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"I beg your pardon," Sloosh said.
"It is not always easy to obtain. But I grant it. What you may not know, Archkerri, since you've not had my experience, is that gateways are one-way. You may—"
"Again, I beg your pardon," Sloosh said. "I believe that some gateways may be one-way. But we had an experience which we did not reveal at once, since it didn't seem germane to our story at the time."
He told her about the shimmering off the cliff on the island and the man who'd popped in and out of it.
"So, you see, not all such phenomena are one-way."
"Then I was wrong. It feels good to be wrong twice in a short time after such a long time of always being right. I thought I had the mathematics of the gates figured out. I've spent a thousand weevrish working on it. So—anyway, if s true that the gateway expanded. But it still has a heart, a center, a focus, which shines as horribly as the whole thing did once. That is deep within the castle. I'll show it to you when it is time for you to see it.
"Meanwhile, know, my leaved friend, that our time here is short. That is, it's short to me, though it may seem long to your short-lived colleagues. And even to you. This gateway is one-way, which means that we are getting no water or air from outside it. My machines have been making air and sending excess heat into the gateway, and soon they will have to start manufacturing water. Eventually, the raw materials of these will run out. Then we die of oxygen-starvation!"
"Most interesting and definitely relevant," Sloosh said. "However, this gateway exhibits some features that are startling. What it is, really, is a two-way gateway within certain limits and one-way only in its center, as you call it, I would've thought that when the gateway expanded, it would have swallowed up all that which it now covers. Thus—"
"It just doesn't work that way," The Shemibob said grimly. "At the moment I'm not concerned about why it acts thus. I'm only concerned about how I can use it."
"Most commendable. Still—"
She rolled her eyes with disgust or incomprehension or feoth. She said, "First, I must meet this
Phemropit-thing."
They left the room and went down the corridor toward the staircase. On the way Sloosh informed her that Phemropit was not really its name. That had been the Tsimmanbuls' invention. The creature had no individual name for itself. It called itself "I," indicating a certain sense of individuation.
"Then how did it know when it was being addressed or summoned?" The Shemibob asked. "How could it refer to another of its kind when that one was not in sight?"
"Out of sight, out of mind," Sloosh said. "In its environment, it never referred to anyone who wasn't directly in line with its microwave or light-beam detectors. I don't understand its culture, though it has tried many times to explain it to me. But you must realize that the planetoid on which it lived was rather small, perhaps not more than four hundred miles in diameter. This, with the airlessness and the extreme cold of space and the absence of surface illumination, made for a peculiar society. Peculiar to us, that is."
"Begging your pardon for the interruption," Deyv buzzed, hoping she wouldn't be angry, "but it does have a name. It knows when we are addressing it as Phemropit. And it calls us by our names."
He swallowed, then continued, "I've always heard of you as The Shemibob. Am I being insolent if I dare ask what your name is?"
She stared down at him and laughed. "I am The Shemibob because I am the only one on Earth. I have a personal name, but I have not used it since I landed here nor do I permit lesser beings to address me with it. Does that satisfy you, little human male?"
"Certainly. Only—"
"Only what?"
"One more question, if I may. Why have you allowed the jewels to grow out of control? Eventually, they will spread everywhere, and all life on land will be destroyed."
She laughed and said, "Do you think I am a gardener who prunes my jewels as if they were plants or pulls them up as if they were weeds? That would be a strange sightl"
She gave another of her flapping laughs. "Actually, I could check their growth. That is, I could before I became prisoner in my own castle. But when I was able to do so, I saw no reason why I should. Long before the slow-growing stones cover this land with their glitter, this Earth shall be destroyed. Why, then, should I bother?"
"Thank you, O Shemibob."
They found the creature on the second floor in a large room. It was facing a great sphere of cut quartz that was pulsing light of different lengths. Sloosh had told it that these were random and for aesthetic purposes only, but it had not given up trying to decipher them.
"That is why I sometimes wonder if it's truly intelligent," Sloosh said. "But I suppose that its mind just works differently from ours."
"From mine, maybe," Hoozisst muttered. "The plant-man's mind is as alien as Phemropit's."
The Archkerri stood in front of the creature, barring its view of the sphere, and flashed him a message with the firefly. As Phemropit turned around to face the others, The Shemibob laughed.
"I'll give you a better thing to pulse light with than that insect."
Introductions were made, after which The Shemibob, quickly learning how to operate the firefly, asked
Phemropit many questions. When she was done, she said, "I may have a use for this thing. Let's go down now and see the heart of the gateway."
They went into what seemed to be a room smaller than most. It turned out to be a lift. It dropped swiftly into the depths, six open doorways and hallways beyond them flashing past. It slowed down and stopped gently at the seventh doorway. The Shemibob led them down a well-lit hall, turned a comer, and did not stop until she was halfway down the next corridor.
About twenty feet beyond, half in the wall, half sticking out, was the dreaded brightness. Again, Deyv felt his knees weaken and his stomach turn.
"Familiarity with it has only slightly thi
She took one of a score of long wooden poles leaning against the far wall. Deyv watched her out of a comer of one eye, his hand shading it, which could darken the brightness. He wanted to run away, but his experience with the other phenomenon had shown him that he could endure the sight of it, if he didn't look at it too long. Turning his head away now and then eased his nausea somewhat.
The Shemibob went up to the blazing expanding-contracting thing, her eyes fully upon it. She stuck the pole into it and then moved up to it, her face only a few inches away. Deyv thought that she must be brave indeed. But then she was The Shemibob.
The pole had gone almost completely into the brightness.
She said, "Now I'm probing around in it. I can feel what seems to be walls. They're hard. At least, they stop the end of the pole abruptly. It seems to be a tu
"Notice that the bright disc is at an angle in the wall here. You can't see that part which disappears into it
But I can thrust the pole past the edge of the wall. It goes into that other world beyond the wall. The far side of the tu
She pulled back on the pole. Only that part which had not penetrated the brightness remained. The rest was within the gateway.
Sloosh said, "Does that mean that anyone who tried to go through would be severed?"
"Only if he tried to back out," she said. "I've used animals in various tests. Those which I put entirely in stay alive. I've tied ropes to them, and I've felt them tugging at the ropes. When I release the ropes, the ropes are dragged in all the way. Those animals that I've partially put in and then tried to pull back were severed in half."