“She’s unconscious, too. I feel sure of it.” Darya was moving forward to the place where the outermost ring of color began on the floor. Before she reached the edge of that first annulus of vivid yellow, Hans Rebka again restrained her.
“We don’t know why they are unconscious. It looks safe enough in there, but it may not be. You stay here, and I’ll go in.”
“No.” Darya moved more quickly down the slope of the shallow bowl. “Why you again? It’s time we started sharing the risks.”
“I have more experience.”
“Fine. That means you’ll know how to get me out of trouble if I need you. I’ll go in just a little way.” Darya was already stepping gingerly through the haze of the first hemisphere. She put her feet down carefully, feeling the ground ahead.
“All right, I’m through that one.” She turned to look at Hans. He did not seem any different. She did not feel it. “No problem so far. Didn’t notice anything, no resistance to motion. I’m going to cross the yellow zone.”
She stared ahead. Yellow to green to purple. Five paces for each — it should be easy. Halfway between the second and third hemispheres she paused, confused for a moment about what she was doing.
“Are you all right?” She heard his call from behind her.
She turned. “Sure. I’m going to… the center.”
And then she paused, oddly uncertain of her goal. She found it necessary to look around her before she knew what was happening.
There, in the middle, where Atvar H’sial and Louis Nenda are sitting, she reminded herself. In the chairs.
“I’m halfway there,” she called. “Nearly done the green. Next stop, purple.”
She was moving again. Bright lights, bright colors. Yellow to green to purple to red to blue. Five zones. Not following the usual order, though, red to orange to yellow to green to… the order in — what’s that thing called? Hard to remember. The rainbow. Yeah, that’s it.
These colors are not like the colors in the… whatever. Damn it, I’ve lost the word again. Keep moving. Only two more to go, and I’ll reach what’s-their-names. Yellow to green to purple to red… to — what was the name of that color — to yellow to… green…
Darya’s eyes were wide open. She was lying on a hard, flat surface, staring up at a domed blue ceiling. Hans Rebka was bending over her, his face sweaty and pale.
She sat up slowly. In front of her was the great chamber, with its circular rings of color. At the center stood the dais with its two silent forms.
“What am I doing lying here? And why are you letting me sleep? We won’t be able to help those two if we spend time loafing around.”
“Are you all right?” At her impatient nod Hans said, “Take your time. Tell me the very last thing that you remember.”
“Why, I was saying that I wanted to go into the rings, to bring Louis Nenda and Atvar H’sial out, and you were trying to talk me out of it. And then I was all ready to put my foot—” she was suddenly puzzled. “I was at the edge of the yellow ring, and now we’re ten steps outside it. What happened, did I pass out?”
“More than that.” His face was anxious. “Don’t you remember crossing the yellow ring, and then the green one, and starting in on the purple one?”
“I didn’t. I couldn’t have. I only started out a minute ago. I just put my foot onto the yellow zone, and then—” She stared at him. “Are you telling me…”
“You said it a minute ago. You passed out. But not here.” He pointed. “Way over there. You were halfway to the dais when your voice went all confused and dreamy, then you sat down on the floor. And then you lay down and stopped talking. That was three hours ago, not one minute. You were unconscious in there for nearly all that time.”
“And you came in after me? That was crazy. You could have passed out, too.”
“I didn’t go all the way in. I didn’t dare. I’ve seen something like this before — and you’ve written about it in your artifact catalog. It was your suggestion that this is a Builder artifact that told me what the problem had to be.”
“Unconsciousness? That’s not a Builder effect.”
“Not unconsciousness. Memory loss. It’s the same thing that happens to people who try to explore Paradox, except that what it does there is far worse. You only lost a few hours. They come out with their memories wiped clean. I’ve seen victims who tried to enter and came out more helpless than newborn babies.”
Excitement replaced alarm. Darya had studied the artifacts since childhood, but until Summertide she had seen only Sentinel firsthand. “You’re saying that there’s a Lotus field inside those hemispheres. That’s absolutely fascinating.”
She could see from Rebka’s look that the word was not one he would have chosen. She hurried on. “But if it is a Lotus field, however were you able to get me out? If it affected me like that, it would do the same to you.”
“It would have. It did, a little bit. You were all right in the yellow ring, you still knew what you were doing, so I was willing to risk that much. I went that far. But the field would have caught me, too, if I’d gone all the way in to get you. Then we’d have lain there helpless until we starved to death, or somebody else came along to kill us or get us out.”
“But you got me out.”
“I did. But I didn’t go in for you. I stood in the yellow zone and I hauled you out from there, like a hooked fish. Why do you think you were in so long? I had to find something to use as a grapple. It wasn’t easy. It took me hours to find something I could use, then another hour to fish for you.”
Darya turned to face the center of the chamber. “Atvar H’sial and Louis Nenda are right in the middle of it. Do you think their memories are wiped clean?”
“I can’t say, but if this is anything like Paradox the field may affect the approach route and not the middle. They could be fine — or they could be wiped. We won’t know until we get them out.”
“Can you do for them what you did for me — haul them clear?”
“Not with this.” Rebka indicated the length of noosed cable that lay on the floor at Darya’s side. “It’s too short, and they look like they’re tied somehow to those seats.”
“So how do we get them out?”
“We don’t. Not for the moment.” Rebka helped her to her feet. “We have to find some other way to do it. Come on. At least I know a bit more about the layout of this place — I ran up and down half the corridors off this room, scavenging for something I could use as a rope. This is a wild place — some parts are spotless; others have a ten-million-year dust layer. But don’t ask me what any of it is for — that’s a total mystery.”
Darya allowed him to lead her to a doorway, three entrances farther around the room’s perimeter. “It’s hard to see why Glister is here at all,” she said. “But it’s not the prize mystery.”
“Plenty of choices for that.” Rebka sounded weary, but Darya knew from experience that he would ignore fatigue until he actually collapsed. “I can list a bundle,” he went on. “The fast Phages. The atmosphere on the surface. The way we got inside. The equipment that provides air and water. The Lotus field in the chamber we just left. They’re all candidates. Take your pick.”
“You haven’t listed the one most on my mind.” The path was spiraling down, heading in a gentle, curving ramp toward the middle of Glister. Darya was thirsty — and suddenly so hungry that it was hard to think of anything else.
How long since she had eaten? It felt like forever. Her mind might have been switched off for three hours, but her stomach had not been. It kept careful track of missed meals.
“The tough one is this,” she said at last. “Why did the orange cloud on the surface let Kallik pass through untouched, but grab us, and Louis Nenda and Atvar H’sial, and bring us down here? There’s something on Glister that knows the difference between humans, Cecropians, and Hymenopts. That’s the biggest mystery of all.”