Dark Universe (21 page)

Even with his hearing so dulled by having experienced the vast infinity of the Nuclear devils, he could discern features of the stones around him that he would never have been able to detect otherwise. Each crack and niche in every step, each fissure in the walls, all the minute rises or depressions of the surfaces--_everything_ was clearly audible.

Why, the sonic composites he was receiving now were almost as perfect as those weird ones which had come in through his eyes when all the Light in Radiation had engulfed him!

Impotent before the allurement of that marvelous caster, he hastened his descent. It was like approaching the most perfect artificial echo producer ever devised. Such a caster could, of course, exist only in Paradise.

_Thump-throb, clank-chunk . . . Thump-throb, clankchunk, spat_ . . .

His ears opened in fascination to the subtle counterpoints that swam closer to the surface of the dominant sound as he neared its origin. The volume of the whole swelled about him like a soft embrace. The perfection and precision of these tones were incredible.

_Thump-throb, ping-spat, sssss_ . . .

The bold, bass tones sounded out the exact pattern of every major prominence about him. Even without attentive listening he could keep track of each insignificant motion of Della's arms and legs as she treaded the steps. And the finer, more highly pitched notes filled in the composite to a degree of completion that was exquisite. Take that delicate _pinkle-twang_----it required no concentration at all to listen to each strand of hair that comprised the girl's banded tress which now hung casually over her shoulder.

_Thump-throb,

ping-spat,

chunk, tut-tut-tut-tut_ . . .

He tuned his ear to the minor stuttering vibration. Listening to its unbelievably distinct tones, he heard even the imperceptible creases of flesh that comprised the girl's frown. The impressions that came from her long eyelashes were as clear as though he had scores of tiny fingers feeling each one individually.

He began taking the steps two at a time, fearing for a while that, in racing toward the infinite sonic beauty of Paradise, he might also be descending an infinitely long flight of stairs. But, then, the steps curved to the right and at last he could hear the opening at the bottom of the pit, not too far ahead.

"Let's turn around!" Della pleaded, huffing. "We'll _never_ get back up all these steps!"

But he only went faster. "Don't you hear this might be what I've been searching for all along? I wasn't trying to find _Light_. I was really hunting for Paradise, but I didn't realize that until now."

He reached the bottom of the stairs and drew the girl to a halt beside him. They stood under a broad arch of stone that opened up on a vast enclosure, many times more expansive than even the spacious Zivver domain. Enraptured, he swayed before the rich, tremolant sound and let the mighty avalanche of ideal tones pour down upon him. It was easily the most entrancing experience of his life. He had found an auditory beauty beyond imagination. And such unbounded excellence of concord and rhythm transported him with delight, filled him with intense emotions of gratification, self-assurance.

Constraining his exuberant reaction, he listened to the world that stretched before him.

A Paradise that was practically--_all water?_

Impossible! Yet, there it was--one vast, level expanse that modified the reflecting tones with nothing but liquid fluidity.

He heard now that he was standing on a ledge only slightly higher than the surface of the water. And there was no other dry ground his ears could detect. From the far end of the world came the profound roar of an immense cataract that poured out of the ceiling.

The ledge extended but a few paces to his right. On his left it followed the natural curvature of the wall and he traced its audible details around to the very origin of the perfect sounding tones.

Paradise's echo caster was a cluster of tremendous cubic structures.

Each was many times the size of even the largest shack in the Original World. And they were smothered in a complicated pattern of huge tubes that stretched up out of the water, coiling and intertwining, and disappeared into the sides of the structures.

From the tops of the super shacks reared hundreds of tubes that shot straight up and bored into the ceiling in many directions.

Confounded, he studied the _thump-throb, tut-tut-tut-tut_ that was bringing all these details to his ears.

"What _is_ this place?" Della whispered apprehensively. "Why is there so much heat?"

Now that she had mentioned it, he _was_ aware of the clinging warmth. And it all seemed to be coming from the huge shacks that were producing the ideal sounding echoes. Somehow he had begun to doubt seriously that he was in Paradise.

"What do you ziv, Della?" But even as he asked the question, he sensed that her eyes were closed.

"I'm not zivving--not with all this heat. It's too much." She seemed frightened and confused.

"Try

it."

She hesitated a long while before he caught the impression of her eyes flicking open.

But she only gasped and threw her hands in front of her face. "I can't!

It's too painful!"

Then he realized that, all the while, his _own_ eyes hadn't been open. He raised his lids and _saw_ (that would be the proper word for it, he remembered) nothing.

"Didn't you ziv anything at all?" he asked.

Stubbornly, she continued shielding her face. "Some shacks--enormous ones. And a lot of stems reaching up from the water. Everything after that was too hot. I couldn't keep my eyes on it."

Impulsively, he swung his head back in the dierction of the shacks.

There was Light over there now! Not the kind he had experienced in infinity, but the kind the monsters carried--two cones darting here and there among the noisemaking structures.

Puzzled over his silence, the girl asked, "What is it?"

"Monsters!"

Then he heard one of the creatures shouting to the other above the clamor of the multiple echo caster:

"Did you dampen the fourth reactor?'

"I shut it down completely. That takes care of the last few hot springs in the Upper Level, according to the diagram."

"How about those scattered springs--the ones fed by the second reactor?"

"Thorndyke says to let them go on flowing. If we miss anybody, they'll have a place to stay until we can find them."

Heartsick, Jared retreated toward the stairs. He had been right all along. The monsters _were_ responsible for the boiling pit failures. And now he heard how precarious had been the position of the Survivors through all the generations. At any chosen moment the demons could have deprived them of their principal means of existence!

Abruptly the cone of light swung in his direction. He turned and bolted for the stairs, prodding Della ahead of him.

"They're coming!" he warned.

At full speed they bounded upward. There was a moment, after he had climbed hundreds of steps, that he considered slowing the pace so they could catch their breath. But he realized just then that he was also receiving faint Light composites of the things around him. Which meant the monsters were already on their way up!

His lungs boiling in protest, he put on a burst of speed nevertheless and dragged the girl along. Desperately, he wondered how far they were from the top.

"I--I can't go on!" she complained.

When she collapsed, the sudden resistance of her weight against his grip almost pulled him off balance. He helped her up and, with an arm around her waist, resumed his dash up the stairs.

Despite his help, she fell again and, when he tried to lift her, he dropped beside the girl. He would have lain there forever. But this was their last chance; if they failed now, there would never be a secure, secluded world for them.

He struggled erect, cradled the girl in his arms and forced his numb legs back into motion. Each step sent a new throb of pain through his side.

Each frantically gulped lungful of air seemed like it would be his last.

Then, finally, he heard the opening above and drew a scant measure of encouragement from the nearness of his goal. Only vaguely did he wonder, however, where he would muster the strength to find concealment after they reached the Original World.

An eternity later he hauled himself and the girl up over the last step and crawled onto the floor of the shack. He gave Della a shove forward.

"Hide in one of the other units--quick!"

She dragged herself ahead, staggering on through the entrance.

Outside, she pitched forward and he heard only the violent rasping of her breath as she lay there motionless.

He managed to pull himself erect. But paralyzing exhaustion sent him reeling against an inner wall. He collided with a bulky object and his auditory impressions of the shack spun dizzily about him. He crashed into something else and collapsed, retaining his consciousness not even long enough to feel the impact of all the furnishings that tumbled down on top of him.

"Don't lie there, Jared! Get up and save yourself!"

Distorted with anxiety, Leah's thoughts spanned the distance from Radiation. And Jared was vaguely disturbed by the fact that he couldn't even recall having entered a dream.

"The demons--they're coming up the steps!"

He stirred against the pressure of all the things which, he remembered now, had tumbled down upon him in the shack. But somehow he couldn't quite pull himself back to con sciousness.

"1 can't talk and keep track of the monsters at the same time!" Leah went on frantically. "They don't know you're there, but they heard all that noise. They'll find you and bring you back to Radiation!"

He was perplexed over his passive reaction to the warning. His stupor, he reasoned, must be the result of more than mere exhaustion.

Through the medium of Leah's conscious, he strove for a composite of the physical things around her. And he sensed, from the audible impressions stored in her mind, that she lay on a slumber surface she had learned to call a "bed." She was in some sort of a shack that was closed off by a rigid curtain (the unfamiliar word "door" was suggested). Her arms were bound to the sides of the bed. And her eyes were stubbornly closed because she knew that if she opened them they would be assailed by the incomprehensible stuff she had been told was "light." It was seeping in around the edges of a flexible curtain that hung in front of the--"window."

Then he caught a surge of pure terror as he heard the door of her grotto--"room," rather--opening. And he listened in on an auditory impression of two of the human-inhuman creatures entering.

"How's our telepath today?" he heard one of them ask.

"We're going to spend a little time with our eyes open, aren't we?"

the other added.

Jared sensed the awful fright lapping at Leah's self-control as she cringed from the creatures.

As though the experience were his own, he felt her arm being seized in a firm grip. Then a sharp pain erupted in the flesh just above the right elbow. At the same time, he intercepted the psychic and sonic counterparts of her scream.

"There," said one of the monsters. "That'll help keep you from coming down with something_."

From somewhere in Jared's material background came a distant _zip-hiss_. But he was too absorbed in what was happening to Kind Survivoress to give it more than superficial attention.

_It had been periods now since the monsters had seized Leah. And he could only wonder what inconceivable torture they had put her through.

"How's she doing?" asked the nearer creature, taking her Wrist in a gentle grip between thumb and forefinger.

"We're having a rough time bringing her around. Seems to be immune to facts and logic."

"We'll just have to stick with it. Thorndyke says there was another telepath in our own complex two or three generations back. She was pretty sensitive too, but she didn't have to put up with what this one's going through."

Jared felt a hand come to rest on Leah's forehead and heard one c, the creatures say, "A ll right, now--let's open our eyes."

At that instant the strand of communicative contact snapped as unrestrained fear choked the woman.

_______________

Jared pushed a stone bench off his chest and sat up, feeling his head. There was a clot of blood embedded in his hair and, above it, a swelling of lacerated scalp.

He cast off more of the shack's furnishings and rose. Although he snapped his fingers intently, he received but indistinct composites of the objects that had pinned him down, of the square pit which lay between him and the entrance.

Then, recalling the _zip-hiss_ he had heard while in contact with Leah, he bolted outside.

There was no audible trace of Della's breathing or heartbeat. He banged his fist against the side of the shack and wrung impressions out of the returning echoes. The ground in front of him was utterly bare.

Eventually he caught the scent, several hundred beats old, of the monsters that had passed. He knelt and swept the ground with his hands, exploring the spot where the girl had collapsed. The soft dust clearly bore the imprint of her body. But she had lain there so long ago that the surface had already given up the warmth it had captured from her.

Stunned, he trudged toward the Original World entrance. Della was gone--recaptured by the monsters who must have assumed she was the one who had made all the noise in the shack. And they had reclaimed her so long ago that now there was no hope of overtaking them before they reached Radiation.

What a bungling fool he was! As though his fortune had been graced by some power greater than Light, he had received a second chance even after having lost Della the first time. Against inconceivable odds, he had wrested her from her captors. But, instead of fleeing to remote seclusion, he had dawdled in the meaningless depths below this world-- until the demons had gotten another opportunity to carry her off.

Bitter with self-reproach and bowed by an oppressive sense of futility, he paused in the corridor outside the Original World. The silence that extended toward Radiation was as thick as any he had ever heard. He tried not to think of the torment Leah was being subjected to, of the possibility that by now Della herself might be undergoing the same brutal indignities.