Dark Universe

“He’s a spur.”

Jared didn’t understand why the accident of illegitimate birth should make any difference in this situation. But he let the point go. “Well, anybody else then! There’s Randel and Many and—”

“The Wheel and I have been discussing closer relations since you were hip high. And I’ve been building you up in his estimation until he thinks you’re almost the equal of a Zivver.”

Silence was perhaps the severest penalty of Jared’s punishment.

Silence and drugery.

Hauling manure from the world of the small bats, trudging to the cricket domain to collect insect bodies as compost for the ma

And all the while never to be allowed a word. Never a word spoken to him except in direction-giving. No clickstones for fine hearing. Completely isolated from contact with others.

The first period lasted an eternity; the second, a dozen. The third he spent tending the orchard and consigning to Radiation everyone who approached because they came only to give orders — all but one.

That was Owen, who relayed instructions to begin excavating a public grotto. And Jared heard the troubled lines on his face. “If you think you ought to be working alongside me,” Jared said, violating Vocal Detachment, “you’d better forget it. I made you cross the Barrier.”

“I’ve been worrying about that too,” Owen admitted distantly. “But not nearly as much as about something else.”

“What?” Jared spread more compost around the ma

“I’m not worthy o being a Survivor. Not after the way I acted out there in the Original World.”

“Forget the Original World.”

“I can’t.” Owen’s voice was filled with self-reproach as he moved off. “Whatever courage I had I left beyond the Barrier.”

“Damned fool!” Jared called softly. “Keep away from there!”

He spent the fourth period languishing in solitude, without even a single person bringing instructions. The fifth he tried congratulating himself on at least having escaped the Pit. But throughout the sixth, as he bemoaned aching muscles and insufferable fatigue, he realized he might as well have gotten the more severe punishment. And before the final stint of exhausting drudgery ended, he wished to Radiation he had been sentenced to the Pit!

He finished wresting a final slab into place for one of the new grottoes, then pegged the echo caster into silence for the sleep period. Numb with weariness, he dragged himself to the Fenton recess.

Romel was asleep, but the Prime Survivor was still lying awake. “I’m glad it’s over, son,” he comforted. “Now get some rest. Tomorrow you’ll be escorted to the Upper Level for the Five Periods Preparatory to Declaration of Unification Intentions.”

Lacking strength to argue, Jared collapsed on his ledge.

“There’s something you ought to know,” his father went on soberly. “The Zivvers may be taking captives again. Owen went out to collect mushrooms four periods ago. He hasn’t been heard from since.”

Suddenly wide awake, Jared wasn’t as exhausted as he had imagined. When the Prime Survivor fell asleep, he retrieved his clickstones and stole out of the Lower Level World, tempering condemnation of Owen’s addleheaded pride with concern for his safety.

Fighting the impulse to drop in his tracks and sleep there forever, he pushed on past the place where he had encountered the Zivver child, along the bank beside the swift stream and into the smaller tu

Beside it were a broken lance and two arrows. The bow, his clickstones told him, lay against the wall, cracked almost in half. Sniffing what might have been the lingering scent of the Original World creature, he backed off toward the Barrier.

Owen didn’t even have a chance to use his weapons.

CHAPTER THREE

At the entrance to the Upper Level, the unfamiliar tones of the central echo caster brought Jared crude impressions of a world much like his own, with grottoes, activity areas, and livestock compounds. In addition it had a natural ledge ru

Waiting for his reception escort, he turned his thoughts grimly back to the discovery of Owen’s weapons on the other side of the Barrier. All he could think of then was that the evil creature had been a punishment sent by Light Himself for his sacrilegious rejection of established beliefs. Certainly he had been wrong. The Barrier had, after all, been erected solely to protect man from monster. Yet, he knew he would not forfeit his quest for Darkness. Nor would he let the uncertainty surrounding Owen’s fate rest for very long.

“Jared Fenton?”

The voice, coming from behind a boulder on his left, took him by surprise. Stepping out into the full sound of the central caster, the man said, “I’m Lorenz, Adviser to Wheel Anselm.”

Lorenz’s voice suggested a person of short stature, small lung capacity, depressed chest. Added to this composite was the indirect sonic impression of a face whose audible features were rough with creases and lacked the soft, moist prominences of exposed eyeballs.

“Ten Touches of Familiarization?” Jared offered formally.

But the Adviser declined. “My faculties are adequate. I never forget audible effects.” He struck off down a path that coursed through the hot-springs area.

Jared followed. “The Wheel expecting me?” Which was an u

“I wouldn’t be out here to meet you if he wasn’t.”

Detecting hostility in the Adviser’s blunt responses, Jared turned his attention fully on the man. The caster tones were being harshly modulated by his expression of resentful determination.

“You don’t want me up here, do you?” Jared asked frankly.

“I’ve advised against it. I don’t hear where we can gain anything through close association with your world.”

The Adviser’s sullen attitude puzzled him for a moment — until he realized unification between the Upper and Lower Level would certainly affect Lorenz’s established status.

The well-worn path had straightened and was now taking them along the right wall. Residential recesses cast back muffled gaps in the reflected sound pattern. And Jared sensed rather than clearly heard the knots of inquisitive people who were listening to him pass.

Presently the Adviser caught his shoulders and spun him to the right. “This is the Wheel’s grotto.”

Jared hesitated, getting his bearings. The recess was a deep one with many storage shelves. In the space before the entrance there was a large slab with adequate leg room carved in its sides. From its surface came the symmetric sounds of empty ma

“Welcome to the Upper Level! I’m Noris Anselm, the Wheel.”

Jared listened to his more than amply proportioned host advance around the slab with arm extended. That the hand found his on first thrust spoke well for the Wheel’s perceptive ability.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, my boy!” He pumped Jared’s arm. “Ten Touches?”

“Of course.” Jared submitted to exploring fingers that swept methodically across his face and chest and along his arms.

“Well,” said Anselm approvingly. “Clean-cut features — erect posture — agility — strength. I don’t guess the Prime Survivor exaggerated too much. Feel away.”

Jared’s hands Familiarized themselves with a stout but not flaccid physique. Absence of a chest cloth, clipped hair and beard, suggested resistance to the aging process. And lids that ificked their protest to his touch signified abiding rejection of closed eyes.