Dark Universe

CHAPTER ONE

Pausing beside the hanging needle of rock, Jared tapped it with his lance. Precise, staccatolike tones filled the passageway.

“Hear it?” he coaxed. “It’s right up ahead.”

“I don’t hear a thing.” Owen edged forward, stumbled and fell lightly against Jared’s back. “Nothing but mud and hanging stones.”

“No pits?”

“None that I can hear.”

“There’s one not twenty paces off. Better stick close to me.”

Jared tapped the rock again, inclining an ear so he would miss none of the subtle echoes. There it was, all right — massive and evil as it clung to a nearby ledge listening to their advance.

Ahead were no more needles of rock he could conveniently tap. The last echoes had told him that much. So he produced a pair of clickstones from his pouch and brought them together sharply in the hollow of his hand, concentrating on the returning tones. To his right, his ears traced out great formations of rocks, folded one over the other and reflecting a confusing pattern of sound.

Owen clutched his shoulder as they pressed forward. “It’s too smart We’ll never catch up with it.”

“Of course we will. It’ll get annoyed and attack sooner or later. Then there’ll be one less soubat to contend with.”

“But Radiation! It’s pitch silent! I can’t even hear where I’m going!”

“What do you think I’m using clickstones for?”

“I’m used to the central echo caster.”

Jared laughed. “That’s the trouble with you pre-Survivors. Depend too much on the familiar things.”

Owen’s sarcastic snort was justified. For Jared, at twentyseven pregnancy periods of age, was not only his senior by less than two gestations, but also was still a pre-Survivor himself.

Drawing up beneath the ledge, Jared unslung his bow. Then he handed Owen the spear and stones. “Stay here and click out some distinct tones — about a pulse apart.”

He eased forward, arrow strung. Now the ledge was casting back sharp echoes. The soubat was stirring, folding and unfolding its immense, leathery wings. He paused and listened to the evil form, audibly outlined against the smooth, rock background. Furry, oval face — twice as large as his own. Alert ears, cupped and pointed. Clenched talons, sharp as the jagged rocks to which they clung. And twin pings of reflected sound brought the impression of bared fangs.

“Is it still there?” Owen whispered anxiously.

“Can’t you hear it yet?”

“No, but I can sure smell the thing. It—”

Abruptly the soubat released its grip and dropped.

Jared didn’t need clickstones now. The furious flapping of wings was a direct, unmistakable target. He drew the bow, placing the feathered end of the arrow against his ear, and released the string.

The creature screamed — a piercing, ragged cry that reverberated in the passage.

“Good Light Almighty!” Owen exclaimed. “You got it!”

“Just punctured a wing.” Jared reached for another arrow. “Quick — give me some more echoes!”

But it was too late. The thrashing of its wings was carrying the soubat off down a branch passage.

Listening to the retreating sound, Jared absently fingered his beard. Cropped close to his chin, it was a dense growth that projected bluntly forward, giving his face a self-confident tone. Taller than the span of a bowstring, he was lancelike in posture and his limbs were solidly corded. Although shoulder length in the back, his hair was trimmed in front, leaving ears unobstructed and face fully exposed. This accommodated his fondness for open eyes. It was a preference that wasn’t based on religious belief, but rather on his dislike for the facial tautness which came with closed eyes.

Later, the side passage narrowed and received a river that flowed up out of the ground, leaving only a thin strip of slippery rock for them to tread.

Gripping his arm, Owen asked, “What’s up ahead?”

Jared sounded the clickstones. “No low rocks. No pits. The stream flows off into the wall and the passage widens again.”

He was listening more intently, though, to other, almost lost echoes — minor reflections from small things that slid into the river as they retreated from the disturbing noise of the stones.

“Make a note of this place,” he said. “It’s crawling with game.”

“Salamanders?”

“Hundreds of them. That means decent-sized fish and hordes of crayfish.”

Owen laughed. “I can just hear the Prime Survivor authorizing a hunting expedition here. Nobody’s ever been this far before.”

“I have.”

“When?” the other asked skeptically.

They cleared the stream and were back on dry ground again.

“Eight or nine pregnancy periods ago.”

“Radiation — but you were a child then! And you came here — this far from the Lower Level?”

“More than once.”

“Why?”

“To hunt for something.”

“What?”

“Darkness.”

Owen chuckled. “You don’t find Darkness. You commit it.”

“So the Guardian says. He shouts, ‘Darkness abounds in the worlds of men!’ And he says that means sin and evil prevail. But I don’t believe it means that.”

“What do you believe?”

“Darkness must be something real. Only, we can’t recognize it.”

Again Owen laughed. “If you can’t recognize it, then how do you expect to find it?”

Jared disregarded the other’s skepticism. “There’s a clue. We know that in the Original World — the first world that man inhabited after he left Paradise — we were closer to Light Almighty. In other words, it was a good world. Now -let’s suppose there’s some sort of connection between sin and evil and this Darkness stuff. That means there must be less Darkness in the Original World. Right?”

“I suppose so.”

“Then all I have to do is find something there’s less of in the Original World.”

Clickstone echoes traced out a massive obstruction ahead and Jared slowed his pace. He reached the barricade and explored it with his fingers. Rocks, piled one upon the -other, stretched completely across the passage, rearing up to his shoulder.

“Here it is,” he announced, “ — the Barrier.”

Owen’s grip firmed on his arm. “The Barrier?”

“We can make it over the top easily.”

“But — the law! We can’t go past the Barrier!”

Jared dragged him along. “Come on. There are no monsters. Nothing to be afraid of — except maybe a soubat or two.”

“But they say it’s worse than Radiation itself!”

“That’s what they tell you.” By now Jared had him halfway up the mound. “They even say you’ll find the Twin Devils Cobalt and Strontium waiting to carry you off to the depths of Radiation. Rot! Compost!”

“But the Punishment Pit!”

Scrambling down the other side, Jared rattled his clickstones with more than one purpose in mind. Besides drowning out Owen’s protests, the clatter also plumbed the passage before them. Owen had somehow gotten in front and the close-quarter echoes were clearly transmitting sonic impressions of a stocky body, alert with tension and protected by outstretched, groping arms.

“For Light’s sake!” Jared rebuked. “Get your hands down! I’ll tell you if you’re going to bump into anything.”

The next echo crest caught the other’s shrug. “So I’m no good with dickstones,” he gruffed, stepping off in a resentful stride.

Jared followed, appreciating Owen’s pluck. Cautious and hesitant, he took things reluctantly. But when the final click fetched its impression of an unavoidable situation with natural foe or Zivver, there wasn’t a more determined fighter around.

Zivvers and soubats and bottomless pits, Jared reflected — those were the challenges of existence. If it weren’t for them, the Lower Level World and its passages would be as safe as Paradise itself was before man turned his back on Light Almighty and, as the legend had it, came to the various worlds that men and Zivvers now inhabited.

At the moment, though, only the soubats held his concern. One in particular — a vicious, marauding creature that had winged furiously into the Lower Level and snatched away a sheep.

He spat in disgust, recalling the venomous expletives his archery instructor had muttered long ago: “Stinking, Light damned things from the bowels of Radiation!”

“What are soubats?” one of the young archers had asked.

“They started off like the inoffensive little bats whose manure we collect for the plants. But they had truck with the Devils somewhere along the way. Either Cobalt or Strontium took one of them down to Radiation and made it over into a supercreature. From that one came all the soubats we have to contend with now.”

Jared filled the passage with anxious, probing echoes. Owen, stubbornly maintaining the lead, was advancing more cautiously now, sending his feet out in sliding motions rather than pronounced steps.

The other’s closed-eyes preference brought a smile to Jared’s lips. It was a habit that would never be broken. It accommodated the belief that the eyes themselves should be protected and preserved for feeling the Great Light Almighty’s presence on His Return.

But there wasn’t anything objectionable about Owen, Jared assured himself, except that he was too susceptible to literal acceptance of the legends. Like the one which held that Light had resented man’s invention of the manna plant and had cast him out of Paradise and into eternal Darkness, whatever that was.

One click and Owen was there — several paces ahead. Another and he was gone. In the interim there had been a distressed shout and the sound of flesh impacting on rock. Then:

“For Light’s sake! Get me out of here!”

More echoes disclosed the presence of the shallow pit which had, until then, lurked in the echo void ahead of Owen.

Standing on the lip of the cavity, Jared lowered his lance. The other grabbed hold and started to pull himself out. But Jared tensed, wrenched the spear free and cast himself on the ground. He barely escaped clawing talons as the soubat swooped down.

“We’re going to get a soubat!” he shouted exultantly.

By its shrieks, he tracked the animal as it made a ranging turn, gaining altitude, then dived down in a second, screaming attack. Jared lunged up, anchored the spear in a crevice and braced himself along the shaft, aiming it at the onrushing fury.

All Radiation broke loose as three hundred pounds of wrath hit Jared in a single, violent blast and bowled him over. He rose and felt the warmth of blood on his arm where talon had laid open flesh.

“Jared! You all right!”

“Stay down! It might come back!” He ran a hand over the ground and retrieved his bow.

But all was silent The soubat had retreated once more, this time possibly with a spear wound added to its distress.

Owen climbed out of the pit. “You hurt?”

“Just a couple of scratches.”

“Did you get it?”

“Radiation no! But I know where it is.”

“I’m not even asking where. Let’s go home.”

Jared tapped the ground with his bow and listened. “It turned off into the Original World — up ahead.”

“Let’s go back, Jared!”

“Not until I get that thing’s tusks in my pouch.”

“You’re going to get them somewhere else!”

But Jared went on. And, reluctantly, Owen followed.

Later he asked, “Are you really determined to find Darkness?”

“I’m going to find it if it takes the rest of my life.”

“Why bother with hunting evil?”

“Because I’m really listening for something else. And Darkness- may be just a step along the way.”

“What are you hunting for?”

“Light.”

“The Great Light Almighty,” Owen reminded, reciting one of the tenets, “is present in the souls of good men and—”

“Suppose,” Jared broke in boldly, “Light isn’t God, but something else?”

The other’s religious sensitivity was shocked. Jared could tell by his breathless silence, by the slight acceleration of his pulse.

“What else could Light Almighty be?” Owen asked finally.

“I don’t know. But I’m sure it’s something good. And if I can find it, life will be better for all mankind.”

“What makes you think that?”

“If Darkness is connected with evil and if Light is its opposite, then Light must be good. And if I find Darkness, then I may have some kind of idea as to the nature of Light.”

Owen snorted. “That’s ridiculous! You mean you think our beliefs are wrong?”

“Not altogether. Maybe just twisted around. You know what happens when a story passes from mouth to mouth. Just think what could happen to it passing from generation to generation.”

Jared returned his attention to the passage as the clickstone echoes betrayed a great hollow space in the wall on his right.

They stood in the vaulted entrance to the Original World and Jared’s clicks lost themselves in the silence of a vast expanse. He substituted his largest, hardest pair of sounding rocks. These he had to clap together with considerable force to produce reports loud enough to carry to the farthest recesses and back.

First — the soubat. Its lingering stench verified that the thing was somewhere in here. But none of the returning echoes carried with it the textural impression of leathery wings or soft, furry body.

“The soubat?” Owen asked anxiously.

“It’s hiding,” Jared said between clicks. Then, to take his friend’s mind off the danger, “How good are you? What do you hear?’

“A Radiation of a big world.”

“Right. Go on.”

“In the space just ahead — softness. A clump or two of—”

“Manna plants. Growing close around a single hot spring. I can hear scores of empty pits too — pits where boiling water used to feed the energy hunger of thousands of plants. But, go ahead.”

“Over there on the left, a pool — a big one.”

“Good!” Jared complimented. “Fed by a stream. What else?”

“I — Radiation! Something queer. A lot of queer things.”

Jared advanced. “Those are living quarters — stretched all around the wall.”

“But I don’t understand.” Owen, confused-, followed along. “They’re out in the open!”

“When the people lived here they didn’t have to find their privacy in grottoes. They built walls around spaces out in the open.”

“Square walls?”

“They had a flair for geometry, I suppose.”

Owen pulled back. “Let’s get out of here! They say Radiation isn’t too far from the Original World!”

“Maybe they say that just to keep us out.”

“I’m beginning to think that you don’t believe anything.”

“Of course I do-whatever I can hear, feel, taste, or smell.” Jared changed position and the echoes from his stones aligned themselves with an opening in one of the living quarters.

“Soubat!” he whispered as the stream of clicks brought back an impression of the thing hanging inside the cubicle. “You take the spear. We’ll be ready for it this time!”

Cautiously, he approached within arrow range of the structure, securing his stones. He didn’t need them now — not with the sound of the thing’s breathing as clear as the snorting of an angry bull.

He strung an arrow and wedged a second under his belt where it would be within convenient reach. Behind him, he heard Owen dig the spear shaft into the ground. Then he asked, “Ready?”

“Let it fly,” Owen urged. And there was no quaver in his voice. The last click had sounded. The lines were drawn.

Aiming at the hissing breath, he released the bowstring.

The arrow screamed through the air and thudded into something solid — too solid to be animal flesh. Screeching its rage, the soubat hurtled toward them. Jared strung the second arrow, taking his lead in advance of the winged fury.

He let it fly and ducked.

The beast shrieked in agony as it zipped by overhead. Then there was a thud and a final rush of air from the great lungs.

“For Light’s sake!” came the familiar exclamation. “Get this stinking thing off me!”

Grinning, Jared tapped his bow on the solid rock underfoot and, in return, picked up the sonic effects of a disheveled heap — soubat, human, broken lance, and protruding arrow shaft.

Owen squirmed out finally. “Well, we got the damned thing. Now can we go home?”

“As soon as I finish.” Jared was already cutting out the tusks.

Soubats and Zivvers. One by one, the Lower and Upper Level people could hope to eliminate the former. But what would prevail against the latter? What could prevail against creatures who used no clickstones but who, nevertheless, knew everything about their surroundings? It was an uncanny ability nobody could explain, except to say they were possessed of Cobalt or Strontium.

Oh, well, Jared mused, prophecy held that man would vanquish all his foes. He supposed that included the Zivvers also, although to him it had always seemed that Zivvers were human too — after a fashion.

He finished prying out the first tusk and some remote recess of his mind dredged up memories of childhood teachings:

What is Light?

Light is a Spirit.

Where is Light?

If it weren’t for the evil in man, Light would be everywhere.

Can we feel or hear Light?

No, but in the hereafter we shall all see Him.

Rubbish! Anyway, no one could explain the word see. What did you do to the Almighty when you seed Him?

He secured the tusks in his pouch and stood up, listening all around. There was something here that there might be less of than in the other worlds — something man called “Darkness” and defined as sin and evil. But what was it?

“Jared, come here!”

He used clickstones to establish Owen’s location. The echoes brought an impression of his friend standing by a thick pole that was leaning over at such an angle as to be almost lying on the ground. He was feeling an object dangling from the upthrust end — something round and brittle that hurled back distinct, ringing tones.

“It’s a Bulb!” Owen exclaimed. “Just like the Guardian’s relic of Light Almighty!”

Jared’s memory resurrected more of the beliefs:

So compassionate was the Almighty (it was the Guardian of the Way’s voice that came back now) that when He banished man from Paradise, He sent parts of Himself to be with us for a while. And He dwelled in many little vessels like this Holy Bulb.

There was a noise somewhere among the living quarters.

“Light!” Owen swore. “Do you smell that?”

Indeed Jared did smell it. It was so offensively alien that it made the hair bristle on his neck. He rattled his clickstones desperately, backing off all the while.

The echoes brought an incredible, jumbled pattern of sound — impressions of something human, but not human; unbelievably evil because it was different, yet arresting because it seemed to have a pair of arms and legs and a head and stood more or less upright. It was advancing, trying to take them by surprise.

Jared reached into his quiver. But there were no more arrows. Then, terrified, he cast his bow away and turned to flee.

“Oh, Light!” Owen moaned, scrambling back toward the exit. “What in Radiation is it?”

But Jared couldn’t answer. He had all he could do trying to find the way out while keeping his ears on the unholy menace. It was reeking more terribly than a thousand soubats.

“It’s Strontium himself!” Owen decided. “The legends are true! The Twin Devils are here!” He turned and bolted for the exit, his own bewildered shouts providing the guiding echoes.

Jared only stood there, paralyzed by a sensation altogether beyond comprehension. His auditory impression of the monstrous form was clear: it seemed the thing’s entire body was made up of fluttering sheets of flesh. But there was something else — a vague yet vivid bridge of noiseless echoes that spanned the distance from the creature and boiled down into the depths of his conscious.

Sounds, odors, tastes, the pressure of the rocks and material things around him — all seemed to pour into his being, bringing pain. He clamped his hands over his face and raced after Owen.

A zip-hiss cleaved the air above his head and a moment later Owen’s voice rose in a cry of anguished terror. Then Jared heard his friend collapse, falling at the entrance to the Original World.

He reached the spot where Owen lay, slung the unconscious form over his shoulder and plunged on.

Zip-hiss.

Something grazed his arm, leaving droplets of moisture clinging to the flesh. In the next instant he was tripping, failing, picking himself up and racing on under the burden of Owen’s dead weight. And he was seized by a sudden grogginess he couldn’t explain.

Deaf now, he staggered against the piled boulders that formed the passage’s left wall and groped his way around one of the huge rocks. Then he stumbled into a crevice between two outcroppings and fell with Owen on top of him, lapsing into unconsciousness.