Suddenly there was something. Colene clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a possible scream. A light was blinking to the south!
I see it, Seqiro thought, responding to her thought. A beacon. It seems that we are not alone.
“But can you detect life?”
No. But life must have placed it there.
“Then maybe it’s safe to check it,” she said. “Unless it’s got killer machines or something.”
What would be the point of that?
“I don’t know. But whatever sterilized all these realities may intend to keep them that way. If that beacon picks up a sign of life, it may trigger another sterilization treatment.”
I suspect it can spot us as readily as we have spotted it. I am aware of no harmful radiation associated with it. Is it possible that it simply marks a path through the barrens?
“Maybe so!” she agreed, encouraged. “There has to be a way through, so maybe someone left markers. If we have to gamble, let’s gamble on the positive interpretation.”
Nevertheless, they were diffident as they approached the beacon. It disappeared when they crossed realities; it existed only in one. But it was easy to approach, because of its constant flashing.
It turned out to be a simple machine: a blinking ball mounted on a thin metal pole stuck into a porous section of the sea floor. At its base was an arrow painted in bright red, pointing east.
“A direction marker!” Colene exclaimed. “Pointing the way!”
Could it be your friend Darius?
“You mean, to show where he’s been? Or to find his way back?” She focused seriously on that for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. He’s from the reality of magic, and this is plainly science. Super-science, I think; that ball’s opaque, yet it flashes. It must be someone else. Maybe there’s a regular caravan through here, with markers to steer it straight.”
I doubt it. This Virtual Mode has existed only a week in your terms.
She nodded. “Well, one person, maybe, but not Darius. But it will do for us, certainly; this should be much faster, because now we know where we’re going, sort of.”
I agree.
Heartened, they resumed travel.
Meanwhile the contours of the bottom of the ocean were a revelation to her. Instead of being flat and sandy, as she had somehow fancied, they were phenomenally more varied than those of the continental land. There were mountains and valleys and rifts and lattices of twisted stone. There were holes so deep they filled her with dread, and slopes so sharp that they resembled walls. One section was like a monstrous banyan tree, with thousands of pillars reaching down to lower platforms, from which more pillars extended on down. Another was like an upside-down mountain with mounds supporting its edges. Elsewhere there were what seemed to be worm holes in myriads, ranging from pinhead to handspan diameter, disappearing into darkness. And the opposite: pencil-thin towers of packed sand, their sedimentary origins showing in streaks crossing the formation. There had surely been water here once; what had happened to it?
In fact, how could this region have been rendered so dry without disturbing these natural formations? She was able to knock over the pencil towers with her hands; they were not made for sidewise pressure. Any heat great enough to vaporize all the water should have generated savage storms. If some cosmic drain had opened in the bottom and let it all flow out, there should have been some pools remaining and some gouging as the drainage rivers formed. Instead it was as if the water had simply vanished, without even making any currents.
Then her bandanna snagged on something. She jerked it back, startled, for to her eye she was merely flicking it in air before a sea of air. She checked it.
The tip was dry, but looked as if it had recently been wet. Because the water couldn’t cross the boundary.
“Oopsy, Seqiro! We’ve struck water!”
The horse stepped up and turned broadside. He flicked his tail. It struck something.
I felt the liquid, he agreed.
Colene put up her hands carefully, and felt the air before her. The boundary was icy cold and slick. “Like ice,” she announced. “I guess we didn’t have to worry about drowning; it’s under such pressure we can’t get into it anyway.”
I sense no life.
So it was lifeless water. Some realities had been dried, some frozen, or at least sterilized. The two of them could not continue crossing boundaries.
This was not exactly a relief. “What do we do, Seqiro? Do we turn back? We can make it from here, at least.”
But if we find a way to enter the next reality, we will have water, greatly extending our range.
“I don’t think so. We can’t take it with us.”
We can if we drink it carefully, saving our own water for emergency use.
“But it must be salt water! We can’t drink that!”
It is my understanding that we can. In my reality we have a technique for filtering impure water through sand to make it pure. We can do that.
“Or we can evaporate some, and condense the vapor!” she agreed, turning more positive. “But we still have to get up to the top of it, and then what will we do—sail across it?”
Seqiro sorted through the picture in her mind, of a girl and horse standing precariously on a raft. I prefer not.
She laughed, humorlessly. “I guess not! So unless there’s a big change coming beyond the water-reality, we’re sunk anyway, no pun.”
I fear that is the case. But we should try to explore it if we can. If we can find land, and cross more realities, I can quest farther for life.
“I guess you’re right. This is about midday now; let’s see if there is any rise to the level of the surface north or south.” She meant to the left or right, because their progress was generally eastward. “Maybe an island, at least. But which direction do we go? It would be a shame if there is a perfect island north, and we go south and fail to find it and have to give up and go back.” She tried to make it sound cheery, but knew that her dark forebodings were coming through clearly to the horse.
Perhaps we could explore both directions, one going north, the other south, and double our chances. We may discover another beacon.
“Seqiro, you’re a genius!” she exclaimed. “And we can stay in mental contact, so the other will have the news first thing.”
They did it. Colene went north. She tried to suppress her belief that they were wasting time and energy, because even if they found an island and were able to cross the boundary, they would still have virtually impassable water to cross. These barren realities were an awful barrier!
She came to a rise, but it was followed by a depression. She saw a mountain in the distance, which should be an island, but it was to the northeast, in the territory of another reality, impossible to reach from here.
“How about you?” she asked, thinking at Seqiro.
I may have found an island. But I can not find an ascent.
“Keep looking!” she exclaimed. “I have nothing here; I’ll come join you.”
She hurried south, now trying to suppress unreasonable hope. “Have you found a path up yet, Seqiro?”
No. I fear I am lost. I am caught in an endless trench.
“I’ll watch out for it!” Suddenly she thought how much worse it would be if her companion got trapped, and she had to choose between staying with him or saving herself. Even if she had no choice, if something happened to him, how could she go on alone? His marvelous mind had become her main emotional support.