Phoenix Without Ashes

by Edward Bryant

  Devon’s body slowly tumbled end for end as the wind whipped past. He had a rotating view of metal walls on every side, all illuminated by the ever-present blue light.

  At first he had squeezed his eyes tightly shut; but when he did not smash in a few seconds into the hard-packed earthen bottom of some well, he had opened them again. He felt a wave of nausea. His overtaxed inner ear messaged his brain that he was falling. Devon again shut his eyes, but that was worse, so he opened them and coexisted with the queasiness.

  It was hard to tell exactly with the blue light, but he guessed that the hole had broadened into a tube about two hundred meters across. There were features on the walls, and it was that zooming past and receding into the distance which gave him the sense of immense speed: pipes, nodes, cross-tunnel entrances, unidentifiable machinery. The walls themselves looked like metal sky-stuff.

  Devon discovered that he could use his hands in the air as steering vanes to stop his tumbling. He experimented until he achieved a nearly stable attitude in the air—that helped diminish the nausea in the pit of his stomach. He examined his surroundings with keener interest.

  He was sure he had traveled for a number of minutes. Considering his apparent speed, that meant he had covered an inconceivable distance. Where could a tube such as this fit inside Cypress Corners?

  He was whirled around a wide bend in the tunnel. The diameter had narrowed again until the walls were only a few meters away. He hurtled down the precise center of the tube so that he could not reach any handhold or other protrusion on the tunnel wall, even had he wished.

  Another bend in the tube. Centrifugal force clutched him for a moment. He was no more able to help himself than a bit of flotsam caught in an undertow.

  Then he saw the wall dead ahead and “remembered” again he was falling. The metal surface came up impossibly fast; Devon struggled to turn himself, to thrust out his hands, do something to keep from smashing into the metal wall.

  He realized he was slowing. The gradual deceleration continued until Devon floated, dreamlike, toward the metal bulkhead of the tube. At last he was gently deposited, feet-first, on the bulkhead itself.

  Devon straightened his legs and suddenly he was floating off the metal and toward the opposite side of the tube. Instinctively he grabbed a handhold. The nausea returned, though hot so badly as before; he felt like he was still falling, though he could plainly see it was not so.

  After a minute he felt steadier and decided to experiment. He let go the U-shaped handhold and tried to push himself back to the bulkhead. Somehow he didn’t travel in quite the right direction. He fumbled, trying clumsily to right himself, turned over again and again. He slowly drifted within arm’s range of another handhold.

  This time when he kicked off from the bulkhead, he traveled in a fairly straight line. He stopped his flight by smartly catching an angled pipe on the other side of the tube. Then back to the bulkhead. He laughed and said aloud, “I can fly!” Like in the dreams, he thought. It had been something like the flights in his dreams; that sobered him.

  He considered the thought, hanging there in midair with one hand gripping a hold, until his attention was caught by a light to the left and below him on the bulkhead. Devon carefully pulled himself from handhold to handhold. The light bracketed an iris which seemed to be about half the diameter of the one Devon had encountered in the briar thicket. To the side, white letters glowed on a panel:

  ACCESS TUBE

  SERVICE MODULE

  Below the legend, another panel glowed crimson.

  Devon reached out and touched the second panel; it instantly flickered to green and the iris dilated open. Head-first, as though swimming into a narrow cave, Devon pushed through. Once past the rim of the iris, his eyes were dazzled by a flash of orange light—and once again he possessed weight. Instinctively he thrust out his arms in front of him as he crashed into a hard surface. His shoulder took the brunt of the blow and he rolled. Devon found himself flat on his back, looking up as the iris contracted to a black dot and then became a featureless disc of metal.

  He sat up, rubbing his shoulder. The first thing he discovered was that his weight remained. No flying here. The floor beneath him was a seamless surface of blue-gray metal. The arched ceiling was about three meters above. The room itself was about half the size of the outer chamber of the Place of Worship, perhaps seven or eight meters on a side. One wall was completely taken up by a console covered with dials and controls.

  Devon turned to see what was in back of him and recoiled, at first thinking he was confronting a live creature. Then he grinned self-consciously, realizing he was looking at a plastic case containing a transparent suit of clothes in the shape of a human being. The garment was empty, but hung open with a strip of twin blue lines down the front. There were snakes in the hills, and Devon had seen them. This costume looked as though a human being had shed its skin without a break in the material, save for that open gash along the front.

  Above the skin-suit, held securely by tension-clamps, was a teardrop-shaped helmet with tubes protruding from one side. The helmet was as transparent as the suit below.

  A panel glowed beside the plastic case. The letters spelled out:

  SUITING INSTRUCTIONS

  The usual lighted crimson plate was set below the printed legend.

  Devon got to his feet and walked around the chamber. He touched the walls; they were warm. He returned to the plastic case and marveled at the human snake-suit within. Curious, he reached out and touched the front panel of the case; under his fingers, the panel slid up with a soft hiss. A voice said. “Model J-10 oxygen suit. Suiting—”

  He involuntarily stepped back and the voice stopped. The transparent panel hissed down again. Devon continued his explorations. A few meters down from the plastic case was a two-and-a-half meter circle incised in the metal wall. It reminded Devon of the iris, save that this disc was secured with massive hinges. If it were in; deed a door, it apparently was set to open inward. Connected to the hinges were apparatus incorporating tubes, cylinders, and angled arms. Another phrase glowed in block letters across the disc:

  VIEWPORT 874

  There were several smaller panels below the letters. Devon pressed the crimson square marked “Open.” He heard two clicks, but nothing more happened. The panel remained red instead of turning, as Devon had come to expect of these cooperative squares, to green. He pressed again; and again heard a pair of clicks from within the disc. He punched the next panel, which was labeled “Override.” This time the panel turned green.

  Devon stepped back as the machinery activated within Viewport 874. Slowly, ponderously, the massive disc began to swing open toward him. As a crack visibly opened at the jamb, Devon heard a sudden, sharp hiss.

  The air began to thunder out of the chamber, sluicing past him like the worst windstorm he had ever experienced. A suction, stronger than the one that had pulled him through the iris and into the tube, drew him inexorably toward the crack between hatch and bulkhead. The hatch abruptly stopped opening; in the distance, Devon heard the clang of alarm bells. The suction held him tightly against the crack, which was scarcely wider than the one through which he had peeked in the Place of Worship.

  The hatch began to cycle closed in perfect silence. As the crack narrowed, Devon had one quick look at—something. He wasn’t quite sure what. He could see a jagged, shard-edged opening as though a bird had flown through a wide window. But beyond that—there was something he could not describe, yet he knew he had seen it before. Where?

  And then the hatch was shut, and Devon staggered backward away from Viewport 874, except that now a new panel flashed on and off:

  DEPRESSURIZED

  To Devon it blinked in increasingly slower pulses. His arms flailed as he tried to keep his balance. His mind was detached, watching his arms windmill in slow motion. What is happening? he thought. The words endlessly repeated themselves in his brain as he fell

  and fell

  and fell
<
br />   and hit the floor, bounced once, and lay still.

  DEPRESSURIZED

  continued to pulse on and off and it was the last thing he remembered. The crimson muted swiftly to black.

  THIRTEEN

  The dream.

  He replayed it in an endless loop: First the night through the tube and the arrival at the access chamber and the skin-suit in the case and Viewport 874 and then the endlessly pulsing “Depressurized.” And then the other dream, the old one, the dream that carried him afar from where he slept on the hills above Cypress Corners.

  He saw the strange, steady stars burning upon their infinitely dark backdrop. They surrounded him, blazing closer and closer until they burned beyond his eyes, into his brain.

  They burned in both dreams.

  Devon awoke convulsing upon the warm floor of the access chamber. His arms were crossed, both hands upon his throat. His lungs ached as though seared. He took his hands away from his throat and rolled onto his side. For a while he lay there, thinking of nothing else but drinking the air he had been denied.

  Finally he pulled himself up on elbows to a semi-sitting position. He blinked rapidly, orienting himself to where he was. Then his eyes widened as he saw it all again.

  Both dreams... the stars that did not blink. The same dream. One.

  Devon clawed himself upright, hanging onto the console for support. He faced Viewport 874, wondering if he dared press the “Override” panel. Whatever it was that lay beyond, he wanted to see it again. It was more than a wish; he felt a thirst, an inarguable lust. As Devon staggered toward the hatch, he heard a subdued but imperative mechanical voice:

  “Entrance to depressurized section refused. Protective lock has been placed on this port. Contact maintenance unit, terminal code 110-3976.”

  Devon stepped back, looking for the source of the voice. Finding none, he moved toward the hatch. Again the warning voice spoke:

  “Entrance to depressurized section forbidden, repeat forbidden. Protective lock ensures no admittance without use of oxygen suit. Maintenance unit advisement urged, terminal code 110-3976. This means you.”

  Something caught his eye and he turned his head. The light panel beside the plastic case with the suit pulsed on and off. Still in the distance, alarm bells jangled; a vibration almost felt rather than heard. In the light panel the words SUITING INSTRUCTIONS now alternately pulsed with SUIT UP BEFORE ENTERING.

  Devon looked at the case with more care. He reached out, touched the slick surface, and the front panel slid up. Carefully he took the transparent suit off its hanger and started to pull it from the case. The SUITING INSTRUCTIONS plate began to speak:

  “Model J-10 oxygen suit. Suiting instructions. One: remove all sharp protrusions from your person.”

  Devon awkwardly fumbled around himself, searching for sharp protrusions. He winced at a jagged pain from his bruised shoulder. The warning voice continued:

  “Insert feet into legs of the suit.”

  As Devon put one leg into the suit, he wondered momentarily if he should remove his sod-boots. But the fabric of the suit seemed to expand to allow him to put his foot down into the suit leg. The foot of the suit conformed perfectly to the size and shape of his boot. Devon inserted his other leg.

  The warning voice said, “Make certain no wrinkles exist as you pull the suit up around your body.”

  Devon did so.

  “Insert arms carefully. The suit will not rip but caution should be exercised to avoid wrinkling or bunching under the arms.”

  He adjusted the suit around his shoulders gingerly. There were no wrinkles or bunches under his arms.

  “Make certain your fingers reach the ends of the glove hands.”

  Devon clenched his fists, discovering that the suit fabric did not at all constrict the joints of his fingers. He brought one hand up to his eyes. The fabric was virtually invisible.

  “Smooth suit down across your shoulders,” continued the warning voice. “Using a similar smooth motion, seal the bluestrips for an airtight closure.”

  Those would be the twin strips running along the suit’s frontal opening. Devon followed instructions; the bluestrips seemed to fuse together with no trace of a seam.

  “Remove the helmet from its berth. Place the ends of the oxygen hoses into their sockets on the shoulders of the suit. Red into red, yellow into yellow. Now raise the helmet, set it onto the gasket seal, over your head, and give it a half-turn clockwise to lock.”

  Devon turned the helmet one way, with no result, and then the other. It snapped into place with a solid snick. He began to panic as he realized he was completely sealed in. Then he heard a faint hiss; he drew air deep into his lungs.

  The warning voice said, “Place left hand against the light plate and if you are properly sealed, pressure will be equalized in this access chamber. Thank you.”

  The light panel on Viewport 874 began to blink imperatively. Devon brought up his left hand and touched the “Open” plate. This time the crimson square flashed to green immediately. The hatch began to cycle; through the helmet, Devon heard a louder hiss of escaping air.

  He could feel his heart beating ever faster, as though it might pound a hole out through his chest. Devon willed himself to relax. He noticed that with each breath, the flexible material of the helmet indented slightly.

  The light panel signaled:

  PRESSURE EQUALIZED

  ADMITTANCE PERMITTED

  He was deafened by the sound of his own breathing. Devon could hear nothing from outside the suit as the hatch slowly cycled open. He moved to the side so as to watch the fissure between hatch and bulkhead gradually widen. When there was space enough, he stepped through.

  At first all he saw was the room. The new chamber was huge, even larger than the main hall in the Place of Worship. This room took the form of a dome at least one hundred meters across. Devon crossed the threshold and his feet rose from the floor; again he was without weight. What had the teacher Old Silas called it? Gravity. That mysterious command of the Creator which kept the directions “up” and “down” distinct.

  He grabbed at the wall and found a smooth railing that had evidently been placed there for exactly that purpose. Devon hung suspended, surveying the chamber. He had to momentarily reorient himself. “Up” had now rotated ninety degrees. The hatch of the access chamber was part of the floor of Viewport 874. And the viewport chamber itself had been ruined.

  Devon raised his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Staring, he murmured a prayer to the Creator.

  It was all there.

  As he had remembered it from the dreams.

  He looked upon what lay before him; then passed within a hair of unconsciously and automatically making the decision to turn, retreat through the lockport, and hide screaming, limbs tucked into an instinctual ball. More than looked—he gaped, knowing instantly how futile his own knowledge was to explain everything he saw.

  Devon felt like the savages in the Story of Enos from the Book; the benighted men of the wilderness who had never seen a horse, never seen a tree.

  The chamber was littered with broken furniture and cratered, pitted consoles’. Faint lights glowed in wall mountings. Overhead yawned the remnant of what had been a great transparent dome. About a third of the hemisphere had been torn away in some ancient cataclysm. The opening was framed among jagged projections as sharp-pointed as serpent fangs. The dim interior lights reflected glints from the sharded edges. The dome’s ragged opening was flared outward as though from an explosion within.

  What could cause such force? But the thought fled and was forgotten as Devon looked to the alien sky.

  Beyond the ruined bubble hung the unwinking stars of his dream. They had not changed from the brief impression he’d glimpsed during the abortive first attempt with the viewport hatch. Neither had they changed from his visions.

  Why do they not blink? he asked himself. Are they stars like those in the sky? He recoiled from a nightmare thought: Could they be the sava
ge animals’ eyes Rachel saw in the dark?

  Devon forced himself to move hand-over-hand along the rail and across the floor of the chamber to the periphery of the dome. He discovered a network of thin, flexible lines crosshatching the near side of the bubble itself. He had been here, had seen all this; and not merely in the initial peek past the viewport hatch. Old Silas would have called it a sense of deja vu, the feeling of having traveled here before, but knowing I couldn’t have.

  Of course he could not have seen this place before, but he failed to convince himself.

  Was it not somehow blasphemous to be trespassing on a private preserve of the Creator? Though he immediately discarded the thought, Devon hesitated. Then he kicked away from the edge of the dome and sailed toward the ragged hole. As he neared the shattered edges of the opening, Devon grabbed one of the snapped safety lines drifting free.

  His fingers clenched convulsively on the line. It had suddenly occurred to him that this dome signified a clear demarcation between the inside and a larger outside. Should he drift beyond the hole in the bubble, he might not find a purchase enabling him to return inside. Inside!

  Inside is within Cypress Corners. There is no outside! He fought back that particular demon while broken safety lines moved around him like logy snakes.

  Delicately tethered, he hung in the center of the jagged break until his breathing again became a regular rhythm. But more importantly, he realized, he could again think. All across his new black sky the lights were suspended, flat and changeless: eyes of white, yellow, blue, orange, red. Truly stars? He stared and picked out what appeared to be several luminous clouds, light as milkweed pollen.