Hurriedly Limbeck began to climb the sides of the pit. His spirits were rising. He had a “what” or a “why” to investigate!
Reaching the rim of the pit, he peeped cautiously over the edge. At first he saw nothing, but that was because he was looking in the wrong direction. Turning his head, he gasped, marveling.
A brilliant light, shimmering with more colors than Limbeck had ever imagined existed in his gray and metallic world, was streaming out of a gigantic hole not more than thirty feet from him. Never stopping to think that the light might be harmful or that whatever had created the humongous thud might be lethal or that the dig-claws might be slowly and inevitably descending, Limbeck clambered up over the edge of the pit and made for the light as swiftly as his short, thick legs would carry his stout body. There were numerous obstacles blocking his path; the surface of the small isle was pockmarked with holes dug by the claws. He had to avoid these, as well as heaps of broken coralite dropped when the dig-claws carried the ore upward. Making his way up and over and around these took some time, as well as considerable energy. When Limbeck finally reached the light, he was out of breath, both from the unaccustomed exertion and from excitement. For as he drew nearer, Limbeck could see that the colors in the light were forming distinct patterns and shapes.
Intent on the wonderful pictures he could see in the light, Limbeck stumbled almost blindly over the rocky ground and was saved from tumbling headfirst into the hole by tripping over a chunk of coralite and falling flat on his face at the hole’s edge. Shaken, he put his hand to his pocket to feel if his spectacles were broken. They weren’t there. After a horrible moment of panic, he remembered that they were on his nose. Crawling forward, he stared in amazement.
For a moment, he couldn’t see anything but a brilliant, multicolored, ever-shifting radiance. Then forms and shapes coalesced. The pictures in the light were truly fascinating, and Limbeck gazed at them in awe. As he watched the constantly shifting and changing images, that portion of his mind which continually interrupted important and wonderful thoughts with mundane matters such as “Mind you don’t walk into that wall!”, “That pan’s hot!”, and “Why didn’t you go before we left?”, said to him urgently, “The dig-claws are coming down!”
Limbeck, concentrating on the pictures, ignored it.
He was, he realized, seeing a world. Not his own world, but somebody else’s world. It was an incredibly beautiful place. It reminded him some, but not quite, of the pictures he’d seen in the books of the Welves. The sky was bright blue—not gray—and it was clear and vast, with only a few puffs of white sailing across it. Lush vegetation was everywhere, not just in a pot in the kitchen. He saw magnificent structures of fantastic design, he saw wide streets and boulevards, he saw what might have been Gegs, only they were tall and slender with graceful limbs . . .
Or had he? Limbeck blinked and stared into the light. It was beginning to fragment and break apart! The images were becoming distorted. He longed for the people to come back. Certainly, he’d never seen anyone—not even the Welves—who looked like what he thought he’d glimpsed in that split second before the light winked out, then blinked back on, and shifted to another picture.
Trying to make sense of the flickering images that were beginning to make his eyes burn and ache, Limbeck pulled himself farther over the lip of the hole and saw the light’s source. It was beaming out of an object at the bottom of the hole.
“That was what made the thump,” said Limbeck, shielding his eyes with his hand and staring at the object intently. “It fell from the sky, like I did. Is it part of the Kicksey-Winsey? If so, why did it fall? Why is it showing me these pictures?”
Why, why, why? Limbeck couldn’t stand not knowing. Never thinking of possible danger, he crawled over the edge of the hole and slid down the side. The nearer he drew to the object, the easier it was to see it. The light pouring out of it was diffused upward and was less brilliant and blinding approached from this angle.
The Geg was, at first, disappointed. “Why, it’s nothing but a hunk of coralite,” he said, prodding chunks of it that had broken off. “Certainly the largest hunk of coralite I’ve ever seen—it’s as big as my house—and then, too, I’ve never known coralite to fall out of the sky.”
Slithering closer, displacing small bits of rock that skittered out from under him and went bouncing down the side of the crater, Limbeck drew in his breath. Delighted, awed, and astounded, he immediately squelched the mental prod that was reminding him, “The dig-claws! The dig-claws!” The coralite was just a shell, an outer covering. It had cracked open, probably in the fall, and Limbeck could see inside.
At first he thought it must be part of the Kicksey-Winsey, and then he thought it wasn’t. It was made of metal-like the Kicksey-Winsey—but the metal body of the Kicksey-Winsey was smooth and unblemished. This metal was covered with strange and bizarre symbols, and it was from cracks in the metal that the bright light was streaming. And it was because of the cracks—or so Limbeck reasoned—that he couldn’t see the complete picture.
“If I open the cracks wider, then perhaps I could see more. This is really exciting!” Reaching the bottom of the crater, Limbeck hurried toward the metal object. It was about four times taller than he was and—as he’d first noticed—as big as his house. Gingerly he reached out his hand and made a swift tapping motion with the tips of his fingers on the metal. It wasn’t hot to the touch—something he’d feared due to the bright light pouring from it. The metal was cool, and he was able to rest his hand on it and even trace the symbols engraved there with his fingers.
A strange and ominous creaking noise sounded above him, and that irritating part of his brain was shrieking at him something about dig-claws coming down, but Limbeck ordered it to shut up and quit bothering him. Putting his hand on one of the cracks, he noticed that the cracks ran all around the symbols but never intersected one. Limbeck started to tug at the crack to see if he could widen it.
His hand seemed reluctant to perform its assigned task, however, and Limbeck knew why. He was suddenly and unpleasantly reminded of the fallen Welf ship.
“Rotting corpses. But it led me to the truth.”
The thought passed through his mind swift as a heartbeat, and, refusing to let himself think about it further, he gave the metal a good hard tug. The crack widened, the entire metal structure began to shiver and tremble. Limbeck snatched his hand away and jumped backward. But the object was only, apparently, settling itself more firmly into the crater, for the movement ceased. Cautiously Limbeck approached again, and this time he heard something. It sounded like a groan. Pressing his ear to the crack, wishing angrily that the creaking sounds of the dig-claws descending from the skies would cease so that he could hear better, Limbeck listened intently. He heard it again, louder, and he had no doubt that there was something alive inside the metal shell, and that it was hurt.
Gegs, even the weak ones, have a tremendous amount of strength in their arms and upper body. Limbeck put his hands on either side of the crack and pushed with all his might. Though they bit into his flesh, the metal sides split wide open and the Geg was able, after a brief struggle, to squeeze inside. The light had been brilliant out there. In here, it was blinding, and Limbeck at first despaired of seeing anything. Then he detected the light’s source. It was radiating outward from the center of what the Geg had come to think of—by past association—as a ship. The groaning sound came from somewhere to the right, and Limbeck, by using his hand as a shield, was able to block out most of the light and search for whatever it was that was in pain. Limbeck’s heart jumped. “A Welf!” was his first excited thought. “And a live one at that!” Squatting down beside the figure, the Geg saw a large amount of blood beneath the head, but no signs of blood anywhere else on the body. He also saw—rather to his disappointment—that it wasn’t a Welf. Limbeck had seen a human only once before, and that was in pictures in the Welf books. This creature looked something like a human, yet not quite. There was one thing certain, however. The creature, with its great height and thin, muscular body, was definitely one of the so-called gods.