“Unfortunately,” Incarnadine said with a wan smile, “that’s exactly what I fear.”
Twelve
Caves
He woke up in a cool dark place. Looking around, he found that he was in some sort of rock-walled chamber. A cave? Yes, a cave. Now, how the heck had he gotten here? What …?
Huh? His hands were tied! He rolled to his back, then levered himself to a sitting position. Pain immediately flooded his head, and he waited until the throbbing subsided to a tolerable level. Then he resumed exploring his environment, if only visually.
He was sitting on a low bed of animal skins. More hides draped the walls, along with a few weapons with copper-colored blades: a knife, an ax, and a sword. The glow from coals in a nearby brazier supplemented light from a copper lamp at the foot of the bed. There was little other furniture save for some low footstools and an oversized pillow or two.
Memory trickled back. He remembered the vehicle tipping over, then after that being dragged from the wreckage. The next thing to come out of a cloud of dim recollection was the sensation of jouncing around on the back of a horse or some other animal. He had a vague memory of watching the ground go by beneath him; he must have been slung facedown over the back of the animal. He remembered hearing voices talking a strange language.
So the Umoi had not completely died out. Whoever had made these weapons and skinned these animals must be their descendants.
Pain swelled again, and he lay back down. Probably had a nasty concussion, he decided. Better take it easy for a while.
He wondered why Zond had never mentioned the possibility that some Umoi might have survived. Was it because the city simply didn’t know? Perhaps Zond didn’t care.
Anyway, lucky for him that there was someone about to rescue him, get him to shelter. He might have died out there in the desert. He tugged at the cords binding his wrists. Pretty sturdy; looked like leather of some sort. Well, any of those weapons hanging above looked capable of making short work of his bonds — if he could summon the strength to get up and use them.
He struggled to his feet and found himself terribly dizzy. He took a few wobbling steps, weakened, and collapsed back to the bed.
Maybe he had internal injuries as well. If so, he was a goner, judging from the state of the local technology. These jokers hadn’t discovered iron yet. Maybe not even bronze. Correction — they had forgotten iron and bronze, along with all the rest of their fabulous science and technology. Given it all up, in the interest of environmental purity, granola, and all the rest of that stuff.
But why didn’t Zond know?
One way to find out. He would ask Zond. This was a good test of the communications gear that the city had manufactured for him. It consisted of circuitry woven into the fabric of his jumpsuit.
“Zond? Can you hear me?”
There was some static; then: “Of course.”
“You’re breaking up a little.”
After a pause Zond replied, “I’ve changed frequencies. Better?”
“Better.”
“Where are you, if I may ask?”
“In a cave. I don’t know exactly where, but it can’t be far from the rover, because I was brought here on horseback. Or whatever. How come you didn’t tell me about the people?”
“People?” Zond asked calmly.
“Yeah! They’re Umoi. They gotta be!”
“The Umoi are extinct.”
“You getting a picture?”
“Of course.”
“What is this, chopped liver?”
“Is that an allusion?”
“Are these artifacts the work of intelligent beings, or what?”
“Those artifacts, if you want to call them such, are the work of artificial life forms.”
“Artificial life forms.”
“You got it,” Zond said. “They’re called yalim, and were created by the Umoi from genetic material found in some of the more highly developed fauna of this world. They were servants, underpeople, nothing more. When the last Umoi died, they reverted to a feral state.”
“I see. Artificial life forms. Like … androids.”
“That term isn’t as clear as it could be, but yes, androids.”
“Great. The Umoi looked like frogs with leprosy. What sort of blasphemous horrors are these freaks going to resemble?”
“Turn around and look.”
“Probably some sort of crawling, gelatinous — huh?”
Gene craned his neck around and nearly fell over.
It was a woman, a fully human one, though of rather exotic racial type, wearing a minimalist haiku of an outfit. It consisted of hemispheres of burnished copper over the breasts, skimpy black leather briefs, white fur cape, and black leather boots. Bedecked with necklaces of uncut stones, copper bracelets jangling at her wrists, she approached. She stopped, planting her feet wide apart, and stood arms akimbo. She regarded Gene coldly.
Her face was stunningly beautiful, black almond eyes over a perfect nose and full plum lips, but the skin was even more miraculous, the color of coffee with heavy cream, a rich golden brew that glowed with life. Her looks were neither Oriental nor Caucasian, nor any other earthly physiognomic variation.
Gene unhung his jaw and tried to get up. He couldn’t.
Two other women had entered the chamber, and even though they were practically naked, Gene gave them barely a glance.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Gene muttered.
“About what?” Zond answered. “About yalim? They are of no consequence whatever.”
“Has it struck you yet that these yalim have something in common with yours truly?”
“Well, now that you mention it. I suppose.”
“Unbelievable.”
The woman was frowning ominously.
“Actually,” Zond went on, “the genetic similarities are fairly superficial. In fact —”
“Shhh! Looks like she’s getting pissed off.”
The woman jabbed a finger at him and barked something dictatorial.
“Uh, Zond?”
“What is it, Gene-person?”
“What did she say? Can you help me out here?”
“Sure. The language is of course a corruption of Received Standard Umoi, almost unrecognizable in its linguistic —”
“Translate, for Pete’s sake!”
“She told you to shut up.”
“She —? Oh.”
The woman spoke again, shooting orders at him. Gene got the impression that whatever she had told him to do, he was supposed to do it quick, and no nonsense.
“Well?” Gene said under his breath.
“She wants to know what you were doing inside one of the machines of the Old Gods, and if you don’t have a good explanation, she’s going to cut your … uh, sever your generative organs from your body. In so many words.”
“Whoa!” A wide, coprographic grin spread across Gene’s face. “Hi, there! Nice to meet you. Uh, look —”
The woman spoke again. The language sounded a little like German, with a lot of Finno-Ugric added for spice.
“She wants to know what tribe you’re from.”
“Tribe?” Gene piped. “Tribe. Yeah, tribe.”
“Better make it good.”
“I can’t speak a word of her language!”
“Now she says you don’t look like any tribe she’s ever seen.”
“Look, ma’am,” Gene said. “You gotta understand. I was just walking down the yellow brick road, when all of a sudden —”
The woman shouted at him.
“She said shut up again,” Zond told him.
“I gathered.”
The woman stalked around the chamber, her ebony eyes clinically taking his measure. At length she began to speak again. Zond translated.
“Well, she says she doesn’t know what to make of you. You don’t seem to belong anywhere, but you must be yalim — read ‘human,’ there — because you look it, somewhat. She’s a little worried that you might be a demon or something. But of course, if you were, you would have killed her or done something frightening, but you didn’t, and besides, demons don’t get themselves conked on the head, do they? And you couldn’t be an Old God, that’s right out. So — well, there it is.”