Dark Universe Read online

  "Maybe you could. But I might have my pick of a dozen Upper Level men I'd prefer."

  He bristled. "How do you know? You haven't even had Ten Touches."

  She scooped up a stone and tossed it. Kerplunk.

  "I didn't ask for them," she said. "And I don't want them."

  He wondered whether a few swats in the right place wouldn't soften her tongue. "I'm not that objectionable!"

  "You-objectionable? Paradise no!" she returned cynically. "You're Jared Fenton of the Lower Level!"

  Another pebble went kerplunk.

  "'I hear something on that ledge,'" she mocked his earlier words. "'There's a boy lying up there listening out over the world.'"

  Della threw several more stones while he stood there with his ears trained severely on her. They all went kerplunk.

  "That demonstration was your uncle's idea," he reminded her.

  Instead of answering, she continued tossing rocks into the water. She had him on the defensive. And if he chose to strike back it would only seem he was in favor of their Unification, which couldn't be further from the truth. Unification and the obligations it brought would mean an end to his search for Light.

  Della rose and went to the grotto wall where a group of slender stones hung needlelike from the ceiling. She stroked them lightly, and melodious tones filled the recess with vibrant softness. It was a wistful tune that sang of pleasant things with deep, tender meaning. He was stirred by the girl's sensitive talent as he was by the sharp contrasts the music showed in her nature.

  She slapped several of the stones in an impulsive burst of temperament, then scooped up another pebble. Whispering through the air, her arm arched out to toss the rock as she turned and strode defiantly from the grotto.

  Kerplunk.

  Curious, he went over to explore for the puddle. He was concerned over the fact that he hadn't detected the liquid softness of water in the recess. He found the pool a moment later, however. A deep, almost still spring, it had a surface area no larger than his palm.

  Yet, over a distance of thirty paces, Della had casually cast more than a dozen stones-detecting and hitting her target with each one!

  Through much of the ceremony the next period, Jared found his thoughts returning to the girl. He wasn't as much disturbed by her arrogance as he was by the possibility that her pebble-throwing demonstration may have been calculated. Was she merely belittling his ability? Or was the performance really as casual as it had seemed? In either case, the capacity itself remained unexplained.

  Wheel Anselm moved closer to him on the Bench of Honor and slapped his back. "That Drake's plenty good, don't you think?"

  Jared had to agree, although there were several Lower Level Survivors who could hit more than three out of nine arrow targets.

  He concentrated on the reflected clacks of the central caster and listened to Drake draw another arrow. An anxious silence fell over the gallery and Jared tried unsuccessfully to pick out Della's breathing and heartbeat.

  Drake's bowstring twanged and the arrow whistled across the range. But the muffled thud of its impact revealed that it had missed the target and dug into earth.

  After a moment the Official Scorer called out, "Two hand widths to the right. Score: three out of ten."

  There was a burst of applause.

  "Good, isn't he?" Anselm boasted.

  Jared became more aware of Lorenz's breathing as the Adviser turned toward him and said, "I should think you'd be eager to get in on these contests."

  Still smarting from Della's insinuation that he was conceited, Jared said noncommittally, "I'm prepared for anything."

  The Wheel overheard and exclaimed, "That's fine, my boy!" He rose and announced, "Our visitor's going to lead off the spear-throwing competition!"

  More applause. Jared wondered, though, whether he had detected a feminine breath escaping in contempt.

  Lorenz brought him over to the spear rack and he spent some time selecting his lances.

  "What's the target?" he asked.

  "Woven husk discs-two hand spans wide-at fifty paces." The Adviser caught his arm and pointed it. "They're against that bank."

  "I can hear them," Jared assured. "But I want my targets thrown up in the air."

  Lorenz drew back. "You must want to hear how big a fool you can make of yourself."

  "It's my party." Jared gathered up his spears. "You just toss the discs."

  So Della was certain he had an exaggerated opinion of himself, was she? Riled, he broke out his clickstones and retreated to the fringe of the hot-springs area. Then he began a steady, brisk beat with the pebbles in his left hand. The familiar, refined tones supplemented those of the echo caster. And now he could clearly hear the things about him-the ledge on his right, the hollowness of the passageway behind him, Lorenz standing ready to cast the discs.

  "Target up!" he shouted at the Adviser.

  The first manna husk disc swished through the air and he let a spear fly. Wicker crunched under the impact of pointed shaft, then disc and lance clattered to the ground together.

  Momentarily, he sensed something was out of place. But he couldn't decide what it was. "Target up!"

  Another direct hit. And then another.

  Exclamations from the gallery distracted him and he missed his fourth shot. He waited for silence before ordering more discs into the air. The next five shots found their mark. Then he paused and listened intensely around him. Somehow he couldn't ignore the vague suspicion that something wasn't as it should be.

  "That was the last target," the Adviser shouted.

  "Get another," Jared called back, letting his remaining spear lie on the ground.

  An awed silence hung over the gallery. Then Anseim laughed and bellowed, "By Light! Eight out of nine!"

  "With that kind of ability," Lorenz added from the distance, "he must be a Zivver."

  Jared spun around. That was it-Zivvers! He realized that for heartbeats now he had been catching their scent!

  Just then someone shouted, "Zivvers! Up on the ledge!"

  Disorder swept the world. Women screamed and scrambled for their children while Survivors bolted for the weapons rack.

  Jared heard a spear zip down from the height and clatter against the Bench of Honor. The Wheel swore apprehensively.

  "Everybody stay where you are!" boomed a voice Jared had not forgotten from previous raids-that of Mogan, the Zivver leader. "Or the Wheel gets a shaft in the chest!"

  By now Jared had pieced together a more or less complete auditory composite of the situation. Mogan and a score of Zivvers were spaced along the ledge, the central caster's tones rebounding clearly against their raised lances. A lone Zivver guarded the entrance, standing next to the large boulder.

  As gingerly as he could, Jared stooped to retrieve his spear. But a lance hissed down and stabbed into the ground in front of him.

  "I said nobody moves!" Mogan's menacing voice poured down.

  Even if he could get his hand on the spear, Jared realized, the ledge would be out of range. The rear guard at the entrance, however, was a different matter. And there was nothing but boiling pits and manna plants between him and the man. If he could make it to the first spring, none of the raiders would be able to ziv his progress through the heated area.

  He traced the flight of another spear from the ledge. It sank into the echo caster's shaft, wedging itself against the pulley. And the Upper Level was thrown into stark silence.

  "Take what you want," the Wheel quavered, "and leave us alone."

  Jared sidled toward the first hot spring.

  "What do you know about a Zivver who's been missing for the past twenty periods?" Mogan demanded.

  "Nothing at all!" Anselm assured him.

  "Like Radiation you don't! But we'll find out for ourselves before we leave."

  Moist warmth swirled against Jared's chest and he lunged the rest of the way into the vapors.

  "We don't know anything about it!" the Wheel reiterated. "We've had a
Survivor missing too-for over fifty periods!"

  Clicking his teeth faintly to produce echoes as he crept through the hot-springs area, Jared pulled up sharply. A Zivver missing? One of the Upper Level men too? Could there be any connection between those two occurrences and what had happened to Owen? Had the Original World monster crossed the Barrier after all?

  Mogan barked, "Norton, Sellers-go search their grottoes!"

  Jared cleared the last boiling pit and stepped soundlessly over to the boulder. Now only the big rock stood between him and the raider guarding the entrance. And the man's breathing and heartbeat clearly divulged his exact location. No one had ever enjoyed such an advantage of potential surprise over a lone Zivver! But he had to strike fast. Norton and Sellers were already trotting down the incline and would, in the next three or four breaths, pass within a few paces of the boulder.

  More things than he could keep track of happened in the next instant. Even as he started his lunge around the rock, he caught the horrible stench of the thing from the Original World. It was too late, however, to check his charge.

  Then, as he broke around the boulder, a great cone of roaring silence screamed out of the passageway. The incredible sensation struck him squarely in the face with deafening force. It was as though obscure regions were being opened in his mind-as though thousands of sensitive nerves that had never been stimulated before were suddenly flooding his brain with alien impulses.

  In that same instant he heard the zip-hiss that had sounded in the Original World just before Owen collapsed. And he listened first to the Zivver crumpling before him and then to the frantic cries of distress rising from his rear.

  Whirling to flee before the monster and the terrifying noise that he could neither hear nor feel, Jared was only vaguely aware of the Zivver spear that was screeching in his direction.

  He tried to duck at the last heartbeat.

  But he was too late.

  Chapter Four

  Guided by clickstones, Jared went cautiously down the passageway. The inconsistencies before him were distressing. The corridor itself was both familiar and strange. He was certain he had been here before. There was that slender stone dripping cold water into the puddle below with melodious monotony, for instance. He had stood beside it many times, running his hands over its slick moistness and listening to the beauty of the drops.

  Yet, even as he aimed his clicks directly at it now, it changed like a living thing, growing until its tip actually touched the water, then shrinking back into the ceiling. Nearby, the mouth of a pit opened and closed menacingly. And the passage itself contracted and expanded as though it were a giant's lung.

  "Don't be afraid, Jared." A gentle, feminine voice stirred the deep silence. "it's just that we've forgotten how to keep things in place."

  Her tone was soothing and familiar, yet unfamiliar and disturbing at the same time. He sent out precise clicks. The impression returning from nearby was like a silhouette-as though he were hearing the woman only with back sounding. Her features were blank. And when he reached out, she wasn't there. Yet she spoke:

  "It's been so long, Jared! The details are all gone."

  He went hesitantly forward. "Kind Survivoress?"

  And he sensed her amusement. "You make it sound so-stiff."

  Instantly, an entire flight of misplaced childhood memories rushed back. "But you-weren't even real! You and Little Listener and the Forever Man-how can you be anything but a dream?"

  "Listen around you, Jared. Does any of this sound real?"

  The hanging stone was still squirming. Rock brushed against his arm as the right wall closed in, then pulled away again.

  Then he was only dreaming-just as he had dreamed, oh, so many times, so many gestations ago. He remembered with a pang of nostalgia how Kind Survivoress would take him by the hand and lead him off. It wasn't a hand he could always feel. And she didn't really take him anywhere, because he would be asleep on his ledge all the while.

  Yet, suddenly he would be scampering in the familiar passage or in a nearby world with Little Listener, the boy who heard only the inaudible sounds of the minor insects. And Kind Survivoress would explain, "You and!, Jared, can keep the Listener from being lonesome. Just think how awful his world is-all pitch silent! But I can bring him into this passage, as I can bring you. When I do, it's as though he wasn't deaf any more. And the two of you can play together."

  Jared was fully back in the familiar-strange passageway now.

  And Kind Survivoress offered, "Little Listener's a grown man. You wouldn't know him."

  Confused, Jared said, "Dream things don't grow!"

  "We're special dream things."

  "Where's the Listener?" he asked skeptically. "Let me hear him."

  "He and the Forever Man are fine. The Forever Man's old now, though. He's not really a Forever Man, you know-just almost. But there's no time to hear them. I'm worried about you, Jared. You've got to wake up!"

  For a moment he almost felt as though he were going to break out of the dream. But then his thoughts went calmly back to his childhood. He remembered how Kind Survivoress had said he was the only one she could reach-and, even then, only when he was asleep. But he wouldn't stop telling people about her. And she was afraid because she knew others were beginning to wonder whether he might be a Different One. She didn't want the fate that befell all the Different Ones to befall him. So she had quit coming.

  "You must wake up, Jared!" She interrupted his reminiscences. "You're hurt and you've been unconscious too long!"

  "Is that all you came back for-just to wake me up?"

  "No. I want to warn you about the monsters and about all the dreams I've heard you have-dreams of hunting for Light. The monsters are hideous and evil! I reached out and touched one's mind, it was so full of horrible, strange things that I couldn't stay in it for more than a fraction of a heartbeat!"

  "There's more than one monster?"

  "There are many of them."

  "What about hunting Light?"

  "Don't you hear, Jared, you're only chasing more dream stuff? There's no such thing as Darkness and Light, as you think of them. You're just trying to escape responsibility. There's Survivors hip to think of, Unification-things that really mean something!"

  He had always been sure that if his mother had lived she would have been quite like Kind Survivoress.

  He started to answer her. But she was no longer there.

  Jared rolled against the softness of a manna fiber mattress and felt the bandage on his head.

  From somewhere in the distance, rising above the audible background, came a reassuring paternal voice pacing itself through the monotonous patter of the Familiarization Routine:

  "… Here we are under the echo caster, son. Hear how loud it sounds? Notice the direction of the clacks-straight up. We're in the center of the world. Listen to how the echoes come back from all the walls at practically the same time. This way, boy…"

  Jared elevated himself on an unsteady elbow and someone caught his shoulders, easing him down again.

  It was Adviser Lorenz, who turned his head the other way and urged, "Go tell the Wheel he's coming around."

  Jared caught Della's receding scent as she left the recess. It had to struggle through the heavier odors clinging to everything around him-odors that identified Wheel Anselm's grotto.

  From outside, the tutoring father's spiel bore back in on Jared's conscious, complicating his attempts to reorient himself.

  "… There, directly before you, son-can you hear that empty space in the sound pattern? That's the entrance to our world. Now we're going over to the poultry yard. Watch it, boy! There's an outcropping about five paces in front of you. Let's stop here. Feel it. Get an idea of its size and shape. Try to hear it. Remember exactly where it is. And you'll save yourself many a bruised shin…"

  Jared tried to banish the distracting voice and compose his thoughts. But the effects of his recent dream lay heavily upon him.

  It was most odd t
hat Kind Survivoress should emerge from his forgotten fantasies all of a sudden, as though he had reached back into the abyss of his past and brought forward a warm, memorable slice of childhood. But he recognized the manifestation for what it was-no more than a wistful yearning for the security he hadn't known since his own father had taken him by the hand and Familiarized him with his world, as that attentive father outside was doing now.

  "What in Radiation happened?" he managed.

  "You took a lance broadside on the temple," Lorenz reminded. "You've been out like an echo caster for a whole period."

  Suddenly he remembered-everything. And he lurched up. "The monster! The Zivvers!"

  "They're gone-all of them."

  "What happened?"

  "Best we could make out was that the monster seized a Zivver at the entrance. Two other Zivvers tried to save him. But they just collapsed in their tracks."

  Clacks from the central caster entered through parted curtains and bounced off the Adviser's face, carrying away a composite of his apprehensive expression. Something else was hidden among the wrinkles, adding further tautness to his closed eyelids-an uneasy hesitancy. The Adviser appeared to be deciding whether to say something.

  Jared, however, was more concerned over the monster's having invaded the Upper Level. Until now, he had been certain the Barrier was adequate to keep the creature on the other side. He felt that he and Owen deserved whatever they had gotten for violating the taboos. But it didn't end there. Rather, the monster had crossed the Barrier to enter one of the worlds of man. And once more Jared wondered whether he might not be responsible. He had invaded the Original World first, hadn't he? And hadn't the monster picked a most convincing time to strike again-just when he was beginning to compound blasphemy by giving thought to resuming his search for Light?

  The Adviser drew in a decisive breath. "What were you doing when you got hit by that spear?"

  "Trying to reach the Zivver on guard at the entrance."

  Lorenz stiffened audibly. "Then you admit it?"

  "What's there to admit? I heard a chance to carry off a hostage."

  "Oh." The word was shaded with disappointment. Then the Adviser added dubiously, "The Wheel will be glad to learn that. A lot of us wondered why you stole away."