Timegods' World (41 page)
Authors: L.E. Modesitt Jr.
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy
IN THE THIRD year the pace stepped up. Not only was the academic load heavier, but we began full-scale physical training. Not just conditioning, but physical flexibility, hand-to-hand combat, weapons familiarization, even life-support equipment training—including deep-space gear.
Carrine resigned a ten-day into the third year, leaving seven of us.
One of the more interesting courses was taught by a Senior Guard called Sammis. “Attitude Adjustment” was the title. That didn’t cover the half of it.
The day we started, Sammis lined us up on a field on the edge of Quest. Some of the training facilities were on the other side of Query, but from the field I could see the Tower over Sammis’s shoulder.
We stood in the center of a series of posts of different heights. Each post had a tiny platform just big enough for both feet mounted on top.
Sammis waited in front of us until he had our attention.
“In this course you learn by doing. The first exercise is to slide from the top of one post to the top of the next. Like this.”
He winked out and appeared on the platform top of the first post, disappeared and reappeared on the top of the second post. Like a jagged bolt of black lightning, he slid from post top to post top and reappeared back on the ground in front of us.
“Now you try it.” He pointed at Ferrin. “You start.”
Ferrin slid undertime to the first post, broke out with only one foot on the platform, lost his balance, tried to slide, started leaning before
he could reorient, and fell to the grass. That first post wasn’t much taller than knee-high. The injury was more to his pride than posterior.
he could reorient, and fell to the grass. That first post wasn’t much taller than knee-high. The injury was more to his pride than posterior.
Halcyon giggled. Sammis turned on her.
“Halcyon, you’re next.”
She made it to the third post before tumbling off.
Eventually, it was my turn. I took it carefully, and outside of wavering on the fourth or fifth post, made it through all fifteen platforms.
Sammis was frowning when I finished.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No, no.” He shook his head. “Just … nothing.”
He left me standing there while he watched Loragerd fall off the platform of the second post.
No one else got past the fifth post that day. Didn’t seem all that hard to me, but I’d been sliding from rock to rock in the hills behind the house ever since the day I met the mountain cat, and that was almost as far back as I could really remember.
Tyron called it a pointless exercise, but it wasn’t. As Sammis explained after watching everyone (but me) fall off the tiny platforms, “This is to get you up to speed for real diving. In a lot of dives, where you end up could spell the difference between staying in one piece and becoming several. Some divers,” and he seemed to have someone in mind, “are gifted enough to dive out of a waterfall while being thrown head over heels. Most of you will find you can’t dive except from a relatively stable platform. If you land where you aren’t supposed to, you won’t be able to dive back.”
Oh, it made sense, all right, and so did the “attitude adjustment” exercises that Sammis introduced in the ten-days that followed. Some of the trainees, like Loragerd and Ferrin, never could handle more than the simplest setups. Patrice got pretty fair at it.
We each had a different “final”—supposedly based on what Sammis thought we should be able to handle.
Sammis trotted, or slid, me out to a site on the western cliffs.
“Loki, this could be more than you can handle. I want to make it clear. This isn’t a test for passing or failing. It was designed to demonstrate what you can and cannot handle. If you get into trouble, just slide clear. Do you understand?”
His face was kindly, almost worried. Most of the time he had an elvish cast to his features, hinting at mischief.
I nodded.
“The course is set up in increasing order of difficulty, but it’s blind. You won’t be able to see your next breakout stage until you reach the stage before. You are not to break out except next to the Locator flags.
At the last point, there is an envelope with your name on it. If you can, bring it back.”
At the last point, there is an envelope with your name on it. If you can, bring it back.”
The whole setup got to me. At least before, I knew approximately where I was headed.
“You mean, somehow when I reach the first point, I’ll see the second one.”
“Tougher than that. At the first-stage flag is a vector direction arrow for the second stage. The same is true for the next, and so on. You may have only a moment to absorb that information before sliding. There are ten landing points. After the last, or when you stop, return here.”
I wiped my forehead. The more I heard about this test, the less I liked it. Despite what Sammis said, I had the feeling there was more to it.
I stalled.
“You mean, I could be falling through midair trying to absorb more directions?”
He grinned. “Not quite that bad, but I wouldn’t stay put very long.”
“Where do I start?”
Sammis pointed to a flag fluttering below the top of a cliff overhanging the beach.
I nodded and slid, but I didn’t break out immediately. Even though it’s difficult, you can get some idea of what a landing point involves from the undertime, like looking up from beneath the water at twilight.
The ledge was narrow. Something white fluttered from the rock. I oriented myself undertime to break out facing the white object, presumably the flag and the directions to the next stage.
The ledge was even narrower than I had anticipated, and the wind gusted around me. The permaflex vector arrow attached to the flagstaff indicated a point on the rocks offshore. Even from the cliff tops I could see the surf crashing over them. In between the waves, I could see another banner. Belatedly recalling Sammis’s injunction not to hang around, I slid again.
From the understream I watched the breakers and tried to locate the vector directions before I broke out on the rocks. I’d never tried really delaying a slide consciously before, but it seemed to work. The vector arrow was attached to the flagstaff.
I appeared on the wet and very slippery rocks, right after a substantial wave, hoping the area would be water-free for at least a unit or so, and concentrated on the vector. The arrow pointed back to the cliffs farther down the coast. The course pattern was apparently a zigzag along the coastline in order to prevent me from seeing more than one point ahead. I located the flag and slid undertime to avoid the breaker whose advance
spray on my neck indicated it was about to crash over me.
spray on my neck indicated it was about to crash over me.
From the undertime, point three was on a thin spike of rock jutting out from the cliffs. The spike wavered as the flag fluttered in the wind. Was the rock wavering, or was it my undertime perspective? I didn’t like it at all. I decided to see if I could flash by it. You know, just take a quick peek and retreat undertime.
I’d never done a slide that way before, but I didn’t like that flag placement.
I actually put a little weight on the stone for an instant and felt it give before I ducked back undertime. The vector arrow pointed to the base of the cliff below.
Sammis be damned. The course had been set up for keeps. But I was going to finish it and find out why.
Point four was established on a peninsula of fragmented rocks and jumbled stone. From the undertime I could see the white flag and the vague form of the vector arrow, but not much else. Each point was making me more wary of the whole exercise.
What was the latest catch?
Was there a tidal blowhole? A rocksucker flattened under the flag waiting for me to step down? Physical reactions are an illusion in the undertime, but I felt I shuddered as I hung there, thinking about the acid touch of a giant rocksucker snapping up around me.
How about coming out next to the rock at a slight angle in order not to be where the course designer planned for me to arrive? I was supposed to touch each point. How close?
Finally, and the non-time moments hung like icicles while I decided, I skipped through. My second guess had been correct. One of the largest rocksuckers I’d ever seen was draped flat over the rugged rocks, with a tentacle loosely encircling the white flagstaff.
I was back undertime virtually instantaneously, but even so, the rocksucker’s sting-arms whipped through the space where I’d been fast enough for me to sense a sudden rush of air just before I slid undertime.
I missed the vector arrow in my haste to get clear.
Sliding back and positioning myself at a steeper angle to the flagstaff, I leaned in with another flash. The angle made it difficult, but after two more glimpses, I managed to determine the direction to point five.
The fifth flag was not at sea, nor high in the cliffs, but straight along the beach line to a level space on the sand.
I studied the flat circle around the flag from the undertime, but couldn’t see anything out of order. I jumped onto the sand as close to the flagstaff as I could manage, focused on the vector arrow, and tried to locate point six.
I didn’t get that far before I was tossed head over heels into the air by a blast of air that made a hurricane seem gentle. I felt strangely light.
I’d managed to memorize the directions, although I hadn’t seen the flag for the next point. I slid undertime from my midair tumbling, mostly upright, and reoriented myself.
Given the nasty nature of the course, I somehow suspected the gadgetry involved with point six would have shortly reversed flow, and I would have found myself smashed into the hard sand. The farther along I got, the less happy I was getting about the test. The air-blast generator or whatever wasn’t a test. There was no way for me to have known what was waiting and not much of a way to avoid it. The point had been deliberately designed to see if I could slide undertime after I’d been bushwhacked.
I put it behind me—for the moment—and slid in the direction the arrow had pointed. The slide seemed to take longer, but since it’s all subjective in the undertime, the unseen examiners couldn’t tell my fumbling so long as I located the seventh point.
The obstacle for point seven was clear. They, whoever “they” were, had lowered the flag from an overhanging cliff, letting it float in midair, a good fifty feet above a loose talus pile.
No way in the world I could obtain footing anywhere close to that flag, and even standing beneath it would have been dangerous.
I hovered there in the undertime, although that’s not precisely how it works, trying to figure out how to get a look at the vector arrow. If necessary, I could flash through, fall, and dive out of the fall. The rocks below were just far enough and sharp enough that, if I goofed, I’d end up with more than a few broken bones.
I could give up, but somehow, someway, damned if the unknown “they” were going to get the best of me.
Well … if I could hang in midair in the undertime, why not in real-time? Not exactly the same, but it was worth a try. Maybe I could leave my heels in the undertime as sort of an anchor.
I tried it … and damned if it didn’t work.
Offbalance and feeling like I was going to pitch forward, I was still hanging in midair in front of the damned flagstaff. I wasted no time and studied the locator diagram, glanced along the vector path, saw the glimmer of white, and jumped back undertime.
As I slid on a low angle back down to the surf line, I wondered what was next. So far I’d seen only single-item booby traps, but with three points left to go, I’d have been surprised if something weren’t double-trapped.
The white flag was there, all right, and I reached it before I thought
I would—again, a subjective reaction, but I hesitated before I broke out. From the undertime, I could dimly see the flag whipped by the spray and wind, located in the middle of more rocks in an overactive surf line. If I broke out there, I’d risk being pounded by the surf and tossed onto the rocky shore. But was that the clue?
I would—again, a subjective reaction, but I hesitated before I broke out. From the undertime, I could dimly see the flag whipped by the spray and wind, located in the middle of more rocks in an overactive surf line. If I broke out there, I’d risk being pounded by the surf and tossed onto the rocky shore. But was that the clue?
I mentally pushed myself undertime close to the flag, searching for a clue. I wanted to kick myself when it penetrated. No small white rectangle where the vector arrow should have been. A phony point eight, short of where the real point eight was.
The actual point eight was in the middle of the long waves farther out, the tall flag anchored from beneath the water with no place to break out. I did the split-entry trick a second time, leaving my heels locked in the undertime, and as quickly as possible, studied the vector arrow pointing to the ninth flag.
It pointed up the coast and right into the middle of the lava cliffs. Right in the middle of the cliffs was an understatement.
The breakout point was a small cubical room hollowed from the solid rock without any windows or doors. I could tell as I circled the space in the undertime that it was surrounded with machinery of some sort.
Beginning to feel more than even abnormally nervous about the last stages of the damned test, my blood was both boiling and burning. The whole thing wasn’t even close to an ordinary test.
From the undertime I could sense the power of the machines buried in the walls of the rock chamber. Even though I couldn’t determine anything, I was betting they would be focused on me the minute I appeared.
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