Adviser, sneezing: “There you are! And if you need any more proof that Fenton’s a Zivver who has conspired with the monsters, you have one of our basic beliefs to go by.”
Wheeclass="underline" “The one that says any Survivor who consorts with Cobalt or Strontium will become deathly sick.”
They stepped deliberately toward the grotto entrance.
Wheel, with a sniffle: “What’ll we do with him?”
Adviser: “The Pit’ll hold him for the moment.” Another sneeze. “Being a Zivver, he’ll be worth something as a hostage, no doubt.”
When they drew the curtain aside Jared heard several armed Protectors taking their posts outside the grotto.
Wheel Anseim came and stood beside Jared, edging Della aside. “Has he made any wakeful noises yet?”
“He’s not a Zivver!” she pleaded. “Let him alone!”
Jared heard that her face was turned directly toward the Wheel. And again he caught the fleeting impression of her hand brushing hair away from her forehead — away from her eyes, actually.
And now he remembered that just before she had handed him the tubular object the monsters had left behind, she had brought it up before her and held it on a level with her face.
It was her eyes that she was zivving with!
Anselm seized his arm and shook him roughly. “All right — up off that ledge! We can hear you’re awake!”
Feebly, Jared struggled to his feet. Lorenz seized his other arm, but he shook off the grip.
“Protectors!” the Adviser shouted anxiously.
And the guards hurried in.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Although he hadn’t thought it possible, the Upper Level Punishment Pit was worse than the one in Jared’s own world. It occurred to him that it would be hard to imagine a more terrible penalty for wrongdoing. As a detention facility, it was escapeproof. The ledge on which he lay was fully two body lengths below the surface. And it was much narrower than his shoulders, so that an arm and leg had to dangle over the abyss.
Lowered there by rope, he lay motionless for hundreds of heartbeats — until his limbs had become numb. Then, cautiously, he had dropped one of his clickstones into the hole. It had fallen — fallen — fallen. And many breaths later, after he had given up hope of listening to the impact, there was the faintest kerplunk he had ever heard.
From remote distances came the sounds of late period activity — children at play after their Familiarization session, manna shells scraping slabs during mealtime, and a staccato frequency of coughs.
Eventually, the echo caster was turned off for the sleep period and, still later, Della came.
On a cord she lowered a shell filled with food. Then she lay with her head overhanging the mouth of the Pit.
“I almost convinced Uncle Noris you couldn’t be a Zivver,” she whispered disappointedly, “until that epidemic got him excited all over again.”
“That sneezing and coughing?”
The steady flow of her voice wavered as she nodded her head. “They ought to be taking mold, like we did. But Lorenz’s telling them it won’t work against Radiation sickness.”
She fell silent and he let the manna shell clatter against the wall of the Pit. Intercepting the sharp echoes, he quickly put together a composite of the girl’s features. And even more than before, he liked what he heard.
The general configuration was soft and confident. Her hair, slicked back from her forehead, had a pleasant sound and gave her face a sleek, delicate tonal balance. Somehow the total impression had much in common with the wistful music she had stroked from the hanging stones. And he fully heard now how desirable she was for Unification.
He brought another shelled crayfish to his mouth, but paused when he realized that even now she must be zivving. Again he let the bowl strike rock to produce more sounding echoes. And he heard that her face was directed fixedly toward him. He could almost feel the intense steadiness of her eyes.
Now was hardly the time, though, to listen for whatever happened to the things about her whenever she zivved. If there were a lessening of something or other, he certainly wouldn’t be able to detect it while clinging precariously to the ledge.
Nevertheless, he did seize upon one fact that had, at the moment, become clear: Since both Darkness and Light were probably connected with the eyes — perhaps especially with a Zivver’s eyes — then the lessness he was listening for would no doubt have a measurable effect on the eyes.
Wait! There was something — back in the Wheel’s grotto, when Della had bent over him to shake him awake. Some of her hair had fallen over her face. And when she had brushed it aside, wasn’t there then less hair before her eyes?
He slumped with a tinge of futility. No — Darkness couldn’t be as simple a thing as hair. That would be too ironic — listening for something he had known all his life. Anyway, Cyrus had said Darkness was universal, everywhere. That meant he would have to listen over a broad area, all around the girl.
“Jared,” she said tentatively. “You’re not — I mean you and the monsters aren’t—”
“I haven’t had anything to do with them.”
Her breath escaped with a relieved sound. “Are you from — the Zivver World?”
“No. I’ve never been there.”
The echoes of his words captured her depressed expression.
“Then you’ve spent your whole life hiding the fact you’re a Zivver — just like me,” she said sympathetically.
There was no point in not encouraging her confidence. “It hasn’t been easy.”
“No, it hasn’t. Knowing how much better you can do things, but having to listen to yourself carefully every step of the way so others won’t find out what you are.”
“I pushed it to a fine point — too fine, I suppose. Otherwise I wouldn’t be down here now.”
He heard her hand slide down along the side of the Pit, as though reaching out for him. “Oh, Jared! Does it mean as much to you — finding out you’re not alone? I never guessed anybody else had to go through the same gestations of Radiation and fear that I did — always afraid of being found out at the next step.”
He could appreciate the close relationship she must feel for him, the way her loneliness was crying out. And he sensed something within himself straining toward the girl, even though he was no Zivver in need of sympathetic response.
She went on effusively, “I don’t understand why you didn’t go hunting for the Zivver World long ago. I would have. But I was always afraid I wouldn’t find it and would get lost in the passages.”
“I wanted to go there too,” he lied. And it was beginning to appear that he could play the role of a Zivver simply by following her lead. “But I have an obligation to the Lower Level.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I don’t hear — that is, I don’t ziv why you didn’t join up with the Zivvers during one of their raids,” he said.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. What if I tried and the Zivvers wouldn’t take me? Then everybody would know what I am. I’d be driven into the passages as a Different One!”
She rose and stood zivving down into the Pit.
“You’re leaving?” he asked.
“Only until I can figure out some way to help you.”
“How long do they intend keeping me here?” He tried to change position but succeeded only in almost slipping off the ledge.
“Until the monsters come back. Then Uncle Noris is going to let them know we have you as a hostage.”
Listening to her footfalls recede, he was fascinated with the whole range of things that might come out of his association with the girl. Even if Light and Darkness remained elusive, he at least might learn something about this intriguing ability the Zivvers had.
It was past midsleep when Eared, his muscles cramped and aching, finally managed to ease himself into a sitting position. He tapped the manna shell against rock and listened. It wasn’t a very wide hole — about two body lengths across, he estimated. And he could hear that, except for the ledge on which he perched, the sides were barren of fissures and outcroppings that might have provided handholds toward the surface.