Dark Universe (22 page)

He took an uncertain step in that direction, then checked himself and listened helplessly down at his empty hands. Without weapons he could do nothing against the vicious forces of infinity.

But he _could_ arm himself! If the Lower Level was as desolate as he had been led to believe, then he would probably meet little opposition on returning there. Possibly no one left in that world would even remember he was supposed to be a Zivver.

He gathered up a pair of stones and rattled them vigorously as he stepped off toward the Barrier and the worlds beyond. Now that he had finally committed himself to invading Radiation, he was surprised to find that the challenge did not, at the moment, impress him as being all that horrifying.

_Click-click-click-click_ . . .

The echoes rebounding from the walls and obstacles of the passageway were bare and featureless and a growing tmcertainty slowed his pace. He could scarcely hear the details of the things about him!

Anxiously, he cupped a hand behind an ear. When that did no good, he extended the hand in front of him where its groping could supplement the inadequate auditory impressions.

He had practically no listening ability left at all! The memory of having received eye-stimulating composites in Radiation was so strong and vivid that he could barely hear the present sonic ones.

His next step sent his shin crashing against a minor outcropping and he went hobbling forward as he swore at his own clumsiness and deafness. He collided with a hanging stone, lost his balance and fell on the edge of a yawning pit.

Confounded, he picked himself up and went ahead even more slowly, shuffling each foot forward before putting his full weight on it.

He fought down a growing fear of the unbearable hazards, staying within arm's reach of the right wall. And he listened suspiciously as he neared the area of the Barrier. He sensed more than heard that there was something out of place. He recognized what it was when he arrived at the spot where the obstruction of piled stones should have been. There he found nothing. The Nuclear demons had even destroyed the shield which protected the worlds from the evils of infinity. They had torn it down in order to remove the Survivors and animals. Faintly, he could smell the lingering scent of the latter in the corridor.

Tossing away his pebbles, he found two large rocks and clapped them resoundingly together again and again. But the reflections of even those vigorous _clacks_ returned practically unmodified, bearing only the meagerest of impressions.

With the next frantic clap, the rocks crumbled in his fists, leaving him clutching only handfuls of dirt. Despondently, he unclenched his fingers and let the particles trickle from his grip. Light! But he couldn't even hear the impact of the powder on the ground, much less the sound of its falling!

Frightened over his mounting incapacity, he floundered on. A few steps later he came up sharply against the right wall of the corridor and rebounded against a jagged stone formation, taking skin off his elbow.

Then he realized he was once more in the presence of Light.

The patch of silent sound clung to a rock up ahead, just like that other blotch of Light had covered the wall outside the Upper Level. Almost noiseless in volume, it filled the corridor with soft warmth.

Jared went ahead a bit more certainly, letting his eyes intercept the uncanny impressions of stone formations and hazards that were within range of the monster stuff.

The more cautious side of his judgment cried out a warning against using those unhearable composites to pick his way past the obstacles. But his hearing had already been so dulled by exposure to Radiation that, surely, this weak Light could increase the deafening effect but little.

He negotiated that stretch of passageway without faltering, even though he hadn't used his ears at all. When he turned the next bend, however, he pulled back against a sudden apprehension.

Now there was no more Light touching him. It was as though he were smothering in the great, silent folds of that clinging curtain of Darkness. He could feel it pressing in on him with a force that was strange, ominous, heavy.

He wanted to scream and charge deafly ahead, hoping that when he reached the familiar setting of the Lower Level he would no longer be tormented by this awful fear.

Then he remembered the Forever Man and how that pathetic recluse had cringed in stark terror from something which at the time had been meaningless, as far as Jared was concerned.

But it was different now. Now he _knew_ what Darkness was. And he could fully appreciate the Forever Man's unreasoning fright. Rigid with dismay, he listened intensely all around him. With his hearing and smell practically gone, Light only knew _what_ might be lurking in the flexures of that impenetrable curtain--waiting to spring upon him!

His ears finally _did_ manage to intercept a distant sound and he shied away from it. But before he could turn and bolt off, the direct auditory impressions resolved themselves into words:

"Light be thanked--the Period of Reunion has arrived."

He recognized Philar, the Guardian of the Way.

And a handful of voices answered, "Thank Light."

Philar: "Darkness will be swept away before Survivor."

Voices: "And Light will prevail."

It was almost a chant. But the expressions lacked the sincerity of forceful conviction.

Jared went forward to meet the party.

Philar: "We will open our eyes and feel the Great Light Almighty."

Voices: "And there will be no more Darkness."

"Go back!" Jared shouted. "Don't come this way!"

The party halted as he reached them in the Darkness.

"Who's

that?"

demanded the Guardian.

"Jared. You can't--"

"Out of the way. We are told Reunion is at hand."

"Who told you that?"

"Light's Emissaries. They said we must all come out of hiding and go beyond the Barrier."

"It's a trick!" Jared warned. "I've _been_ beyond the Barrier. You'll find only Radiation out there!"

"When we were unwise enough to conceal ourselves from the Emissaries, that's what we believed too."

"But the Emissaries are deceiving you! _They're_ the ones who turned off the hot springs!"

"Only to make us use our heads and abandon the worlds. That's why they attached patches of Light to the walls. That's why they occasionally left behind the Almighty's Holy Tubular Vessels--so we would be introduced gradually to Light."

Philar pushed past him and the rest of the party followed.

"Come back!" Jared called desperately after them. "You're walking into a trap!"

But they only continued.

He swore and resumed his trek toward the Lower Level, even more vehement in his determination to arm himself for a vengeful assault on Radiation.

Some time later he arrived at the Lower Level with more than a few accumulated scratches and bruises, despite his acquaintance with the passageways closer to his world.

Pausing at the entrance, he let the tension drain out of him like a waning fever. Here was a setting so familiar that he could move confidently about without even using clickstones.

But there was no valid relief, no gentle feeling of homecoming, no elation. The stifling, unnerving curtain of Darkness was pierced only by a barren silence that gave the place an air of incongruity, a tinge of almost hostile strangeness.

Without the central caster sounding its familiar _clacks_, the entire world was a vast, forbidden echo void. He clapped his hands and listened to the awful stillness.

No longer was there the serene gurgling of the hot springs to give literal and audible warmth to his world. And, over there on his left, dying manna plants imposed a crisp, harsh dissonance on the reflections of the _clap_.

Hanging somewhere out there in the Darkness was the violent fear that had coaxed frantic cries of horror from the Forever Man. Like the Lightlessness itself, Jared could feel the terror closing in on him too. But, wresting his mind back to the task before him, he stepped off briskly for the weapons rack.

He clapped his hands once more to obtain a crude composite of the major landmarks for use as reference points. Then his memory automatically filled in the surface details all about him.

He shouted out in pain when, with his next step, his knee pounded immovable stone. Toppled by his momentum, he went hurtling forward over the obstacle.

He struggled up, massaging his bruised leg. And he swore at the irresponsible Survivor who had violated the Misplacement of Bulky Objects Law. But his anger subsided as he realized that if he had been here when the monsters were decimating the Lower Level, he too would have probably thought of misplacing boulders in the hope that they would serve as hidden obstacles for the invaders.

There was a sound on his right and he spun in that direction.

Someone was hidden in a wall fissure, sobbing frantically--a woman. But she had clamped her hands over her mouth to conceal the sounds.

He stepped toward her and she screamed, "No! No! Don't!"

"It's

me--Jared."

"Stay away!" she cried. "You're one of them!"

He held back, recognizing Survivoress Glenn, an elderly widow.

Helplessly, he listened down at the ground. There was nothing he could do to quell her fears--no reassurance he could offer.

And, sweeping his ears out over this ghost of a world that had been desolated by the monsters, he readily heard the Lower Level was beyond reclamation and would never be lived in again. The demons who had ushered in Doomsperiod had emptied his world of all the meaning it once held.

But now _he_ would bring the meaning of vengeance into their infinity! This much he resolved in the name of whatever true Divinity the Survivors had slighted by their devotion to the false Light Almighty.

He spun around and strode grimly for the weapons rack.

"No! Don't go away!" the woman begged. "Don't leave me here for the monsters!"

He sent his hand plunging into the first compartment, fearing for a moment that he would find nothing within. But his anxious fingers closed on a bow and he slung it over his shoulder. That in reprisal for the Lower Level! Two quivers of arrows took their place beside the bow, hanging against his back. Those for Della and the Prime Survivor. A third quiver he strapped across his other shoulder. For Owen!

Reaching into the next compartment, he found a bundle of spears and gathered them under his left arm. For Cyrus, the Thinker! Another sheaf of lances went under his right arm. For Leah and Ethan and the Forever Man!

"Come back!" the woman implored. "Don't leave me here by myself!

Don't let the monsters get me!"

She was out of the crevice now and he picked up her sounds as she crawled farther into the world, heading for the entrance so she could cut him off.

Ignoring her, he paused and clapped his hands forcefully for a final hearing of the intimate, for a last indulgence of nostalgia. Then he struck out for the entrance.

He didn't hear the fluttering of wings until the hateful sound was almost upon him. He caught the scent of the soubat at the same time and bolted into frantic action, trying to relieve himself of his excess weapons in time to meet the infuriated charge.

Slipping the quiver straps off his shoulders, he hurled the bow out of his way and dropped one of the bundles of spears. Before he could even begin fumbling with the rope that held together the other sheaf of lances, the soubat hurled itself through the entrance and launched its first onslaught.

Jared dived to one side. He managed to escape the animal's initial pass, suffering only a talon-sliced forearm in the maneuver. Hurling himself on the ground, he again tore at the knot on the bundle of spears.

The soubat's high-pitched shrieks mingled with the terrified cries of the woman, etching every feature of the Lower Level as audibly as though it were the central echo caster itself that was filling the world with sound.

Executing its sweeping turn high against the dome, the marauder plunged down in a second swooping charge. And Jared heard that he couldn't hope to work a spear free before the fanged thing closed in on him.

In the next instant, as he braced himself to receive the beast's full clawing impact, he was abruptly conscious of the Light cone that was darting out of the passageway into the Lower Level.

While it bathed him, it also provided his eyes with the impression of a great, screeching form that was hurtling down in all its fury.

A racking shudder of horror passed through him when he identified the impression as that of the soubat. If the creature had seemed hideous in its audible form, the evil ugliness it conveyed through the medium of Light composites was altogether beyond imagination.

The thing was practically within arm's reach when a tremendous burst of sound roared out of the entrance. At the same time a tiny tongue of odd Light, similar in tone to Hydrogen Himself, lanced into the world.

And Jared sensed that those twin occurrences had something to do with the soubat's going limp in midflight and plummeting to the ground beside him.

Before he could speculate further on the possible coincidence, however, the cone of Light advanced cautiously and he caught the scent of the monster behind it. Using the Light impressions as a guide, he gave the stubborn sheaf of spears a fierce kick and the lances came free, scattering over the ground.

He seized one and, turning toward the entrance, drew it back.

_Zip-hiss_.

Sharp pain boiled into his chest and the spear clattered to the ground as he stumbled forward and collapsed.

At first Jared thought he was receiving touch-sound impressions from Leah. He found himself listening--through the woman's consciousness, he felt certain--to many voices made indistinct by distance.

Too, the current of vocal impulses, passing through the "window," flared out to bounce against nearby square walls.

Undoubtedly, the composite was that of the shack in which Leah was being held prisoner. The experience this time, though, was most vivid.