Phoenix Without Ashes (10 page)

“Damned forest,” he said. “We ought to burn the whole thing out.”

“Cease thy profanity,” said Aram stiffly.

When they had determined that Devon wasn’t hiding in the branches of the trees, they all gathered in the next meadow. Grinding his teeth unpleasantly, Elder Micah glared around the circle. “We will search every squirrel’s refuge, every rabbit warren between here and the town.” He led the way with his torch.

As the crowd straggled off across the meadow, Garth quietly slipped a thin metal pry rod under his shirt. He had found it in the leaves beside the briar thicket in the grove. He looked back at the dark trees and wondered where Devon was. Wherever his friend was, Garth silently wished him luck.

TWELVE

He plummeted down a hole with no bottom.

“Rachel!”
The scream was torn out of Devon’s lungs by the rushing wind and died echoing along the interior of the tunnel. Tunnel. His mind fastened on the word, clung to it as an anchor, somehow knowing this was a tunnel and not merely an impossibly deep hole into which he had plunged. His initial panic began to abate.

Devon’s body slowly tumbled end for end as the wind whipped past. He had a rotating view of metal walls on every side, all illuminated by the ever-present blue light.

At first he had squeezed his eyes tightly shut; but when he did not smash in a few seconds into the hard-packed earthen bottom of some well, he had opened them again. He felt a wave of nausea. His overtaxed inner ear messaged his brain that he was
falling.
Devon again shut his eyes, but that was worse, so he opened them and coexisted with the queasiness.

It was hard to tell exactly with the blue light, but he guessed that the hole had broadened into a tube about two hundred meters across. There were features on the walls, and it was that zooming past and receding into the distance which gave him the sense of immense speed: pipes, nodes, cross-tunnel entrances, unidentifiable machinery. The walls themselves looked like metal sky-stuff.

Devon discovered that he could use his hands in the air as steering vanes to stop his tumbling. He experimented until he achieved a nearly stable attitude in the air—that helped diminish the nausea in the pit of his stomach. He examined his surroundings with keener interest.

He was sure he had traveled for a number of minutes. Considering his apparent speed, that meant he had covered an inconceivable distance. Where could a tube such as this fit inside Cypress Corners?

He was whirled around a wide bend in the tunnel. The diameter had narrowed again until the walls were only a few meters away. He hurtled down the precise center of the tube so that he could not reach any handhold or other protrusion on the tunnel wall, even had he wished.

Another bend in the tube. Centrifugal force clutched him for a moment. He was no more able to help himself than a bit of flotsam caught in an undertow.

Then he saw the wall dead ahead and “remembered” again he was falling. The metal surface came up impossibly fast; Devon struggled to turn himself, to thrust out his hands, do
something
to keep from smashing into the metal wall.

He realized he was slowing. The gradual deceleration continued until Devon floated, dreamlike, toward the metal bulkhead of the tube. At last he was gently deposited, feet-first, on the bulkhead itself.

Devon straightened his legs and suddenly he was floating off the metal and toward the opposite side of the tube. Instinctively he grabbed a handhold. The nausea returned, though hot so badly as before; he
felt
like he was still falling, though he could plainly see it was not so.

After a minute he felt steadier and decided to experiment. He let go the U-shaped handhold and tried to push himself back to the bulkhead. Somehow he didn’t travel in quite the right direction. He fumbled, trying clumsily to right himself, turned over again and again. He slowly drifted within arm’s range of another handhold.

This time when he kicked off from the bulkhead, he traveled in a fairly straight line. He stopped his flight by smartly catching an angled pipe on the other side of the tube. Then back to the bulkhead. He laughed and said aloud, “I can fly!”
Like in the dreams,
he thought. It
had
been something like the flights in his dreams; that sobered him.

He considered the thought, hanging there in midair with one hand gripping a hold, until his attention was caught by a light to the left and below him on the bulkhead. Devon carefully pulled himself from handhold to handhold. The light bracketed an iris which seemed to be about half the diameter of the one Devon had encountered in the briar thicket. To the side, white letters glowed on a panel:

ACCESS TUBE

SERVICE MODULE

Below the legend, another panel glowed crimson.

Devon reached out and touched the second panel; it instantly flickered to green and the iris dilated open. Head-first, as though swimming into a narrow cave, Devon pushed through. Once past the rim of the iris, his eyes were dazzled by a flash of orange light—and once again he possessed weight. Instinctively he thrust out his arms in front of him as he crashed into a hard surface. His shoulder took the brunt of the blow and he rolled. Devon found himself flat on his back, looking up as the iris contracted to a black dot and then became a featureless disc of metal.

He sat up, rubbing his shoulder. The first thing he discovered was that his weight remained. No flying here. The floor beneath him was a seamless surface of blue-gray metal. The arched ceiling was about three meters above. The room itself was about half the size of the outer chamber of the Place of Worship, perhaps seven or eight meters on a side. One wall was completely taken up by a console covered with dials and controls.

Devon turned to see what was in back of him and recoiled, at first thinking he was confronting a live creature. Then he grinned self-consciously, realizing he was looking at a plastic case containing a transparent suit of clothes in the shape of a human being. The garment was empty, but hung open with a strip of twin blue lines down the front. There were snakes in the hills, and Devon had seen them. This costume looked as though a human being had shed its skin without a break in the material, save for that open gash along the front.

Above the skin-suit, held securely by tension-clamps, was a teardrop-shaped helmet with tubes protruding from one side. The helmet was as transparent as the suit below.

A panel glowed beside the plastic case. The letters spelled out:

SUITING INSTRUCTIONS

The usual lighted crimson plate was set below the printed legend.

Devon got to his feet and walked around the chamber. He touched the walls; they were warm. He returned to the plastic case and marveled at the human snake-suit within. Curious, he reached out and touched the front panel of the case; under his fingers, the panel slid up with a soft hiss. A voice said. “Model J-10 oxygen suit. Suiting—”

He involuntarily stepped back and the voice stopped. The transparent panel hissed down again. Devon continued his explorations. A few meters down from the plastic case was a two-and-a-half meter circle incised in the metal wall. It reminded Devon of the iris, save that this disc was secured with massive hinges. If it were in; deed a door, it apparently was set to open inward. Connected to the hinges were apparatus incorporating tubes, cylinders, and angled arms. Another phrase glowed in block letters across the disc:

VIEWPORT 874

There were several smaller panels below the letters. Devon pressed the crimson square marked “Open.” He heard two clicks, but nothing more happened. The panel remained red instead of turning, as Devon had come to expect of these cooperative squares, to green. He pressed again; and again heard a pair of clicks from within the disc. He punched the next panel, which was labeled “Override.” This time the panel turned green.

Devon stepped back as the machinery activated within Viewport 874. Slowly, ponderously, the massive disc began to swing open toward him. As a crack visibly opened at the jamb, Devon heard a sudden, sharp hiss.

The air began to thunder out of the chamber, sluicing past him like the worst windstorm he had ever experienced. A suction, stronger than the one that had pulled him through the iris and into the tube, drew him inexorably toward the crack between hatch and bulkhead. The hatch abruptly stopped opening; in the distance, Devon heard the clang of alarm bells. The suction held him tightly against the crack, which was scarcely wider than the one through which he had peeked in the Place of Worship.

The hatch began to cycle closed in perfect silence. As the crack narrowed, Devon had one quick look at—something. He wasn’t quite sure what. He could see a jagged, shard-edged opening as though a bird had flown through a wide window. But beyond that—there was something he could not describe, yet he knew he had seen it before. Where?

And then the hatch was shut, and Devon staggered backward away from Viewport 874, except that now a new panel flashed on and off:

DEPRESSURIZED

To Devon it blinked in increasingly slower pulses. His arms flailed as he tried to keep his balance. His mind was detached, watching his arms windmill in slow motion.
What is happening?
he thought. The words endlessly repeated themselves in his brain as he fell

and fell

and fell

and hit the floor, bounced once, and lay still.

DEPRESSURIZED

continued to pulse on and off and it was the last thing he remembered. The crimson muted swiftly to black.

THIRTEEN

The dream.

He replayed it in an endless loop: First the night through the tube and the arrival at the access chamber and the skin-suit in the case and Viewport 874 and then the endlessly pulsing “Depressurized.” And then the other dream, the old one, the dream that carried him afar from where he slept on the hills above Cypress Corners.

He saw the strange, steady stars burning upon their infinitely dark backdrop. They surrounded him, blazing closer and closer until they burned beyond his eyes, into his brain.

They burned in both dreams.

Devon awoke convulsing upon the warm floor of the access chamber. His arms were crossed, both hands upon his throat. His lungs ached as though seared. He took his hands away from his throat and rolled onto his side. For a while he lay there, thinking of nothing else but drinking the air he had been denied.

Finally he pulled himself up on elbows to a semi-sitting position. He blinked rapidly, orienting himself to where he was. Then his eyes widened as he saw it all again.

Both dreams... the stars that did not blink. The same dream. One.

Devon clawed himself upright, hanging onto the console for support. He faced Viewport 874, wondering if he dared press the “Override” panel. Whatever it was that lay beyond, he wanted to see it again. It was more than a wish; he felt a thirst, an inarguable lust. As Devon staggered toward the hatch, he heard a subdued but imperative mechanical voice:

“Entrance to depressurized section refused. Protective lock has been placed on this port. Contact maintenance unit, terminal code 110-3976.”

Devon stepped back, looking for the source of the voice. Finding none, he moved toward the hatch. Again the warning voice spoke:

“Entrance to depressurized section forbidden, repeat
forbidden.
Protective lock ensures no admittance without use of oxygen suit. Maintenance unit advisement urged, terminal code 110-3976. This means you.”

Something caught his eye and he turned his head. The light panel beside the plastic case with the suit pulsed on and off. Still in the distance, alarm bells jangled; a vibration almost felt rather than heard. In the light panel the words SUITING INSTRUCTIONS now alternately pulsed with SUIT UP BEFORE ENTERING.

Devon looked at the case with more care. He reached out, touched the slick surface, and the front panel slid up. Carefully he took the transparent suit off its hanger and started to pull it from the case. The SUITING INSTRUCTIONS plate began to speak:

“Model J-10 oxygen suit. Suiting instructions. One: remove all sharp protrusions from your person.”

Devon awkwardly fumbled around himself, searching for sharp protrusions. He winced at a jagged pain from his bruised shoulder. The warning voice continued:

“Insert feet into legs of the suit.”

As Devon put one leg into the suit, he wondered momentarily if he should remove his sod-boots. But the fabric of the suit seemed to expand to allow him to put his foot down into the suit leg. The foot of the suit conformed perfectly to the size and shape of his boot. Devon inserted his other leg.

The warning voice said, “Make certain no wrinkles exist as you pull the suit up around your body.”

Devon did so.

“Insert arms carefully. The suit will not rip but caution should be exercised to avoid wrinkling or bunching under the arms.”

He adjusted the suit around his shoulders gingerly. There were no wrinkles or bunches under his arms.

“Make certain your fingers reach the ends of the glove hands.”

Devon clenched his fists, discovering that the suit fabric did not at all constrict the joints of his fingers. He brought one hand up to his eyes. The fabric was virtually invisible.

“Smooth suit down across your shoulders,” continued the warning voice. “Using a similar smooth motion, seal the bluestrips for an airtight closure.”

Those would be the twin strips running along the suit’s frontal opening. Devon followed instructions; the bluestrips seemed to fuse together with no trace of a seam.