by Steve White
“We’ve got to get to it,” said Jason.
“It will be difficult to do so, unnoticed. But there may be a chance, if we stay very close to the wall of the cavern, where it is ill-lit. Unfortunately, the poor lighting also works against us. Be careful to avoid the crevice there.”
Jason bit off a sarcastic retort. At least the Nagom had warned him this time. “Lead the way.”
Crouching, Oannes led the way down a slippery slope toward their right. The humans followed, trying their best to emulate the sinuous movements that made him seem merely a part of the flickering shadows. Presently, Jason felt the edge of a precipice with his foot, which dislodged some gravel. He waited to hear it striking the bottom. He never did. He continued on, even more cautiously than before.
They edged their way to the great tunnel mouth and crept into it, still keeping behind the deep fissure. They gazed into a vast, vaulted cavern arching upward to a height of almost a hundred feet but hung with translucent arrays of stalactites. The floor looked like it had been laboriously flattened out. At the far end, flanked by torches was the crude-looking idol Jason had seen before in another cave, in the Echinades. It was guarded by a number of armed pirates, but no one else was in evidence.
It was all like some profane cathedral.
“Oannes,” Jason whispered, “you told me before that the gateway can only be opened from … this side.” Which, he reflected, made sense. No energy expenditure inside the Teloi’s pocket-universe “sanctuary” could affect anything outside it, unless the gateway was already opened.
“That is correct. As I explained, it can be … ordered to do so at a certain point in time. This is done as a routine precaution when the Teloi enter it and close it behind them. But it can also be opened by a spoken signal by anyone on the outside.”
“I don’t suppose you know this ‘signal’?”
“No. It is a secret the Teloi only share with their most trusted human servitors.”
Nagel had been listening. He indicated the men in the cavern. “Maybe we could capture one of them and force him to tell us.”
“No,” said the Nagom. “These are mere guards. Only the priests are allowed to know—and not even all of them. They always make a great production of opening it, to enhance their own prestige. The Teloi humor them in this, even letting them do their mummery when the Teloi themselves are present and there is no need for it.”
“Naturally,” Nagel nodded. “The priests must inspire awe in the ignorant, if they are to be useful.”
Jason wasn’t listening. With part of his mind, he was worrying that Perseus might be overhearing this. But a glance reassured him that the Hero was paying no attention, just staring fixedly ahead with who knew what going through his Bronze Age mind. So Jason concentrated on worrying about what to do next.
Oannes says they always set it to open on its own after a certain period of time, just in case. But we have no way of knowing how long we have to wait for that to happen, with nothing to eat and the constant chance that someone will blunder onto us—
Jason’s thoughts were interrupted by a commotion from the central cavern behind them. Looking over his shoulder, he saw pirates scurrying frantically toward the cave of the gateway. And behind them was a glow that held a quality of artificial light that had no business in this world.
“Down!” he hissed at his companions. They flattened in the narrow darkness between the cave wall and the crevice, while the pirates—some of them wearing regalia of long robes and high-crowned headdresses that must mark the priesthood, ran unseeingly past them and arranged themselves in ceremonial order behind the “idol.”
They were none too soon. The glow intensified, and with the faint, eerie hum Jason remembered, a graceful flying platform, ablaze with running lights, swept into the cavern. A chant arose from the priests, and the guards groveled.
Jason was getting better about recognizing individual Teloi. So he recognized this one even before the chant reached his ears: “Hyperion! Hyperion!” It’s him, all right, he thought, forcing cold calmness on himself. The one who might have had “further use” for Deirdre.
The “chariot” hovered a few feet above the floor while the priests made their obeisances. Finally, under Hyperion’s patiently condescending eye, the priest with the most elaborate headgear stepped before the idol.
There’s more to it than Sidney thought, Jason reflected. Having flunkies do things for you that you could do yourself is a universal status symbol. He strained to hear what the priest was saying, but couldn’t make it out. Of course not, he told himself. Did you really expect him to blurt out the secret in the hearing of all the guards and low-echelon priests? He’s probably murmuring just loud enough to activate the pickup.
Then, as he watched, a circular area about three yards in diameter began to define itself, in midair off to the side of the idol. A worshipful moan went up from the guards and acolytes as reality began to waver in the same indescribable, disturbing way Jason had seen once before. Then, as before, the disturbance was gone, leaving a hole in the universe.
The high priest and his underlings bowed deeply as Hyperion’s platform floated through that immaterial ring. The “god” was gone … but the gateway remained open.
“Energy conservation,” Oannes whispered, answering Jason’s unspoken question. “Another Teloi must be coming—or perhaps one is about to leave the sanctuary.”
“Is that the gateway to the true realm of the dead?” Perseus rasped harshly.
“In a manner of speaking,” said Jason absently. He would have given more thought to his reply, but he was looking hungrily at that opening. Suddenly, on a hunch, he thought a command to his brain implant. The visual display appeared, on the minutest scale of which it was capable.
The red dot marking Nagel’s TRD showed steadily, on a detailed map of this area of Cape Taenarum, showing where the historian crouched a few feet from him. And off to the side was the other dot, flickering and wavering as though the implant couldn’t decide just exactly where it was, or even if it was really there at all.
So, Jason thought, as long as that gateway is open, it admits signals, and I can pick up the transponder, even though the TRD is nowhere on this map—or even, strictly speaking, in this universe.
“The device of which I spoke is definitely in there,” he whispered to Oannes.
Perseus overheard him. His eyes grew round. “Does that mean Deianeira herself is beyond the gateway?”
“Almost certainly,” Jason told him. “All the more so because Hyperion just arrived. I believe he wants …” How do you explain genetic engineering and artificial insemination to this kid? “I believe he wants Deianeira,” Jason finally settled for saying.
Perseus’ eyes grew even huger. All at once, Jason realized it had been the wrong thing to say. He opened his mouth to utter a qualifier.
He never got to say anything. With the suddenness of an explosion, Perseus cried out—the same ululating, blood-freezing howl they had heard on the beach. And without any more warning than that, he whipped out his sword and bounded across the chasm that separated them from the main body of the cave.
Jason had absolutely no chance to urge him to stop—nor would there have been any point, with the guards and priests already looking up in startlement at the sound of that cry. So he yelled, “Follow him!” Without waiting to see what Oannes and Nagel were doing, he leaped the chasm—it was deep but not wide—and ran in Perseus’ wake.
It was a wake of spurting blood, flying severed limbs, and screams of agony, littered with dead and dying bodies.
Jason had seen Perseus in action before, on the road from Tiryns, and he knew he had no business being amazed at the human killing machine that was the Hero. But it was impossible not to feel horror-stricken awe as Perseus sliced his way through the press of pirates like some elemental principle of death, barely slowing down as he ran unerringly toward that incomprehensible opening. Jason had little to do but fend off the occasional guards wh
o converged from the sides as they came out of their stunned surprise. He battered one such guard’s spear aside with his sword, then whipped it around across the man’s throat. Simultaneously, he took a split second for a glance backward; Oannes and Nagel were with him. Then he looked ahead again. Perseus was almost at the gateway cutting down the last guard who could interpose himself. The high priest alone stood before him, immobilized with shock, doing nothing.
Of course, came Jason’s flashing thought. The Teloi naturally wouldn’t tell their human servitors how to close the gateway from the outside. They may be crazy, but they’re not stupid.
The high priest screamed something. The scream changed in quality as Perseus thrust his sword into the priest’s belly and withdrew it with a disemboweling twist, trailing a rope of entrails. Then, without breaking stride, the Hero was through the portal.
Even at that moment, Jason found himself wondering what kind of courage that took for someone native to Perseus’ mental universe.
But he had no time to appreciate it as he dived through the hoop of energy himself.
He landed on a smooth floor whose material he couldn’t identify. He heard Oannes and Nagel coming through behind him. No one else followed, and the pandemonium on the other side of the portal suddenly died in a collective gasp of horror over what the strange men and the sea god had just done.
Jason looked around frantically, unable to mentally process all his eyes were seeing. But he saw a kind of instrument panel to the right, and he saw Perseus grappling with an unfamiliar Teloi male, getting an arm under the being’s jaw and pulling upward to expose the throat to his blade.
Even at that moment, the Teloi croaked out a command—a meaningless series of syllables in his own language.
The portal vanished.
Chapter Fourteen
For a long moment, the tableau held in silence.
Perseus finally broke it, standing up and letting the dead Teloi slide to the floor. He stared at his hands and forearms, red with blood—but a paler red than the blood of humans. He continued to stare in silence.
As well he might , thought Jason. By his own lights, he has just killed a god .
Jason also got to his feet. He thought he felt a little lighter. The temperature was comfortable—perhaps a couple of degrees warmer than humans would have set it. He turned to Nagel and Oannes and addressed the latter. “I thought you said—”
“I said the gateway could only be opened from the outside,” Oannes stated with pedantic exactitude. “No such limitation applies to closing it.”
“Right,” Jason said sourly. He looked around. Gradually, strangeness faded enough for their surroundings to begin to register.
They were at the center of a large circular chamber with a lofty domed ceiling. Everything was constructed of the same unidentifiable material as the floor, in muted colors and crafted into decorative motifs on which Jason’s mind could not get a grip. The central area was sunken, surrounded by several broad concentric steps rising to a higher level. Spaced equidistantly around the circumference of that level were five archways, sized to Teloi proportions. Between them were softly glowing wall panels that provided the light he was seeing by. Through the archways, Jason could see corridors receding. It was almost like an artificial reflection of what nature had crafted in the central cavern through which they had recently passed, beneath Cape Taenarum … wherever that was relative to where they were now, Jason thought. But of course, the question was meaningless. Cape Taenarum was in another universe.
The thought reminded Jason to activate his display, at the largest possible scale. No map appeared, of course; the computer in his skull had no referents to attach its inertial positioning system to. But it could and did show the two red dots, floating in isolation before his eyes.
“Oannes,” he asked, “how big is this … place?”
“How should I know? I have never exactly been invited here, nor have any of the Nagommo. Such a … construct can be of practically any desired size, and once it is established, maintaining it requires no … work.” This, Jason recognized, was the closest Achaean could come to “energy expenditure.”
“But,” Jason persisted, gazing down corridors that seemed to recede into infinity, “why do they need, or even want, for it to be this big?”
“Certain fundamental laws require that it be at least a certain minimum volume, which is far from small. And it is created around a structure—a practical necessity, because otherwise the occupants would have to look on the naked face of … something with which finite minds cannot cope.”
Jason nodded. The mind quailed at the thought of the nearby event horizon that must lie beyond these walls. And unrestricted nanotechnological construction techniques allowed for the creation of very large structures. None of which was particularly helpful with his immediate problem.
“Sidney,” he told Nagel, “run as fast as you can over there.” He pointed at one of the archways.
“Why?”
“Just do it!” Jason reined in his temper and explained. “I need to establish an orientation for the return I’m getting for Deirdre’s TRD. Right now, it’s just floating in limbo.”
The historian didn’t look like he really understood, but he got to his feet, took a deep breath, and made his best effort at a sprint in the indicated direction. It was a clumsy run, lurching forward as though the leg muscles were applying too much power. It confirmed Jason’s impression that the gravity here was a little less than one Earth G. Presumably the Teloi came from a lower-gravity planet—which made sense, given their height and build—and had set their artificial gravity generators accordingly. It must, he thought, be a great comfort to them to be able to come here and luxuriate in their accustomed weight. But these thoughts occupied only a small corner of his mind. Mostly, he concentrated on the display that seemed to float before his eyes.
Even on the scale to which Jason had set the display, Nagel’s dash across the domed chamber covered only an insignificant distance. But to Jason’s tightly focused eye, the red dot of his TRD seemed to jerk almost infinitesimally sideways, at about a sixty-degree angle to the imaginary line from it to the other red dot. He immediately deactivated the display, applied that angle to the direction in which Nagel had run … and found himself looking at one of the archways.
It was a poor basis for a plan of action. But it was all he had. And he owed it to the others to project more confidence than he felt.
“Deianeira is down that corridor!” he declared, loudly enough for Perseus to hear even through his shock. He pointed theatrically. “Let’s go, Perseus! We can still snatch her from the realm of the dead before … before …” He cast about through his recollections of Greek mythology. “Before she’s eaten the food of the dead.”
Something seemed to crystallize in Perseus. He stood up straighter, and his features and his voice held nothing but steadiness. “Yes. After that it will be too late for her. Jason, I do not understand by what power you know where she can be found. But I do know there is a power in you. I will follow where you lead.”
Jason examined the Teloi Persus had killed. No paralysis beamer or any other weapon, of course; that would have been too easy. “Let’s move, then.” He strode off in the direction of the archway, and through it. Oannes quickened his steps and drew abreast of him, and spoke too low for Perseus to hear.
“I believe I know what this ‘power’ of yours is, although this language lacks the vocabulary to describe it. The time-travel device has a … quality which you can perceive at a distance. Although, come to think of it, this quality probably did not function when the device was … here, and you were not.”
Jason sighed. There was, he knew by now, no point in trying to conceal things from this old member of an old race. He maintained a silence which Oannes recognized as the acknowledgment it was.
“But,” the Nagom continued, “how do you know that the female is in the same location as the device, which was removed from her?”
/> “I don’t know, of course,” Jason whispered harshly. “But it’s all I’ve got to go on. Do you have any better suggestions?”
“No,” the alien admitted. “And it is not unreasonable that they would be keeping her in the same general area where the device is being studied, inasmuch as she is, herself, an object of study. Lead on.”
Jason did so, through endless empty corridors, navigating by means of his display. As he did so, he noticed that the implanted computer, using the data it received through his eyes, was building up a new map—or, more accurately, floor plan. Order was emerging from chaos, although Deirdre’s TRD still lay in the murky realms beyond the pattern of corridors that grew like a living organism in the display as fast as Jason saw them. Through that pattern, the other red dot moved at the rate of Sidney’s walk. At least the implant now had a firm basis for distances, and the rate at which the two dots grew closer together enabled Jason to estimate how much further they had to go, relative to how far they’d come. And he became more and more nervous.
“Oannes,” he whispered, “why are we being allowed to walk further and further into this … structure? Why aren’t the Teloi swarming all over us?”
“They may not be aware of our presence.”
“But surely they’ve detected us!” Jason looked around nervously for anything that looked like cameras or sensors.
“Remember, they have never required security measures within this … realm. And even if they had, vigilance tends to wear down over the course of a hundred thousand years. Furthermore, our lack of any advanced tools other than the small ones I am carrying on my person has a good side: we are not conspicuous at a distance.”
