A World Out of Time Part 24

Corbell pelted after him. The lion seemed taken aback... but he decided. He charged Gording. Somehow Gording danced aside. The lion turned, broadside to Corbell. Corbell threw all his weight behind the spear, leaned leaned into it as it punched into the lion behind the ribs. The lion screamed, turned and slashed, and missed, because one of its forelegs was unaccountably missing. Gording did his trick again and both the lion's forelegs were gone. into it as it punched into the lion behind the ribs. The lion screamed, turned and slashed, and missed, because one of its forelegs was unaccountably missing. Gording did his trick again and both the lion's forelegs were gone.

"Now run!" Gording cried.

They ran toward Sarash-Zillish. In the clear air they could see the bluish line where trees began. "Male lion... drives the prey .

toward the female," Gording panted.

Corbell looked back and saw something wheat-colored bounding through the tall wheat. A glance at the old man made him say, "You'll wear yourself... out. We'll have... to fight."

They stopped, blowing.

The female's caution gave them time to breathe. She stalked out of the wheat to find them facing her like statues of athletes, eight feet apart. She roared. They didn't flinch. She thought it over. She roared again. Corbell stood poised, confident, happy.

The female departed. Twice she looked back, thought it over, and kept going.

Corbell walked now with a silly smile plastered across his face. He couldn't help it. Everytime he let his face relax it came back. Any normal pair of men would have been bragging unmercifully; but Gording clearly considered the incident closed. He didn't even show relief at Corbel's competence... which was flattering, in a way.

Finally Corbell said, "Real lions would have torn us up. Why are there so many small versions of big animals?"

"Are there?"

"Yeah. Lions, elephants, buffalo. There must have been about ten thousand Jupiter years of famine here, before the soil turned fertile. The big animals must have starved faster. Or maybe they died of heat prostration: too much volume, not enough surface."

"I believe you. I look at you and I see a different kind of dikt. We have had time to adapt to reddened sunlight and long days and long nights. Animals and plants and dikta... and Boys adapted through the dikta. If Ura.n.u.s widens the world's path now, it will all be lost."

"I know."

"Are you ready to face Mirelly-Lyra?"

"Yeah." Corbell s.h.i.+vered, though the morning was not especially cool. It would get cooler. Corbell tried to visualize six years of night- and saw Mirelly-Lyra stalking him in the dark. He said, "It'd be nice if we could find dikta immortality before we meet her. She'd do d.a.m.n near anything for that."

"If we ever find it, my turn comes first."

Corbell laughed. "There's bound to be enough of it. Otherwise it would have been... guarded."

"Why did you pause?"

"Guarded. The hospital vault in Sarash-Zillish wasn't guarded. Were the Boys that sure a dilct couldn't get to it? It looked just like the other vault except for the guard systems, the vault door and the one-way prilatsil and the armored gla.s.s cubicles in the roof."

"What of it? What if one dikt or three found dikta immortality? The guarded chamber in Four City was protected from dikta by dikta who owned it, or so you a.s.sumed."

"I was wrong. Four City was old, but not like Parhalding. More like Sarash-Zillish. I think the Boys built Four City."

The trees were closer now. Fruit trees. Corbell was hungry. He shrugged that off. He had the tail end of something... something...

Ashes of a dying fire. Most of it comes out in the feces and urine but not all of that; urea can build up in the joints and cause gout. Cholesterol can build up in the veins and arteries. But even when all these are washed away... there are still the inert molecules that acc.u.mulate in the cell itself.

Picture the miracle that can remove those. Now tell me what it looks like.

"There was nothing to guard!"

"I don't under-"

"There was nothing to guard in Sarash-Zillish. I had it turned around. Heeeyaa! I've got it! I've got it! Dikta immortality! Dikta immortality!"

Gording backed away a bit. "You had it once before. What fierce beast is to bite me this time?"

"I don't have to say. I made a fool of myself once. Not this time. Come on." The trees were close and Corbell was hungry.

IV.

Corbell walked alone through the streets of Sarash-Zillish. His face itched. His scalp itched. His chest itched. He was trying to ignore an acid stomach.

How did loners walk? He'd seen only one loner close enough to tell. That one had been certain of welcome; his walk had been springy and confident, Boyish. Corbell tried to keep his walk springy and confident.

The windows of Sarash-Zillish were dark. The streets were empty and silent. This whole charade could turn out to be unnecessary, itches and all...

They had filled their bellies with fruit in the forest outside Sarash-Zillish. There Corbell had used the head of the broken spear to shave his face and his chest and four inches of his scalp around a topknot. Gording had cut away his long white hair. Gording had shaved too, for all the good that would do; there were white-haired albino Boys, but they didn't move like their joints hurt.

Laughing, joking Boys spilled out of a probable department store. Corbell turned a corner to avoid them, just like a loner would, maybe. At a distance he should pa.s.s as a loner. Close up, no chance. Dikta immortality be d.a.m.ned, he was no twelve-year-old. He wished Gording were beside him; but that would would have torn it. Two was just the wrong number to pa.s.s. have torn it. Two was just the wrong number to pa.s.s.

The brush clogging the street thickened. Corbell waded into it. Here were tangled vines rising almost vertically to a wall. Corbell turned along its length.

The wall, he found, had a gentle curve to it. Probably it formed a circle or an ellipse. Here there was a break, and near the break the shrubbery thickened and grew taller, as if the park spilled out through the opening. Corbell pa.s.sed it and kept going. There were park sounds: tree limbs rustling in the breeze, small birds whistling, a sudden loud squawk followed by (Corbell jumped) a burst of laughter. Boys! Boys on the other side of the wall. And the wall opened ahead of him.

Beyond the opening, a twelve-foot Christmas ornament floated above knee-deep vines.

Corbell thought it through. Then, within sight of the car, he began searching for a straight sapling. Most of the bushes were of the wrong kind, but he found one that would do, even if it was a bit short. He hacked at the base with the truncated spear until he could break it loose. He sat down cross-legged...

What was keeping Gording?

Gording was well behind him, tracking him. If anyone noticed, two loners happened to be moving in the same direction, their target a reasonable one: the park.

Squatting cross-legged, Corbell disengaged the spearhead from the broken haft and used it to shave the sapling. He barely glanced up as Boys came wading through the tangle in what had been a park gate: two, five, ten Boys with a giant turkey carca.s.s slung on poles. Where were they going with that? A kitchen in a nearby building? Effete, that was. He heard a louder voice followed by a pause, and, judging that he had been hailed, he glanced up, held a grinning Boy's eye for a moment, then deliberately went back to his work. Couldn't they see he was alone? A loner would d.a.m.n well make the first overtures, as and when he felt like it, maybe. maybe.

The new halt was shaping nicely. He tried the end against the spearhead. A bit too big. He'd shave it down a little and carve a notch and wedge it in. The rus.h.i.+ng of the Boys diminished, moving across the street, but two quiet, puzzled voices were speaking too near him. He glanced up under lowered brows.

They were near, and looking at him as they talked. The car was- Gording was crouched behind the car! Gording was crouched behind the car!

How had he gotten there? Corbell hadn't heard a sound. He must have spotted the car, gone over the wall, circled inside the park and gone over the wall again. Now he crouched, immobile, but looking guilty as h.e.l.l if anyone should see him.

The tall Boy with hair like a black puffball hailed Corbell again. "Perfunctory apologies because we interrupt. May we examine your work?"

Corbell unfolded his legs and slowly stood up, then sprinted for the car.

The door was open as he had left it. By that much did the Boys fail to intercept him. Gording was ahead of him, sliding in the other door. Corbell slammed his door and clung to the handle, leaning back to hold it shut, while Gording jabbed at the keyboard.

The black-haired Boy ran alongside, pulling at the door, for longer than Corbell would have believed possible. Finally he dropped away.

"You said four of anything," said Gording. "I pushed that." Crossed commas.

"I don't know where that takes us. Let's see if we can change it." He jabbed four times at the crooked pi. "I don't even know if there is is a subway terminal here. There's no giant cube. Everywhere else it was a giant cube." a subway terminal here. There's no giant cube. Everywhere else it was a giant cube."

"Rest. If we don't find the subway we still have a tchiple. Dial at random."

"I lost my spear."

"I still have the thread."

"That's not what I meant. I thought I was repairing it right. right. But the way those Boys acted, I must have messed it up somehow. Skip it." But the way those Boys acted, I must have messed it up somehow. Skip it."

On their crooked run through the city they saw only one other Boy. On the wreck of a skysc.r.a.per near the city's center, a lean and ragged loner was mountain-climbing three stories up. As the tchiple zipped beneath him his sunken eyes locked on Corbel's and held them until the tchiple turned a corner.

With the big dark still an Olde Earth year away, one loner and the two bands near the park might well be the total population of Sarash-Zillish. It would be nice to think so... but stupid. Sarash-Zillish had had to be on that pattern of close-s.p.a.ced "phone booths." It was too important not to be. Corbell said, "Some of Krayhayft's tribe probably got here ahead of us." to be on that pattern of close-s.p.a.ced "phone booths." It was too important not to be. Corbell said, "Some of Krayhayft's tribe probably got here ahead of us."

"They won't know where we're going, will they?"

"They don't know why why we want to get to Cape Horn. I'd hate to underestimate them." we want to get to Cape Horn. I'd hate to underestimate them."

The car slowed and settled, bending shrubbery, and stopped. They got out. Gording asked, "Where are we?"

The spa.r.s.e greenery in the street thickened to jungle as it climbed the slope to their right. Corbell sprang to the rounded top of the tchiple. The patch of citrus jungle was unnaturally flat and rectangular. Some of the trees looked very old.

"I don't know."

"But why did the tchiple bring us here? Where is the subway?"

"It'd be towering over our heads. Every city I've seen, the subway building was a tremendous cube."

Gording joined him on the car. Together they surveyed the rectangle of jungle.

"But a subway is below ground," Gording said. "Why would it need to be so high?"

"I never found out what was in the upper stories. Maybe places of government." Or offices for rent. No way to say that in Boyish.

"Maybe they made a subway and left off the subway building."

The patch of jungle was about as wide as the great cubes in One City and Four City. Corbell said, "Could be. They put a park on it instead. Then the ice cap thawed and a lot of dead dust fell all over everything." Where did they put the entrances, though? Escalators in the center? No, the trees grew thickest there. Where did they put the entrances, though? Escalators in the center? No, the trees grew thickest there.

Where the ground sloped up from the street, there in mid-slope was a dip. Water pooled there, forming a small, dirty, weed-grown pond. Corbell expressed himself under his breath.

"I don't know those words," said Gording.

Corbell pointed. "Under the weeds and the water and the sc.u.m and the mud, that's where we'll find steps leading down to the doors. After we dig it out. After we find shovels and dig all that stuff out of there. Then we get to find out if anything still works under all that."

"No?"

"They won't let us." Gording pointed.

The sharp-faced loner was trotting toward them from across the wide street. He carried an oddly curved broad-bladed sword. Well behind him, other Boys spilled out of a building.

"Do you think you can take him with your rocks?"

"No," said Gording. "He's ready. He knows we're dangerous. He'll catch the thread on his blade."

"Into the car, then." They clambered down and in. In frustration Corbell demanded, "-How did they get here so fast?"

"Not by car. Are there prilatsil in Sarash-Zillish'!"

"Oh, sure, that's how they did it."

"Can we use prilatsil?"

"Yeah. Yeah! We won't have to dig! a.s.suming the d.a.m.n things still work. The subway hasn't been maintained."

The loner was very close now. Corbell dialed a number he remembered: two commas crossed, S reversed, hourgla.s.s on its side, crooked two commas crossed, S reversed, hourgla.s.s on its side, crooked pi. The car sped smoothly away. Eleven Boys watched it go. pi. The car sped smoothly away. Eleven Boys watched it go.

"They tracked us somehow. They'll track us again," Corbell said. "We'll have some time, but not much."

From outside it was a copy of the office building in which Mirelly-Lyra had returned Corbell's pressure suit. In this version the elevators worked. Still following the pattern, Corbell tried the third floor.

It held. Lines of office doors, all closed.

"My name coin doesn't open them." Gording reported.

They kicked at door, it was solid.

Gording asked. "Are there prilatsil not locked behind doors?"

"Yeah. On the roof. The Boys could be there by now."

"Did you at least keep the spear blade?"

Corbell handed it over. Then it occurred to him that there might be indicators for the elevators. He slipped back into the elevator and punched all the b.u.t.tons. If it stopped on every floor they'd have to check them all. He got out on the fourth floor. As he tiptoed down he heard a pattering above him like a swarm of rats.

Gording had disengaged the thread from the rocks. He had tied one end to the blade and the other to his loincloth. Now he chopped with the blade at the cloud-rug where it ran beneath an office door. "Guard the stairs," he said.

"With what?"

Gording didn't answer, didn't even look up.

Corbell stood barehanded at the stairwell door. The first Boy through would kill him. He knew it. Maybe Gording would get away.

What was Gording doing?