The World and Thorinn

8 How Thorinn was made captive by a flying engine that carried him deeper into the Underworld.

When he opened one of the bundles he had taken from the demons' house, he discovered that it contained lumps of dried meat, tough and nourishing. He ate his fill, drank water from the jug, then wrapped the meat again and put it away. Next he set the magic box upright on the floor and looked at it in silence awhile.

"Box," he said at last.

"I am here."

"Well, what have you got to say for yourself?"

"I have nothing to say for myself."

"Then why did you betray me?"

"What does betray mean?"

"Why did you tell them to use the sword on me, instead of—" Indignation choked him.

"I did not tell them to use the sword on you."

"Don't lie!"

"What does lie mean?"

"Not to tell the truth. Not to say what really happened."

"I tell only the truth."

"What a lie! Didn't you tell them the sword was better than a stick to cut with?"

"Yes."

"And didn't you know they would use it on me?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, why did you do it?"

"Because they asked."

Thorinn sat back on his heels, confused and angry. "If it happened again, would you do the same thing?"

"Yes."

"Tell them about the sword, and let them kill me with it?"

"Yes."

"Well then, don't you see, I can't have you with me any more, it wouldn't be safe." Thorinn stood up.

"It would be safe."

"How's that?"

"If you told me not to tell them the sword is better than a stick to cut with." Thorinn squatted again, staring at the box. "You mean if I told you not to, you wouldn't?"

"Yes, I mean I wouldn't."

"Well—Suppose I tell you now never to do anything or say anything that will be bad for me. Does that mean you never will?"

"I never will."

"All right then," said Thorinn, "but I don't understand you. I don't care if you're a spirit or an engine, why should I have to tell you a thing like that?"

"An engine can only do as it is told," said the box.

"Do as I tell you, then," said Thorinn. After a moment he gathered his bundles together, slung them over his shoulder, box and all, and set off down the passage.

After a time the dark eye at the end of the tunnel suddenly blinked light, and Thorinn knew they had come to a shaft. Here he paused, for if the shaft went both up and down, he would have no choice but to go down it.

"Box, does that shaft go both ways?"

"Yes."

"Is there another shaft near here that only goes up?"

"What is near here?"

"Oh—within ten thousand ells?"

"No."

While he mulled this over, Thorinn set down his burdens, opened one of the meat packages and began to eat. Presently he said, "Box."

"Yes."

"You said that an engine can only do what it's told."

"Yes."

"But doesn't that mean that if I tell you to do one thing, and then later somebody else tells you just the opposite, you'd have to do what they told you and not me?"

"Not if you had told me not to obey them."

"Then if somebody asked you to tell them how to kill me, you wouldn't?"

"No, because you have told me not to do anything that would harm you."

"Are you sorry you did it before?"

"What does sorry mean?"

Thorinn tried to explain this, without much success, for the box did not know the meaning of "wish," and he had to explain that, and then "feeling," which the box could not seem to grasp at all. Finally it said, "Is being sorry wanting a thing to be different even though it has already happened?"

"Yes, I suppose so. Well, are you sorry?"

"No, because that would be senseless."

"How, senseless?"

"A thing that has already happened can't be made different. Therefore to want to make it different is senseless."

Thorinn was not content with this, and they argued the point a little longer, but neither could convince the other; the box would admit only that human beings could think in a way which was senseless if it pleased them, but that boxes could not.

"If I told you to think in what you call a senseless way, could you do it?"

"Yes, but then my thinking would not be good, and that would be bad for you."

"What about my thinking? Do you mean you think better than I do?"

"Yes."

Thorinn absorbed this in silence. "Box," he said presently, "you told me there were people at the bottom of the Underworld. Did you mean they are people like me, or gods and demons?"

"What are gods and demons?"

"Gods are—they are like men sometimes but they can take other shapes and you can't kill them. And demons the same but not as powerful."

"There are some people like you and some gods and demons at the bottom of the Underworld."

"Suppose I went there—could I steal some of their magic?"

"What is it to steal?"

"To take something that belongs to someone else."

"You could steal some things, and they would give you some things." Thorinn was silent awhile. "The engines you talked about—would they take me there and not harm me?"

"Yes, Thorinn."

"And then would they take me back to the Midworld?"

"Yes, Thorinn."

"Could one of them come here?"

"Yes, if you call it." The crystal lighted, and Thorinn saw a tiny picture of himself bending over one of the rings in the tunnel, pressing it down. The ring sank into the floor. The box went dark.

"If I do that, the engine will come?"

"Yes."

"But why didn't you ever say so before?"

"You didn't ask."

Thorinn opened his mouth and shut it again. After a moment he said carefully, "If you had told me about the engine before, it would have helped me. Therefore by not telling you harmed me, do you see?"

"Yes, Thorinn."

"Well, then, after this you are not to harm me in that way any more. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Thorinn."

He was about to turn away when the crystal lighted; in it he saw a drop of water hanging from the end of a tube. It dropped, and yet remained in the middle of the crystal, and then grew larger as if he were moving closer to it. "In a drop of water there are many invisible things," said the box. The drop had swelled now to fill the crystal, and Thorinn saw that there were tiny swimmers in it, some with many legs, some with none, but all transparent as ice. "These creatures are too small to be seen with the eye; yet inside them are other things smaller still." In the crystal, one of the swimming things had grown huge, and inside it Thorinn could see a pulsing swarm of other creatures. He was interested, but after a few moments he began to grow impatient. The box went on showing him smaller and smaller things, until it got to a cluster of lights turning slowly against a dark background.

"Box, why are you showing me all this?"

"Because it is harmful to you not to know it." In the crystal, one of the lights had grown big, and now it separated into a central light and an outer shell. "All things are made up of these small pieces," said the box.

"That may be," said Thorinn, "but I don't see what it has to do with making the engine come."

"It has nothing to do with it, except that the engine also is made of these small pieces."

"All right then, tell me later." Thorinn retreated to the nearest light-ring. "Now, if I press down on this, the engine will come?"

"Yes."

"And it will not harm me?"

"No."

Thorinn took a long breath. There was something about this that he liked very little. Nevertheless he leaned, put his hand flat on the edge of the ring and pressed tentatively downward. Nothing happened. He pushed harder, but succeeded only in pressing himself away from the ring. At length, leaning both hands on the ring and throwing his weight forward, he felt the metal give. The whole ring, or at any rate the part of it he could see, sank into the floor of the tunnel, then slowly rose again. His weight was so little that he could not hold it down.

"Thorinn, I must ask you a question."

"Yes?"

"What is good for a man?"

"Why—I don't know, not being hurt or killed, I suppose, and not being sick, and having enough to eat. And living a long time, and having adventures, and becoming rich."

"What is having adventures?"

"Oh, meeting dangers and overcoming them."

"But in meeting dangers it is possible to be hurt or killed, and to be sick, and not to have enough to eat. And if a man is killed when he is young, then he cannot live a long time and may not become rich."

"That may be so, but a man must live like a man, or what's the point?"

"I don't know, Thorinn."

They waited until Thorinn's muscles began to grow stiff. He was beginning to realize again that he was hungry and thirsty. He unwrapped his pack and ate. When he had finished and drunk from the jug, he stood up and looked both ways along the tunnel. "The engine is not coming," he said.

"Shall I tell you more about the small pieces that all things are made from?" asked the box.

"No. You were wrong about the engine," said Thorinn with some satisfaction, and he picked up the box and slung it over his shoulder. Now he had to decide which way to go. The more he thought about it, the less he liked the idea of faring to the bottom of the Underworld. It would take him long enough as it was to get back to the Midworld, even if he could manage to go upward in spite of the geas. His best hope, it seemed to him, was to find some passage that went slanting up and down, always more up than down; the geas had never prevented him from using such passages.

He turned away from the shaft intersection and began loping down the tunnel. What if there were no shaft within ten thousand ells that led up and not down? Somewhere there must be one, and eventually he would find it.

Presently he thought he saw a flicker of light in the center of the eye of darkness at the end of the tunnel. He stopped to look at it, and in a moment he was sure: the winking dot was just perceptibly larger, brighter. The box said abruptly, "The engine is coming."

"I see it," said Thorinn, setting down his burdens. The dot swelled to a tiny circle. In the circle was a shape he could not quite make out. It did not look like one of the smooth eggs the box had shown him; it was angular, spiny. The flickering of the light rings became visible as the thing swelled nearer.

"It is the wrong kind of engine," said the box suddenly. "It may be bad for you, Thorinn." Thorinn stared wildly around. The shaft intersection was too far away; there was no place to run. Carrying his bundles, he ran up the smooth curve of the tunnel, leaped, clung to the side of the nearest light-ring. His bundles and the talking box hindered him, and he pushed them out of the way, but not before he saw a vast shape come drifting up the tunnel with dust fountaining under it. It had clusters of lights, great blank eyes, half-folded hands with pincers at the ends of them. He flattened himself to the wall behind the ring. The great shape darted past him in a cloud of dust. A few hundred ells beyond, it slowed and settled to the floor. All its eyes seemed to be in front. Thorinn cautiously slid himself over the top of the ring, pulled his bundles after, and flattened himself to the wall as before.

There were faint sounds and movements beyond, sighing of air, clicks, then a grating noise. Thorinn guessed that the thing was looking about to see what had pressed the ring down. Silence. Thorinn held his breath, listening. A gray shape loomed over the ring, then a light, and another, and another. Thorinn sprang up in alarm. He got his good leg under him, kicked as the gray pincers taller than himself came forward. The thing tilted away from him, and he saw that it was a hollow structure of metal tubes, open above but with a complexity of solid parts below, the arms, pincers, lights, and eyes all attached to a sort of shield. The pincers loomed toward him.

When he awoke, he was in a moving place and his head hurt. He felt confused and tired, and it was easier to lie where he was, on a narrow bed, than to get up and worry about it. Beyond a large square-cornered window, the tunnel wall streamed past swiftly and smoothly; the room swayed a little. He closed his eyes.

Presently he felt better and sat up, but then he was dizzy and he sat cross-legged on the bed with his head in his hands. The bed was a narrow pallet on the floor. The smooth, rapid motion of the room continued.

He raised his head and looked around. At the back of the room there was a dark green basin with water trickling into it. His pallet was along one side, with another window over it which he had not noticed before. On the gray floor lay his bundles, the talking box, and his sword. Light came from a square of crystal in the ceiling. There were two round crystals in the front wall, also, but they were dark. He lurched to the basin, knelt, and drank until he could hold no more, then splashed a little water on his face. Beside the basin was a round hole in the floor. There was an odd smell in the room, like the stale of wild animals. Still feeling dizzy, he went back to the cot and sat down.

"Box," he said. "What happened?"

"The engine made you sleep and took you."

" 'Took me.' What do you mean? Took me captive, I suppose."

"Yes, took you captive. Then that engine took you to a place where it met this engine, and put you in it, still sleeping."

Thorinn considered all this, fuzzily. He felt that he should be frightened, but he was not, only interested.

"Where is it taking me?" he asked.

"I don't know."

Thorinn shut his eyes and thought. He remembered the engine coming at him with its pincers wide, lights and eyes blazing—then nothing; try as he would, he could not remember the rest. "How did it put me to sleep?"

"It made a kind of air that puts men to sleep when they breathe it." The box began showing him a picture of the engine, and then of smaller and smaller parts of it, but Thorinn said, "Later." With an effort, he leaned over to pick up the sword in its scabbard and tried to put it through his belt; but that was too much trouble, and he laid it on the pallet. Beyond the window, the light-rings of the tunnel flashed by. If he followed one with his eyes for an instant, he could see it before it disappeared, but otherwise they all blurred together. Yet there was no wind. With another effort, he turned and put his hand to the window over his cot. It was filled with a sheet of crystal so clear that he could not see it. "Box," he said, "you've been the death of me."

The box was silent.

"Why did you tell me the engine would take me safely to the bottom?"

"When I was made, that was true."

Thorinn turned this over in his mind and could make nothing of it. "Why isn't it true now, then?"

"I don't know."

"Then what use are you?"

"I can turn one talk into another talk. I can answer questions about things that are not different since I was made. I can show pictures. I can—"

"Enough," said Thorinn. "Leave me alone now, can't you?"

"Yes, Thorinn." The box fell silent.

Thorinn got up and eased himself above the round hole in the floor, and drank more water, and lay down again. Presently he slept. When he awoke, he was hungry and his wounds throbbed. He ate some of the meat from his bundles and drank from the basin. He tried a little of the fruit he had brought, but it was rotting and he threw it down the hole. He felt anxious and tight; whatever it was that had made him sleepy before seemed to have worn off. He noticed a thin crack in the wall, outlining an upright oblong beside the window across the room, and realized for the first time that it must be a door. Above it was a curious set of complicated shapes nested into one another; after staring at this for some time with growing uneasiness, Thorinn realized that it resembled nothing so much as a pair of metal arms and pincers, like those of the engine that had captured him. A little later he noticed a second, smaller pair down at the other end of the room. Unfolded, by the look of them, the two sets of metal arms would be able to reach into any part of the room. There was nothing to hide behind—nothing moveable in the room, except his own belongings and the thin pallet, which was too flimsy to be of any use. Thorinn crossed the room and tried to wedge the point of his sword into the crack around the door, then into the space between two pieces of one of the metal arms, but without success. He returned to the cot.

"Box, how long have we been traveling?"

"We have been traveling for half a day and the sixth part of a day." Thorinn tried to puzzle this out and gave up. "How far have we come?"

"We have come two thousands of thousands of ells and eight hundreds of thousands of ells." Thorinn whistled. "How much farther are we going, then?"

"I don't know."

"What do you know?"

"I know this animal and this, and this plant"—pictures appeared in the crystal as it spoke—"and this, and this, and this engine"—a tangle of metal rods—"and this plant, and—"

"Peace," said Thorinn wearily. "When I ask you a question like that, don't answer." The box fell silent. Presently Thorinn felt something pulling him forward, and the light-rings began to move more slowly past the windows. The rings widened and receded, and he had just time to realize that they had come to a junction where the tunnel met a shaft, when there was a lurch and the rings tilted in a dizzying fashion. Thorinn sat down abruptly, feeling heavier than he had since he had left the Midworld, then heavier still. When he was able to lift his head again, the light-rings outside were flickering downward past the window. After a minute or so, he felt himself growing lighter again, but the wall of the shaft remained blurred. He became as light as he had been before, then even lighter. He felt himself drifting away from the floor, and clutched vainly for something to hold onto. The box and his other belongings were floating into the air, as if they were all falling together—but the evidence of his eyes told him the engine was rising.

"Box," he cried, "what's happening?"

"We have stopped moving faster. The engine and everything in it are falling with the same quickness, therefore there is nothing to hold them together."

The room was slowly drifting around Thorinn in a lopsided circle, while the box and his bundles pursued different directions. Thorinn reached for one of the bundles as it floated by and caught it by the cord, but when he pulled, all that happened was that the bundle came to him, bounced off his chest, and began drifting lazily away again, while the room took on a different rotation.

"Box, I don't understand," said Thorinn. "How can we be falling up?"

"We are not falling up, we are falling down."

With a retort on his lips, Thorinn glanced out the window and saw that it was true—the light-rings of the shaft were blurring upward, while the room and all in it, upside down, fell toward the bottom of the Underworld. He made a wild grab at the bundle, which struck him a light blow on the forehead. When he looked again, the shaft wall had soundlessly reversed itself and was flowing downward. He shut his eyes in helpless misery. When he opened them, nothing had changed except that the box had drifted closer and the bundles farther away. "Box," he said.

"Yes, Thorinn."

"What will happen when we hit the bottom?"

"We will not hit the bottom."

"Why not?"

"We will slow down and go into one of the tunnels."

And afterward? The metal arms would unfold, the pincers would seize him... The two crystals in the front wall, Thorinn realized suddenly, must be the eyes of the engine. If he could blind it somehow, then get the door open... He thought of smearing the eyes with rotten fruit, and wished he had not thrown it down the hole. He could break the eyes perhaps, with his sword, if he could get near enough. The bundle he had had before had drifted out of reach. He closed his eyes again. At length he roused—something was happening. The floor, which had somehow swung under him, drifted nearer. He touched, got his balance, stood erect. The box and the bundles lay on the floor nearby.

"Have we stopped?" Thorinn asked, but in the next moment he saw it was not so: the light-rings in the shaft outside were flickering past as swiftly as before.

"No," said the box.

"Then why do we have weight again?"

"Because the engine is no longer moving as the earth pulls it—it is moving at one speed and no faster, although the earth pulls it to move faster."

"And that makes us have weight?"

"It makes us have the feeling of weight."

"Weight is weight," said Thorinn after a moment.

"No, because when you put some small thing on your open hand and then turn, swinging your arm very fast—" the crystal lighted as it spoke, and there was a very small Thorinn whirling with his arm extended—"the thing presses against your hand and does not fall. That is not weight, but it is the feeling of weight."

Thorinn, to his surprise, began to feel that he understood this. He talked idly with the box awhile longer, then lay down on the pallet with his hands under his head. He must have slept, for when he opened his eyes he sensed a change. He stood up. The light-rings of the shaft outside were moving more and more slowly, another proof that the box was right. There was a lurch, the shaft wall swung toward them, and Thorinn sat down involuntarily on the floor, while the box and his bundles slid toward the back of the room. Thorinn got his sword as it went by and waited for the pull to stop. When it did, a few minutes later, he was caught off guard but scrambled upright anyway.

He would have to strike quickly twice, and break both the eyes of the engine. He leaped, and remembered nothing more.