There was nobody at the entrance to meet him this time, so he used the clacks of the central caster to sound his way to the Wheel’s grotto. He found Anselm pacing behind the curtain and muttering to himself, grim-voiced and tense.
“Come in, my boy — rather, Prime Survivor,” the Wheel invited. “Wish I could say I’m glad to have you back.”
He returned to his pacing and Jared dropped miserably down on a bench. He cupped his feverish face in his hands.
“Sorry to hear about your father, my boy. I was shocked when the runner told me. We’ve had three people taken by the monsters since you left.”
“I came back,” Jared said weakly, “to Declare Unification In—”
“Unification Intentions — compost!” Anselm boiled over as he faced Jared with hands on his hips. “At a time like this you’ve got Unification on your mind?”
When Jared didn’t answer, he said, “Sorry, my boy. But we’re on edge up here-with monsters running all over the place and hot springs drying Up. Five more boiled out yesterperiod. I understand you’ve been having the same trouble.”
Jared nodded, not particularly caring whether the Wheel heard.
Anselm mumbled some more and said, “Unification! Didn’t the runner tell you I’d decided to put things off until we can do something about all these other complications?”
“I haven’t heard the runner. Where is he?”
“I sent him back early this period.”
Jared slumped on the bench, his body boiling like a turbulent spring. The runner had already left but hadn’t reached the Lower Level. And they hadn’t passed him on the way up. Only ominous significance could be attached to the fact that several members of the Official Escort — those with clear noses, at least — had told of smelling the lingering scent of the monster in the passageway.
His lungs convulsed in a coughing spell and when he finished he was aware the Adviser had entered the grotto and was standing there listening intensely down at him.
“Well, Fenton,” Lorenz said bluntly, “what do you make of all this monster business?”
Jared trembled with another chill. “I don’t know what to think of it.”
“I’ve told the Wheel what I think: The Zivvers have gone back to their old tricks. They’re taking Survivors as slaves. And they’re in league with the Twin Devils to accomplish their purpose.”
“And I say that’s ridiculous,” put in Anselm. “We even heard the monsters take a Zivver!”
“How do we know that wasn’t something they wanted us to hear?”
Anselm snorted. “If the Zivvers are going to start taking slaves again, they’d just do it.”
Lorenz was silent. But it was an adamant silence. It was readily audible he was going to insist the monsters and Zivvers were working together. And Jared could understand why: If the Adviser intended to accuse him of being a Zivver, he was going to make certain the accusation also included indirect blame for the presence of the monsters.
“I’m sure Della will want to hear your decision on Unification, my boy.” Anselm took the Adviser by the arm and swept the curtain aside. “I’ll send her in.”
Jared coughed, spanned his steaming forehead with a trembling hand and shivered.
A short while later the girl entered and drew in a sharp breath as she stood with her back against the curtain.
“Jared!” she exclaimed with deep concern. “You’re boiling! What’s wrong?”
He was surprised at first that she could hear his fever all the way across the grotto. But fever was heat. And heat was the stuff Zivvers zivved, wasn’t it?
“I don’t know,” he managed.
For a moment he had almost generated interest in the fact that she was here and zivving. And that now was his chance to listen closely and perhaps hear whether there was a lessness of something around her while she zivved. But his purpose faded away in another jarring shiver.
Della closed the curtain securely behind her and came over. He turned his head and coughed and she knelt before him, feeling the heat in his arms and face. And he heard her features twist with concern.
But she pushed the expression aside for something that was evidently more urgent. “Jared, I’m sure the Adviser knows you’re a Zivver!” she whispered. “He hasn’t come out and said so, but he keeps reminding everybody how remarkable your senses are!”
Jared swayed forward, caught himself and sat there trembling and perspiring, his head roaring, spinning.
“Don’t you hear why he made you shoot at that target among the hot springs?” she went on. “He knows what too much heat does to a Zivver! He was just trying to find out if you—”
The girl’s words faded into oblivion as he toppled forward off the bench.
When finally he awoke, there was the waning taste in his mouth of medicinal mold and the vague memory of having been forced to swallow the mushy substance several times.
Too, he sensed that during the entire period — or was it longer? — he had lain semiconscious in the Wheel’s grotto, Kind Survivoress had tried to force her way back into his delirious dreams. Perhaps she had even succeeded. But he could recall neither her successful intrusion nor the dreams themselves.
Now he felt only an inner calm and comfort. His throat was smooth again and the pounding fever had left his head. Even if he was not entirely well, he felt certain that only a full return of his strength stood in the way of complete recovery.
Gradually, he became aware of restrained breathing at the other end of the grotto and recognized the rhythm and depth of the breaths as Della’s.
There was the firm, supple sound of thigh and calf muscles working together as she paced — nervously, he could tell by the erratic steps — to the curtain and back again.
Then she came abruptly over to the slumber ledge and shook him desperately. “Jared, wake up!”
He could tell from the urgency in her voice that she had been trying to arouse him for some time.
“I’m awake.”
“Oh, thank Light!” Some of her hair had come out of the band that held it tightly behind her head and had fallen across her face. She brushed it aside and he got a clearer impression of smooth, precise features that were taut with solicitude.
“You’ve got to get out of here!” she went on in a strained whisper. “The Adviser’s convinced Uncle Noris you’re a Zivver! They’re going to—”
There was the sound of nearby conversation in the outside world and Jared heard the soft current of air swirl around her face as she jerked her head toward the curtain, then back again.
“They’re coming!” she warned. “Maybe we can slip out before they get here!”
He tried to rise but fell back down, weak and puzzled, as he suddenly realized the girl didn’t customarily bend an ear toward an interesting noise, as everyone else did. She always kept her face pointed directly at anything that held her attention. Which meant she didn’t ziv with her ears! But, then, what did she ziv with?
The voices outside came more clearly through the curtain now.
Adviser: “Of course I’m dead certain he’s a Zivver! As good a marksman as he is, he couldn’t hit a simple stationary target in the manna orchard. And you know as well as I do that Zivvers are confused by excessive heat.”
Wheeclass="underline" “It does seem incriminating.”
Adviser: “And what about Aubrey? We sent him out to cover over that silent sound the monster left on the wall outside. That was two periods ago and he’s been missing ever since. Who was the last one to hear him?”
Wheel, coughing hoarsely: “Byron says that when he ran back into the world, Fenton was still out there with Aubrey.”