David Galouye: Dark Universe

They headed into more familiar territory and he announced, “We’ve got to report this to the Prime Survivor.”

“We can’t!” Owen protested. “We broke the law in coming here!”

Which was a complication Jared hadn’t considered. Owen, to be sure, was in enough trouble as it was, having let the cattle get in the manna orchard last period.

Several hundred breaths later, Jared led the way around the final major hazard — a huge pit without bottom. He put his pebbles away. Not long afterward he hissed for silence, then drew Owen over to a recess in the wall.

“What’s wrong?” the other demanded.

“Zivvers!” he whispered.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“You will in a few heartbeats. They’re going down the Main Passage ahead. If they turn this way we may have to run for it.”

The sounds in the other tunnel were more audible now. A sheep bleated and Jared recognized the pitch. “That’s one of our animals. They raided the Lower Level.”

The Zivver voices reached maximum volume as the pillagers passed the corridor intersection, then fell off.

“Come on,” Jared urged. “They can’t ziv us now.”

He went not more than thirty paces, however, before he drew up and cautioned in his lowest voice, “Quiet!”

He held his breath and listened. Besides his own pounding heartbeat and Owen’s fainter one, there was yet a third — not too far away, weak, but pumping violently with fright.

“What is it?” Owen asked.

“A Zivver.”

“You’re just getting the scent from that raiding party.”

But Jared edged forward, weighing the auditory impressions, sniffing out other clues. The scent of the Zivver was unmistakable, but it was of minor proportions — that of a child! He drew in another whiff and detained it in his nasal chamber.

A girl Zivver!

Her heartbeat was distinct as he clicked his pebbles once to sound out the details of the cleft in which she was hiding. She stiffened at the noise, but didn’t try to escape. Instead, she started crying — plaintively.

Owen relaxed. “It’s only a child!”

“What’s the matter?” Jared asked solicitously, but got no reply.

“What are you doing out here?” Owen tried.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Jared promised. “What’s wrong?”

“I — I can’t ziv,” she finally managed between sobs.

Jared knelt beside her. “You’re a Zivver, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I mean — no, I’m not. That is—”

She was perhaps thirteen gestations old. No older, certainly.

He led her out into the passageway. “Now — what’s your name?”

“Estel.”

“And why are you hiding out here, Estel?”

“I heard Mogan and the others coming. I ran in here so they wouldn’t ziv me.”

“Why don’t you want them to find you?”

“So they won’t take me back to the Zivver World.”

“But that’s where you belong, isn’t it?”

She sniffled and Jared heard her wiping her cheeks dry.

“No,” she said despondently. “Everybody there can ziv except me. And when I’m ready to become a Survivoress there won’t be any Zivver Survivors who’ll want me.”

She began sobbing again. “I want to go to your world.”

“You can’t, Estel,” Owen tried to explain. “You don’t understand what the sentiment is against — I mean — oh, you tell her, Jared.”

Jared brushed the hair off her face when the reflection of his voice told him it was hanging there. “Once in the Lower Level we had a little girl — just about your age. She was sad because she couldn’t hear. She wanted to run away. Then, one period, all of a sudden she could hear! And she was glad she had been smart enough not to run away and get lost before then.”

“She was a Different One, wasn’t she?” the girl asked.

“No. That’s just the point. We only thought she was Different. And if she’d run away we never would have found out she wasn’t.”

Estel was silent as Jared led her toward the Main Passage.

“You mean,” she asked after a while, “you think I might start zivving? ”

He laughed and halted in the larger corridor beside a gurgling hot spring that sent its moist warmth swirling all around them. “I’m sure you’ll start zivving — when you least expect it. And you’ll be just as happy as that other little girl.”

He listened in the direction of the Zivver raiders and readily picked up the sound of their receding voices. “What do you say, Estel — want to go home?”

“Well, all right — if you say so.”

“Good girl!” He gave her a pat and propelled her in the direction of the other Zivvers. Then he cupped his hands and filled the passage with his voice. “There’s one of your children back here!”

Owen shifted nervously. “Let’s get out of here before we get stomped.”

But Jared only laughed softly. “We’ll be safe long enough to make sure they pick her up.” He listened to the girl groping toward the returning Zivvers. “Anyway, they can’t ziv us now.”

“Why not?”

“We’re standing right by this hot spring. They can’t ziv anything too close to a boiling pit. That’s something I learned on my own, gestations ago.”

“What’s a hot spring got to do with it?”

“I don’t know. But it works.”

“Well, if they can’t ziv us, then they’ll hear us.”

“Point Number Two about Zivvers: they rely too much on zivving. Can’t hear or smell worth a damned.”

Soon they reached the entrance to the Lower Level World. Jared listened to Owen strike off for his own quarters, then he headed toward the Administration Grotto. He had made up his mind to report the Original World menace without implicating his friend.

Everything seemed normal — too normal, considering that Zivvers had just staged a raid. But then, the attacks were not so infrequent that the Survivors couldn’t take them in stride when they did come.

Off to his left he caught Randel’s scent and traced his climb up the pole to rewind the echo caster’s pulley. Presently there was a speed-up in the mechanical clacking of the stones. And Jared listened to the more complete impressions the accelerated echoes provided. He made out the details of a work party spreading compost in the manna orchard, another digging out a new public grotto. Against the distant wall women were washing cloths in the river.

What struck him most, though, was the relative silence, which testified that something had happened. Even the children were drawn into small, voiceless clusters in front of the residential recess.

There was a groan on his right — from the Injury Treatment Grotto — and he altered course. The central caster’s reflected clacks told him someone was in front of the entrance. When he got closer he heard the feminine outline of Zelda.

“Trouble?” he asked.

“Zivvers,” she said tersely. “Where were you?”

“Out after a soubat. Any casualties?”

“Alban and Survivor Bridley. Just roughed up though.” Her voice ifitered through hair that protectively draped her face.

“Any Zivvers get hurt?”

She laughed — a bitter outburst, like the twang of a bowstring. “You kidding? The Prime Survivor’s been listening for you.”

“Where is he?”

“Meeting with the Elders.”

Jared continued on over to the Administration Grotto, but quietened his steps as he neared the entrance. Elder Haverty had the floor. His high-pitched, faltering voice was easily recognizable.

“We’ll close up the entrance!” Haverty pounded the slab. “Then we won’t have to worry about either the Zivvers or the soubats!”