Saria approached slowly. Out in the desert, following the call steadily nightwards, she had felt sharp and alive. Now the coldness was an invisible fog, dulling her senses and cutting her off from the Earthmother.
A line of strange poles circled the building. Something about them reminded her vaguely of the thorn fence surrounding Olympic, but this barrier was different. The poles were cold, round and hard, each identical to all the others. Probably three times Saria’s height, they were sunk at even intervals, rising straight from the sand, but with the top part of every pole angled outwards, towards the surrounding desert. Saria took a deep breath and stepped between them.
The ancient structure towered above, blocking a good proportion of the brightening dayvault. The sun behind her was rising fast, but despite it the touch of air on her skin was cold. Instead of approaching any closer, she began to walk in a huge circle, just inside the poles, studying the building from every angle.
The scale of it was breathtaking. She had to crane her neck back to see the top, so high up that even from this distance it appeared to tilt out over her, giving her a sense of vertigo if she stared too long upwards.
The ground around it was hard and grey. Not like the packed dirt of the desert, or the cracked and crazed evenness of the roads, but the same cold, even hardness from which the walls of the building seemed to be created. It was much harder than even the most solid-packed earth could hope to be.
And yet, despite this, the ground was a confusion of faults and fissures, just like the walls of the building. Uneven slabs rose and fell to trip her as she made her slow way around the perimeter.
On the nightwards side the building blocked the sun completely, throwing a long shadow far out into the desert. Passing through it, something at the base of the building caught her eye.
An angular black shape squatted there, deep in the gloom, completely still and silent.
Saria had never seen anything like it before, but she instantly knew what it was.
She froze. From the hummer there was no sign of life, no response to her presence. Her first instinct was to back away, around the Shifting House, retreating out of sight of the strange mechanism.
But where would she go? Away from the building was nothing but emptiness – certainly nowhere to run to, or conceal herself. And on the dead land surrounding the Shifting House she couldn’t reach out through the Earthmother and find a hiding place, even if she’d wanted to.
And she was also curious.
She’d never seen a hummer in daylight, or up close. In fact, she doubted that anyone in the Darklands had, even Dariand. He would have told her about it. But here was one, right in front of her, still and silent and grounded, and posing no threat to her as far as she could tell. It didn’t take more than a couple of moments for Saria to give in to the impulse to take a closer look.
It was hard to tell what part of the hummer was the front and what was the back. At one end, a dark, rounded dome gleamed, reflecting light back at her. It gave the impression of being not quite fully opaque, somehow transparent. In colour, though, it matched every other part of the hummer – black. Blackness like nothing Saria had ever seen. Darker than even the most lightless part of night, every polished surface of the hummer seemed to glow with lack of light and colour. The effect reminded her vaguely of the surface of the underground pool which fed the well at Woormra.
The sides of the machine slanted in long lines back from the dome, narrowing to where they met at a tapered angle. On top, a collection of oddly shaped protrusions clustered in the centre, a couple of tubes also running back from these towards the tapered end.
Below the hummer, two barrel-shaped devices formed the only contrast to the blackness of the rest of the machine. Mounted underneath and on either side of the dome, both had one surface facing down and forwards which, rather than seeming to absorb light like the rest of the hummer, reflected it back in two pale, shimmering circles.
Saria approached the machine cautiously, alert for the slightest movement or sound from within, ready to flee back out to the sand at the first indication she was walking into a trap.
Nothing happened, though. Even as she came close enough to reach out and run a finger across its cold, smooth flank, the hummer stayed silent. To her surprise, the surfaces weren’t solid and hard as she’d been expecting, but slightly pliant, even under her soft touch.
The hummer squatted on three stubby legs which extended out of the belly, the only break in the smooth lines. Standing on the tips of her toes beside it, Saria could just reach up high enough to cup her eyes and try to peer through the semi-opaque dome. All she could make out inside was the blurred outline of a couple of shapes, also completely still.
Nightpeople? she wondered.
If they were, then either they were dead or they couldn’t see her any better than she could them. In any case, she ducked her head away again and squatted in the shadow of the hummer, thinking.
There had to be some way for the Nightpeople to get in and out of the machine, but Saria couldn’t see anything that might be an entrance. On the belly of the hummer, right above her head, several strange symbols were etched into its skin, but they meant nothing to her.
‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered to the hummer, once again wishing she had Dariand here with her. He’d know what to do, or what not to do.
If there were Nightpeople inside, she was certain they’d have noticed her by now, and she doubted they’d have simply decided to leave her out here.
So they had to be somewhere else, and there was only one place they could possibly be.
Reluctantly, Saria turned her head to stare at the Shifting House.
She could almost feel the walls radiating cold out towards where she crouched. If the Nightpeople weren’t in their hummer, they were inside the ancient building.
They were inside the only place in which she could shelter for the day.
She contemplated her chances of making it back into the desert – of getting right out past the dead land and back into the living desert again, where she might be able to use the call and to reach through the Earthmother to find water and shelter. But she knew she’d never make it. Not with only a half skin of water and the day getting hotter.
Her only choice was the Shifting House. And the Nightpeople. She could try to shelter under the hummer all day, but she had no idea when its occupants might return to it or emerge from it, and in either case she didn’t want to be there. And the simple presence of the smooth, black device was unsettling.
Reluctantly, she crept from under the hummer and approached the nearest wall. Still deep in the nightside shadow, the grey expanse rose from the ground and into the dayvault. When she touched it, a hard cold shiver trembled through her, and she withdrew her hand as though she’d been bitten.
Off to one side, the remains of a door caught her attention – a dark rectangle giving entry into the interior. If the Nightpeople were indeed inside, this was where they’d entered and Saria didn’t like the idea of walking straight in behind them, so she turned away and proceeded in the other direction.
A little along, a crack wide enough for her to climb through ran from somewhere under the ground, right up the side of the building, ending well above her head. Unlike the door, this fracture was jagged and irregular. Somewhere in the past, some mighty force had torn the two parts of the wall apart. Cautiously, Saria peered through into a tangle of darkness. Stray beams of light pierced the inside of the building, picking out crumbling walls and unfamiliar shapes in the gloom.
There was no sign of Nightpeople, though, or any other living thing, for that matter, and drawing a deep breath Saria stepped through the crack, careful to keep any part of herself from coming into contact with the dead stone of the walls.
The room in which she found herself was surprisingly small, given the size of the building. She’d half expected to step into a giant indoor cave, into an above-ground version of the caverns under Woormra, but this c
hamber was not much bigger than Dariand’s hut. The roof was low, despite the height of the building, and divided into regular squares, many of which hung at crazy angles. A doorway ahead led deeper inside and, alert to even the slightest sound, Saria stepped towards it.
There was no noise, not even a whisper of breeze or the click of an insect. The building was the most empty place Saria had ever experienced. In the second doorway, she paused.
This inside room probably took up most of the interior of the structure. The vaulted roof, high above and only dimly visible, was a tangle of broken angles, and the wide floor was crazed with wide faults and fissures. Looking around, Saria froze, her skin prickling in recognition. She’d been here before. Immediately she walked though the door, Saria knew that room. She had seen it, but not like this. It had been different.
Puzzled, she took a few steps towards the centre, carefully avoiding a dark opening that leered from the floor. Picking up a chunk of rubble, she hesitated, then dropped it into the nearest of the gaps in the floor, waiting expectantly for the clatter of it hitting the bottom.
No sound came back, however. The rock fell into silence.
Unnerved, Saria stepped away from the edge of the chasm and slowly turned again. The room was so familiar; all the angles, all the corners spoke from somewhere in her memory. Closing her eyes, she breathed in deeply a couple of times, air that tasted old and lifeless.
Slowly, avoiding the larger chasms in the floor and trying hard not to allow her gaze to drop into them, Saria made her way across the vast room, angling towards a large door on the far side. Even the doorways in this place were on a scale she could never have imagined. This one was easily five or six times her height, large enough to bring a camel through and still have room to spare. At some point in the past, two enormous metal shutters had barred the rectangular opening, but now neither was in place; one had fallen to the floor where it still lay, pitted with age and decay, and the other half hung in the doorway, skewed and twisted.
Halfway across, when she was almost in the middle of the room, Saria heard a noise.
It was faint, just a click followed by a gentle humming. It wasn’t natural, though. Not like the click of an insect, or like Dreamer Gaardi’s humming as he walked though the Darklands. This sound was alien, artificial, the click far too distinct and the humming too even in pitch. She stopped and twisted her head slowly, trying to locate the source of the noise.
‘You okay?’
The voice floated out of the air, flat and hollow, as artificial as the clicking and humming.
‘Fine. But my comline’s down.’
‘Probably dust. It’s not a problem. We can use externals. How’s your exposure?’
‘Marginal. You think it’ll rise?’
‘Shouldn’t.’
The voices were coming from somewhere beyond the main chamber. As best as Saria could make out, they were coming through a small crack in the wall closest to her. Her first instinct was to run, back out the way she had entered, back out into the desert.
But there were Nightpeople in the next room speaking to one another. And they had no idea she was listening.
Holding her breath, Saria crept towards the opening in the wall. The voices were definitely coming from on the other side. The closer she approached, the more clearly the conversation floated to her.
‘Can’t believe we’re stuck here, of all places.’
‘We’ll be fine. We had no other choice.’
‘I know, but still.’ The speaker paused. ‘This place gives me the creeps.’
‘Just relax. There’s barely even trace levels of radiation left here now. Keep an eye on your radmon and we’ll be fine.’
The voices were almost identical to each other, both strangely distant and muted, echoing off the hard walls of the small chamber. Crouching beside the narrow crack, Saria slowly raised her head to peer through.
The room on the other side was much the same as the first one she had entered – a low ceiling and a tangled mess of strange devices everywhere. On the far side an open doorway led outside. The desert beyond shimmered brightly, the sand almost glowing when compared with the gloomy interior of the Shifting House.
In the middle of the room, huddled below an odd silvery canopy, crouched two Nightpeople.
Saria stared. They were unlike anything she’d ever seen. Their silver skins covered and enclosed them completely. Whenever either of them moved, light danced across the fabric in patterns of blue and white. Their heads were encased in similar material and their faces were hidden behind hard plates of something that reflected a distorted image of the room around them.
The smaller one stretched its arms behind its head and lay back on the ground. The other one continued to stare fixedly at a small box strapped to its wrist.
‘If it climbs any higher …’
‘I’m telling you, it won’t. It’s peak time right now. Just relax and try to get some sleep.’
It was hard to tell which was speaking. Their voices came not from their heads but from small boxes attached to their chests.
‘Sleep? Hah.’
For a while neither said anything and Saria wondered if the one lying down had nodded off, but then it spoke again.
‘It could have been a lot worse, you know. Imagine if we’d had to put down somewhere further back towards the centre.’
‘It could be a lot better, too. It’s not like we’re achieving anything, chasing a fairytale.’
‘Doctor Mann thinks …’
‘Doctor Mann’s spent too long chasing his wife’s ghost to know what’s real and what’s fantasy.’
‘Careful, Jana.’ The figure lying down sat up sharply. ‘It’s not a good idea to criticise the head of the project.’
‘Why not? It’s not like he can hear me when I’m stuck out here and he’s safely back in DGAP.’
‘It’s not a good habit to get into, all the same.’
The tall figure looked at the wrist box and the smaller one relaxed again.
‘Couldn’t we have stayed in the flyer?’
‘No. We’ve been through this. It’s not shielded heavily enough. We’d max out in no time. This is the only place.’
‘Grania?’
‘What?’
‘Do you really think there’s a child?’
‘No. We’d know about it if there was. I think the subjects are getting desperate, that’s all.’
‘So why are we out here, then?’
The short one propped itself back up on its elbows and shrugged.
‘It’s our job.’
‘But still, if the subjects have reached their infertility horizon … ’
‘Jana, as long as they keep sending us out here, we keep coming, understand? It’s better than being shifties.’
‘Until you end up maxing your exposure. Then there’s not much difference.’
‘Your problem is that you’re a pessimist, Jana. As soon as the radlevels outside are back in the safe range, we’ll get out of here, okay? Port knows where we are, and nobody’s going to leave a flyer grounded in the Darklands, are they?’
‘It’s not the flyer I’m worried about.’
‘Well what, then?’
‘Us. You know as well as I do that, as far as Mann and that bunch of whitecoats are concerned, you and I are expendable. That’s the only reason anyone gets sent out on fieldwork.’
‘Don’t be a scuzz. Janil Mann is out here at least as often as you and I.’
‘That’s different. He’s got his father’s problem.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I told you, chasing ghosts.’
‘You’re an idiot, Jana.’
‘Am I? According to the webs, DGAP is almost as dead as these Darklands.’
‘I wouldn’t believe everything the webs tell you.’
‘It’s not just the webs, Grania. It’s what a lot of people are starting to believe. It’s what Ratz says. He reckons there’s no future in the past and that …’
Grania moved surprisingly fast, in a moment rolling upright and poking a silver finger hard into the other one’s chest. Even from where she crouched, Saria could tell that the one called Jana could feel the pain, even through its suit.
‘That’s enough, Jana. I don’t want to hear any more of that kind of talk. You mention that name again, and you can find your own way back to Port. Understand?’
Jana grunted and moved as far from Grania as it could without coming out from under the silver canopy. Grania watched, then lay down again.
‘I’m going to sleep now. You can wake me if the levels climb any higher, otherwise I don’t want to hear another word from you.’
The speaking box on Grania’s chest gave a soft click, and the Nightperson rolled over
Saria ducked slowly out of sight. The two Nightpeople had no idea she was there, and it looked like they were stuck under their canopy for some reason, at least for the moment. She thought about staying where she was, just in case they spoke some more, but then decided that even if they did, most of what they said made no sense and the longer she lingered the more likely it was that she’d be caught.
She skirted around the edge of the large room and made her way back over to the large, empty doorway she’d originally been headed for.
On the other side was yet another low-ceilinged room, strewn with the remains of strange equipment and machines. Unlike the other outer rooms, this one had no windows or holes in the walls to admit light, and it was dark and gloomy. Saria shivered with cold and decided to look elsewhere. If she had to shelter in the Shifting House with two Nightpeople, she at least wanted a room with the possibility of escape.
As she turned back into the main chamber, Saria stopped in shock, her memories of the room suddenly falling into focus.
She’d dreamed of this place while she was in the pit at Olympic. She’d seen men in yellow suits with hidden faces, not unlike the Nightpeople in the next room. They’d been right here, in this place, working, moving things, studying various objects. Then she’d seen the movement in the Earth, the men freezing in horror, and the slow, almost lazy splitting open of the floor below them …
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