“Perceptive of you,” Gene told the city. “Does that change anything?”
“Nope.”
“Really. Why? Weren’t you designed to serve whoever it was who built you?”
“That’s true, but my original programming also includes instructions about showing hospitality to visitors. You’re a visitor; you get hospitality.”
“Nice and friendly, your builders. What was the name you called them again?”
“The Umoi.”
“Funny name.”
“What’s funny about it?”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to offend.”
“No, I was just asking,” Zond said. “I haven’t had a good laugh in centuries.”
He had many conversations like this one over the next several weeks. He learned something about the Umoi, who had been a squat, reptilelike race, somewhat resembling terrestrial toads. They had had a long and complex history, culminating in the building of a small number of these self-contained, fully sentient cities. By that time the Umoi population had shrunk to a tiny fraction of what it was in earlier periods. Then — Gene did not know exactly what had happened. The Umoi died off gradually, after deserting the cities. History had simply petered out at some point. Gene had a little trouble converting Umoi time scales into Earth equivalents, but it looked as though the Umoi had become extinct between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago. Anyway, it was a long time since the Umoi had walked this world. The city’s main domes had weathered and faded, but for the most part the city was still intact and functioning.
His apartment gave him a commanding view of the city. After spending most of the day in the city library. Gene would go back to his lair and eat a synthesized but palatable dinner. Then he would sit at a window and look out at tall spires set against the plains beyond, waiting until the swollen yellow sun set behind distant mountains. Then he would crawl into an Umoi bed — a simple affair like a sleeping bag with a spongy bottom — and listen to the silence until he dozed off.
He would dream of empty cities and of a race that gave up living.
Awake, he would give some thought to trying to find the portal, though he was acutely aware of the possibility that it might never again make an appearance in this world. Even if it did, there was no telling where it would pop up, or for how long.
But he had the resources of the city to help him. From what Gene could surmise, the Umoi had forgotten more science and technology than terrestrial humans had ever created. The twilight years of Umoi civilization had been characterized by a racial desire to simplify life, to return to the basics of existence. In this the Umoi had succeeded only too well, relaxing their hold on things to the extent that life simply slipped away. Gene suspected that degenerate Umoi cultures had continued to scrape by outside the cities for a long stretch, perhaps for as long as fifty thousand years. Things had been very peaceful and natural for centuries; but in time, ancient enemies took their tolclass="underline" disease, dwindling resources, stagnation. The Umoi had gone out with barely a whimper.
“Case in point, lesson taken,” Gene intoned, sitting at a library view screen, “in the twilight … area.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Uh, nothing. I gotta stop talking to myself.”
“Is this habit common among your species?”
“Yes, perfectly normal. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” Gene yawned. “I’m bushed, but let’s go over this once again. You say that the Umoi developed the technique of interdimensional travel centuries ago but abandoned it?”
“The Umoi weren’t concerned with the practical applications of their discoveries,” the city told him.
“How pure and virtuous. But are you telling me that one of these machines exists somewhere on the planet?”
“I’m telling you that it’s a possibility.”
“Where?”
“I can’t be certain, but such a machine was reputed to have been built in the city of Annau, long ago. It may still be there.”
“Where’s Annau?”
The screen displayed a map. A flashing dot marked the spot.
“Here.”
“Okay. Where is that in relation to where we are?”
“The city of Annau lies exactly four thousand gi to the southwest.”
Gene whistled. “Jeez. Quite a hike, even if I don’t know exactly how long a gi is.”
“Transportation can be provided.”
“Yeah? What kind?”
“A self-propelled, cross-country vehicle powered by the nuclear fusion of certain isotopes of hydrogen. Primitive, but effective.”
“Sounds like a great way to go, but it’s still a long shot.”
“Define ‘long shot.’“
“Risky. If I break down, or get a flat —”
“A flat what?”
“Never mind. Let’s just say that I need to assess the risk factors here.”
“That can be done.”
Gene said, “Well, let’s do it.”
Seven
Queen’s Dining Hall
“How was your flight?” Sheila asked.
“Fine,” Linda Barclay said. A pretty blonde with pale blue eyes, she was tall and perhaps a bit too thin.
Sheila had always wanted to be a blonde, had always hated her own red hair. Although Sheila wasn’t aware of it and would probably disagree, she was just as good-looking as Linda.
“You say you tried calling Gene’s parents over and over?”
Linda set down her coffee cup and reached for another roll, thought better of it. “I was even thinking of stopping in there, maybe asking some neighbors whether they’d seen Gene, or whether the family had gone on vacation. But that would have looked awfully strange.”
Sheila nodded. “Probably.”
“Why don’t we just up and look for Gene?” Snowclaw asked.
“Where do we start?” Sheila said. “On Earth?”
“Why not?” the white-furred beast said as he munched his usual breakfast — beeswax candles dipped in Thousand Island dressing. “That’s where he was last seen. You just take me there. I’ll find him.”
“Talk about looking strange,” Linda said, laughing.
Snowclaw chuckled. “Yeah, I guess it would look pretty weird for me to go stomping around your world.”
“Everyone would think you were Bigfoot,” Sheila said. “You’d wind up on TV. Or in a zoo, or something.”
“I don’t know what either of those things is, but I probably wouldn’t like ’em.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“I think Snowy’s right, though,” Linda said. “Earth would be the logical place to start.”
M. DuQuesne had been listening. “Linda, you’ve been in the castle too long. Imagine thinking in terms of a whole world being a likely place to start looking for someone.”
“Sounds silly, doesn’t it?” Linda said. “But we have to start somewhere.”
“I just can’t believe that something happened to him back home,” Sheila said. “It doesn’t make sense. No one there knows about the castle.”
“Except Incarnadine’s brother Trent,” Linda said.
“Maybe he knows something about Gene,” Snowclaw said.
Sheila shook her head skeptically. “I doubt it.”
“We could ask him.”
“Boy, I’d hate to be putting snoopy questions to a prince. He might think we suspected him.”
Linda said, “Prince Trent seems like a nice guy, but I sensed some kind of tension between him and Lord Incarnadine.”
Sheila nodded. “They were rivals for the throne once.”
“Maybe they still are.”
“But why would Trent want to do away with Gene?”
“Maybe he wants to do away with all of us, all the powerful Guest magicians. We’re Incarnadine’s servants now.”