Dark Universe

Jared tried to banish the distracting voice and compose his thoughts. But the effects of his recent dream lay heavily upon him.

It was most odd that Kind Survivoress should emerge from his forgotten fantasies all of a sudden, as though he had reached back into the abyss of his past and brought forward a warm, memorable slice of childhood. But he recognized the manifestation for what it was — no more than a wistful yearning for the security he hadn’t known since his own father had taken him by the hand and Familiarized him with his world, as that attentive father outside was doing now.

“What in Radiation happened?” he managed.

“You took a lance broadside on the temple,” Lorenz reminded. “You’ve been out like an echo caster for a whole period.”

Suddenly he remembered — everything. And he lurched up. “The monster! The Zivvers!”

“They’re gone — all of them.”

“What happened?”

“Best we could make out was that the monster seized a Zivver at the entrance. Two other Zivvers tried to save him. But they just collapsed in their tracks.”

Clacks from the central caster entered through parted curtains and bounced off the Adviser’s face, carrying away a composite of his apprehensive expression. Something else was hidden among the wrinkles, adding further tautness to his closed eyelids — an uneasy hesitancy. The Adviser appeared to be deciding whether to say something.

Jared, however, was more concerned over the monster’s having invaded the Upper Level. Until now, he had been certain the Barrier was adequate to keep the creature on the other side. He felt that he and Owen deserved whatever they had gotten for violating the taboos. But it didn’t end there. Rather, the monster had crossed the Barrier to enter one of the worlds of man. And once more Jared wondered whether he might not be responsible. He had invaded the Original World first, hadn’t he? And hadn’t the monster picked a most convincing time to strike again — just when he was begi

The Adviser drew in a decisive breath. “What were you doing when you got hit by that spear?”

“Trying to reach the Zivver on guard at the entrance.”

Lorenz stiffened audibly. “Then you admit it?”

“What’s there to admit? I heard a chance to carry off a hostage.”

“Oh.” The word was shaded with disappointment. Then the Adviser added dubiously, “The Wheel will be glad to learn that. A lot of us wondered why you stole away.”

Jared swung his legs over the side of the ledge. “I don’t hear what you’re trying to prove. You mean you think—”

But the other continued, “So you were going to attack a Zivver? That’s a little hard to believe.”

First there had been Lorenz’s open hostility. Then there was his jestful — or perhaps only superficially jestful — suggestion that Jared’s abilities were Zivverlike. Now this latest obscure insinuation. It all added up to something.

He caught the man’s wrist. “What do you suspect?”

But just then Wheel Anselm swept the curtain aside and strode in. “What’s all this about attacking a Zivver?”

Della followed him inside and Jared listened to her almost soundless motions as she came over to the slumber ledge.

“That’s what he was trying to do when he made his way over to the entrance,” Lorenz explained skeptically.

But Anseim missed the inflection. “Isn’t that what I said he had in mind? How are you feeling, Jared my boy?”

“Like I was clouted with a lance.”

The Wheel laughed patronizingly, then became serious. “You were closer to that thing than any of us. What in Radiation was it?”

Jared considered telling them about his previous experience with the monster. But the Law of the Barrier applied as rigidly here as in the Lower Level. “I don’t know. I didn’t have much time to listen to it before I took that lance.”

“Cobalt,” Adviser Lorenz murmured. “Must have been Cobalt.”

“Might have been Cobalt and Strontium,” Della suggested distantly. “Some got the impression there were two monsters.”

Jared stiffened. Hadn’t his dream, too, intimated there were more than one of the incredible creatures?

“Light — it was awful!” Anselm agreed. “It must have been the Twin Devils. What else could throw such unca

“It didn’t, as you say, ‘throw things’ into everybody’s head,” the Adviser reminded officiously.

“True. Not all felt what I felt. For instance, none of the fuzzy-faces remember anything that odd.”

“I don’t either, and I’m not a fuzzy-face.”

“There were a few besides the fuzzy-faces who didn’t feel the sensations. How about you, my boy?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jared lied, sparing himself the necessity of going into details.

Anseim and Lorenz fell silent while Della laid a hand gently on Jared’s forehead. “We’re preparing something for you to eat. Is there anything else I can do?”

Confused, he trained an ear on the girl. She’d never spoken that charitably before!

“Well, my boy,” Anselm said, backing off, “you take it easy for the rest of your stay — until you’re ready to return home for Withdrawal and Contemplation Against Unwise Unification.”

The curtains swished as he and the Adviser left.

“I’ll hear about that food,” Della said, and followed them out.

Jared lay back on the ledge, exploring the soreness beneath the bandage. Still fresh in memory was his encounter with the monster — or monsters. In their presence, he had experienced the identical sensation he had felt in the Original World. For a moment, as he recalled the impression of unca

Della returned and he heard that she was carrying a shell filled with — he listened to the consistency of the liquid and sniffed its faint aroma — ma

“Feel well enough for some of this?” She extended the bowl.

Her words had been feather-edged with concern and he was at a loss to explain her sudden change of heart.

Something warm dripped on his hand. “The broth,” he cautioned, “you’re spilling it.”

“Oh.” She leveled the bowl. “I’m sorry.”

But he listened sharply at the girl. She hadn’t even heard the liquid ru

Improvising a test, he whispered almost subvocally, “What kind of broth is this?”

There was no response. She had no fine hearing at all! Yet, after the formal di

She put the bowl on a nearby shelf and extended the object in her other hand. “What do you think of this, Jared?”

He inspected the thing. Clinging to it was the scent of the monster. It was tubular, like a ma

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. I found it at the entrance. I’m sure one of the monsters dropped it.”

Again he felt the round thing behind the broken surface. It reminded him of — something.

“The big end was — warm when I picked it up,” she disclosed.

He cast his ears warily on the girl. Why had she hesitated before the word “warm”? Did she know it was heat that Zivvers zivved? Was she furtively bringing up the subject so she could hear his reaction — perhaps even trying to test the Adviser’s insinuation that he might be a Zivver? If that was her intention, it was well hidden.