They walked slowly toward the dimly lit rear of the room, splashing through water that deepened to their knees. Close-up, the wall showed a definite grain.
“Like wood,” Chrissie murmured. “But I don’t see any joins. It’s like it grew , all in one piece.”
“Seamless.” Tarbush extruded the cutting tool of the emergency repair kit from his suit’s forearm and dug at the wall. “And tough. This will pierce most things, and I’m not making a dent.”
“What about this?” Chrissie was bending down to inspect a circular hole in the wall covered by a coarse-woven mesh. “I think this is a ventilator. I can feel a draft.”
“Let me have a go.” Tarbush applied the point of the knife. “This cuts easily. I can remove the whole thing if I want to. Not that it will do us much good. The hole’s only about four inches across.”
“How deep?”
“Hold on.” Tarbush removed the little spotlight from his suit’s helmet, shone it into the hole, and peered after it. “At least a foot. The wall’s a lot thicker than I expected.”
“Let me try something.” Chrissie reached in, until her arm was buried to the shoulder. “I think I’m at the end, and it’s not covered with a mesh. My hand feels as though it’s out in the open, there’s a breeze on it.”
“So your hand can escape. Not too useful for the rest of us. Let’s see if there’s another one somewhere else that’s bigger.”
Working in silence, they went in opposite directions around the perimeter of the room until they came to the keyhole doorway that led to the other chamber.
“Anything?” Tarbush whispered.
“One more ventilation tube, same size as before. You?”
“Nothing. Unless you want to take a look in there.” Tarbush nodded his head toward the central room. With the rocky monster gone, the crab creatures were once more upright and busily moving a set of nested vertical tables to horizontal positions.
“I don’t want to, but we have to.” Chrissie stepped forward. “Stay where you are. No point in both of us taking a chance.”
“Chrissie!” But Tarbush stayed close to the wall as she moved into the central chamber, adding only a hissed, “Stop if they point the sticks.”
“Trust me. But I’m going to try to talk to them.” Chrissie stepped up onto the ledge and advanced to where the translation unit lay on the floor. As she picked it up, three of the biggest of the creatures stopped work and moved in her direction.
“Food,” she said loudly. “The big boss says we can have food.”
The translator produced a sequence of whistles and clicks. Chrissie waited. Eyestalks wiggled. Finally one of the creatures chittered, and the translation unit said, “Us not can. Not move.”
It retreated across the floor, to the far doorway of the chamber and beyond. Its two fellows had raised black canes and were pointing them directly at Chrissie.
“What now?” But it was hardly a question, and she did not expect Tarbush to answer. She did not dare to move, and waited frozen in position until at last the creature reappeared. It was accompanied by another half its size.
The small one advanced to stand in front of Chrissie. It waited. Finally it chittered into the translator unit, which said in one rush of words, “Why is this used — What is the problem — Was there no meeting with The One?”
Chrissie could answer the last question. “If Big Rocky is the same as The One, we had a meeting.”
“ But there was no transfer?” The eyestalks of the little animal swiveled and seemed to be staring at Chrissie’s ears. “Ah, I see it is true. There was in your case not yet a transfer. What do you want?”
“We would like food.” Chrissie did not feel in the least like eating, but it was the only thing that she could think of.
“ The rest period is here. It is not food time.”
“The One told us we could have food.”
Apparently she had said the magic words. The creature in front of her clacked and whistled, and the translation unit said abruptly, “You will be given food, the same food as the converted one. Then you will remain quiet until day comes, or you will be punished. Go back into your room.”
Chrissie retreated. As soon as she was beyond the ledge, a curtain of mist seemed to close across the keyhole opening. It gradually solidified, until in half a minute it looked exactly like a brighter version of the rest of the wall.
“I guess that didn’t work,” Tarbush said softly. He went across and rapped on the new wall. “Quite a trick. Perfectly solid. I thought you were promised food?”
“Maybe it changed its mind.” But a few moments later, the part of the wall nearest the floor rippled. An object shaped like a small sled came floating through into the room and stood six inches from the floor unsupported. Tarbush bent down to lift the lid of the oblong container that sat on top of the sled, and recoiled.
“Sweet Lucy! If that’s what they call food …”
He clapped the lid back on the box, but not before Chrissie had seen dozens of purple tentacles reaching and wriggling out over the edges.
“I wasn’t hungry anyway,” she said. As she watched, the new wall slowly began to darken. It was the only source of light, and within a minute she could not make out Tarbush’s outline. “That little effort didn’t help at all, did it? We’re worse off than we were before.”
“Not really.” Tarbush again turned on the little spotlight in the helmet of his suit. “They’re not watching us any more. We’re free to fiddle around any way we like so long as we don’t make a lot of noise.”
“So what do we fiddle around with all night long?” Chrissie advanced, until she stood in front of him and could tilt her head back to look at his frowning face, shadowed by the lamp above it. “Do we take that sled apart and try to understand how it floats in the air with no support? Or do we sit in the corner and play with ourselves? I don’t have any ideas. Do you?”
The scowl that he gave her was its own answer.
31: THE NATURE OF THE MULTIVERSE
After the Angel’s pronouncement on the nature of the changed Friday Indigo, Dag Korin couldn’t wait to get everyone away from his private quarters.
“Go on,” he said. “Get out of here. It’s far too late for an old man like me, and you must be tired, too. Go get a good night’s sleep.” And to Gressel, “A good night’s transpiration for you, or whatever you do in the dark.”
And then, one by one, Dag Korin contacted every human and told them to come back.
“I had to do it this way,” he explained, when the bewildered group was reassembled. “You know how the Angel would react if I told him I planned to take Friday Indigo and use his guts for suspenders. We need a private planning session without any aliens. What’s the status on the Pipe-Rilla?”
“Still curled tight,” Tully O’Toole said. “She’s in the cool medical unit near me, and every time I go past I sneak a peek. How long can a Pipe-Rilla stay frigid rigid?”
“Months.” Elke was the only one in the room who didn’t look the least bit tired. “It’s not a big deal, they always curl themselves that way when they estivate. In fact, I suspect that stress may simply induce an unplanned estivation. If so, Vow-of-Silence will be hyperactive when she wakes.”
“Then the longer she sleeps, the better. Let’s leave her that way.” With every seat taken, Korin perched on the liquor cabinet. “All right, first question. How much of that guff about the superior science of the Malacosties do we believe?”
“All of it.” Elke replied at once. “I’ve studied our space images a lot more since last time we talked. The buildings around the airstrip morph every few hours, in their numbers and their sizes. An area of seven hundred square kilometers was cleared and sterilized, with no sign of radioactivity. And their aircraft and ships, from everything I’ve seen of them, ought not to be able to fly. They possess technology we’ve never dreamed of.”