At the vent itself Darya hesitated. The aperture was dark and uninviting, heading off at a steep angle into the rocky ground. Its only virtue was its narrow width, barely enough for a human and far too small to admit an adult Zardalu. But it represented safety… if one were willing to accept an unconventional definition of that word.
“Come on, E.C. No point in hanging around.” She led the way, wondering what to do next. They did not want to be too far below-ground in case the ship came back. But they also had to reach a certain depth, to be sure that groping Zardalu tentacles could not pull them out.
What they really needed — the thought struck her as she took her first steps down — was a vent closer to the place where the Indulgence had rested. One of the only sure things in this whole mess was that anyone who came back for her would try to land at the same point where they had taken off.
“E.C., do you remember all the turns and twists we made on the way up?”
“Of course.”
“Then I want you to review the last few branch points before we came out on the surface, and see if any of the alternative paths that we didn’t take might lead to an exit duct closer to where the Indulgence lay.”
“I did that long ago. If the directions of the ducts at those branch points were to continue as we saw them, then a duct at an intersection before the final one would run to the surface about a hundred yards inland from where we watched the Indulgence take off. A little more than a mile from here.”
Darya swore to herself. People could say what they liked about how smart embodied computers were, but something fundamental was missing. E.C. Tally must have had that information hours before; it had not occurred to him that it was important enough to pass on at once to Darya.
Well, use the resources you have. Don’t waste time pining for ones denied to you. That was one of Hans Rebka’s prime rules. And E.C. Tally’s memory was, so far as Darya could tell, infallible. “Lead the way back to that intersection. Let’s see where it takes us.”
Tally nodded and went forward without a word. Darya followed, one arm full of laden branches, eating from them as they walked. The descent was far easier than their ascent. At this time of day the sun’s rays lay close to the line of the entrance, so that the glassy walls of the tunnel served as a light trap, funneling sunlight deep below-ground. Even a couple of hundred feet down, there was ample light to see by.
That was when they came to the first complication.
Tally paused and turned. “May I speak?”
But he did not need to. Darya saw the problem at once. The tunnel widened at that point to a substantial chamber, with one downward and three upward exits. Each would admit a human. But one of those upward corridors was more than wide enough for an adult Zardalu. If they went beyond this point and found no other exit, their one road back to the surface could be blocked.
“I think we have to take the risk,” Darya started to say. And then the second complication arrived. She felt a spasm across her middle, as though someone had taken her intestines and pulled them into a tight, stretching knot. She gasped. Her legs would not support her weight, and she slid forward to sit down suddenly and hard on the chamber floor.
“Tally!” she said, and then could not get out another word. A second cramp, harder than the first, twisted her innards. Sweat burst out onto her forehead. She hung her head forward and panted, widemouthed.
E.C. Tally came to her side and lifted her head. He raised her eyelid with his finger, then moved her lips back to peer at her gums.
“Tally,” she said again. It was the only sound she could make. The spasms inside her were great tidal waves of pain. As each one receded, it washed away more of her strength.
“Unfortunate,” Tally said quietly. She struggled to focus her eyes and see what he was doing. The embodied computer had picked up a branch of the bush that she had dropped and was examining it closely. “It is almost the same as the first one, but almost certainly a different species.” He squeezed a pale yellow berry in his fingers and touched it carefully to his tongue. After a moment he nodded. “I think so. Similar, but also different. A medium-strength emetic in this, plus an unfamiliar alkaloid. I do not believe that this is a fatal poison, but it would, I think, be a good idea if you were to vomit. Do you have any way of inducing yourself to do so?”
Darya was half-a-second ahead of him. Every berry that she had eaten came out in one awful, clenching spasm of her stomach and esophagus. And then, although the leaves and berries were surely all gone, her stomach did not know when to quit. She was racked by a continuing sequence of painful dry heaves, doubly unpleasant because there was nothing inside her for them to work on. She supported herself on the chamber floor with both hands and sat hunched in utter misery. Being so sick was bad enough. Being so stupid was even worse.
“May I speak?”
It was a few seconds before she could even nod, head down.
“You should not seek to continue at this time, even if you feel able to do so. And it is surely unnecessary. You can wait here, and I will proceed to explore the tunnel system. Upon my return, we can decide on the next best course of action. Do you agree?”
Darya was trying to throw up what was not there. She made another series of dreadful sounds, then produced a minuscule up-and-down motion of her head.
“Very good. And in case you become thirsty again while I am gone, I will leave these with you.”
Tally placed the fronds of leaves and berries that he had carried down the tunnel on the floor beside Darya. She gave them a look of hatred. She would not bite one more of those berries to save her life. And it needed saving. As Tally went away across the wide chamber, she fought off another agonizing fit of retching.
She lay forward with her head on the cool glassy floor of the chamber, closed her eyes, and waited. If the Zardalu came along and caught her, that was just too bad. The way she was feeling, if she was killed now it would be a pleasant release.
And it was all her own fault, a consequence of her sheltered upbringing on the safe garden planet of Sentinel Gate. No one else on the whole expedition would have been stupid enough to eat — to guzzle — untested foods.
And no one else on the expedition would give up so easily. To come so far, and then to stop trying. It would not do. If somehow she survived this, she would never be able to look Hans Rebka in the eye again. Darya sighed and lifted her face away from the floor, straightening her arms to support her. She made a supreme effort and forced herself to crawl forward on hands and knees, until she was out of the chamber and ten yards into the narrowest of the ducts. Then she had to stop. The clenching agony in her stomach was fading, but her feet felt cold and her hands and forehead were damp and clammy.
She lay down again, on her back this time, chafed her cold hands together, and tucked them into her long sleeves. Before she knew it she was drifting away into a strange half-trance. She realized what was happening, but she could do nothing to prevent it. The alkaloid in the berries must have mild narcotic effects. Well, good for it. Maybe what she needed was a good shot of reality-suppressant.
Her mind, released from physical miseries, triggered and homed in on the single fact of the past forty-eight hours that most deeply disturbed her.
Not the capture by the Zardalu. Not the uncertain fate of Dulcimer. Not even the ascent of the Indulgence, when she and Tally had seemed so close to safety.
The big upset had been the vanishing of J’merlia. Everything else might be a misfortune, but to someone with Darya’s scientific training and outlook, J’merlia’s disappearance into air was a disaster and a flat impossibility. It upset her whole worldview. It was inexplicable in any rational way, inconsistent with any model of physical reality that she had ever encountered. The Torvil Anfract was a strange place, she knew that. But how strange? Even if the whole Anfract was a Builder artifact, as she was now convinced it must be, the only differences had to be in the local space-time anomalies. Surely the laws of physics here could be no different from those in the rest of the universe?