Captive Universe

by Harry Harrison

  “Why?” Chimal asked aloud, but there was no answer from the solid rock around him. In the silence and the loneliness another kind of fear began to possess him. Would this tunnel ever have an end that emerged outside the valley? Or had he penetrated to some realm of the gods where, like a termite in a tree, he might bore on forever, unnoticed and ignored, in an endless sealed passageway. Everything was so different here that the rules of the valley did not seem to apply, and there was a fogginess in his head when he thought about it. If it were not for the pain, and hunger and thirst now, he could almost believe that he had died when the rock had swung shut behind him.

  If he were not dead already he would certainly die here in this barren tunnel — or freeze. The rock on which he lay was cold against his skin and he began to shiver once the heat of his exertion had ebbed away. Pulling himself up against the wall he walked on.

  After he had passed eight more of the glowing spots of light the tunnel ended. When Chimal came closer he saw that it was not a real ending, but rather that his tunnel came into another tunnel that extended off to the right and left. This new tunnel had smoother walls and was much brighter than his, and the floor was covered with some sort of white substance. He bent to touch it — then jerked his hand away. It was warm — and soft- — and for a moment he thought it was some great white animal that stretched out there, a worm of some kind. But, although it was warm and soft, it did not appear to be alive, and he gingerly stepped out onto it.

  To his right the tunnel vanished into the distance, its walls unbroken or marked, but to the left he saw dark patches on both walls. This was something different so he turned and went in that direction. When he was close to the first one he saw that it was a door, with a small knob on it, and appeared to be made completely of metal. This would have been a marvel in the valley. He pushed and pulled at the knob but nothing happened. Perhaps it was not a door at all, but served some other more mysterious function. Anything was possible here. He went on, past two more of the plates, and was just coming to the third when it swung open toward him.

  He crouched, tense, his fists clenched, the knife-stub ready, waiting to see what emerged.

  A black figure stepped through, swung the door shut behind it with a loud clang, and turned to face him. It had the face of a young girl.

  Time stopped as each of them stood, unable to move, looking at the other, sharing the same expression of shocked disbelief.

  Her face was human and, when he examined her black coverings more closely, her body seemed to be human under their guise. But their strangeness baffled him. A hood of shining black material completely covered her head except for her face, which was thin, very pale and bloodless with dark, widened eyes and thin black eyebrows that met over her nose. She was more than a head shorter than himand had to lean back to look up into his face. The rest of her body was draped tightly in some soft woven material, not unlike that of a priest’s gown, that changed to shiny, hard-looking coverings that reached from her knees to the ground. And all about her body were gleaming lengths of metal; fastened to the outside of her arms and legs, girding her body, supporting her head, bending at her joints. Around her waist was a shining belt from which hung unknown dark objects.

  When her eyes swept over his bare body, noting the cuts, bruises and clotted blood, she shuddered and her hand flew to her lips. Her fingers were also encased in black.

  It was Chimal who spoke first. He was drained of fear, there had been too much of it, and her fright at his presence was obvious.

  “Can you talk?” he said. “Who are you?”

  She opened her mouth and only gasped, then tried again. She said, “You are not here. It is not possible.” Her voice was shrill and weak.

  He laughed aloud. “I am here, you see me. Now answer my questions.” Emboldened by her fear he reached out and pulled at one of the objects at her waist. It was metal and fastened to her somehow because it did not come free. She squawked and tried to pull away. He let go suddenly and she fell back against the wall.

  “Tell me,” he said, “Where am I?”

  Her frightened eyes still upon him, she touched a square thing at her waist and it dropped into her hand. He thought it might be a weapon and he made ready to take it from her, but she raised it to her face and put her lips near it. Then she spoke.

  “Over seventeen porfer staynet Watchman Steel. There is an oboldonol lonen in tunnel one nine nine bay emma, can you read me…”

  “What are you saying?” he woke in. “You can speak yet some of the words you speak do not mean anything.” Her actions baffled him.

  She kept talking, still looking at him wide-eyed. When she had finished speaking her incomprehensible mixture of words and nonsense sounds she put the object back at her waist then slid very slowly to a sitting position on the floor of the tunnel. She put her face into her hands and began to sob uncontrollably and ignored him even when he pushed her with his foot.

  “What are you doing this for? Why won’t you speak words to me that I can understand?”

  Her bent head shook with the force of her crying and she took her hands from her face and clutched at something that hung about her neck, on a string that seemed to be made of small metal beads. Chimal pried it from her fingers, angry at her now for her incomprehensible actions and lack of intelligible response, and easily overcame her her feeble attempts to hold onto it. It was black, like everything else about her, and just as baffling. Smaller than his hand, and in shape not unlike a small brick of adobe. There were six deep openings cut into one side and when he turned it toward the light above he saw that each of them had a number at the bottom of the opening.

  This was meaningless, as was the shining rod that came out of one end. It did not push or twist, or apparently move in any way. He tried to press on it but it hurt his finger: it was tipped with many small barbs that bit into his skin. Meaningless. He dropped it and the girl snatched it up at once and pressed it to her breast.

  Everything about the girl was a mystery. He bent and touched the wide metal band that came up behind her head. It was fixed to the material that covered her entire head, and hinged at the back of her neck so it moved when she did. A shout sounded from far down the tunnel.

  Chimal jumped back, his broken-bladed knife ready, as another girl hurried up. She was garbed like the first and paid him not the slightest attention. Bending over the first girl she made comforting noises and spoke to her softly. There were more shouts and a third, almost identical, figure came out of a metal door and joined the first. This one was a man, yet he acted no differently.

  Three more of them appeared and Chimal backed away from their growing numbers, even though they continued to ignore him. They helped the first girl to her feet and talked together, all at once, in the same maddening mixture of words and nonsense that the girl had used. They appeared to have reached some kind of decision because, most reluctantly, they admitted Chimal’s existence, darting looks at him then turning quickly away. An older man, who had cracked lips and lines about his eyes, even took a pace toward Chimal and looked directly at him, then spoke.

  “We go to the morasoraver.”

  “Where?”

  The man, strangely reluctant, and turning away while he said it, repeated the new word over and over again until Chimal could repeat it — although he still did not know its meaning.

  “We go to the Master Observer,” the man said again, and turned away as though starting down the tunnel. “You come with us.”

  “Why should I?” Chimal said belligerently. He was tired, hungry and thirsty, and annoyed at these things that he did not understand. “Who are you? What is this place? Answer me.” The man just shook his head hopelessly and made little beckoning gestures.

  The first girl, her eyes red and her face stained with tears, stepped forward. “Come with us to the Master Observer,” she said.

  “Answer my questions.”

  She looked around at the others before answering. “He will answer your questi
ons.”

  “The Master Observer is a man? Why didn’t you tell me that in the beginning?” They did not answer; it was hopeless. He might as well go with them, nothing could be gained by staying here. They must eat and drink and perhaps he would find some of that along the way as well. “I’ll come,” he said, starting forward.

  They moved quickly away in front of him, leading the way. None of them thought to go behind him. The tunnel came to a branching, then to another, passing many doorways, and soon he was completely confused as to direction. They went down wide stairways, very much like the steps of the pyramid, that led to more caverns below. Some of them were large and contained devices of metal that were incomprehensible. None of them appeared to contain food or water so he did not stop. He was very tired. It seemed a long time before they entered an even higher cavern and faced a man, an older man, who was dressed just like the others except that his coverings were colored a deep red. He must be a leader or a chief, Chimal thought, or even a priest.

  “If you are the Master Observer I want you to answer my questions…”

  The man looked past Chimal, through him, as though he didn’t exist, and spoke to the others. “Where did you find him?”

  The girl gave one of those incomprehensible answers that Chimal was beginning to expect by this time. Impatiently, he looked about the chamber at the twisted and brooding, infinitely strange objects. There was a small table against one wall with some unidentifiable things on it, one of which might very well have been a cup. Chimal went to look and saw that one of the containers held a transparent liquid that could be water. He suspected everything in this world now, so he dipped his fingertip into it and tasted it carefully. Water, nothing else. Raising the container to his mouth he drained over half of it at once. It was flat and tasteless, like rain water, but it slaked his thirst well. When he poked at some gray wafers they crumbled to his touch. Chimal picked one up and held it out to the man who was standing close by.

  “Is this food?” he asked. The man turned his head away and tried to edge back into the crowd: Chimal took him by the arm and spun him about. “Well, is it? Tell me.” Frightened the man nodded a reluctant agreement, then moved swiftly away as soon as he was released. Chimal poked the broken knife into the waistband of his maxtli and began to eat. It was poor stuff, with no more flavor than ashes, but it filled the stomach.

  When he had taken the edge from his hunger, Chimal’s attention was drawn back to the affairs in progress. The girl had finished talking and the red-garbed Master Observer was considering her report. He paced before them, hands clasped behind his back and lips pursed with thought: the room was silent while they waited patiently for a decision. The worried lines about his eyes and the wrinkles into which his frowning mouth was permanently set showed that responsibility and decision-making were his accepted duties. Chimal, washing down the food with the remaining water, did not try to interfere again. All of their actions had an air of madness about them, or one of the games children play where they make believe someone isn’t there.

  “My decision is this,” the Master Observer said, turning, to face them, his motions heavy with the weight of responsibility. “You have heard the report of Watchman Steel. You know where—” his glance flicked toward Chimal for the first tune, then quickly away, ” — he was found. Therefore it is my statement that he is from the valley.” Some of the audience turned to look at Chimal now, as though this placing had given him a physical existence he had not had before. Tired and sated, Chimal leaned against the wall and pried some of the food from behind his teeth with his tongue and swallowed it.

  “Now follow closely my thoughts because they are of the loungst importance. This man is of the valley yet he can not return to the valley. I will tell you why. It is written in the klefg vebret that the people of the valley, the derrers, shall not know of the Watchers. That is ordained. This one will not then go back to the valley.

  “Now listen closely again. He is here, but he is not a Watcher. Only Watchers are permitted here. Can anyone tell me what this means?”

  There was a long silence, broken finally by a weak voice which said, “He cannot be here and he cannot be in the valley too.”

  “Correct,” the Master Observer said, with a stately nod.

  “Then tell us, please, where can he be?”

  “That is the question you must ask yourselves, and search your hearts for the answer. A man who cannot be in the valley or cannot be here, then cannot be. That is the truth of it. A man cannot be therefore is not, and a man who is not is therefore dead.”

  This last word was clear enough, and Chimal had the knife in his hand and his back to the wall in an instant. The others were much slower in understanding, and long seconds passed before someone said, “But he is not dead, he is alive.”

  The Master Observer nodded and called the speaker from the crowd, a bent man with an old and lined face. “You have spoken correctly, Watchman Strong, and since you see so clearly you will solve the problem for us and arrange that he will be dead.” Then he issued completely incomprehensible instructions to the man, turning back to the others as the watchman left.

  “Our tikw is to guard and protect life, that is why we are watchmen. But in his wisdom the Great Designer…” when he said this he touched the fingers of his right hand to the small box that hung about his neck and there was a quick flurry of motion as the others did the same, ” — did provide for all wbwmrieio and there is close by that which we need.”

  As he finished speaking the elderly watchman returned with a piece of metal the size and shape of a large log of firewood. It fell heavily to the floor when he put it down, and the watchers stepped aside to make room for it Chimal could see that it had a handle of some kind on one end, with large letters beneath it. He tilted his head to see if he could read them. T…U…R…N… Turn. They were the same kind of letters he knew from the temple school.

  “Turn,” the watchman said, reading aloud. “Do that, Watchman Strong,” the Master Observer ordered.

  The man obeyed, twisting on the handle until a loud hissing began. As soon as the noise stopped the end came off in his hand and Chimal could see that the object was not solid, but was a metal tube. The watchman reached in and pulled out something shaped like a long stick with bumps and projections on it. A piece of paper fell to the floor as he did this and he looked at it, then handed it to the Master Observer.

  “PUIKLING STRUSUN,” he read aloud. “This is for killing. The part with the letter A on it is held in the left hand.” He, and everyone else, looked at Watchman Strong as he turned the device over and over in his hands.

  “There are many letters in metal,” he said. “Here is a C, here a G…”

  “That is understood,” the Master Observer snapped. “You will find the part with an A and you will hold it in your left hand.”

  Trembling under the cold lash of the words, the watchman turned the object around until he found the correct letter and, clutching it in his left hand, held the device for killing triumphantly out before him.

  “Next, then. The narrowing of the rear with the letter B on it is held in the right hand,” he glanced up as this was quickly accomplished, “then the rear of the device with the letter C is placed against the right shoulder.”

  They all looked on expectantly as the man raised the thing and poked it against his shoulder, his left hand holding it from underneath and his right hand from the top. The Master Observer observed this, then gave a brief nod of satisfaction.

  “Now I read how to kill. The device is pointed at the thing that is to be killed.” The Master Observer looked up and realized that he was directly in front of the device. “Not at me, you fool,” he spat angrily, and bodily pulled the watchman around until he was facing the side of the room where Chimal stood. The others moved back to each side and waited expectantly. The Master Observer read on.

  “In order to kill, the small lever of metal with the letter D on it, which is on the bottom of the device, mu
st be pulled back with the index finger of the right hand.” He looked up at the watchman who was trying vainly to reach the little lever.

  “I cannot do it,” he said. “My finger is on top and the lever is on the bottom.”

  “Then turn your bowbed hand over!” the Master Observer shouted, out of patience.

  All of this Chimal had been observing with strong feelings of disbelief. Could it be that these people had no experience with weapons or killing? This must be true or why else should they act in this impossible manner. And were they going to kill him — just like this? Only the unrealness of the dreamlike scene had prevented him from acting before. And, in truth, he wanted to see how this strange weapon operated. He had almost waited until it was too late, he realized, as the elderly watchman turned his hand over and his groping finger reached out and depressed the metal lever.

  Chimal dived to one side as the thing turned to point at him. As he did so there was a quick blast of heat and one of the devices against the wall behind him exploded and began to bum smokily. People were screaming. Chimal hurled himself into the thick of the crowd and the weapon sought him out and fired again. This time there was a screech of pain and one of the women fell over, the side of her head as scorched and blackened as if it had been thrust into a fire.

  Now the large chamber was filled with fearful, running people, and Chimal pushed through them, knocking down any who came in his way. The watchman with the weapon was standing still, the device dangling, has eyes widened with shock. Chimal struck him in the chest with his clenched fist and pulled it away from his weak grip. Now, feeling stronger since he held the killing thing, Chimal turned to face any attack.