[Jan Darzek 03] - This Darkening Universe

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  Resolutely she got to her feet and headed back toward the mart.

  This time she led the way and Arluklo followed.

  Early the next morning, Malina went to the Kloa Common for a long conference with Arluklo. When finally she left, she took with her a most ingenious map on parchment - it felt like parchment - with the terrain actually shown in shallow relief so that one looking down on the map had the dizzying effect of seeing the vast plateau from the air. On this map, where Arluklo had pointed out locations, Malina had drawn X's.

  She also had a second map that consisted of a maze of meandering lines drawn on a transparent film. It represented all that the kloa knew about the Monturan underground cavern world. At the center, a small circle had been drawn to represent the area where the Monturans administered their justice. The transparency, superimposed on the map, showed the location of the caverns as well as it was known.

  Returning to the apartment, Malina found that Miss Schlupe had baked a small batch of fresh rolls for their own use and made up some sandwiches.

  "I wish I knew some other way to use all that smoked and spiced meat I have left over," she said. ...

  "What sort of animal does it come from?" Malina asked.

  "I'd rather not know. Too bad you weren't here this morning. You missed quite a show. We had a visitation from the gesardl."

  Malina raised her eyebrows.

  "All of it," Miss Schlupe went on. "All fifty members. They called to throw themselves on our mercy. The natives positively refuse to even discuss returning the children to us. In the meantime, word about Mr. Darzek's recordings has reached the gesardl - some of the secretaries saw them, and the kloatraz may have sent along a report - and the gesardl has somehow got the impression that the recordings were a preview of what will happen to Montura if they don't return the children. The members think they're being unfairly squeezed in the middle. They called to suggest that we take our reprisals against the natives and leave the innocent and peaceful traders alone."

  "Who turned the children over to the natives?" Malina asked icily. "My precise question. They answered that they'd only done it because they hadn't known we could do anything about it. Their position is that we should have informed them about the reprisals before they acted and not when it's too late for them to make amends. They're scared witless."

  "Good for them."

  Miss Schlupe nodded. "Definitely dirty pool, and I enjoyed every minute of it, which means I've permanently blown my chance at Rok Wllon's Upright Citizen of the Galaxy award. My only regret is that it isn't likely to have any effect. The natives still have the children, and evidently the natives don't scare."

  "Arluklo thinks the natives aren't worried about the Udef because they live underground."

  "They're due for a rude shock. Mr. Darzek says that victims with immediate access to an exit die outside. Those too far from an exit to reach it die inside. He found dead in mines a kilometer or more underground. "

  "Since the interdiction is off, would it be possible to see Montura Mart from space?" Malina asked.

  Miss Schlupe raised her eyebrows but made no comment. "I don't see why not. Let's ask E-Wusk. He'll know which of his ships is in 'he best position for it."

  In the Prime Common they walked into an enormous silence.

  E-Wusk and all of his assistants were gaping at the center of the room, where a confrontation was in progress: Rok Wllon and Jan Darzek.

  They stood facing each other: Rok Wllon with an ugly pout of determination; Darzek calmly good-natured, his smile the velvet glove on the iron fist.

  "The ship," Darzek said, "is ready to leave when you are. Surely you won't have much packing to do. Here's the list of questions, and this time please don't act like an errand boy. Don't just ask the questions and record the answers. Explore them, until you understand everything Supreme says and can explain it to me."

  "I suggest," Rok Wllon said icily, "that you run your own errands. Supreme has entrusted me with the Monturan mission."

  "To do what?" Darzek asked.

  Again they faced each other in silence. "I suggest," Darzek said finally, "that you start packing. The ship is waiting."

  Rok Wllon turned away, shoulders drooping, wide form bent almost to a crease, defeated. Darzek watched him go, and then he left himself, through the transmitter.

  Miss Schlupe sounded a soft whistle. "Too bad he didn't do that the moment he arrived. But it's nice to know that Mr. Darzek is still Number One. Rok Wllon is a very capable administrator - really, he is, maybe the best in the central government - but he insists on trying to do everyone's job but his own."

  Malina spent the afternoon in space. The individual in charge of the ship - whether captain or janitor she could not have said - gravely studied E-Wusk's note of instructions, installed an enormous viewing screen for her in an unused compartment, showed her how to use it, and left her to herself.

  She quickly learned that the minute scrutinization from space of thousands of square kilometers of a world's surface was a far more complicated and time-consuming task than she'd anticipated. She narrowed the search area as much as possible and soon discovered how to do color match-ups, but even so she had to rush to finish as night's curving shadow began to move into the area.

  It was night by the time she returned to Montura Mart. She was hungry and exhausted, and the first thing she did was go to the apartment's odd kitchen and help herself to the sandwiches Miss Schlupe had thoughtfully left there. Jan Darzek came in a moment later and joined her. They sat on hassocks on opposite sides of the lounge, solemnly munching their sandwiches.

  Finally Darzek said, conversationally, "How much food did you take with you last night?"

  Malina stared at him. "How - "

  "I followed you. How much food did you take?" ....

  She met his eyes firmly. They were an unyielding blue, but so, she fancied, were her own, and if he considered her another Rok Wllon, she had a surprise for him. She said politely, "Would it offend you if I said it's none of your business?"

  "The mart is a long, long way from any important activity center of the natives," Darzek said. "Access is probably by way of a single, extremely long cavern, and the doorway in the park probably enters that same cavern. Have you thought about the implications of that?"

  "I've just been looking at the mart from space," she said dryly.

  "The location at the edge of the plateau makes it fairly obvious that the Monturans wanted it as remote as possible but close enough for them to collect their profits and look after their interests."

  "If that door had been open last night," Darzek said, "the odds are that you'd have entered it. It would have occurred to you that the next time it might be locked, so you'd have entered. And you'd have had to walk for days. So I asked - how much food did you take with you?"

  "I hadn't thought about being tempted to enter it," she said.

  "Thank you. The next time I go anywhere near the park I'll take food."

  "Is Arluklo to be trusted?"

  "I think so. The kloa seem genuinely contrite over what happened. But do I have any choice?"

  "Perhaps not. Did you investigate to see whether there's any kind of compass that works on this world?"

  Miss Schlupe came in. Darzek said to her, "She would have started a long underground trek with no food, no water, no source of light, no equipment, and no idea of how to find her direction or which direction she wanted to go."

  "There's plenty of water underground," Malina said defensively, "and we wouldn't have dared use a light even if we had one."

  "You don't know that there's water, or that the water's safe to drink. Of course you'd need a light. There may be chasms to cross. You'd need a light, ropes, tools, all kinds of equipment, and as much food and water as you can carry. You'd need blankets and warm clothing - including some for the children. Your problem doesn't stop when you rescue them. You have to bring them back."

  She glar
ed at him resentfully.

  "What about Arluklo?" he asked. "You'd have to take food for him, too. What does he eat?" He turned to Miss Schlupe. "Tell her, Schluppy."

  "You shouldn't be trying something like this alone," Miss Schlupe said. "It'll take everyone's combined talents to bring it off. Strange worlds, and strange life forms, can be tricky things to deal with."

  "You weren't doing anything!" she said accusingly.

  "We've been getting ready for this ever since Rok Wllon pulled his act. I've spent most of the day fixing concentrated foods and making packs. Mr. Darzek has been getting supplies together. With Arluklo's help he even found some infragoggles. You'll be able to see - after a fashion - in the dark."

  "I still haven't made up my mind about Arluklo," Darzek said.

  "Maybe the kloa are sincerely trying to make amends. On the other hand, their firm is a gesard, a member of the gesardl. Does it make sense that they're contrite enough to betray their own organization?"

  "Everyone at the mart snubs them except us," Miss Schlupe said.

  "In addition to feeling contrite, maybe they'd like to get even."

  "Maybe. On the other hand, maybe they'd like to get back into everyone's good graces by blowing the whistle on this conspiracy of ours - which is bound to make endless trouble if it succeeds or even if it doesn't."

  "Any suggestions?" Malina asked.

  "No. As you said, you have no choice. When do you plan on leaving?"

  "Tonight."

  "Better make it tomorrow night. We still have some preparations."

  "We?"

  "You weren't listening. Pulling off something like this takes combined talents. I'm coming with you."

  "That's very generous of you." She smiled bitterly. "But this is my problem, and it has very little to do with the fate of the universe. If you have suggestions I'll listen gratefully, but when I leave, it'll be my expedition. I'm leaving tonight, and I'm going alone - with Arluklo."

  "We may have as much as two hundred kilometers to walk," Darzek said. "One way. We explored the possibility of Schluppy reopening her refreshment stand to get a flyer back, but of course we couldn't use it with a gesardl chauffeur, and if we tried to take off without one, flight control would push a very large panic button and alert the natives. The one thing this project has got to have is secrecy, with the natives completely unsuspecting. So we'll have to walk. Better rest up and start tomorrow."

  Malina shook her head. "Tonight. Arluklo and I. Listen," she said earnestly, "we're going to rescue my children, if that's possible, and nothing else. I don't say that saving the universe isn't the most important thing in any of our lives, but it's a complicated problem that isn't likely to be solved very soon, whether you come with me or not. My children are in danger now. Once they're safe, I'll gladly do anything I can to help with your mission. Until they're safe, I'm not having you messing up their rescue by getting the universe mixed up in it. You can satisfy your curiosity about the natives some other time."

  Darzek nodded. "You're quite right." "So I'm going alone with Arluklo."

  "Oh no. I'm coming with you, but you'll be in charge. As you said, your children are in danger now, and it's your mission. Now finish your meal. You might as well start on a full stomach. It'll be empty soon enough."

  "I wish I could come with you," Miss Schlupe said wistfully, "but my bunions aren't equal to two hundred kilometers."

  "Someone has to stay here and pretend things are normal," Darzek said. "You can keep harassing the gesardl and try to figure out what to do with the children once we get them back here. They'll have to be hidden until the furor dies down and then smuggled off the planet. Study the more voluminous life forms and see if you can make a couple of convincing costumes that will conceal a child."

  Malina said, "Do you really think we have a chance?" "Of course we do."

  She was grateful, though she knew it was an act of desperation with no chance at all.

  Arluklo arrived a short time later, and they gathered around a large hassock and studied the kloa maps.

  Darzek took the transparency with the representation of the caverns and held it up to the light. "This can't be complete," he observed. "The whole system will be multileveled and complicated beyond anyone's ability to represent it on a fiat surface. I suppose these are the main corridors - the superhighways or superwalkways. Do they run subway trains through these caverns, Arluklo?" The klo regarded him blankly. "Do they have any kind of vehicles at all?"

  "Vehicles, yes."

  "But no trains. A pity. What about taxis? It'd be nice to pop down an entrance - the one under the arena, for example - hail a cab, and say, 'Tunnel of Justice, please.' We may want to stay off the main routes, but it will be a help knowing where they are. Did you inquire about magnetic compasses?"

  "No such thing is known here," Arluklo said.

  "Pity. I don't suppose electronic navigational equipment comes in pocket sizes, or that we could figure out how to use it if it did, or that we could use it without being detected. The next question is whether these other entrances are likely to be locked like the one in the park."

  "It is thought all of them are open," Arluklo said, "but that is not known definitely. They may be open but guarded. That is not known, either."

  "So the only way to find out is to go there. Next question: Is there a rule-of-thumb navigational method on this world - stars, for example - that will get us to where we want to go?"

  "I will guide you," Arluklo said.

  Darzek eyed him skeptically. "Have you been to any of these entrances before?"

  The question seemed to surprise Arluklo. "No," he said. "You haven't been there before, but you will guide us?"

  Malina felt skeptical herself. Perhaps the kloa were so eager to. make amends that Arluklo was promising more than he could deliver.

  But they had no choice.

  "About our destination," Darzek said. He brought out a map of his own, an enormous composite photograph, upon which certain irregularly shaped small areas were outlined. "My assistants have been studying the planet from space ever since we arrived," he said. "They've picked out certain areas where there's a distinctive color pattern. I suspect that the Monturans grow kitchen gardens around the mouths of their caverns. They probably tend them at night." He turned to Malina. "Did you notice the colors today?"

  "Yes. I noticed them Where Arluklo marked the known entrances, and I picked out some others, but I didn't find this many."

  "One of my suspected entrances is closer by sixty kilometers than the nearest of these entrances the kloa know about. Since the one is almost on a direct route to the other, we stand to save time and a lot of walking at very small risk." He pointed. "Arluklo, can you guide us here?"

  "Yes."

  "We're going to carry our supplies in back packs and probably we'll hand-pack some extra food that we'll eat first. What will you need for twelve or fourteen days?"

  "Need?" Arluklo echoed.

  "Food. Drink. Bandages for sore feet."

  "I will carry my own," Arluklo said. The response sounded testy, and Darzek questioned him no further.

  Malina was studying the map: a hundred and forty kilometers to find an entrance - maybe. Then, if it wasn't locked or guarded, a long underground trek through populated caverns. They would be fugitives traveling crowded city streets with no hiding places. The system of caves might be horrendously complicated. If they did manage to reach their objective and rescue the children, the alarm would be sounded, the entire underground population alerted, long before they could get back to the surface. If they managed to reach an exit, the long trek back to the mart would expose them to air or ground searches or a visual search from space. And if they did reach the mart, It would be in an uproar, every potential hiding place would be a trap - and they still would have the problem of getting the children off the planet.

  Darzek seemed to sense her thoughts. "Still want to go?" She nodded.
r />   "Tonight?"

  She nodded again.

  He turned to Arluklo. "Are you ready to leave at once? We'll meet you at the kurog twanlaft exit as soon as we're ready."

  Arluklo agreed and politely departed. Darzek went to finish the packing.

  Malina said to Miss Schlupe, "He seems like a different person today."

  She nodded. "He's been struggling so long with an unsolvable problem that a problem he actually can do something about comes as a great relief - whatever the odds." She glanced scrutinizingly at Malina. "You know how long the odds are?"

  "Yes," Malina said. "But I have no choice."