After a while it became evident that they were generally traveling up. Now and then Phemropit was forced to go down or even to backtrack. Once, they didn't move for a long time. Their animated locomotive was sitting, considering some obstacle. Deyv could imagine it, its light ray piercing through the darkness of the depth. Or was there light above from the bright sky? Or had Phemropit just given up?
Then they resumed, and they yelled and grabbed each other as the vessel rolled slowly to one side. It righted after a while, but Deyv wondered what would happen if it had turned completely over. Nothing, he concluded, except that they'd be sitting on the ceiling. What if Phemropit was on the edge of a steep cliff and it gave way beneath the creature? It and its trailer would drop into the abyss. And there might be no way to get back out of it.
They came to a slope up which Phemropit slowly went, slipped back some distance, went back up again, slipped, tried again, slid back, then all of a sudden traveled steadily upward. Shortly after this, the passengers felt as if they were on the surface of the water. Surely, it had to be waves that were bobbing the floor up and down?
Then they were moving forward on a very gentle slope. Then all motion stopped. They waited, tense, sweating, wondering if they were indeed on a beach.
"This is the blind spot, the weak place, in my plan," The Shemibob said. "I had no time to think of a signal Phemropit could give. I'm not sure that any could've been arranged. How will we know when we're safe? If we open the door, and we're fooled by our sensations, not to mention our hopes, we'll be inundated. Drowned."
The vessel began turning in a short radius. It went around and around.
"What in Khokhundru is it doing?" Hoozisst said. "Has it gone crazy? It's like a dog chasing its own tail."
Sloosh and The Shemibob looked at each other. The latter smiled and her flapping laughter rang out.
"It's signaling us! It's turning the vessel on its horizontal axis. It's trying to tell us to come on out!"
"I don't know," the Yawtl said. "If you're wrong ..."
For an answer, Sloosh opened the door. Light and air flooded in. Whooping, shedding tears, they tumbled out onto warm and comforting sand. Beyond the beach was a jungle and beyond that the cone of a tall mountain.
Deyv looked at the sky of a new world.
He groaned. Tears of frustration and anger flowed; his hands clenched.
Above was the crowded sky of blazing stars, broken here and there by dark shapes. On the horizon, coming toward him, was the snout of The Dark Beast.
Vana said, "We're back in our world!"
37
THE last time I looked, there were four gateways on or in of above Earth," The Shemibob said.
They were by the vessel, which had been dragged to the edge of the jungle and wedged between two trees. They had slept and hunted and eaten and now were gathered to discuss the situation. They were not cheerful.
Above them, drifting across the brightness, were the great undecipherable characters.
When the first of them appeared, Sloosh had said, "Well, at least we know we're on the equator."
"One of the gateways was around my castle," The Shemibob said. "Another must have been the one you saw on that island. The third is, like this one, on the equator. And the fourth is this one. What that means is that this gateway is only the other side of that around my castle. So the other one on the equator may not be an entrance to another universe but an exit from a gateway located halfway across Earth.
"Which means that the other equatorial phenomenon may be on the other side of the one you saw above the island. There is, of course, only one way to find out. Go there and enter it."
She paused and smiled. "That is, if it's accessible or hasn't disappeared entirely."
Deyv didn't see that there was anything to smile about
The Shemibob reached into her bag and pulled out a sphere half the size of Deyv's head. It seemed to be of cut quartz, a twin of the one Feersh had had in her tharakorm. Jowanarr said something to her mother in witch language, leading Deyv to believe that it was a duplicate.
The snake-centaur put her hands around the globe and closed her eyes. In a short time, the sphere began to glow, the light at first a spark in its center, then spreading out until it pulsed a milky light. Then four red sparks floated through the whiteness.
After a while one of the sparks became larger than the others.
The Shemibob opened her eyes and looked at the globe.
"The big glow is the gateway nearest us," she said, "the one below us."
A red line crept out from the largest spark, ending finally at another. She placed the globe in the palm of her right hand and stared at it. Presently, the spark at the end of the red line began to move, swinging as if it were a stone tied to a cord. When it ceased oscillating, it was in a different part of the sphere.
The Shemibob raised the globe to eye-level and sighted along the red line. For a few seconds the spark at its end expanded, becoming three times the size of the one at the other end.
She sighed and lowered the globe. The sparks and then the milky light faded. After she'd put the globe back into the bag, she said, "I'm famished. Give me a big piece of meat and a large pile of those crested roots, Deyv. This psychoelectrical manipulation drains me of energy."
He hastened to obey her. Before she began eating, she said, "We won't have any trouble locating the fourth gateway, though we might have difficulty getting to it. All we have to do is to follow the red line."
The Yawtl said, "What other treasures do you have in that bag of yours, O Shemibob?"
"You will see them as the occasion arises to use them, O Master Thief. But quit thinking about stealing them. You don't know how to use them, and so they would be valueless to you."
Later, Sloosh took Deyv and Vana aside.
"We won't need that sphere to get the general location of the gateway. It's in the same line as that on which the sky figures go. Also, if you wish to go home, all you have to do is to stay beneath the figures and travel as they do. They are, I believe, exactly on the equator."
"Thanks for the information," Deyv said. "But I'd already figured that out."
"And you're determined to accompany us only as far as the gateway? Then you'd go on toward your home area?"
"Maybe," Vana said. "Perhaps our tribes are located between here and the gateway."
Sloosh buzzed a sound equivalent to a shake of his head.
"Then you two will settle down with your people and perhaps have a long and possibly good life, by your lights. But your descendants will perish in a horrible manner. I don't mean those many generations from now. I've revised my estimate of how long life can last here. The quakes are increasing in frequency and intensity to a degree unpredicted by the scientists of my people. At any time a gateway may form which will suck the air from Earth. Or it may emit a disintegrating heat from a nearby star or possibly from the surface or heart of the star.
"I can think of other possibilities. One of these gateways that leads from one place to another on Earth might form in the bottom of the ocean. In that case, the water could pour out and drown all on land.
Then-"
"That's enough!" Deyv said. "You're putting too much responsibility on us. And too much preguilt. By that I mean we'll be guilty before we've even committed the deed."
"In this situation, if s not doing the deed that will cause the guilt."
"Whatever," Vana said. "Anyway, we're going to try to talk our tribes into taking us back without our eggs. We can prove that they're not necessary. Of course, they might refuse to believe us even if we demonstrate that it's true that eggs aren't needed. We're living proof of that. But our people are steadfast in their beliefs, and they might drive us out or even kill us."