Leah had implied that the present period of “night” was only temporary, that Hydrogen would be back to cast his fury of light over everything. Could this be the end of the calm phase he had been experiencing?
He rose, trembling, and backed away from the lightsmeared portion of the dome, forcing his way through the low growth.
But he started and his head snapped to the right as he saw another kind of light out there between the stems of the Paradise plants — a swinging cone that could only signify the approach of Thorndyke or one of his other captors!
From overhead the sharp notes of the bird stabbed once more into the semilight and Jared tried desperately to sort out the returning echoes. But, besides hearing that there were actually four persons hidden in the void behind the light cone, he could squeeze no details out of the reflected sound.
He ducked back down into the thick growth, listening intensely to the group draw closer and hoping that the minor plants around him would prevent the light impressions from betraying his presence.
A breeze sprung up and he tensed as all the lacy plant tops as far as he could hear began whispering and swaying. Coming generally from the direction in which he was facing, the gently moving air currents brought the scents of his pursuers.
Thomdyke was among them, which in itself wasn’t surprising. Even though he had been in the presence of the man only once before, he easily recognized his personal odor.
But mingled with that scent were three other unmistakable ones—.
Ethan!
Owen!
Della!
He could believe that these beings of infinity had had plenty of time to bend Owen and Ethan to their purpose. But certainly not Della! She had been out here only half a period longer than he!
“The girl’s a Zivver, Jared,” Leah pointed out. “She must understand these things much more easily than you or I.”
Ignoring the unsolicited thoughts, he backed off through the low plants, making as little noise as possible. On his left, more light had splashed itself against the distant dome and he was certain now that he was seeing the imminent coming of the dreadful sun.
“Jared, don’t run off — please! Stay where you are!”
It was Ethan’s thoughts, relayed by Leah, that intruded on his conscious this time. That could only mean Ethan and Leah and even Thorndyke must be working together!
“Yes, Jared,” she admitted. “I helped Ethan reach you. He knows what’s best. He says that if they don’t get you back in the shack soon you’re going to be sick.”
“No, not Radiation sickness,” Ethan quickly assured. “Sickness from being in the sunlight too long without being used to it. And other ailments too — ailments Thorndyke wants to protect you from.”
Then Ethan’s voice came audibly, in an aside that obviously hadn’t been intended for Jared’s ears: “He’s right up there — in that thicket.”
Jared sprang from concealment and hesitated for a moment while the intense light from Thorndyke’s caster stabbed into his eyes and prevented him from seeing anything else. Then he whirled to lunge away.
“You wanted to find light, didn’t you?” Owen called out sharply. “And now that you’ve found it you’re acting like a squeamish old woman.”
Pausing uncertainly, Jared listened to the familiar voice that he hadn’t heard in many periods — since before the monsters had crossed the Barrier. But it was what Owen had said, rather than the surprise of hearing his voice, that had had the arresting effect.
It was true. He had spent his whole life searching for light. And all along he had allowed for the possibility that, when he found it, it might be completely unnatural, utterly incomprehensible, frightening.
He had found it. But he had only quailed and tried to hide from his own discovery.
Maybe this infinity — this outside world — might not be so terrifying if he would only give himself the chance to understand it.
“I could shoot you an injection from here.” It was Thorndyke’s calm voice that reached out to him through the semiight. “But I’m counting on you to respond to reason.”
Yet, as the steady cone of light advanced, Jared backed involuntarily away from it.
His skin was irritating him persistently now and he felt a grimace spread over his face as his hands went up to rub the boiling surface of his arms and shoulders.
“Don’t let it bother you too much,” Owen laughed reassuringly. “You’re just having your first run-in with sunburn. We’ll fix it up if you’ll just come back.”
Then, as though aware of what was in his mind, Thorndyke said, “Of course there are things you don’t understand. Just as there are things about this outside world not even we know.”
The light cone stabbed beyond the tenuous tree tops. “Fee instance,” Thorndyke’s voice followed the motion of the light caster, “we don’t know what’s out there. And, when we find out, we still won’t know what’s beyond it all. Infinity’s still infinity — in your cave world as well as in this one. Eternity’s eternity. Those are some of the barriers, some of the unknowables.”
Somehow Jared didn’t feel as helpless, as insignificant as he once had before these beings of the outside world. Thorndyke had called the sprawling region within that towering wall of rock and earth a “cave world.” But, in many respects, this greater creation was merely a greater cave. One that also had a dome and an infinity beyond that dome and a curtain of darkness separating all the knowable from all the unknowable.
A figure stepped boldly into the cone of light — a tiny human figure. But he wasn’t alarmed. He knew it would grow in size as it approached — until it reached normal proportions.
Calmly now, he watched the figure advance, briefly aware that a light greater than that coming from Thorndyke’s caster was falling upon it. This could only be the light which was intensifying along the edge of the dome behind him.
Another breeze rippled and whispered through the Paradise trees and the personal scent of Della came along with it, clear and strong.
“I don’t understand any of these things either,” she said, advancing, “but I’m willing to wait and ziv what happens.”
And a satisfying realizatjon unfolded against the background of his current experience: Zivving and seeing were so much alike that, out here, the physical difference between him and Della was negligible. There was no longer any reason for him to feel inferior.
His attention remained steadily on her as she came closer. Overhead, the bird sang its delightful song and the poignant beauty of the refrain strengthened the appreciation his eyes felt for the girl as she drew up before him.
The delicate, refined impressions he was receiving of Della struck him as being soft as the music of the melodious stones, vibrant like the mighty voice of a great waterfall muffled into modesty by distance.
She extended her hand and he clasped it.
“We’ll stay out here and see what happens — together,” Jared said, heading back toward Thorndyke and the others.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Francis Galouye was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1920. After graduating from Louisiana State University, he became a test pilot during WW II. Later he was one of the first rocket-plane pilots. In postwar days he became a reporter for newspapers. In 1951 his first novelette, “Rebirth,” was published in Imagination. His novels include Dark Universe and Simulacron-3, which was filmed as a television mini-series Counterfeit World by Ranier Werner Fassbinder. Galouye died in 1976.