Harry Harrison: Captive Universe

The goddess started toward them, hissing outrageously, and they needed no more urging. They turned and fled and the snake-headed monster was at their heels. As they came to the village the first people appeared, stunned, all of them, by this frightening appearance and the unbelievable scene. Chimal gave them no time to gather their wits as he shouted orders at them to go on to Zaachila.

Chimal slowed the goddess as they came between the houses and the priests mingled with the crowd that poured out in a terrified wave. He did not permit them to stop, but scourged their flanks back and forth like a demonic herd. Women, children, babies — all of them — fled before him to the river and across. The first ones were already in Zaachila and the warning was given. Before he reached there the entire village was in flight from him .

“To the swamp!” he roared as they trampled through the fields of corn stubble and fled between the rows of maguey. “To the wall, to the cleft, to see what I will show you there!”

In blind panic they fled and he harried behind them. The palisade of the valley wall was ahead and the end was in sight. In a few minutes they would be in the tunnel and that would be the beginning of the end of the life they had known. Chimal laughed and shouted, tears streaming down his face. The end, the end…

A growing rumble, like distant thunder sounded ahead, and from the canyon wall a cloud of dust rolled out. The crowd slowed and stopped, milling about, not knowing which danger to flee from, then moved aside fearfully as Coatlicue plunged into their midst. Cold fear clutched hard at Chimal’s chest as he rode toward the cleft in the towering walls.

He was afraid to admit what might have happened, dared not admit it to himself. He was close, too close to the end in every way for anything to go wrong now. Up the trail Coatlicue ran, and into the opening in the cuff.

To stop, dead, before the barrier of broken rock that sealed it from side to side.

A piece of rock clattered down the heap and then there was silence. The dust settled slowly. There was no trace of the stone doorway or of the opening to the caverns beyond, only the great heap of broken rock that covered the spot where it once had existed.

And then the darkness came. Clouds blew up, so suddenly that before the first thunderheads were even noticed the sky was covered with them. And even before they hid the sun, the sun itself dimmed and darkened and a cold wind raced the length of the valley. The people, huddled together, moaned in agony at the tragedy that befell them. Were the gods warring on Earth? What was happening? Was it the end?

Then the rain fell, adding to the darkness, and there was hail mixed with the freezing drops. The villagers broke and ran. Chimal fought the obscuring depression of defeat from his thoughts and turned Coatlicue to follow them. The fight wasn’t over yet. Another way out could be found, Coatlicue would force the villagers to help him, their fear of her presence could not be washed away by rain and darkness.

Halfway about the goddess stopped, rigid. The snakes were frozen in the endless coiling and their voices cut off short. For a second she leaned forward onto a partly raised foot, then came to rest. All the power had been cut off and the control box was useless. Chimal let it drop from his hand, then slowly and painfully slid down the wet and slippery metal back to the muddy ground.

He realized that the laser rifle was still in his hand; he pointed it at the rock barrier in a futile gesture of hatred and pulled hard on the trigger. But even this weak protest was denied him: the rain had penetrated its mechanism and it would not fire. He hurled it away from him.

The rain poured down and it was darker than the darkest night.

Chimal found himself sitting on the bank of the river, the roar of the water flooding by invisibly before him. His head rested on his knees and his right side, leg and arm, should do it soon before it became too deep. There was water sounded high and if he were going to cross he should do it soon before it became too deep. There was really no reason to cross, he would be just as dead on the outer side as he would be here, but Quilapa was over there and that was his village.

But when he tried to rise, to push himself to his feet, he found that he was frozen in the hunched position. The water had shorted out his eskoskeleton and it would permit only limited movements. With an effort he freed one arm, then released all the other fastenings. When he finally rose he left it behind like a discarded husk of a former life, perpetually crouching in obeisance by the water’s edge. When he stepped into the river it came to his knees, then up to his waist before he was halfway across. He had to feel for each foothold carefully, leaning his weight against the current all of the tune. If he were swept away now he knew that he would not be strong enough to swim to safety.

Step by step he went forward, the water tugging relentlessly at him: it would be so easy to give in and let it carry him away from everything. For some reason he found the idea distasteful — a sudden memory of the Air Tender hanging by his neck — and he rejected it and went on. The water was only to his thighs now, then below his knees again. He was across. Before climbing out he bent and filled his cupped hands and drank from them, many times. He was thirsty and in spite of the rain and the cold his skin was hot. His wounds did not bear thinking about.

Was there nowhere to go? Was it all over, forever? Chimal stood there, swaying in the darkness, his face up to the rain. Perhaps there really was a Great Designer who watched and thwarted him at every turning. No, that couldn’t be true. He would not give in to a greater superstition now that he had discarded all his smaller ones. This world had been designed by men, built by men; he had read their proud reports and understood their thinking. He even knew the name of the one they called the Great Designer and knew the reasons why He had done all this. They were written in the books and could be read two ways.

Chimal knew that he had failed because of chance — and ignorance. It was luck that he had managed to come this far. A man was not made whole in a few short months. He had the knowledge of a man, perhaps. He had learnt so much and so quickly, but he still thought like a villager. Lash out. Run. Fight. Die. If only he could have done better.

If only he could have led his people through that painted hall and down the golden corridor to the stars.

And with this thought, this vision, came the first tiny inkling of hope.

Chimal walked on. He was again alone in the valley, and when the rains ceased and the sun came, out the hunt would once more be on for him. How tenderly the priests would keep him alive for the tortures that they would invent and dwell upon. They who taught fear had felt fear, had run, craven. Their revenge would be exacting.

They would not have him. Once before, in absolute ignorance he had escaped the valley — he would do it again. Now he knew what lay behind the rock wall, where the entrances were and what they led to. There had to be a way to reach one of them. Ahead, on the top of the cliff, was the entrance near which he had hidden his food and water. If he could reach it he could rest and hide, make plans.

Yet even as he thought of it he knew that it was impossible. He had never been able to climb the valley walls when in perfect health and possessed of all his strength. It had been cunningly designed everywhere to prevent anyone from escaping in that manner. Even the vulture’s ledge, far beneath the canyon’s rim, would have been impossible to reach had not some chance accident broken a gap in the overhanging lip of rock.