“If you don’t come out,” said the voice, “I’ll go without you.”
She recognised the voice, but realised this could all be a trick. Cautiously, she slid her head out through the narrow oval opening where she lay.
The chamber was shaped like a cone which lying on its side, and Kiru was near the end, which tapered to nothing. The area was dimly lit, but the light was pure and undistorted, which she hoped meant the Xyzians were nowhere near. She peered all around, looked to either end, but saw no one.
“Ah,” said the voice, “there you are.”
She looked up.
Eliot Ness was standing upside-down, high above her.
“Come on,” he said.
Kiru slid out of the tube, and it was as if she had been hibernating in there. Like an animal sleeping away the winter, her body had used up its reserves of fat and she was back to her normal weight. That was the only thing that was remotely normal, she realised, as she looked away from her grey body and up to the inverted figure of Eliot Ness.
“You’re upside-down,” she shouted.
“Don’t shout,” said Eliot Ness. “I can hear you.”
“Can you?” said Kiru, in a lower voice, almost certain he wouldn’t hear her. “You’re so far away.”
“We don’t have time to discuss acoustics,” said Eliot Ness, who must have heard her perfectly. “And I won’t be so far away when you join me.”
“You’re upside-down.”
“You already said that. But you’re upside-down. I’m downside-up.”
“What?”
“Neither do we have time to discuss topography. We’ve got to go.” Eliot Ness beckoned to her. “Follow me.”
“I can’t get up there.”
“You can, Kiru. You walk. Remember how? One foot in front of the other.”
He was wearing a symsuit, which must have been how he could hang upside-down. She was wearing nothing.
She looked up at him again. It was impossible.
“Do it!” Eliot Ness ordered.
Although Kiru had lost weight, her legs still felt heavy in the Xyzian gravity. She took one step forward, then another, and began climbing the curve of the cone.
After the first few, short, hesitant steps, she slid her soles across the surface, one by one, not wanting to raise her feet from the ground. She leaned forward for balance, but found herself being dragged in that direction—dragged upward. Instinctively, she put out her hands. Then she fell, fell upward, onto her hands and knees.
“If you can’t walk,” said Eliot Ness, “crawl!”
She crawled, sliding her hands and knees and toes along the curved wall, crawled upward, up and up, then upside-down, to where Eliot Ness stood waiting.
“You can stand up now,” he told her.
Kiru looked up at him, then looked even higher up, which was also further down, to where she had been.
Eliot Ness reached down his hand to her; she took it, and he helped her up. His fingers were bare, without his symgloves. He’d also removed the hood of his symsuit. By not being completely covered, his metabolism was functioning at its normal human rate.
This was the first time they had ever touched, Kiru realised. Even within the narrow confines of the escape capsule, they had never so much as brushed against each other.
He was also grey. His symsuit, his black face, his white hair, his eyes. All had become shades of grey.
“Thanks,” she said.
“As I said, it’s time to go.” He released his hand from hers, turned and walked away. In the heavier gravity, it was as if he was wading through water.
“Where are the Xyzians?” she asked, as she followed.
“The what?”
“The Xyzians. The aliens. The ones who answered the rescue signal. The ones whose ship this is.”
“Xyzians? That’s a generic slate translation for an unknown alien name. Zyxian, that’s another. So is Yxzian.”
“Say that again.”
“Yxzian.”
“That’s what I thought you said.”
They made their way along the top of the cone, or perhaps it was the bottom of the cone, to the end where the diameter was at its maximum. The wall facing them was convex, and at the intersection was an elliptical aperture, just high enough for an Xyzian, or whatever they were really called, to pass through. Eliot Ness and Kiru had to bend down to go underneath.
Ahead of them spiralled a narrow tunnel. Staying low, they walked along, around, up, over, upside-down, along, down, around, then did the same again, again, again.
“Where are they, the aliens?” asked Kiru.
“Trying to get their ship out of orbit,” said Eliot Ness.
“It’s in orbit?”
“Yes.”
“Around a planet?”
“Yes.”
“Is it, by any chance, the planet you wanted to reach?”
“Yes.”
The tunnel twisted downward, turning into a vertical shaft. They walked down over the edge, and it became horizontal. After more slow walking, heads still bowed, the tunnel ballooned into a series of parallel tubes. Without hesitation, Eliot Ness entered one of these, Kiru followed, and they soon reached a flight of semicircular steps. This time, when they walked down, they really did go down.
At the bottom of the steps the tube funnelled wide to become an ovoid chamber, and below them lay their escape pod.
Either Kiru and Eliot Ness were upside-down or the lifeboat was. Eliot Ness walked down the steep curve of the wall and reached the capsule. Kiru followed. No longer needing to go on her hands and knees, she walked vertically down the wall.
This was the first time she had ever seen the lifeboat from the exterior. It was grey, of course, and because of its shape almost seemed an integral part of the Xyzian ship: The pod was oval, with a domed nose, curved fins and a rounded tail. When she had been inside, it was very small; now that she was outside, it seemed no bigger.
Eliot Ness gestured for her to climb on board.
“Is it safe?” Kiru asked, inspecting the hull for holes.
“We’re not going far,” said Eliot Ness.
Kiru went in through the hatch. Instead of joining her, Eliot Ness walked to the furthest side of the hull, knelt down, and studied the array of tubes and pipes, wheels and dials. After a minute, he began operating the controls.
He stood up, looked at what he’d done for a few seconds, then hurried as fast as he could to the lifeboat, clambering inside and closing the hatch behind him. Everything became dark for a moment until the internal lighting system kicked in.
The greyness was gone, the complete spectrum of colours had returned, and Kiru no longer had a shadow which was brighter than herself. It felt wonderful to be back in the tiny, cramped lifeboat.
Eliot Ness reached the far end of the capsule and began signalling at the screen.
“Thanks for waiting,” Kiru said.
“I didn’t,” he said. “The ship wasn’t in synchronous position.” He was silent for half a minute, then added, “Until now.”
Kiru felt a surge of movement as the lifeboat took off, dropping out of the alien ship and heading down to the planet below.
The positions of the alien ship and the planet it orbited were irrelevant. Eliot Ness had found her and led her back to the escape pod.
“Thanks,” said Kiru. “Anyway.”
Liberated at last from the alien gravity, she stretched, and it was almost as if her torso and limbs were growing longer, and she could feel her whole body becoming straighter.
Her priority was food. She was starving, and she opened one of the rations compartments, searching through for something which didn’t need hydrating or flasheating. But there was nothing, and it would take ages before she could eat.
“You want something?” she asked, during the first few of the ninety long seconds she had to wait until her meal was ready.
“I’ll wait till I get there,” said Eliot Ness.