Linc drifted, weightless. His eyes closed. The cold seemed to wrap him tenderly now. It didn’t hurt anymore. His aching muscles relaxed. He floated on nothingness.
Nothingness.
Pain awoke him. Not a sharp stabbing pain, but a far-off dull kind of discomfort that comes when there’s a lump in your slipper. Or when a rat begins chewing on a leg that’s numb from cold.
Linc shook his head to clear it. He wasn’t certain that he was awake--
And then he saw the red gleaming eyes, heard the chittering of thousands of rats, felt them crawling over his body. A warm furry blur brushed across his face.
He screamed and jackknifed, doubling over weightlessly and sending his body twisting madly across the dark tunnel in a cloud of equally-weightless rats. They screamed, too, and scattered.
Linc bounced off a bitingly-cold metal wall and felt around his waist for the pipe he had been carrying, the wire, anything he could use as a weapon. His hand felt warm sticky blood.
Thousands of glaring red eyes surrounded him in the darkness. He kicked out, flailing arms and legs as he edged his back along the burningly-cold wall.
The rats flowed back away from him. They chattered among themselves as if to say. Stay clear. He’s still strong enough to fight. Wait a while. He won’t last long.
Linc kept edging away from the malevolent eyes, his back to the wall. But in the dark and weightlessness he couldn’t tell which way he was going. Which way is up? he sobbed to himself. How can I tell?
The rats hovered just out of his reach, waiting, chittering.
Linc’s feet were still dangling in midair. His only contact with the tunnel was the wall at his back. He pushed sideways on the frozen metal with the palms of his bloody hands, reaching out with his feet for some solid contact.
The steps. His feet touched a step. The rats followed him, chattering, patient.
Sinking to his knees on the steps, Linc forced his mind to remember: The railing. When you were going up the tunnel, the rail was on your left and the wall was on your right.
,He reached out with his left hand. Nothing. He peered into the darkness but he couldn’t even see his own hand. He reached out farther. His hand bumped into the wall.
Suddenly Linc was sweating. It was a cold sweat trickling down his face and flanks like rivers of ice, making him shiver. He edged away from the wall and reached out with his right hand. It touched something warm and furry that shrieked. Linc yelled, too, and pulled the hand back. Tremblingly, he forced himself to reach out again. Yes, there’s the rail.
Rail on the right. Wall on the left.
Thai means I’m turned around. I’m facing down the tunnel.
Something in him didn’t believe that. Somehow he knew that if he turned around and started down the tunnel in the reverse direction from the way he was facing now, he would be walking into an endless fury of rats, heading away from Jerlet, going back the way he had so laboriously traveled.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to concentrate. He pictured all the times he had been in the tunnel, including the long journey he was on now. And he saw himself climbing up the spiraling steps with the rail on his left and the wall on his right.
No, the frightened voice within him screamed. You’re wrong. I know you’re wrong.
Linc opened his eyes. The rats were edging closer, glowering at him, saying, Make up your mind. Either way, it doesn’t matter. We’ll get you no matter what you do.
Every instinct in Linc’s body was screaming for him to go forward, not to turn around, not to turn his back to the rats.
But his memory, his mind showed him clearly that he must travel with the rail at his left if he wanted to continue upward, toward Jerlet.
Forcing down a shaking shriek of fright, Linc slowly turned and grasped the rail firmly with his left hand. His feet floated slowly off the steps.
He took a deep shuddery breath, grasped the freezing, skin-sticking rail with both hands, and pulled himself into flight. He soared through the darkness like an arrow… upward toward Jerlet. I hope!
The rats followed, screeching.
But Linc could use his hands to pull himself along the spiraling railing, speeding along faster than the rats could follow. Hand over hand, racing faster and faster through the darkness, while the red eyes and evil voices dwindled behind him.
Even if I’m going in the wrong direction, Linc thought, at least I’m outdistancing them.
He was almost feeling good about it when he slammed into something utterly hard and unyielding. The darkness was split by a million shooting stars of pain.
And then the darkness swallowed him completely.
He awoke slowly.
And when he opened his eyes for the briefest flash of a moment, he wasn’t sure that he had really awakened.
Dreaming, he told himself. I’m dreaming.
He cracked his eyes open again, just a slit, because of the brightness.
Squinting cautiously, he saw that he was in a room. A small room, not much bigger than his sleeping compartment back in the Living Wheel. But it was brilliant with light, light everywhere, white and clean and dazzling. And warm! The warmth flooded through him, soothing and gentle. Linc felt warmer than he ever had since he had been a tiny child.
Then the dream began to turn into a nightmare. He felt good enough to sit up, but found that he was unable to move. He could raise his head a little, but that was all. The rest of his body seemed to be paralyzed. He looked down at himself and saw that broad soft straps were holding down his arms and legs. Another strap crossed his middle so that he couldn’t move his torso much.
There were some sort of coverings wrapped around his hands and feet. He was dressed in a clean, crisp white gown with short sleeves.
And there was a slim, flexible tube connected to his left arm, just above the inner elbow.
Suddenly frightened, Linc twisted his head around and saw that the tube was connected to a green bottle that was hanging upside down from a support on the wall. The other end of the tube was inside his arm. The place where it entered his flesh was covered by something white and plastic looking. Linc could feel it inside him, and it made his flesh crawl.
“What is this place?” he yelled out. “Where am I? What are you doing to me?”
Only then did it occur to him that he had no idea at all of who “you” might be. The ship was much vaster than he had ever imagined. There might be all sorts of people living in it—
Linc let his head sink back on the bed. Don’t panic, he told himself. At least you got away from the rats.
But the tight knot in his stomach didn’t feel any better. Not for a moment. He glanced up at the tube going into his arm again, then turned his face away.
What are they doing to me?
He must have fallen asleep, because he was startled when the door banged open. Lifting his head as far as he could, Linc saw a shaggy, hugely fat old man push himself through the doorway, barely squeezing through. He floated weightlessly toward the bed, like an immense cloud of flesh wrapped in a gray, stained coverall that barely stretched across his girth.
“You finally woke up.” His voice was as heavy and gravelly as his body and face.
“Who… who are you?”
The old man looked mildly surprised. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m Jerlet.”