“No!” protested Ron.
“Yes!” said Lylwani and Yldra in unison.
And Lylwani added, “You're right, Nad. There is no purpose in mere existence here unless we can unravel the whole mystery and see where we are going."
Nad had been lost in thought, momentarily, but now he looked up suddenly at Lylwani, his eyes wide in astonishment. “What did you say?” he demanded rather than asked.
“I said we've got to clear up this whole mystery and-and—"
“And what!” He glared at her, a triumphant smile on his lips.
“And-see-where we are going..."
“Exactly!” he exclaimed, smacking the palm of his hand with his fist. "We're going somewhere! We're on a journey! This metal-walled world of ours is like one of the flying globes used for the aerial chess games in the Recreation Hall. It is moving through the Abyss! The Navigators have erased our memory of where we really came from!"
He paced rapidly back and forth in front of his astounded little audience. “That means there was another life on the outside, at the beginning of the Abyss somewhere. And maybe-maybe there is a new life, after we cross the Abyss! Or maybe He paused, staring into nothingness.
“Maybe what, Nad?” Lylwani asked, excitedly.
“Maybe the Navigators are lost and won't admit it..."
At that moment, without warning, two Navigators stepped into the room. It was too late for anyone to do anything. The Navigators, young and arrogant in their esoteric knowledge, immediately approached Nad and seized him.
“Come along!” said one of them. “Sargon's orders!"
In a wholly unexpected move, Nad broke their grips on him and ran for the corridor. Both Navigators fired Stun Rays after him, but he was shielded by the metal walls just in time.
Much to the surprise of Nad's friends remaining in the reception room, the two young guards only grinned at each other and shrugged. One of them reached over to the wall and unlocked a small compartment with a master key. Inside the compartment was a switch that tied the sonophone in the room to all the others in the system. Once the switch was thrown, the operator had at his disposal a universal public address system.
“Alert! Alert!” he called into the instrument. “All guards! Capture escaped Passenger condemned to execution, Nad E-250-P, last seen in Q sector, deck fifteen. He is unarmed. When captured, bring prisoner to H. That is all!"
The guard who had made the announcement locked up the converter switch box and turned to his companion.
“Is that guy crazy?” he asked. “How does he figure he has a chance?"
When they had left the room, Ron was near to fainting in his terror. “You see? You see?” he said, hysterically. “Now he's got us all into trouble!"
Lylwani had a far away look in her eyes. Silently, she left the room. Ron stood there trembling in his helplessness for even if he had possessed courage he lacked the knowledge of what to do. Yldra covered her face and began to cry...
* * * *
Lylwani presented herself to the astonished guard and said simply, “I have come to see Sargon.” She gave him her name.
While she waited outside the great cryosite door, she could not suppress a feeling of terror. She had asked permission to enter section N, forbidden heretofore to all Passengers except women taken in as the chosen mates of the Navigators. Strange and terrifying were the imagined tales she had heard concerning this place, which was the citadel of the Navigators. Childlike in her ignorance, she half believed she would never emerge from the place once she entered it. But her purpose was fixed unshakeably in her mind. What she was doing was the only solution she could conceive of-for Nad. She was sure that the mysterious person known as X held the answer to all their problems, and if Nad could be free to join forces with X one day, it would be far more important than her own personal destiny.
The guard returned with a second Navigator, who led her to Sargon, Chief of the Navigator guards. So confused was her perception due to her increasing misgivings that she failed to notice anything unusual about the shining corridors through which she was taken, until she was admitted to Sargon's own office.
This was not at all like the Passenger type living quarters or reception rooms. It was unusually spacious and comfortable, as though it had been designed for an officer of much higher rank than that of Sargon. On the floor was a soft, furry substance that felt luxurious under her thin sandals as she walked across it. Its strange, soft fibers were of purest white and she could not imagine of what it was composed. Even Sargon's desk was of an alien substance-pure black, but like glass and scintillating with lights inherent within itself. On the walls were curious pictures which she could not understand at all. Among them was a very unintelligible one under glass, and beneath it was a metal plate bearing the meaningless title: Nebula in Andromeda...
Sargon sat inscrutably at his desk, but he motioned her to a large cushioned chair beside him. It was such a chair as Lylwani had never sat in before-soft and caressing, seeming to cradle her whole body like a cloud.
“Why have you come here?” he asked. “Is it because of Nad? His career is just about at an end, you know.” He watched her intently.
Lylwani sat up wide-eyed. “Then they did capture him?” she said.
Sargon's brows lowered to emphasize a penetrating gaze. “What else could happen?” he asked.
Lylwani lowered her head to hide her face, and her long, dark hair fell across her shoulders, but Sargon noticed that they trembled. He rose to his feet and stood looking down at her.
“You have come to request leniency for him,” he told her. “What would you offer in return?"
Lylwani looked up at him, suddenly struggling for self-composure. “You want me,” she, said, tonelessly. “Give him freedom and I will bear you child.” In the language of the Passengers there was no actual word for marriage.
A light leaped into Sargon's eyes but was gone almost in the same instant. “A Navigator's woman remains forever within section N,” he replied. “You would have to be content never to see Nad again."
By now, Lylwani's face had lost its natural, pinkish complexion. It was white. And her voice was like that of an automaton as she spoke.
“Let me see him free, and I will be your woman,” she said.
Sargon chuckled. “What makes you think I would not take you anyway?” he asked. “I have planned it this way for a long time."
Lylwani's eyes widened. “But that is against Navigator law!” she protested. “Not even a Passenger woman may be forced—"
“Forget it,” Sargon interrupted. “There are many things you don't know-too many things. Startling and amazing things, Lylwani. Things that would enable you to understand why we Navigators are doing what the Passengers believe to be unreasonable, even though we do it for their own protection. I have wanted to share this knowledge with you, as well as certain personal triumphs, but that will only be possible when you have became my mate. I promise you I will do all I can for Nad if you promise to stay here now and be content never to return to the Passengers."
For answer, Lylwani buried her head in the gas-foam cushions of her chair and cried uncontrollable. But for Sargon it was answer enough.
* * *
CHAPTER IV
When Nad ran from his own quarters to escape the Navigator guards, he had in mind a certain destination known as V sector, where there were whole batteries of living units unassigned. Vaguely, he tried to formulate some plan of action as he ran, but he could not yet see his way clear beyond the mere possibility of hiding out for a very brief period in V sector.
Passengers in the corridors instantly made way for him as he ran, in. spite of the warning cry of the Navigator guard over the sonophones. There was a sickly expression of incomprehension on most of their faces. They could not understand resistance or flight. Why resist or flee? Where could one go? It was easier to give up. Surrender to the Navigators if they want you. Death was a certainty. Life, at its best, was a monotonous, meaning
less effort.
But Nad ran for his life, and he felt that he was running, too, for all their lives. This hopeful premonition gave him a new strength, courage and determination such as he had never known before. Something seemed to whisper: Now! The time has arrived! Make a break for it!
On deck eighteen, near V sector, the Navigators began to close in on him. Panting loudly, he ran down a passage and suddenly ducked into a deserted room. With narrowed eyes glaring like those of a wild animal at bay, he thought rapidly and with a new clarity and confidence that was in itself exhilarating to him. He knew, somehow, that he would make good his escape, for the simple reason that there was no room for failure now. A grim smile crept across his lips as a new plan began to take shape in his mind.
Cautiously, he stepped into the corridor and darted onward to a doorway farther along in the direction he had chosen. By this means he finally arrived at another intersection. Before entering it, he heard the running feet of several guards, and he pressed his back to the cold wall, waiting.
Just as the two guards dashed into view, Nad lunged across their path horizontally, and they tripped helplessly on their faces. With a lightning quick movement, Nad leaped into the air and came down with both heels squarely on the head of one of the guards, who went limp in the same instant. The other guard rolled over and lifted his Stun Ray just as Nad kicked him squarely in the face. In the next instant he had acquired their weapons.
With one guard slung over his shoulder, he darted along a new corridor, moving from door to door. Gradually, he neared his objective, which was the disposal room for V sector. As he entered the room, he paused a moment to listen for sounds of pursuit. He could hear the bedlam raised by the sonophones, but nothing else. Then he moved swiftly.
He went to the nearest dumping lock and opened it, dumping his limp burden inside. Then he paused again. His lips tightened as he looked down at the unconscious guard. This was the part of the plan he could little stomach, but it had to be carried out.
Grimly, he braced himself. Then, leaving the lock open, he pulled the disposal valve. There was a roar of escaping air as the guard's body slipped into the vacuum of the disposal chute. The dumping lock door slammed, but did not shut, and air screeched through the remaining crack, making a sound that drowned out the sonophones.
Crawling on his belly against the air blast, Nad got through the doorway of the disposal room before automatic safety devices caused a metal hatch to slide into place, sealing the room hermetically. An alarm gong rang, which he assumed had been installed for such emergencies. He remembered having heard such alarms ring long ago when they said a galactite had pierced the walls. The gong was one of the things he had hoped for. It would bring them to the evidence, which he hoped they would interpret, at least temporarily, as suicide on his part. The other guard he had kicked was dead, so it would take them some time to figure out just who had gone out the disposal tube. He had deliberately left the dump lock door jammed, because a man committing suicide would not have been able to close it from inside. Careful inspection would prove that a human body had gone out the chute, he mused, remembering Gradon's frozen blood on the outer surface of the door of the execution chamber.
“From here,” Nad said under his breath, “I've got to disappear."
For hours, however, the Navigators continued their search. Evidently they wanted to find either him or the missing guard, to make the evidence conclusive. As he moved from hiding place to hiding place, he began to lose some of his confidence. The hide and seek could not go on indefinitely. Nor could he fight off a squad of Navigators, once they found him. They might even use the M-Ray on him.
Suddenly, he passed the doorway of a room that was unexpectedly occupied, and someone called out his name. He caught a brief glimpse of an old, gray-haired man with pale blue eyes and a leathery skin, the same who had been present at Gradon's execution. His inclination was to run when he saw the strange weapo. the other carried in his hand, but when he realized that the old man was no Navigator he paused and looked back. The old man was in the doorway, beckoning to him.
“Come with me quickly!” he said.
Something told Nad to follow this stranger, and he did. As running feet neared them in the corridor, the old man extinguished the lights of the room and led Nad into the dimness of an inner apartment. There in the wall was a black hole just large enough to squeeze through. The old man went in first and Nad followed. He found himself on a metal catwalk between metal walls. He could feel cables and conduits running in all directions.
The old man closed the opening and fastened several bolts in place “This is called a maintenance hatch,” he explained. “They are very little used nowadays. Most of the Navigators have neglected their knowledge of real maintenance. You'll be safe in here until they really start looking for you.
“Where are we?” said Nad. “And how did you know about this place? Who are you?"
“We are between the walls,” came the answer. “This is a vast maze of narrow passages of which the Passengers have no knowledge. I have always known about it because I never lost my memory. I am ‘X,’ my son, and you have come to me just in time."
* * * *
So it was that a new phase of Nad's existence actually began. The old man told him his name was Yiddir E-5172-P, but as time went on Nad began to suspect that this was an alias disguising a much more important identity than a mere Passenger. The man knew too much. In fact, as far as Nad was concerned, he was an oracle, willingly supplying him with all the knowledge he could absorb.
Yiddir led him, with amazing self-confidence and sure-footedness, through narrow, incomprehensible labyrinths and across dizzying catwalks below which gaped dark recesses the depths of which he could not guess. If what he had known before was a world unto itself, so was this. He seemed to be making a journey born of delirium, into the heart and veins and bowels of a monstrous, living creature.
Everywhere, Yiddir had reason to use new words to describe what he saw. There were “control relays” and “power cut-offs” and “master circuits” and “reactor shields,” and things incomprehensible without end, until Nad's brain hurt.
Finally, they arrived at Yiddir's destination, his private little citadel. It was an empty chemical tank into which he had diverted a tap from the ventilating system. There were small lockers for supplies of food and water and a few simple articles of furniture. A mattress, a small chair, a box that served as a table, and so on. But there were objects of a more technical nature that went beyond Nad's understanding. He could understand the glow tubes Yiddir had rigged for lighting purposes, and the visiplate and sonophone and even their accompanying converter switches, but one whole end of the tank was a workshop containing a jumble of instruments and equipment that was totally foreign to him. He only grasped that in this secret chamber a very advanced person had lived and worked for perhaps many years of time. Here, at last, was the knowledge and the help he sought. This was the home of “X."
When they had both rested somewhat, Yiddir began to talk to him in earnest, and for Nad the time for great revelations was at hand:
“Have you any concept of what a year of time is?” Yiddir asked him.
“Only that it is a very long period-part of a lifetime, I guess."
“You could not conceive of a period of five hundred years, could you?"
“Perhaps six or seven lifetimes?” Nad suggested.
“Something like that,” Yiddir replied. “Well, five hundred years ago, we human beings lived on real worlds; indeed, even three hundred years ago. I'll tell you later what those worlds were like, but suffice it to say, they were natural worlds incalculably larger than this ship you are now in. There were three worlds of principal importance, from which all Passengers and Navigators are descended. There were Venus, Earth and Mars, together with other less developed worlds, revolving each in its own elliptical path about a flaming ball of fire which gave us all the heat and energy necessary to life. This huge hall of fire men refer
red to as the sun. Actually, it was one of innumerable similar suns called stars which in turn composed what was the galaxy.
“Well, to make a long story short, hundreds of millions of people like you and me lived and prospered in a high form of civilization, and we were able to travel between Venus, Earth and Mars at will, for those distances were as. nothing when compared with interstellar distances-that is-the distance between the stars.
“It was about five hundred years ago that men first knew that the solar system, of which Venus, Earth and Mars formed a part, was going to be destroyed by cataclysm. That is, a runaway star was moving rapidly toward our sun, and it was accurately calculated that within three hundred years the collision would definitely occur.
“This single fact bound our three worlds together with a single purpose in mind-to salvage the human race. To do this, it was considered necessary to invent a way of traversing the awful distance between the stars. Not only would it be necessary to go to the nearer stars but onward indefinitely, if necessary, searching for a life-giving sun in whose system of planets there was at least one world that would be suitable as a new starting place for our kind. It would be necessary to extract cosmic energy from space and convert it into all desirable forms of matter, synthesizing out of basic elements all the molecular compounds necessary to the continuation of life. In short, the ships that were to save humanity had to be worlds independent of all other sources of sustenance except cosmic energy, itself.
“The task seemed insurmountable at first, but the concentrated minds of thousands of our great scientists gradually evolved the required miracle, over the course of the next century and a half. Necessity forced upon Man a superman technology, and the great arks began to be built. As you may have guessed, you are a Passenger in one of them now. It took all the human resources of three worlds to build a hundred of these vessels in as many years. They are flying planets. They move at a speed greater than light, itself. This means that light trying to reach us from behind can never catch up as long as we maintain such a velocity, and light meeting us head on is shoved clear off the visible spectrum. The result is that behind us is blackness, ahead is blackness, and to either side of us is a halo-like grayness. We can only navigate by means of instruments, some of which employ energies referred to as second order phenomena, which function many times faster than light.
Martian Honeymoon and Beyond the Darkness Page 9