The camouflaged elevator descended fifteen feet; the Gzhindra stepped off into a concrete-walled passage. Looking over their shoulders they beckoned. "Hurry."
They set off at a swinging trot, cloaks flapping from side to side. Reith came behind. The passage slanted downward; running was without sensible effort. The passage became level, then suddenly ended at a brink; beyond stretched a waterway. The Gzhindra motioned Reith down into a boat and themselves took seats. The boat slid along the surface, guided automatically along the center of the channel.
For half an hour they traveled, Reith looking dourly ahead, the Gzhindra sitting stiff and silent as carved black images.
The channel entered a larger waterway; the boat drifted up to a dock. Reith stepped ashore; the Gzhindra came behind, and Reith ignored the near-transparent glee with as much dignity as he could muster. They signaled him to wait; presently from the shadows a Pnumekin appeared. The Gzhindra muttered a few words into the air, which the Pnumekin seemed to ignore, then they stepped back into their boat and slid away, with pale backward glances. Reith stood alone on the dock with the Pnumekin, who now said: "Come, Adam Reith. We have been awaiting you."
Reith said, "The young woman who was brought down yesterday: where is she?"
"Come."
"Where?"
"The zuzhma kastchai wait for you."
A sensation like a draft of cold air prickled the skin of Reith's back. Into his mind crept furtive little misgivings, which he tried to put aside. He had taken all precautions available to him; their effectiveness was yet to be tested.
The Pnumekin beckoned. "Come."
Reith followed, resentful and shamed. They went down a zigzag corridor walled with panes of polished black flint, accompanied by reflections and moving shadows. Reith began to feel dazed. The corridor widened into a hall of black mirrors; Reith now moved in a state of bewilderment. He followed the Pnumekin to a central column, where they slid back a portal. "You must go onward alone, to Foreverness."
Reith looked through the portal, into a small cell lined with a substance like silver fleece. "What is this?"
"You must enter."
"Where is the young woman who was brought here yesterday?"
"Enter through the portal."
Reith spoke in anger and apprehension: "I want to talk to the Pnume. It is important that I do so."
"Step into the cell. When the portal opens, follow, follow the trace, to Foreverness."
In a state of sick fury Reith glared at the Pnumekin. The pale face looked back with fish-like detachment. Demands, threats, rose up in Reith's throat only to dwindle and die. Delay, any loss of time, might result in terrible consequences, the thought of which caused his stomach to jerk and quiver. He stalked into the cell.
The portal closed. Down slid the cell, dropping at a rapid but controlled rate.
A minute passed. The cell halted. A portal flew open. Reith stepped forth into black glossy darkness. From his feet a trail of luminous yellow dots wound off into the gloom. Reith looked in all directions. He listened. Nothing, no sound, no pressure of any living presence. Burdened with a sense of destiny, he set off along the trace.
The line of luminous spots swung this way and that. Reith followed them with exactitude, fearing what might lie to either side. On one occasion he thought to hear a far hushed roar, as of air rising from some great depth.
The dark lightened, almost imperceptibly, to a glow from some unseen source.
Without warning he came to a brink; he stood at the edge of a darkling landscape, a place of objects faintly outlined in gold and silver luminosity. At his feet a flight of stone steps led down; Reith descended, step after step.
He reached the bottom and halted in an uncontrollable pang of terror; in front of him stood a Pnume.
Reith pulled together the elements of his will. He said in as firm a voice as he could muster: "I am Adam Reith. I have come here for the young woman, my companion, whom you took away yesterday. Bring her here immediately."
From the shape came the husky Pnume whisper: "You are Adam Reith?"
"Yes. Where is the woman?"
"You came here from Earth?"
"What of the woman? Tell me!"
"Why did you come to Old Tschai?"
A roar of desperation rose in Reith's throat. "Answer my question!"
The dark shape slid quietly away. Reith stood a moment, undecided whether to stand or follow.
The gold and silver luminosities seemed to become brighter; or perhaps Reith had begun to cast order upon the seemingly unrelated shapes. He began to see outlines and tracts, pagoda-like frameworks, a range of columns. Beyond appeared silhouettes with gold and silver fringes, as yet unstructured by his mind.
The Pnume stalked slowly away. Reith's frustration reached an intensity where he felt almost faint; then he experienced a rage which sent him bounding after the Pnume. He seized the harsh shoulder-element and jerked; to his utter astonishment the Pnume dropped as if falling over backward, the arms swinging down to serve as forelegs. It stood ventral surface upmost, head swiveling strangely down and over, so that the Pnume took on the aspect of a night-hound.
While Reith gaped in awe and embarrassment the Pnume flipped itself upright, to regard Reith with chilling disfavour.
Reith found his voice. "I must talk to responsible folk among you and quickly.
What I have to say is urgent-to you and to me!"
"This is Foreverness," came the husky voice. "Such words have no meaning."
"You will think differently, when you hear me."
"Come to your place in Foreverness. You are awaited." Once more the creature set off. Tears brimmed in Reith's eyes; vast outrage rose up behind his teeth. If anything had happened to Zap 210, they would pay, how they would pay! regardless of consequence.
For a space they walked and presently passed through a columned portal into a new underground realm: a place which Reith associated with some elegant memorial garden of old Earth.
Away and along the gold- and silver-fringed prospect stood brooding shapes.
Reith had no opportunity for speculation. Certain shapes moved forward; he saw them to be Pnume, and advanced to meet them. There were at least twenty; by their extreme diffidence and unobtrusiveness Reith understood them to be of the highest status. Facing the twenty shadows in this shadow-haunted corner of Foreverness he could not help but wonder as to the state of his mind. Was he wholly sane? In such surroundings orderly mental processes were inapplicable. By sheer brutal energy he must impose his personal will-to-order upon the devious environment of the Pnume.
He looked around the shadowed group. "I am Adam Reith," he said. "I am an Earthman. What do you want of me?"
"Your presence in Foreverness."
"I'm here," said Reith, "but I intend to go. I came of my own volition; are you aware of this?"
"You would have come in any event."
"Wrong. I would not have come. You kidnapped my friend, a young woman. I came to fetch her away and take her back to the surface."
The Pnume, as if by signal, all took a simultaneous slow step forward: a sinister movement, the stuff of nightmare. "How did you expect to effect so much? This is Foreverness."
Reith thought for a moment. "You Pnume have lived long on Tschai."
"Long, long: we are the soul of Tschai. We are the world itself."
"Other races live on Tschai; they are people more powerful than yourselves."
"They come and go: colored shadows to entertain us. We expel them as we choose."
"You do not fear the Dirdir?"
"They cannot reach us. They know none of our precious secrets."
"What if they did?"
The dark shapes approached another slow pace.
Reith called out in a harsh voice: "What if the Dirdir know all your secrets: all your tunnels and passages and pop-outs?"