He slumped with a tinge of futility. No — Darkness couldn’t be as simple a thing as hair. That would be too ironic — listening for something he had known all his life. Anyway, Cyrus had said Darkness was universal, everywhere. That meant he would have to listen over a broad area, all around the girl.
“Jared,” she said tentatively. “You’re not — I mean you and the monsters aren’t—”
“I haven’t had anything to do with them.”
Her breath escaped with a relieved sound. “Are you from — the Zivver World?”
“No. I’ve never been there.”
The echoes of his words captured her depressed expression.
“Then you’ve spent your whole life hiding the fact you’re a Zivver — just like me,” she said sympathetically.
There was no point in not encouraging her confidence. “It hasn’t been easy.”
“No, it hasn’t. Knowing how much better you can do things, but having to listen to yourself carefully every step of the way so others won’t find out what you are.”
“I pushed it to a fine point — too fine, I suppose. Otherwise I wouldn’t be down here now.”
He heard her hand slide down along the side of the Pit, as though reaching out for him. “Oh, Jared! Does it mean as much to you — finding out you’re not alone? I never guessed anybody else had to go through the same gestations of Radiation and fear that I did — always afraid of being found out at the next step.”
He could appreciate the close relationship she must feel for him, the way her loneliness was crying out. And he sensed something within himself straining toward the girl, even though he was no Zivver in need of sympathetic response.
She went on effusively, “I don’t understand why you didn’t go hunting for the Zivver World long ago. I would have. But I was always afraid I wouldn’t find it and would get lost in the passages.”
“I wanted to go there too,” he lied. And it was beginning to appear that he could play the role of a Zivver simply by following her lead. “But I have an obligation to the Lower Level.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I don’t hear — that is, I don’t ziv why you didn’t join up with the Zivvers during one of their raids,” he said.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. What if I tried and the Zivvers wouldn’t take me? Then everybody would know what I am. I’d be driven into the passages as a Different One!”
She rose and stood zivving down into the Pit.
“You’re leaving?” he asked.
“Only until I can figure out some way to help you.”
“How long do they intend keeping me here?” He tried to change position but succeeded only in almost slipping off the ledge.
“Until the monsters come back. Then Uncle Noris is going to let them know we have you as a hostage.”
Listening to her footfalls recede, he was fascinated with the whole range of things that might come out of his association with the girl. Even if Light and Darkness remained elusive, he at least might learn something about this intriguing ability the Zivvers had.
It was past midsleep when Eared, his muscles cramped and aching, finally managed to ease himself into a sitting position. He tapped the manna shell against rock and listened. It wasn’t a very wide hole — about two body lengths across, he estimated. And he could hear that, except for the ledge on which he perched, the sides were barren of fissures and outcroppings that might have provided handholds toward the surface.
He brought a knee up against his chest and secured his foot on the shelf. Then, with arms outstretched against the slick wall, he rose bit by bit until he was standing. Slowly, he turned around, pressing his chest against the rock. Reaching overhead, he produced sharp tones by snapping his fingers. And the sudden drop-off in the sound pattern told him that the rim of the Pit was at least another arm’s length beyond his extended hand.
He remained in that position for several hundred beats before he heard all Radiation breaking loose above. Until then there had been only the normal sounds of a world lying dormant in midslumber, with an occasional outburst of coughs ruffling the relative quiet.
Then everything seemed to boil over into a great excitement and confusion as one of the Protectors sounded the fearful warning, “Monsters! Monsters!”
Hoarse shouts, screams, and the audible agitation of people scurrying frenziedly about poured down the Pit.
Jared almost lost his balance as he tilted his head back and became aware that the entire opening above was whispering with silent sound. Unlike the sensation experienced during Effective Excitation, however, there was only one circle of the weird monster stuff. And it didn’t seem to be actually touching his eyes. Rather, it corresponded in size and shape with his audible impression of the Pit’s mouth.
He tottered on the ledge, flailing his arms to keep from falling, then stood with his face pressed firmly against stone as he listened to someone running in his direction.
In the next instant Jared recognized the Adviser’s voice coming from halfway across the world, “You at the Pit yet, Sadler?”
There was another distant outburst of screams as Sadler drew to a halt overhead. “I’m here!” He thudded his spear against rock to sound out Jared’s position on the ledge below.
This time it was the Wheel’s voice that rose in challenge to the monsters: “We’ve got Fenton! We know he’s working with you! Get back or we’ll kill him!”
Another wave of screams suggested that the monsters were ignoring Anseim’s threat.
“All right, Sadler,” Lorenz roared. “Send him to the bottom!”
The spear tip grazed Jared’s shoulder and he winced, sidling along the ledge. It came back again, slipped between his chest and the wall of the Pit and began prying him from his perch. Jared toppled over backward and his arms threshed air as he fought to keep from plunging into the unfathomable abyss.
His flailing hand touched and gripped the lance. He jerked himself desperately upright. He gave the spear a violent tug and the full weight of the man at the other end came along with it.
Abruptly the spear was free in his hand and he felt the rush of air as Sadler went plunging by, screaming all the way down.
The weapon was more than long enough to span the Pit. Jared used it as a prodding stick to locate a minor recess in the opposite side. Wedging its butt into the depression, he propped the point against the wall above him.
Panic subsided as quickly as it had broken out overhead. Apparently the invaders had accomplished their purpose and withdrawn.
Jared hoisted himself onto the wedged spear, reached up, gained a purchase on the lip of the Pit and pulled himself out.
“Jared! You’re free!”
Echoes from her footfalls brought fragmentary impressions of Della racing toward him. And he could hear the soft swish of the coil of rope slung across her shoulder and brushing against her arm.
He tried to get his bearings. But the residual din of dismayed voices was too confusing to indicate which way the entrance lay.
Della caught his hand. “I couldn’t find a rope until just now.”
Impulsively, he started off in the direction he was facing.
“No.” She spun him around. “The entrance is this way. Ziv it?”
“Yes. I ziv it now.”
He hung back slightly, letting her remain a step or two ahead and following the tug of her hand.
“We’ll circle wide, along by the river,” she proposed. “Maybe we can reach the passage before they turn on the central caster.”