The City That Lost Its Way Part 2

And she was right about one thing in that philosophic outburst she'd made. He had most successfully reprogrammed himself to forget about love.

That set of self-imposed instructions, born of ambition and painful shyness, had stood like a wall for 20 years. Now it was melting. Yes.

Melting was the proper word. Funny thing for a wall to do.

Reluctantly he pushed her away just a little and said, "We've got to get on with our quest. Time's awasting."

Dierdra sniffed and said, "You're right."

They again walked down the burnished corridor, but this time hand in hand.

"Twenty-one hours, 32 minutes, 49 seconds," said the city, an interruption that was totally uncalled for.

Mayer whispered, "City could be playing a game with us, you know.

Some sort of experiment or just a prank. How do we know he's telling the truth?"

"Of course he's truthful, poor thing. He really needs our help."

"Now who's being intuitive?"

"As you said, we haven't time for anything else. I wish I looked and smelled better on our first date."

"That's what I get for making a pickup."

They laughed just a little and walked on, into the brain of City.

City heard and saw and felt through many fixed receptors. It also deployed crystal eyespheres, the size of grapes, which rode around on gravitic repulsers. To talk it vibrated whatever surfaces were handy; so the timbre of its speech varied, though it always made itself clear.

To see and hear and know no others for so long produced within City a kind of sensory deprivation. It was not biologically alive, therefore not so acutely aware of its boredom and isolation. It could snooze long periods of time or twiddle its thumbs by giving itself hypothetical problems to solve.

For many centuries it sent its fixbots on make-work tasks or played acrobatic games with its flyers; but gradually it sank into a torpor of daydreams and forgetfulness. It always stayed clean and dusted, however, because maintenance was an autonomic function.

It would awake at times, to pursue its obsession of finding a way home. Of finding someone, somewhere. But much of what it should have remembered, it did not. Memories hurt. They submerged, to await awakening at another's touch, if that other should live to touch them.

The metallic pa.s.sage ended abruptly at a wall identical to the ceiling, floor, and sides. A musical voice spoke an unknown tongue in a pitch somewhat higher than human. Dancing hieroglyphs appeared for a moment upon the barrier; and a cloying smell made the humans light-headed and made them forget the voice and the heiroglyphs.

"Uh, City, we've got a wall in front of us," said Mayer when he had recovered. "We can't go any farther until you open it."

"I was waiting for you to tell me," answered City as the impediment lifted.

"Why didn't you do it automatically, as you've done everything else for us?"

"I'm not supposed to."

"Uh, City? Is there something we should know? A security procedure, perhaps? I a.s.sume not everybody is allowed into your control center."

"Nothing that I know of. After all, I don't have to let anyone in that I don't want to."

Shortly down the corridor was another wall, this one opalescent. The humans reached it; and Mayer again asked that it be raised. Yet again strange letters played upon the barrier; and tuneful language spoke a message to a race unknown. And all this was lost in a miasma as the two from Earth closed their eyes and swayed and forgot that they did so. They awoke, feeling, as it were, instantly a little stiff and sore.

"What's going on here?" Mayer had to support Dierdra as she sagged into him. "City. How come my body suddenly aches all over?"

"I certainly don't know. Later I can give you both thorough medical checkups; but you really mustn't dawdle right now. Only 19 hours, 44 minutes. 6 seconds left."

"What? We entered this pa.s.sage from the elevator only 10 or 15 minutes ago; and it wasn't long before then that we had over 21 hours."

"You've been a lot longer than that. You stood before the last door 7 minutes, taking a nap, I suppose; though I am not familiar with 'sleeping on your feet' as I've heard humans refer to it. In front of this one you rested over an hour.

"As I understand it, you can go without sleep for more than a day, when you need to. When I set up my time limit, I didn't plan for this."

"City, I don't know what you're talking about. I just asked you to open this wall; and then my body hurt. We haven't been standing here two minutes."

"Look at your watch. You entered me at 6:49 Eastern Standard Time. I first spoke to you at 6:53. What time is it now?"

"Why, its... It can't be after eleven."

"It is."

"But..." Dierdra tugged at Mayer's sleeve, interrupting him. "I do sort of remember a dream... a dream as of the tinkling of elves. A strange kind of music, and of something dancing before my eyes. Lights, perhaps."

"You're sure? I don't remember anything." Mayer shifted his weight. A crack about elves' need to tinkle flitted across his mind; but he batted it away with seriousness. Pins and needles had begun to torment one foot.

"But of course," interjected City. "You received the warnings against unauthorized entry. But why you decided to sleep as they repeated, I don't know. This last one goes on indefinitely. I decided to stop it and wake you up, if I could; but after I flushed the atmosphere, you started complaining that you ached."

"Flushed the atmosphere? You mean there was gas of some kind in here?" Dierdra took her weight off her companion as she sensed the discomfort of his awakening leg.

"There are always several ga.s.ses in here for you to breathe, though I do lack an argon generator to perfectly match your planet's air. I'm building one now."

"No, no, no," Mayer broke in. "She means strange ga.s.ses. You said you flushed the atmosphere."

"Of the warning smell, that's all. You don't have to worry. You're authorized."

"City. I think that gas was an anesthetic to us."

"Let me check. I've stored many medical data, though I haven't yet studied them." Moments later... "Not an anesthetic, I think. A hypnotic, from my review of your states, moments ago. But not anything used on your planet.

"I will turn off future smell-messages."

"Yes, please do," said Dierdra.

City said, "I have to give the pa.s.sword to open this door. A mellifluous phrase sounded; the wall recessed into the floor. The two people continued.

"You couldn't open the door without a pa.s.sword?" asked Mayer.

"Not all functions are under my conscious control. There are certain security functions built into me."

"But if you have access to the word, what difference does it make."

"The code would have been regularly changed if I had been inhabited."

Was a touch of sorrow present in City's inflection?

"I see. Are you sure you know all the tricks you, yourself, might pull on us?"

"It's been a long time. I'll do a thorough search for other things."

"Good. If we get the ax, your key remains lost."

The aluminous corridor took a severe turn to the right, almost doubling back on itself, into a dead end. Suddenly a hole formed in the roof. "What's this?" Dierdra had just time to cry, as the floor lifted her and the man into a chamber above, forming a seal to close off all exit.

"Just a trick to halt any attempt to enter my control center by force of juggernaut."

"You could have told us ahead of time."

"If I had known."

"Just remembered, huh?"

"Yes."

Mayer and Dierdra could feel each other's rising apprehension, yet neither wanted to touch upon it for fear of letting City know. Whatever they were into, they were in too far to possibly get out; and the s.p.a.ces were getting smaller. They were probably in no more trouble than when they had just entered City, yet here the danger seemed almost palpable. City was strange and full of surprises; and they hadn't even gotten to the spot from which their hunt for the key would start. If there were a key.

Mayer thought that last thought and put it far away. Then the lights went out.

The breath of ventilation, rarely noticed, became noticeably absent.

It took the duo about three seconds to exchange remarks of surprise, then to start yelling.

Objectively moments, subjectively hours, later light and respiration returned to their cell.

"d.a.m.n it!" screamed Mayer, "what are you doing.?" Dierdra was almost crying.

"I'm sorry," City answered. "I became preoccupied. Life support down here is under my conscious control, as much for security as is my lack of mastery over doors and such.

"When I was thinking back to my founding, in search of traps and locks, I remembered the day of my dedication and all the people I entertained, took for rides, let explore my pa.s.sages. I was not yet ready for habitation, not yet stocked and supplied; my nutrition and atmosphere farms not yet planted.

"Then all went away to await my opening; and I was tricked here.

"It made me sad, so sad that melancholy pervaded my several streams of consciousness, including the chief one which deals with you. I forgot you for a while."

Dierdra complained, "Well please don't do so again!"

"I won't. It's just that I hadn't thought of it for thousands of years.

"Get us on our way, huh?" Mayer said.

"Of course." City opened a wall; and the couple stepped into a tunnel that appeared flat black, lit brightly, however, by orange panels in the ceiling.

They had not walked long when they came upon a brown skeleton crumpled upon itself. Clearly humanoid, it was also clearly not human.

Mayer could see that its long bones were flattened, with a depression running down each broad side, making their cross sections resemble figure eights. The rib cage was narrow and crosshatched; the elongated skull had fallen from the neck rings and sat upside down. It must have been attached by softer tissue, perhaps some sort of anti-shock mounting. Must have been a real flathead, like Frankenstein.

"Who is that?" demanded Mayer.

"Someone who long ago failed to help me find my way."

Mayer's face grew red. He kicked the skull, which seemed to bounce off an invisible wall just in front of him. "Then you've done this thing before; and..."

He was interrupted when black part.i.tions slammed down fore and aft; and the sound and lights and smell began, to be shut off by City a split second later.

"Oh, c.r.a.p. Did we loose any time, this time?"

"No, I terminated the warning just after it started; but I'm afraid you've triggered another security device. You'll have to give me the pa.s.sword in about 1-1/2 minutes or you'll be dead."

"Dammit! Didn't you remember this? Search your memory fast."

"It's not in there."

"How do you know?"

"I pulled all pa.s.swords into cache memory so I wouldn't have to go looking again. There is none for any trap in this section of corridor.

"Then override. Stop everything until we figure this out."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I've no control over this, any more than you do over your liver."

"Then say all the pa.s.swords you've got".

The melodic intonations began, as time was running out.

3.