Dark Universe

by Daniel F. Galouye

A Bantam Book / published September 1961

Copyright, 1961, by Daniel F. Galouye

All rights reserved.

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada.

DARK UNIVERSE

Pausing beside the hanging needle of rock, Jared tapped it with his lance. Precise, staccatolike tones filled the passageway.

"Hear it?" he coaxed. "It's right up ahead."

"I don't hear a thing." Owen edged forward, stumbled and fell lightly against Jared's back. "Nothing but mud and hanging stones."

"No

pits?"

"None that _I_ can hear."

"There's one not twenty paces off. Better stick close to me."

Jared tapped the rock again, inclining an ear so he would miss none of the subtle echoes. There it was, all right--massive and evil as it clung to a nearby ledge listening to their advance.

Ahead were no more needles of rock he could conveniently tap. The last echoes had told him that much. So he produced a pair of clickstones from his pouch and brought them together sharply in the hollow of his hand, concentrating on the returning tones. To his right, his ears traced out great formations of rocks, folded one over the other and reflecting a confusing pattern of sound.

Owen clutched his shoulder as they pressed forward. "It's too smart We'll never catch up with it."

"Of course we will. It'll get annoyed and attack sooner or later. Then there'll be one less soubat to contend with."

"But Radiation! It's pitch silent! I can't even hear where I'm going!"

"What do you think I'm using clickstones for?"

"I'm used to the central echo caster."

Jared laughed. "That's the trouble with you pre-Survivors. Depend too much on the familiar things."

Owen's sarcastic snort was justified. For Jared, at twentyseven pregnancy periods of age, was not only his senior by less than two gestations, but also was still a pre-Survivor himself.

Drawing up beneath the ledge, Jared unslung his bow. Then he handed Owen the spear and stones. "Stay here and click out some distinct tones--about a pulse apart."

He eased forward, arrow strung. Now the ledge was casting back sharp echoes. The soubat was stirring, folding and unfolding its immense, leathery wings. He paused and listened to the evil form, audibly outlined against the smooth, rock background. Furry, oval face--twice as large as his own. Alert ears, cupped and pointed. Clenched talons, sharp as the jagged rocks to which they clung. And twin _pings_ of reflected sound brought the impression of bared fangs.

"Is it still there?" Owen whispered anxiously.

"Can't you hear it yet?"

"No, but I can sure smell the thing. It--"

Abruptly the soubat released its grip and dropped.

Jared didn't need clickstones now. The furious flapping of wings was a direct, unmistakable target. He drew the bow, placing the feathered end of the arrow against his ear, and released the string.

The creature screamed--a piercing, ragged cry that reverberated in the passage.

"Good Light Almighty!" Owen exclaimed. "You got it!"

"Just punctured a wing." Jared reached for another arrow. "_Quick_-

-give me some more echoes!"

But it was too late. The thrashing of its wings was carrying the soubat off down a branch passage.

Listening to the retreating sound, Jared absently fingered his beard.

Cropped close to his chin, it was a dense growth that projected bluntly forward, giving his face a self-confident tone. Taller than the span of a bowstring, he was lancelike in posture and his limbs were solidly corded.

Although shoulder length in the back, his hair was trimmed in front, leaving ears unobstructed and face fully exposed. This accommodated his fondness for open eyes. It was a preference that wasn't based on religious belief, but rather on his dislike for the facial tautness which came with closed eyes.

Later, the side passage narrowed and received a river that flowed up out of the ground, leaving only a thin strip of slippery rock for them to tread.

Gripping his arm, Owen asked, "What's up ahead?"

Jared sounded the clickstones. "No low rocks. No pits. The stream flows off into the wall and the passage widens again."

He was listening more intently, though, to other, almost lost echoes--minor reflections from small things that slid into the river as they retreated from the disturbing noise of the stones.

"Make a note of this place," he said. "It's crawling with game."

"Salamanders?"

"Hundreds of them. That means decent-sized fish and hordes of crayfish."

Owen laughed. "I can just hear the Prime Survivor authorizing a hunting expedition _here_. Nobody's ever been _this_ far before."

"_I_

have."

"When?" the other asked skeptically.

They cleared the stream and were back on dry ground again.

"Eight or nine pregnancy periods ago."

"Radiation--but you were a child then! And you came _here_--_this_

far from the Lower Level?"

"More than once."

"Why?"

"To hunt for something."

"What?"

"Darkness."

Owen chuckled. "You don't _find_ Darkness. You _commit_ it."

"So the Guardian says. He shouts, 'Darkness abounds in the worlds of men!' And he says that means sin and evil prevail. But I don't believe it means that."

"What _do_ you believe?"

"Darkness must be something real. Only, we can't recognize it."

Again Owen laughed. "If you can't recognize it, then how do you expect to find it?"

Jared disregarded the other's skepticism. "There's a clue. We know that in the Original World--the first world that man inhabited after he left Paradise--we were closer to Light Almighty. In other words, it was a good world. Now -let's suppose there's some sort of connection between sin and evil and this Darkness stuff. That means there must be _less_

Darkness in the Original World. Right?"

"I suppose so."

"Then all I have to do is find something there's less of in the Original World."

Clickstone echoes traced out a massive obstruction ahead and Jared slowed his pace. He reached the barricade and explored it with his fingers. Rocks, piled one upon the -other, stretched completely across the passage, rearing up to his shoulder.

"Here it is," he announced, "--the Barrier."

Owen's grip firmed on his arm. "_The_ Barrier?"

"We can make it over the top easily."

"But--the law! We can't go past the Barrier!"

Jared dragged him along. "Come on. There are no monsters.

Nothing to be afraid of--except maybe a soubat or two."

"But they say it's worse than Radiation itself!"

"That's what they _tell_ you." By now Jared had him halfway up the mound. "They even say you'll find the Twin Devils Cobalt and Strontium waiting to carry you off to the depths of Radiation. Rot! Compost!"

"But the Punishment Pit!"

Scrambling down the other side, Jared rattled his clickstones with more than one purpose in mind. Besides drowning out Owen's protests, the clatter also plumbed the passage before them. Owen had somehow gotten in front and the close-quarter echoes were clearly transmitting sonic impressions of a stocky body, alert with tension and protected by outstretched, groping arms.

"For Light's sake!" Jared rebuked. "Get your hands down! I'll tell you if you're going to bump into anything."

The next echo crest caught the other's shrug. "So I'm no good with dickstones," he gruffed, stepping off in a resentful stride.

Jared followed, appreciating Owen's pluck. Cautious and hesitant, he took things reluctantly. But when the final _click_ fetched its impression of an unavoidable situation with natural foe or Zivver, there wasn't a more determined fighter around.

Zivvers and soubats and bottomless pits, Jared reflected-- those were the challenges of existence. If it weren't for them, the Lower Level World and its passages would be as safe as Paradise itself was before man turned his back on Light Almighty and, as the legend had it, came to the various worlds that men and Zivvers now inhabited.

At the moment, though, only the soubats held his concern. One in particular--a vicious, marauding creature that had winged furiously into the Lower Level and snatched away a sheep.

He spat in disgust, recalling the venomous expletives his archery instructor had muttered long ago: "Stinking, Light damned things from the bowels of Radiation!"

"What _are_ soubats?" one of the young archers had asked.

"They started off like the inoffensive little bats whose manure we collect for the plants. But they had truck with the Devils somewhere along the way. Either Cobalt or Strontium took one of them down to Radiation and made it over into a supercreature. From that one came all the soubats we have to contend with now."

Jared filled the passage with anxious, probing echoes. Owen, stubbornly maintaining the lead, was advancing more cautiously now, sending his feet out in sliding motions rather than pronounced steps.

The other's closed-eyes preference brought a smile to Jared's lips. It was a habit that would never be broken. It accommodated the belief that the eyes themselves should be protected and preserved for feeling the Great Light Almighty's presence on His Return.

But there wasn't anything objectionable about Owen, Jared assured himself, except that he was too susceptible to literal acceptance of the legends. Like the one which held that Light had resented man's invention of the manna plant and had cast him out of Paradise and into eternal Darkness, whatever that was.

One _click_ and Owen was there--several paces ahead. Another and he was gone. In the interim there had been a distressed shout and the sound of flesh impacting on rock. Then:

"For Light's sake! Get me out of here!"

More echoes disclosed the presence of the shallow pit which had, until then, lurked in the echo void ahead of Owen.

Standing on the lip of the cavity, Jared lowered his lance. The other grabbed hold and started to pull himself out. But Jared tensed, wrenched the spear free and cast himself on the ground. He barely escaped clawing talons as the soubat swooped down.

"We're going to get a soubat!" he shouted exultantly.

By its shrieks, he tracked the animal as it made a ranging turn, gaining altitude, then dived down in a second, screaming attack. Jared lunged up, anchored the spear in a crevice and braced himself along the shaft, aiming it at the onrushing fury.

All Radiation broke loose as three hundred pounds of wrath hit Jared in a single, violent blast and bowled him over. He rose and felt the warmth of blood on his arm where talon had laid open flesh.

"Jared! You all right!"

"Stay down! It might come back!" He ran a hand over the ground and retrieved his bow.

But all was silent The soubat had retreated once more, this time possibly with a spear wound added to its distress.

Owen climbed out of the pit. "You hurt?"

"Just

a

couple

of scratches."

"Did you get it?"

"Radiation no! But I know where it is."

"I'm not even asking where. Let's go home."

Jared tapped the ground with his bow and listened. "It turned off into the Original World--up ahead."

"Let's go back, Jared!"

"Not until I get that thing's tusks in my pouch."

"You're going to get them _somewhere_ else!"

But Jared went on. And, reluctantly, Owen followed.

Later he asked, "Are you _really_ determined to find Darkness?"

"I'm going to find it if it takes the rest of my life."

"Why bother with hunting evil?"

"Because I'm really listening for something else. And Darkness- may be just a step along the way."

"What _are_ you hunting for?"

"Light."

"The Great Light Almighty," Owen reminded, reciting one of the tenets, "is present in the souls of good men and--"

"Suppose," Jared broke in boldly, "Light isn't God, but something else?"

The other's religious sensitivity was shocked. Jared could tell by his breathless silence, by the slight acceleration of his pulse.

"What else _could_ Light Almighty be?" Owen asked finally.

"I don't know. But I'm sure it's something good. And if I can find it, life will be better for all mankind."

"What makes you think that?"

"If Darkness is connected with evil and if Light is its opposite, then Light must be good. And if I find Darkness, then I may have some kind of idea as to the nature of Light."

Owen snorted. "That's ridiculous! You mean you think our beliefs are wrong?"

"Not altogether. Maybe just twisted around. You know what happens when a story passes from mouth to mouth. Just think what _could_

happen to it passing from generation to generation."

Jared returned his attention to the passage as the clickstone echoes betrayed a great hollow space in the wall on his right.

They stood in the vaulted entrance to the Original World and Jared's _clicks_ lost themselves in the silence of a vast expanse. He substituted his largest, hardest pair of sounding rocks. These he had to clap together with considerable force to produce reports loud enough to carry to the farthest recesses and back.