It was a time for fears, memories, and introspection. No one spoke. Chan, hot and sweating, looked around him and observed their surroundings with the floating, feverish intensity of a bad nightmare. It was hard to plod along across soggy, decaying leaves and molds, and realize that only five kilometers away Travancore’s sun was still illuminating the emerald green grottoes of the upper forest. If the descent had seemed long, this march through the broken pathway on the surface was interminable.
More than three hours passed before Vayvay halted again, and finally. No amount of prodding would persuade the Coromar to move. They were at a branch point in the surface network, with enough room for Angel to glide forward and stand alongside Vayvay. There was a short conversation. To Chan, even the ultrasonics sounded damped and muffled by their dank surroundings.
“Vayvay will go no farther,” said Angel. “Not even for abundant food. We are within two kilometers of Nimrod’s presumed location. Vayvay says, if we continue along the broader branch here, and ignore any narrow side branches, we will come to the location that we specified.”
“What will Vayvay do now?”
“If we desire the Coromar to do so, it will wait here — with the supplies.”
“Say that he is to wait here for two days, if Vayvay knows what a day is,” said Chan. “If we are not back by then, everything is his.”
“Vayvay is not he,” corrected Angel. “But a Coromar possesses a sense of time. The message will be delivered.” While that was being done, Chan insisted on a final check of equipment. Each team member carried weapons, but after the training on Barchan, Chan was sure that for Angel and Shikari it was a total waste of effort. It took forever for each of them to train and fire. He wondered again about the way that pursuit teams were being used by the Anabasis. Now that he had met Brachis and Mondrian, it seemed more in keeping with their natures to lob a bomb in from orbit. They might blow away a few cubic miles of Travancore along with the Morgan Construct, but it would be a no-risk operation.
He suspected that they had thought about it long ago — and known it would be vetoed in horror by the rest of the Stellar Group.
The most dangerous time was approaching. Chan moved to lead the way. S’greela came next, holding a pencil light high above Chan to cast a narrow, bobbing beam along the roofed corridor. Behind them Vayvay gave a squeak of farewell, answered by Angel, and then everything was silent. The loudest sound in the tunnel was Chan s breathing, and the whispering flutter of the Tinker’s many wings.
Earlier progress had been glacier slow. Now they seemed to be rushing forward. Soon they had less than one kilometer to go. Chan found himself staring hard at the darkness, trying somehow to see beyond the farthest point illuminated by S’greela’s ghostly light beam. There was nothing. Nothing but silent walls of orange-brown, stretching out forever in front of them.
And then, suddenly, it ended. The rounded tunnel walls stopped. S’greela’s light beam met a tangled mess of creeper, ten feet above the ground. Below that, nothing. The group moved forward cautiously to stand on an open area of jungle floor.
According to Angel, Nimrod should be less than fifty meters ahead. So what now?
Before Chan could give any command, three things happened at once. An insane burst of metallic clicking came from Angel’s communicator, and rose to a supersonic scream of activity that hurt Chan’s ears. Shikari burst apart, filling the air in the clearing with a whirling swarm of components. At the same moment S’greela’s light jerked high into the air, then abruptly went out.
Chan froze. Angel went suddenly silent. The darkness around them was absolute. Chan turned to move closer to the others. Before he could take a step he was gripped tightly around the waist and whipped off his feet. Something immensely strong and wiry spun him dizzily end-over-end, then violently threw him, outward and upward.
He flew on for ages. Chan curled into a ball and protected his skull with his arms. At any moment he might smash into one of the huge and solid tree trunks. The impact would be fatal at this speed.
The feared collision never came. Instead his wild flight was ended by a soft material that stretched and stretched to absorb his momentum. He was slowed to a halt, then dropped headfirst. He prepared for collision with the spongy jungle surface, but that too never came. Instead he found himself suspended in mid-air, wriggling in the restraining hold of a rubbery, fine-meshed net.
Chan had never felt so helpless. He had lost his weapon. He could not see. The net offered no resistance, nothing tangible to struggle against. Even if somehow he were able to escape from its hold, he would have no idea what to do next.
That problem was solved in a moment. The whole net was suddenly moving, carrying him along at high speed in a horizontal direction. Something big was clearing the way in front of him. He could hear the thresh of its rapid passage through soft, hanging creepers.
It was another short trip. Within a minute they stopped, and Chan was lowered gently to the ground. The net loosened and rolled him out of it. He came to rest on the fibrous damp floor of the forest, facedown and breathing in the stale-sweet aroma of mold.
He sat up, dizzy and still in darkness. It was a few more seconds before he was able to clamber to his feet and take a few hesitant steps forward. He held his arms out in front of him. His groping fingers finally met the furry bole of one of the giant megatrees. It was at least something familiar. He moved forward gratefully to rest against it. After a few seconds he turned, sat down, and leaned his back on the trunk.
What could he do now? And where were the other team members?
A faint whisper of movement came from in front of him. Something was there, something drifting towards him and almost silent on the spongy surface. Chan felt a new horror. A warm, dry grip closed on his outstretched hands and secured his wrists. He struggled, and tried to force his way to his feet. It was impossible. More fastenings came to curl around his ankles and waist. They pulled him, gently but irresistibly, until he was lying flat on his back on the soft carpet of the jungle. Thick, velvety bonds pinioned him there, holding him securely at wrist and ankles.
He waited. And finally came the event that told him he was doomed. Either Nimrod had taken him, or he had crossed the border into total madness.
“Chan,” whispered a soft voice, no more than a couple of feet away from his face. “Ah, my Chan.”
It was a voice that he knew well, a voice that he had known forever. It was the unmistakable voice of Leah Rainbow.
Chapter 35
Night in the Gallimaufries had been dark, but there were always at least a few lights. And there was always plenty of noise — usually too much. Nothing in Chan’s experience had prepared him for the close, silent and enveloping darkness of Travancore’s abyssal forest.
Leah’s voice had spoken to him, and then a second later it was gone. Its reality drained away into anechoic blackness. Chan longed desperately for another word, for a single spark of light.
Finally the gentle voice came again, near enough to reach out and touch. “Chan?”
“Who are you — what are you?” Chan’s voice cracked, a thin reedy voice that seemed to come from beyond his body.
“I am Leah.”
“You cannot be.”
“And I am also not-Leah. There is something that cannot be explained. It must be experienced. Relax. Lie quiet. Do not struggle.”
There was a steady rustling, as of Tinker’s wings, just inches away from Chan. Something touched his arm, then moved along his chest. He tensed, and tried to writhe away from it.