(It will be worse,) Kit said. (If the worldgate stays at this level, we're going to have to come back up...)
They headed down. It took a long time. The few times they dared stop to rest, Kit and Nita heard odd muffled noises through the walls—vaguely threatening scrapes and groans and rumbles, the kind of sounds heard in nightmares. The stairs were as dark as the corridor had been, and it was hard to sit in the corner of a landing, rubbing aching legs, with only the light of Nita's wand to argue with the blackness that towered above and yawned below, as those sounds got louder.
They quickly lost count of how many stories downward they'd gone. All the landings looked the same, and all the doors from them opened off into the same pitch blackness—until finally Kit eased one open as he had eased open scores of others and abruptly stood very still. He put his hand out behind him. (Nita! The wand.)
She passed it to him. It dimmed in his hand from moonfire to foxfire, a faint silver glimmer that he held out the door as he looked around. (It's all that shiny stone, like the other lobby. There should be a way down into the station, then—)
Nita's hair stood up on end at the thought. (Kit, you saw what happened to helicopters. Do you really want to meet a train? Let's go out on the street level, okay?)
He gulped and nodded. (Which way?)
(There's a door out onto Forty-fifth Street. C'mon.)
She slipped out, and Kit followed with the wand. Its pale light reached just far enough ahead to gleam off the glass wall at the end of the corridor. Near it was the down escalator, frozen dead. They made their way softly down it, then across the slick floor and out the glass doors to the street.
It was nearly as dark outside as it had been inside; a night without a hint of Moon or stars. The air down there wasn't as chill as it had been on the building's roof, but it stank of dark city smells—exhaust, spilled gasoline, garbage, and soot. The gutter was clogged with trash. They stepped out to cross Forty-fifth.
"No," Nita hissed, startled into speech, and dragged Kit back into the dark of the doorway. Pale yellow-brown light flickered down the street, got brighter. A second later, with a snarl of its engine, a big yellow Checker Cab hurled itself past them, staring in front of it with headlight-eyes burned down to yellow threads of filament—eyes that looked somehow as if they could see. But the cab seemed not to notice them. Its snarl diminished as it plunged down the street, leaving a whirl of dirty paper and dead leaves in its wake. Kit coughed as its exhaust hit them.
(That was alive,) he said when he got his breath back. (The same way the helicopter was.)
Nita made a miserable face. (Let's get outta here,) she said.
Kit nodded. She led him off to their left, through the Helmsley-Spear Building, which should have been bright with gold-leafed statuary. Here it was gray with soot, and the carvings stared down with such looks of silent malice that Nita refused to glance up more than that once.
She hoped for some more encouraging sight as they came onto Forty-sixth Street and looked up Park Avenue. The hope was vain. The avenue stretched away and slightly upward for blocks as it did in their own world, vanishing in the murk. But the divider between the uptown and downtown lanes, usually green with shrubbery, had become one long tangle of barren thornbushes. The old-fashioned red-and-green traffic lights burned low and dark as if short on power; and no matter how long one watched, they never changed from red. The shining glass-and-steel office buildings that had lined the avenue in their Manhattan were grimy shells here, the broad sidewalks before them cluttered with rubbish. Nothing moved anywhere, except far up Park, where another pair of yellow eyes waited at a corner.
Those eyes made Nita nervous. (This way,) she said. She hurried past a dirty granite facade full of still doors and silent windows. Kit followed close, and Fred with him, both looking worriedly at everything they passed.
Nita was doing her best to keep herself calm as they turned the corner onto Fortyseventh. It can't all be as bad as the helicopter, she told herself. And nothing really bad has happened to us yet. It was just the shock of the—
She jumped back into the shadow of a building on hearing a clapping sound so loud she felt sure the helicopter's mate was coming for them. Fred and Kit huddled terrified into that shadow, too, and it took a few seconds for any of them to find the source of the sound. Not more than five or six feet from them, a pigeon had landed—a sooty dark one, cooing and strutting and head bobbing in a perfectly normal fashion. It walked away from them, muttering absently, intent on its own pursuits. Kit poked Nita from behind—not a warning: a teasing poke. (Getting jumpy, huh?)
(Yeah, well, you were the one who said—)
The lightning stroke of motion not six feet away knocked the merriment right out of them. What had seemed a perfectly ordinary fire hydrant, dull yellow, with rust stains and peeling paint, suddenly cracked open and shot out a long, pale, ropy tongue like a toad's. The pigeon never had a chance. Hit side on, the bird made just one strangled gobbling noise before the tongue was gone again, too fast to follow, and the wide horizontal mouth it came from was closed again. All that remained to show that anything had happened was a slight bulge under the metallic-looking skin of the fire hydrant. The bulge heaved once and was still.
Nita bit her lip. Behind her she could feel Kit start shaking again. (I feel sorry for the next dog that comes along,) he said. (I hope you don't mind if I cross the street.) Kit headed out of the shadow.
(I think I'll join you,) Nita said. She backed out of range of that tongue before she started across the street herself.
There was no time to move, to scream, even to think. Kit was halfway across the street, with his eye on that fire hydrant, his head turned away from the big yellow Checker Cab that was maybe six feet away and leaping straight at him.
A flash of brilliance struck Nita like a blow, and did the same for the cab, so that it swerved to its left and knocked Kit sideways and down. The cab roared on by, engine racing in frustration, evidently too angry to try for another pass. But something about it, maybe the savage sidelong look it threw Nita out of its burned-down eyes as it squealed around the corner of Forty-sixth and Madison—something made Nita suspect that it would not forget them. She rap out into the street and bent over Kit, not sure whether she should try to move him.
"'S awright," Kit said, groaning softly as he worked at getting up. Nita slipped hands under his arms to help. "Fred did it."
(Are you all right?) came the frantic thought, as Fred appeared in front of Kit's face. (Did I hurt you? Did I emit anything you can't take? I took out all the ultraviolet. Oh no! I forgot the cosmic rays again.)
Kit managed a smile, though not much of one; his face was skinned and bruised where one cheekbone had hit the pavement. (Don't worry about it, Fred. That thing would have done a lot worse to me than a few cosmic rays if it'd hit me the way it wanted to.) He stood up, wincing. (It got my leg some, I think.)
Nita bent down to look at Kit's left leg and sucked in her breath. His jeans were torn, and he had a straight horizontal gash six inches or so below the knee, which was bleeding freely. (Does it feel deep?)
(No. It just hurts a lot. I think it was the cab's fender, there was a jagged piece sticking out of the chrome. Listen, Fred, thanks—)
(You're sure I didn't hurt you? You people are so fragile. A little gamma radiation will ruin your whole day, it seems.)
(I'm fine. But I've gotta do something about this leg. And then we've got to get moving again and get to the dark Book.)
Nita looked over at the fire hydrant, fear boiling in her. Casually, as if this was something it did many times a day, the hydrant cracked open and spat something out onto the sidewalk—a dessicated-looking little lump of bones and feathers. Then it got tip and waddled heavily down to a spot about fifty feet farther down the block, and sat down again.
And I thought it couldn't all be bad.
Together, as quickly as they could, two small, frightened-looking figures and a spark like a lost star hurrie
d into the shadows and vanished there.
Entropics:
DETECTION AND AVOIDANCE
(HOW CLOSE ARE WE?)
(Uh ... this is Madison and Forty-ninth. Three blocks north and a long one east.)
(Can we rest? This air burns to breathe. And we've been going fast.)
(Yeah, let's.)
They crouched together in the shadow of a doorway, two wary darknesses and a dim light, watching the traffic that went by. Mostly cabs prowled past, wearing the same hungry look as the one that had wounded Kit. Or a sullen truck might lumber by, or a passenger car, looking uneasy and dingy and bitter. None of the cars or trucks had drivers, or looked like they wanted them. They ignored the traffic lights, and their engines growled.
Nita's eyes burned in the dark air. She rubbed them and glanced down at Kit's leg, bound now with a torn-off piece of her shirt. (How is it?)
(Not too bad. It feels stiff. I guess it stopped bleeding.) He looked down, felt the makeshift bandage, winced. (Yeah ... I'm hungry.)
Nita's stomach turned over—she was too nervous to even consider eating—as Kit came up with a ham sandwich and offered her half. (You go ahead,) she said. She leaned against the hard cold wall, and on a sudden thought pulled her pen out of her pocket and looked at it. It seemed all right, but as she held it she could feel a sort of odd tingling in its metal that hadn't been there before.
(Uh, Fred—)
He hung beside her at eye level, making worried feelings that matched the dimness of his light. (Are you sure that light didn't hurt you?)
(Yeah. It's not that.) She held out the pen to him. Fred backed away a little, as if afraid he might swallow it again. (Is this radioactive or anything?) Nita said.
He drifted close to it, bobbed up and down to look at it from several angles. (You mean beta and gamma and those other emissions you have trouble with? No.)
Nita still felt suspicious about the pen. She dug into her backpack for a piece of scrap paper, laid it on her wizards' manual, clicked the point out, and scribbled on the paper. Then she breathed out, perplexed. (Come on, Fred! Look at that!)
He floated down to look. The, pen's blue-black ink would normally have been hard to see in that dimness, no matter how white the paper. But the scrawl had a subtle glimmer about it, a luminosity just bright enough to make out. (I don't think it's anything harmful to you,) Fred said. (Are you sure it didn't do that before?)
(Yes!)
(Well, look at it this way. Now you can see what you're writing when it's dark. Surprising you people hadn't come up with something like that already.)
Nita shook her head, put the paper away, and clipped the pen back in her pocket. Kit, finishing the first half of his sandwich, looked over at the scribble with interest. (Comes of being inside Fred, I guess. With him having his own claudication, and all the energy boiling around inside him, you might have expected something like that to happen.)
(Yeah, well, I don't like it. The pen was fine the way it was.)
(Considering where it's been,) Kit said, (you're lucky to get it back in the same shape, instead of crushed into a little lump.) He wrapped up the other half of his sandwich and shoved it into his backpack. (Should we go?)
(Yeah.)
They got up, checked their surroundings as usual to make sure that no cabs or cars were anywhere close, and started up Madison again, ducking into doorways or between buildings whenever they saw or heard traffic coming.
(No people,) Kit said, as if trying to work it out. (Just things—all dark and ruined—and machines, all twisted. Alive— but they seem to hate everything. And pigeons—)
(Dogs, too,) Nita said.
(Where?) Kit looked hurriedly around him.
(Check the sidewalk and the gutter. They're here. And remember that nest.) Nita shrugged uneasily, setting her pack higher. (I don't know. Maybe people just can't live here.)
(We're here,) Kit said unhappily. (And maybe not for long.)
A sudden grinding sound like tortured metal made them dive for another shadowy doorway close to the corner of Madison and Fiftieth. No traffic was in sight; nothing showed but the glowering eye of the traffic light and the unchanging don't walk signs. The grinding sound came again—metal scraping on concrete, somewhere across Madison, down Fiftieth, to their left. Kit edged a bit forward in the doorway.
(What are you—)
(I want to see.) He reached around behind him, taking the antenna in hand.
(But if—)
(If that's something that might chase us later, I at least want a look at it. Fred? Take a peek for us?)
(Right.) Fred sailed ahead of them, keeping low and close to the building walls, his light dimmed to the faintest glimmer. By the lamppost at Madison and Fiftieth he paused, then shot low across the street and down Fiftieth between Madison and Fifth, vanishing past the corner. Nita and Kit waited, sweating.
From around the corner Fred radiated feelings of uncertainty and curiosity. (These are like the other things that run these streets. But these aren't moving. Maybe they were dangerous once. I don't know about now.)
(Come on,) Kit said. He put his head out of the doorway. (It's clear.)
With utmost caution they crossed the street and slipped around the corner, flattening to the wall. Here stores and dingy four-story brownstones with long flights of railed stairs lined the street. Halfway down the block, jagged and bizarre in the dimness and the feeble yellow glow of a flickering sodium-vapor streetlight, was the remains of an accident. One car, a heavy two-door sedan, lay crumpled against the pole of another nearby streetlight, its right-hand door ripped away and the whole right side of it laid open. A little distance away, in the middle of the street, lay the car that had hit the sedan, resting on its back and skewed right around so that its front end was pointed at Kit and Nita. It was a sports car of some kind, so dark a brown that it was almost black. Its windshield had been cracked when it overturned, and it had many other dents and scrapes, some quite deep. From its front right wheel well jutted a long jagged strip of chrome, part of the other car's fender, now wound into the sports car's wheel.
(I don't get it,) Nita said silently. (If that dark one hit the other, why isn't its front all smashed in?)
She broke off as with a terrible metallic groan the sports car suddenly rocked back and forth, like a turtle on its back trying to right itself. Kit sucked in a long breath and didn't move. The car stopped rocking for a moment, then with another scrape of metal started again, rocking more energetically this time. Each time the side-to-side motion became larger. It rocked partway onto one door, then back the other way and partway onto the other, then back again—and full onto its left-hand door. There it balanced, precarious, for a few long seconds, as if getting its breath. And then it twitched hard, shuddered all the way over, and fell right-side down.
The scream that filled the air as the sports car came down on the fender-tangled right wheel was terrible to hear. Instantly it hunched up the fouled wheel, holding it away from the street, crouching on the three good wheels and shaking with its effort. Nita thought of an old sculpture she had seen once, a wounded lion favoring one forelimb—weary and in pain, but still dangerous.
Very slowly, as if approaching a hurt animal and not wanting to alarm it, Kit stepped away from the building and walked out into the street.
(Kit!)
(Ssssh,) he said silently. (Don't freak it.)
(Are you out of your—)
(Ssssshhh!)
The sports car watched Kit come, not moving. Now that it was right-side up, Nita could get a better idea of its shape. It was actually rather beautiful in its deadly looking way—sleekly swept-back and slung low to the ground. Its curves were battered in places; its once-shining hide was scored and dull. It stared at Kit from hunter's eyes, headlights wide with pain, and breathed shallowly, waiting.
(Lotus Esprit,) Kit said to Nita, not taking his eyes off the car, matching it stare for stare.
Nita shook her head anxiously. (Does that me
an something? I don't know cars.)
(It's a racer. A mean one. What it is here—Look, Nita, there's your answer. Look at the front of it, under the headlights.) He kept moving forward, his hands out in front of him. The Lotus held perfectly still, watching.
Nita looked at the low-sloping grille. (It's all full of oil or something.)
(It's a predator. These other cars, like that sedan—they must be what it hunts. This time its prey hurt the Lotus before it made its kill. Like a tiger getting gored by a bull or something. Ooops!)
Kit, eight or ten feet away from the Lotus's grille, took one step too many; it abruptly rolled back away from him a foot or so. Very quietly its engine stuttered to life and settled into a throaty growl.
(Kit, you're—)
(Shut up.) "I won't hurt you," he said in the Speech, aloud. "Let me see to that wheel."
The engine growl got louder—the sound of the Speech seemed to upset the Lotus. It rolled back another couple of feet, getting close to the curb, and glared at Kit. But the glare seemed to have as much fear as threat in it now.
"I won't hurt you," Kit repeated, stepping closer, holding out his hands, one of them with the antenna in it. "Come on, you know what this is. Let me do something about that wheel. You can't run on it. And if you can't run, or hunt—I bet there are other hunters here, aren't there? Or scavengers. I'm sure there are scavengers. Who'll be coming here to clean up this kill? And do you want them to find you here, helpless?"
The Lotus stared at him, shifting a little from side to side now, swaying uncertainly. The growl had not stopped, but it hadn't gotten any louder either. "If I were going to hurt you, I would have by now," Kit said, getting closer. The car was four feet away, and its headlights were having to look up at Kit now. "Just let me do something about that fender stuck in you, then you'll go your way and I'll go mine."