And he had been hoping someone would do just that. Of course, he hadn’t realized that the clacks which would sound out the obstacles before him would also betray their presence to the others.
His foot contacted a minor outcropping and he stumbled. Eventually righting himself with the girl’s help, he limped on. Then, constraining the anxiety of escape, he composed himself and called upon all the devices he had acquired through gestations of training when he had to learn to detect the subtle rhythm of a heartbeat, the swishing silence of a lazy stream agitated by the motions of a fish beneath its calm surface, the distant scent and slither of a salamander as it crossed moist stone.
More confident now, he listened for sound — any kind of sound, remembering that even the most insignificant noise is useful. There! That lurching catch in Della’s breath as she drew in the next lungful of air. It meant she was stepping onto a slight elevation. He was prepared when he reached the rise.
He listened intently to the other things about her. Heartbeats were too indistinct to be useful except as direct sound. But there was something rattling faintly in her carrying case. He sniffed the imperceptible odors of a variety of edibles. She had packed a good deal of food and one morsel was striking the side of her pouch with each step. The slight flops meant echoes, if he listened attentively enough. There they were now — almost lost among the greater noises from the rest of the world. But they were sufficiently vivid to relay audible impressions of the things before him.
Now he was sure of himself again.
They left the bank of the river, cutting across behind the manna orchard, and had made it almost to the entrance when someone finally turned on the central echo caster.
Immediately, he caught the full composite of a few faint impressions that had worried him for the last few beats — a guard had just arrived to take his post at the entrance.
A moment later the man sounded the alarm. “Somebody’s trying to get out! Two of them!”
Jared lowered his shoulder and charged. He crashed into the sentry, knocking him breathless and bowling him over.
Della caught up with him and they lunged into the passageway. He let her stay in the lead until they had rounded the first bend. Then he produced a pair of stones and pushed ahead of her.
“Clickstones?” she asked, puzzled.
“Of course. If we run into somebody from the Lower Level they might wonder why I’m not using them.”
“Oh. Jared, why don’t we — no. I suppose not.”
“What were you going to say?” He felt perfectly at ease now, with the familiar tones of the pebbles faithfully bringing back true impressions of all the hazards ahead.
“I started to say let’s go to the Zivver World where we belong.”
He pulled up sharply. The Zivver World! Why not? If he was listening for a lessness of something that resulted from zivving, what better place to detect it than in a world where plenty of people were doing a lot of zivving? But could he get away with it? Could he successfully pose as a Zivver in a world full of Zivvers — and hostile ones at that?
“I can’t leave the Lower Level just now,” he decided finally.
“That’s what I figured. Not with all the trouble they’re having. But someperiod, Jared — someperiod we’ll go there?”
“Someperiod.”
She tightened her grip on his hand. “Jared! What if the Wheel sends a runner to the Lower Level to tell them you’re a Zivver?”
“They wouldn’t—” He paused. He’d started to say they wouldn’t believe it. But, with the Guardian dedicated to stirring up sentiment against him, he wondered.
When they reached his world, he found it odd that there were no longer any Protectors at the entrance. The clear, firm clacks of the central caster did reveal, however, the presence of someone standing there at the end of the passageway. And when he moved closer he received the reflected impression of feminine form, hair-over-face.
It was Zelda.
Hearing them she started. Then, nervously, she probed them with clickstones until they came into the full sound of the caster.
“You sure picked a Radiation of a time to bring a Unification partner back,” she reproved after she had recognized Jared.
“Why?”
“There’ve been two more kidnapings by the monsters,” she answered. “That’s why we’re not defending the entrance any longer. They took one of the Protectors. Meanwhile, the Guardian’s managed to get the whole world worked up against you.”
“Maybe I can do something about that,” he returned irately.
“I don’t think you can. You’re not Prime Survivor any longer. Romel’s taken over.” Zelda coughed several times and it sent the hair flying from in front of her face.
He strode off toward the Official Grotto.
“Wait,” the girl called. “There’s something else. Everybody’s boiling at you. Hear all that?”
He listened toward the residential section. The world was resounding with coughs.
“They blame you for this epidemic,” she explained, “since they remember you were the first to have all the symptoms.”
“Jared’s back!” someone in the orchard shouted.
Another Survivor, farther along the way, took up the cry and passed it on to still a third.
Presently a score of persons could be heard filing out of the orchard where they had been working. Others spilled from the grottoes. And they were all converging on the entrance.
Jared studied the reflected clacks and picked up impressions of Rome! and Guardian Philar in the forefront of the advance. They were flanked on either side by a number of Protectors.
Della seized his arm anxiously. “Maybe it would be safer if we just left.”
“We can’t let Romel get away with this.”
Ze!da added with a crisp laugh, “If you think this world’s in a mess now, wait till you hear what Rome! does to it.”
Jared stood his ground before the approaching Survivors. If he was going to convince them Romel and Phi!ar had merely taken advantage of them in the interest of personal ambition, it would have to be from a position of confidence and dignity.
His brother drew up before him and warned, “If you stay here you’re going to hear things my way. I’m Prime Survivor now.”
“How did the Elders vote on that?” Jared asked calmly.
“They haven’t yet. But they will!” Romel seemed to be losing some of his self-assurance. He paused to listen and make certain he still had the support of the Survivors, who had drawn into a half circle about the entrance.
“No Prime Survivor can be removed,” Jared recited the law, “without full hearing.”
Guardian Philar stepped forward. “As far as we’re concerned, you’ve had your hearing — before a Power more just than any of us, before the Great Light Almighty Himself!”
One of the Survivors shouted, “You’ve got Radiation sickness! That only comes from having truck with Cobalt or Strontium!”
“And you passed it on to everybody else!” another added, coughing spasmodically.
Jared started to protest, but was prdmptly shouted down.
And the Guardian said severely, “There are only two sources of Radiation sickness. Either you did have something to do with the Twin Devils, as Rome! suggested, or the disease is a punishment from Light for your profanity, as I suspect.”
It was Jared who was losing his composure now. “It’s not true! Ask Cyrus whether I—”
“The monster got Cyrus yesterperiod.”
“The Thinker — gone?”