Dark Universe

Clicking his teeth faintly to produce echoes as he crept through the hot-springs area, Jared pulled up sharply. A Zivver missing? One of the Upper Level men too? Could there be any co

Mogan barked, “Norton, Sellers-go search their grottoes!”

Jared cleared the last boiling pit and stepped soundlessly over to the boulder. Now only the big rock stood between him and the raider guarding the entrance. And the man’s breathing and heartbeat clearly divulged his exact location. No one had ever enjoyed such an advantage of potential surprise over a lone Zivver! But he had to strike fast. Norton and Sellers were already trotting down the incline and would, in the next three or four breaths, pass within a few paces of the boulder.

More things than he could keep track of happened in the next instant. Even as he started his lunge around the rock, he caught the horrible stench of the thing from the Original World. It was too late, however, to check his charge.

Then, as he broke around the boulder, a great cone of roaring silence screamed out of the passageway. The incredible sensation struck him squarely in the face with deafening force. It was as though obscure regions were being opened in his mind — as though thousands of sensitive nerves that had never been stimulated before were suddenly flooding his brain with alien impulses.

In that same instant he heard the zip-hiss that had sounded in the Original World just before Owen collapsed. And he listened first to the Zivver crumpling before him and then to the frantic cries of distress rising from his rear.

Whirling to flee before the monster and the terrifying noise that he could neither hear nor feel, Jared was only vaguely aware of the Zivver spear that was screeching in his direction.

He tried to duck at the last heartbeat.

But he was too late.

CHAPTER FOUR

Guided by clickstones, Jared went cautiously down the passageway. The inconsistencies before him were distressing. The corridor itself was both familiar and strange. He was certain he had been here before. There was that slender stone dripping cold water into the puddle below with melodious monotony, for instance. He had stood beside it many times, ru

Yet, even as he aimed his clicks directly at it now, it changed like a living thing, growing until its tip actually touched the water, then shrinking back into the ceiling. Nearby, the mouth of a pit opened and closed menacingly. And the passage itself contracted and expanded as though it were a giant’s lung.

“Don’t be afraid, Jared.” A gentle, feminine voice stirred the deep silence. “it’s just that we’ve forgotten how to keep things in place.”

Her tone was soothing and familiar, yet unfamiliar and disturbing at the same time. He sent out precise clicks. The impression returning from nearby was like a silhouette — as though he were hearing the woman only with back sounding. Her features were blank. And when he reached out, she wasn’t there. Yet she spoke:

“It’s been so long, Jared! The details are all gone.”

He went hesitantly forward. “Kind Survivoress?”

And he sensed her amusement. “You make it sound so — stiff.”

Instantly, an entire flight of misplaced childhood memories rushed back. “But you — weren’t even real! You and Little Listener and the Forever Man — how can you be anything but a dream?”

“Listen around you, Jared. Does any of this sound real?”

The hanging stone was still squirming. Rock brushed against his arm as the right wall closed in, then pulled away again.

Then he was only dreaming — just as he had dreamed, oh, so many times, so many gestations ago. He remembered with a pang of nostalgia how Kind Survivoress would take him by the hand and lead him off. it wasn’t a hand he could always feel. And she didn’t really take him anywhere, because he would be asleep on his ledge all the while.

Yet, suddenly he would be scampering in the familiar passage or in a nearby world with Little Listener, the boy who heard only the inaudible sounds of the minor insects. And Kind Survivoress would explain, “You and!, Jared, can keep the Listener from being lonesome. Just think how awful his world is — all pitch silent! But I can bring him into this passage, as I can bring you. When I do, it’s as though he wasn’t deaf any more. And the two of you can play together.”

Jared was fully back in the familiar-strange passageway now.

And Kind Survivoress offered, “Little Listener’s a grown man. You wouldn’t know him.”

Confused, Jared said, “Dream things don’t grow!”

“We’re special dream things.”

“Where’s the Listener?” he asked skeptically. “Let me hear him.”

“He and the Forever Man are fine. The Forever Man’s old now, though. He’s not really a Forever Man, you know — just almost. But there’s no time to hear them. I’m worried about you, Jared. You’ve got to wake up!”

For a moment he almost felt as though he were going to break out of the dream. But then his thoughts went calmly back to his childhood. He remembered how Kind Survivoress had said he was the only one she could reach — and, even then, only when he was asleep. But he wouldn’t stop telling people about her. And she was afraid because she knew others were begi

“You must wake up, Jared!” She interrupted his reminiscences. “You’re hurt and you’ve been unconscious too long!”

“Is that all you came back for — just to wake me up?”

“No. I want to warn you about the monsters and about all the dreams I’ve heard you have — dreams of hunting for Light. The monsters are hideous and evil! i reached out and touched one’s mind, it was so full of horrible, strange things that I couldn’t stay in it for more than a fraction of a heartbeat!”

“There’s more than one monster?”

“There are many of them.”

“What about hunting Light?”

“Don’t you hear, Jared, you’re only chasing more dream stuff? There’s no such thing as Darkness and Light, as you think of them. You’re just trying to escape responsibility. There’s Survivors hip to think of, Unification — things that really mean something!”

He had always been sure that if his mother had lived she would have been quite like Kind Survivoress.

He started to answer her. But she was no longer there.

Jared rolled against the softness of a ma

From somewhere in the distance, rising above the audible background, came a reassuring paternal voice pacing itself through the monotonous patter of the Familiarization Routine:

“…Here we are under the echo caster, son. Hear how loud it sounds? Notice the direction of the clacks — straight up. We’re in the center of the world. Listen to how the echoes come back from all the walls at practically the same time. This way, boy…”

Jared elevated himself on an unsteady elbow and someone caught his shoulders, easing him down again.

It was Adviser Lorenz, who turned his head the other way and urged, “Go tell the Wheel he’s coming around.”

Jared caught Della’s receding scent as she left the recess. It had to struggle through the heavier odors clinging to everything around him — odors that identified Wheel Anselm’s grotto.

From outside, the tutoring father’s spiel bore back in on Jared’s conscious, complicating his attempts to reorient himself.

“…There, directly before you, son — can you hear that empty space in the sound pattern? That’s the entrance to our world. Now we’re going over to the poultry yard. Watch it, boy! There’s an outcropping about five paces in front of you. Let’s stop here. Feel it. Get an idea of its size and shape. Try to hear it. Remember exactly where it is. And you’ll save yourself many a bruised shin…”