Again, Dangerous Visions

by edited by Harlan Ellison

  Yeah, dance it right and you get in, or dance it wrong and you get killed. Stupid, stupid.

  Lasten's people had been thinkers, the ones who kept the old knowledge . . .or what remained of it. They knew that the vaults were guarded not by curses or demons, nor by strange magic laws that judged and recorded the dance steps of generations of ignorant vault robbers. No, these vaults had been protected by the Immortals in ways even the thinkers no longer knew . . .but it was not magic. There were hidden eyes surrounding each vault, and they defended against invasion with a variety of weapons. Gas was one, explosions were another; that was plain enough. The sound-without-sound was not so simple, nor the blinding lights, but they were all the same, only defenses left to guard the vaults.

  The world that had created those vaults was gone, destroyed in bombings and explosions and gases so powerful they had killed most of the Immortals. They screamed and died, screamed and died, until only a handful were left, grubbing among the ruins, their women bearing strange children, and all of them dazzled by the groundstars that filled the low places everywhere.

  Each spring now, as soon as the thaw was complete, the people of the valley held memorial for the past and the thinkers told the story.

  The man ahead of Lasten was waddling now, laughing as he glanced back to see the fat boy follow the lead. Lasten cursed in ragged gasps, but he waddled after him as the man leaped forward to trip the dancer in front of him. The two of them fell sprawling to the ground, and giggled and laughed as they rose.

  "Hey yeah, fat boy," the dancer ahead of him sang, "come get me, fat boy, your turn to trip ole Sharksey," and he danced in a circle, waiting, giggling, challenging.

  Lasten sucked harsh air into his lungs, gathered what strength he had and ran forward to swing a leg and trip the man. But his aim was short; he felt himself falling, off balance, saw Sharksey's face suddenly angry, and then he was on the ground gasping weakly, and Sharksey muttered "Sisterson!" and leaped upon him.

  The man's weight was not great, but the impact knocked the rest of Lasten's wind out of him. He moaned weakly, hardly feeling the elbows Sharksey was wielding freely as he rolled off him and got to his feet. "Damn lousy fat Lasten, should've been made a thinker so you'd be killed too. No good dancer, damn no good. Get us all killed, yeah, only maybe we kill you, kill Lasten, hey kill fat boy, yeah? Yeah? Unless you get up, fat boy, up right now, right now!"

  And Lasten struggled to his feet while Sharksey continued to dance around him cursing and threatening. He stood up shuddering, and Sharksey sang, "Okay, dance it right, dance right . . .oh yeah, or we kill you, Lasten, and you know it, you know it, don't you?" He laughed, whirled and danced on upward to follow the others.

  Lasten watched him go, seeing him through a red mist like crimson groundstars swarming around his head. In his mind he still felt the throbbing hatred, the promise of death that was more than just promise; Sharksey really wanted to kill him. He gasped in air, and the mist began to dissipate—and suddenly his legs were cut from beneath him as the next dancer in line leaped forward to trip him in his turn. Again he was on the ground, but this time, driven by fear of the anticipation he'd felt from Sharksey's mind, he got up quickly and danced, or lurched, or shambled, step by step up the hill after the line.

  No more mistakes for Lasten, no, he told himself. Dancing don't matter to the Immortals, but it does to the filthy robbers, murdering robbers, and they'll really kill you, won't make no difference why you die.

  But damn them, damn them forcing me here when I've told them the vaults are empty.

  Sooleyrah had reached the gates now. There had once been a strong wall here, he'd heard that, but it was virtually demolished by generations of robbers who had torn it down barehanded, stone by stone, and the stones were littered all around, some scattered back down the hill where they'd rolled or been thrown. Fifteen or twenty yards to the right was a pit where once a bad dancer had caused an explosion. Of the wall only the gates remained, twin steel markers pitted and rust-flaking with age. Night moss had crept up the sides of the gates, half covering them with dark green fur. Overhead the cold skystars hung silently.

  "Okay, we go in," Sooleyrah chanted. "We go in, go in—hey we go in now!" and he danced forward, through the gates as quickly as he could (many robbers had been killed there, though none within Sooleyrah's memory), and on the other side, the inside, he paused and did shuffle-steps, humming a high keening song while Kreech and one, two, three more followed him through.

  "Now we're in," he said softly to Kreech, and they turned to survey the vaults. Behind them more of the line danced through the gates, slowed and finally stopped like Sooleyrah and Kreech, panting, staring around them at the vaults.

  "Which one?" Kreech asked. "You been here three, four times in a row now, so which one we go into?"

  Sooleyrah's eyes narrowed as he studied the vaults. They crowned the entire hilltop, vaults of many sizes and shapes, some tall, like obelisks, others domelike, still others jointed with odd angles and designs. Sooleyrah had always been afraid of the vaults—for their size alone, even if they hadn't been so dangerous. They towered into the sky above; and when the robbers entered those doorways the arches stretched far overhead to encompass echoing empty darkness.

  "Starboxes are kept in the vaults for us, no other reason, yeah?" he said to Kreech. "And samesongs, and tools; some toys maybe too, lots of shapes, yeah? Plug 'em into the starboxes and yeah, they work, they work. Now why unless they're for us? Who else, Kreech, who else?"

  "Nobody," Kreech said. "Nobody but us to take 'em."

  "Yeah, yeah, nobody," Sooleyrah said, turning slowly in the night, in the poised silence of the hilltop and the looming vaults. He looked back down the hill and saw the rest of the line coming through the gates, and the gates themselves now seemed to lead out, to lead downward, back to the brightness of the groundstars. He saw Lasten come panting and shuffling through, and suddenly he grinned.

  "Hey, fat boy Lasten can pick us a vault. Almost-thinker says they're all empty, hell he knows. Remember what the rest said? Rest of the thinkers? Said they could remember which vaults were used up, remember how many vaults there were, and all empty now. You remember? Yeah? Damn dumb thinkers been fooling us for hey long time. Send us up here instead of them, make us take the chances, oh yeah, they just tell us which vaults to go to. Oh sure, oh yeah, smart old thinkers, and every one dead now, about time."

  Kreech kicked over a loosely planted stone; underneath it were faintly glowing crawling things that scurried in small circles and quickly burrowed into the ground, hiding.

  "Yeah, always hated the thinkers," Kreech said. "Always knew they were liars—well, didn't all of us? Hey yeah, good, get Lasten up here and make him pick out our vault tonight."

  "Yeah okay, pass the word back," Sooleyrah said, then turned his back to the line and stared again at the vaults. But almost immediately he had another thought; he said to Kreech, "Lasten picks our vault, and he's first one to go in tonight. First one. Place of honor, yeah?" He laughed.

  "First one in gets killed if the approach wasn't good," Kreech said. "Oh yeah, place of honor."

  "Fat boy needs it," Sooleyrah said. "Bring him here."

  Lasten's fear sharpened when they came for him. Why did they want him now, when they were through the gates and at the portals of the vaults themselves? Surely they wouldn't kill him now, up here on the silent hilltop. What reason, what reason? (Unless they were going back to human sacrifice in front of the vaults. No.)

  But the flickering impressions that reached him from Sooleyrah's mind, when he was brought to the leader, had nothing of murder in them. There was hatred, yes, and the soft spongy feel of gloating. But not murder, no, nothing overt.

  "Hey Lasten, you almost a thinker, yeah?" Sooleyrah said, and his voice was so quiet, almost friendly. But not his mind.

  "I wasn't entered," Lasten said cautiously.

  "Yeah, we know. Okay, but you know a lot of stuff, yeah? Know a lot about vault
s, which ones are dangerous, which ones maybe empty, we hear. Now, not all of 'em empty, Lasten, not all of 'em. You almost a thinker, you not dumb, yeah?"

  "The thinkers told you they were all empty," Lasten said, "so you killed the thinkers. Now if I still say that, you'll kill me."

  Sooleyrah smiled widely, glancing at Kreech. "No, no, Lasten, you not dumb. Okay, now what vault do we go to tonight?"

  A chill scurried up Lasten's back, touching the nape of his neck spider-softly.

  "You want me to pick the vault?" he asked. "Why me? Why, Sooleyrah?"

  Sooleyrah laughed, enjoying himself. "Hell damn I know what vault to pick. Thinkers always do that, always. So no more thinkers, but we got you Lasten. So you pick."

  So I pick—and if the vault is empty, it's my fault, not Sooleyrah's. Sooley rah maybe not so sure about the vaults after all, eh?

  "You scared to pick one yourself, Sooleyrah? Scared you can't find a vault with your pretty things? Yeah, you're scared, scared."

  But he shouldn't have said that. Sooleyrah leaped forward and grasped Lasten's arm, painfully squeezing the soft flesh, twisting the arm behind him. Lasten cried out in pain, and bent over trying to escape the pressure. Sooleyrah jammed his arm up against his shoulder blades.

  "Not scared, fat boy; not scared, just smart. Thinkers knew about vaults, they taught you, yeah? Sure, Lasten, sure, we know. Then thinkers said all vaults empty, no use making raids any more, yeah? Yeah? Well, maybe thinkers got something up here they don't want found, eh? Robbers not so dumb, Lasten, and Sooleyrah not dumb either. You pick vault, you, and it better not be empty!"

  Or they'll stone me right here, Lasten thought, seeing that as a bright certainty in Sooleyrah's mind. Only way Sooleyrah could make up for leading a failure raid. Yeah, and the robbers would love another stoning, especially up here where the magic is. Magic and death, oh yeah, they'll love it.

  "And you go into vault first, Lasten," Kreech told him with happy malice. "Sure, you, Lasten, place of honor for you."

  Place of death, Lasten thought. Oh, you dumb damn robbers, lousy murdering superstitious—

  "Which one, Lasten?" Sooleyrah said, applying pressure to his arm. "Which one?"

  And Lasten, the almost-thinker, suddenly laughed.

  "Yeah, okay," he said, and giggled again, a giggle just like Sooleyrah's or Kreech's, only higher pitched, thinner. "Okay, yeah, okay, okay . . ."

  Sooleyrah let go of his arm, stepping back. "You take us to an empty vault, you won't be laughing," he warned.

  "Yeah, oh yeah, I know," Lasten said, managing to stop his giggling. It wasn't that funny, after all; in fact, probably it wasn't funny at all.

  "That one," he said, pointing to the vault nearest to them. "We go there."

  Sooleyrah and Kreech both stared. "That one? Fat boy, you crazy? Nothing in that vault, nothing there since before you or me born!"

  "Hey, yeah," Kreech said. "First vault ever emptied was that one, that one right there, don't you know that?"

  "Sure, I know, sure. But that's the one we go to tonight. And you look close, robber leader and watcher, you look close and you'll see vault's not empty. You want more pretty stuff stored in vaults, you just look close tonight!"

  He began to walk confidently toward the nearest vault, while behind him Sooleyrah and Kreech looked angry, then uneasy, and finally they turned and motioned the rest of the party to follow them as they moved after Lasten.

  Sure, damn robbers emptied this vault first thing, Lasten was thinking. Been in this one so often you can't count, clearing it out, every piece they could find, everything the Immortals stored here. Only that just means it's a safe vault, all the defenses used up or burned out so long ago. Nothing here to blind me, burn me, kill me. Safe vault, yeah . . .but maybe not so empty as they think.

  The door to the vault gaped open, leading into blackness. Lasten called for torches, and two of the robbers came forward and lit them. "Okay, now we go in," Lasten said, and sullenly the torchbearers followed him through the wide doorway, Sooleyrah and Kreech right behind them.

  Inside was a high-ceilinged room littered with dust and stones and broken pieces of once-complete artifacts; one wall of the room was dark and misshapen, its plastoid seared by some long-forgotten fire-explosion. A hole in the ceiling, so far above them it was barely discernible in the flickering torchlight, showed where once there had been lighting fixtures, long since ripped out by the robbers. The sounds of footsteps were flat and harsh in the bare room, and the faint smell of old torchsmoke seemed to come from the shadows. Sooleyrah moved closer to Lasten, saying with dangerous softness, "Don't see nothing in here, thinker."

  Lasten nodded, looking carefully around the vault.

  "You see anything in here, Kreech? Looks empty to me, just empty as damn, yeah?"

  Kreech grinned. "Oh no, not empty. Can't be; fat thinker brought us here. That right, fat thinker? Something hidden in here?"

  Lasten got down on hands and knees in the middle of the floor, picking through the rubble. Here and there he brushed aside dust and stones to look closely at the floor.

  "Yeah hey, he got something hidden all right," Sooleyrah said. "Hey, move in with the torches there, move closer." The torchbearers edged suspiciously forward; Sooleyrah grabbed one, swung him around and placed him where he wanted him, standing right over Lasten. "You too," he told the other man, and that one too held his torch close over the fat boy.

  Lasten giggled.

  "You find it, hey?" Sooleyrah said. "What is it, fat boy? Better be good and you know it, now don't you? What is it?"

  Lasten knew Sooleyrah and the others were more frightened than they acted. The robbers had always been afraid of these vaults, no matter how often they'd pillaged them, and despite the lower and lower frequency of maimings or killings by the defense systems. Robbers think this is all demon-stuff, something like that. Hell, no demons, not even lousy magic. Just stuff we forgot, even the thinkers forgot.

  But yeah, I know one more thing about vaults that Sooleyrah don't know.

  Lasten rose to his feet, puffing, then looked around and picked out the south wall. In the center of it was a metal plaque with writing on it—devil marks, the robbers called it: another kind of magic to fear.

  Lasten couldn't read it, but he knew what it must be. He motioned Sooleyrah over to him and pointed at the plaque. "Take that off the wall," he said.

  Sooleyrah stared at him; so did Kreech, and so did the rest, the torch-bearers and the ones crowded around the doorway.

  "Take it off the wall!" Lasten said sharply, a little shrilly. "Pry it, use your knives—but be careful."

  Sooleyrah hesitated only a moment more; then he turned and picked out one of the men in the doorway. "Takker—you. Bring your knife, do what thinker says. Rest of you, you keep door blocked so thinker can't run out."

  Takker came into the vault reluctantly, drawing his knife. It was crude but strong; once it had been just a slim bar of metal, but Takker had filed it sharp. He worked the edge under the plaque and pried; the plaque began to loosen.

  "Secret place in there?" Sooleyrah asked, and Lasten didn't have to feel the suppressed fear from his mind; it was apparent in his voice.

  "Yeah, secret place," he said. "Surprise for you."

  The plaque came off and dropped to the floor with a sharp metallic ring. Lasten stepped forward, motioned for the light and looked into the small hole opened in the wall.

  There was a round dial, with markings and writing—the short writing they'd used for numbers. A time-lock, set for sometime in the future, after the wars. But the time could be changed, no reason it couldn't be changed.

  Lasten twisted the dial, heard its faint scraping clearly in the suddenly silent vault. Turn, turn, and seasons flowed by, more and more time was marked off. Years, years. He kept turning the dial, waiting for the time-lock to release. (Maybe he was turning it the wrong direction? But no; it wouldn't turn at all the other way.)

  All around him he tast
ed fear. He stood in semidarkness as the torch-bearers edged away; shadows sprang up to claim more of the vault. Even Sooleyrah and Kreech had moved away, toward the door.

  Then the floor of the vault began to rise.

  There was a section of the flooring, twice as long as the height of a man and half as wide, that was separate from the rest; Lasten had searched for and found the edges of that section when he'd been on hands and knees earlier. Now the section was rising out of the floor, accompanied by a low subterranean hum of machinery. It was a block of heavy plastoid, and as Lasten and the others stared in wonder and terror it raised itself steadily to a height almost up to their shoulders.

  It was a compartment, transparent-sided; inside it lay the body of an Immortal—or a demon, a god, a monster. He was huge, twice the size of Lasten or Sooleyrah or any of the rest of them; they could see that even while he was lying down, in the moving shadows of torchlight.