The Game of Stars and Comets

  The gars stirred and I heard Wobru grunt uneasily. I say heard, for, as we sank, there was a darkness closing in about us. That patch of light was still above us—now far above us. Our rate of descent seemed to be more swift than we were aware of—otherwise no light appeared to pierce into the depths into which the platform carried us.

  Illo held onto my hand with a grip so tight that her nails cut into my skin, but I made no move to loosen it. Just now it was good to have that touch, to reassure myself that I was not insane or hallucinating, that this was really happening.

  I now had to turn my head well up, back on my shoulders, to watch that fast disappearing square of sky which I could not hope to reach. While all about us was a darkness which was heavier and more solid than any moonless night could be. There were no stars here to reassure us with their light.

  "Bart!" Illo had turned a little in my hold. I looked down and saw her face. There was a curious bluish light across it. "The necklet—it is afire!"

  Afire! I felt no more heat than that subtle warmth which I had been aware of since I first put the chain on. The circlet fit so tightly to my throat that I could not see it, but I could catch a radiance which appeared to stream out across my breast and shoulders.

  I loosed my other hand, temporarily thrusting the stunner back into my holster, and in turn worked free the torch from its thongs at my belt. My fingers found the "high" button and a moment later the ray swept out and around.

  We were descending into a well, the walls of which were coated by the same alloy as formed the platform on which we stood. That fitted exactly to the walls, sliding down them with no sign of any space between. There were no visible openings, not a seam to be detected along those walls—as if the whole tube had been cast as a single great piece. Nor was there any chance of a hand or foothold on that smooth surface. Unless the trap which was this platform could be controlled in some manner, we were perhaps to be buried alive in an installation which was a total mystery.

  I looked to the gars. They stood as quietly as if they were waiting in sedate sequence as they always did to be inspanned before a move-out. Why—and what—and who—?

  I did not voice such question. Illo knew no more than did I, and I could expect no answer from Witol. However I kept the torch sweeping about the walls, seeking some opening, some hope of escape. Still we continued to drop smoothly down.

  The open patch at the top was now smaller than my hand; I could not even estimate how far beneath the surface we had come. There flashed into my mind scattered bits of the information my father had culled from the Forerunner archives. There had been apparently some races or species among them who had had a liking for undersurface life, building strange and unknowable installations in caves, in burrows they tunneled, as if they were more at home in such places than on the surface of the worlds they chose to visit—or to colonize.

  Perhaps this race, if it were not native to Voor (though a vanished native civilization could not be ruled out) had been of that type. There must come an end to our journey soon. This, I had come to believe, was not a trap for prisoners (or at least I hoped that was so), rather an entrance to some place of importance.

  The end did come—as the platform suddenly passed the tip of an opening in one wall, pulled on, down and down, until there was a wide door open before us. Then it came to an abrupt halt.

  I half expected the gars to take the lead in disembarking, I do not know why. However, the beasts showed signs of uneasiness, snuffling and moving their feet as if they were not quite sure of the stability of the platform, though it no longer moved.

  There was nothing to do but to go on, through that doorway which seemed a cup of pure dark, hoping that somewhere beyond there might just lie some means of returning to the surface. I said as much and Illo agreed.

  Now that we had reached the bottom of the well, she appeared to have regained her confidence—or at least put on the appearance of doing so. I had to admit to myself that action as represented by the waiting doorway renewed my spirits also. Shoulder to shoulder we stepped from the platform into the waiting corridor or tunnel. Once more the gars fell in behind us as they had when we had broken our path into the Tangle.

  I swept the torch from side to side. This appeared much like the shaft we had descended—or its lesser twin—being laid upon its side. The same smooth, seamless walls, no breaching of those, no sign of another doorway, of any exit except the one we followed.

  "Switch off the torch a moment," Illo said.

  I did not know what she wished to learn, only I did as she bade. Then we discovered that the light I carried was no longer necessary. Though perhaps not as bright as the radiance from the necklet, there was a dim glow to which our eyes adjusted, enough so that we could walk without difficulty seeing ahead. I was glad to save the torch and fastened it back in my belt, taking once more the stunner. Not because I expected to encounter any more of the Tangle's foul mass but because with it in my hand I found a certain reassurance, an illusion perhaps that I might still be in some control of the situation were we to discover—what? Some alien form of life—some mechanical installation—which had been left to run through endless time by its vanished creators? I did not know, nor did I try to speculate, I only knew I felt safer with the stunner in my fist.

  The road seemed endless. So much so that once we stopped, drank from our supply of water, sharing that in small measurement with the gars, eating our trail bread. I gave a cake of this to each of the beasts and they chewed noisily, apparently finding it to their taste. At the back of my mind stirred the thought that once our supplies were gone—No—that would I face when the time came. We would be as prudent with both food and water as we could, and I would not say aloud what might be the end of such blind wandering.

  At the end of the corridor was a door. This was closed, though I could see the slit which marked it clearly when I once more loosed the torch and had Illo hold it that I might examine the barrier. There was a cup-like pocket to my left but no latch that I could distinguish. I fitted my fingers into that depression and strove to push, but the barricade remained immovable. Was it locked and we prisoners?

  There was one other thing to try. Once more I braced myself and used fingers as best I could, this time pushing towards my right instead of inward. For a long moment I thought that my guess was a failure. Then, perhaps as the result of centuries of disuse was overcome, it did slide reluctantly, taking all my strength to force it along. I discovered that a series of sharp jerks were better to stir it a little at a time, accomplishing more in that way than any steady pull. The panel was open at last, and with its opening light spilled through—a light which was almost as bright as day in the upper, outer world.

  Chapter 11

  Light streamed from above, steady and clear, while between us and its source reached a flight of broad, shallow steps. The surface of each step was inlaid with color, brilliant color. The designs were—faces!

  There was nothing inhuman or alien about these representations as there had been in the face of the statue guardian we had passed in the Tangle. These were of people who might have lived in any holding or village. While each varied from the next, possessing such life-like features I could only believe that they had been originally fashioned to resemble once living personalities, still they had been carefully set so that anyone climbing the stair, no matter where he would put his feet as he went, would tread upon one or another of them.

  There was something unpleasant in their cast of countenance, a slight exaggeration of this feature or that, the beginning of a sly smirk, a leer of the eyes. On close examination one could well believe that whoever had wrought this stairway had done it in a mood of hatred and vengeance. To tread upon the helpless face of the enemy—that was a conception which in itself was a token of so strong a fury that it shook one.

  Illo went down on her knees, put out her hands to touch the nearest of the faces on the bottom step. It was as if her finger had fallen on a coal of living fire, so di
d she instantly jerk away.

  "They—there are skulls—or a skull here, Bart—under the pattern face, a real skull."

  As I knelt beside her I could see nothing but the surface. It must have been her fine-tuned healer's touch which had read the horror beneath the covering.

  "Their enemies—how great was their rage—!"

  "These could not be our people." My mind pictured instantly for me those lines of skeletons at Fors. Those bones had been intact, the skulls all there. This place was old, it had existed, I was certain, long before the coming of the First-In Scout of our kind to discover Voor.

  "No—much older. But like us." She looked up at the doorway above, from which that light streamed. "We must go on—but to walk so—" she shivered.

  I studied the faces carefully. Yes, they were all unlike, all realistic representations. But still human—as human seeming as I was.

  "This happened a long time ago," I assured her. Though what "this" might have been I could not understand, save that the stairway might have been erected to celebrate a final victory, a crushing defeat—for who—the builder, or those they had pictured? Had one race or species been driven from the surface of Voor, taken precautions to exist here, then wreaked its vengeance on visitors in such a monstrous form? Or was the answer just the opposite: the aliens had won and celebrated their victory with an everlasting portrayal of the conquered? In any event the artist who had designed this had shown with merciless accuracy all the meanness, cruelties and evils my species was capable of in those subtle lines on the faces.

  "Long ago—" she echoed. "But they tried—to seal them in—their enemies. The skulls—it is evil! Evil!"

  I stood up, and, when she did not move, I stopped and drew her to her feet.

  "There is nothing to be done now. I do not believe that more than bone was sealed here—"

  "We do not know." She turned her head a little so her eyes met mine. There was a deep horror in them. Plainly she was shaken as I had seldom seen her. "How can we understand what happened here once? A tomb is a quiet place in which nothing any longer sleeps—it is but a place of memories for the living, and, as years pass, ceases to be even that. Such a thing as this keeps old hates terribly alive." She shivered. "We do not know what they believed—and belief is a very potent weapon—as well as a guard—"

  "We do not believe!" I thought I knew what she hinted at and it shook me for a moment, but only for a moment. Such a suggestion was something I refused to accept. If one did not believe then this threat had no existence.

  "Yes—" Her voice was still shaken. She no longer looked at me, her eyes turned once more upon the steps, though her hand lay on my arm and she did not draw away from me.

  "Peace—peace be unto you! To those who wrought and those who died in the making—peace! For all is gone—and now forgotten. Rest you both in a final and unending sleep of peace."

  It did not seem strange that she would speak so. I had none of her talent, still I had been disturbed when I looked upon the paintings made to be trod upon many times over. Now I did not look at them; I would not allow myself to gaze from face to face.

  Close together, her hand remaining on my arm, we climbed that stairway. I heard the hooves of the gars clinking on the stones as they came after. Nor did we look down again at what we trod upon. Perhaps Illo was trying as hard as I was to force from her mind, as we went, the possible meanings of that staircase.

  The quality of that light ahead impressed me. It was a very long staircase, with rises so shallow, steps so wide, I began to wonder if we were not indeed once more approaching the outside world and if what beckoned us on was not true daylight. However, as we reached the head of the stairs, and looked ahead through a very wide portal, we did not see the open land, neither the plains nor the rank growth of the Tangle.

  Illo's startled cry of wonder matched my own exclamation of amazement. We might be stepping into one of those experimental stations such as I had seen on tapes, where plant life studies were in progress. Raised sections of the same alloy stood in straight rows. Each formed a trough or bin filled with soil. Some gave rooting only to dried stalks and skeletons of plants, others were rankly luxurious with still living growth.

  Overhead floated a cloudy, misty covering which drifted in patches, as if indeed miniature clouds had been imprisoned here. Those moved, slowly, though now and then one paused over one or another of the bins to loose a shower of moisture.

  Above those drifting cloudlets spread a criss-cross network of what looked to be bars. Some of these held a core of light. Others were dark in random patches. The light which some did supply was not unlike the sunlight of the outer world, just as the warm humidity of the place was that of a mid-day in the south at the season of sowing.

  Still there was nothing resembling a conventional garden in this display. Those plants nearest to us which were alive were strange to me. As we advanced farther into what must be a very large chamber, for we could not see the other end, we passed close to that first planting of living vegetation.

  I cried out, jerking Illo away just in time. Out of what had looked not unlike a clump of ferns had arisen a whip-lash of tendril, moving also with a whip's agility, to fall just short of where the girl had stood a moment earlier.

  The tendril-vine (or whatever it might be) struck out again, while the fern-part from which it came rocked and swayed, as if so eager to seize upon any intruder that it was attempting now to move its roots to reach us. We skirted that warily, brushed against the side of another planting place which held only the dead, while the tendril continually flailed after us.

  "Keep away from the planted boxes." My order was unnecessary after that display. Illo would have lingered to watch the continued struggles of the thing, but I pulled at her again. The sooner we reached the other end of this place (if it had an end at all) the better. I was, however, careful to steer a zigzag path, passing beside the beds where there was nothing living. I thought of leading the gars. Though whether the tendril could have held one of the large beasts to any purpose I did not know. It could, of course, have some other method of subduing its prey—say poisoned thorns—as far as I knew. When I looked back I saw that Witol and the rest, pacing again in a straight line, were following our own maneuvers, and my inward questioning about the intelligence of the animals once more arose.

  We were at the side of the fifth of the planted boxes away from the entrance when I came to sudden halt. For what faced us were the same flowers which had appeared to watch us in the Shadow doomed villages. Their colors were not as strident here, and they were smaller. But that they were of the same species there was no question. Also, as we neared their position, they had deliberately turned their heads to face us, and that bowing, weaving which was caused by no wind began.

  For some reason here they seemed even more sinister than those others had in the open—perhaps because this was their own place (how long ago had they been planted and by whom?) where in the destroyed settlements they had been left unchecked or culled. Their unusually fleshy stems made a slight whispering sound, brushing against one another as they kept up that continued movement.

  Once more we made a careful detour about their station. There came then a whole section of boxes holding nothing but the brittle bits of the dead. Above this a matching section of the bars held no light. We walked more freely here and the gars pushed forward too, since they did not have to avoid the planted boxes.

  I had no way of telling the time or how long we had been on the move—first into the Tangle, and then coming to this underground forcing house. However I believed that we all must rest. Illo agreed to that, not knowing what might lie ahead. Here among the empty earth boxes would be a safe place to camp. The gars, relieved of their burdens, lay down since there was no grazing for them. I spared each a cake of our own dried provisions and shaved a fourth into slivers which Illo and I chewed as we sat with our backs against one of the boxes.

  Just as these had no lights above them, so did the dr
ifting clouds of moisture appear to avoid passing directly over us. For which we were glad as we did not fancy being suddenly rained upon. As I settled on my back and stared straight up into that "sky" I thought I could just distinguish, very far above the network of the light lines, a dark ceiling.

  Illo did not settle down at once. Instead she burrowed into her pack, and, having turned over a number of small bags and bundles, she brought out a packet of what looked to be long, dried twigs. These she separated with care. Putting two to one side, she broke up a half dozen more into small lengths and then went to the gars, holding out first her palm on which rested some of the twig bits to Witol. He sniffed with an energy which nearly blew them away, then put out a purplish tongue, sweeping up what she offered. His companions seemed as eager to take their share.

  When she came back she held out one of the two remaining twigs to me.

  "This is arsepal. It has many virtues. Wild animals seek it out for themselves to chew upon. It strengthens, clears the senses, is a preventive of infections. I wish I had more of it. But I think it is well if we now follow a prudent course and do all we can to arm ourselves against any ill."