David Galouye: Dark Universe

The Elders eagerly smote the slab in approval.

“While serving your sentence,” the Prime Survivor told Jared, “you can condition yourself for a visit to the Upper Level for the Five Periods Preparatory to Declaration of Unification Intentions.”

Still snickering, Romel Fenton-Spur followed the Elders out.

When they were alone, Jared told the Prime Survivor, “That was a Radiation of a trick to play on your own son! ”

The elder Fenton gave an expressionless shrug.

“Why tie in with that bunch up there?” Jared went on querulously. “We’ve fought Zivvers on our own this long, haven’t we?”

“But they’re multiplying, outgrowing their food supply.”

“We’ll set traps! We’ll produce more food!”

Jared listened to the other shaking his head dourly. “On the contrary. We’re going to produce less . You forget those three hot springs that dried up not thirty periods ago. That means dead manna plants — not as much food for the animals and ourselves.”

Jared felt a touch of concern for the Prime Survivor. They were standing in the entrance to the grotto now and the sounds his father was reflecting conveyed their impressions of thinning limbs that had reluctantly yielded ample muscular development of a more active era. His hair was thin, but still swept proudly back over his head, evidencing an obstinate rejection of facial protection.

“It didn’t have to be me,” Jared grumbled. “Why not Romel?”

“He’s a spur.”

Jared didn’t understand why the accident of illegitimate birth should make any difference in this situation. But he let the point go. “Well, anybody else then! There’s Randel and Many and—”

“The Wheel and I have been discussing closer relations since you were hip high. And I’ve been building you up in his estimation until he thinks you’re almost the equal of a Zivver.”

Silence was perhaps the severest penalty of Jared’s punishment.

Silence and drugery.

Hauling manure from the world of the small bats, trudging to the cricket domain to collect insect bodies as compost for the manna orchard. Rechanneling overflow from the boiling pits and getting steam-shriveled flesh in the process. Tending livestock and hand-feeding chicks until they could feel around for their own food.

And all the while never to be allowed a word. Never a word spoken to him except in direction-giving. No clickstones for fine hearing. Completely isolated from contact with others.

The first period lasted an eternity; the second, a dozen. The third he spent tending the orchard and consigning to Radiation everyone who approached because they came only to give orders — all but one.

That was Owen, who relayed instructions to begin excavating a public grotto. And Jared heard the troubled lines on his face. “If you think you ought to be working alongside me,” Jared said, violating Vocal Detachment, “you’d better forget it. I made you cross the Barrier.”

“I’ve been worrying about that too,” Owen admitted distantly. “But not nearly as much as about something else.”

“What?” Jared spread more compost around the manna plant stalk.

“I’m not worthy o being a Survivor. Not after the way I acted out there in the Original World.”

“Forget the Original World.”

“I can’t.” Owen’s voice was filled with self-reproach as he moved off. “Whatever courage I had I left beyond the Barrier.”

“Damned fool!” Jared called softly. “Keep away from there!”

He spent the fourth period languishing in solitude, without even a single person bringing instructions. The fifth he tried congratulating himself on at least having escaped the Pit. But throughout the sixth, as he bemoaned aching muscles and insufferable fatigue, he realized he might as well have gotten the more severe punishment. And before the final stint of exhausting drudgery ended, he wished to Radiation he had been sentenced to the Pit!

He finished wresting a final slab into place for one of the new grottoes, then pegged the echo caster into silence for the sleep period. Numb with weariness, he dragged himself to the Fenton recess.

Romel was asleep, but the Prime Survivor was still lying awake. “I’m glad it’s over, son,” he comforted. “Now get some rest. Tomorrow you’ll be escorted to the Upper Level for the Five Periods Preparatory to Declaration of Unification Intentions.”

Lacking strength to argue, Jared collapsed on his ledge.

“There’s something you ought to know,” his father went on soberly. “The Zivvers may be taking captives again. Owen went out to collect mushrooms four periods ago. He hasn’t been heard from since.”

Suddenly wide awake, Jared wasn’t as exhausted as he had imagined. When the Prime Survivor fell asleep, he retrieved his clickstones and stole out of the Lower Level World, tempering condemnation of Owen’s addleheaded pride with concern for his safety.

Fighting the impulse to drop in his tracks and sleep there forever, he pushed on past the place where he had encountered the Zivver child, along the bank beside the swift stream and into the smaller tunnel. Sounding the depths of each pit along the way, he reached the Barrier and dragged himself over it. On the other side his foot brushed across something familiar — Owen’s quiver!

Beside it were a broken lance and two arrows. The bow, his clickstones told him, lay against the wall, cracked almost in half. Sniffing what might have been the lingering scent of the Original World creature, he backed off toward the Barrier.

Owen didn’t even have a chance to use his weapons.

At the entrance to the Upper Level, the unfamiliar tones of the central echo caster brought Jared crude impressions of a world much like his own, with grottoes, activity areas, and livestock compounds. In addition it had a natural ledge running along the right wail and sloping down to the ground nearby.

Waiting for his reception escort, he turned his thoughts grimly back to the discovery of Owen’s weapons on the other side of the Barrier. All he could think of then was that the evil creature had been a punishment sent by Light Himself for his sacrilegious rejection of established beliefs. Certainly he had been wrong. The Barrier had, after all, been erected solely to protect man from monster. Yet, he knew he would not forfeit his quest for Darkness. Nor would he let the uncertainty surrounding Owen’s fate rest for very long.

“Jared Fenton?”

The voice, coming from behind a boulder on his left, took him by surprise. Stepping out into the full sound of the central caster, the man said, “I’m Lorenz, Adviser to Wheel Anselm.”

Lorenz’s voice suggested a person of short stature, small lung capacity, depressed chest. Added to this composite was the indirect sonic impression of a face whose audible features were rough with creases and lacked the soft, moist prominences of exposed eyeballs.

“Ten Touches of Familiarization?” Jared offered formally.

But the Adviser declined. “My faculties are adequate. I never forget audible effects.” He struck off down a path that coursed through the hot-springs area.

Jared followed. “The Wheel expecting me?” Which was an unnecessary question, since a runner had come ahead.

“I wouldn’t be out here to meet you if he wasn’t.”

Detecting hostility in the Adviser’s blunt responses, Jared turned his attention fully on the man. The caster tones were being harshly modulated by his expression of resentful determination.

“You don’t want me up here, do you?” Jared asked frankly.

“I’ve advised against it. I don’t hear where we can gain anything through close association with your world.”