Dark Universe (18 page)

He yawned as though it were a quite spontaneous expression of weariness--in case anybody should be listening or zivving--and studied the reflected auditory pattern. Arranged around the dining slab were benches of similar construction. The slumber ledge, too, was a flimsy thing supported on the apparently traditional four legs.

Then he drew up sharply, but tried not to give any indication he had discovered he was being listened to--zivved, he reminded himself. There was an elevated opening in the right wall, beyond the slumber ledge. And through that space he caught the sound of breathing purposely made shallow to insure concealment. Someone was standing out there zivving everything he did.

Very well, the safest course would be to move about as little as possible and thereby reduce the chances of betraying himself.

He yawned noisily once more, fixing in mind the position of the slumber ledge. Then he went over and lay down. They expected him to be exhausted, didn't they? Then why not _be_ exhausted?

Comfortable against the softness of the manna fiber mattress, he realized that swimming the underground river _had_ been an ordeal. And it wasn't too long before he was asleep.

Scream after scream crashed in on his slumber and once again he recognized the impressions as nonaudible.

Leah!

Forcing himself to remain in the dream, he tried to pry more deeply beyond the communicative link with Kind Survivoress. But the erratic contact conveyed only the essence of horror and despair. He tried to work his way psychically toward the woman and succeeded in tightening somewhat the bond between them.

"_Monsters! Monsters! Monsters!_" she was sobbing over and over again.

And through her torment he caught the sensation of her eyelids being closed so tightly that the inner portions of her ears were roaring under the presure; strong, determined hands gripping her arms and pulling her first this way, then that; a sharp point jabbing brutally into her shoulder; odors so frightfully offensive in their alien quality that he felt like gagging with her.

Then he intercepted the impression of fingers digging into the flesh above and below her eyes and forcing the lids open.

And instantly all Radiation screamed at him through the woman's conscious. He recognized the stentorian blare of silent sound as being identical to the stuff the monsters had hurled against the corridor walls.

Only, now it was overpowering as it crashed against Leah's eyes. He feared the woman would be driven insane.

With that single convulsive sensation he lurched out of the nightmare which he knew had been no nightmare at all.

What he had heard through Kind Survivoress' eyes certainly could have been nothing but the Nuclear Fire of Radiation itself. It was as though he had crossed the boundary of material existence to share part of the torture the Atomic Demons were meting out to her beyond infinity.

Trembling, he lay motionless on the slumber ledge while the bitter aftertaste of his pseudo dream experience persisted like a fever.

Leah--gone.

Her

world--empty.

The corridors--populated with monstrous humans who hurled derisive, screaming echoes that carried no sound at all. Fiendish creatures who struck their victims with paralysis before carrying them--where?

A Zivver came in, placed a shell of food on the dining surface and left without speaking. Jared went over and picked at the ration. But his interest in the meal was submerged in the remorseful realization that, during his foolhardy quest for Darkness and Light, his familiar worlds had crumbled all about him.

The pace of irrevocable change had been furious and relentless.

And he grimly suspected that things would, _could_ never be the same.

Certainly, the malevolent beings in their outlandish attire of loosely fitting cloths had laid claim to all the worlds and passages and were now taking over with vehement determination. He was sure, too, that the design of hot spring failures and dwindling water level was but another phase of their scheme.

And while all these things had happened he had squandered his time searching for something trivial, nursing the belief that Light was desirable. He had let the solid things of material worth slip from his grasp as he chased a whimsical breeze down an endless corridor.

Things may have been different had he, instead, organized the Levels and led the fight for Survival. There might even have been hope of returning to a normal pattern of existence, with Della as his Unification partner. Perhaps he might not even have found out she was--Different.

But it was too late now. He was a virtual prisoner in the very world which he had expected would provide the key to his futile quest for Light.

And both he and the Zivvers were themselves helpless captives of the monsters who ruled the corridors.

He pushed the food aside and ran a hand through his hair. Outside, the world was animate with the audible effects of an activity period in full swing--loud conversation, children at play and, more remotely, the sound of rocks being piled on rocks as workers continued sealing off the entrance. Listlessly, he made a note of the fact that the latter noises were an excellent echo source.

But, more directly, he concerned himself with the despair which came with his conviction that he would find nothing _different_ here--nothing to justify having extended his search for Darkness and Light to this world.

Among the nearer audible effects he recognized Della's voice coming from the next shack. It was a happy, excited voice that leaped from subject to subject with a bubbling rapidity and was at times obscured by the effusive words of several other women. From bits of the conversation he gathered that she had quickly located all her Zivver relatives.

The curtains parted and Mogan stood in the entrance. His bulky form, silhouetted only by back sounding, coarsely punctured the silence of the shack.

The Zivver leader beckoned with a distinctive twist of his head. "It's about time we made sure you're one of us."

Jared feigned an indifferent shrug and followed him outside.

Mogan led the way alongside a row of dwelling units as many other Zivvers fell in behind them.

They reached a clearing and the leader drew to a halt. "We're going to have a little rough-and-tumble--just you and me."

Frowning obtusely, Jared listened up at the man.

"That's the surest way to find out whether you're really zivving, don't you agree?" Mogan said, spreading his hands.

And Jared heard that they were huge hands, altogether commensurate with the size of the man. "I suppose it is," he agreed, with just a tinge of futility.

A figure broke out of the crowd and he recognized Della as she started toward him, concern heavy in the shallowness of her breathing.

But someone caught her arm and drew her back.

"Ready?" Mogan asked.

Jared braced himself. "Ready."

But apparently the Zivver leader _wasn't_ ready--not just yet.

"All right, Owlson," he shouted, facing the party that was still working at the entrance. "I want complete silence over there."

Then he turned to those around him. "Nobody makes a sound--understand?"

Jared concealed his hopelessness and said sarcastically, "You're forgetting I can still smell." He realized gratefully that Mogan had also forgotten about the noise of the waterfall which, thank Light, _couldn't_ be silenced.

"Oh, we're not finished with the preparations," the other laughed.

Several Zivvers seized Jared's arms while another caught his hair and twisted his head back. Then wads of coarse, moist substance were stuffed into his ears and forced up his nostrils--mud!

Released into an odorless, soundless void, he brought his hands up to his face. But before he could dig the clay from his ears, Mogan closed in and locked his neck in a rocklike grip. He was wrenched off his feet and hurled violently to the ground.

Disoriented because there was no sound or scent to guide him, he sprang up and delivered a blow that landed on nothing and succeeded only in throwing him off balance again.

Dimly, he heard the laughter that ifitered through the mud in his ears.

But the sound was too vague to bear any impressions of Mogan's whereabouts. Fists swinging, Jared stumbled forward, circling--until the Zivver leader clouted him on the back of his neck and flattened him once more.

When he tried to rise this time, a fist pounded into his face, almost taking his head off. And he would have been convinced the following blow did accomplish that purpose if unconsciousness had not deprived him of the ability to be sure of anything.

Eventually, he responded to the stinging splash of water against his face and raised himself on an elbow. The mud had fallen from one of his ears and he could hear the circle of men who stood zivving menacingly down on him.

From within the crowd came the voices of Mogan and Della:

"Of course I knew he wasn't a Zivver," the girl was maintaining.

Irately, Mogan reminded, "And yet you brought him here."

"_He_ brought _me_." She laughed scornfully. "I couldn't have made it by myself. My only chance was to let him think I believed he was a Zivver too."

"Why didn't you tell us the truth before this?"

"And give him a chance to turn on me before you could stop him?

Anyway, I knew you'd find out for yourself sooner or later."

Jared shook his head dully, remembering Leah's warning against the girl and his own doubts from time to time. If he had been able to listen beyond the lobe of his ear, he might have heard that she was using him all along merely as an escort in her search for the Zivver World.

He tried to rise, but someone planted a foot on his shoulder and pressed him back against the ground.

"What's he doing here?" Mogan asked the girl.

"I don't know exactly. He's hunting for something and he thinks he might find it here."

"What?"

"Darkness."

Mogan made his way over and hauled Jared to his feet. "What did you come here for?"

Jared said nothing.

"Were you trying to find this world so you could lead a raid on it?"

When that drew no response, the leader added, "Or are you helping _the monsters_ locate us?"

Still Jared offered no reply.

"We'll let you think it over awhile. You might realize a frank tongue _could_ make things easier for you."

Jared, however, sensed there would be no leniency. For, as long as he was alive, they would always fear he might escape and carry out whatever purpose they suspected he was concealing.

Trussed with fiber rope, he was taken halfway across the world and shoved into a dwelling unit not too far from the roaring cataract. It was a cramped shack whose wall openings were barred with stout manna stems.

Several times during his first period of confinement Jared entertained the idea of escape. Breaking out of the manna shack, he heard, would be relatively simple--if he could manage to free his hands.

His wrists, however, were too securely bound.

But escape to--what? With the main entrance already blocked by the work party and the barrier it was erecting and with the savage currents of the underground river facing him in the other direction, freedom from the shack would be meaningless.

Under other circumstances, he might have eagerly listened forward to bolting captivity. But outside the Zivver domain were nothing but monster-filled corridors. Moreover, the other worlds must certainly have been laid desolate by the hateful creatures. And the only incentive that might have driven him on--the hope of finding a hidden, self-sufficient dwelling area for himself and Della--had been stripped away when the girl had turned against him.

During the second period he stood before the barred opening in the side of the shack and listened to the work crew as it finished blocking off the main entrance. Then, hopelessly, he leaned back against the wall and let the roar of the nearby cataract sweep his attention away from the other sounds.

In self-reproach he wondered what had made him think he might find Light in this miserable world. He had supposed that, since Zivvers could know what lay ahead without hearing, they must be exercising the same sort of power all men could presumably exercise in the presence of Light Almighty. And he had foolishly thought that the result of this activity would be a lessening of Darkness. But he had neglected one possibility: that lessness of Darkness might be something only the Zivvers themselves could recognize-- something forever removed from his own perception as a result of sensory limitations.

Stymied in his speculations on the Light-Darkness-Zivver relationship, he went over and lay on the slumber surface. He tried to keep Della from entering his thoughts but couldn't. Then, objectively, he conceded that what she had done-- tricking him into bringing her here--merely reflected a treachery basic to the nature of all Zivvers. Now Leah, on the other hand, never would have...

Finding himself thinking of Kind Survivoress, he wondered what had happened to her. Perhaps she was even now trying to contact him from the depths of Radiation. Unless he were asleep, though, he would never know it.

For the rest of that period, except when they brought his food, he spent as much time in slumber as he could, hoping she would come again.

But she didn't.

Toward the end of his third period of confinement he detected a faint noise outside the shack--a scurrying that was close enough to be audible above the throbbing spatter of the cataract. Then he caught Della's scent as she sprang forward and flattened herself against the outer wall.

"Jared!" she whispered anxiously.

"Go

away."

"But I want to help you!"

"You've helped enough already."

"Use your head. Would I be free to come here now if I had acted _any other_ way in front of Mogan?"

He listened to her fumbling with the solid curtain's rope lock. "I suppose you waited for the _first_ opportunity to let me loose," he said disinterestedly.

"Of course. It didn't come until just now--when the Zivvers started hearing noises out in the corridor."