David Galouye - Dark Universe

With his next step his foot fell off into the emptiness of a shallow depression and he pitched forward clumsily. Before rising he gathered up a pair of pebbles and rattled them in his hand.

But now the clicks seemed remote and alien. Only with great concentration could he refine from the echoes the impressions of what lay ahead. And he wondered whether faulty hearing might be one of the immediate effects of Radiation sickness. Then he felt a fear as intense as the Darkness around him when he recalled another legend: Anyone who encountered Radiation could expect all kinds of severe illnesses — fever, deafness, fatal vomiting, shedding of the hair and blindness, whatever that was.

Yet, physical self-concern was buried under a bitterness that engulfed him like the stifling vapor of a boiling pit. Ahead stretched only a future as empty of material things as the vast infinity from which he had just escaped.

His every purpose was now nothing more than a shattered dream — his worlds decimated; Della gone; his search for Light ended in the agonizing remorse of disappointment and delusion. All his life he had chased a ringing hope down an intriguing corridor, only to overtake it finally and find that it was no more than a wisp of air.

Plodding on into the Darkness, he rattled his pebbles desperately, paying the price of severe attention for each impression he wrung from the no longer familiar echoes. In a frenzy, he wrested as much perceptive content as he could out of each reflected tone. And even then he had to pause occasionally and send a hand fumbling ahead to touch out an indistinct obstacle.

He reached the intersecting passage through which he and Mogan had arrived at this larger corridor and, a few steps farther, the reflections of his clicks began gathering impressions of the Original World’s resonant hollowness off to his left.

Then he clamped his fist around the rattling stones and snuffed out their noises. Tensing, he backed off before the sounds that were coming from ahead — direct sounds he should have heard many beats earlier.

Voices — many of them. The corridor was loud with monsters! He could even pick up their scent. And mingled with it was the characteristic odor of Zivvers — unconscious captives, no doubt, who were being borne by the demons.

He retreated from the center of the passage and crouched between two outcroppings, making certain he was in an echo void. It occurred to him, however, that if he wanted to conceal himself from the creatures, he would have to make sure he was in a Light void too. So he backed even farther into the recess.

Now he was becoming aware of the Light that was beginning to seep into the fissure. But, determined to have nothing further to do with the monster stuff which had already begun to rob him of his hearing, he closed his eyes tightly.

With the auditory composite of the monsters and Zivvers firmly in mind, he turned his attention to the conversation between a pair of demons passing by:

“…glad we decided to finish up with the Zivvers.”

“So am I. They’re not too hard to bring around, since they already know how to use their eyes.”

“They indoctrinate easy. Now you take that last group from the Upper…”

That conversation was superseded by another as two more monsters filed by:

“…damned intriguing, this zivving phenomenon. Thorndyke says he wants to study it closely.”

“It’s not all that peculiar. Once Radiation stimulates genetic change, you can expect any kind of mutation, including vision in the infrared range, I suppose.”

Many of the words were meaningless. Nor could Jared remember the name “Thorndyke” listed among the hierarchy of Nuclear demons.

The last of the procession passed and he only crouched there, lost in disappointment. He had listened intensely and sniffed avidly. But there had been no trace of Della among the captives.

He had almost decided to continue on toward the Lower Level when he heard yet another demon coming from the direction of the Barrier, however. And he almost bolted from concealment as he caught the scent of Della at the same time.

Keeping his eyes firmly closed so there would be no distraction from the Light impressions, he waited tensely. Finally the creature drew abreast of the fissure and Jared hurled himself upon it, driving his shoulder into its ribs.

Della’s inert weight came down upon him, but he shook free and lunged after her captor. He managed to catch the thing’s throat in the bend of his arm, but decided against wasting the time it would take to throttle the life out of it. Instead he pounded his fist againt the creature’s jaw until it went limp.

Lifting the girl onto his shoulder, he snapped his fingers to sound out his bearings, then raced on into the temporary security of the Original World. As best he could, he interpreted the reflections of the snaps and made his way across the central clearing. At random, he selected one of the shacks for further concealment.

Inside, he deposited Della on the floor and sat just within the opening, alertly listening for suspicious sounds.

Hundreds of breaths passed before he sensed the girl’s return to consciousness and heard her draw in an erratic breath. He hurried over and clamped a hand across her mouth in time to block a scream.

Against her terrified struggling he whispered, “It’s Jared. We’re in the Original World.”

When the fright had drained away he released her and told her what had happened.

“Oh, Jared!” she exclaimed after he had finished. “Let’s go find our hidden world while we still have the chance!”

“As soon as we can be sure there aren’t any more demons out in the corridors.”

Wearily, she rested her head against his arm. “We’ll find a pleasant world, won’t we?”

“The best. If it isn’t just like we want it, we’ll build it over to suit ourselves.”

“We’ll carve out a grotto first and then—” She hesitated. “Listen! What’s that?”

At first he heard nothing. Then, as their attentive silence deepened, there came a faint thump-thump , thump-thump . It was as though rocks, or something even harder, were striking one another. But, at the moment, he was more concerned over the fact that Della had heard it first. Could his encounter with Radiation have produced that degree of deafness already? Or was it merely that he was confused by the memory of having gained impressions through Light impulses and was forgetting how to use his ears?

“What is it?” she asked, rising.

“I don’t know.” He groped his way out of the residential structure. “It seems to be coming from this next shack.”

Homing in on the sound, he followed it through the entrance of that other living unit and stood listening to it flow up from a square opening in the floor. Della clung to his hand and he felt her start as she zivved the presence of the artificial pit.

He moved closer and listened sharply into the hole that descended at an acute angle instead of boring straight down. Now he could hear the thump-thump being distinctly modulated by an abrupt, regular series of elevations that stretched along the entire lower surface of the slanting tunnel.

“There are steps going down as far as I can hear,” he said.

“To where?”

He shrugged inadequately.

“Jared, I’m frightened.”

But he was rigid with thought, one foot poised above the first step. “The legends say Paradise isn’t far from the Original World.”

“There’s no Paradise down there! If we’re going to go anywhere , let’s get on with the search for our own world.”

He took the first step, reached for the next. He had found, to his distress, that Radiation was close to the Original World. But that didn’t mean Paradise, too, wasn’t somewhere around here.