All the facts, all the memories not relevant to the search were simply suppressed or ignored. She understood her relative position as regarded the monastery and the town below, but until and unless the clouds parted or the sun burnt through them and gave her a glimpse of the monastery and the peaks, she would have to proceed by chance, climbing to the level of the highest of the three valleys, searching it, then descending to the next, then the next, and doing likewise if need be.
Her bare feet were cut and bruised by the time she ascended to the upper valley, but what was such pain and discomfort to one who had been crucified in the manner of Our Lord? It certainly didn’t take long to realize that the climb had been for nothing; the upper wall of the valley turned inward, blocking any possible view of the monastery from within it.
By the time she reached the entrance to the second and then climbed back up to get into it, the sun threatened an appearance. It was well in the west, though, which indicated that the hour was growing late. More than once she’d heard the distant shouts of people around her, echoing back and forth across the mountainsides, and she knew that they were searching for her even now, and she had to constantly check to see if she were in anyone’s line of sight.
The second valley looked right, as far as she could tell from the point at which she surmised the position of the monastery to be, but without the mountain landmarks it was difficult to tell. She began a methodical search of the place, praying all the while for divine aid and intervention. The suit had been hidden in a cleft in the rock and concealed with brush. There was nothing to do but to make her way along the inner bowl of the valley and examine it bit by tiny bit.
The light had definitely changed for the worse by the time she had gone three-quarters of the way around, and she began to fear that she would have to spend yet another night. She was growing weak, although small springs had quenched her thirst, and she wasn’t certain how much more she could take of this. She sat down, finally, on a rock to catch her breath and closed her eyes, praying intently to the Blessed Virgin for both the strength and will to continue. The strange memories, while all present, were taking on a strange quality of unreality, and she felt doubt creep into her mind about them.
Was she, in fact, now insane? Had the experience on the trail driven her mind to this strangeness, or had Satan corrupted her and caused this to happen? Were these strange memories and voices within her truly from God, or were they in fact demons inhabiting her body? Certainly what much of them whispered to her was sheer blasphemy.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus…
Trip point… Assimilation… Outworlders… Night side…
Holy Mary, Mother of God, Blessed art thou…
Four dirty, naked little children and a fat old woman…
Holy Mary, Mother of God…
There was Joseph, and Ginny, and Sarah, and Cathy, and little Mark, who had never been well…
Holy Mary, Mother of Cod! How was she to know the truth? Tears welled up in her eyes, and she felt totally defeated, miserable, and alone. Finally, she pulled herself together enough to raise her head and look out again at the valley.
The sun was very low in the sky, but not yet beneath the mountains in the west. The clouds had moved off, although they were still off below the peaks, beautifully illuminated by the rays of the sun. Over to one side she could make out the village far below, but for only a brief period. It looked like…
She turned her head and wiped away the rest of her tears. The monastery was clearly visible at the correct angle. Frowning, she wondered for a moment, the correct angle for what? Then memory returned, single-minded memory, and she turned and looked back and up at the peaks, now briefly revealed. She squinted and tried to block out all the detail, leaving only the dark silhouette of the peaks against the darkening sky. It didn’t look quite right, but if you used a little imagination and thought of a bright, moonlit night, those two little peaks over there might almost look like ears…
Cat’s ears?
She stood up and studied the area again. There were bushes over there, a hundred feet or so back and to her right. She walked cautiously towards them, almost in a trance-like state, unthinking, not daring to believe.
She had passed the spot earlier in the day and had given it a good going-over, but now she dove into the brush and found behind it brush of a different sort, dead and discolored. She pulled it out anxiously, and saw it before too much longer.
So it had not been a dream. And if the suit was real, then the demons were real, and since the demons had tried to prevent her from reaching the suit, that meant…
The sun had set below the mountains, although there was still a murky twilight. Clouds were again rolling over the peaks above her, and there was a dank chill in the air. She was weak and had never weighed much, but she managed with her last ounces of strength to pull the heavy suit out and stare at it.
The red readout on the display was dim, but there. Power, measured on a bar, read at less than fifty percent. Clearly it was a fight to hold the suit in this time.
The suit was huge on her. She was almost standing on its seat to get her head out of the top, and the tremendously heavy helmet threatened to slip again and again from her grasp, but she finally got it on and barely remembered to switch on internal power to the suit. Cool air came in and filled it from somewhere as she managed to close the seals.
She wiggled to get her small arm into the massive arm and glove of the suit, but she brought it up to the controls and watched the liquid crystal display change as she did so. She needed more knowledge now; she reached back for it.
She cleared the readings to zero and tried activation, but the suit would not comply. With tremendous difficulty she made out the strange characters and understood that they were telling her that there was not enough power.
Not enough to reach—where? The heavenly base, of course. But she had known that.
The dateline readouts were zero, but the location indicator was not. Again her mysterious knowledge allowed her to guess that the location shown was indeed the suit’s home—where, in fact, she wanted to go.
But what should the numbers be? And would the suit, in fact, return her to the time chamber if she did get it right, the time chamber now held by a very different power? But, no—the suit was no longer linked to that early chamber or it would have ceased to exist It was linked to the forces of heaven, so wonderfully named the Outworld.
Perhaps, she thought, even if she determined the correct setting, it might not be best to proceed there directly. The demons could tell when the Outworld moved in time, and because this suit was now Outworld-powered, they had been able to track its original occupant here. But they could not see or touch the suit, so perhaps it might be best to throw them off, to do it in small jumps here and there. The “Home” control would always give her the right setting when she needed it.
They had caught her once, in his maimed body, in that time. They would know it, and be waiting.
She reset, and saw the numbers for her present return. So that was how easy it was. He had tried, as she had, to press the “Home” key, and that could not work. But if the controls were simply set by hand to zero, they would take her back, since the suit’s logic worked on the basis of that key time as zero and all else plus or minus that time.