Now fully dressed, they looked around to see if there was anything to eat but to their great disappointment the room held a large number of cleansing cubicles and shelves but nothing edible.
‘Jon we can’t go on like this,’ Shana said in growing desperation. ‘my body is tearing itself apart!’
‘I know, I know,’ Jon replied, ‘but this place isn’t trying to hurt us. There must be some food somewhere. We’ve just got to hold out! And’ he added, giving her a severe stare, ‘no more talk about hills and remembering things until we’ve found it!’
Two
After another futile search of the Cleansing Room, the pair returned to examining the corridor to see if it led them to somewhere more useful than a washroom.
‘Jon, I can’t go on much longer,’ Shana whispered, ‘it’s not just food, my mouth is so dry I can hardly speak.’
‘Then don’t,’ was Jon’s snapped reply.
Suddenly they came upon a fork in the corridor; one passage was dark and quiet but from the other there came a buzzing noise coupled with occasional flashes of vivid blue light.
‘People?’ hazarded Shana.
‘Let’s find out,’ and with that Jon began to stride down the noisy branch, towards the flashes of light.
They came around a corner and stopped in shock. Ahead of them, on the floor and on the wall, were things that looked like spiders, spiders somewhat bigger than Jon’s outstretched hand and seemingly made of a flexible metal. The ones on the wall had removed a section of it and were clustered around and inside the resulting cavity. The cavity contained many pipes and cables, which were being periodically sent into high relief by the flashes, which in turn were emanating from the front legs of those spiders which were actually inside it. The spider-things on the floor were holding a curved piece of metal which could only be the missing section of the wall.
‘And what are these?’ Shana queried, as her shock subsided.
‘They appear to be small machines that are repairing a larger machine,’ observed Jon, feeling that another piece of knowledge was slowly coming into focus.
Machines. He knew about machines.
‘Then we’re inside a machine,’ Shana concluded, ‘Could we be inside some kind of vessel?’
Jon stood still and listened to his environment, both externally and proprioceptively.
There were the fierce crackles of the discharges emitted by the spider-things; the soft sound of air moving past them propelled by some distant force and coming up through his feet, his thighs, a very faint humming, a very faint rhythmic shuddering.
That was all.
He turned to Shana. ‘Do you have any sense of motion?’
She considered for a moment. ‘No.’
‘Then we can’t be moving. We must be in some very large metal building and these things are an automatic repair system.’
Her brow wrinkled for a moment, then: ‘Yes. Automatic. I remember automatic.’
They skirted the group of toiling arachnoids which completely ignored them and went on. Their desperation was now at a pitch that they could not conceive of becoming greater.
They passed a section of wall that contained a rectangle of what appeared to be black glass. As she passed Shana noticed it flickered with a dim glow for a second and she called Jon back.
‘Jon. Look at this. It might be important.’
Jon approached that part of the wall and as he got near, it flickered with a momentary flash of soft light. He stared at her but not with admiration.
‘And so? Can we eat this?’
As he said so he placed one hand on that part of the wall and in his exhaustion leaned against it. Immediately there was a brilliant display of whirling kaleidoscopic colours in intricate moiré patterns. They stabilised and an image appeared.
The image of a man. A thick, heavily set man whose black jaw and scalp indicated an extremely thorough shave.
‘State your requirement,’ the image said in tones that indicated that immediate obedience was necessary.
The starving pair looked at each other in bafflement but Shana recovered first.
‘Where are we?’ she asked.
The image of the man did not alter and Jon observed that the man did not appear to be blinking or moving his head, even in the slightest.
‘That is not a requirement,’ the image said, ‘state your requirement. Otherwise this station will shut down in five seconds.’
Jon knew what his requirement was: ‘Food,’ he roared, ‘we need food!’
The image disappeared and was replaced by a schematic that showed glowing lines which could only be representations of corridors. In one corner were two small blinking lights.
‘That must be us,’ Shana whispered, her breathing coming faster in her excited hope.
And Jon pointed to a large red square. ‘And that must be where we need to go. Come on!’
They hurried on, encountering another group of arachnoids, which this time was investigating a hole in the floor, and came to a red door occupying the space that the schematic had indicated. In trembling excitement they rushed in, almost before the door had finished opening.
There was no food to be seen.
Jon groaned but Shana said, ‘No, it’s alright. They wouldn’t have food permanently on display, now would they. There must be some way of getting it, of ordering it.’
Her questing gaze fell on another panel of the black glassy substance and she gave a cry of triumph.
‘Ah ha! This must be it!’
She placed her palm on the panel and it immediately sprang into life, going through the usual kaleidoscopic routine before stabilising on an image of a man.
The same man who had appeared on the earlier panel.
‘State your requirement,’ he said.
They did.
A few minutes passed as they sat in worried anticipation.
And on the gleaming white surface in front of them, circular lids opened and there was a sudden waft of many incredible aromas and, in front of eyes which were both amazed and delighted, plates covered with varicoloured items rose up. Smaller lids slid open, revealing knives, forks and spoons.
For a moment they were simply too stunned to move and just sat there, drinking in the wonderful smells of the food and watching the little wisps of steam drift upwards.
For a horrible few seconds they feared that this was all an illusion or some devilish act of sadism, in which food would be shown to them and then whisked away as they reached for it.
They reached for it and it was still there.
But not for long. For quite some time there were no noises except the sound of masticating, swallowing, drinking, more mastication, more swallowing.
And then when every scrap of food had been consumed, every drop of drink swallowed, Jon put his hand on the screen and did it all over again.
‘I remember,’ said Jon slowly, as the last crumb began its journey down his gullet, ‘there was a man. I think his name was Jarz.’
Shana nodded, putting down the flask of clear liquid she had been drinking from. It was her third refill.
‘Yes, there was. I knew him too. But there was so much else. Who did you meet on your way to the hill, Jon?’
Jon’s forehead became furrowed and his entire face twisted under the apparent huge strain of remembrance.
‘The – the – the Lords.’ He looked up suddenly. ‘The Lords of the Sands. I had to fight them, they wanted to kill me! I still bear the …’
He looked down at his chest and pulled the fabric of his tunic out, away from the flesh. There were no scars. He leaned back in his chair – there were other memories he knew that needed to be retrieved, important memories of events that were vitally important when they had occurred; matters of life and death.