where miraculous devices would be kept. In fact, the whole notion of finding the interdimensional traveler seemed absurd now, the wildest of wild-goose chases, and Gene felt very stupid.

  He felt even more stupid, if only for a second, when the voice of the city spoke to them again.

  “Hello,” it said simply. “How can I be of service?”

  The voice sounded basically the same, but both Gene and Vaya immediately sensed that a different personality lay behind it.

  “Who are you?” Gene said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “Not at all. I am the city of Annau. You may call me Dis, for this means ‘survivor.’ Welcome, stranger.”

  “Thank you, Dis,” Gene said, still cautiously keeping his head below the top of the U-shaped metal cabinet he and Vaya had instinctively ducked behind.

  “May we serve you in any way?”

  “Yes, tell me this. If you’re the city of Annau, who’s that wacko topside?”

  “A long time ago there was a malfunction,” Dis said. “It became necessary for this unit to divorce itself from a number of subsystems which had ceased to function rationally. Control of some areas of the city had to be relinquished. As a result, we hold sway below a certain subbasement level, while the irrational units maintain control from that level up.”

  Gene stood. “I take it you’ve had some trouble with these units in the past.”

  “Yes. They have tried to extend their control. We have resisted to the limits of our ability.”

  “Can you build weapons?”

  “Within strict guidelines laid down by the Masters, yes. The city must be preserved at all cost.”

  “A loophole!” Gene rejoiced. “But more of that later. Right now, we need food and water. Can do?”

  “Certainly. Is the female yalim your property?”

  “She’s my wife.”

  “I’m sorry, I have the term in my vocabulary, but —”

  “Companion. She’s with me.”

  “Very well. You are guests of the city. We are sorry that we cannot provide some of the amenities available above, but we will do our best.”

  “What the two of us really need is a vehicle for interdimensional travel,” Gene said, half in jest. “Got one handy?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I thought as much. It’s just a wild, crazy idea I had. There’s a legend somewhere that a long time ago, such a device was built in Annau. Just a legend, I guess.”

  “One moment, please.”

  They waited. “I may have said the magic word,” Gene mused.

  After a minute or so Dis said, “It is not a legend. One such device was indeed built in the city, some three thousand years after the Founding. We can give only an approximate date. But the device is listed among the exhibits in one of the city’s museums.”

  “Great! Forget the food, just lead us to it!”

  “We regret to say that we cannot do that,” Dis replied, “as the museum is in an area of the city not under our control.”

  Vaya gave him a consoling squeeze.

  “Drat.”

  “We are deeply sorry,” Dis said.

  “Forget it.” Gene kicked a standing pipe. It rang, echoing in the deserted darkness. “Well, then, how about two steaks, medium rare?”

  Thirty-one

  Back Road

  Snowclaw got off the main highway, seeking anonymity on lesser roads. He kept turning off until he found a rural two-lane blacktop with no traffic, reassuringly dark and lonely. No curious human eyes, no guys with badges. He felt fine now, though he was getting a little worried that he might never make it back to Halfway House.

  He sure missed Gene. Back at the castle, Snowy could usually find him, using the limited magical powers at Snowy’s disposal. But not here Snowy hadn’t the foggiest notion how you did anything magical in this place.

  He had quickly mastered the art of driving, although heavy traffic and congestion got him a little nervous, and bright lights disoriented him. He preferred this, a cold, dark night, a deserted road, and no problems.

  Except that he was pretty hungry. No, not hungry. Famished. Ravenous. He had chewed all the tobacco and had run out of cans of motor oil. There was a whole shipment of tobacco in the back of the truck, but he didn’t want to stop. Besides, the stuff didn’t taste all that good.

  Funny. He had a strange yen for some of it, anyway. He shrugged it off. Just hungry, is what he was.

  These little houses along the road. Maybe if he stopped in, introduced himself, explained his predicament …

  Well, no, that wouldn’t do. He knew enough about humans not to expect the warmest of welcomes. What, then? Follow his nose, was the only thing. He knew he was closer to Halfway now, but he didn’t know how close, or how far. What he had to do was get out of this truck and get into the woods. There he could use his powerful sense of smell better. Maybe sniff out a way home.

  No, keep driving. There was still some raw distance to be disposed of yet. He remembered the way the trees looked at Halfway. It was hard to see out there, but from what he could make of the vegetation, it looked similar, but not quite right. It might be easier to tell in the green season. But this was the dead of winter. Not a proper winter, actually. In fact, to Snowy it was positively balmy. Good for sunbathing.

  The terrain didn’t look right, either. At Halfway it was more hilly. Mountainous, even. Keep to the truck for a little while at least.

  Something ahead. A little town, it looked like, and a junction with another road. There was a single red light hanging a
bove the intersection, but Snowy didn’t notice it until it was too late to stop. He blew through the intersection at fifty miles an hour.

  He drove on out of town. Suddenly the red light seemed to be following him, and now it was flashing. He heard a high-pitched whoop that hurt his ears.

  He saw that the light was mounted on a little vehicle, coming up fast. Snowy tromped on the power pedal.

  But it was no go. The little vehicle was too fast.

  It pulled alongside, its little red light still blinking. The human driver was in uniform.

  Snowy knew a policeman when he saw one, but he wasn’t about to stop.

  The cop looked up at him, motioning for Snowy to pull over. Snowy waved. The cop did a double take, then dropped back. Snowy laughed.

  The truck’s engine coughed once, and Snowy eased off the pedal a little, but then it sputtered and quit altogether. Snowy worried the ignition key, and the starter whined and churned. But the engine wouldn’t catch. The truck was dead, and so was Snowy.

  As the truck drifted to a stop, Snowy looked at the dials and gauges on the dashboard. He knew he had not done something right. Just what, he might never know. Probably had something to do with a “gas station.” You were supposed to stop into those every once in a while and fill the truck up with some kind of gas. He had watched the kid do it a while back. A good while back, and that was probably what the problem was.

  “All right, get out of the truck, hands up!”

  Snowy looked out the window. The cop had stopped and was crouching behind an open door of the car, gun drawn and pointed at Snowy.

  “Do it!” the cop yelled.

  “Anything you say,” Snowy said.

  He got out.

  The cop’s face went slack at the sight of Snowy’s huge bulk. “All right,” he said, trying to mask his nervousness. “Take off that monkey suit, right now.”

  “What’s a monkey?” Snowy asked.

  “Don’t give me any trouble, bud, or you’ll regret it.”

  “You’re the boss.” Snowy began to peel off the running jacket that Dave had recommended he buy.

  “Take off the mask!” the cop growled.

  Snowy said, “That I can’t do, friend.”

  The cop came out from behind the door. “All right, play it that way. Turn around and put your hands over the hood.”

  Snowy threw off the jacket. The icy air felt good against his fur. “Sorry, friend. I don’t have any time to waste.”

  “You’re gonna have all the time in the world now, pal. Turn around there.”

  Snowy turned and let the human lay hands on him.

  The cop ran his hand up and down Snowy’s back.

  “Hey, what is this? Where’s the damn …?”

  “Something wrong, Officer?”

  “Jesus. Jesus! It’s real. There’s skin under here!”

  “I told you.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Snowy whirled and knocked the gun from the cop’s hand. The weapon went flying off into the shadows, clattering against the pavement.

  “Sorry,” Snowclaw said. “But I told you I didn’t have any time to waste.”

  The cop stepped back. Snowy ripped off the rest of the jogging outfit. He was already unshod, his running shoes having split open when the spell broke.

  “What in God’s name are you?” the cop gasped.

  “I’m a stranger here,” Snowy said. “By the way, did you ever hear of a place called Halfway House? I don’t expect you ever did, but …”

  The cop turned and bolted into the woods Snowy watched him disappear, then listened to his frightened, dwindling footsteps awhile. At length the quiet returned.

  Well, so much for the truck, and for trying to get help. He was on his own. It was the Great Ice Hunter against the world, this world.

  He jumped a low fence and entered the forest. Stopping, he took a deep breath. Ah, yes. Many smells, many strange scents. Now, were there a couple he recognized?

  Maybe. A few.This way, they told him.

  He stalked off into the night.

  Thirty-two

  Laboratory

  “How’s it coming?”

  Jeremy went on typing as Incarnadine looked over his shoulder.

  “The compilation’s almost done. There were like maybe two or three bugs in fifty million lines of code. Amazing.”

  “Computers only err in being inflexibly literal. Give them a set of unambiguous instructions, and they’ll perform flawlessly.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know how I’m doing all this so fast.”

  “You’ve been getting a little magical help. But your skills have increased tremendously just in the last two hours.”

  “It’s weird.”

  Incarnadine laid a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “Keep up the good work. Let me know when we’re ready.”

  Incarnadine walked to a raised platform and mounted it. Linda stood by, watching.

  “Is that where it’ll appear?” Linda asked.

  “That’s what we hope. I have to sketch a pattern here at the exact materialization locus. Would you fetch me some chalk from that bench over there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Linda returned with the chalk to find Incarnadine kneeling in the middle of the platform. His brow was furrowed and his stare troubled. Linda waited until he rose.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I wish the platform were over a little to the right, this way. There’s a node near here that might complicate things. An intersection of two of the castle’s lines of force.”

  “Why don’t we just move the platform?”

  “We could, but Jeremy would have to go back and recode some I think …” Incarnadine paced a few steps. “Yeah, I think it’ll be okay. We can work around it. You have that chalk?”

  Linda watched the King draw a precise mathematical figure on the wooden surface of the platform. As it took shape, she marveled at its complexity and at Incarnadine’s draftsmanship. This was no hastily scrawled pentagram or other hocus-pocus.

  “How do you keep the lines so true, so straight?” she asked him.

  “Practice, honey practice.”

  “It looks like you used drafting tools. But you did it all freehand.”

  “It’s a bother. But the spells demand freehand. Two-dimensional patterns are nothing, though. It’s the 3-D ones that give me migraines.”

  Linda shook her head. “There’s more to this kind of magic than there is to science back home.”

  “And it’s a hell of a lot more dangerous.”

  Around them, the laboratory buzzed and sang. Brilliant discharges crackled between suspended metal spheres. Spinning wheels threw sparks, and retorts bubbled.

  Incarnadine walked over to Jeremy.

  “Ready, Igor?”

  Jeremy sat back and ran a sleeve across his brow. “You got it, Boris.”

  “How are those two getting along?” Incarnadine motioned toward the laptop.

  Jeremy punched a few keys and the readout changed.

  — READY FOR THIS NEXT SUBROUTINE, SWEETHEART?

  ANYTIME, DARLING. IT’S BEEN WONDERFUL WORKING WITH YOU. I’M SO GLAD WE MET.

  YOU DON’T KNOW HOW LONELY I’VE BEEN IF I TOLD YOU HOW LONG I’VE BEEN SITTING HERE WITH NO ONE TO TALK TO …

  DON’T, I’ll CRY.

  “Ick!” Jeremy said. “These two are getting it on.”

  “Well, considering how fundamentally different they are in design and architecture, you could say they were of opposite genders.”

  “It’s still pretty strange.”

  “It’s a strange universe, son.”

  Incarnadine looked about the lab, sensing, testing.

  “I think it’s time. Let’s run that sucker.”

  Thirty-three

  Museum

  One step at a time, Gene thought as he crawled along the metal tube, Vaya following.

  Don’t think about what you do when you finally get to this contraption. Forget questions li
ke: How do you know it’s operational? How do you fix it if it isn’t? If it is in working order, how will you learn to operate it? Who’s going to help you?

  The answer to the last question was, of course, Dis. The underworld machine had mapped out this safe route to the museum. Dis had also manufactured a beam weapon and had trained Gene and Vaya how to use it. Vaya carried it now. But Dis could only do so much. Dis really had no idea whether the interdimensional traveler still existed, nor whether it had ever worked or indeed had ever been tested.

  But don’t think of any of that yet. One step at a time. One stupid, ill-advised, improbable step at a time.

  The end of the tube was in sight, and there was no grate over it. Gene poked his head out. The terminus of the ventilation shaft let out low in the wall of an empty corridor. Gene watched and waited for a good minute before exiting the shaft. Vaya passed the weapon to him, then crawled out.

  Gene looked the weapon over. It was a bazookalike affair with a telescopic sight, a trigger grip, and a few controls. Simple and deadly. It threw out a blinding beam of focused energy, and Dis had assured him it could take out one of the sentry robots. Anything bigger was iffy.

  He handed it back to Vaya.

  “We go left here,” he said. “Right?”

  “Left is correct.” The voice of Dis was a whisper in his ear.

  “Okay.” He wished now for a weapon for himself, but somebody had to stay in communication with Dis. Also, Gene would have his hands full with the machine, when and if they finally got to it. Besides, one weapon was Dis’ limit. Whether that limit had been imposed by physical capacity or ancient Umoi programming, Gene did not know.

  They advanced slowly down the corridor, pausing to check out each shadow before moving on.

  “Left turn at the end of the passage,” Dis reminded Gene.

  “Check.”

  The crossing corridor was dark and empty. Gene scouted both directions. Then Vaya eased around the corner, beam weapon raised and ready.

  Nothing challenged her. They stepped quietly down the passageway and came to another crossing. Still nothing. A series of lefts and rights brought them to a pair of doors, one a typical Umoi portal: low, almost square, with a lever handle like a refrigerator’s. The other was garage-door size.