“Of course.”
“And while you are at it, see if you can get any information on where we are — how deep beneath the surface, what are the ways back up, that sort of thing.”
“Professor Lang, I will do as you ask. But I feel certain that they will not provide such data to me.”
“Do it anyway.”
Darya followed Tally as the embodied computer went across to the two guarding Zardalu. He talked to them for a couple of minutes, gesturing at Dulcimer and then at Darya. At last one of the Zardalu rose on its tentacles and glided swiftly out of the chamber.
Tally turned back to Darya. “There are sources deeper in the interior, sufficient to provide Dulcimer with any level of radiation needed. They do not want Dulcimer to die, since he has already promised to be a willing slave and assistant to the Zardalu. But it is necessary that senior approval be obtained before radiation can be provided.”
Deeper. It was the wrong direction. “Did you ask them about where we are?”
“I tried to do so. Without success. These Zardalu are difficult to talk to, because they are afraid.”
“Of us?” Darya felt a moment of hope.
“Not at all. They know they are superior to us in speed and strength. The guards here fear the wrath of the senior Zardalu. If they make a mistake and fail to carry out their duties properly, that will be punished—”
“Don’t tell me. By death.”
“Precisely.” Tally was staring at Darya with a puzzled expression. “Professor Lang, may I speak? Why do you wish me to ask questions of the Zardalu about ways out of here, when such inquiries will surely arouse their suspicions as to your intentions?”
Darya sighed. The embodied computer might be regarded as a big success back on Miranda, but that was not a world where mayhem and bloodshed ruled. “E.C., if we don’t find a way out of here, we have only two alternatives: we make a deal with the Zardalu that sells out humans and every other race in the spiral arm; or we don’t make a deal and we are pulled to pieces and fed to the Zardalu infants. Clear enough now?”
“Of course. However…” Tally seemed ready to say more, but he was interrupted by the return of the messenger Zardalu. The other one came to pick up Dulcimer, poked J’merlia awake with the tip of one tentacle, and gestured to Darya and Tally to move on out of the chamber. They descended a broad staircase and moved down another ramp, always penned between the Zardalu. After a few minutes of confusing turns and twists and another four dark tunnels, they emerged into a long, low room filled with equipment.
The Zardalu holding Dulcimer turned to click and whistle at Tally.
“It wants to know the setting,” the embodied computer said. “It assumes you want Dulcimer in that.” He gestured to a massive item that stood close to one wall.
Darya went across and examined it. It was some kind of reactor, it had to be. The thickness of the shielding suggested that its radiation would be rapidly lethal to humans or most normal organisms. But Dulcimer was far from normal. What level could he tolerate, or even thrive on? She knew what she wanted, a dose big enough to fill him with pep and confidence, the same fearless bravado that he had shown when he flew the Erebus into the middle of the Torvil Anfract. Then, with his active help, the four of them might be able to handle a Zardalu — not two, but one; and that would take some careful arranging, too. Finding the right-sized dose was the first step, but it was going to be a matter of purest guesswork.
There was a door set into the reactor side, just big enough for a human or a Polypheme to squeeze through. Darya cracked it open. When the Zardalu did not protest or back away she swung it wide.
The chamber inside was a kind of buffer zone, with a second closed door at its far end. It was the area where decontamination would take place, after a maintenance engineer, presumably wearing suitably heavy protection, had finished work and emerged from the interior.
She gestured to the Zardalu. “Put him in there.”
The space was only just big enough for Dulcimer, tightly coiled as he was. Darya squeezed the door shut on the inert Polypheme and felt guilty. If she understood the mechanism, the fail-safe would allow the outer door to be opened only when the inner door was closed. But the inner door could be kept open from outside the whole unit. That meant that until Darya closed the interior door, Dulcimer would not be able to escape even if he wanted to.
She crossed her fingers mentally and moved the control of the inside door. Dulcimer was now exposed to whatever sleet of radiation came from inside the reactor. And since Darya knew nothing of its design, she had no idea how much that might be.
How long dare she leave him inside? A few minutes might be enough to kill. Too much would be worse than too little. The Zardalu just stood watching. They must assume that she knew what she was doing. Darya was in an agony of worry and guilt.
“May I speak?” It was E.C. Tally, interrupting at the worst possible moment. J’merlia was standing by his side, fully awake again.
“No. Keep quiet, E.C. I’m busy.”
“With respect, Professor Lang,” J’merlia said, “I think you will find it of advantage to listen to his thinking.”
“I am still wondering,” Tally went on without waiting for Darya’s reaction, while she glared at both of them, “why you requested that I ask the Zardalu about the ways out of here.”
Darya rounded on him. “Why do you think? Do you two like it here so much you want to stay forever? You will, you know, unless you do more than just sit around.”
She knew that Tally did not deserve the outburst, but she was ready to be angry with anyone.
He nodded calmly. “I understand your desire to leave, and quickly. But that does not address my question. Your request still confuses me, since we know where we were taken as we came here. I have all that information recorded in memory. And thus we already know how to get to the surface, without asking anyone.”
Darya had a few moments of wild hope before logic intruded. “That won’t do, E.C. I believe that you remember exactly the way you came, and you could probably backtrack. But the first part of the trip was underwater — I saw you go before I did. And the sea around that whole area is swarming with Zardalu. Even if we escaped all the way back that far, we’d be caught in the water before we ever got close to land.”
“True. But may I speak? I am aware that escape through water is infeasible, and I would not propose that.”
“Then what the devil do you propose?” The collapse of even the faintest hope made Darya angrier than ever. “Tunneling up through solid rock? Eating your way out?”
“I would propose that we retrace our downward path until we reach the first set of air pumps. And we then seek to follow their flow path directly to the surface.”
Air pumps. Darya was angrier than ever — at herself. She had felt the breeze of dry fresh air and heard the chugging rhythm of pumps in the very first chamber that she had been taken to. There must be hundreds of others, riddled through the whole labyrinth of chambers. All logic said that the ducts must terminate on the surface of Genizee.
“Tally, I’ll never say anything bad about embodied computers again. You can think rings around me. Bring that Zardalu over here, would you? — the bigger one. Quick as you can.”
He hurried away, and she glanced at the closed reactor door while he was whistling at their captor. In her preoccupation with Tally and J’merlia she had forgotten all about Dulcimer. For all she knew, he could be cooked right through and dead. She was reassured by a sudden sound — a loud Boom! Boom! Boom! from inside. She closed the inner door, but held the outer one closed as the bigger Zardalu approached.