He brought a knee up against his chest and secured his foot on the shelf. Then, with arms outstretched against the slick wall, he rose bit by bit until he was standing. Slowly, he turned around, pressing his chest against the rock. Reaching overhead, he produced sharp tones by snapping his fingers. And the sudden drop-off in the sound pattern told him that the rim of the Pit was at least another arm’s length beyond his extended hand.
He remained in that position for several hundred beats before he heard all Radiation breaking loose above. Until then there had been only the normal sounds of a world lying dormant in midslumber, with an occasional outburst of coughs ruffling the relative quiet.
Then everything seemed to boil over into a great excitement and confusion as one of the Protectors sounded the fearful warning, “Monsters! Monsters!”
Hoarse shouts, screams, and the audible agitation of people scurrying frenziedly about poured down the Pit.
Jared almost lost his balance as he tilted his head back and became aware that the entire opening above was whispering with silent sound. Unlike the sensation experienced during Effective Excitation, however, there was only one circle of the weird monster stuff. And it didn’t seem to be actually touching his eyes. Rather, it corresponded in size and shape with his audible impression of the Pit’s mouth.
He tottered on the ledge, flailing his arms to keep from falling, then stood with his face pressed firmly against stone as he listened to someone running in his direction.
In the next instant Jared recognized the Adviser’s voice coming from halfway across the world, “You at the Pit yet, Sadler?”
There was another distant outburst of screams as Sadler drew to a halt overhead. “I’m here!” He thudded his spear against rock to sound out Jared’s position on the ledge below.
This time it was the Wheel’s voice that rose in challenge to the monsters: “We’ve got Fenton! We know he’s working with you! Get back or we’ll kill him!”
Another wave of screams suggested that the monsters were ignoring Anseim’s threat.
“All right, Sadler,” Lorenz roared. “Send him to the bottom!”
The spear tip grazed Jared’s shoulder and he winced, sidling along the ledge. It came back again, slipped between his chest and the wall of the Pit and began prying him from his perch. Jared toppled over backward and his arms threshed air as he fought to keep from plunging into the unfathomable abyss.
His flailing hand touched and gripped the lance. He jerked himself desperately upright. He gave the spear a violent tug and the full weight of the man at the other end came along with it.
Abruptly the spear was free in his hand and he felt the rush of air as Sadler went plunging by, screaming all the way down.
The weapon was more than long enough to span the Pit. Jared used it as a prodding stick to locate a minor recess in the opposite side. Wedging its butt into the depression, he propped the point against the wall above him.
Panic subsided as quickly as it had broken out overhead. Apparently the invaders had accomplished their purpose and withdrawn.
Jared hoisted himself onto the wedged spear, reached up, gained a purchase on the lip of the Pit and pulled himself out.
“Jared! You’re free!”
Echoes from her footfalls brought fragmentary impressions of Della racing toward him. And he could hear the soft swish of the coil of rope slung across her shoulder and brushing against her arm.
He tried to get his bearings. But the residual din of dismayed voices was too confusing to indicate which way the entrance lay.
Della caught his hand. “I couldn’t find a rope until just now.”
Impulsively, he started off in the direction he was facing.
“No.” She spun him around. “The entrance is this way. Ziv it?”
“Yes. I ziv it now.”
He hung back slightly, letting her remain a step or two ahead and following the tug of her hand.
“We’ll circle wide, along by the river,” she proposed. “Maybe we can reach the passage before they turn on the central caster.”
And he had been hoping someone would do just that. Of course, he hadn’t realized that the clacks which would sound out the obstacles before him would also betray their presence to the others.
His foot contacted a minor outcropping and he stumbled. Eventually righting himself with the girl’s help, he limped on. Then, constraining the anxiety of escape, he composed himself and called upon all the devices he had acquired through gestations of training when he had to learn to detect the subtle rhythm of a heartbeat, the swishing silence of a lazy stream agitated by the motions of a fish beneath its calm surface, the distant scent and slither of a salamander as it crossed moist stone.
More confident now, he listened for sound — any kind of sound, remembering that even the most insignificant noise is useful. There! That lurching catch in Della’s breath as she drew in the next lungful of air. It meant she was stepping onto a slight elevation. He was prepared when he reached the rise.
He listened intently to the other things about her. Heartbeats were too indistinct to be useful except as direct sound. But there was something rattling faintly in her carrying case. He sniffed the imperceptible odors of a variety of edibles. She had packed a good deal of food and one morsel was striking the side of her pouch with each step. The slight flops meant echoes, if he listened attentively enough. There they were now — almost lost among the greater noises from the rest of the world. But they were sufficiently vivid to relay audible impressions of the things before him.
Now he was sure of himself again.
They left the bank of the river, cutting across behind the manna orchard, and had made it almost to the entrance when someone finally turned on the central echo caster.
Immediately, he caught the full composite of a few faint impressions that had worried him for the last few beats — a guard had just arrived to take his post at the entrance.
A moment later the man sounded the alarm. “Somebody’s trying to get out! Two of them!”
Jared lowered his shoulder and charged. He crashed into the sentry, knocking him breathless and bowling him over.
Della caught up with him and they lunged into the passageway. He let her stay in the lead until they had rounded the first bend. Then he produced a pair of stones and pushed ahead of her.
“Clickstones?” she asked, puzzled.
“Of course. If we run into somebody from the Lower Level they might wonder why I’m not using them.”
“Oh. Jared, why don’t we — no. I suppose not.”
“What were you going to say?” He felt perfectly at ease now, with the familiar tones of the pebbles faithfully bringing back true impressions of all the hazards ahead.
“I started to say let’s go to the Zivver World where we belong.”
He pulled up sharply. The Zivver World! Why not? If he was listening for a lessness of something that resulted from zivving, what better place to detect it than in a world where plenty of people were doing a lot of zivving? But could he get away with it? Could he successfully pose as a Zivver in a world full of Zivvers — and hostile ones at that?
“I can’t leave the Lower Level just now,” he decided finally.
“That’s what I figured. Not with all the trouble they’re having. But someperiod, Jared — someperiod we’ll go there?”