“Bertran. Yes. They did take over. And they destroyed mankind. The only place in the galaxy where mankind was left was here. So, this is the only place in the galaxy where that question can be answered. I mean, it’s self-evident.”
He leaned back against the stone, seeming to sag there, almost bonelessly, Nela dragged with him, their breathing labored. “So there are gods out there who have destroyed mankind,” Bertran whispered. “And there are gods in here who are bidding fair to destroy what’s left. So, maybe the destiny of man is to be destroyed by his gods, and wouldn’t that be a nice ironic answer for them.”
“I’d rather not tell them that,” whispered Nela.
“If that is the answer, they probably already know,” said Fringe soberly.
“How did you ever graduate from the Academy?” Danivon fumed, plunging his arm into the guts of the flier where it sat on a sandspit beside the River Floh, just upstream of the Great Wall. “How did you ever get your operator’s clearance.”
“We didn’t have to fly these damned gnats,” Zasper muttered angrily. “We worked with vehicles large enough to stay put when the wind blew.”
“It was an updraft,” said Danivon angrily. “And the way you landed us …”
“I did land us,” Zasper pointed out.
“The way you landed us has knocked something loose in there, and I can’t see to fix it.”
“I’ll be glad to hold the light.”
“Whatever’s loose is behind six other things, and there’s room for only two hands in there. I need both of them to fix it. We’re going to have to wait for daytime, Zasper!”
“We’ve already waited too long. What do you smell?”
“Pain, Zasper. Suffering. Fear. Darkness. You want to add to the catalog!”
“No,” he said. “I just hoped they were still alive.”
“Oh, they’ re alive. And from what I can sniff out, still in the same place. Though why … now that’s a good question, isn’t it. Why. Why would these gods you speak of want Fringe? Or the twins?”
Zasper shook his head. “They were probably after you.”
“Because I asked questions.”
“Possibly, yes. But then, so did the twins. Maybe they were after any of us and just grabbed whoever was closest.”
That had a ring of likelihood to it. Danivon slumped against the flier and stared toward the east, waiting for dawn.
“I guess I should say thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For saving my life. In Molock. All those years ago.”
“Oh, you found out about that, did you? I suppose Fringe told you.”
“Yes.”
“Women cannot keep their mouths shut.”
“It was when she saved the girl in Derbeck. I tried to stop her.”
“Yes, well. I would have thought Curvis would have been the one who tried to stop her. He goes by the book pretty much. Of course, you have done too, when it was convenient.” He mused at the dark sky. “How did she tell you?”
“She yelled it at me, to explain why she was saving the girl. I should have expected her to do something like that. She’s been very upset with us lately.”
Zasper sighed. “I didn’t really want her to be an Enforcer. It’s hard for a woman. It’s hard for some men. The children were always hardest for me. Those places where they kept having them and having them and killing them and killing them, or just letting them die. At least your people, whoever they were, tried to keep you alive.”
“You met them.”
“Who?”
“My people. Cafferty and Latibor, at the boat. They’re my parents.”
Zasper stared at him, a mere silhouette against the stars. “Think of that,” he said at last, trying to decipher the feeling that had just run through his mind, leaving muddy footprints across his heart. Jealousy maybe? So Danivon had parents.
“Dawn coming,” said Danivon. “But it won’t be really light for a while yet. We might as well catch up on some sleep.”
• • •
The golden faces summoned their prisoners before them once more. Panting and pale, the twins managed to get into the cavern of the faces, though they could not rise after the obligatory reverence.
“You have the answer for us?” a face asked with poisonous sweetness.
“We have some possible answers,” offered Fringe, putting her hand on Nela’s shoulder, feeling the damp chill there, the sweating cold.
Tentatively, she suggested man’s destiny was to reproduce.
The faces howled with laughter.
“It’s the first thought we had,” Fringe said, swallowing bile. “Since that’s what we seem to do best.”
“No,” said a face, all the others echoing, no, no, no, no.
“We thought perhaps our destiny was to be destroyed,” she went on, hurrying, getting it over with. “Or to attain heaven, or simply to be brave.”
As soon as the word left her mouth, she knew she had erred.
“Brave,” gulped a voice. “Let’s see how brave….”
The twins stood it for a time, grunting and jerking, and then they slid to the ground all in one heap as Fringe screamed imprecations at the faces and knelt to draw Nela’s head into her lap. She felt the gray throat for a pulse, leaned down to detect a breath. None. None.
“You bastards,” Fringe screamed. “You bastards, you’ve killed them.”
She was thrust back against the wall by a forest of tiny tentacles, still screaming curses.
“What are you doing? What are you doing?”
“Separating them,” said a voice, a gulping voice. “They’re no good tied together like that. So, we’ll take them apart.”
“You’ll kill them! You can’t do that! If they aren’t already dead, you’ll kill them.”
“I can do it,” the voice said calmly. “I’ve been studying the matter, and I have everything I need, right here.”
The tentacles knew something, obviously, for the twins came back to life, enough at least to scream, plead, cry, beg, bubble, gurgle, and at last subside into silence as the tentacles burrowed and sliced and connected, giggling as they worked, chuckling as they worked, as what had been two human persons was reduced to something more useful to those in charge.
When they were done, the tentacles withdrew.
Fringe sagged against the wall, mouth open, unable to look away from the cavern floor that was stained with fluids, littered with knobs of bloody bone and coils of purple and red, blobs of organs and muscle, parts identifiable and unidentifiable, all reeking warmly, steaming in the chill air of the chamber, all strewn about the boxes, the two sets of boxes that keened a continuous scream of horror as they peered out at Fringe with wholly familiar eyes.
“An ear,” her mind shrieked at her, doing an inventory. “See there, that’s a knee, that’s a thigh. See there, breasts, Fringe, breasts!”
From a pile of discarded clothing across the cavern, the pocket munk raced across the intervening space, up Fringe’s leg and into her pocket, shrieking its own horror and agony to add to hers.
“Aaaah,” she moaned, unable to stop herself, unable to control it. “They’ve made you dinks, you’re dinka-jins, oh, God, Nela, Bertran, you’re …” “… dinks …” cried the munk from Danivon’s pocket in Fringe’s hysterical voice.
“What have they done?” cried Zasper, grabbing at Danivon’s arm so violently that the little flier wobbled and slipped beneath Danivon’s hands.
“Careful,” cried Danivon. “You’ll have us on the ground again. We’re almost there, don’t do anything silly….”
“Dinks. They’ve made the twins into dinks! Did they do it to Fringe?” Zasper asked. “Was it just the twins?”
Danivon’s throat dried at the thought of their having done it to Fringe. But no. Not Fringe. Just the twins. Just the twins. He knew it.
“Bertran will hate it,” he murmured. “Hate it. His dreams were all of sleekness, of swimming like a fish. He tol
d me once. Oh, he’ll hate that, Zasper.”
“Why!” Zasper demanded. “Why in hell!”
“Maybe because they weren’t … portable the way they were,” Danivon said. “If the things wanted to move them. If they were hurt, for instance. And they were hurt, I could smell that….”
He dropped the flier toward the river and began to examine the shoreline.
“Where are we?” asked Zasper.
“Halfway across Beanfields. Vacant country along here. The settlements are all to the south and west.” He turned the flier slightly. “Look for three tall pillars, the middle one highest,” he instructed. “A little south of us.”
“There,” cried Zasper, pointing.
“Right.” Danivon jerked the flier around, flying low above the water. “Now there’s a tall dead tree along here with four branches at the top. When that lines up with the middle pillar, that’s where….”
The faces regarded the boxes with satisfaction. “Better,” said the bad one, the malicious one. “Far better. Now they can concentrate on what we need to know.”
“Why?” cried Fringe, hammering on the floor with her fists. “Why do you need to know now!”
“Now is appropriate,” said a face. “Why not now?”
“Now is necessary,” said another. “God must know the answer to this question. How can we direct our worshipers properly if we do not know their destiny.”
“But we’re only people,” she sobbed. “Ordinary people. Not philosophers. Not ethicists. Not the kind of people to consider questions like that. We’re just ordinary little people. Why do you ask us?”
“You might know,” said a voice.
“Should know,” amended another.
“Since the question pertains to man, man must know. Naive intuition should inform you of your destiny.”
“Enough,” said a gulping voice. “All that is irrelevant. God requires the answer to this question. The question will be answered by man. We are god. You are man. Therefore, you will answer. That’s all you need to know!”
On the floor the boxes howled. The faces seemed not to hear the sound, to disregard it.
“That’s completely arbitrary,” Fringe screamed. “It doesn’t take into consideration that we’re just three people, that maybe it takes all men to answer….”
“Arbitrary doesn’t matter,” said a female voice in an instructive tone. “We have consulted Files. Gods are usually arbitrary.”
“But we can’t….”
“If you can’t, you will die and we will try with someone else, until we find one who will answer….”
Pain flicked across the cavern. Fringe cried out. The boxes went on howling.
And suddenly stopped, as though killed in midscream.
“Who is that?” asked a face.
Was there apprehension in the voice?
“Listen … listen to …” cried one of the other voices. “Listen to up above. Something coming!”
Abruptly the faces were empty, all but one.
“Fringe Owldark!” said the box across from her.
“Bertran?” Fringe asked, shocked into sensibility. It hadn’t sounded like Bertran.
“This assemblage is not Bertran at this moment, no. Fringe Owldark, listen to me. The weapon they took from you. It’s under that small pile of rock to your left. They forgot it. Burn the rock in the cavern. Melt it so they can’t get at you.”
“Who?” she gaped stupidly. “Who are you?” “Someone you don’t know.
Someone caught in this mess with these monsters. Someone trying to help you.”
“Who?” she cried. “Who?”
“Jordel,” it said. “Call me Jordel. Now do as I say!”
“Where’s Bertran? Where’s Nela?” “Here. Safe.”
“Safe!” She broke into hysterical laughter. “Safe!”
“Fringe Owldark! You must be an Enforcer! Cool! Thoughtful! Otherwise you will die, and so will they. You must burn the surfaces of the stone to keep the devices from coming through. Understand me!”
“We’d die of suffocation! It’ll burn up all the air!”
“There’s enough air. Someone has come to help you, up there. And I will help you. But you have to keep them from getting to you. Burn the walls, the floor, so they can’t get through.”
“Do it,” howled the other of the boxes. “Do it, Fringe. Melt it, Fringe. Then melt us.”
She tumbled the pile of stones, scrabbling among them, coming up with her heat beamer, feeling it turn almost of its own volition onto the faces, burning them, melting them.
Something came screaming through the floor at her, something with knives, and she melted it as well. The floor. The walls. Behind the stone, things howled and drilled furiously, trying to get through.
“Now us,” cried one box. “Now us, Fringe. Melt us.”
“Don’t!” demanded the voice from the other box. “Take them back. They can be cloned….”
“Can’t, can’t, left too much out,” the box cried, its eyes swiveling to the lumps of bone, the scattered organs, the bits and pieces of flesh, like a bombed butcher shop, the purple and red and white parts of themselves, the reeking parts, the framework, the network, all that had made them man.
Fringe had avoided that place, that bloody place, and now it erupted with glittering blades, whirring drills.
She turned the beamer on them, sobbing, the roast meat smell rising around her.
The walls howled, and she burned them. The floor howled, and she burned that. All around her was melted stone and air that stank of blood and metal. It was hard to breathe.
“We’ll go back in the little room,” she said to the boxes coaxingly, as she might have tempted a child. “Back in the little room where it’s cooler.”
“Not cooler,” cried Jordel. “Burn it there too. They’re in the walls in there, in the floor. But there’s a place over the ledge where they brought you in, hidden in the shadow, you can get up….”
“Come,” she said to the boxes. “Come with me!” She couldn’t bear to touch them, couldn’t bear to see them. She forced herself to speak softly, lovingly. “Come!” These were her friends, she reminded herself. No matter what they looked like. No matter what they had become! She had sworn an oath of friendship.
One of the assemblages moved at once. Behind her the other one howled, helplessly jerking this way and that. “How?” it cried piteously. “How can we move?”
“Think of walking,” said the Jordel box. “It’s automatic, just think of walking.”
The other box jerked and trembled, moving forward with its various parts strung out behind, clashing together, then strung apart, then clashing together once more, howling and clashing, howling and clashing. Fringe looked away hastily, remembering a toy she’d had as a child, one she had pulled along the ground, clashing together, stringing apart, clashing together, stringing apart. This was no toy. This was Bertran. This was Nela. Her friend Nela. She wanted to scream and choked it down. Perhaps she should have melted them as Nela had asked. That might have been kinder. If it had been her, she’d have wanted that for herself. Now it was too late, now she’d had too much time to think. She couldn’t do it now, but she couldn’t bear to look at them either.
“Here,” said Danivon, leaning from the flier to burn the rocks below, careful pass after careful pass. “Right here, Zasper.”
He set the flier down and they slid onto the heated surface where Danivon bent close to the stones, sniffing. Over the mineral smell he caught a whiff of her, the merest breath. Almost more the memory of a scent than the scent itself. “Here,” he said, pointing downward at a crack no wider than his finger. The crack led waveringly across the rock surface, disappearing behind a standing pillar of stone. He followed it behind the pillar and was attacked from three sides at once by tiny, vicious sharpnesses.
“Nicely done,” growled Zasper, who had come around the other way and was busy destroying the surfaces around him where a dozen screaming devices had bu
rrowed through. “Nice to see you remember to look before you move, boy!” As soon as he had a hand free, he sprayed coagulant on Danivon’s shoulder and passed him an ampule of universal antidote, just in case the blades had been poisoned.
Behind the pillar the crack widened into a hole, a vertical shaft. As they walked around it, trying to see into it, a tiny form erupted from it and flung itself at Danivon’s leg.
Zasper aimed but could not fire in time. The scurrying blob went up Danivon’s leg and into his pocket, squealing all the way.
“Curvis’s munk,” Zasper said weakly.
“Down there.” Danivon pointed. “That’s where it came from.” He leaned forward and bellowed, hearing only echoes in return.
“Somebody has to go down and look,” said Zasper, pulling on his gauntlets. “Me.”
“Why you?”
“Because if you go and get killed, chances are I’d wreck that flier on the way back.” He was already leaning into the crack, spraying it with deadly heat, watching the stones drip like wax.
Then he lowered himself into the hole, touching it only with boots and gloves, feeling his face redden under the heat, smelling the scalded air.
Partway down, something with fangs came at him from a crevice. He burned it before it got to him, then melted the crevice plus another crack or two he could see from where he was. “Fringe?” he yelled. “Fringe, are you down there?”
No answer. Above him, Danivon’s anxious face peered down. He shook his hands, cooling them, then searched for a set of holds farther down.
Another burn, another shaft, and abruptly the crevice changed from vertical to horizontal. “Fringe!” he yelled.
“Here,” her voice came without direction or distance. “Coming.”
Zasper paused, panting for air. He’d burned up all the air. No point in going farther down if she was coming up. “Are the twins there with you?” he hollered.
He heard a sound. Laughter? Crying? He couldn’t tell. Maybe she needed help. He leaned into the horizontal space and burned it carefully, floor, walls, ceiling. Wait for it to cool, he told himself. Go into that thing hot, burn your kneecaps off.
The rock beside his ear howled. Something drilling through. He waited until it emerged, then melted it, so pleased with himself he almost missed the one coming through on the other side. He hung on the rock, panting, resting.
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