"You are to think nothing of it, Jake, friend of mine. These things are not spoken of, not much."
"Here, Jake," Susan said, dumping a load of parcels on me. "Now, let me check back at the dressmaker's and we'll―"
"Look," I said, "I'm going to take Tivi and get those parts. You go get your outfit and we'll meet you here in an hour."
"Okay. Let's divvy up these things. You take that and that, I'll take this thing… don't they give out shopping bags in this place?"
"You may be needing this?" Tivi was unfolding a gray cloth sack which she had brought out from under her cape.
Susan shook her head. "And we didn't even think to bring a bag or something." She stuffed the small sack, but the gun box wouldn't fit. "This bulky thing. Maybe if we took the stuff out of the box. Ragna?"
"No, let me take it," I said. "Maybe I can find out what kind of weapon it is."
"But you'll have the parts to carry."
"I have two of these," Tivi said, producing another sack.
"Tivi, darling, you're indispensable."
"I am thanking you for not dispensing with me."
We finally split up.
Tivi led me across the mall and up a ramp to a mezzanine. From there we took a connecting corridor and came out onto a curving balcony at least fifteen stories above a vast central floor alive with commerce and every- other sort of activity. We walked along the balcony until it swung out over the floor and became a ramp leading down to platform. There were bunches of transparent tubes shooting up from the floor, and inside the tubes were platforms moving up and down. These were elevators, certainly, but I couldn't figure out how they worked. We ran into a crush of shoppers well before we reached the boarding platform.
"Too much crowd," Tivi said. "We should be going back this way."
We walked back up the ramp and onto the balcony, then through another connecting corridor, coming out into a smaller open area that was a disconcerting architectural jumble. Nogon ideas of interior design were perceptually disorienting. Walkways made odd angles as they shot overhead without visible support. Ramps spiraled dizzily, walls bulged and sucked in, staircases obtruded into overhead spaces. Control, I thought. Control is what arcologies are all about-but what's all this madness? Maybe arcologies were just about containment.
Tivi led me into a side corridor. We stopped by a pair of doors set into the wall.
"These freight-lifting mechanisms are not being in so much use," she maintained.
It looked like a conventional elevator, but when we got it going, it went up diagonally for a while, stopped for a moment, then continued vertically. In all, we went up about twenty stories.
These upper levels seemed devoted to non-consumer items and were a little quieter, but not much. "Auctions" were being held here, too, complete with the pushing and shoving I had observed below. There were stores here, of a sort, though you couldn't tell where one ended and one began. We found an area stacked with crates of what Tivi said were electronics parts. The store was full of shoppers, but there wasn't the crush there was below.
"I will be going to fetch a sales individual. Be waiting here, please."
"Right."
Tivi left and I examined some of the stuff. I could see now that my coming along had been unnecessary. I had thought that my experience with alien technologies back in the known mazes would have helped. No chance. This junk looked like dried fruit to me. Boxes and boxes of dried fruit. Looked good, too; handy for long trips when you can't stop to eat.
Damn, I was tired. I sat on a box of delicious-looking Nogon technology and took a deep breath. Mall fatigue? Hell. Getting old.
I spent the next few minutes thinking about nothing in particular. Memories of the last four weeks were a jumble. Running and hiding, capture and escape, over and over again. Nothing made sense. The universe was a senseless machine, grinding away to no purpose. I was caught in its gears.
I digested that for a while. A faint feeling of nausea was the result.
Where was Tivi?
I got up and walked around the store looking for her. She was nowhere in sight. I went back out into the mall, walked one way, then turned around and walked back. I searched the store again, checked out the neighboring store areas. No Tivi.
I waited another minute, then jogged as far as I could down the mall without getting lost. I huffed back, threading through the crowds, then ran in the other direction, searched, came back. She was gone.
In desperation, I searched the store once again, sat down, waited, got up and paced, sat back down, waited.
The next ten minutes were miserable. If I went looking for her, I'd surely get lost. I couldn't ask anybody. I knew only a few words of Ahgirr, nothing of the mainstream Nogon languages. I could only wait. And wait.
Ten minutes more. Fifteen.
Helpless. Helpless.
It was one of the few times in my life when the notion of panicking didn't seem unattractive. Panic, at least, was action and maybe a release, while sitting there was unbearable torture.
The sheer immensity of the distance between here and home struck like a hammer blow. I was lost-doubly, triply lost. I had blundered through not one, but two potluck portals, and now, inside that maze-within-a-maze, I had found yet another labyrinth to contain me.
I stood up. All right, enough of that crap.
This place was big, but not infinitely so. I would walls and walk and walk and sooner or later Susan and Ragna would find me. They'd send out word, alert the security forces. I was easy enough to spot.
But if something had happened to Tivi, could Susan and Ragna be safe?
I was sure I could find that freight elevator. I did.
There were no buttons to press. Tivi had fiddled with a single knob until the desired level designation had shown on the readout screen: No help to me. I tried remembering what symbol had been on the screen when we entered. Couldn't. Okay. Then it was a matter of fiddling with the damn knob, going along for the ride until this contraption went down at least twenty stories. I fiddled, and the thing went.
Sideways.
Then it stopped and the doors slid open. A few Nogon waiting nearby made motions to enter, saw me, and backed off. The doors closed. Nothing happened.
I spun the knob. The elevator went straight up. I spun the knob the other way. The elevator stopped, groaned, went down diagonally to the right. I kept worrying the control and the thing kept changing direction, going nowhere. Exasperated, I twisted the knob until a likely set of runes showed on the readout. I left it there.
The contraption dropped like a rock. Which was fine, except that I couldn't stop it. I must have given it some priority command. Okay, the hell with it, I'd just go along for the ride.
It was a long ride, straight down. And down. And farther down still. The bargain basement-sale items, hardware, carpet remnants-the Seventh Circle of Hell.
Finally the elevator slowed, sighed softly, and stopped. The doors opened. I peered out.
Compared to the ceaseless roar of the mall, there was silence here. Out of the semidarkness, the quietly efficient whir and hum of machinery came to my ears. It was a world all to its own. Pipes gurgled, motors thrummed and throbbed, fans whined. The strangled scream of a turbine came from my right. But quietly, quietly.
The place was a jungle of pipes and ducts. Here and there, faint trails of steam arose from joints and junctures. Dripping water puddled on the floor in front of the elevator. Dim yellow light came obliquely from a source to the left. Through the riot of pipes I could see branching corridors leading off at odd angles.
This wasn't my floor. I wrenched the oversized, dull-white control knob around until vaguely familiar markings showed on the readout screen. The elevator stayed put. I fiddled with it some more, to no avail. The thing would go up again, if at all, in its own good time. I squatted, leaning my back against the metal wall of the car.