The Valley Beneath the World: The Fugitive Future - Book One

by Brian Lowe

  I lay in bed pondering my options. Neither of the two men whom I respected the most in all the world, my Uncle Balu and Keryl Clee, would have let one woman stand in the way of their getting out to explore. Even if there was nothing strange going on, even if Trocas had only set Aerios to watch us out of a natural caution, they would never have rested until they were free to see Udar for themselves, and damn the consequences. I liked to believe I was no less curious than they.

  I'd grown up listening to Uncle Balu's stories of his adventures outside of Tehana City--much to my mother's displeasure--and then when Keryl came along, we went out and experienced adventures that made Uncle Balu's best stories seem dull by comparison. And I mean, we had escaped tiger spiders and thunder lizards and the Vulsteen's gladiator pits… There was no way I was going to let one woman keep me prisoner! The trouble was, Aerios was always outside in the corridor; first thing tomorrow morning she'd be standing there, smiling and as fresh as if she'd had a full night's sleep. Had she? Somehow she had, unless she was twins…

  Sleep came to me while I was still thinking. I woke up with the beginnings of a plan. The rest I would have to make up as I went along.

  Breakfast was available in my apartment, and I took my time with it. One thing I've learned is if you're planning a secret mission, eat when you can; you might have to go a while before you got another chance.

  Aerios was exactly where I expected.

  "Ready to do some more exploring? I thought we could go to the upper levels; there's a small museum and I've gotten permission to take you into one of the food labs."

  "Thanks, Aerios," I said with all the sincerity I could muster, "but before we do that, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for escorting me around. I'm sure you've got other things you'd rather be doing."

  Her smile came on cue. "You don't need to thank me. This is my assignment now."

  Which was a rather impersonal way of dealing with me, but it suited my purposes well enough.

  "In that case, could you do me a favor and please come in for a minute? There are a couple of things about my environmental systems I haven't figured out."

  She obediently followed me into my room, and I allowed the door to close. Well, that had worked, not that it really proved anything. But I was either about to embarrass myself terribly or cleverly circumvent Udar's security, and whichever happened, I didn't want anyone else to see it.

  Aerios marched directly to the wall panel where the environmental comfort systems were located. They were actually very simple, as would be expected, given that we were living in a giant cave underground with no weather to speak of. The fact that she hadn't questioned my inability to fathom them gave me more reason to believe I'd guessed right about her.

  "As long as you're here," I said, "why don't you tell me something about yourself?"

  She turned around, that smile plastered to her face. Her expression convinced me. It was too practiced--it couldn't be real.

  "There isn't much to tell. I grew up in--"

  "In that case, Aerios, please do me a favor and identify yourself."

  She froze in mid-sentence, taking on a vacant stare. "Unit AER001711."

  I was right. Aerios was a robot.

  XXXIV

  Robots are not unknown among the Nuum, but they are used very rarely, and only in situations where conditions are so hazardous that they won't risk even Thoran lives. At least, that's the official line; in reality, I think they just enjoy bossing around Thorans more than machines.

  I took a moment to look Aerios over while "she" waited. As far as I knew, I had never actually seen a robot before.

  On the surface, I couldn't tell she wasn't human. She even blinked occasionally. She was so realistic that I had to work up the nerve to rap my knuckles on her shoulder before I could convince myself she wasn't alive, but either she was wearing a steel mesh vest or she was a robot.

  My first clue had been that everyone seemed to speak oddly to her, with both Tomme and Trocas asking her to "do me a favor." I thought it was just their way of being polite, but when Aerios' oddness began to make itself apparent, I wondered. Eventually I worked up the courage to risk looking like a complete moron--and it paid off.

  But now I wondered why Trocas thought it necessary to assign a robot to escort me around on tours. It could have been that Udar had enough robots to use them for all sorts of menial tasks, but if they had that many robots, why would they need Tanar's help in taking down Kur?

  On the other hand, if I wanted to go wandering off where I wasn't supposed to, Aerios would have no trouble keeping me in line. You can call me suspicious if you want… but now it was more important to me than ever to get out and do a little exploring by myself.

  "Aerios, do me a favor and please stay here while I go out."

  "I'm sorry, but I can't let you go wandering alone. You might get lost."

  Damn. "In that case, please do me a favor and face the wall and count to 10,000."

  She did it! She turned and faced the wall. I headed for the door.

  "I'm done. Would you like to go out now?"

  Inwardly I cringed. How could I forget that she had a computer for a brain?

  After a moment's consideration, I tried again. "Aerios, please do me a favor and face the wall and count to 10,000 at a rate of one integer per second." Immediately she turned about again. That should keep her busy for a few hours.

  If the people in charge had gone to so much effort to keep me away from something, I wanted to see it. Was I entitled? No. Did I have any business interfering with Udar's lawful governmental affairs? Not a bit. Was I going snooping?

  What do you think?

  Although Udar had supplied me with new clothes that helped me blend in, I was still nervous whenever I passed someone in the hallway. From Aerios' reactions on our previous trips, I knew that Udar was too large for everyone to know one another, but I could have been wrong, or I could have been relying too much on some programmed response. Nevertheless, after a few minutes of attracting no attention, I managed to relax.

  It was at that point that I realized that I had no idea where I was going. I went from not being nervous to practically panicking. After all the trouble I'd gone through to circumvent Aerios and gain some freedom, now I had no clue what to do with it! Despite my orders, she wasn't going to stand there staring at my wall forever, and that was assuming nothing interrupted her. Time was slipping away because my plan hadn't been developed past the first obstacle.

  I looked around. Hadn't I been here before? I still hadn't strayed far from my rooms--could I find them again?--and if I was right, I was pretty close to the exit that led to the park just inside the entrance to the settlement. If I could locate that, I should be able find a place to sit unobtrusively while I planned out my next move.

  Planning, yeah, that thing you're supposed to do before you walk into the breen's den… When Uncle Balu heard about this, he was going to shake his head in disappointment--then he was going to laugh so hard he'd fall out of his chair. I couldn't wait to see it.

  Thankfully, I had my directions straight, and once I emerged outside a short walk brought me to a bench conveniently far from most everyone else, giving me my place to sit down, hiding in plain sight. I set my chin in my hand and stared at the grass.

  "Let's take this logically," I said to myself, "for a change. If Aerios was supposed to keep me away from things, then wherever she did take me must have been considered safe for me to see. I wasn't been allowed to go into any of the labs, but that doesn't mean anything, and unless I'm going to break in, I wouldn't be allowed into them now, either--which means there's no point in me going back to the upper levels.

  "So if I can't go up…" Suddenly my stare intensified, as though I could see through the grass and the topsoil to the rock below. Or was it rock…? "What can't go up, must go down. Right? Right," I told myself, and that was good enough for me.

  The fact that it was unexpectedly difficult to find a way down actually m
ade me very optimistic. At first, I looked in places where we had previously climbed up to other levels; although I didn't remember seeing any passages leading down, maybe I just hadn't been looking. This yielded nothing.

  But it never crossed my mind that there wouldn't be anything below my feet. I mean, even if all this place had ever been was an archeological research station, there still had to be (if I understood anything about archeology) spots where someone had dug into the ground. And so far as I had seen, there were none.

  Not to mention I had serious reservations that Aerios had been telling us the truth. For one thing, there was Aerios herself. Why would a bunch of archeologists need a robot? For another, Udar was bigger than Tanar (which was already big for a scientific research outpost), and not all of these tunnels looked natural. It only stood to reason that if Udar wanted to expand, tunneling downward was easier than tunneling upward.

  Looking back, these are all good reasons in hindsight, but at the time, I probably kept going out of blind stubbornness. The problem with pushing forward blindly is that you can't see where you're going.

  After the third stairwell that failed to reveal a helpful portal, I tried to think things through again. Either I was wrong and there were no underground tunnels, or there were some but they were restricted. In that case, the access would be convenient to those who needed it. Who might need special access?

  The original archeologists? Why would they hide what they were doing? Besides, all of the labs I'd seen were on the upper floors… If I was right, and access to the tunnels was limited to those who needed it, the only important people who had offices near here were on the council. Which made the prospect of finding out what they were hiding irresistible.

  The problem with Udar's internal "security" was that it was so completely unused to its responsibilities. I mean, other than Avanya and me, how many people had visited Udar in the last fifty years? There were outside threats, sure, but none on the inside. They'd tried to solve the problem we presented by using Aerios, but I'd shown them how well that worked. (Well, I hadn't shown them yet, and I hoped they never found out.)

  When we infiltrated the Council Hall in Dure five years ago, Maire and I and the crew used secret passages that she knew about, while Keryl had needed to march right past the mental scanner-servers that lined the main entrance hall--but here there was none of that, nothing more than an occasional bored guardsman standing watch over the general peace. I breezed past them without a glance and entered the precincts of the council bureaucracy.

  I was relieved to find that whatever bias Udar had against directory signs had failed to make inroads here. Perhaps it was bureaucratic pride, but every office had the name and title of its occupant proudly blazoned thereon. It seemed like an overwhelming number of them for what was nothing more than a small town, but I wasted no time in trying to sort them out. I had a different goal in mind.

  I found it almost immediately: the door that boasted no name. I glanced about to make sure I was unobserved, then opened the door and stepped through. If it had been a supply closet, I'd have had fun trying to describe to anyone walking by what I was doing in there.

  But it wasn't. I was standing in a well-lit small chamber with no other door, but featuring a metal staircase leading down. Subtle lights lined the walls of the stairwell, but whatever was at the bottom was shrouded in shadow.

  XXXV

  I crept downward with as much stealth as I could muster. The lights were a curse as well as a blessing, because while I could see where I was going, it also meant that anyone down here would be able to see me, as well. And anyone who had business down here was liable to know immediately that I didn't.

  The tunnel I found myself in was completely empty. Well, there were stairs down to here, and the lights were on, so this must lead somewhere. I'd've wasted a lot of time and effort if I didn't find out where.

  Within a few yards, the tunnel split into two branches at sixty degree angles. I peered down each in turn, but neither ran straight for very long and I couldn't see anything interesting. If I wanted to know more, I would have to keep going, and there was no telling when I'd run smack into an armed guard, or worse, another robot. This was the point where any ape with an ounce of sense would turn around and go home.

  I chose the left-hand tunnel.

  I did have the sense to stick to the inner curve, and resumed my slow and stealthy ways. It was a good thing I did, too, because those theoretical armed guards were a lot closer than I would be comfortable with.

  Even with the best mental discipline, a certain amount of "static noise" is inevitable, a low rumble of thought, kind of like what I sensed from the Tizinti. The only person I'd ever met who didn't give it off was Keryl Clee, and he was a special case. As I crept down the tunnel, my ears and my mind open as far as they could be, I picked up the unmistakable feeling of a thinking being very close ahead.

  There were actually two of them, flanking a large door about fifty feet away. I could see them when I very carefully peeked around the next sharp turn in the tunnel. These were no bored civil servants watching for infractions that they knew were never going to occur; they were hard, alert, and armed. The only reason they didn't detect my thoughts in turn was that they were already tuning out each other.

  From the size of the entrance they were covering, I had to guess that the room on the other side was pretty big. What it was for was beyond me, but it was obviously really important. Unfortunately, I had no way of getting past the guards, even if I didn't need to keep my presence a secret. I told myself to be satisfied with what I'd found and retreated with the utmost care until I reached the split again, and after taking a moment to orient myself, I tried the right-hand tunnel.

  This tunnel, as I quickly learned, didn't lend itself to skulking like its brother; it had its own strange personality. Very soon it branched into two new tunnels, one to the right, one straight ahead. Both were dimly lit and neither offered any reason to favor it over the other--at least not to a Thoran.

  No human would have noticed it, but my nose told me someone had passed down the right-hand tunnel not long ago. And if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for me. Somebody had gone to a great deal of trouble to hide something down here, and I wasn't going to stop until I knew what it was.

  Another fifty yards, and I came to yet another fork. Again, the scent led to the right. I followed.

  This tunnel straight back for about a hundred yards. As far as I could tell, it was empty, but that didn't make a whole lot of sense. It was too straight to be natural, and it was lighted as well, albeit rather dimly. There had to be something along here that people wanted to reach, and it looked as if it would be the work of only a few seconds to see what that was. After that, I could get back to my room--from which, I now realized with cold dread, I had been gone for a long time.

  There wasn't any point in trying to be sneaky, since there was nowhere to hide, so I trotted toward the other end as well as gorillas can trot, which is not very well. It didn't take long to figure out where I was.

  The wall on my left ran blankly all the way to the end, but the right side was broken at regular intervals by doors--bolted from the outside, and featuring small barred openings at head height. There is only one kind of door I know of that is located as far from everything else as possible, has a small barred opening, and is bolted from the outside.

  Udar had a dungeon, and I'd found it.

  On a hunch, I crept up to the first door and risked a look inside. So far as I could tell, it was empty. I did the same with the next five doors, but in none of the cells did I find anyone who might possibly be the missing Zevi.

  The seventh cell, the last in line, wasn't empty.

  I knew someone was in there because the door was closed but the bolt was unshot. All of the others, although empty, had been bolted. Someone had gone inside this one voluntarily. As I said, gorillas don't run very well, but we are pretty quiet, so when I popped up to take my look at the last cell, n
either of the people inside heard me approach.

  An advantage that I nearly surrendered when I gave a gasp that I only stopped by clamping a hand over my mouth. Lying on a bare bunk was a Thoran woman. I couldn't see her face because she had turned toward the wall in an attitude of careless insolence--yet when she spoke, I knew her instantly.

  It was Tierse!

  But it wasn't finding my friend here--alive--that forced me to cover my mouth against a noise that would fatally give away my presence, not that, but the man with her. His back was to me, and I had no idea of his identity except for one unmistakable feature…

  He towered over Tierse. He seemed to fill the entire cell. He was no Thoran.

  He was a Nuum.

  How neither of them could hear my pounding heart, let alone my thoughts, was a matter for great conjecture--on another day. I slipped out of the line of sight with the barred window as silently as I could and expended every ounce of energy in my body into getting as far away from that cell as possible without being noticed. That whatever conversation I had witnessed back there was intended to be kept secret was beyond question. That a Nuum would have me shot for even being in this corridor was no less certain.

  I had covered ninety of the hundred yards to the first fork when I heard the cell door softly close and the bolt slide home. There was nowhere to hide, so rather than take a laser bolt in the back, I turned around and there was the Nuum.

  He saw me at the same time. "You!" he hissed, pointing as if I could possibly think he meant anyone but me. "Stay where you are."

  Well, when I Nuum gives you an order, you're supposed to obey, so I did. Maybe I could have run and lost him in the tunnels, but that seemed a poor chance. I watched him approach, and as he did, his features became recognizable.