Dark Universe (20 page)

The decision struck him with the force of a falling boulder: _He was in infinity!_ And it was not an endless stretch of rock that surrounded him, but an unbounded expanse of--_air!_

Terrified, he backed toward the passage. For all beliefs had held that there were only two infinities--Paradise and Radiation.

Another step and he collided with Mogan.

The Zivver leader exclaimed, "I can't even keep my eyes open!

Where are we?"

"I--" Jared choked on his words. "I think we're in Radiation."

"Light! I smell it!"

"The smell of the monsters. But it's not _their_ scent at all--just the odor of this place."

Dismayed, Jared retreated again toward the passageway. Then he became more aware of the intense heat and readily understood why the other's zivving ability had been deafened. Mogan was used to the normal range of warmth in the worlds and corridors. Here, the heat of all the boiling springs in existence was pouring down from above.

And, abruptly, Jared knew he could not leave this infinity without definitely identifying it. Already he suspected which one it was. The heat was a more than sufficient clue. But he had to make certain. Bracing himself against the expected pain, he opened his eyes and let the tears out.

The uncanny impressions that assailed him were fuzzy this time and he wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand.

Then the composites came--sensations that he suspected were something like ziv impressions. He was uncannily aware--through the medium of his eyes themselves--that the ground sloped away in front of him toward a patch of tiny, slender things that swayed this way and that in the distance. Vaguely, he was reminded of manna trees. Only, their tops were lacy and delicate. And he remembered the Paradise plant legend.

But _this_ was an infinity of _heat_, not at all suggestive of heavenly things.

Between the trees he zivved the details of small, geometrical forms, arranged in rows like the shacks in the Original World. Another supposed feature of Paradise.

But _monsters_ dwelled here.

Suddenly he directed his attention to one paramount fact: _He was receiving detailed impressions of an infinite number of things at one time, without having to hear or smell them!_

Which was a capability possible only in the oresence of the Great Light Almighty.

This, then, was it.

This was the end of his search.

He had found light. And Light _was_, after all, the stuff the monsters hurled ahead of themselves in the passageways.

But Light was not in Paradise.

It was in the infinity of Radiation with the Nuclear monsters.

All the legends, all the tenets were bitterly misleading.

For man there was _no_ Paradise.

And, with the Atomic Demons roaming the passageways at will, humanity had reached the end of its material existence.

He threw his head back in desperation and full against his face crashed the deadliest silent sound imaginable.

It was an impression so fierce that it seemed to boil his eyes right out of their sockets.

Screaming at him in all its fury was a great, round, vicious thing that dominated Radiation with incredible force and heat and malignant majesty.

_Hydrogen

Himself!_

Jared spun around and bolted for the passage, hardly aware that he had, at the same time, heard a noise on the incline before him.

Mogan shouted. But the anguished outcry was interrupted by a _zip-hiss_.

Jared made it back into the corridor, racing frantically after the echoes of his clickstones.

Hardly aware Mogan was no longer with him, Jared welcomed the intimate security of the Passageway's walls as they closed in about him once more. The _zip-hiss_ that had accounted for the Zivver leader's absence was only an insignificant memory against his greater dismay.

Stumbling, he pushed on toward the first bend. His eyes, boiling and dripping tears of protest, were still feeling the awful presure of the monster stuff that had crammed all the empty space in that horrible infinity of Radiation.

He collided with a boulder, fell, picked himself up and raced on around the curve, only dimly aware that he was making his way among the hazards without the benefit of audible impulses.

Eventually he drew up and clung uncertainly to a slender hanging stone, waiting for his breathing to come under control.

Everything was clear now, ironically clear. All that stuff in infinity was--Light. It was the same Light he had spent a lifetime seeking. Only, it had turned out to be an evil thing because it was part of Radiation itself.

Then suddenly he felt the impact of yet another incredible realization: _Now he knew what Darkness was too!_

It was here--in this very corridor--in all the corridors he had ever known, all the worlds he had ever visited. In his entire lifetime he had never been out of the Darkness, except for those few occasions on which he had encountered the monsters. There had been no way of recognizing it until he had first experienced Light.

But it was so simple now.

The infinity behind him was filled with Light. In the corridor ahead was a decided lessness of the stuff. And, around the next curve, there would be an absolute absence of Light, a totality of Darkness--so complete, so universal that he might have lived in it for ten thousand gestations without ever knowing it was there.

Reeling under the perplexing weight of strange, new concepts, he continued down the corridor, hands extended uncertainly. And, through the medium of his eyes alone, he could fully sense the Lightiessness that loomed ahead, stark as the most profound silence he had ever known--a heavy, thick curtain of Darkness.

With hesitant steps, he negotiated the bend and edged into the immaterial barrier, flinching as the Darkness closed inexorably in about him. Now, in feeling his way forward, his hands maintained a steady, probing motion. And, humiliated, he was reminded of how his less sensitive brother Romel had to grope his way into a dense silence.

With his next step his foot fell off into the emptiness of a shallow depression and he pitched forward clumsily. Before rising he gathered up a pair of pebbles and rattled them in his hand.

But now the _clicks_ seemed remote and alien. Only with great concentration could he refine from the echoes the impressions of what lay ahead. And he wondered whether faulty hearing might be one of the immediate effects of Radiation sickness. Then he felt a fear as intense as the Darkness around him when he recalled another legend: Anyone who encountered Radiation could expect all kinds of severe illnesses--fever, deafness, fatal vomiting, shedding of the hair and blindness, whatever that was.

Yet, physical self-concern was buried under a bitterness that engulfed him like the stifling vapor of a boiling pit. Ahead stretched only a future as empty of material things as the vast infinity from which he had just escaped.

His every purpose was now nothing more than a shattered dream--his worlds decimated; Della gone; his search for Light ended in the agonizing remorse of disappointment and delusion. All his life he had chased a ringing hope down an intriguing corridor, only to overtake it finally and find that it was no more than a wisp of air.

Plodding on into the Darkness, he rattled his pebbles desperately, paying the price of severe attention for each impression he wrung from the no longer familiar echoes. In a frenzy, he wrested as much perceptive content as he could out of each reflected tone. And even then he had to pause occasionally and send a hand fumbling ahead to touch out an indistinct obstacle.

He reached the intersecting passage through which he and Mogan had arrived at this larger corridor and, a few steps farther, the reflections of his _clicks_ began gathering impressions of the Original World's resonant hollowness off to his left.

Then he clamped his fist around the rattling stones and snuffed out their noises. Tensing, he backed off before the sounds that were coming from ahead--direct sounds he should have heard many beats earlier.

Voices--many of them. The corridor was loud with monsters! He could even pick up their scent. And mingled with it was the characteristic odor of Zivvers--unconscious captives, no doubt, who were being borne by the demons.

He retreated from the center of the passage and crouched between two outcroppings, making certain he was in an echo void. It occurred to him, however, that if he wanted to conceal himself from the creatures, he would have to make sure he was in a Light void too. So he backed even farther into the recess.

Now he was becoming aware of the Light that was beginning to seep into the fissure. But, determined to have nothing further to do with the monster stuff which had already begun to rob him of his hearing, he closed his eyes tightly.

With the auditory composite of the monsters and Zivvers firmly in mind, he turned his attention to the conversation between a pair of demons passing by:

". . . glad we decided to finish up with the Zivvers."

"So am I. They're not too hard to bring around, since they already know how to use their eyes."

"They indoctrinate easy. Now you take that last group from the Upper . . ."

That conversation was superseded by another as two more monsters filed by:

". . . damned intriguing, this zivving phenomenon. Thorndyke says he wants to study it closely."

"It's not all _that_ peculiar. Once Radiation stimulates genetic change, you can expect any kind of mutation, including vision in the infrared range, I suppose."

Many of the words were meaningless. Nor could Jared remember the name "Thorndyke" listed among the hierarchy of Nuclear demons.

The last of the procession passed and he only crouched there, lost in disappointment. He had listened intensely and sniffed avidly. But there had been no trace of Della among the captives.

He had almost decided to continue on toward the Lower Level when he heard yet another demon coming from the direction of the Barrier, however. And he almost bolted from concealment as he caught the scent of Della at the same time.

Keeping his eyes firmly closed so there would be no distraction from the Light impressions, he waited tensely. Finally the creature drew abreast of the fissure and Jared hurled himself upon it, driving his shoulder into its ribs.

Della's inert weight came down upon him, but he shook free and lunged after her captor. He managed to catch the thing's throat in the bend of his arm, but decided against wasting the time it would take to throttle the life out of it. Instead he pounded his fist againt the creature's jaw until it went limp.

Lifting the girl onto his shoulder, he snapped his fingers to sound out his bearings, then raced on into the temporary security of the Original World. As best he could, he interpreted the reflections of the _snaps_ and made his way across the central clearing. At random, he selected one of the shacks for further concealment.

Inside, he deposited Della on the floor and sat just within the opening, alertly listening for suspicious sounds.

Hundreds of breaths passed before he sensed the girl's return to consciousness and heard her draw in an erratic breath. He hurried over and clamped a hand across her mouth in time to block a scream.

Against her terrified struggling he whispered, "It's Jared. We're in the Original World."

When the fright had drained away he released her and told her what had happened.

"Oh, Jared!" she exclaimed after he had finished. "Let's go find our hidden world while we still have the chance!"

"As soon as we can be sure there aren't any more demons out in the corridors."

Wearily, she rested her head against his arm. 'We'll find a pleasant world, won't we?"

"The best. If it isn't just like we want it, we'll build it over to suit ourselves."

"We'll carve out a grotto first and then--" She hesitated. "Listen!

What's that?"

At first he heard nothing. Then, as their attentive silence deepened, there came a faint _thump-thump_, _thump-thump_. It was as though rocks, or something even harder, were striking one another. But, at the moment, he was more concerned over the fact that Della had heard it first.

Could his encounter with Radiation have produced _that_ degree of deafness already? Or was it merely that he was confused by the memory of having gained impressions through Light impulses and was forgetting how to use his ears?

"What is it?" she asked, rising.

"I don't know." He groped his way out of the residential structure. "It seems to be coming from this next shack."

Homing in on the sound, he followed it through the entrance of that other living unit and stood listening to it flow up from a square opening in the floor. Della clung to his hand and he felt her start as she zivved the presence of the artificial pit.

He moved closer and listened sharply into the hole that descended at an acute angle instead of boring straight down. Now he could hear the _thump-thump_ being distinctly modulated by an abrupt, regular series of elevations that stretched along the entire lower surface of the slanting tunnel.

"There are steps going down as far as I can hear," he said.

"To

where?"

He shrugged inadequately.

"Jared, I'm frightened."

But he was rigid with thought, one foot poised above the first step.

"The legends say Paradise isn't far from the Original World."

"There's no Paradise down there! If we're going to go _anywhere_, let's get on with the search for our own world."

He took the first step, reached for the next. He had found, to his distress, that Radiation was close to the Original World. But that didn't mean Paradise, too, wasn't _somewhere_ around here.

Moreover, his attention was so firmly attached to the _thump-thump_, _thump-thump_ that he had no incentive to consider anything else. It was a peculiar, enchanting sound that drew him down, down.

_Thump-thump-throb,

thump-thump-throb_ . . .

The _clacks_ were crude, yet delicate. They were sharp and precise, profoundly clear. It was as though a super echo caster were sounding far in the distance--a caster whose reflections were so perfect that there wasn't a detail of setting they couldn't wring out of one's surroundings.