J. F. Bone, page 15
Neither was Riker. “Let’s get out of here, Doc,” Joe finally said. “I don’t like this.”
“Nothing has bothered us so far,” I countered. “We’d be better off staying right where we are than going back.”
“It’s too straight and unprotected,” Riker said. “Someone could turn a Mark VII down here and burn us without even exposing himself.”
“Well—let’s go on. There’s bound to be a turn soon.”
“You hope,” Riker said.
I did, but I wasn’t about to let him know. I would have welcomed a corner. We walked another hundred meters and came abruptly to a stop. The tunnel was barred by a smooth black barrier extending from wall to wall.
“Now what the devil is this?” Riker said. His voice had an oddly flat quality as though its sound was absorbed in the inky barrier that barred our way.
“It could be a door,” I said.
Riker stepped back and let me examine the barrier. It looked something like a modification of our force curtains, but instead of the pulsing translucent iridescence it was a shimmering black. And it had none of a force-screen’s electrostatic qualities. I took a coin from my pocket and tossed it at the barrier. The metal bounced off and clicked on the floor. I screwed up my courage and touched it. Nothing happened. The barrier was smooth, warm and impenetrable. It extended from the shining bar in the lintel to the shining bar in the sill. Its jet color and the flat echolessness of our voices when we were next to it indicated that it was probably one of the high order waves our physicists were just beginning to investigate. We had been using force planes in surgery for a few years, but as far as I knew we had nothing like this.
I checked the doorframe. Nestled in the metal, slightly above normal human hand height were two knobs, one black and one white. They were obviously to be pressed, and the only problem—and a serious one—was which one to press. I chose the white, purely because the screen was black. I touched it and the screen promptly vanished. I touched the black knob and the screen was restored.
“Take a look on the other side,” I said to Riker as I released the screen. “See if there’s some buttons there.”
Riker stepped across the threshold. “No buttons,” he announced.
“Hmm, a one-way lock,” I murmured. “Now what’s ahead that was to be kept in—or out?”
“That’s a good question. Shall we find out?”
“One of us should stay by this door and keep it open.”
“Not me,” Riker said.
“Nor I,” I answered.
“Can’t we leave it open?”
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “I don’t know what it would do.”
“Hey—wait a minute—what’s this thing?” Riker reached into a recess beside the door and came out with a curved piece of metal oddly similar to a cargo hook. I looked at it a moment and a crazy idea crossed my mind “Here,” I said, “you stand by out here and let me go inside. Once I’m in, close the door.”
“Okay, but why?”
“Let me try something,” I said. I took the crooked metal bar and stepped beyond the barrier. “Okay, turn it on.”
Instantly the jet screen formed. I lifted the metal hook and pushed it at the screen. Slowly, inch by inch, the hook disappeared into the inky surface. It was like pushing a probe through flesh. There was the same yielding resilience, the same resistance. I turned the hook, manipulating it slowly and carefully, and the screen vanished. The metal bar twisted in my hand and nearly tore out of my grasp.
I shook my tingling fingers and grinned at Riker’s startled face. “Okay, Joe—we have a key if we have the bad luck to get trapped,” I said triumphantly.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” Joe said.
“We can go on now, and we can close this doorway behind us. It should be some protection against snoopers or snipers or anyone who might be curious enough to follow our tracks.”
“Good,” Riker said. “And what about that key?”
“I’m going to take it with us,” I said. “You never can tell when it’ll come in handy. There may be other doors it can open.”
We moved forward across the threshold. I placed the hook on the black button, pulled, and withdrew the hook. As I pulled it through the barrier, I noticed a pair of faint lines on the door frame. Someone else apparently had trouble placing the key where it belonged, and had added a memory refresher. I filed the information away, stuck the hook in a belt loop and followed Riker up the tunnel.
Almost immediately to our front the tunnel ended in a cross corridor lined on the far side with metal doors about a meter wide that slid upward in grooves and were moved by a prosaic worm and gear arrangement that was almost as old as human history and obviously not Shambran work. Each door had a fisheye lens peephole that revealed the cell beyond. It was slightly below my eye level, and it was no trick at all to see through it. The cell beyond was empty, just a narrow cubicle closed at the far end by a metal grating. Beyond the grating I could see a segment of a large semicircular open space, and on the far side tier after tier of seats rose beyond my vision. It was something like the Greek and Roman theaters of Earth except that it was enclosed and lighted with great shadowless globes of brilliance hanging over the semicircular area in front of the cages.
“It’s an arena!” I said. It may have been something else once, but that was what it was now. The blank rear wall of the stage behind which we were was faced with cages containing the sacrifices. The ritual trappings were out in front of the proscenium, and beyond were the semicircular rows of seats rilled with an attentive crowd of natives watching the stage. Like most human rituals, it had a great deal of solemnity, I supposed, but I couldn’t see too much of it. There was chanting and gorgeously robed priests in crimson and gold and white. The centerpiece was the pale body of a nude man shackled to a polished slab of black basalt which lay below a square-sided pillar of the same black stone. There was a ledge about halfway up the pillar and on it lay something that drew my eyes in utter fascination. A black hemisphere, so black that it left the stone looking gray by comparison, it sucked light into it and created an aura of lesser blackness around it. It was the most fascinating yet terrifying thing I had ever seen. I knew what it was the instant I saw it. It was The Power—the core of the Legends; for a moment I felt all the awe and terror that must have filled the seats in front of the stage. The thing was a simple hemisphere but it was monstrous with implications and terrible with potential! I shook as I pushed myself from the peephole.
“What’s going on?” Riker asked.
“It’s a stage of some sort,” I said.
“A big hall?” Riker asked.
“Look for yourself.” I showed him the peephole and he put his eye to it. He was there a long time. He drew a long slow breath. He didn’t say anything for a moment, just stood there shivering.
“Is that The Power?” I asked.
“Yep—that’s it! Just like the description.”
He was talking about the Legends again. I could quote this part by heart. I’d heard it often enough.
“Deep in the cup of the Hall of the Northland
Ringed round by ice and eternal white snow
Stands on its pillar the half-dome of Power
Joined in its parts forming a unit
Lies half The Power born from its union
Tribes from all waters that flow to the sea
Watch they the Power—gift of the Shambra
Brought unto men by the slaves of the Lords
Lords of Creation the star-guided Shambra
Sleeping lies Power, dark with its slumber
Unit of darkness empty of light
Black as the caves of night everlasting
Black as the hearts of men who have sinned
Sleeping lies Power, born to melt cities
Sleeping lies Power, dark and quiescent
Sleeping lies Power, awaiting awakening
Center of Arthe, the gift of the Shambra
Power of sacrifice linked to the chosen
Linked to the blood of the sacrificed virgins
Linked to the black flames that burns men to ashes
Linked to the glory born from their union
Linked to the tribes joined here in worship—”
It went on and on, telling a repetitive tale of superstition, sacrifice and slaughter. It was truth. I knew that now. The Power was not a myth. It was as real and terrible as the Legends said it was, and the sacrifices were not made with a knife, bludgeon, or other mundane object as I had thought, but with the perverted use of The Power itself. The implications of that scene were crystal clear. But its use was insane. With a thing like The Power in their control, the natives could well be invincible—so why hadn’t they used it? Something as resistless and terrible as The Power could have driven every dome dweller from Arthe and could have overpowered both the Service and the Patrol. I didn’t know this, but I was as certain of it as I was that I was standing behind the cagerow that held the sacrifices the natives made to their Dark God. Why hadn’t they used it? Why hadn’t they wiped us off the face of Arthe?
I couldn’t stop shaking as I considered the implications…
Riker eyed me with sympathy. “I know how you’re feeling,” he said. “Trouble is that you’ve been conditioned against believing in native superstitions and now when you see a big one come true you can’t take it.”
“I’ll believe it from now on,” I said. “My trouble isn’t belief, it’s extrapolation.”
“Huh?”
“What’s to prevent them from wiping out the domes?”
Riker shook his head and sighed. “A closed mind,” he observed, “is the hardest of all things to open. You now can accept one legend. Why not accept the others. Don’t you remember The Charge of The Shambra?”
“I’m not going to swallow fairy tales,” I said. “I know human beings, and whatever else they are, the natives are human. Maybe you’re right and the Shambra charge that The Power must not be used for war can restrain these madmen. But I don’t even like the thought of taking such a chance!”
“Neither do I,” Riker said, “but let’s get going—we won’t get anywhere talking about stopping these guys. We have to get back and spread the word. A few nukes properly placed should stop this business permanently.”
Joe might not have been thinking as I was, but he was right. We didn’t have time to waste. H-Day was due anytime—the world was edging toward disaster—but with The Power a reality it had been trembling on the brink for years. It almost made me relax, for no plot, no matter how grisly, could conceivably compare to the havoc that could be caused if The Power were unleashed.
“Okay—so we hurry,” I said. My voice was strained. I wanted to get out of this place and run for help. This was nothing to fool with. Later, maybe, we could explore the ruins if anything was left. But now there were two problems. This one might wait but H-Day wouldn’t.
“If we’re going to get out of here, we’ll get out easier if we hold The Power,” Riker said. “No native’ll touch us.”
“The Legends again?”
He nodded. “You should study them,” he said, “and keep an open mind. Don’t let the poetic form fool you. They’re history, politics, anthropology and ethics, among other things.” He shrugged. He accepted the Legends as gospel. The implication was that I should too.
“We could get into the arena through this pen,” Riker said, touching the sliding door to emphasize his words. “We could burn the outer grille off and come out shooting.”
“Let’s see where this passage goes,” I said. “There’s no sense in advertising our presence until it’s necessary, and we’d waste a lot of time burning off that grille.”
Riker nodded. “You’re right. But I wasn’t thinking about that. These people aren’t expecting attack. If they were hit hard they’d maybe panic, and a couple of gunners could murder a panicky mob. But you’re right—we wouldn’t surprise anyone if we had to cut through that grille.”
We went on, down the row of doors. The next few were filled with animals. There were some gorrons and ryks, and a small gold animal about the size of a dog with beautiful silky fur.
“A wygran,” Riker said. “They’re sacred. Their fur is never sold. It’s used to trim those ceremonial cloaks the priests wear. It makes me drool to think of the prices we could get for a few hundred pelts. They make gorron fur look cheap.”
I took a quick look through the next peephole. My face must have mirrored my emotions, for Riker stopped muttering about priests and looked through the grille. “I told you about this,” he said.
My face was tight. The pen in itself wasn’t particularly horrible. All it contained was a big, well-built halfbreed sitting naked and dejected on the bare floor. But there was something about the man’s hopeless posture that made my stomach crawl. He was no longer a man. He was an animal awaiting slaughter, a sacrifice. He had no hope. There was such an air of conscious cruelty that I reached for the crank that raised the rear wall.
Riker stopped me. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?” he asked softly. “You’ll only call attention to yourself. That fellow would be no help. He’s broken, and you’re not going to cure him by letting him out of his cage.”
“So he’s a man. So what. There have been thousands before him. And there will be thousands after him if we get killed here. If you’re so damn hot to save Arthe from tonocaine and break the native priesthood you’ll have to stay alive to do it. Take him out of here now and you’ll blow the whole thing.”
I wasn’t convinced that Riker was right, but he was being pragmatic, and I was not, and I wasn’t at all certain that right won any more victories than common sense.
We went past other pens filled with naked human occupants, some male, some female, all adult. Some were terrified, some dejected, some indifferent, some obviously insane. Apparently mental states made no difference to the priests. As long as the body was there, it was enough.
We were almost at the end of the row. In front of us was another jet curtain. I peeked into the next to last pen. The occupant was Sofra!
* * *
CHAPTER XVI
« ^ »
“To hell with caution,” I said. “That’s my woman! She comes out now!”
Riker didn’t argue. “Just let her know what you’re going to do before you do it,” he said. “There’s no sense triggering screams.”
“How in hell can I tell her through this metal?”
“That’s your problem. Just don’t get her screaming.”
I put my eye to the peephole and tapped three times quickly on the metal door with the butt of by Kelly. Then three times slowly. She turned, her eyes wide, her face an agony of hope and fear. I tapped again and without further delay began to turn the crank that raised the door. It apparently hadn’t been used in years. It creaked and groaned and I was in an agony of impatience and fear that it might draw attention, but it did not. I only had to raise it a few decimeters and Sofra was through the crack, wriggling like a snake in her eagerness to get out of that cage.
I had no need to worry about the noise. Her arrival was heralded by a continuous scream, a raw note of mindless agony, drowning any lesser sound. The insignificant squeaks and raspings of the doorway were nothing against this. I spun the crank downward with frantic speed. The door closed as Joe helped Sofra to her feet. A moment later I held her in my arms, warm, smooth and beautiful. I didn’t ask how she got here. That I had found her before any harm had come to her was enough.
Riker watched, red-faced and envious. I slipped my jacket over her shoulders. Sofra rolled up the sleeves and knotted the belt around her slender waist.
She looked at me. “Sam, you’ve got to hurry. They’ve got a pair under the Power who were brought here with me. He’s the one who’s screaming. It will be my turn soon. I should have been dead days ago except… she let the sentence die.
“Except for what?” I snarled.
Incongruously, she giggled—a thin whisper of sound that made my scalp crawl. It sounded mad. I could accept she might scream, or faint, or do anything but giggle!
“I’ll tell you,” she said. “But not now. Let’s get out of here while their attention is on the sacrifice.”
“How long does it last?”
“It varies—usually about five or ten minutes. Seldom more.” She shuddered. “A burnt offering to the Shambra is made quickly when all The Power is assembled and the woman is strong and healthy. The tribes are all here now, so this sacrifice shouldn’t last very long.
“It takes two to make a sacrifice,” she said. “The woman furnishes the energy for The Power, and The Power burns the man. She is shut in that pillar on which the Power rests. He is laid on the altar. He can’t move except to scream. The mouth of The Power is toward the pillar and the man burns—slowly in the energy that spews from the vent. When he is consumed the pillar is opened and the woman is removed. She, too, is dead. Her voice force is consumed to burn the man.”
“Now?” Riker asked.
I nodded. “I think so. We’ll do it your way. First we panic them. Then we grab The Power.”
Riker looked at Sofra critically. “Guess we’ve got something to fight for,” he said. “Now while Doc and I try to convert these heathens, you go back up the line and let the other folks out. Get them to help you. Can you do it?”
Sofra nodded.
I looked at her helplessly. What she needed right now was something I couldn’t give. Sure—I could help her talk it out, but there was no time, and there were things in her that were screaming for release. She was on the ragged edge of hysteria. I looked at Riker as I pulled the hook from my belt loop.
