| |
DUN CAREFULLY LOWERED himself down. The sphere below seemed to be offset from the one above, as far as Dun could tell, so he was lowering himself down some distance from the middle of the chamber. Which was a good thing on balance, as the center of the chamber contained a massive something, another smaller sphere? Textured in some way.
“Hurry on down here you two; this is weird,” Dun said as his feet touched down.
“What is?” Tali said, having slid down the rope beside him.
“This thing. In the middle of the chamber.”
“Let’s go and examine,” Tali said.
“No, don’t wait for me then,” Padg said from above them.
“We won’t,” Tali said.
They edged forward. The structure occupied most of the middle of the sphere. Dun and Tali both reached forward inquisitively to touch its surface. It was some kind of metal, but not cold. Pocked and rough on the outside but not in any regular fashion; huge pocks here, tiny ones there. No seeming logic to it at all.
“You guys okay?” Padg said.
“Come on over,” Tali said. “It seems safe.”
“Hey, over here,” Dun said. He had crept a quarter of the way around the giant object, feeling and testing all the way. “Feel this. The texture just stops here. It’s completely smooth.”
“Gods, so it is,” Tali said. “Its like there’s a line that runs from the floor to, well, however far it goes up and beyond that it’s smooth. Wait. I’ve got an idea.”
She scuttled around the chamber following the smooth part of the surface.
“Yes!” She scuttled back. “Dun, give me your hand.”
He did and she led him around guiding his hand over the surface as she had done before. At exactly halfway around the shape, the rough random texture began again.
“Do you get it? Do you remember anything like that before?” Tali said, excited.
“Err, no? I’ve never been here before in my life,” he said, bemused.
“I didn’t ask you if you’d been here. I asked you if you remember anything like this? Like this sphere? Like this sphere but smaller?”
And then slowly, understanding.
“The egg!”
It all fell into place, the old song and that strange trinket they’d picked up. They were all one and the same. They were, whatever this thing represented.
“Hey you guys, it moves!” Padg said from the pocked side of the sphere.
“Careful!” Tali said.
“It only moves slow and it seems it only goes one way,” he said.
By placing his palms flat on the rough surface there was enough purchase for him to move the sphere. It rotated slowly about its axis. With their hands on the smooth surface on the opposite side, Tali and Dun had a different reaction.
“It’s not moving over here,” Dun said.
“Isn’t it?” Padg said. “It is here. Shall I stop?”
“No, keep going,” Tali said. “But slowly.”
“Okay.”
He exercised more caution and carried on. There was something comforting about the feel of the surface under his fingers. For something so artificial, it felt strange, organic somehow. Lost in reverie he almost didn’t stop when the others shouted.
“Ow!”
“Sorry,” Padg said. “What’s wrong?”
“Your half of the sphere is the only part that’s moving,” Dun said.
“Eh?”
“The rough bit of the sphere is like a shell; it moves over the surface of the smooth bit,” Dun said.
“And it bashed my sprained hand!” Tali said.
“Oops,” Padg said, “sorry.”
“How far around does it go, do you think?” Dun said.
“Don’t know; let's try,” Padg said. “Everyone’s hands clear?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
He carried on for another quarter turn then the shell came to a halt with a clunk.
“Oh,” Padg said. “That was less exciting than I’d hoped.”
“Then wait til you come round here,” Tali said.
“Why?” Padg said.
“It’s got an inside.”
“What?” Dun and Padg said in unison.
“Come over here and feel,” Tali said. “The bumpy shell thing was like a cover for an inside.”
Dun and Padg crept around the other side of the sphere and joined Tali. She led their hands.
“Here?”
“Good gods,” Dun said. “It’s so complicated.”
Tiny shelves and rills. Holes and boxes. Tiny tubes and spaces. Tali leaned forward; there was a click beneath her feet. There was a hum and then faint noises echoed up from the interior and tiny breezes began to blow from it. Dun wasn’t sure, but he could swear that the tiny breezes smelled differently too.
“It’s like it’s alive,” Padg said in awe.
“It is alive,” Tali said.
“Eh?” Padg said.
“It is alive. It’s us.”
“No, still not following,” Padg said.
“Oh, don’t be dim, Padg,” Tail said, exasperated. “...sometimes! Dun, you explain it to him.”
Dun was still distracted by feeling the massive creation. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“Please explain to your dense friend what this is.”
“Oh, yes. Sorry. Well, you know that egg thing we found? And I said it wasn’t just an ornament, but it was meant to represent something? Well, I think this is what it was meant to represent. It’s almost like the little egg was a message or a reminder to people about this. Maybe they worshipped it or something, I don’t know. There’s more to it somehow too. The inside here, feel it? It feels like pipes and rooms and corridors. It’s got tiny vents blowing. I think it’s a kind of map.”
“Not very convenient on long journeys,” Padg said.
“No, but I think that's what it is,” Dun said.
“Gods,” Tali said, still lost in exploring the depths of the thing. “It is, it really is.”
“That’s what we just said,” Dun said.
“No, feel here.” She guided Dun’s hand again. “This here. It’s the wind tube we’ve just escaped from. It goes, way along here, and up here, completely straight. And right near it two tiny rooms, one sphere here and one right below it. Amazing.”
“It is amazing,” Dun said. “Let’s try and feel our way back.”
And they did. Losing all track of time, they felt the artifact in great detail, finding the land of the Bridge-folk, the Stone-folk, the Lake-siders, the Badlands. The entire route they’d taken. Tiny artifacts of who knows what, tiny pipes, and tubes. Minute fans blowing thin puffs of air. Places that felt like crops, mushrooms, and reeds. Huge strange spans of places they’d never imagined. Then the entirety of the whole thing started to hit them.
“Where we live. It’s so small,” Dun said.
“But it’s not small, is it? We live there,” Padg said. “The village is big, the settlement is big, the river is huge. Where the Stone-folk live is massive.”
“But all of it is dwarfed by...”
“Everywhere else?” Padg said.
“There are lands beneath us and lands above us,” Tali said.
“And lands above that,” Padg said.
“Amazing,” Dun said. “I need to add to my map, check details.”
“No time for that now,” a voice from above said. “There are more things I need to tell you. I will send the rope back down, come up. We need to talk.”
“But the map, the... artifact.”
“It’s called a globe,” the Sentinel said.
“The globe then...” Dun said.
“Will have to wait. There isn’t time. They may be back sooner than we hope.”
“They?” Padg said.
“Come up,” the Sentinel said, “and I’ll explain everything I can. Please close the globe before you climb up.”
The rope knots clanged off the globe as it was tossed down to them. Padg placed his hands on the rough side of the globe once more and slid the cover. There was a click as it went back into place. One by one, they grabbed the rope and climbed. Dun first and Padg last. Back in what Dun could only think of as a throne room; they gathered at the Sentinel's feet. There was a click from the direction of his chair and some kind of noise from behind them indicated the hatch to the globe room had closed.
“It is good you understand the globe,” the Sentinel said.
“How could we not?” Tali said.
The Sentinel laughed dryly. “It is surprising the number of folk who ignore the very things they can feel under their hands.”
“Where are the rest of the Machine-folk?” Dun said.
“Killed, some rounded up, maybe killed later.”
“When?” Padg said.
“Over many cycles. They have slowly plundered the treasures and the knowledge of the Machine-folk.”
“Who are they?” Tali asked.
“We call them the Over-folk, although who knows what they call themselves.”
“It sounds as though you don’t know very much about them,” Padg said.
“That is true,” the Sentinel said sadly. “They come in swift and silent; take what they want and leave.”
“Haven’t you got guards? Hunters?”
“Yes...” The Sentinel lapsed into a silence that hung deep.
They waited and waited, not sure what to say. Tali spoke first, gently, “What happened?”
He spoke slowly, “It was terrible. We had... officers, they... they used to keep the peace and sort out any minor scuffles. Deal with customs and sort out trader disputes. Not a trained fighting force, or hunters as you would describe them, but good folk, could defend themselves, had access to many strange found objects, some weapons, others usable as weapons. They had fought before, disputes with gangs of river pirates and so on, but this was different. I was called when the first casualties came back, terrible wounds... torn apart. All of them killed, but one of them spoke before he died. Said they were like supernatural beings; knew exactly what everyone was about to do, shot with their terrible weapons, always first and never missed. No one ever even got close enough to smell the enemy. A massacre.”
“That’s terrible,” Tali said.
“Yes,” the Sentinel said, “it was. The traders and tinkers took up what weapons we had left and took to trying to defend the rest of us, the women, the children. They hid me away, I did not want to go. I am not glad I did.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Tali said, hearing the tears in his voice.
“I don’t!” he said. “I just wish I could have done, thought of... something.”
“How did you hide from them?” Dun said.
“We had one piece of technology that I guess they had never expected; still don’t I suppose.”
“What is it?” Padg said.
“It is a secret and my only protection. I intend to keep it that way,” the Sentinel said.
“I can understand that,” Tali said.
After a while of thought, Dun spoke again, “You said we were the first Bridge-folk here for a while. You have met others?”
“One,” he said. “Older. Now I think, he sounded a little like you...”
“Father.”
“Perhaps. He was an interesting sort. Came here more than once. Always drawing, wanted to map the whole of the Dark.”
“A map like this?” Dun said, proffering his scroll where the Sentinel could feel it.
“Just like that, yes. So you are his son.”
“Yes, when was he here last?”
“Many, many cycles ago. He was determined to find out if there was more above, pestered me for a long time to be allowed to touch the globe. Once he had, he would not rest until he had found what else there was to be found.”
“What became of him?”
“He went on down the pipe, in the direction the Over-folk came from, but he never returned.”
“I must find him.”
“Why?” the Sentinel said.
“I need to know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, I think.”
“Be sure. He said that.”
“It would be extremely dangerous too,” Padg said.
“Suicidal,” the Sentinel said.
“The folk here can be so beautiful, even though I’ve never seen them.”
Excerpts from <Distress Beacon SN-1853001>. Found by E.S.V. Vixen Terradate: 26102225.
