The Dome in the Forest

by Paul O. Williams

  “Well,” said Stel. “Let’s take the rest of the day off. We have to build some kind of short ladder to reach that door easily.”

  No one left right away, though. They had accomplished something. They could look back up the elevated path of rock as it rose toward the rim of the empty place, even and ordered. Finally, the guardsmen left, but Stel remained, still musing about the proper next steps. He was in shadow now, and cooler. Above, he seemed to hear a sound. Was it the door? Yes, it was swinging open. Stel touched his short-sword, then drew his hand away.

  An old, dark-skinned woman looked out, blinking. Her face was kindly but skull-like, her arms unfleshed as sticks. She turned and looked behind, then seemed to see Stel and drew back, startled.

  “Hello,” Stel said, laughing lightly. “Coming out? You’re just in time. We just built you this walk.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Stel. Stel Westrun of Pelbarigan. Celeste is at Pelbarigan now. Do you know Celeste?”

  Fear crossed the old woman’s face. She hesitated and turned, then turned back again to look at Stel.

  “Wait,” said Stel. “Before you decide to come out here, you will have to know that Celeste got really sick. She had a whole succession of things. She is all right now, though. Will you be able to take it? You look old to me. I may be wrong. You are in shadow. You are stark in the dark. The light is slight.”

  Susan smiled vaguely. She turned again. “I am immune,” she said. “Here, catch this first. Be careful with it.” She tossed down a parcel made of a bodysuit with the arms and legs tied up. Then, stiffly, she leaned out and down, and launched out slowly into Stel’s arms. He took her weight, which was not great, stepping back, and set her down. They looked at each other, and both laughed. Reaching up, Stel took his small knife and swung the heavy door shut, wedging the blade into it so he could open it later.

  “Can you walk?” he asked.

  “Where? Up there?” She squinted into the light uphill, shading her eyes.

  “Yes. Out of this empty place into the woods and to our camp. We will take you to Pelbarigan where you will be comfortable. What is your name?”

  “Woods? What? You mean trees?”

  “Yes. Oaks mostly. What is your name?”

  “Susan. Susan Ward. Woods? Up there?” She turned and began to walk, slowly, holding Stel’s arm. When the stone path grew steep, he picked her up and carried her. She looked back, frowning as she saw the whole dome jutting out over the deep gully, then ahead again, breathing hard, to get her first glimpse of trees. She saw the grass and weeds as they drew near the rim, then the tops of oaks, vibrantly green. Her eyes streamed tears from the unaccustomed light. Then they were in the grass, walking toward the trees.

  “Put me down. Put me down,” Susan said in a strange, husky voice. As Stel set her slowly down, she stood, then, reaching out, knelt, feeling the rank grass and goldenrod, the drying wild carrot stems, uttering birdlike sounds, then, finally, sitting and crying inconsolably. Her hands ripped the grass as she lay full length in it. Then suddenly she sat up. “Take me to a tree,” she said.

  As she neared a tall black oak, steadied by Stel, she reached toward it, felt its rough bark, stretched her arms around it, again gripping. “So hard,” she murmured. A beetle landed on the back of her hand, and she drew the insect toward her face, staring.

  The shadows had swung a good distance before Stel brought her to Tor’s Ledge, where the idling guardsmen, having washed, lay talking under the cool rock. Aybray jerked upright and looked. Then the others followed. Stel held up a hand, so they only walked toward the two, Aybray first, his hand out, grinning, saying loudly, “Welcome, welcome to the Heart River Valley.”

  Susan drew back both her hands and said distantly, “I believe I have lived here all my life, young man.”

  Aybray’s smile faded. “Well, I thought . . .” He fell silent.

  “Susan? Susan Ward. This is Aybray, Dailith, and Egar and Nuva. We are all from Pelbarigan. Are you hungry. Let me leave you to Dailith. I need a bath.”

  “So I noticed. Hello. Please show me a place I can lie down,” said Susan, walking forward, taking Aybray’s arm, turning to see her makeshift bag. “Take care of that,” she added. “It has a dulcimer in it.”

  They did nothing for two days, while Susan Ward grew used to the world. They could easily see her deep grief that this world had lain just beyond her sight for all of a long lifetime shut in the dome. Sometimes this feeling welled up in such anger and frustration that her veins swelled and they feared for her. But she was exacting, did not like dirt, which she had never dealt with, and she was appalled at the first horsefly that settled on her arm and, after arranging its legs, drilled for blood.

  Eventually, they made her a chair on poles, and the three younger guardsmen left to take her to Pelbarigan, her parcel in her lap. Dailith and Stel watched, and as they walked out on the prairie eastward, and disappeared, Stel said, “Now. I’m going to enter the dome.”

  “Be careful. I will come, too.”

  “No. Only one. Then the other can go if I need help.”

  “I will go.”

  Stel looked narrowly at him. Dailith had never seen the solid force of the smaller man before. No wonder he had been able to keep them at the causeway in that blinding heat. “All right,” Dailith said. “You go.”

  “First we must pray.” The two men put the heels of their hands against their eyes, and, standing, prayed silently until Stel nudged Dailith’s arm, grinned, and walked once more down the causeway. After he had worked the door open, Dailith boosted him inside.

  An air monitor within the dome finally registered the change of atmosphere and sent a warning to central conference and five other locations. Comp 5 monitored it and notified Dexter, who ran to decontam. Four comps met him, each rapidly slipping into a dome suit.

  “It is subsiding now,” said one.

  “Perhaps a malfunction.”

  “Not likely.”

  “What else?”

  “A door opening?”

  They all laughed. Dexter looked alarmed. “We will enter the dome in perfect silence,” he said.

  Stel didn’t see or hear them. He was picking his way slowly through the tall dome, noticing the high window, the ladder to it, the structure to raise the rod, the multitude of lines and pipes, the eerie, sourceless lights, yellow and dim, and the great, humming block in the center of the room. It sat, complex and square, radiating a slight warmth.

  Stel was staring at it, hands on hips, when he heard a slight sound. Turning, he caught the stunning pulse from Dexter’s weapon in the midsection. He crumpled with a fluttering cry and lay jerking on the floor.

  “Be careful,” said Bill. “Turn him over.” Gloved hands rolled Stel onto his back. “He is a man. Where from?”

  “Or he looks like one,” said Dexter. “Quick. Help me get him to decontam before the stun wears off. Five, you call Eolyn and Royal. Under no circumstances are any of you to tell any of the others, comps or principals. Understood?”

  “Understood, Principal Dexter.”

  Stel stirred and moaned slightly on the floor of decontam, but Royal, summoned, injected a small, clear vial into his arm, and soon he went limp again.

  “He reacts like a man, Dex,” said Royal.

  “Anyone who could stand that radiation is no man. A mutant of some sort. Look at those primitive fibers in his clothes. Look. That thick belt substance. Here is a knife. They must come from some vast shelter and have other life substances with them.”

  “Don’t touch him until we radiation-test him.”

  Eolyn entered, put on a radiation suit, and watched the test. A very slight response showed from Stel’s clothes and legs. “So. A mutant from outside? There is some life left out there, it would seem. Somehow he is able to reject radiation. Look. It is clearly not in him but only dusted on him from his surroundings. I will take a blood sample.” She drew blood from his arm and made a slide for Royal. He took it and depa
rted for his lab.

  Eolyn ran her glove across Stel’s arms and chest. “Primitive,” she said. “Feel that heavy muscle pack. Think what he must be able to lift. A reversion to early man.”

  Dexter shot a look at her. She glared back. “Well, we will have plenty of time to study him,” Dexter said. “He isn’t going anywhere. Think of it. Somewhere out there is a small band of primitive mutants, surviving all these centuries, probably undergoing untold sufferings. Somehow they have developed organs for purging themselves of radiation. Now they are trying to get into the dome. See? He has another long knife. Look how worn it is. They are plainly dangerous. We will have to revamp all our security. I will rebuild and activate the helmet weapons. Comp 7, did you dog down that door?”

  “Yes, Principal.”

  “Good. Now, no word to the rest. They will make trouble—especially the humanists. Double the sensors. And determine why that door did not warn us when he opened it.”

  “Principal? What if he has friends outside?”

  Dexter paused and sucked in his breath. “That is what the helmet pulsers will counter. They will handle anything.”

  Royal returned with his blood slide. “It is not abnormal at all—type O. But it is loaded with all sorts of creatures. He is a walking zoo in an uncontrolled environment of microorganisms. Be sure everyone has a shot of panimmune. Give him a double. Can he talk?”

  Dexter laughed. “He made a sound when I stunned him. I doubt he can. Look. He is almost an animal. Look at the calluses on his hands. Here. Help me put him on the table. We will have to study him in detail. Perhaps vivisection will tell us the most about him.”

  “Vivisection?” said Eolyn. “What if he is indeed human? There is that chance.”

  “We certainly go over all our own dead carefully enough if they are complete. Before recycling. Look what we will learn. If the dome is eroding out, and the oil gone, we may have to leave the dome ourselves, somehow.”

  “Not with all that radiation.”

  “Exactly. He has stood it. We may have to modify our bodies to make the same adjustment he has. We may even need his organs.”

  “It may not be that easy.”

  “So. Do you see the point, then, of vivisection? Look. We have already learned that he has not absorbed the radiation his environment has offered him. It is on his clothes and skin. It is not in him.”

  “Perhaps you are right. But we must go slowly.”

  They put Stel on the table, strapping him down after stripping him.

  “Don’t stare, Eo,” said Dexter.

  “Shut up. He is of purely scientific interest. Look at his scars. He has healed well in a hostile environment. Before we vivisect him, we must keep him intact and study him. Cover him with a cloth so he remains warm for now.”

  Comp 7 reentered the decontamination room. “Yes, Comp?” said Dexter.

  “The door did not indicate its opening because the alarm system was nullified, Principal.”

  “How?”

  “It would appear the Principal Ward nullified it.”

  “Of all the twisted genetic mistakes,” Dexter spat. “Bring her here.”

  “She appears to have left the dome and levels by means of the door,” said Comp 7. “She left a message.” He touched it up on the wall panel. They all read her words:

  Alas, poor Dex, I know you well,

  and all you who’d recycle me

  if I died in our citadel,

  so I’m our second absentee.

  At last, in age, I’ve cracked my shell.

  I may die soon—but outside, free.

  And you, old Royal, who’d compel

  my body’s yielding to your knife,

  your last embraces I’ll repel

  by leaving now while I have life.

  “Is doggerel a sign of maladjustment in this place?” Dexter asked, waving his hands.

  Royal reached over and erased the image, shaking his head. “What a waste. She would have been the best opportunity to study the effects of aging I would have had in my entire life.”

  “At least this one will recycle just as well or better. He is a gain in protein over Susan,” said Dexter.

  “Dex, you can’t talk of that now. Look. He is a young and healthy being.”

  “Besides,” Royal added, “we can’t just recycle him willy-nilly without knowing what he would do to our protein mix. Analysis must always precede action.”

  The team worked on Stel for a full 3500 units, then left decontam, promising silence about the primitive’s presence. The lights dimmed. Stel lay still on the table, strapped down, covered in his drape. After a time, Eolyn returned alone. She flipped back the drape and raised the lights, then stood gazing at him for a time. Reaching out, she touched the heavy muscles of his upper arm, his deltoids and pectorals. Then she covered him again and stood still, frowning. Finally she shook her head and left.

  In the middle of the rest cycle, Dexter and Royal moved Stel to Susan Ward’s room, as a place less likely to reveal his presence. They did not want to be interrupted in their analysis by the irrationalities of Butto and Cohen-Davies.

  Two more work cycles spent on Stel revealed that his clothing was made of mixed plant fibers and animal hair, his belt and shoes of animal skin of some unknown type. Antibodies in his system protected him from what Royal called his “internal zoo.” He appeared to be a creature of some intelligence, judging from his brain action. This eventually made them decide to lessen the sedative injections. In addition, Stel’s body began to show signs of acute distress.

  Down on level three, Bill, encountering Butto, told him the whole situation, as the heavy principal frowned down at him. “They are going to recycle him? Have they talked to him?”

  “No, Principal. They have made no attempt. They assume he is a mutant because of his ability to withstand the radiation. And I think they are afraid of his strength.”

  “Don’t worry. I will take care of it.” Butto put a hand on Bill’s shoulder. “And I won’t tell. I’ll simply be looking in on Susan.” The former comp smiled wryly.

  Not long after, as Dexter and Royal watched Stel begin to stir and mumble, the panel slid and Butto walked in saying, “Susan, I haven’t seen—What is this? Who is he?”

  “None of your affair, Butto. Get out.”

  “Here, what have you done to him? What is he saying?”

  “You are disturbing our investigation. Please remove yourself.”

  “Why? Going to stun me again, Dex? Look. He’s trying to say something. Have you fed him? Look at his lips. He must be thirsty.” Butto turned to Susan’s water tap, drew a cup, and reached toward Stel. Dexter stood between. Butto pulsed him with a slight stun, and Dexter collapsed in a heap. Butto stepped over him. “Want that, too, Royal?” he asked.

  “You unutterable organic slop.”

  “Ah. So you do.” He raised the pulser.

  “No, no. Get away from him.”

  “You’ve starved him. How long has he been here? Look at his cracking lips.” Butto cradled Stel’s head and moistened his lips with a finger, then put the cup to them. Stel blinked and exchanged a look with Butto. “Here, can you drink?”

  Stel grunted in reply, then drank slowly. Dexter began to move on the floor, so Butto turned and gave him another low stun. “I’ve been wanting to pay you back,” he said. “Royal, put him over on the table. Here. I will help you.”

  Butto lifted Dexter onto Susan’s worktable, dumping him awkwardly. Then he touched the command panel, summoning Ruthan.

  “You slurry brain,” Royal said. “Now you’ve spoiled everything.”

  “What?” said Stel, stirring. “What have you done to me? My head is cracking open.”

  “Ah, the beast speaks,” said Butto. “Royal, get something to deaden the headache. If it deadens anything else, I will deaden you.” Turning to Stel, he said, “Hello. My name is Butto. How are you?”

  “Awful. My name is Stel. Stel Westrun of Pelbarigan.” Stel passed out
again.

  “What has the poor man done that you should treat him this way?”

  “You go too far, Butto. You have destroyed our analysis, which was progressive, as his system changed.”

  “What have you learned? That you could starve him?” Butto turned to command some warm food cubes, steaming from the server.

  “None of your affair.”

  “Did you learn that his name was Stel? I bet not. Stel something of somewhere. Come on, now, Stel, wake up.”

  Eolyn and Ruthan entered, Ruthan staring. She quickly covered Stel with a bedcloth.

  “See what the technocrats have been hiding, Ruthy? A poor man named Stel. They’ve been deliberately torturing him.”

  “He invaded the dome. You’ve no right. We are trying to determine his makeup, and how he has withstood the radiation.”

  “Why didn’t you ask him? Here, he is awakening again. Come on, Stel, eat some of this.”

  “Water,” Stel said faintly. “More water, please.”

  Butto gave him a drink, then fed him, cube after cube of rations.

  “Is this what you eat?” Stel asked. “Good Aven, is it ever dreadful. A fudge of sludge. What is it?” Then, as if suddenly realizing something, he asked, “How long have I been in here?”

  “I don’t know,” said Butto. “How long, Royal?”

  “Royal? Then you are Royal.”

  “You know of Royal?”

  “Celeste told me about him. Royal, do you have some means of curing what Celeste calls radiation sickness?”

  Royal looked bewildered, but he still frowned. “That depends on how bad it is. Where is Celeste?”

  “At Pelbarigan. How long have I been here?”

  No one had been watching Dexter. He had reawakened, slid off the table, grasped Susan’s hand pulser, and moved around Butto. Now he said, “About five cycles of 100,000.” Butto turned, and Dexter gave him a full stun, then stunned Stel.

  Ruthan cried out, bending over the crumpled Butto.

  “Why? Why have you done all this?” she screamed. “You are all staring crazy. Nothing was wrong.”