Planet of Adventure

CHAPTER THREE

THE ROOM was empty. Reith stumbled forth from the closet. He hobbled across the room. The wall showed no crack, no seam. The workmanship was of microscopic accuracy.

Reith bent low, touched the three protuberances. The rock moved back and aside.

Reith brought forth the case. After the briefest of hesitations, he opened the case, removed the portfolio. From the closet he brought a carton of small dark bottles, approximately the same weight as the portfolio which he closed into the case, and replaced all into the cavity. He touched the knobs; the cavity closed; the wall was solid rock.

Reith stood in the center of the room, holding the portfolio, obviously a valuable article. If he were able to evade detection and capture, if he were able to decipher the Pnume cartography--all of which seemed intrinsically unlikely--he might conceivably discover a route to the surface.

From the closet he brought a cloak, which he draped about himself, and a hat, somewhat too small, but which by dint of twisting and stretching he managed to pull low over his head.

The Pnumekin habit of furtive unobtrusiveness would serve him well; no one would attempt greater furtiveness, less obtrusiveness, than himself. Now he must leave the immediate area, and find some secluded spot where he might examine the portfolio at his leisure. He tucked the portfolio into his jacket and set off along the white plastered corridor, putting one foot softly in front of the other as he had seen the Pnumekin do.

The corridor stretched long and empty ahead, at last opening upon a balcony which overlooked a long room, from which came a hum and shuffle of activity.

The floor of the chamber was twenty feet below. On the walls were charts and ideograms; in the center Pnumekin children took instruction. Reith had come upon a Pnumekin school.

Standing back in the shadows Reith was able to look down without fear of detection. He saw three groups of children, both male and female, twenty to each group. Like their elders they wore black cloaks and hats with flattened crowns.

The small white faces were peaked and pinched, and almost laughably earnest.

None spoke; staring into empty air they marched softly and solemnly through a drill or exercise. They were attended by three Pnumekin women of indefinite age, cloaked like the males and distinguishable only by lesser stature and somewhat less harshness of feature.

The children padded on and on through the exercise, the silence broken only by the shuffle of their feet. Nothing could be learned here, thought Reith. He looked in both directions, then set off to the left. An arched tunnel gave upon another balcony, which overlooked a chamber even larger than the first: a refectory. Tables and benches were ranked down the middle, but the chamber was vacant except for two Pnumekin, who sat widely separated, crouched low over bowls of gruel. Reith became aware of his own hunger.

He heard a sound. Along the balcony came a pair of Pnumekin, one behind the other. Reith's heart began to thump so loudly he feared they would surely hear the sound as they approached. He pulled down his head, hunched his shoulders, moved forward in what he hoped to be the typical Pnumekin gait. The two passed by, eyes averted, thoughts on matters far removed.

With somewhat more assurance Reith continued along the passage, which almost immediately expanded to become a roughly circular node, the junction for three corridors. A staircase cut from the natural gray rock curved down to the level below.

The corridors were desolate and dim; Reith thought them unpromising. He hesitated, feeling tired and futile. The charts, he decided, were of no great help; he needed the assistance, willing or otherwise, of a Pnumekin. He was also very hungry. Gingerly he went to the staircase and, after ten seconds of indecision, descended, begrudging every step which took him farther from the surface. He came out into a small anteroom beside the refectory. A portal nearby gave upon what appeared to be a kitchen. Reith looked in cautiously. A number of Pnumekin worked at counters, presumably preparing food for the children in the exercise room.

Reith backed regretfully away, and went off down a side passage. This was dim and quiet, with only a few light-grains in the high ceiling. After a hundred feet the passage jogged to the side and came to an abrupt end at the brink of a drop-off. From below the sound of running water: more than likely a disposal-place for waste and garbage, Reith reflected. He halted, wondering where to go and what to do, then returned to the anteroom. Here he discovered a small storage chamber in which were stacked bags, sacks and cartons. Food, thought Reith. He hesitated; the chamber must frequently be used by the cooks.

From the exercise room came the children, walking in single file, eyes fixed drearily on the floor. Reith backed into the storage room: the children would discern his strangeness far more readily than adults. He crouched at the back of the room, behind a pile of stacked cartons: by no means the most secure of hiding places, but not altogether precarious. Even if someone entered the chamber he stood a good chance of evading attention. Reith relaxed somewhat. He brought forth the portfolio and folded back the limp blue leather cover. The pages were a beautiful soft vellum; the cartography was printed with most meticulous care in black, red, brown, green and pale blue. But the patterns and lines conveyed no information; the legend was set forth in undecipherable characters. Regretfully Reith folded the portfolio and tucked it into his jacket.

From a counter in front of the kitchen the children took bowls and carried them into the refectory.

Reith watched through a cranny between the cartons, more than ever aware of hunger and thirst. He investigated the contents of a sack, to find dried pilgrim-pod, a leathery wafer highly nutritious but not particularly appetizing.

The cartons beside him contained tubes of a greasy black paste, rancid and sharp to the taste: apparently a condiment. Reith turned his attention to the serving counter. The last of the children had carried their bowls into the refectory.

The serving area was vacant, but on the counter remained half a dozen bowls and flasks. Reith acted without conscious calculation. He emerged from the storage room, hunched his shoulders, went to the counter, took a bowl and a flask and retreated hurriedly to his hiding place. The bowl contained pilgrim-pod gruel cooked with raisin-like nubbins, slivers of pale meat, two stalks of a celery-like vegetable. The flask held a pint of faintly effervescent beer, with a pleasantly astringent bite. To the flask was clipped a packet of six round wafers, which Reith tasted but found unpalatable. He ate the gruel and drank the beer and congratulated himself on his decisiveness.

To the serving area came six older children: slender young people, detached and broodingly self-sufficient. Peering between the cartons, Reith decided that all were female. Five passed by the counter taking bowls and flasks. The last to come by, finding nothing to eat, stood in puzzlement. Reith watched with the guilty awareness that he had stolen and devoured her supper. The first five went into the refectory, leaving the one girl waiting uncertainly by the counter.

Five minutes passed; she spoke no word, standing with her eyes fixed on the floor. At last unseen hands set another bowl and flask down on the counter. The Pnumekin girl took the food and went slowly into the refectory.

Reith became uneasy. He decided to return up the stairs, to select one of the passages and hope to meet some lone knowledgeable Pnumekin who could be overpowered and put in fear for his life. He rose to his feet, but now the children began to leave the refectory, and Reith stood back. One by one, on noiseless feet, they filed into the exercise room. Once more Reith looked forth and once more retreated as now the five older girls issued from the refectory.

They were alike as mannequins from the factory: slender and straight, with skins as pale and thin as paper, arched coal-black eyebrows, and regular, if somewhat peaked, features. They wore the usual black cloaks and black hats, which accentuated the quaint and eerie non-earthliness of the earthly bodies. They might have been five versions of the same person, although Reith, even as the idea crossed his mind, knew that each made sure distinctions, too subtle for his knowing, between herself and the others; each felt her personal existence to be the central movement of the cosmos.

The serving area was empty. Reith stepped forth and on long quick strides crossed to the stairs. Only just in time: from the kitchen came one of the cooks, to go to the storage room. Had Reith delayed another moment he would have been discovered. Heart beating fast, he started up the stairs ... He stopped short and stood holding his breath. From above came a soft sound: the pad-pad-pad of footsteps. Reith froze in his tracks. The sounds became louder.

Down the stairs came the mottled red and black feet of a Pnume, then the flutter of black cloth. Reith hurriedly retreated, to stand indecisively at the foot of the stairs. Where to go? He looked about frantically. In the storage room the cook ladled pilgrim-pod from a sack. The children occupied the exercise-chamber.

Reith had a single choice. He hunched his shoulders and stalked softly into the refectory. At a middle table sat a Pnumekin girl, she whose supper he had commandeered. Reith took what he considered the most inconspicuous seat and sat sweating. His disguise was makeshift; a single direct glance would reveal his identity.

Silent minutes passed. The Pnumekin girl lingered over the packet of wafers which she seemed especially to enjoy. At last she rose to her feet and started to leave the chamber. Reith lowered his head: too sharply, too abruptly-a discordant movement. The girl turned a startled glance in his direction and even now habit was strong; she looked past him without directly focusing her eyes.

But she saw, she knew. For an instant she remained frozen, her face loose and incredulous; then she uttered a soft cry of terror, and started to run from the room. Reith was instantly upon her, to stifle her with his hand and thrust her against the wall.

"Be quiet!" Reith muttered. "Don't make any noise! Do you understand?"

She stared at him in a kind of horrified daze. Reith gave her a shake. "Don't make a sound! Do you understand? Nod your head!"

She managed to jerk her head. Reith took away his hand. "Listen!" he whispered.

"Listen carefully! I am a man of the surface. I was kidnapped and brought down here. I escaped, and now I want to return to the surface. Do you hear me?" She made no response. "Do you understand? Answer!" He gave the thin shoulders another shake.

"Yes."

"Do you know how to reach the surface?"

She shifted her gaze, to stare at the floor. Reith darted a glance toward the serving area; if one of the cooks should happen to look into the refectory, all was lost. And the Pnume who had descended the stairs, what of him? And the balcony! Reith had forgotten the balcony! With a sick thrill of fear he searched the high shadows. No one stood watching. But they could remain here no longer, not another minute. He grasped the girl by the arm. "Come along. Not a sound, remember! Or I'll have to hurt you!"

He pulled her along the wall to the entrance. The serving area was empty. From the kitchen came a grinding sound and a clatter of metal. Of the Pnume there was no sign.

"Up the stairs," whispered Reith.

She made a sound of protest; Reith clapped his hand over her mouth and dragged her to the staircase. "Up! Do as I say and you won't be harmed!"

She spoke in a soft even voice: "Go away."

"I want to go away," Reith declared in a passionate mutter. "I don't know where to go!"

"I can't help you."

"You've got to help me. Up the stairs. Quick now!"

Suddenly she turned and ran up the stairs, so light on her feet that she seemed to float. Reith was taken by surprise. He sprang after her, but she outdistanced him and sped down one of the corridors. In desperation she fled; in equal desperation Reith pursued, and after fifty feet caught her. He thrust her against the wall, where she stood panting. Reith looked up and down the corridor: no one was in sight, to his vast relief. "Do you want to die?" he hissed in her ear.

"No!"

"Then do exactly what I tell you!" growled Reith. He hoped that the threat convinced her; and indeed her face sagged; her eyes became wide and dark. She tried to speak, and finally asked: "What do you want me to do?"

"First, lead the way to a quiet place, where no one comes."

With sagging shoulders she turned away, and proceeded along the corridor. Reith asked suspiciously, "Where are you taking me?"

"To the punishment place."

A moment later she turned into a side corridor which almost at once ended in a round chamber. The girl went to a pair of black flint cabochons; looking over her shoulder like a fairy-tale witch, she pushed the black bulbs. A portal opened upon black space; the girl stepped through with Reith close behind. She touched a switch; from a light-panel came a wan illumination.

They stood on a ledge at the edge of a brink. A crazy insect-leg derrick tilted over profound darkness; from the end hung a rope.

Reith looked at the girl; she looked silently back at him with a kind of half-frightened, half-sullen indifference. Holding to the derrick, Reith looked gingerly over the brink. A cold draft blew up into his face, and he turned away.

The girl stood motionless. Reith suspected that the sudden convulsion of events had put her into a state of shock. The tight hat constricted his head; he pulled it off. The girl shrank back against the wall. "Why do you take off the hat?"

"It hurts my head," said Reith.

The girl flicked her glance past him and away into the darkness. She asked in a soft muffled voice, "What do you want me to do?"

"Take me to the surface, as fast as you can."

The girl made no answer. Reith wondered if she had heard him. He tried to look into her face; she turned away. Reith twitched off her hat. A strange eerie face looked at him, the bloodless mouth quivering in panic. She was older than her underdeveloped figure suggested, though Reith could not accurately have estimated her age. Her features were wan and dreary, so regular as to be nondescript; her hair, a short black mat, clung to her scalp like a cap of felt.

Reith thought that she seemed anemic and neurasthenic, at once human and non-human, female and sexless.

"Why do you do that?" she asked in a hushed murmur,

"For no particular reason. Curiosity, perhaps."

"It is intimate," she muttered, and put her hands up to her thin cheeks. Reith shrugged, uninterested in her modesty. "I want you to take me to the surface."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

She made no answer.

"Aren't you afraid of me?" Reith asked gently.

"Not as much as the pit."

"The pit is yonder, and convenient."

She gave him a startled glance. "Would you throw me into the pit?"

Reith spoke in what he hoped to be a menacing voice. "I am a fugitive; I intend to reach the surface."

"I don't dare help you." Her voice was soft and matter-of-fact. "The zuzhma kastchai would punish me." She looked at the derrick. "The dark is terrible; we are afraid of the dark. Sometimes the rope is cut and the person is never heard again."

Reith stood baffled. The girl, reading a dire meaning into his silence, said in a meek voice: "Even if I wished to help you, how could I? I know only the way to the Blue Rise pop-out, where I would not be allowed, unless," she added as an afterthought, "I declared myself a Gzhindra. You of course would be taken."

Reith's scheme began to topple around his head. "Then take me to some other exit."

"I know of none. Those are secrets not taught at my level."

"Come over here, under the light," said Reith. "Look at this."

He brought forth the portfolio, opened it and set it before her. "Show me where we are now."

The girl looked. She made a choking sound and began to tremble. "What is this?"

"Something I took from a Pnume."

"These are the Master Charts! My life is done. I will be thrown into the pit!"

"Please don't complicate such a simple matter," said Reith. "Look at the charts, find a route to the surface, take me there. Then do as you like. No one will know the difference."

The girl stared with a wild, unreasoning gaze. Reith gave her thin shoulder a shake. "What's wrong with you?"

Her voice came in a toneless mutter. "I have seen secrets."

Reith was in no mood to commiserate with troubles so abstract and unreal. "Very well; you've seen the charts. The damage is done. Now look again and find a way to the surface!"

A strange expression came over the thin face. Reith wondered if she had gone mad for a fact. Of all the Pnumekin walking the corridors, what wry providence had directed him to an emotionally unstable girl? ... She was looking at him, for the first time directly and searchingly. "You are a ghian."

"I live on the surface, certainly."

"What is it like? Is it terrible?"

"The surface of Tschai? It has its deficiencies."

"I now must be a Gzhindra."

"It's better than living down here in the dark."

The girl said in her dull voice, "I must go to the ghaun."

"The sooner the better," said Reith. "Look at this map again. Show me where we are."

"I can't look!" moaned the girl. "I dare not look!"

"Come now!" snapped Reith. "It's only paper."

"Only paper! It crawls with secrets, Class Twenty secrets. My mind is too small!"

Reith suspected incipient hysteria, although her voice had remained a soft monotone. "To become a Gzhindra you must reach the surface. To reach the surface we must find an exit, the more secret the better. Here we have secret charts. We are in luck."

She became quiet and even glanced from the corner of her eyes toward the portfolio. "How did you get this?"

"I took it from a Pnume." He pushed the portfolio toward her. "Can you read the symbols?"

"I am trained to read." Gingerly she leaned over the portfolio, to jerk instantly back in fear and revulsion.

Reith forced himself to patience. "You have never seen a map before?"

"I have a level of Four; I know Class Four secrets; I have seen Class Four maps.

This is Class Twenty."

"But you can read this map."

"Yes." The word came with sour distaste. "But I dare not. Only a ghian would think to examine such a powerful document ..." Her voice trailed away to a murmur. "Let alone steal it..."

"What will the Pnume do when they find it is gone?"

The girl looked off over the gulf. "Dark, dark, dark. I will fall forever through the dark."

Reith began to grow restive. The girl seemed able to concentrate only on those ideas rising from her own mind. He directed her attention to the map. "What do the colors signify?"

"The levels and stages."

"And these symbols?"

"Doors, portals, secret ways. Touch-plates. Communication stations. Rises, pop-outs, observation posts."

"Show me where we are now."

Reluctantly she focused her eyes. "Not this sheet. Turn back ... Back ... Back

... Here."' She pointed, her finger a cautious two inches from the paper.

"There. The black mark is the pit. The pink line is the ledge."

"Show me the nearest route to the surface."

"That would be-let me look."

Reith managed a distant and reflective smile: once diverted from her woes, which were real enough, Reith admitted, the girl became instantly intense, and even forgot the exposure of her face.

"Blue-Rise pop-out is here. To get there one would go by this lateral, then up this pale orange ramp. But it is a crowded area, with administrative wickets.

You would be taken and I likewise, now that I have seen the secrets."

The question of responsibility and guilt flickered through Reith's mind, but he put it aside. Cataclysm had come to his life; like the plague it had infected her as well. Perhaps similar ideas circulated in her mind.

She darted a quick sidelong glance again. "How did you come in from the ghaun?"

"The Gzhindra let me down in a sack. I cut my way out before the Pnumekin came.

I hope they decide that the Gzhindra lowered an empty sack."

"With one of the Great Charts missing? No person of the Shelters would touch it.

The zuzhma kastchai will never rest until both you and I are dead."

"I become ever more anxious to escape," said Reith.

"I also," remarked the girl with ingenuous simplicity. "I do not wish to fall."

Reith watched her a moment or two, wondering that she appeared to bear him no rancor; it was as if he had come to her as an elemental calamity-a storm, a lightning-bolt, a flood-against which resentment, argument, entreaty would have been equally useless. Already, he thought, a subtle change had come over her attitude; she bent to inspect the chart somewhat less gingerly than before. She pointed to a pale brown Y. "There's the Palisades exit, where trading is done with the ghian. I have never been so far."

"Could we go up at this point?"

"Never. The zuzhma kastchai guard against the Dirdir. There is continual vigilance."

Reith pointed to the other pale brown Y's. "These are other openings to the surface?"

"Yes. But if they believe you to be at large, they will block off here and here and here"-she pointed-"and all these openings are barred, and these in Exa section as well."

"Then we must go somewhere else: to other sectors."

The girl's face twitched. "I know nothing of such places."

"Look at the map."

She did his bidding, running her finger close above the mesh of colored lines, but not yet daring to touch the paper itself. "I see here a secret way, Quality Eighteen. It runs from the passage out yonder to Parallel Twelve, and it shortens the way by a half. Then we might go along any of these adits to the freight docks."

Reith rose to his feet. He pulled the hat over his face. "Do I look like a Pnumekin?"

She gave him a brief unsympathetic inspection. "Your face is strange. Your skin is dark from the ghaun weather. Take some dust and wipe it on your face."

Reith did as he was bid; the girl watched with an expressionless gaze; Reith wondered what went on in her mind. She had declared herself an outcast, a Gzhindra, without overmuch agony of the spirit. Or did she contrive a subtle betrayal? "Betrayal" was perhaps unfair, Reith reflected. She had pledged him no faith, she owed him no loyalty, indeed, something considerably the reverse. So how could he control her after they set forth through the passages? Reith pondered and studied her, while she became increasingly agitated. "Why do you look at me like that?"

Reith held out the blue portfolio to her. "Carry this under your cloak, where it won't be seen."

The girl swayed back aghast. "No."

"You must."

"I don't dare. The zuzhma kastchai-"

"Conceal the charts under your cloak," said Reith in a measured voice. "I'm a desperate man, and I'll stop at nothing to return to the surface."

With limp fingers she took the portfolio. Turning her back, and glancing warily over her shoulder at Reith, she tucked the portfolio out of sight under her cloak. "Come then," she croaked. "If we are taken, it is how life must go. Never in my dreaming did I expect to be a Gzhindra."

She opened the portal and looked out into the round chamber. "The way is clear.

Remember, walk softly, do not lean forward. We must pass through Fer junction, and there will be persons at their affairs. The zuzhma kastchai wander everywhere; if we meet one of these, halt, step into the shadows or face the wall; this is the respectful way. Do not move quickly; do not jerk your arms."

She stepped out into the round room and set off along the passage. Reith followed five or six paces behind, trying to simulate the Pnumekin gait. He had forced the girl to carry the charts; even so, he was at her mercy. She could run screaming to the first Pnumekin they came upon, and hope for mercy from the Pnume ... The situation was unpredictable.

They walked half a mile, up a ramp, down another and into a main adit. At twenty-foot intervals the narrow doorways opened into the rock; beside each was a fluted pedestal with a flat polished upper surface, the function of which Reith could not calculate. The passage widened and they entered Fer Junction, a large hexagonal hall with a dozen polished marble pillars supporting the ceiling. In dim little booths around the periphery sat Pnumekin writing in ledgers, or occasionally holding vague and seemingly indecisive colloquies with other Pnumekin who had come to seek them out.

The girl wandered to the side and halted. Reith stopped as well.

She glanced at him, then looked thoughtfully toward a Pnumekin in the center of the room: a tall haggard man with an unusually alert posture. Reith stepped into the shadow of a pillar and watched the girl. Her face was blank as a plate but Reith knew her to be reviewing the circumstances which had overwhelmed her pale existence, and his life depended on the balance of her fears: the bottomless gulf against the windy brown skies of the surface.

Slowly she moved toward Reith and joined him in the shadow of the pillar. For the moment at least she had made her decision.

"The tall man yonder: he is a Listening Monitor. Notice how he observes all?

Nothing escapes him."

For a period Reith stood watching the Listening Monitor, becoming each minute more disinclined to cross the chamber. He muttered to the girl, "Do you know another route to the freight docks?"

She pondered the matter. Having committed herself to flight, her personality had become somewhat more focused, as if danger had drawn her up out of the dreaming inversion of her former existence.

"I think," she said dubiously, "that another route passes by way of the work halls; but it is a long way and other Listening Monitors are on hand."

"Hmmf." Reith turned to watch the Listening Monitor of Fer Junction.

"Notice," he said presently, "he turns to look this way and that. When his back is toward us, I'll move to the next pillar, and you come after me."

A moment later the Monitor swung around. Reith stepped out into the chamber, sauntered to the nearest of the marble pillars. The girl came slowly after him, still somewhat indecisively, or so it seemed to Reith.

Reith could not now peer around the pillar without the risk of attracting the Monitor's attention. "Tell me when he looks away," he muttered to the girl.

"Now."

Reith gained the next pillar and, using a file of slow-moving Pnumekin as a screen, continued on to the next. Now a single open area remained. The Monitor swung about abruptly, and Reith ducked back behind the pillar: a deadly game of peek-a-boo. From a passage to the side a Pnume entered the chamber, coming softly on forward-padding legs.

The girl hissed under her breath, "The Silent Critic ... take care." she drifted away, head downcast, as if in an abstraction. The Pnume halted, not fifty feet from Reith, who turned his back. Only a few strides remained to the north of the passage. Reith's shoulder blades twitched. He could bear to stand by the pillar no longer. Feeling every eye in the chamber pressing upon him he crossed the open area. With each step he expected a cry of outrage, an alarm. The silence became oppressive; only by great effort could he control the urge to look over his shoulder. He reached the mouth of the passage and turned a cautious glance over his shoulder-to stare full into the eye sockets of the Pnume. With pounding heart Reith turned slowly and proceeded. The girl had gone ahead. He called to her in a soft voice, "Run ahead; find the Class Eighteen passage."

She turned back a startled glance. "The Silent Critic is close at hand. I may not run; if he saw he would think it boisterous conduct."

"Never mind the decorum," said Reith. "Find the opening as fast as possible."

She quickened her step, with Reith coming behind. After fifty yards he risked a glance to the rear. No one followed.

The corridor branched; the girl stopped short. "I think we go to the left, but I am not sure."

"Look at the chart."

With vast distaste, she turned her back and brought the portfolio from under her cloak. She could not bring herself to handle it and gave it to Reith as if it were hot. He turned the pages till she said, "Stop." While she studied the colored lines, Reith kept his gaze to the rear. Far back, where the passage met Fer junction, a dark shape appeared in the opening. Reith, every nerve jerking, willed the girl to haste.

"To the left, then at Mark Two-one-two, a blue tile. Style Twenty-four--I must consult the legend. Here it is: four press points. Three-one-four-two."

"Hurry," Reith said, through gritted teeth.

She turned a startled look back down the passage. "Zuzhma kastchai!"

Reith also looked back, trying to simulate the Pnumekin gait. The Pnume padded slowly forward, but with no particular sense of purpose, or so it seemed to Reith. He moved off along the passage and overtook the girl. As she walked she counted the number marks at the base of the wall: "Seventy-five ... eighty ...

eighty-five ..." Reith looked back. There were now two black shapes in the corridor; from somewhere a second Pnume had appeared. "One hundred ninety-five

... two hundred ... two hundred and five..."

The blue tile, filmed with an antique red-purple luster, was only a foot from the floor. The girl found press-points and touched them; the outline of a door appeared; the door slid open.

The girl began to shake. "It is Quality Eighteen. I should not enter."

"The Silent Critic is following us," said Reith.

She gasped and stepped into the passage. It was narrow and dim and haunted by a faintly rancid odor Reith had come to associate with the Pnume.

The door slid shut. The girl pushed up a shutter and put her eye to the lens of a peephole. "The Silent Critic is coming. It suspects boisterous conduct, and wants to issue a punishment ... No! There are two! He has summoned a Warden!"

She stood rigid, eye pressed to the peephole. Reith waited on tenterhooks. "What are they doing?"

"They look along the corridor. They wonder why we are not in view."

"Let's get moving," said Reith. "We can't stand here waiting.„

"The Warden will know this passage ... If they come in..."

"Never mind that." Reith set out along the passage and the girl came behind him.

A queer sight they made, thought Reith, loping through the dark in the flapping black cloaks and low-crowned hats. The girl quickly became tired and further diminished her speed by looking over her shoulder. She gave a croak of resignation and halted. "They have entered the passage."

Reith looked behind. The door stood ajar. In the gap the two Pnume were silhouetted. For an instant they stood rigid, like queer black dolls, then they jerked into motion. "They see us," said the girl, and stood with her head hanging. "It will be the pit ... Well, then, let us go to meet them in all meekness."

"Stand against the wall," said Reith. "Don't move. They must come to us. There are only two."

"You will be helpless."

Reith made no comment. He picked up a fist-size rock which had fallen from the ceiling and stood waiting.

"You can do nothing," moaned the girl. "Use meekness, placid conduct..."

The Pnume came quickly by forward-kicking steps, the white undershot jaws twitching. Ten feet away they halted, to contemplate the two who stood against the wall. For a half-minute none of the group moved or made a sound. The Silent Critic slowly raised its thin arm, to point with two bony fingers. "Go back."

Reith made no move. The girl stood with eyes glazed and mouth sagging.

The Pnume spoke again, in a husky fluting voice. "Go back."

The girl started to stumble off along the passage; Reith made no motion.

The Pnume watched him nonplussed. They exchanged a sibilant whisper, then the Silent Critic spoke again. "Go."

The Warden said in an almost inaudible murmur, "You are the item which escaped delivery."

The Silent Critic, padding forward, reached forth its arm. Reith hurled the rock with all his strength; it struck full in the creature's bone-white face. A

crunch, and the creature tottered back to the wall, to stand jerking and raising one leg up and down in a most eccentric manner. The Warden, making a throaty gasping sound, bounded forward.

Reith jumped back, snatched off his cloak, and in an insane flourish threw it over the Pnume's head. For a moment the creature seemed not to notice and came forward, arms outspread; then it began to dance and stamp. Reith moved cautiously in and away, looking for an instant of advantage, and the two in their soundless gyrations performed a peculiar and grotesque ballet. While the Silent Critic watched indifferently Reith seized the Warden's arm; it felt like an iron pipe. The other arm swung about; two harsh finger-ends tore across Reith's face. Reith felt nothing. He heaved, swung the Warden into the wall. It rebounded and moved quickly upon Reith. Reith slapped tentatively at the long pale face; it felt cool and hard. The strength of the creature was inhuman; he must evade its grip, which put him in something of a quandary. If he struck the creature with his fists he would only break his hands.

Step by step the Warden padded forward, legs bending forward. Reith threw himself to the ground, kicked out at the creature's feet, to topple it off balance; it fell. Reith jumped up to evade the expected attack of the Silent Critic, but it remained leaning gravely against the wall, viewing the battle with the detachment of a bystander. Reith was puzzled and distracted by its attitude; as a result the Warden seized his ankle with the toes of one foot and with an amazing extension reached the other foot toward Reith's neck. Reith kicked the creature in the crotch; it was like kicking the crotch of a tree; Reith sprained his foot. The toes gripped his neck; Reith seized the leg, twisted, applied leverage. The Pnume was forced around on its face. Reith scrambled down upon its back. Seizing the head, he gave it a sudden terrible jerk backward. A bone or stiff membrane gave elastically, then snapped. The Warden thrashed here and there in wild palpitations. By chance it gained its feet and with its head dangling backward bounded across the tunnel. It struck the Silent Critic, who slumped to the ground. Dead? Reith's eyes bulged. Dead.

Reith leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. Wherever the Pnume had touched him was a bruise. Blood flowed down his face; his elbow was wrenched; his foot was sprained ... but two Pnume lay dead. A little distance away the girl crouched in a shock-induced trance. Reith stumbled forward, touched her shoulder. "I'm alive. You're alive."

"Your face bleeds!"

Reith wiped his face with the hem of his cloak. He went to look down at the corpses. Drawing back his lips, he searched the bodies, but found nothing to interest him.

"I suppose we'd better keep on going," said Reith.

The girl turned and set off down the tunnel. Reith followed. The Pnume corpses remained to lie in the dimness.

The girl's steps began to lag. "Are you tired?" asked Reith.

His solicitude puzzled her; she looked at him warily. "No."

"Well, I am. Let's rest for a while." He lowered himself to the floor, groaning and complaining. After a moment's hesitation she settled herself primly across the passage. Reith studied her with perplexity. She had put the struggle with the Pnume completely out of her mind, or so it seemed. Her shadowed face was composed. Astonishing, thought Reith. Her life had come apart; her future must seem a succession of terrifying question marks; yet here she sat, her face blank as that of a marionette, with no apparent distress.

She spoke softly: "Why do you look at me like that?"

"I was thinking," he said, "that, considering the circumstances, you appear remarkably unconcerned."

She made no immediate reply. There was a heavy silence in the dim passage. Then she said, "I float upon the current of life; how should I question where it carries me? It would be impudent to think of preferences; existence, after all, is a privilege given a very few."

Reith leaned back against the wall. "A very few? How so?"

The girl became uneasy; her white fingers twisted. "How it goes on the ghaun I don't know; perhaps you do things differently. In the Shelters* the mother-women spawn twelve times and no more than half, sometimes less-survive ..." She continued in a voice of didactic reflection: "I have heard that all the women of the ghaun are motherwomen. Is this true? I can't believe it. If each spawned twelve times, and even if six went to the pit, the ghaun would boil with living flesh. It seems unreasonable." She added, as a possibly disconnected afterthought, "I am glad that I will never be a mother-woman."

Again Reith was puzzled. "How can you be sure? You're young yet."

The girl's face twitched with what might have been embarrassment. "Can't you see? Do I look to be a mother-woman?"

"I don't know what your mother-women look like."

"They bulge at the chest and hips. Aren't ghian mothers the same? Some say the Pnume decide who will be mother-women and take them to the creche. There they lie in the dark and spawn."

"Alone?"

"They and the other mothers."

"What of the fathers?"

"No need for fathers. In the Shelters all is secure; protection is not needed."

Reith began to entertain an old suspicion. "On the surface," he said, "affairs go somewhat differently."

She leaned forward, and her face displayed as much animation as Reith had yet noticed. "I have always wondered about life on the ghaun. Who chooses the mother-women? Where do they spawn?"

Reith evaded the question. "It's a complicated situation. In due course I suppose you'll learn something about it, if you live long enough. Meanwhile, I am Adam Reith. What is your name?"

"'Name'? I am a female."

"Yes, but what is your personal name?"

The girl considered. "On the invoices persons are listed by group, area and zone. My group is Zith, of Athan Area, in the Pagaz Zone; my ranking is 210."

"Zith Athan Pagaz, 210. Zap 210. It's not much of a name. Still, it suits you."

At Reith's jocularity the girl looked blank. "Tell me how the Gzhindra live."

"I saw them standing out on the wastelands. They pumped narcotic gas into the room where I slept. I woke up in a sack. They lowered me into a shaft. That's all I know of the Gzhindra. There must be better ways to live."

Zap 210, as Reith now thought of her, evinced disapproval. "They are persons, after all, and not wild things."

Reith had no comment to make. Her innocence was so vast that any information whatever could only cause her shock and confusion. "You'll find many kinds of people on the surface."

"It is very strange," the girl said in a vague soft voice. "Suddenly all is changed." She sat looking off into the darkness. "The others will wonder where I have gone. Someone will do my work."

"What was your work?"

"I instructed children in decorum."

"What of your spare time?"

"I grew crystals in the new East Fourth Range."

"Do you talk with your friends?"

"Sometimes, in the dormitory."

"Do you have friends among the men?"

Under the shadow of the hat the black eyebrows rose in displeasure. "It's boisterous to talk to men."

"Sitting here with me is boisterous?"

She said nothing. The idea probably had not yet occurred to her, thought Reith; now she considered herself a fallen woman. "On the surface," he said, "life goes differently, and sometimes becomes very boisterous indeed. Assuming that we survive to reach the surface."

He brought out the blue portfolio. As if by reflex Zap 210 drew herself back.

Reith paid no heed. Squinting through the dim light he studied the tangle of colored lines. He put his finger down, somewhat tentatively. "Here, it seems to me, is where we are now." No response from Zap 210. Reith, aching, nervous and exhausted, started to reprimand her for disinterest, then caught his tongue. She was not here of her own volition, he reminded himself; she deserved neither reprimands nor resentment; by his actions he had made himself responsible for her. Reith gave a grunt of annoyance. He drew a deep breath and said in his most polite voice, "If I recall correctly, this passage leads over here" he pointed-"and comes out into this pink avenue. Am I right?"

Zap 210 looked down askance. "Yes. This is a most secret way. Notice, it connects Athan with Zaltra; otherwise one must go far around, by way of Fei'erj Node." Grudgingly she came closer and brought her finger to within inches of the vellum. "This gray mark is where we want to go: to the freight-dock, at the end of the supply arterial. By Fei'erj it would be impossible, since the route leads through the dormitories and the metalspinning areas."

Reith looked wistfully at the little red circles which marked the popouts. "They seem so close, so easy."

"They will certainly be guarded."

"What is this long black line?"

"That is the freight canal, and is the best route away from Pagaz Zone."

"And this bright green spot?"

She peered and drew a quick breath. "It is the way to Foreverness: a Class Twenty secret!" She sat back and huddled her chin into her knees. Reith returned to the charts. He felt her gaze and looked up to find her studying him intently.

She licked her colorless mouth. "Why are you such an important item?"

"I don't know why I'm an 'item' at all." Though this was not precisely true.

"They want you for Foreverness. Are you of some strange race?"

"In a way," said Reith. He heaved himself painfully to his feet. "Are you ready?

We might as well be going."

She rose without comment and they set off along the dim passage. They walked a mile and came to a white wall with a black iron door at the center. Zap 210 put her eye to the peep-lens. "A dray is passing ... persons are near." She looked back at Reith. "Hold your head down," she said in a critical voice. "Pull the hat lower. Walk quietly, with your feet pointed straight." She turned back to the peephole. Her hand went to the door-catch. She pressed, and the door opened.

"Quick, before we are seen."

Blinking and furtive, they entered a wide arched passage. The pegmatite walls were studded with enormous tourmalines which, excited to fluorescence by some means unknown, glowed pink and blue.

Zap 210 set off along the passage; Reith followed at a discreet distance. Fifty yards ahead a low dray loaded with sacks rolled on heavy black wheels. From somewhere behind them came the sound of hammers tapping at metal and a scraping noise, the source of which Reith never learned.

For ten minutes they plodded along the corridor. On four occasions Pnumekin passed, shadowed faces averted, thoughts exploring areas beyond Reith's imagination.

The polished pegmatite altered abruptly to black hornblende, polished back from veins of white quartz which seemed to grow like veins over the black matrix, the end-product of unknown centuries of toil. Far ahead, the passage dwindled to a minute black half-oval, which by insensible degrees grew larger. Beyond was black vacancy.

The aperture expanded and surrounded them; they came out on a ledge overlooking a void as black and empty as space. Fifty yards to the right a barge, moored against the dock, seemed to float in midair; Reith perceived the black void to be the surface of a subterranean lake.

A half dozen Pnumekin worked listlessly upon the dock, loading the barge with bales.

Zap 210 sidled into a pocket of shadow. Reith joined her, standing somewhat too close for her liking; she moved a few fastidious inches away. "What now?" asked Reith.

"Follow me aboard the barge. Say no word to anyone."

"No one objects? They won't put us off?"

The girl gave him a blank look. "Persons ride the barges. This is how they see the far tunnels."

"Ah," said Reith, "wanderlust among the Pnumekin; they go to look at a tunnel."

The girl gave him another blank look.

Reith asked, "Have you ever traveled on a barge before?"

"No."

"How do you know where this barge goes?"

"It goes north, to the Areas; it can go nowhere else." She peered through the gloom. "Follow me, and walk with decorum."

She set off along the dock, eyes downcast, moving as if in a reverie. Reith waited a moment, then went after her.

She paused beside the barge, looked vacantly across the black void; then, as if absentmindedly, she stepped across to the barge. She walked to the outboard side and merged with the shadow of the bales.

Reith imitated her demeanor. The Pnumekin on the dock, immersed in their private thoughts, paid him no heed. Reith stepped aboard the barge and then could not control the acceleration of his pace as he slipped into the shade of the cargo.

Zap 210, tense as wire, peered at the dock-workers. Gradually she relaxed. "They are disconsolate; otherwise they would have noticed. Do the ghian always lurch and lope when they move about?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," said Reith. "But no harm done. Next time-" He stopped short. At the far end of the dock stood a dark shape. It stirred, came slowly toward the barge, and entered the zone of illumination. "Pnume," whispered Reith. Zap 210 stood soundless.

The creature padded forward, oblivious to the dock-workers, who never so much as glanced aside. It stepped softly along the dock, and halted near the barge.

"It saw us," whispered the girl.

Reith stood heavy-hearted, bruises aching, legs and arms nerveless and dull. He could not survive another fight. In a husky whisper he asked, "Can you swim?"

A horrified gasp and a glance across the black void. "No!"

Reith searched for a weapon: a club, a hook, a rope; he found nothing.

The Pnume passed beyond the range of vision. A moment later they felt the barge tremble under its weight.

"Take off your cloak," said Reith. He slipped out of his own and, wrapping up the portfolio, shoved both into a crevice of the cargo. Zap 210 stood motionless.

"Take off your cloak!"

She began to whimper. Reith clapped his hand over her mouth. "Quiet!" He pulled the neck laces and, touching her fragile chin, found it trembling. He jerked off her cloak, put it with his own. She stood half-crouching in a knee-length shift.

Reith, for all the urgency of the moment, resisted an insane desire to laugh at the thin adolescent figure under the black hat. "Listen," he said hoarsely. "I can tell you only once. I am going over the side. You must follow immediately.

Put your hands on my shoulders. Hold your head from the water. Above all, do not splash or flounder. You will be safe."

Not waiting for her acknowledgment, he lowered himself over the side of the barge. The frigid water rose up his body like a ring of icy fire. Zap 210 hesitated only for an instant, then went over the side, probably only because she feared the Pnume more than the wet void. She gasped when her legs hit the water. "Quiet!" hissed Reith. Her hands went to his shoulders; she lowered herself into the water, and in a panic threw her arms around his neck. "Easy!" whispered Reith. "Keep your face down." He drifted in under the gunwale, and gripped a bracket. Unless someone or something peered over the side of the barge, they were virtually invisible.

A half-minute passed. Reith's legs began to grow numb. Zap 210 clung to his back, chin at his ear; he could hear her teeth chattering. Her thin body pressed against him, trapping warm pockets of water which pulsed away when one or the other moved. Once, as a boy, Reith had rescued a drowning cat; like Zap 210 it had clung to him with desperate urgency, arousing in Reith a peculiarly intense pang of protectiveness. The bodies, both frightened and wet, projected the same elemental craving for life ... Silence, darkness, cold. The two in the water listened ... Along the deck of the barge came a quiet sound: the click of horny toes. It stopped, cautiously started, then stopped once more, directly overhead.

Looking up, Reith saw toes gripping the edge of the gunwale. He took one of Zap

210's hands, guided it to the bracket, then the other. Once free, he turned to face outward from the barge.

Unctuous ripples moved away from him; lenses of quince-colored light formed and vanished.

The toes over Reith's head clicked on the gunwale. They shifted their position.

Reith, lips drawn away from his teeth in a ghastly grimace, lunged up with his right arm. He caught a thin hard ankle, pulled. The Pnume croaked in dismal consternation. It teetered forward and for a moment leaned at an incredible angle, almost horizontal, supported only by the grip of its toes. Then it fell into the water.

Zap 210 clutched at Reith. "Don't let it touch you; it will pull you apart."

"Can it swim?"

"No," she said through chattering teeth. "It is heavy; it will sink."

Reith said, "Climb up on my back, take hold of the gunwale, pull yourself aboard the barge."

Gingerly she swung behind him. Her feet pushed against his back; she stood on his shoulder, then clambered aboard the barge. Reith laboriously heaved himself up after her to lie on the deck, totally spent.

Presently he gained his feet, to peer toward the dock. The Pnumekin worked as before.

Reith moved back into the shadows. Zap 210 had not moved. The shift clung to her underdeveloped body. She was not ungraceful, reflected Reith.

She noticed his attention and huddled back against the cargo.

"Take off your undergown and put on your cloak," Reith suggested. "You'll be warmer."

She stared at him miserably. Reith pulled off his own sodden garments. In horror almost as intense as she had shown toward the Pnume, she jerked herself around.

Reith found the energy for a sour grin. With her back turned she draped the cloak over her shoulders and by some means unknown divested herself of her undergarments.

The barge vibrated, lurched. Reith looked past the cargo to see the dock receding. It became an oasis of light in the heavy blackness. Far ahead showed a wan blue glimmer toward which the barge silently moved.

They were underway. Behind lay Pagaz Zone and the way to Foreverness. Ahead was darkness and the Northern Areas.