by Bob Shaw
He looked to the three women who were standing in his field of view, willing them to undertake what he could not. Mistekka and Arvand continued to stare down at him, frozen to the spot by a new kind of fear. Vantara dropped to her knees, covered her face and began to sob.
"I expect promotion for this," Jerene exclaimed as she leapt to her feet, took her sword in hand and began to run towards the impeller. The strength inherent in her solid limbs, sprinter's strength, drove her through the impeding grass at a speed Toller doubted he could have matched even had he not been wounded.
The lone Vadavak, showing vastly greater courage and obduracy than his vanquished comrades, chose not to retreat. He ran towards Jerene and, when separated from her by several paces, dived at her ankles. She partially thwarted him with a scything blow of her sword—a touch of crimson was abruptly added to the bleached palette of the scene— but the alien succeeded in clamping his hands around one of Jerene's shins, bringing her to the ground. There followed a moment in which it was impossible to see what was happening, a moment in which Toller was struck dumb with anxiety, and then Jerene was up and running again.
The shrieking of the white rectangle seemed to intensify as she reached it. She grasped its nearer top edge and tried to pull it downwards, but it resisted her efforts. She ran around to the farther side and disappeared from view as she stooped to gain a more effective hold on the massive cabinet. And then, with nerve-destroying slowness, the impeller rotated into its normal attitude.
In less than one heartbeat, Jerene had reappeared from behind the impeller and was sprinting—head thrown back and limbs blurring—towards the fear-stricken watchers. She had covered perhaps a third of the distance to safety when the impeller suddenly fell silent. In the absence of its frenetic screaming another message of hysteria was perceived with silent and dreadful clarity, beating down from the remote apex of the heavens.
Do not kill me, Beloved Creator! Do not. . . .
Toller, his face contorted into an inhuman mask of dread, looked beyond Jerene and saw the lustrous cabinet of the impeller begin to change its appearance. It glimmered and threw off expanding pale images of itself, layered versions of reality which flowed outwards to encompass all that could be seen of space and time.
Jerene was running through that shimmering matrix of what was and what might be, and Toller fancied she was calling his name. In one agonizing thrust of his limbs he forced himself into an upright position and tried to move towards her.
But above Jerene the entire dome of the sky had begun to convulse and contort. Concentric rings of eye-searing brilliance were pulsing and flooding outwards from the Xa, and they were clashing in intolerable discords with the emanations from the white box. ...
Too much is happening at once. Toller thought in the wildest extremities of terror.
Chapter 19
A deep, velvety and infinite darkness—a kind of night which was outside of Toller's previous experience—suddenly pervaded the scene. It was as though an opaque cover had been clamped over the entire planet. The blackness above was made even more intense by the fact that the impeller, after its display of dimensional sorcery, was now glowing like a huge block of fluorescent ice, casting a shallow pool of illumination over the silenced battle field.
Toiler was still, blinking, trying to force his eyes to adapt to the strange new conditions, when Jerene reached him and allowed herself to be brought to a halt by his arms. She clung to him for a brief period, trembling and breathing harshly, then straightened up and stepped back a pace. For an instant Toller half-expected her to give him a formal salute, as though making amends for the breach of some rigorous discipline. Vantara, who had been standing close by, moved to Toller's side and gently enfolded his arm with hers.
Toller was scarcely aware of her presence as he gazed into the awesome emptiness of the heavens. At first he had thought the dark celestial canopy was completely featureless, but as his eyes continued to adjust he began to pick out coldly remote points of light which could be identified as stars. They were faint and sparse compared to those he had known all his life, so meager with their output of light that an appreciable time went by before he seized on the strangest and most disconcerting factor of all.
Overland's sister world had vanished from its place directly above.
In its place, in the crown of the heavens, there was nothing
more than a handful of chilly flecks of light arranged in alien configurations.
Steenameert, overcoming his paralysis, rose to his feet behind Toller and spoke with the rapt voice of a child. "It was all to no avail, Toller. We have been cast out. This place is not home to us."
Toller nodded, not trusting himself to reply, still yielding up his mind and soul to the black void which spanned his vision. We have indeed been cast out, he told himself. This is how the universe will look when it has grown old. . . .
"Such darkness," Vantara whispered, pressing herself closer to Toller. "It pleases me not at all—and I'm cold."
"In that case," Toller said, firmly disentangling his arm from hers, "I suggest that you begin gathering materials to build a fire. It may be a long time until dawn—if dawn ever comes."
"Of course dawn will come!" Vantara, angered by his symbolic rejection, was instantly on the offensive. "How can dawn fail to come? What a foolish thing to say!"
Toller realized with a surge of pity that she had no inkling, no glimmer of understanding of the momentous series of events the group had survived. His own insight, derived from telepathic exchanges with Divivvidiv and Greturk, was nebulous and patchy, but he knew in his bones that Overland —instead of being annihilated—had been projected into an inconceivably remote region of the universe.
And the "universe" he was thinking about was not even the limited and well-defined entity which came to mind when Kolcorronian scientists used the word. It was that woolly, intangible and maddeningly elusive philosophical concept which Divivvidiv had referred to as the space-time continuum. Toller had grasped the notion at the time of his telepathic tuition, but in spite of all his efforts his understanding of it had been fading ever since, like the wistful memory of a dream.
Now it was all but gone, the only lingering remnant being its effect on his modes of thinking. Without being able to justify the idea in any form of words, he was quite prepared to believe that the incomprehensible forces unleashed by the Xa in its death throes could have displaced Overland in time as well as in space, perhaps far into the future of some parallel cosmos.
He was finding it hard to remember why he had ever been enamored of Vantara in the first place—and now, gazing at her beautiful but petulant face, he sensed an unbridgeable gulf opening between them. She had closed her mind, and as a consequence had no way of sharing Toller's principal worry of the moment. Once, during the long hours of the flight to Dussarra, he had asked Divivvidiv how he knew the relocation device would not deposit the planet in the depths of interstellar space, too far from a sun for "minor" adjustments to be made in its position. Divivvidiv, possibly lost for a good answer, had slipped away from the question with some comments about probability coalescence and abstruse self-generating design features of the Xa which in the final outcome were to cope with biological viability zones and orbital dynamics.
Now Toller had to ask himself if there was a sun hidden behind the passive bulk of the planet. Either there would be a normal sunrise some hours from now, or Overland would grow colder and colder, and all its inhabitants would perish in never-ending blackness. There was only one way to obtain the answer, Toller realized, and that was by waiting. And there was no point in waiting in the dark. . . .
"Why is everyone not gathering wood?" he shouted jovially, turning away from Vantara. "Let us find an agreeable place—away from these miserable alien corpses—and light a good fire to comfort us through the night."
Cheered by having been presented with a homely objective, Steenameert, Mistekka and Arvand darted away towards a clump of wryberry bushes
, the rounded outlines of which had gradually become visible in the starlight. Vantara gave Toller a prolonged stare, which he guessed to be one of disdain, then turned and slowly walked after the others, leaving him in the sole company of Jerene.
"Your leg needs many more stitches, but there is not enough light." She glanced at the impeller, which had now faded into a rectangular patch of grey. "I will bind the wound now and finish the job properly in the morning."
"Thank you," Toller said, suddenly realizing that he was quite incapable of walking unaided. The wound, while serious enough, seemed insignificant in comparison to his size, and he was chastened to find that he felt cold, ill and weak. He stood patiently while Jerene bound his calf tightly with a bandage from the field kit.
"This is where my farm upbringing comes in useful," she said, securing the dressing with an expert knot.
"Thank you again!" Toller spoke in mock indignation, grateful to be distracted from his haunting worry about the sun. "You may nail new shoes to my hooves in the morning, but in the meantime will you assist me to join the others by the fire?"
Jerene stood up, put an arm around his waist and helped him walk towards the flicker of orange light which was already beckoning through the darkness. He found it more difficult and painful than he had expected to make progress through the long grass, and he was relieved when Jerene stopped to rest.
"Now I doubly deserve promotion," she said breathlessly. "You weigh nearly as much as my pet greyhorn."
"I'll see to your promotion as soon as. . . ."Toller paused, hesitating to make any promises for a future which might not exist. "You were very courageous when you ran to the machine. My blood froze for fear that you would not get clear of it in time."
"Why were you so concerned?" Jerene murmured. "After all, I had achieved what I set out to do."
"It may have been because. ..." Toller smiled, realizing that Jerene was playing an ancient game with him, and all at once as they stood together in the darkness that game became more important to him than all his fear for the future of the planet. He drew her closer to him and they kissed with a kind of gentle fervor.
"The countess can see what we are doing," Jerene said, still being provocative as the kiss ended, and her breath was warm in his mouth. "The countess will not be pleased."
"What countess?" Toller said, and he and Jerene began to laugh as they clung together in the dark, dark night.
Toller had not expected to sleep. His wounded leg had begun throbbing like a busy machine, and in any case it had been inconceivable to him that he could lay down the burden of consciousness while wondering if his world was lost in a starless void. But the warmth of the fire had been pleasant, and it had felt good to have Jerene lying at his side with one arm draped across his chest, and he had been more tired than he knew. . . .
He opened his eyes with a start, trying to solve the urgent problem of deciding where he was. The fire had been reduced to white-coated embers, but it gave enough light for him to see the sleeping forms of his tiny band of warriors—and suddenly the great question was again hammering between his temples. He abruptly raised his head, causing Jerene to sigh in her sleep, and scanned the edges of the world.
There was a faint but unmistakable feathering of pearly light above one section of the horizon.
Toller's vision blurred with gratification as he took in the full, wondrous meaning of the tentative glow, then he sank back down to rest.
Chapter 20
Queen Daseene had suffered a major stroke, one which was almost certain to prove fatal.
As news of the impending tragedy raced out from Prad to the towns and lesser communities of Overland, the common people—already chastened by inexplicable events in the sky—became even more morose and subdued. Those of a religious or superstitious turn of mind saw the Queen's illness as having been foretold by the spate of omens which had so radically transformed the appearance of the heavens. And even those who had no time for the supernatural were affected by their awareness that something very strange had happened at dawn three days previously.
The early risers who had been out of doors at the crucial time were extremely graphic in their reports. They had spoken of the initial awe-inspiring moment during which a fierce source of yellow light, like a miniature sun, had appeared at the zenith, centered on the great disk of Land. Hardly had the eye become accustomed to the cosmic intruder when multiple shells of luminance, concentric to different sources, had exploded into pulsing conflict across the dawn sky.
And then—a final incredible act in the cosmic drama— the sky had . . . died.
The same word—died—had been employed over and over again. It sprang spontaneously to the lips of untutored observers who had spent their lives under heavens which were extravagantly patterned with light, spilling over with astronomical jewels of every kind.
The sky had appeared to die when Land simply blinked out of existence—along with the Great Wheel and a myriad of lesser silver spirals; countless thousands of stars, the most brilliant of which had formed the constellation of the Tree; the irregular streamers of misty radiance strewn like delicate tresses among the galaxies; the comets whose glowing and tapering fans partitioned the universe; the darting meteors which had enlivened the dome of night, briefly linking star to star.
All of these had disappeared in an instant, and now the sky seemed dead—all the more so because of the cold, aloof and infinitely remote points of light which, instead of illuminating the sky, served only to emphasize its lack of light.
Toller Maraquine, supported by his crutches, was watching the sunset from the south-facing balcony of his family's home. He had a hot drink positioned within reach on the wide stone balustrade, but it was forgotten for the time being as he saw the sky assume deeper and more somber colors. He repressed a shiver as the alienness of the darkening celestial dome made itself more and more apparent, and it was not merely the aching absence of the sister world from its ordained station directly overhead which disturbed him. He had spent a fair amount of time on the "outside" of Overland —where most of the inhabitants could not even visualize having the detailed convexity of another planet suspended above them—and had quickly become accustomed to the changed environment.
His present sense of alienation, he had to admit to himself, was caused by the stark emptiness of the night sky. Doing his utmost to be pragmatic, calm and reasonable he had tried to shrug the whole thing off. What did it matter, he had asked himself, if the irrelevant and uncaring night sky contained a billion stars or only a scattered handful? Would either condition affect the yield of a harvest by so much as a single grain?
The trouble was that the reassuring negative answer failed to provide sufficient reassurance. He had no idea of what
fate had overtaken Land or Dussarra—for all he knew those worlds no longer existed anywhere—but he understood with a bleak and sterile exactitude that Overland had been, to use Steenameert's phrase, cast out. This was an alien region of the space-time continuum. It had a heart-sinking quality to it. Somehow, within the blink of an eye, Overland had been flung into a decayed universe which had grown old and cold . . . old and cold. . . and the paramount question was posed: Could human life—individually and collectively—go on just as it had always done?
Physically, there appeared to be no obstacle to prevent the men and women of Kolcorron living out their lives in the same manner as their forebears had done since the beginnings of history. But was it possible that the drear sense of isolation, of inhabiting an outpost in the black wastes of infinity, could alter the racial outlook?
Land and Overland—sister worlds, so close that they were linked by a bridge of air—might have been designed by some cosmic Planner to coax and lure their inhabitants into becoming interplanetary travelers. And, once that critical first step had been taken, there had beckoned a universe laden with astronomical treasures—so obviously charged with the forces of life—that it would have been impossible for the adventurer to turn back. To
ller's people had been predisposed by their spatial environment to look outwards, to believe that their future lay in moving outwards into a fertile and welcoming universe—but how would they feel now? Would there ever appear a hero with sufficient vision and courage, sufficient stature, to gaze at the remote and icy stars of Overland's bleak new sky and vow to make them his own?
Unwilling to confront abstracts any longer. Toller turned his back on the red-gold sunset and took a sip of his mulled brandy. As well as being heated, the liquor had been spiced and buttered to offset the coolness of the twilight air. He found its calorific familiarity deeply comforting as he watched his father and Bartan Drumme fuss over the telescopes which had been set up on the balcony. In his eyes the two older men had become granite pillars of intellectual fortitude and good sense in a quicksand universe, and his respect for them had been enhanced beyond measure. They were discussing a strange scientific anomaly, a quirky lesion in the fabric of the new reality, which thus far had been noticed by relatively few people.
"It is quite ironic," Cassyll Maraquine was saying. "It would be no exaggeration to say that, taking the state factories as a whole, there are at least a gross of highly qualified engineers and technicians who are directly answerable to me. They spend much of their time peering at the most accurate measuring instruments we can devise—but none of them saw anything*."
"Be fair," Bartan murmured. "There is no change in the way in which circles relate to circles, and most of your—"
Cassyll shook his graying head. "No excuse, old friend! It took a humble employee of the Cardapin brewery—a cooper!—to fight his way to me through all the cursed barriers that bureaucracies insist on erecting in spite of one's doughtiest efforts to prevent them. I have since plucked the man out of his lowly occupation and appointed him to my personal staff, where—"