[Jan Darzek 03] - This Darkening Universe

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  They walked beside the roaring river for the remainder of the night and most of the next day as well as Malina could calculate - she reset her watch every twelve hours to compensate for Montura's longer day. In the stygian tunnel it was a futile exercise, because day and night had lost their meaning.

  Frequently they saw passageways angling upward, some of them as wide as the roadway, and several times they encountered aqueducts that carried streams over delicately filigreed archways to plunge into the river with foaming roars. One of the streams was enormous, and the passage under its aqueduct a tunnel within a tunnel.

  They saw no other sign of the natives until they rounded a curve and sighted a distant glow of light ahead of them. They slowed their pace and approached it cautiously. Abruptly the river cavern enlarged into a room of breath-taking proportions, and the instant they entered it a massive glow of light blinded them. They jerked off their goggles and used their hands as blinders to race through the enormous room to the safety of the dark passage beyond.

  Only then did they attempt to contemplate the glowing mass that filled the room on both sides of the river. It had blinded them because they had come onto it from the dark and because of the sheer mass of the luminous material, but the light was not brilliant. It was the same soft, faintly bluish illumination they had seen the bathers using.

  "What is it?" Malina asked.

  "Maybe some kind of phosphorescent fungus," Darzek suggested. "Whatever it is, they brew their liquid light from it. Let's get out of here."

  They hurried their pace until the glow was lost behind the river's next curve. Then they stopped to rest and munch on Miss Schlupe's compressed meat, and Darzek made a tent of their blankets so he could translate his navigational observations into a line on the map.

  When he emerged, he shouted into Malina's ear, for the river was deafening there, "We're all right."

  They walked on - past more passageways, under more aqueducts, for an hour, two hours, four hours. Malina had long since passed the point where she could go no further, but she willed herself to continue. Finally the roadways left the river canyon to slope upward on long ramps and vanish into arched passageways. Malina stopped to look up at them apprehensively, but Darzek moved on, following a narrow path along the river. Beyond the roadway's ascending ramp, the bank widened again, but there the river shore was irregular and strewn with rock. When Malina overtook him, he had picked out a place of concealment where they could rest.

  They munched their rations in silence. "It's been too easy," Malina said finally.

  "Maybe. But maybe it's been easy because it's the first time anyone has tried it."

  "I can't understand our coming so far without meeting anyone. It's asking too much of coincidence."

  "However we did it, we're here, and I think we're fairly close to where we're trying to go."

  "To the circle on the map? The place of alleged justice?"

  Darzek nodded. "Up that ramp, and then - do you want to rest first?"

  "No," she said firmly. She pushed herself to her feet. Then she sat down again. Silently Darzek handed her a blanket and took one for :himself, and Malina found a place to lie down where the rocks did not seem too formidably inhospitable.

  But though she rested, she could not sleep. Probably Darzek did not sleep either, for he got up the moment she did. It was only an hour later by her watch when they donned their packs and started the long climb up the ascending roadway.

  At the top, they found themselves abruptly in another world. The slanting passageway ended in a wide archway fashioned of the same delicate filigree that they had seen below. Behind it hung draperies woven of some tough, hard fiber. They overlapped at the center of the arch. Cautiously Malina parted them.

  The light from the corridor beyond blinded her. It was the familiar cold blue light they had seen twice before. They removed their goggles and took turns glancing through the draperies until their eyes had become accustomed to the light.

  Darzek whispered to her, "According to the map, this corridor is perpendicular to our route."

  She risked a brief foray to look down the corridor in both directions.

  There were no natives in sight, and she saw, in the distance, what might be a main intersection. She withdrew again and tried to decide what to do. Behind them, there was no hiding place closer than the bottom of the passageway. The moment they moved into that well-lighted corridor they were helpless. They could not go ahead; they could not remain where they were.

  Darzek waited patiently, saying nothing at all. The decision, for better or for worse, was hers to make, and there was no point in waiting for a more opportune moment. In this dilemma there would be no way to recognize opportunity until it had passed them by.

  She parted the draperies again. There still were no natives in sight.

  She hissed, "Come on!"

  She slipped through the draperies and started along the corridor at a loping run. Darzek quickly overtook her and ran at her side.

  If the broad corridor had once been a natural formation, it was no longer recognizable as such. The floor had been leveled and covered with a soft material of startling resilience. Walls and ceiling had been smoothed, the ceiling arch made symmetrical, and both covered with finely woven, bright-colored hangings. The liquid light flowed or was contained in troughs along each wall. The natives' underground world was the opposite of the murky habitat Malina had expected. It was a world of dazzling brilliance.

  They hurried along noiselessly, passing innumerable arched doorways, all of them covered with draperies. Suddenly a drapery parted a mere ten meters ahead of them and a native stepped through.

  As he turned toward them, Malina halted. She was too stunned to take another step or even to think. Should they run? But where? Should they overpower him? But how? She gripped Darzek's arm; he seemed calm but equally uncertain.

  In the instant that they hesitated, the native walked past them, large eyes focused straight ahead along the corridor, apparently unseeing. He looked exactly as the natives at the pool had looked - no clothing, golden skin, head crest -

  Darzek, scowling perplexedly, had turned to look after him. Malina, still gripping Darzek's arm, pulled hard and hurried him forward.

  They came to the intersecting corridor and turned, and abruptly the corridor was filled with golden-skinned natives. They poured from every archway, some turning one way, some the other. It was as though a whistle had blown for quitting time or a school bell had sounded dismissal. Before Malina quite grasped what was happening, they were filing along the corridor with a crowd of natives and passing another crowd headed in the opposite direction.

  And the natives ignored them. They looked past them; they looked at them with large, staring eyes that might have been blind. They brushed against them in total unawareness. Experiencing a sensation of icy roughness and finding her fingers in contact with a native's golden skin, Malina stared at them in disbelief. She walked along mechanically, wondering whether she or the natives were mad.

  As abruptly as it had begun, the rush was over. The natives began to turn aside and disappear through draperies. Twice they had to stop and wait for the corridor to empty ahead of them while the natives made a calm and orderly exit.

  They were alone. Malina felt limp and ready to collapse. She glanced at Darzek and found him grinning at her. She grinned back at him and stepped up her pace. Perhaps what they had just witnessed was a miracle, but she would have to work out the theology at a more favorable time. They hurried side by side along an empty corridor.

  At the intersection with a smaller passageway, more natives appeared. These quickly overtook and surrounded them. No sounds were uttered; no signals were given; no restraint was suggested. They continued to hurry along the corridor, but now there were natives on both sides of them and in the rear.

  They were caught.

  Far ahead, at the end of the corridor, one native stood as though waiting for them. As
they approached, he came slowly to meet them. Malina had the impression of immense age, though he did not look old except for a slight stoop to his lithe body. He greeted them. There could have been no other word for it, though the strange disc-hands gestured meaninglessly. He invited them to follow him, again with gestures.

  Malina staggered and would have fallen if Darzek had not caught her. The days and nights of exertion, the lack of sleep, the worry, the unending suspense of their search, had brought her close to physical and mental collapse. She forced her legs to move, and with Darzek supporting her they moved on.

  They turned off at the end of the corridor, turned again, passed through an opening from which the drapes had been drawn aside, and ascended a ramp. At the top, they found themselves in a vast, well-lighted cavern room. They were on a balcony. In response to another gesture, they stepped to the stone wall that ran along its edge and looked down.

  Malina caught her breath. She tried to lean forward. If Darzek had not instantly gripped her arm and compelled silence, she would have cried out.

  Below them was a park, with treelike plants and the soft purple ground cover underfoot. In the park were three figures: two human children - her children - and a native swathed in protective clothing.

  The native was performing elaborate gestures. The children seemed to be sullenly ignoring him. Finally the native took Brian's hand as though to lead him away. Brian shouted, "You leave me alone!" and kicked at him viciously.

  The native collapsed onto the soft turf and lay there unmoving.

  The two stunned children stood looking down on him. Then Brian dropped to his knees beside the prone body, crying bitterly.

  This was Monturan justice. The natives were not punishing the children; they were curing them.

  19

  In the Prime Common, conferences involving E-Wusk usually took place in his own office cubicle, it being easier to move the conference to him than him to the conference. Five of them had gathered there:

  E-Wusk, Miss Schlupe, Darzek, URSDwad, and Malina. Brian and Maia were safely and snugly asleep and none the worse for their experience except that they were extremely tired. Malina already had looked in on them twice, and she went a third time and tucked in a blanket where Brian's restlessness had tugged it loose.

  When she returned, Darzek was discussing the natives.

  " ... no science, no industry, no technology. Their civilization is a physical culture cult with subcultures of sculpture and philosophy. Their main interest used to be agriculture, and the establishment of their surface farms, which they had to work by night, must have been high adventure requiring courage and resourcefulness and a stupendous amount of work. They still may be the most talented mushroom or fungus culturists in three galaxies, but otherwise their agricultural talents are stagnating. Their cut of the mart profits brings them everything they need, including automated agricultural machinery to operate farms they keep going more as a matter of habit than necessity. So they have unlimited time for play. Many of the elders see this as a sad deterioration of a once self-reliant society and advocate the expulsion of the mart - which is why the gesardl panicked over the missing children. It didn't want to provide ammunition for the dissident minority."

  "But what about the Udef?" Miss Schlupe asked. "Don't the natives understand that it threatens them, too? Won't they help us?"

  "They're intelligent enough to realize that this is something completely beyond their understanding, so they refuse to worry about it. They'd help us if they could, whether it threatened them or not. Since they can't, they wish us well and go about their business and leave us to go about ours. If we wish to make our business something that neither we nor they understand, that's our worry."

  "They're smug, conceited hypocrites," Miss Schlupe announced.

  "Look at that silly system of justice. Intention the same as the deed - balderdash! "

  E-Wusk spoke for the first time. "As you described it, it seemed like a remarkable system of justice."

  Malina turned to Darzek. Since the tumultuous climax of their invasion of the caverns, she'd had no opportunity for private conversation with him. She said resentfully, "You knew all the time. Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I didn't know," Darzek said. "I suspected. A people who'd make that much fuss over an intention would either be exceptionally stupid and cruel or exceptionally wise and lenient. The choice was between waiting to see which they were or going to find out."

  "But why didn't they let me know what they were doing?"

  "They wouldn't have harmed the children under any circumstances, so naturally it didn't occur to them that you could possibly imagine that they would."

  "But they have the death penalty! Arluklo told me so!"

  "Ah - but when you asked Arluklo you really were asking the kloatraz, and one has to be exceedingly careful how one puts questions to a computer, even when the computer is alive. Exactly how did you phrase the question?"

  She thought for a moment. "I think I said - what penalty does the law permit?"

  "And he answered, 'Death.' No doubt the law does 'permit' death, but that penalty may be carried out only under the most extraordinary circumstances, and I'm confident that it's never applied where the offender is a child or the offense is only an intention."

  She said resentfully, "You sound as though you think they actually did the right thing."

  "Brian did throw the stones. The native could have been injured severely. They considered the boy desperately in need of help, and they felt they had both a moral and a legal obligation to give it to him. They couldn't understand your attempts to prevent that. From their viewpoint - "

  "Never mind their viewpoint. What's yours?"

  "That Brian was behaving like a spoiled brat, and you should be grateful to them."

  She kept her anger firmly in check and her resentment to herself.

  It was the least she could do. He had abandoned his own mission and worked as hard to save her children as she had, and now he should be able to get back to saving the universe without petty distractions furnished by her.

  Darzek had resumed his discussion. "The natives can't help us, but at least they won't put obstacles in our way. They'll encourage the gesardl to cooperate, but now that the gesardl understands the menace, it doesn't need encouragement. USRDwad will set up a factory to duplicate my recordings and manufacture projectors. Our objective is to alert all the scientists and engineers of this galaxy."

  "What about the governments?" Miss Schlupe asked.

  "We'll leave it to the scientists and engineers to decide what should be done about their governments."

  E-Wusk would be in charge of the outfitting of an initial thousand ships that would be used to disseminate recordings, projectors, and related information, and URSDwad would assist him. The two of them happily set to work. Miss Schlupe was thinking about reopening her refreshment stand, and she had work of her own to attend to.

  Malina and Darzek took their conversation to their apartment's lounge, where they wouldn't disturb the workers. Malina said, "It seems to me that you're not furnishing much information to these scientists and engineers - just the recordings and some negative data."

  "We'll give them all the facts we have," Darzek said. "We hope a few of them will be inspired to do some original thinking. It wouldn't do to muddy things with speculations from nonscientists such as myself."

  "What are your speculations?"

  "The Udef," Darzek said soberly, "is a mindless entity. It has a brain but no mind at all, which I consider to be the ultimate form of insanity. It drifts through the universe in search of the mind that it lacks. When it finds one, it destroys it. The logical questions are how an entity can be mindless and without substance and still have a brain, and how it can destroy the minds of an entire world in such a short time, and I say logic can't be applied to this. It is a mindless brain, and its essence is pure, horrible force, and it has no physical substance at all."


  "That would muddy things," Malina agreed. "If the Udef's nature defies all scientific principles, scientific research isn't likely to be helpful. What you need is inspiration. If you'll pardon the expression, you need a brain wave." ...

  Darzek stared at her. "What a singular way to put it! Brain waves are electrical, aren't they? Do they broadcast, like radio waves?"

  "I know nothing about electroencephalography beyond the basics, and the little work I've done with it involved electrodes in contact with the head."