Philip Farmer - The Gates of Creation

Wolff said, “Yours is the honor again, Vala. Which gate?”

Ariston said, “She hasn’t done very well so far. Why let her pick it?”

Vala turned on him like a tigress. “Brother, if you think you can do any better, you choose! But you should show your confidence in yourself by being the first to go through the gate!”

Ariston stepped back and said, “Very well. No use breaking with the custom.”

Vala said, “So it’s a custom now! Well, I choose the left one.”

Wolff did not hesitate. Although he felt that this time he might find himself, weak and weaponless, in Urizen’s fortress, he stepped through.

For a moment, he could not understand where he was or what was happening, he was so dizzy and the objects that hurtled above him were so strange.

He was on a huge gray metallic cylinder that was rotating swiftly. Above him, on both sides, and also coming into view as the cylinder whirled, were other gray cylinders. The sky behind them was a pale pink.

Between each pair of cylinders were three glowing beams of mauve light. These began about ten feet from the ends of the cylinders and from the middle. Every now and then, colored lights burst along the lengths of the beams and ran up and down them. Red, orange, black, white, purple, they burst like Very lights and then bobbed along the beams as if jerked along by an invisible cord. When they came to a point about twelve feet from the cylinders, they flared brightly and quickly died out.

Wolff closed his eyes to fight off the dizziness and the sickness. When he opened them again, he saw that the others had come through the gates. Ariston and Tharmas fell to the surface and clung as tightly as they could. Theotormon sat down as if he feared the spinning would send him scooting across the metal or perhaps might hurl him out into the space between the cylinders. Only Vala seemed not to be affected. She was smiling, although it could have been a mere show of courage.

If so, she was to be admired for achieving even this.

Wolff studied the environment as best he could. The cylinders were all about the size of skyscrapers.

Wolff did not understand why they were not all spun off immediately by centrifugal force. Surely, these bodies could not have much gravity.

Yet, they did.

Perhaps—no perhaps—Urizen had set up a balance of forces which enabled objects with such strong gravities to keep from falling on each other. Perhaps the colored lights that ran along the beams were manifestations of the continual rebalancing of whatever statics and dynamics were being used to maintain the small but Earth-heavy bodies.

Wolff did not know anything except that the science that the Lords had inherited was far beyond that which Terrestrials knew.

There must be thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of these cylinders. They were about a mile apart from each other, spinning on their own axes and also shifting slowly about each other in an intricate dance.

From a distance, Wolff thought, the separate bodies would look like one solid bulk. This must be one of the planets he had observed from the waterworld.

There was one advantage to their predicament. On a world as tiny as this one, they would not have to go far to find the next set of gates. But it did not seem likely that Urizen would make things so easy for them.

Wolff stepped back to the gate and tried to reenter it. As he had expected, it only permitted him to step through the frame and back onto the cylinder. He turned and tested its other side, only to find that equally unfruitful. Then he set out to look for the gates by walking around the circumference. And when he had gotten less than halfway around, he saw the two hexagons.

These were at one end and hung a few inches above the surface, the pale sky gleaming pinkly between the lower frame and the cylinder surface. With the others, he began to talk towards it. He kept his eyes on the gates and tried not to see the whirling shifting objects around him.

Wolff was in the lead and so was the first to notice the unexpected behavior of the twin hexagons. As he came within fifty feet of them, they began to move away. He increased his pace; the gates did not maintain quite the same distance. When he broke into a run, they went more swiftly but still he gained a little. He stopped; the gates stopped. He made a dash at them, only to see them start off just as quickly. As he stepped up his speed, he gained on them.

The other Lords were behind him. Their feet slapped on the metallic surface, and their gaspings whistled through the atmosphere. Wolff stopped again. The gates halted. The other Lords, except Vala, gathered around him and babbled.

“Los! First he starves us to death… then runs us to death.”

Wolff waited until he had recovered his breath, then said, “I think they can be caught. They began to slow down in their speed as I went faster. It’s a proportional decrease. But I don’t think I can go quickly enough and long enough to catch them. Who’s the fastest here?”

Luvah said, “I could always beat the rest of you in a foot race. But now I am so tired and weak…”

“Try,” Wolff said.

Luvah grinned uncertainly at him and inched towards the gates. Hovering, they moved away. He broke into a dash and presently was gone around the curve of the cylinder out of their sight. Wolff turned and ran in the opposite direction. After him came Vala. The dizzyingly close horizon jumped at him; he sped on and then he saw Luvah and the gates. Luvah was now within ten feet of them, but he was slowing down. And as his legs refused to move as he wished and his breath burned out of his lungs, the gates drew away.

Wolff came up behind the gates. When he was as close to them as Luvah, the gates slipped sideways, like wet soap between two hands. Vala came in at an angle towards them, but they veered off. The panting Lords stopped, forming three corners of a square with the gates at the remaining comer.

“Where are the others?” Wolff said.

Luvah jerked a thumb. Wolff looked around to see them straggling around the curve of this minute world. He called to them, his voice sounding eerie in the strangely propertied atmosphere. Luvah started to go forward but stopped at Wolff’s order.

Ariston, Tharmas, Rintrah, and Theotormon spread out. Under Wolff’s directions, they formed a pentagon with the gates at the ends of two legs of the figure. Then all began to close in on their quarry. They kept the same distance between them and advanced at the same pace. The gates oscillated back and forth but made no break.

With two minutes of slow and patient closing in, the Lords were able to seize half of the frames. This time, Wolff did not bother to ask Vala which exit they should take. He went through the left.

The others came through on his heels and their look of dismay reflected his. They were on another cylinder, and down at the end was another pair of hexagons.

Again, they went through the tiring chase and the boxing in. Again, they stepped through a frame, the one to the right this time. Again, they were on another cylinder.

This occurred five tunes. The Lords looked at each other with fatigue-reddened and exhaustion-circled eyes. Their legs trembled, and their chests ached. They were covered with sweat and were as dry within as a Saharan wind. They could hardly keep their grips on the hexagons.

“We can’t go on much longer,” Rintrah said.

“Don’t be so obvious,” Vala said. “Try to say something original once in a while.”

“Very well. I’m thirsty enough to drink your blood. And I may if I don’t get a drink of water soon.”

Vala laughed. “If you come close enough, I’ll broach you with this sword. Your blood may be thin and ill-smelling, but at least it should be wet enough.”