Morever, he was sorely disappointed. He had hoped that on stepping into the Zivver domain the difference he had been hunting all his life would fairly leap out at him. Oh, it was going to be so easy! Zivvers had eyes and, in using them, they materially affected the universal Darkness, eating holes in it, so to speak — just as hearing sound ate holes in silence. And, simply by recognizing what there was less of, he was going to identify Darkness.
But he could hear nothing unusual. Many persons were down there zivving. Yet, everything was exactly the same here as in any other world, except for the absence of an echo caster and the presence of the sharp Zivver scent.
Della quickened her pace but he restrained her. “We don’t want to startle them.”
“There’s nothing to worry about. We’re both Zivvers.”
Near enough to the settled area to intercept impressions from the rebounding sounds of communal activities, he followed the girl around the orchard and past a row of animal pens. Discovery finally came as they approached a party working on the nearest geometrical dwelling place. Jared heard an apprehensive silence fall upon the group and listened to heads twisting alertly in his direction.
“We’re Zivvers,” Della called out confidently. “We came here because we belong here.”
The men advanced silently, spreading out to converge on them from several directions.
“Mogan!” one of them shouted. “Over here — quick!”
Several Zivvers lunged and caught Jared’s arms, pinning them to his sides. Della too, he heard, was receiving the same treatment.
“We’re not armed,” he protested.
Others were gathering around now and he was grateful for the background of agitated voices that, in the absence of an echo caster, sounded out the more prominent details of his surroundings.
Two faces pushed close to his and he listened to eyes that were wide open and severe in their steadiness. He made certain his own lids were fully raised and unblinking.
“The girl’s zivving,” vouched someone off to his left.
An open hand fanned the air abruptly in front of his face and he was unable to keep his eyelids from flicking.
“I suppose this one is too,” the owner of the hand attested. “At least, his eyes are open.”
Jared and Della were hustled ahead between the rows of dwelling units while scores of Zivver Survivors collected from all over the world. Concentrating on vocal sounds and their reflections, he caught the impression of an immense figure pushing through the crowd and instantly recognized the man as Mogan, the Zivver leader.
“Who let them in?” Mogan demanded.
“They didn’t get by the entrance,” someone assured.
“They say they’re Zivvers,” offered another.
“Are they?” Mogan asked.
“They’re both open-eyed.”
The leader’s voice boomed down on Jared. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”
Della answered first. “This is where we belong.”
“We were attacked by soubats beyond that far wall,” Jared explained. “We jumped into the river and washed up in here.”
Mogan’s voice lost some of its severity. “You must have had a Radiation of a time. I’m the only one who’s ever gotten in that way.” Then, boastfully, “Made it through against the current a couple of times, too. What were you doing out there?”
“Looking for this world,” Della replied. “We’re both Zivvers.”
“Like compost you are!” Mogan shot back. “There was only one original Zivver. All of us are his descendants. You’re not. You came from one of the Levels.”
“True,” she admitted. “But my father was a Zivver — Nathan Bradley.”
Somewhere in the background a Survivor drew in a tense breath and started forward. It was the anxious, heavy gasp of an elderly man.
“Nathan!” he exclaimed. “My son!”
But someone held him off.
“Nathan Bradley?” the man on Jared’s left repeated uncertainly.
“Sure,” answered another. “You heard about hun. Used to spend all his time out in the passages — until he disappeared.”
Then Jared felt the blast of Mogan’s words directed down at him again. “What about you?”
“He’s another original Zivver,” Della said.
“And I’m a soubat’s uncle!” the leader blurted.
Once more Jared’s self-confidence slid off into doubt over the ability to carry off his disguise as a Zivver. Groping for something convincing to say, he offered, “Maybe I’m not an original Zivver. You do have people who desert your world from time to time and who might be responsible for other spurs. There was Nathan and there was Estel—”
“Estel!” a woman exclaimed, pushing through the crowd. “What do you know about my daughter?”
“I was the one who sent her back here the first time I zivved her out near the Main Passage.”
The woman seized his arms and he could almost feel the pressure of her eyes. “Where is she? What’s happened to her?”
“She came to the Lower Level listening — zivving for me. That was how everybody found out I was a Zivver. After that I couldn’t very well stay down there.”
“Where is my child?” the woman demanded.
Reluctantly, he related what had happened to Estel. A condoling silence fell over the world while the Survivoress was led away sobbing.
“So you swam in under the rocks,” Mogan mused. “Lucky you didn’t get caught in the waterfall on this side.”
“Then we can stay?” Jared asked hopefully, trying to keep his eyes steady just as Mogan was doing.
“For the moment, yes.”
In the silence that followed, Jared sensed a subtle change in his perception of the Zivver leader. For some reason, Mogan was unconsciously holding his breath and his heartbeat had increased slightly. Jared concentrated on the effects and detected, even more faintly, that particular physical tension which claims a person intent on some crafty purpose. Then he caught the almost inaudible impression of Mogan’s hand rising slowly before him. He coughed casually and, in the reflections of the sound, discerned that the hand was slyly waiting to be clasped.
Without hesitation, his own hand shot forward and grasped the other. “Did you think I wouldn’t ziv that?” he asked, laughing.
“We’ve got to be careful,” Mogan said. “I’ve zivved Levelers who could hear so well that they might easily be mistaken for one of us.”
“What reason would we have for coming here if we weren’t Zivvers?”
“I don’t know. But we’re not taking any chances — not with those creatures stalking the passages. Even now we’re sealing the entrance before they can find it. But what good would that do if they learned there was another way to get in — a way that can’t be blocked?”
Mogan stepped between Jared and the girl and led them off. “We’re going to keep an eye on you until we’re sure we can trust you. Meanwhile, I know how you feel after swimming under those rocks. So we’ll give you a chance to rest.”
They were led to adjacent dwelling units — “shacks,” Jared had heard one of the Zivvers call them — and were ushered in through rectangular openings. Guards were posted outside each structure.
Standing uncertainly within the enclosure, Jared cleared his throat rather loudly. Echoes of the sound brought details of a recess strikingly different from any of the residental grottoes he had known. Here, everything was an adaptation of the rectangle. There was a dining slab whose remarkably level surface was composed of husks woven tightly together and stretched across a framework of manna stalks. He laid his hand casually upon it and traced the weave. Four other stalks, he heard, served as legs to hold the leveF section off the floor.