He turned and walked away to the monitoring machines.
Suddenly overcome with thirst and a hatred of the weapon, I went out into the hall to the nearest water cooler. The lights were dim and to my surprise Hallistair sat alone on one of the couches. He held something on the end of a string which he kept winding around his finger. Ignoring him, I helped myself to a long drink. As I headed back where I had come from, he spoke to me.
“Be careful that you don’t break your stupid head in the maze today.”
I was so unprepared for the remark that I stopped dead in my tracks. He had more than his share of nerve, unless he had a weapon concealed on his person, which I didn’t really suppose.
“You’ll learn,” he said coolly. He rested easily on the couch with his head tilted up as he regarded me with scorn and something more severe. “Grena will go with me when the time comes. You’ll see.”
“Go where?”
“Away. There’s no need for you to try and take her away from me. You can’t do it in a million years. At least not permanently.”
I looked about but the hall was still empty. There was no one nearby to encourage or support him. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Flexing your country muscles? Don’t bother. You don’t scare me. But if you continue to annoy me, you’re going to lose more than you bargain for.”
“What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer. Shaking my head, I left him and walked on.
“Stay away from Grena,” he said to my back in a low, venomous voice.
I stopped to consider whether or not I ought to take the time to tell him what I thought of him. I decided against it. It wouldn’t do for me to lose my temper with him, which had abruptly become easy to do. I continued walking and ended up in my favorite place of horror, betwixt shifting images and howling mania. The weapon awaited me.
I found myself looking for floating body parts; a ghoulish vocation but one that had occupied my thoughts of late. After all, the maze had been lopping off limbs for centuries, which meant that the pieces ought to be somewhere about.
They were not and I surmised that they had fallen below the weapon into whatever space lurked there. About me was gray fog, far ahead was red mist, beneath me was a slippery girder marked with a blue line; my safety path from which I dared not digress.
It wasn’t that I didn’t wish to tell Sargoth of my feelings or experiences in here, but what was there to tell? I was both hot and cold, arrogant and scared, misty-eyed and alert. I wondered if the weapon could be a live animal with a hunger for human flesh. Perhaps the girders merely felt like metal.
I hit out with a small stick I carried, listened to the familiar pings and clangs. No, it was no animal I timidly assaulted but a giant structure calculated to mangle enemies like myself. Tonight it would be my turn to sit out on the peaks, stare at the ruptured sky and order it to remain whole and unaffected by this thing upon which I walked. Perhaps Grena would sit with me and make the spent time more worthwhile.
My blood froze as my father appeared before me out of a white mist. This was the first time I had seen a person in my illusions. This man I regarded almost as if he had returned from the dead. It had been a long time since I had seen him and I had my fill of looking at him as I stood on the blue line without moving.
Slowly I began to walk toward him. All at once he faded and I nearly called out to him. I also came to a swift halt. Sweat leaked into my eyes so that my inclination was to reach up and brush it aside with the back of my hand. I nearly did so but then I grew rigid in my tracks. The air was suddenly too hot. My feet were weak and wet. I had an unbearable desire to cough. A part of the stick in my hand was abruptly yanked away as something dropped on it.
Without moving my head I stared down at what looked like a black sea that thrashed and hurled dark foam high into the air. I swayed, leaned toward a girder to my right, raised the piece of stick to prop against the steel. I had just righted myself when something dropped to take away the remainder of the stick.
Bewildered, dry of mouth, I stared down to discover that the blue line was gone. Unwittingly I had come to its end and progressed some five feet farther. Now I needed to wait for it to appear on the new part of the girder. Not that it mattered.
The space had already been crossed and I was still whole and in one piece.
I wanted to go on but I couldn’t. Nearly blinded by sweat, I could see Sargoth’s featureless face before me, taunting, mocking, daring me to be something he had never been. Of course it was all in my imagination and unreal, but I genuinely desired to go on. Half my mind said it was time to go back; before the invisible enemy decided to shift reality inside the weapon, before they did away with the safety path and left me stranded with dropping blades and buzz saws all around me.
I had no more than gotten through the tunnel when the invasion alarm sounded. Something had come from the crack in the sky, activating the sensitive antennae on the peaks.
They were fireflies, two of them, strange little winged devils that flared blue, red and yellow. They could move like hawks and seemed to know when it was most advantageous to light up.
Jolanne and Grena chased them astride a pair of jinga. They carried buckets of water and scoops with which they hoped to capture and extinguish the invaders.
It wouldn’t have been too serious if the fireflies managed to get down to Emera, since vorite scarcely burned, but our barracks were more than vulnerable and all the aliens seemed to know it. Whether guided by some unseen energy or by their own perceptions, they made a great effort to evade their pursuers, who chased them down into the abyss and back up again.
One of them succeeded in getting past Jolanne. Straight as an arrow it headed toward the nearest wooden building. As soon as it touched down on a corner of the roof, it flared a bright yellow and literally began eating the wood.
While the drell went after it, Grena pursued hers down into the crevasse again. Standing on the edge, I watched her fly up and down the distant wall with her scoop held ready. The firefly was adept but nothing could outmaneuver the jinga who spent their lives dipping and soaring between these mountain peaks.
Someone had been standing behind me and I turned my head as he moved closer. I looked into Hallistair’s glittering eyes and pale face.
“If I go over so do you,” I said, reaching for him.
His lip curled in contempt and he stepped out of reach. “You’re being normally idiotic.”
I wondered if he had entertained thoughts of shoving me over the edge. If so, he would have had to make it look good since practically everybody in the, compound was outside by now.
Someone held up a hose and aimed a spray of water at the roof of the burning building as Jolanne chased the firefly from one corner to another. Finally she was able to scoop the thing up, after which she deftly tossed it into her bucket. When she alighted on the ground we were all allowed a look at the booty. I thought it looked like the skeleton of a bat, small and shriveled, black and dull. It was difficult to believe that only a few minutes before it had been alive and fiery.
Grena caught hers down in the abyss. She bronght it up to dump it out on the ground. I tried to reach her first to help her off the jinga but someone beat me to it. Hallistair was there to lift her and set her down. Over his shoulder she glanced back at me as she was led across the plateau to the buildings.
That night Willa came to play cards with Spencer, Leece and myself.
“Excuse the one hand,” she said. Throwing her hair out of her eyes, she leaned forward and rapped the table with the fingers of her glass hand. The other member was still bandaged. “Don’t let it get to you or get you down,” she said to all of us. “It’s what we’re up here for, isn’t it?”
We remained silent.
“You get my meaning,” she said. “If they had asked for my services ten years ago I’d have told them to buzz off. Had kids then. Still have them, but they’re grown now and don’t need me to tend them. Not that I don’t have anything to live for. I’ve got plenty.”
“Married?” said Leece.
Will threw back her head to get her hair out of her face. “Won’t he like me all made of glass? I’ll bet he will, for a fact.” Her tone grew matter-of-fact. “Life is so filled with choices. Did you ever wish you didn’t have to make any?”
Leece wasn’t paying any attention to her. He was looking at me. “I was referring to the charts today. You’ve put fifteen feet on the blue line. I’ve put two inches to it while Spencer’s been good for three.”
“I did a foot,” said Will. “Leave him alone. We all behave differently in there. Some are snails and others are like jackrabbits.”
“What’s your secret?” Leece asked.
“Have you been talking to Hallistair, by any chance?”
“I don’t know him.”
“Half-pint,” said Spencer.
Leece kept staring at me. “Ah, yes, he’s the one the pretty girl likes. The one with light hair.”
“Buzz off,” said Spencer. “Let’s play the game and get rid of our vinegar in the weapon.”
For several days I’d had an overwhelming urge to see my father. As I finished out the hands with my miserable friends, I determined to go the very next morning. Perhaps that was why I slept so soundly, and in my bed in my room, not on a hall couch.
Not bothering to have breakfast, I walked out onto the peaks to find a jinga. I could have chosen a better day for it since it was gray and wet. The rain came down in sheets, soaking me to the skin, making it difficult to watch the birds. If I were not careful I might grab hold of one only to slide or be hurled into the chasm, which, upon contemplation, might not be all that bad a way to go.
My steed turned out to be a foul-tempered giant who seemed annoyed that I would take as an invitation to mount him the fact that he grounded within reach. His wings creating a deafening noise, he soared high before dive-bombing into the crevasse. Grimly I hung on and even punched him in the head before he decided to take me up to clear air and then all the way down the mountain. He didn’t seem sorry to have me disembark but flew over my head, screeching and trying to peck me. The last I saw of him he was winging his way toward the rainclouds over Timbrini.
Seeing my father again was disturbing, not just because it had been too long since I had last seen him but because he had changed. He hadn’t gone to the office.
“Not for several days,” he said to me over the luncheon table. “Not that I was worried about you. You’re at least old enough to watch after yourself.” He tried to give a humorous laugh but it turned out dry and stale.
Somehow the blue of his eyes seemed faded. The lines in his face looked more pronounced, deeper. When he raised his cup to his mouth his hand trembled. For the first time since I had known him he looked vulnerable.
“You aren’t in any sort of trouble, are you?” he said.
“Not at all.”
“Because if you are, it won’t matter. I mean to say, whatever it is you can count on me. Regardless of how serious it is.”
“Thank you. There’s no trouble.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “You’ve never been away so long before.” Giving me an apologetic smile, he said, “Funny, isn’t it? I seem to have missed you. Now you’re planning a cross-country bike trip. With Willmett?”
“Probably alone.”
“Is that wise?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be gone a long time.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes. You know, Sargoth never showed up. I can’t imagine where he’s gone to. I went to the drell office to complain, and do you know what they did?”
“Gave you your money back.”
“How did you know that? Yes, that unsavory individual, what’s his name? Said they hadn’t charged me in the first place, that I insisted. Whole bunch of nonsense. I’ve never given anybody that much money without kicking and groaning.”
After he laid down for a nap I went downtown to see if it had changed or if I only imagined it had. To my surprise I found Falloway in his place of business. He seemed put out to see me and refused to give me so much as a nod when I walked in.
“It isn’t my fault,” I said to him. “I’m only surprised you let Suttler recruit her.”
“He’s promised me he won’t. I’m not certain I ought to trust him. I believe his being a drell for so long has destroyed some of his finer feelings.”
“Maybe he suspects her of being an alien.”
“That bilge again! She’s totally human! I should know. I’ve taken care of her since she was a baby. I couldn’t think more of her if she were my own flesh. I want you to stay away from her. You’re going to end up like Suttler and the other drells and I don’t want her hurt. She can’t love a man who’s made of glass.”
I waited for him to calm down before broaching another subject.
“Your profile?” he said. “Nothing out of the ordinary in it. Not even a definite plus for riding the birds. I said as much to Suttler years ago.”
“What was his reply?”
“I don’t remember. Something about a pig in a poke or a purse and a sow. Doesn’t sound flattering, eh? Now I hear you’re doing better in the weapon than anyone else up there. How do you account for it?”
I couldn’t and said so. After I left him I returned home and sat with my father. Willmett called to complain about my always being gone these days. He was still trying to find a cheap attorney interested in suing the drell establishment for fraud. I told him to forget it, that he didn’t really want to be a drell anyway. He insisted that he did and finally hung up on me. It was all right with me. For some reason he didn’t seem amusing anymore. In fact very little in my past or present existence was even tolerable.
I walked all through the house trying to recapture the peace I had once known, the fascination with nature that had been mine, the feeling of assurance that life would be long and interesting. In the basement I looked over all the odd and funny things I had invented over the years. On impulse I took my antenna that had created rain and tucked it in a new valise to take back to the mountain with me.
In the evening I rode a train to the edge of civilization, walked across the prairie and caught the first jinga that came along.
Spencer wasn’t in our room, which suited me fine since I was in no mood to be even mildly amiable. A glance in the bathroom mirror told me that I had gone long enough without shaving so I made my preparations. At the last minute I thought of the new bottle of lotion my father had given me so I went to the closet to get it. For quite a long time I had disdained using depilatories or even electric razors but preferred the straight, treacherous kind. Why I carried mine to the closet with me, I don’t know, but it saved my life.
No sooner did I open the door and reach up to the shelf where the bottle rested than something dropped onto my back. A pair of tentacles whipped about my neck to cut off my breath. If I hadn’t had the razor I would have been rendered unconscious in a matter of a few seconds.
Nor caring if I sliced my own flesh, I hacked with the razor and felt a tentacle loosen. Slashing away at the other side of my neck, I managed to knock the other one off before the creature fell to the floor.
Never having seen the likes of it before, I still needed no one to tell me where it had come from. Only the crack in the sky could have presented this specimen to my dimension.
I had expected some sort of head or body to be attached to the tentacles but there wasn’t one. There was only a single serpentine length with what resembled a hooded eye mid-way on it. It lay on the carpet bleeding a pink fluid, blinking up at me with its milky eye, waiting for me to dispatch it, which I did with no qualms. Then I went looking for Spencer. He did share the room with me and I expected him to be able to tell me who had been hanging about while I was gone.
He was visiting Willa, who was upset because she was being scrapped.
“No good reason,” she said to me in a low voice. “You’ve-done-your-duty stuff, can’t-ask-for-more. It’s okay if that’s the real reason but I feel as if they’re discriminating.” Her glass hand was restless on the chair while her glance kept slipping from me to the foggy window. I knew what distressed her. Thoughts of freedom and life clashed with the hopelessness that had been instilled in her over the past weeks.