But maybe they were about to speak, and she was remembering that! He was concerned with the problem of relating to a woman who could not remember their dialogue after it happened—but could remember it coming.
So maybe there was a way. “Provos,” he said—and realized that she had started turning to him before he spoke. Yes, she was remembering that he was about to say something to her! “Night, monster,” he said, making clawing motions with a hand.
She looked concerned. “Monster,” she repeated.
“You saved me,” he said. He took her hand, put it on his own arm, and acted as if he were being pulled back. “Escaped monster.”
“Monster no?” she asked.
“Monster yes,” he said. He repeated the gesture. “Then monster no. You warned me.”
“Day monster no,” she said.
Which should mean that no monster was in their immediate future. Except that her perception might be limited to the Mode they were now in. So there could be a monster in the next one. If something threatened in the next step, she might pick it up, as she had with the stakes; but if it threatened in several hours, she might take a while to attune to it.
Did that make sense? Suppose something awful had happened several hours ago in one Mode; would he forget about it in the last half hour before they left that Mode? He didn’t think so. Also, if she remembered something bad that was about to happen, and told him, and he changed it, then it wouldn’t happen. So how could she remember it? It seemed like paradox.
But maybe not. If something she remembered didn’t happen, her memory should change to what would happen. But it might be foggy, because of the change. So it could be a while before it clarified for her. The future was not a simple reversal of the past; it was mutable, so her memories could be changed or confused at times. The more distant something was, the longer it might take her to orient on it. Thus a danger in the next step she could catch immediately, but one several hours away would not clarify until she had more experience with the Mode in which it was to occur. Not just because it took her time to attune, but because the more time passed, the more chances there were for it to be changed, fogging her memory. She had to get closer to the event to be sure of it.
At any rate, he hoped he had a workable system. He had just informed her of what had recently happened, and she had informed him of what was about to happen. She had remembered what he was going to tell her, so knew something of the prior adventures despite not being able to remember them directly. She had remembered his telling her. Tomorrow he would tell her again, so she could always have a notion of what had been going on. Meanwhile she had told him that nothing bad was about to happen, and he would remember that. When she told him that there would be danger, he would be suitably warned by his memory of her words. It seemed like a feasible way to relate. If he had it straight. His mind tended to stretch out of shape as he reviewed the matter.
But if he were correct about the way the new Modes cut off her awareness of the future, she would not do him much good while they were actually traveling. Only when they camped for a time. But that was when they most needed warning of danger, so they could sleep.
His thoughts mostly settled, he resumed his awareness of the terrain. They were out of the forest and were climbing a gentle slope overgrown with waist-high plants whose leaves were pale blue. They made a faint jingling noise as the progress of the two human beings pushed them aside. At irregular intervals there were outcroppings of the underlying rock, which was red. It was a pretty enough scene.
They crested the hill and started down the other side. The plants shifted from blue to purple, and the outcrops to pink, as the Modes shifted. The sky was turning deep green.
Suddenly the two of them were falling. Darius felt a moment of panic. Then his feet struck steeply sloping pink sand. He tried to stand, but could not, so he tried to sit, and it made little difference; he continued sliding down. Provos was beside him, doing her best to maintain a decorous attitude despite being out of control. They were rapidly descending into a huge pit.
Another drop, and another rescue by a steep slope. Then they landed in a pile of pink sand. They climbed out of it and surveyed their situation.
This was evidently an artificial excavation of enormous scope. On three sides it rose so steeply that climbing it was out of the question; they had been fortunate that it had even slowed their fall. The fourth side was flat: a terrace, narrowing into a level road leading out between the towering pink sides.
So why hadn’t Provos warned him of this? Because they had stepped into it in a new Mode. Because it was artificial, there was no natural warning, nothing they could see ahead. This ground had once been whole, and now it was hollow, and they had stepped from the ground of one Mode into the emptiness of the next. He had known that she could not anticipate such a thing, yet had somehow depended on it, thinking their periodic descriptions of past and future events would suffice. Only when they remained for a time in a single Mode would that system work well.
Who had dug this monstrous hole? Probably some civilization similar to the one Colene shared. She had told him how they mined deep in the ground, sometimes leaving just such pits as this. So maybe he was getting close to her Mode. That was encouraging.
But not identical, because this was not her village with its paved streets and angular houses. So it was best to get on by this pit before those who dug it arrived. Trying to go back was hopeless; they couldn’t even stand on that slope, and could never climb to the top.
Provos evidently agreed. They dusted themselves off and started walking across the level base.
Suddenly there was a giant thing bearing down on them. It resembled one of the traveling machines Colene had described, but was much larger and fiercer.
Both of them stepped hastily back across the boundary. The machine vanished. At least it was easy to avoid, with the Modes.
Darius got out his mirror tube and poked it across the boundary. The machine had passed beyond them, and was now stopping beside another machine, one with a giant set of jaws on the end of a long neck.
They stepped across again. Now he saw that the jawed machine was gouging great mouthfuls of orange sand from the base of the pit, and spitting them into the back of the traveling machine. So that was how the pit was made. The machines must have been working at it for a long time, evidently wanting the pretty sand.
They crossed another boundary. The sand brightened a trace, now possessing more of a yellow component. The pit seemed larger, and there were several dark blue machines eating at the edge of it. All the machines of this section of the Virtual Mode were hungry for this sand!
It seemed that all they needed to do was keep walking across the pit until they reached the far side. Then—Then what? The far side looked as forbidding as the near side. They would not be able to climb out of it either.
They would have to walk down the road, which surely led out. It was not going in the direction Darius wanted, but once they were free of the pit they could recover their course.
Darius turned to follow the road, and Provos went with him. Now they were remaining longer in one Mode, because the road slanted slowly across it.
A green machine came charging out of the pit. They stepped hastily into the next Mode, and the vehicle vanished. But there was a gray machine coming from the opposite direction. If they ducked back, they could get run over by the first. So they ran on across and jumped into the next Mode before the gray machine reached them.
Here there were yellow machines. These were smaller, though still formidable, and looked like huge insects with antennae. The antennae rotated, seeming to orient on the two living folk. Then two machines started toward them.