Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 2, May 2013 (35 page)

The elders had had time to study the reeking object, and Maxwell asked, “Where did you get this thing?”

“I listened to Jared hide it. And I dug it up.”

“Why would he do a thing like that?”

“Ask
him
.” But before Maxwell could, Romel went on, “I think he was covering up for the monster. Don’t get me wrong now. Jared’s my brother. But the interest of the Lower Level comes first. That’s why I’m exposing this conspiracy.”

“That’s ridiculous—” Jared began.

“Eh? What?” Haverty interrupted. “Conspiracy? What conspiracy? Why should your brother conspire with the monster? How
could
he conspire with it?”

“He stole off and met it in the Original World, didn’t he?”

Echoes fetched only the impression of hair hanging down over Romel’s face. But Jared knew that the smile concealed beneath the veil was as sardonic as it had been each time the swish-rope accomplished its mischievous purpose during an earlier era.

“I hid the cloth,” he began, “because—”

But Haverty persisted. “What would he gain by conspiring with a monster?”

There was yet another tug to be had from the swish-rope. “He’s Prime Survivor now, isn’t he?” Romel reminded with a laugh.

Jared lunged up. But two Elders halted his charge.

“That kind of outburst,” Averyman assured, “only makes the accusation seem more reasonable.”

Jared relaxed before the slab. “I hid the cloth because I wanted to study it later. I couldn’t very well bring it into the world without having to answer the same questions I’m answering now.”

“Reasonable,” Averyman grumbled. “And what about this matter of conspiring with the monster?”

“Would you say I’d have anything to gain if a monster kidnapped a Zivver?”

“Not personally, no.”

He told them about the invasion of the Upper Level by the two monsters.

“And why didn’t you say anything about this before?” Averyman asked somewhat indignantly after he had finished.

“For the same reason I’ve already given—I didn’t realize then that I
wasn’t
responsible for what was happening.”

After a moment Maxwell warned, “We certainly intend to check that story about the Zivver being carried off by monsters.”

“If you find out I’m lying, give me any length of sentence in the Punishment Pit.”

Averyman rose. “I think this hearing has taken up enough time for one period.”

“Hearing? Compost!” Jared swore. “Let’s quit sitting on our hands and go after the Prime Survivor!”

“Easy now,” Haverty soothed. “We don’t want to do anything rash. We may be dealing with Cobalt and Strontium themselves.”

“But they’ll be back!”

“At which time we’ll rely both on the Protectors we’ve posted at the entrance and on the Guardian for Exorcism.”

It was a stupid position born of deaf superstition. But Jared heard that he wouldn’t be able to budge them from it.

***

Later that period he withdrew to the Fenton Grotto to work on a formula for reallocating the remaining manna husk output among Survivors and livestock. Hunched over the sandbox, he brushed the writing area smooth and began all over again with his stylus. But a violent sneeze swept the surface clean and he threw the instrument down in disgust.

He pushed the box aside and laid his head on the slab. Not only were the sniffles driving him out of his mind, but he also felt as though his head were stuffed with warm, moist wool. He’d had fever before, but not like this. Nor had he ever heard of anyone else being sick in this manner.

Leading his thoughts away from physical discomfort, he took cheer from the still unbelievable realization that no Divine Being stood in the way of his quest for Light. The monsters might resent his seeking Darkness and Light. But they could be resisted—if he could only find some way to get around their sleep-dealing powers.

It was tantalizing, too, how everything seemed to point toward some vast and incomprehensible pattern into which were woven so many material and immaterial things. What was the obscure relationship between the eyes and Light, Light and Darkness, Darkness and the Original World, the Original World and Radiation? The apparent linkage extended to the Twin Devils then, in a great circle, back again to the eyes and the Light-Darkness arrangement.

He found himself recalling Cyrus, the Thinker, who spent his time meditating in his grotto at the other end of the world. He remembered that gestations ago he had heard the old man express some novel ideas on Darkness. Perhaps it was those philosophic sessions that had suggested the search for Darkness—
and
Light—in the first place. And Jared knew he must talk with the Thinker again—soon.

The curtains parted, admitting Many, one of the new Survivors.

“For a P.S. of only a few heartbeats’ experience,” he chided, “you’ve sure carved out a chunk of trouble for yourself—popping off before the Elders about chasing after the monster.”

Jared laughed. “Guess I should have kept my mouth shut.”

Many perched on the slab beside him and sneezed. “The Guardian hit the dome when he heard about it. He says now he’s sure Romel would make a better P.S.”

“After I hear my way clear with this hot-springs emergency, I’ll straighten him out.”

“He’s saying the way you acted at the hearing proves you haven’t atoned. And he’s predicting more misfortune for the world.”

As though Many’s words had also been a cue for fulfillment of Guardian Philar’s prophesy, distressed voices began filtering through the curtain.

Plunging outside, Jared snagged one of the men who were racing by. “What’s all the commotion?”

“The river! It’s running dry!”

Even before he reached the bank, the central caster’s
clacks
fetched a composite of the situation. The river had fallen so alarmingly below its normal level that the liquid softness of its reflected sound was completely hidden in the echo void of the bank. And there came only the enfeebled gurgling of water around rocks that had never before been exposed.

A terrified scream shrilled from the direction of the main entrance and, without breaking stride, Jared altered course.

With the central caster behind him, he began getting a better impression of what lay ahead. The Protectors stationed at the mouth of the passageway were in a state of agitated disorder.

“Monster! Monster!” someone over there was shouting.

Then Jared checked his charge as the entire tunnel abruptly began roaring with the soundless noise of the monsters. The sensations he received were like Effective Excitation amplified a thousandfold. But now there were no fuzzy half rings of inaudible sound touching his eyeballs, as in the Optic Nerve Ceremony. Instead, the screaming silence was like a detached, impersonal thing—something associated not with any part of himself, but rather with the mouth of the tunnel!

It was more than that, however. The noiselessness leaked off, much like valid sound, and touched many things—the dome, the wall on his right, the hanging stones beside the entrance.

Starting forward again, he threw his hands in front of his face. The distant, whispering roar of Effective Excitation left him immediately. Then that
proved
it—the uncanny stuff that came from monsters
did
inflict its weird pressure
on his eyes!

Spared the confusing sensations, he concentrated now on the echoes coming from ahead. There was no monster in the entrance. That one had been there only a few beats earlier was borne out by the loitering scent. And his ears picked out the tubular object that lay on the floor of the tunnel. Even from this distance he could hear it was like the one Della had found in the Upper Level.

Just as he reached the entrance, one of the Protectors raised a rock over his head and raced toward the tube.

“No! Don’t!” Jared shouted.

The guard hurled the rock.

Eyes exposed again, Jared reached down for the remains of the object. It was warm and it rattled and tinkled when he shook it.

He noticed, too, that there were no more traces of the screaming silence.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Living alone and served his necessities by the widowed women of the Lower Level, Cyrus spent his time immersed in himself. When the opportunity to speak materialized, however, his tongue diligently set about the task of making up for long stretches of idleness.

Now, for instance, the Thinker was holding forth on many subjects, seemingly all at the same time:

“Jared Fenton.
Prime Survivor
Jared Fenton, mind you! Back for another session—just like we used to have gestations ago.”

Jared shifted impatiently on the bench beside him. “I wanted to ask about—”

“But I’m afraid you’ve got your work cut out for you—what with the hot springs trickling out and those monsters running around the passages. Have you decided what’s to be done about the river going dry? And that thing the monster left behind yesterperiod—what do you suppose it was?”

“It seems to me that—”

“Hold it! I’d like to think this thing out a bit.”

Jared was more than grateful for the few moments’ silence. It brought relief to his pounding head, which threatened to split like a manna shell each time he coughed. He’d had fever before—when he was bitten by a spider, for instance. But it was never like this.

Cyrus’ grotto was shielded from most of the world’s sounds by the thick drapery that hung in its entrance. But the recess was so small that Jared had no trouble concentrating on the echoes from his words to hear how much the Thinker had changed.

How fortunate it was the old man had never developed a preference for protecting his face with a curtain of hair. For now he was completely bald. And the wrinkles, deposited by a lifetime of muscular tension to insure closed eyes, were etched even more deeply.

“I was just considering,” Cyrus said, explaining his silence, “whether the monster could have purposely left that thing in the entrance. And I’m convinced it did. What do you think?”

“It sounded that way to me.”

“What do you suppose its purpose was?”

Jared listened to the fervent supplications of the Litany of Light from the Revitalization Ceremony across the world. Audible, too, was the conversation of his Official Escort, waiting outside to take him to the Upper Level.

“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk about,” he said finally. “Tell me about—Darkness.”

“Darkness?” There was the sound of Cyrus’ chin wedging itself between thumb and forefinger. “We used to talk a lot about that, didn’t we? What is it you’d like to know?”

“Is it possible Darkness can be connected with”—Jared hesitated—“the eyes?”

After a few beats the other said, “Not that I can hear—not any more than with the knee or little finger. Why do you ask?”

“I figure it might be close to Light in some way or other.”

Cyrus weighed the proposition. “Light Almighty—infinite goodness. Darkness—infinite evil, according to the beliefs. The principle of relative opposites. You can’t have one without the other. If there were no Darkness, then Light would be everywhere. Yes, I suppose you could say there is a negative relationship. But I don’t hear where the eyes would fit into the composite.”

Coughing, Jared rose and swayed against the dizzying effects of his fever. “Have you ever felt Effective Excitation?”

“In the Optic Nerve Ceremony? Yes. Many gestations ago.”

“Well, in Effective Excitation you’re supposed to be feeling Light. And if the existence of Light depends in a negative way on the existence of Darkness, then the eyes must also be designed to feel Darkness.”

Jared listened to the other rub his face in deep thought. “Sounds logical,” the Thinker conceded.

“If one found Darkness, do you suppose he might also find—”

But Cyrus wouldn’t let his running thoughts be repressed. “If we’re going to talk about Darkness as a material concept, let’s ask ourselves: What
is
Darkness? We find it could—now mind you, I say
could
, because it’s just an idea—could be a universal medium. That means it exists everywhere—in the air about us, in the passageways, in the infinite rocks and mud.”

Jared’s fever turned into a sudden chill, but he kept his attention on the other’s words.

“Point number two,” Cyrus went on, his voice now reflecting against a second upthrust finger. “If it’s so universal then it must be completely undetectable through the senses.”

Disappointed, Jared sank back on the bench. If the Thinker were correct, he could
never
expect to find Darkness. “Then why would it exist at all?”

“It might be the medium by which sound is transmitted.”

They were both silent awhile.

“No Jared. I don’t think you could ever expect to find Darkness anywhere in this universe.”

Eagerly, Jared asked, “Would there be less Darkness beyond infinity?”

“If you have our so-called Paradise in mind, then we can forget about Darkness as a
physical
medium. In that case I would say—yes, there must be less Darkness in Paradise since Paradise is supposed to be full of Light.”

“What’s your composite of Paradise?”

The Thinker laughed. “If you’ve an ear for the beliefs, you’ll have to admit it must have been wonderful. Man was supposed to be godlike. Thanks to the presence everywhere of Light, it was possible to know what lay ahead
without
smelling or hearing it. Nor did we have to go about feeling things. It was as though our senses were all rolled up into one and could be projected many times the distance that even the strongest voice carries.”

Jared sat there thinking how uninspiring had been this visit to Cyrus. He hadn’t even gotten encouragement in his quest for Light.

“Your Escort’s waiting,” the Thinker reminded.

“One more question: How do you explain the Optic Nerve Ceremony?”

“I don’t know. It bothers me too. And Light knows I’ve done enough thinking about it. But here’s something: Effective Excitation
could
be some sort of normal body function.”

“In what way?”

“Close your eyes—
real tight.
Now—what do you hear?”

“There’s a roaring noise in my ears.”

“Right. Now, suppose for generations we had to live in a place where there was no sound. Nobody now alive would have ever heard anything. But perhaps the legend of sound has been passed down—through a touch language, let’s say.”

“I don’t hear what—”

“Can you imagine that there might now be such a thing as an Excitation of the Hearing Nerve Ceremony? That’s what you just did when you tightened your facial muscles. And there might now be a Guardian of the Way who would make you squinch up your face and feel the Great Sound Almighty.”

Jared rose excitedly. “Those rings of silent sound we feel during Effective Excitation—you mean they might have a connection with something people once
did
with their eyes?”

He plainly caught Cyrus’ shrug as the Thinker said, “I mean nothing. I’m merely posing a theoretical question.”

The old man’s breathing became shallow with meditation.

Jared stepped toward the curtain, then paused and listened back in the direction of the Thinker. Long ago he had believed he might find less Darkness in the Original World and recognize it for what it was. But Cyrus had concluded Darkness was a universal medium which couldn’t be sensed.

Wasn’t it possible, however, that Light could have a canceling effect—could
erase
some of the Darkness? And if one were lucky enough to hear the cancellation taking place, might he not get a clue as to the nature of both Light and Darkness?

Then something vastly more important occurred to him: Cyrus had said the presence of Light Almighty in Paradise made it possible for man to “know what lay ahead
without
smelling or hearing it”!

Wasn’t that exactly what the Zivvers could do? Was it that the Zivvers, too, shared some peculiar relationship with Light—a relationship which they themselves probably didn’t even suspect?

He had already sensed an intrinsic association among Light, Darkness, the eyes, the Original World and the Twin Devils. Now it seemed he would have to include the Zivvers with that group. For, whenever they zivved, there must be less of something around them as a result of that zivving—just as there was less silence when a normal person listened to noise. And that lessness, in the Zivvers’ case, might well be the lessness he was seeking—a lessness of Darkness!

Recalling that Della was a Zivver, he was suddenly anxious to return to the Upper Level so he could keep an ear on her and perhaps hear what there was less of in her vicinity whenever she zivved.

Jared brushed the curtain aside.

“Good-bye, son—and good luck,” Cyrus called, then sneezed.

***

Jared dismissed his Official Escort at the last bend before the entrance to the Upper Level. There would be no need for them to wait for the runner who had come ahead, since it had been decided that the man would remain here for a while.

In a way, he was glad to get rid of the others. The Captain had kept on complaining of a sore throat and another of the crew had coughed so much it was hard to hear the tones of the clickstones.

Moreover, those who had no complaint over personal discomfort had been on edge over the fact that they thought they detected the scent of the monster from time to time. Jared himself could smell nothing—not with his nose stopped up the way it was. Nor could he hear very much, since the general stuffiness in his head seemed to have extended to his ear passages too.

Shivering with a chill, he sounded his stones for maximum volume and staggered on down the passageway, wishing all the while that he’d reported in to the Injury Treatment Grotto instead of going on with Declaration of Unification Intentions.

He rounded the sweeping curve and paused, listening ahead. There was brisk activity up there—rock being cast down on top of rock, methodically but swiftly. Voices—the voices of two men mumbling in desperate tones, swearing and invoking the name of Light Almighty.

Rattling his pebbles more intently, he listened to the
clicks
echo against the men as they darted about collecting rocks and depositing them in a heap against one wall of the Upper Level entrance.

Then he realized he was
hearing silent sound—in front of the pai
r! It was attached to the wall.

The small bundle of frozen echoes seemed to be plastered there and the men were frantically covering it up with stones. One of them belatedly heard Jared’s presence, shouted fearfully and bolted back into the world.

“It’s only Fenton—from the Lower Level,” the other called.

But it was audible that the man didn’t intend to return.

Jared started forward and drew back, dismayed. Again he was certain the screaming silence wasn’t reaching him through his ears. He was
actually
hearing (if that was the word for it) the stuff with his eyes! He proved that much by turning his head the other way; he instantly became altogether unaware of its presence.

When he turned back, the bundle of soundless noise was gone—
completely
. And it seemed significant that he had heard the man put the final rock on the pile, thereby finishing the echo barrier.

“You’d better get inside,” the other warned, “before the monster comes back!”

“What happened?”

Reflections of his words fetched a composite of the man raising a trembling hand to wipe perspiration off his face. “The monster didn’t take anyone this time. It only stayed out here swabbing the wall with—”

He screamed and shook his head violently in front of him. Then he plunged deafly down the passage, sobbing, “Light Almighty!”

Jared readily heard what had frightened the other. The palm of his hand was full of the roaring silence!

He advanced curiously on the rock pile. But a seizure of coughing drove home the realization of how sick he was and he stumbled on into the Upper Level World.

There was nobody at the entrance to meet him this time, so he used the
clacks
of the central caster to sound his way to the Wheel’s grotto. He found Anselm pacing behind the curtain and muttering to himself, grim-voiced and tense.

“Come in, my boy—rather, Prime Survivor,” the Wheel invited. “Wish I could say I’m glad to have you back.”

He returned to his pacing and Jared dropped miserably down on a bench. He cupped his feverish face in his hands.

“Sorry to hear about your father, my boy. I was shocked when the runner told me. We’ve had three people taken by the monsters since you left.”

“I came back,” Jared said weakly, “to Declare Unification In—”