Downbelow Station

It was trouble, bad trouble. Lukases spoke and gave orders, and strangers threatened. Old One was not here… none of the long-timers were, having gone somewhere about their own business, to the protection of important things, Satin reckoned. To duties ordered by important humans and perhaps duties which regarded hisa.

But they had disobeyed, had not gone to the supervisors, no more than the Old Ones had gone, who also hated Lukases.

“Go back?” someone asked finally.

They would be in trouble if they turned themselves in after ru

“Hungry,” another protested.

No one answered.

Men might take their friendship from them for what they had done. They realized that clearly now. And without that friendship, they might be on Downbelow always. Satin thought of the fields of Downbelow, the soft clouds she had once thought solid enough to sit on, the rain and the blue sky and the gray-green-blue leaves, the flowers and soft mosses… most of all the air which smelled of home. Bluetooth dreamed of that, perhaps, as the heat of her spring faded, and she had not quickened, being young, in her first adult season. Bluetooth saw things now with a clearer head. He mourned the world at times. At times she did. But to be there always and forever…

Sky-sees-her, that was her name; and she had seen truth. The blue was false, a cover stretched out like a blanket; truth was black distances, and the face of great Sun shining in the dark. Truth would always hang above them. Without the favor of humans, they would return to Downbelow without hope, forever and ever to know themselves shut off from the sky. There was no home now, not now that they had looked upon Sun.

“Lukases go away sometime,” Bluetooth murmured against her ear.

She burrowed her head against him, trying to forget that she was hungry and thirsty, and did not answer him.

“Guns,” said another voice, near them. “They will shoot us and we will lose ourselves forever.”

“Not if we stay here,” said Bluetooth, “and do what I said.”

“They are not our humans,” said Bigfellow’s deep voice. “Hurt our humans, these.”

“This is a man-fight,” Bluetooth returned. “Nothing for the hisa.”

A thought came. Satin lifted her head. “Konstantins. Konstantin-fight, this. We will find Konstantins, ask what to do. Find Konstantins, find Old Ones too, near Sun’s Place.”

“Ask Sun-her-friend,” another exclaimed. “She must know.”

“Where is Sun-her-friend?”

There was silence. No one knew. The Old Ones preserved that secret.

“I will find her.” That was Bigfellow. He wriggled close to them, reached out a hand to her shoulder in the dark. “I go many places. Come. Come.”

She drew in her breath, lipped uncertainly at Bluetooth’s cheek.

“Come,” Bluetooth agreed suddenly, drawing her by the hand. Bigfellow hastened off just ahead, a pattering of feet in the dark. They went after him and others followed, up the dark corridors and the ladders and the narrow places, where sometimes there was light and most times not. Some fell behind, for they went among pipes and in cold places and places which burned their bare feet, and past machinery which thundered with ominous powers.

Bluetooth pushed into the lead at times, letting go her hand; at times Bigfellow shoved him aside and went first again. Satin doubted in fact that Bluetooth had the least idea where he was going or what way would lead them to Sun-her-friend; to the Sun’s Place they had been, and dimly she had that sense she had on the earth, that said in her heart what way a place should be… up was true; she thought that it should be left… but sometimes the tu

“No more,” she pleaded when she had caught them on the metal steps. “No more, let us go back. You are lost.”

Bigfellow would not heed. Panting, he edged higher; she tugged at Bluetooth and he hissed in frustration and went after Bigfellow. Madness. Madness had settled on them. “You show me nothing!” she wailed. She bounced in despair and hastened after, panting, trying to reason with them, who had passed beyond reasoning. They passed panels and doors where they might have gotten out into the open; all these they rejected… but at last they came to a place where they were faced with choices, where a light burned blue above a door; where the ladders extended everywhere, up and down and in three other directions.

“Here,” Bigfellow said after a little hesitation, feeling of the buttons at the lighted door. “Here is a way.”

“No,” Satin moaned. “No,” Bluetooth objected too, perhaps recovering his senses; but Bigfellow pushed the first button and slipped into the air chamber when the door opened. “Come back,” Bluetooth exclaimed, and they scrambled to stop him, who was mad with the rivalry, who did this for her, and for nothing else. They went in after him; the door closed at their backs. The second door opened under Bigfellow’s hand as they caught up with him, and there was light — it blinded.

And suddenly guns fired and Bigfellow went down in the doorway with a smell of burning. He cried and shrieked horribly, and Bluetooth whirled and hit the other door button, his hard arm carrying her with him as the door opened and wind surged about them. Man-voices bellowed over a sudden wail of alarms, silenced as the door closed. They hit the ladders and ran, ran blindly down and through the darkways, deep, deep into the dark. They dragged their breathers down, but the air smelt wrong. They finally stopped their ru

“O let us go home,” he whispered. “O let us go home, Tam-utsa-pitan, and no more see humans. No machines, no fields, no man-work, only hisa always and always. Let us go home.”

She said nothing. The disaster was hers, for she had suggested, and Bigfellow had wanted her and Bluetooth had risen to the challenge of his daring, as if they had been in the high hills. Her disaster, her doing. Now Bluetooth himself spoke of leaving her dream, unwilling to follow her further. Tears filled her eyes, doubts for herself, loneliness, that she had walked too far. Now they were in worse trouble, for to find themselves they must go up again to the man-places and open a door and beg help, and they had seen the result of that. They held each other and did not stir from where they were.