More Than Fire

He could not see any change in the wall, but Anana drove her spear hard against it at different places to determine if an invisible gate was there. The metal head clanged and bounced off the glassy substance, which boomed as if it were a drum. They would have to take the one way open.

Anana, her spear held out, leaped through the gate. He followed her several seconds later. As usual, he winced a little when it seemed that he would slam into the wall. Though his conscious mind knew that he would not do so, he could not convince his unconscious mind. As he passed through the seeming solid, he glimpsed the hexagonal structure a foot beyond the gate. Then he was through a second gate and had landed by Anana. She looked astonished. This was the first time she had encountered a second gate immediately beyond the first.

Fresh air filled his lungs. He said, "Ah! My God, that's good!"

If they had not had the Horn, they would be dead by now.

"Less than a second in one world and on to the next," Anana said. They did not have much time to look around. Now, they were in an enormous room. The ceiling was at least a hundred feet high, and it and the walls were covered with paintings of creatures he had never seen before. The bright light came from everywhere.

And then the room was replaced by a sandy plain that stretched unbroken to a horizon much more distant than that on Earth, an orange sun, and a purple sky. The air was heavy, and Kickaha suddenly felt as if gravity had increased.

Before he could say anything, he and Anana were on the top of a peak, a flat area so small that they had to cling to each other to keep from falling off. For as far as they could see, mountains extended all around them. The wind blew strong and cold. Kickaha estimated it must be producing a chill factor of zero or lower. The sun was sinking below the peaks, and the sky was greenish-blue.

There was nothing to indicate that a gate was nearby. It was probably buried in the rock on which they were standing.

A few seconds later, they were on a beach that seemed to be tropical. It could have been on Earth. The palm trees waved behind them in the sea breeze. The yellow sun was near its zenith. The black sand under their bare feet was hot. They would have had to run for the trees if they had not built up such thick calluses on the bottom of their feet.

"I think we're caught in a resonant gate circuit," Kickaha said.

But hours passed, and they were not moved on. Tired of waiting for something to happen, they walked along the beach until they came to the place where they had started.

"We're on an island-actually, an islet," Kickaha said. "About half a mile in circumference. Now what?"

The horizon was unbroken. There could be a land mass or another island just beyond the horizon, or the sea could go for thousands of miles before its waves dashed against a beach. Kickaha studied the trees, which had seemed at first glance to be palm trees. But they bore clusters of fruit that looked like giant grapes. If they were not poisonous, they could sustain life for some time. Maybe. The trees could be cut down and trimmed to make a raft with the beamer. However, there were no vines to bind the logs together.

The Lord who had arranged for his victims to stop here had meant for them to starve to death eventually.

Kickaha walked along the beach again while he blew the Horn. Then he walked in decreasing circles until the range of the notes had covered every bit of ground. There were no flaws or unactivated gates here. That the Horn could not reactivate the gate that had admitted them here meant one thing. It was a one-way gate. The Lord who had set this up had put a "lock" on it, a deactivating device. It was seldom used because it required much energy to maintain it. Also, not many Lords had this ancient device.

"Eventually, the lock will dissolve," Anana said, "and the circuit will be open again. But I think we'll have died before then. Unless we can get away from here to a large landmass."

"And then we won't know where we are unless we've been to this universe before."

He used the beamer to cut a cluster of the baseball-sized fruits from a branch. The impact of the fall split some open. Though he was forty feet from the cluster, its odor reached him immediately. It wasn't pleasant.

"Phew! But the stink doesn't mean they're not edible."

Nevertheless, neither offered to bite into the fruit. When they became hungry enough, they would try it. Meanwhile, they subsisted on the rations in their backpacks.

On the evening of the third day, they lay down on the beach to sleep. This area was where they had entered the universe, and they stayed within it as much as possible. If the gate was reactivated, they would be within its sphere of influence.

"The Lord has not only made us prisoner on this islet," Kickaha said. "He has also confined us to a cell of sorts. I'm really getting tired of being in a prison."

"Go to sleep," Anana said.

The night sky was replaced by bright sunlight. They scrambled up from their sand beds as Kickaha said, "This is it!" He and Anana grabbed their backpacks and weapons. Three seconds later, they were standing on a narrow platform and looking down into an abyss.

Then they were in a cave, bright sunlight coining from its opening. He lifted the Horn to his lips. Before he could below it, they were on a tiny rock elevated a few feet above a sea. He gasped, cutting off his blowing of the Horn, and Anana cried out. A gigantic wave was charging toward them. Within seconds, it would carry them off the rock.

Just before the base of the wave reached the rock, they were in one of the small rooms so numerous in this circuit. Again, Kickaha tried to blow the Horn and activate a gate that would shuttle them off from this circuit. But he did not have time. Nor did he have during the next twelve stations they whizzed through.

Like it or not-and they did not-they were caught in the dizzying circle. Then, when they were again in the room at the top of the tower set in the deserted city, he had just enough time to complete the seven notes. And they were transmitted to the most amazing and unexpected place they had ever encountered.

"I think we've broken the circuit!" Kickaha said. "Have you ever heard of a place like this?"

Anana shook her head. She seemed to be awed. After living so many thousands of years, she was not easily impressed.

3

THE SCALY MAN WAS THE CENTERPIECE OF THE ENORMOUS room.

Whether he was a corpse or in suspended animation, he had perhaps been born one or two hundred thousand years ago. The two intruders in this colorful and vibrant tomb had no way of testing its antiquity. They just felt that the tomb had been built when their own exceedingly remote ancestors had not been born yet. It seemed to sweat eons.

"Have you ever heard of this person?" Kickaha whispered. Then, realizing that he had no need to whisper, he spoke loudly.

"I get this feeling that we're the first to be here since that ... creature was laid to rest here."

"I'm not so sure that he is permanently resting. And no, I've never heard of this place. Or of him. Not of his name, anyway, whatever his name is. But. .."

Anana paused, then said, "My people had stories about a sapient but nonhuman species who preceded us Thoan. They were said to have created us. Whether the tales were originally part of the prehistoric Thoan cultures or were early fiction, we don't know. But most Thoan insist that we originated naturally, that we were not made by anybody. My ancestors did make the leblabbiys, your kind. These, with a multitude of lifeforms, were made in my ancestors' biofactories to populate their artificial pocket universes. But that we Thoan could be artificial beings, never!