Inside Outside Part 10

No! He would not leave them to float helpless in the void. Besides, how could he get Fyodor to let his grip loose? To pause in his flying and kick against Fyodor's hand would mean delay. Delay that he could not afford.

He held his left arm straight out and maneuvered the right pinion so that he could turn and follow.

And he kept on pumping, raising and lowering the contraptions of skin and bone even after the huge structure was a hundred yards ahead of him.

"It's no use," called Fyodor behind him. "We can't make it. Save your strength, Jack."

Cull stared after the carved and windowed ma.s.s of rock. He saw the heads of men and women sticking from the window. Some of them were waving at him. Then, sobbing with exhaustion and rage, he quit. His arms lay out on both sides of him, and he sailed on with the man and the woman hooked to him.

There was silence for a while except for the rasp of Cull's breath. Then, when even that was quietened, there was only a slight flapping sound as the wind ruffled the edges of the batlike wings.

Finally, Fyodor said, "What do we do now?"

Cull was startled. He had been thinking so long about that very question that he had forgotten the other two.

"We'll just have to drift for a while," he called back. "Hope something happens. . ."

"Before we starve to death?" said Phyllis.

"Always the optimist," Cull said. "Good old Phyllis with her word of cheer."

He did not say more about it. What she suggested was very likely to happen. They had to have something, however, to take their minds from that eventuality.

After withdrawing his arms from the loops along the wing-bones, he managed to twist around and face them. He ordered Fyodor to remove the coil of wire from around his waist. That was not easily done, for Fyodor could use only one hand, the other being held by the wire around Cull's ankle. Cull stopped him and had him loosen the loop on his ankle. He then crawled down Fyodor's body and took hold of one end of the long coil. With Phyllis' help, they managed to arrange a sort ofbos'n's chair. The wire was bent into a double circle, a difficult task with nothing for them to brace against. Three big loops were then made, and into these they slipped their bodies. Securing was done with smaller lengths of wire.

Now, they sat facing each other.

"Three men in a tub," said Cull, trying to laugh. "One of them a dishwater-blonde b.i.t.c.h."

"Oh, Jack!" said Phyllis. She looked as if she were going to cry.

"O.K., O.K., you're not a b.i.t.c.h. We're all knights of the Round Table."

The others looked blankly at him, and it was a moment before he realized that they did not recognize the reference. Come to think of it, neither did he. It was one of those tag phrases that popped into his mind without his being able to define its meaning or source.

"At least we can talk now," he said. "Face to face."

There was silence. A long silence.

Finally, Cull could stand it no longer. "Well, Fyodor," he said, "do you still think that X, your Savior, will find you in the midst of airy nothing and rescue you?"

"X can do anything," said Fyodor, some of the spirit showing through his fatigue and despair. "If I am worth saving, X will save me."

"And if you aren't?"

"I must be!" cried Fyodor. "I must be! Just as you must be! And Phyllis! We are all G.o.d's children!"

"Maybe He's left His children on some celestial doorstep," said Cull. "Abandoned us."

"Never!" shouted Fyodor. "As long as one man remembers Him, He will not forget man!"

"He or X or somebody had better start doing something pretty. . ."

Cull stopped. He stared at the figure slowly cartwheeling toward them. For some time, he had seen the body of the man coming on a course toward them. But, until now, he had not been able to make out any details.

It was X, X spreadeagled and turning over and over, the dirtied white robe trailing, the long hair and beard matted, the mouth open, the eyes open. One foot was crushed, and dried blood stained the robe halfway up his legs.

Fyodor turned to stare also. He gave a long un-dulating scream, then put his hands over his eyes.

"You see, X is dead," said Cull, not unkindly. He wished he had not brought the subject up. But he had only meant to blow some fire into the ashes of Fyodor's'spirit, to make him quit thinking about their doom.

"There's a cloud forming ahead," he said. Fyodor did not remove the hands. Phyllis glanced apathetically, then looked "down."

"We'll have food and drink, anyway," he said. "We won't starve."

"That's not what I want," moaned Fyodor.

"That's what you're going to get, anyway," replied Cull savagely. "Why did I have to be stuck with you two for company?"

"You're too dumb to know when you're licked," said Phyllis.

"I'll know I'm licked when I'm dead," he said. "And then it'll be too late to know it."

He said nothing more while the cloud built up and became darker. Presently, he did not know in what length of time, it could have been a half hour or three hours, they pa.s.sed into the wall of the cloud.

At once, they were in darkness and they felt resistance. Whispers of softness covered their bodies, made them wet. Cull felt tiny airy tendrils slide over him and slip like a mask over his face. He wiped them away and batted with his hands to clear an area in which to breathe. A cry came from Phyllis, and it sounded faroff and faint, as if there were many thin veils between them.

He shouted out encouragement to her and con-tinued to push the manna away. Several dark, thicker, and more solid strings draped his shoulders and one lay across his forehead. He wiped these away, opened another brief s.p.a.ce before him. Then, he began to eat the strands he sc.r.a.ped from his face. If he did not choke to death, and if he came out of the other side of the cloud before it became so solid it stopped them, he would, at least, have filled his belly. And thus given himself an extension on life.

But the strands became more numerous; ten-drils coiled about him on all sides. Now, as fast as he pushed the manna away, more formed and seemed to swell into the air pockets he created. He had a definite sensation of being suspended, of his forward motion ceasing, though he had nothing on which to base a reference. If he was stopped, the carbon dioxide he was breathing out would form a halo around him. And he would quickly pa.s.s out and shortly thereafter die.

He gave one final bellow of rage and resent-ment. Then, he saw something coming through the cloud, a shape perceived only because it was darker than the cloud. It was huge, and it rushed upon him before he could brace himself for the collision.

He was struck a blow that knocked the breath from him and sent him spinning through the cloud, tearing away the brown strands. Again, he was struck, and again he bounced.

This time, his flailing hands felt something, something familiar. Flesh. And he knew from her cries that it was Phyllis. Apparently, the blow had bent the circle of wire and brought her by his side.

She was screaming so loudly that he could not make himself heard. But he tried. He opened his mouth to tell her to shut up, and he was struck again. This blow was not as hard as the first, or the second, which had been softer than the first.

The darkness fell away and with it the cloud. They were out in the bright air now and turning over. He knew he was revolving because of the big ball beneath him. It spun, or he spun, or both were spinning. Over and over he went, seeing the huge black object appear over his feet and then disappear and then reappear.

It came speedily and struck once more. But this time, he reached out a hand and seized the edge of something. All of a sudden, he was not turning. He was on solid ground. His fingers were closed about the edge of a great pipe. It was a cylinder much like the one they had traveled in, and it emerged, or went into, the ball of earth on which they had stuck.

He clung tightly to the edge while he checked out their situation. Phyllis and Fyodor were both near him, the double circle of wire having held them all together. The place was not, as he had first thought, a big spheroid. It was, he could tell from the many tunnels projecting here and there, a complex of sewage tunnels and shafts. The com-plex must have been torn apart from its con-nections at various points, lifted bodily, hurled into the air. Large ma.s.ses of earth and rock had stuck to it and given it the roughly round shape that had made him mistake it for a part of a mountain.

About a hundred yards away, a tower stuck out, Its top had been sheared off, and much of the facade of mortared rock around it had dropped off. But the stone around an entrance still remained, and he saw over it, carved on the rock, the words: AND THE LIFE.

"One of the houses of X," he muttered. "The house of the dead."

"What?" said Phyllis, still dazed.

"Never mind. Follow me. Do what I say."

Carefully, he rid himself of the wire that held him, all the time grasping with one hand the edge of the tunnel. Then, he helped the other two out, and he shed his wings. But he did not throw them away; he hurled them down the tunnel. Peering down or into it, he saw by the dim light that they struck the floor, bounced and slowly began drift-ing back "up." He told the others what he meant to do and how they must imitate him if they did not want to go flying away from the complex.

He used both hands to grab the edge, pulled himself over, and shoved himself into the tunnel mouth and down its length. He brought up hard against the wall, or the floor, depending upon what you wanted to call it. His hands, held out in front of him, took the impact; his arms bent to receive the energy; his shoulder crashed into the wall. But he was not hurt, and he was safely within the tunnel.

In the next moment, he wondered about his use of the thought "safely." Before he could get out of the way, he was struck by Phyllis, and both hit the wall. Just as they bounced, they collided with Fyodor.

Fyodor complained of bruises on his head and his heels, both of which had banged into the walls while he was turning over and over coming down the tunnel. He had lost control and b.u.mped into the sides at various points. However, the friction of the contacts had slowed him down somewhat so that he had not hit as hard as the first two.

Cull did not wait to a.s.sess the damages. He began the ricochet-like method of travel that was the only way along these smooth round pipes. Shove off at an angle from a wall. Shoot for a distance until you came in against the other wall at an angle. Slap your hands down just before your body made contact, get a fleeting but effective contact, and change your direction of attack toward the other wall.

He made mistakes. His efforts to twist sometimes turned him around or sideways, and he bounced off the walls with a jar that would leave bruises. Then he had to start all over again. But he began to gain skill, a skill the principles of which he had learned while in the other cylinder. Phyllis and Fyodor were not too far behind him. In a short time, they were making coordinated zigzags along the tunnel and were very much aware of how they must control their muscles in a nongravity environment.

They came to a branching of the tunnel. He led them to the left, and they went like human light-ning streaks, though not nearly as swiftly, straight down the pipe. The total darkness they had ex-pected after making the turn was not there. In-stead, they saw, far down the end, a round blaze of light. It was strong enough to give the distant half of the tunnel the illumination of day and to make this half easily navigable. Cull slowed him-self down before getting to the bull's eye of the en-trance. He grasped the edge and pulled himself slowly around, ready to push himself back into the tunnel if he saw anything dangerous.

What he saw was a vast room, empty of human beings or demons. The purpose of the many and strange-looking apparatuses was something only experimentation and time could determine, if ever.

Besides the way through which they had just come, there was a door at the far end, and another at the top of a spiralling staircase at the opposite end of the room. The light had no visible source; it shone with equal intensity throughout.

The room was, he estimated, a cube about three hundred yards on one side. Arranged in the room, in no pattern that he could detect, were many tall cabinets of metal. Cull propelled himself gently and cautiously from one to another. On the fronts of these were grey-faced windows, k.n.o.bs, push-b.u.t.tons, and other instruments of indication or control. Most of these were a.s.sociated with metal nameplates which bore lettering in an alien script. Many of the cabinets were attached to thick in-sulated cables; many also seemed to have no power connections.

Cull pushed himself through the air from cabinet to cabinet. He paused at some and tried to determine their purpose. None of them equated with the electronic devices he had known on Earth. The memory of those had always been shadowy and, with the pa.s.sage of time in this world, they had grown even dimmer. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps if I could remember well, I'd be able to guess what some of these are supposed to do.

There was one that gave him pause because he thought he could, at least, experiment with it. It was a cabinet twice as tall as he and as wide as it was high. On a ledge projecting from it were a dozen or so black discs. These were oval-shaped, about two inches in diameter and one-sixteenth of an inch thick. They lay just below a slot in the face of the cabinet. This had only two controls. One was a very large k.n.o.b with a white pointer. Around the k.n.o.b were many thin markers. There was also a pushb.u.t.ton.

He maneuvered until he was clinging to the shelf with one hand, and then he tried to insert one of the black discs in the slot. It was too big to drop in, nor could it be forced.

Cull pushed the b.u.t.ton, and the b.u.t.ton glowed. Immediately, a disc fell out of the slot. The b.u.t.ton ceased to be lit.

Another depression of the b.u.t.ton got a like response. The b.u.t.ton glowed, and a second disc was ejected onto the shelf.

Cull turned the k.n.o.b several markers and pushed the b.u.t.ton. This time, six discs fell out before the light went out.

He picked up three of the discs in one hand and pushed himself to the neighboring cabinet. This had a small shelf on one wall and a slot, but it dif-fered in being open on the side next to the shelf. The cavity was more than large enough for a man to stand within but still occupied only a small s.p.a.ce in the enormous cabinet. Cull inserted one of the discs into the slot, and he waited.

At once, the interior of the coffin-shaped cavity was filled with dazzling lines. The lines zigzagged like lightning and in all directions, seeming to project from the back and the sides of the cavity. They criss-crossed each other and became en-tangled in a snarl.

He noticed that the light from the twisting threads was shining on something he had not seen before. The front of the cavity was not open as he had thought but was sealed with a transparent vitreous stuff.

The lightning streaks continued to interplay, but now something was materializing in the cabinet.

He shielded his eyes and narrowed them and peered into the glare. He could make out nothing except a darkness in the light, a man-shape. For a second, he thought he saw a skeleton standing before him, then, the bones were clothed in muscles, and organs were suspended in the cage of bones; lungs, heart, viscera. Abruptly, there was a sheath of muscles over all. Finally, skin. But it happened so swiftly he could not be sure; the whole process could have been a hallucination in-duced by the flicker and dazzle.

A moment later, he knew it was no false image. There was a man standing in the cavity; he could see him clearly because the lightnings had ceased as suddenly as they had begun. The entrance to the cavity now seemed to be gone; there was no reflec-tion of his figure on gla.s.sy stuff.

The man was tall and well built and had long auburn hair and a long auburn beard. His face was young, that of a man of thirty, and he was handsome as a hawk is handsome.

"X!" said Cull.

X smiled and stepped out of the cabinet. He looked around him and blinked a few times as if he were awakening. From the other end of the room came Fyodor's cry: "It's X!"

Fyodor shouted, "I'm coming, Master!" and he pushed violently against a cabinet and spread his arms out so as to enfold X at the end of his launch. He had forgotten caution, however, with the result that he shot at a slight upward angle and so pa.s.sed X about two feet above his head. Wailing, waving his arms, he soared on up across the enormous chamber until he rammed into the wall. He screamed just before he struck; there was a thud, and he bounced off the wall. Unconscious, he drifted back toward them. Blood oozed from cuts on his face and forehead and collected in beads.

Cull's first thought was to try to rescue Fyodor. Then, he remembered the little man's adoration of X. Anything that he, Cull, might say or do to X could result in Fyodor's interfering. Better to let him float there, helpless.

X stepped out of the cabinet and said to Cull, "My son, what can I do for you?"

"The first thing you can do is forget that sonny stuff!" snarled Cull. "Let's be honest. At least, you try to be honest. Tell me the truth."

X said, "What. . ."

"Yeah, I know," said Cull. "The same old runaround. What is truth? O.K. Tell me about me.

What am I doing here? Tell me about this place. What is it? Why is it?"

X frowned slightly, then smiled again.

"Once there was a man who lived a good life. Or so he thought, and as a man thinks, so is he, isn't he?

"This man grew white-haired and wrinkled while the results of a good life piled up around him.

He owned a big home, he had a faithful and uncomplaining wife, many friends, many honors, many sons and daughters, even more grand-children, and some great-grandchildren. But, as all men do, he came to the end of his days and lay on his deathbed. He could afford the best doctors and medicine on Earth, but these. . ."

"Hold it! Hold it!" said Cull. "I've heard that one before. More than once. Look! I don't want any of your canned speeches, any of your deep dark riddles. I want answers to my questions. Plain simple easy-to-understand answers! If anyone has them, you do. So, start talking!"

He glared at X and clenched his free fist. Then, the glare faded away, his eyes widened, his jaw dropped.

He said, "You walked out of the cabinet! You're not floating! You're standing there!"

"He who has faith," said X, "may walk where other men fly."

Cull had to fight to keep from breaking into hysterical laughter. "I don't want proverbs or parables!" he howled. "I want answers to my questions!"

"First," said X, "you must learn to phrase your questions properly. And that, my son, takes patience, labor, and wisdom. And it also takes faith. . ."

"Faith that there are any answers?" said Cull. "I said I didn't want any double-talk. I want to know! Now!"

X stretched out his hands in a benediction and said, "Once there was a man who lived a good life. Or so he thought, and, as a man thinks, so is he, isn't he?

"This man grew white-haired and wrinkled while the results. . ."

Cull screamed and launched himself at X. As he shot through the air, he pulled the flint knife from the wire belt.

X did not move. He continued talking.

Then Cull had gripped him with one arm around his neck. Both went down, with Cull striking with the knife as they fell. They struck the floor hard, but Cull did not let loose, fearing that he would propel himself away from X and drift helplessly in the air. X seemed to have weight, and Cull wanted to cling to that weight. Meanwhile, he drove with the flint into X's breast, again and again.