“We’ll find out,” Emil said, “and we’ll be the first. Aren’t you curious?”
Max swallowed hard. Sweat ran down his face as he marched. He felt as if he were sleepwalking, and wondered why he couldn’t just turn around and go home. It reminded him of when he had been little and would follow his parents anywhere.
“Where’s this way out?” he asked.
“Behind the sunplate,” Emil said. “There’s a tunnel that leads out at the end of the long axis. The locks open and close manually.”
Max looked up at the glowing sunplate. His father had mentioned such exits. They were there because the designers had believed there should always be manual backups for all automatic systems.
Max wanted to go, but tried to resist. “Maybe we should tell someone,” he said.
“We’ve got to go by ourselves, Max,” Lucinda said as if reading his thoughts. “Can’t you tell it’s important?”
“Yes,” Max heard himself say. The words seemed to come from a distance, as though they had been spoken by someone else.
The sunplate grew large ahead of them. Time raced. Max’s heart beat faster as he kept up his pace. He looked around the darkened hollow, experiencing it with heightened senses, breathing the cool air and smelling the soil and greenery as if they were alien things. He felt as though at any moment his body would grow large and burst through to some greater world outside.
Emil and Lucinda stopped just below the sunplate. Max caught up. It towered above them, balanced dangerously, its moonlight turning the grass around them black. He looked back at his house. Its lights were on, and he knew that his mother had awakened and found him gone. She would be calling his father at work by now.
“Under here,” Emil said, dropping to his knees. Max and Lucinda watched as he crawled under the rim of the glowing sunplate. She followed. Max glanced back at his distant house, then dropped down and crept after her.
“I’ll have the utility light on in a moment.” Emil’s voice echoed down the tunnel.
Finally, a red light went on, and Lucinda’s dark shape rose up in front of him. He stood up and followed her to where Emil was cranking open the first lock.
“Come on,” Emil said, and squeezed through the partially open door. Lucinda went after him. Max slipped through after her.
Emil was already cranking the next lock. When it was open just enough to get by, he went through, and Lucinda disappeared after him. Max followed, feeling vaguely surprised that they wanted him along as he went down a long stretch of tunnel cut smoothly through the rock.
“Here’s the outer lock!” Emil shouted, grabbing the crank.
“Don’t!” Max shouted, peering ahead in the red light. He rushed forward, feeling as if he had just awakened.
Emil and Lucinda waited for him in silence.
“All the locks are open behind us,” he said. “If there’s no atmosphere outside, we’ll be sucked out, and the habitat will start losing air.”
Emil turned the crank. Max wanted to stop him, but couldn’t. His mind knew the dangers, but his will was quiet. He took a deep breath, expecting decompression, but the door only slid open.
Emil went through. Lucinda blinked, then went after him.
Max followed, feeling confused. The tunnel turned ninety degrees to his right, and he saw Emil and Lucinda in a circle of white light. They disappeared into the glare. Somehow, there was air outside the habitat. The giant sphere had been built by oxygen-breathers, whatever else they might be, Max thought. Or maybe by beings who were expecting to trap oxygen-breathers.
The light dazzled him as he came to the opening. Then, as his eyes adjusted, he saw Emil and Lucinda below him, standing on what seemed to be an endless glass floor. Blue-white light was everywhere, even coming up through the floor. Emil and Lucinda stood as if something had frightened them into immobility.
“What’s wrong?” Max called.
Emil looked up at him. “I’m not sure,” he said. “This surface is disorienting.” His sister stared at the floor. “Is it safe?” Max asked.
Emil nodded. “Jump down.”
Lucinda looked surprised, as if she had just awakened.
Max stepped out from the opening, and landed next to her. She backed away from him in fear.
“What is it?” he asked.
She shook her head and closed her eyes in dismay. “I don’t know.”
The floor seemed solid enough to Max. He peered into the hazy brightness, then turned around and faced the habitat. It loomed above them, its gray, rocky surface looking out of place on the clean floor. Part of the great mass seemed to be cradled below the surface.
“So, what now?” he asked, turning to Emil.
“I’m not… sure,” the boy replied. “One thing’s wrong. The habitat isn’t spinning now, but we had normal gravity inside. Something is maintaining it—and it doesn’t feel different out here, either.”
Lucinda still seemed disoriented. Max looked at her with concern. Eyes still closed, she seemed to be listening to the silence.
“What do you hear?” he asked.
“We’ve got to go that way,” she said, pointing away from the habitat.
“Why?”
Her eyes opened, and she looked directly at him. I don’t know, but something wants us there.”
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6
As they started across the bright floor, Max felt that he had to keep going. He came to himself suddenly, stopped, and looked back at the habitat. Emil and Lucinda walked on. “Wait!” he shouted after them.
They halted and looked back. Lucinda seemed dazed; Emil shook his head. They hurried back to him.
Max stared at the habitat. As far as he could see to his left, its five kilometer-long mass was more than half submerged in the smooth floor, trapped like a rock in ice. He looked up, searching the brightness for a ceiling, but could not see beyond the blue-white glare.
Again he felt unsteady, as if he were trying to wake up. Emil staggered and reached for his sister’s hand.
“We’ve been lured out here,” Lucinda said in a trembling voice.
At any moment, Max expected the beings who had built the sphere to appear.
“Who are you?” he shouted. There was no answer, not even an echo.
“So what now?” Emil asked.
“I think they want us to go in that direction,” Max said.
“But who are they?” Lucinda asked.
“Nobody we know,” Emil answered.
“What will they do if we don’t obey,” Lucinda said, “force us again?”
“They could have just forced us all the way,” Max replied, “but they don’t seem to want to do that.”
“I’m not so sure,” Lucinda said. “And why did they pick us and not anybody else?”
“Then let’s go home,” Max said.
Emil looked uneasy. Lucinda turned and gazed into the bright distance. “Maybe we should explore,” she said. “It might be important.”
Max felt queasy. He didn’t like the idea of something probing his mind and bending him to its will. He was tempted to turn back, just to see if the strange compulsion would seize him again.
“Lucinda’s right,” Emil said. “We should find out what’s going on.”
Max nodded, realizing that they no longer had to be pushed. Were the aliens that clever and knowing about human beings? “All right, we’ll go,” he said. Lucinda pointed. “It’s still that way.”
Max went ahead. After a while, they stopped and looked back at the habitat, now a dark, mountainous outline in the blue haze.
“Look!” Lucinda shouted as they turned away.
Max strained to see ahead, and made out a tall column. He moved forward slowly, noticing that the structure seemed to have no top, but just went up into the brightness and disappeared.
As they approached it, Max saw that the giant column was transparent. Stormy gray and white stuff roiled inside. They came up close and touched the smooth, cold s
urface. Emil circled the structure and reappeared at Max’s left.
“It’s about twenty-five meters around, he said.
“But what is it?” Lucinda asked.
Max looked up at the endless column and felt fearful. He turned back toward the habitat, but it was hidden in the brightness now. “Remember,” he said, “the habitat is back that way.”
“What is this thingfor ?” Emil said, clearly fascinated by the column.
Max sat down against it, so he would face toward the habitat. Lucinda came and stood over him. “Where is all this? Why is the habitat here?”
Emil dropped down next to him. “This is great, isn’t it?” he said with a nervous laugh.
Lucinda sat down cross-legged in front of them. “Something wanted us out here. Or was it just us?”
“Come on,” Max replied. “If this is something you two wanted to do for yourselves, I’m the last person you’d take along.” He looked into her green eyes, expecting her to nod scornfully in agreement, but she looked away.
“You’re right,” she said apologetically. Max stared at her, surprised that she had taken him seriously.
Emil jumped up impatiently. “We’re supposed to explore.”
Max was still looking at Lucinda when she made a choking sound and pointed behind them. He jumped up and saw that openings had appeared in the column.
“There’s twelve,” Emil said as he went around and came back from the right.
Each was a perfect square of blackness. Max stepped into one square, drawn by its strangeness, then forced himself to back out, feeling somehow that this was not the right one.
Emil and Lucinda were gone.
“Where are you?” he shouted as he hurried around the column. He halted before an opening, then realized that they might have entered any one of the portals, and that he had lost his bearings by circling the column in panic. He hesitated, then decided that he would have to start somewhere.
“Emil! Lucinda!” he shouted as he stepped into the blackness. It seemed to flow around him, as if it were liquid. He went forward and drifted to the right, sensing the curve of the passage. He stopped suddenly, feeling lost, and backed out again into the light, emerging just in time to glimpse Lucinda as she disappeared into the next entrance.
“Wait!” he shouted, but she ignored him, as though she knew where she was going and didn’t care about anyone. He went in after her, and again veered to the right through the flowing darkness. He slowed his pace, reached out, and touched a shoulder.
“Lucinda?”
“It’s me,” she said.
“Were you trying to lose me? Why are you standing here now?”
“Waiting for you. We have to go through this way.”
“Where’s Emil?”
“Up ahead.”
He slipped his hand into hers. They went forward and bumped into Emil, who moved away.
Lucinda pulled Max along.
“Do you feel strange again?” he asked.
Her hand tightened in his. The cold odorless blackness flowed around them. Max felt as if he were breathing it.
“There’s an opening!” Emil shouted as they came around the curve.
Max peered ahead and saw a square of light. Emil’s dark shape appeared in it and went out through the exit.
Max and Lucinda rushed forward and emerged into a yellow-lit space. Emil was just ahead.
“We’re in a dome of some kind,” he said as he faced them. “Look at that!”
Max turned to look at the column from which they had emerged. Glassy, but smaller than the one they had entered, it also rose up into a glowing haze.
Suddenly the yellow light faded. A night sky appeared, with two alien suns setting on a ragged horizon of black mountains. One sun was a white-hot oval, the other a yellow dwarf, also egg-shaped from the distortions caused by mutual gravitational attraction. Rings of glowing red gas spiraled out from the two suns. Max squinted as his eyes adjusted. A great rocky plain surrounded the dome.
“Where are we?” Lucinda asked, letting go of Max’s hand.
“Not in Earth’s solar system,” Emil said, “that’s for sure.”
“But how did we get here?” she asked.
“Through the passage,” Emil answered, “from wherever the giant sphere is, I guess.”
“What do you mean?” Max asked.
“Well, our habitat is inside the giant sphere, which is probably somewhere in Earth’s Sunspace, I think. When we stepped into the column, it took us to another star system, through some kind of interstellar shortcut. The columns must be a transit system of some kind.”
“Maybe not,” Max replied. “It could be that this is where the giant sphere is, circling these suns, and we only went from the sphere to this planet.”
Emil nodded. “Could be, but it seems more like a bridge system, even if it only took us from the sphere to this dome.”
“But that would mean that the sphere captured our habitat and then came here,” Lucinda said, puzzled.
They gazed out at the bleak world around them. Max had seen holos of massive double stars, but to stand in the real glow of these suns was eerie. Two stars were locked in a fiery embrace, exchanging rivers of plasma along gravitational and magnetic lines.
“We should go back,” Lucinda said, breaking the spell as she retreated toward the column. Max felt her fear. A sudden deep hum sent shivers through him.
“Look!” Emil cried.
The openings in the column were blurred by its speed of rotation. “What’s happening?” Lucinda shouted.
The hum became a roar, then shifted into a high-pitched whine. Max began to feel dizzy from the sound.
Slowly, the whine died away. The openings became clearer and stopped. The stormy mass inside roiled lazily.
“Which is the right way back now?” Lucinda asked.
“No way to know,” Emil said with dismay.
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7
“Maybe they all lead back to where we started,” Lucinda said.
Max shook his head. “Fat chance.”
Emil pointed at the portal in front of him. “Maybe it’s this one.”
“Let’s try it,” Max said.
“We’ll split up,” Emil offered suddenly. “Each of us tries one portal, then we meet back here.”
“That’s dumb,” Lucinda answered. “We might not all wind up back here. These things could go anywhere. It’s better to try each one in turn, together.”
Emil looked embarrassed. “Right. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Stay close,” Max said as he went in.
Emil and Lucinda were right behind him as he followed the S-curve. The darkness flowed around him, guiding him through. Light flashed ahead, and Max paused. Emil and Lucinda came up on his right as he approached the exit.
“The air smells strange,” Emil said.
“Ozone,” Max said. “Too much could be poisonous.”
“What?” Emil said fearfully.
“Wait,” Max said. He turned and looked back, trying to see by the flashing light, then moved to the right and touched the wall. It felt rocky. “We’ve come out into a cave!”
Emil and Lucinda were moving toward the opening. He hurried after them.
Black clouds rode in a white sky as they emerged onto a high place.
“It’s so big!” Emil cried out in surprise at the size of the landscape, then moved toward the edge of the Cliff, with Lucinda behind him. Max’s curiosity raced as he followed them. They were on theoutside of a planet, where the surface curved the other way and might be millions of times larger than the interior of the habitat.
A shimmering green forest lay below the cliff. Wind ruffled the trees, whispering. Black clouds swirled in a white sky. Lightning struck the forest, setting fires. Max felt an overpowering sense of danger.
Emil stepped to the edge, then backed up and sat down, covering his eyes.
“Are you all right?” Lucinda asked.
&nbs
p; “He nodded, eyes closed. “Makes me dizzy.”
“I feel lighter,” Max said, “so this planet’s mass must produce less than our one gravity.”
“So do I,” Lucinda added, “but not by much.”
A gust of wind blew raindrops into their faces. Max backed into some tall weeds that had grown out of cracks in the rock.
“We’d better go!” Lucinda shouted, helping Emil to his feet.
Lightning lit up the whole sky as they retreated from the edge. The black clouds bunched up into a solid blanket.
“Strange place for an exit,” Emil said loudly, looking around. “It must have made sense once to have one here, maybe before erosion changed the land.”
“Come on!” she shouted at him.
The clifftop trembled and pitched toward the forest. They staggered back from the cave entrance as the world lifted up and tumbled them toward the edge.
Emil cried out as he went over. Max grabbed the tall weeds and hung on. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lucinda doing the same. The ground shook again, and the weeds came out by their roots. Lucinda screamed as she brushed against him and rolled over the edge.
No, Max thought as his weeds pulled loose. He tried to dig his fingers into the rock as he slid toward the edge. For a moment he hung there, but the next tremor shook him loose.
In a dream there would be time to look down and see where Emil and Lucinda had struck, he thought as he fell, and that would prove it was a dream, he told himself as he hit—and slid into something soft and wet.
Then his feet touched bottom, and he was standing chest-high in mud.
He heard a gurgling sound and turned to see Lucinda pulling Emil’s head out of the mud. “Help me!” she cried. He pushed forward, struggling to make his way to her.
Emil was still breathing when he managed to get to them. Max helped Lucinda hold her brothers unconscious body upright as rain began to fall.
Max looked for a way out.
“What is it?” Lucinda shouted.
“We can’t climb back up!” he answered.
“What happened?” Emil asked in a weak voice.
“We fell into this mud,” Lucinda said. “How do you feel?”
“Okay,” he gasped, struggling to see in the downpour.
The Sunspacers Trilogy Page 39