After two more e-days, by Aubry’s internal clock, they reached the end of the dendrite they’d been traveling out. The Integument started changing there, for this was a growing edge of the Met. Things started looking more incomplete, somehow, and the going became more difficult. There was no more sluice that they could travel in, and so they did a lot of walking.
“I wish I could show you all the stuff that’s out here,” Leo said. “This is one of the most fascinating areas in the Met. There’s lots of radiation, and so things mutate. The evolutionary selection algorithms sort them out and adopt the changes that work. Also, there is bioengineered life out here that is adapted for a hard vacuum.”
They descended a series of cliffs on ropes that were already attached, for the most part. In some places, Leo had to put lines in. He used part of the Integument itself for rope, and Aubry and Jill alternated belaying him while he fixed the way. By this time, Aubry had become so adept at rock climbing and rappelling that she felt she could probably do it in her sleep.
Finally, they came to a thick, mucus membrane that stretched up and up until Aubry lost sight of it. You could put your hand into it as far is you could reach, but it didn’t come out the other side. Leo said you could actually walk into it for a little ways and still be able to breathe, but that it got harder and harder, and after a few meters, you could go no farther.
“This is the e-mix-space boundary,” he said. “On the other side of that membrane is the vacuum.”
They walked along the membrane for what seemed miles to Aubry. Finally, they came to what looked like a notch in it, a split. It formed a cave that went back as far as Aubry could see. The space was not wide, but it was tall, and would fit Tod, as long as he bent his neck a little at the extra joint he had.
“Where we’re going,” Leo said, “is to a transmitter pod. We’ll all pile into it, and that will take us to Nirvana.”
“Nirvana?” said Aubry. “As in the state of nonbeing?”
Leo laughed. “Or being,” he said. “But actually it’s one of the mycelia, the disconnected islands of Met-like cables that—”
“I know what a mycelium is,” said Aubry.
“Sorry,” said Leo. “I’m getting stuck in guidebook mode lately. I made my living that way for a few years, you know.”
They wandered onward, and the green bioluminescence of the Integument began to die down. Soon they could barely see in front of them, and several times Aubry stumbled against Tod, who was ahead of her. He was bracing his arms against either wall. When she grabbed him, he held steady. But each time she touched him, he let out a little shout, and said something like “Hallelujah, mustard and quicksand!” So she tried to keep her balance as much as possible and stay a little distance back.
Finally, they arrived at the end of the tunnel, and the walls began to glow again, this time a pale blue that flashed and sparked.
“Cherenkov radiation,” Leo said. He began feeling the wall. “Now right around here,” he said. “Yes. Here.” He ran his hand over a bump, and part of the wall drew itself back like a curtain—or a puckering set of lips. In the space beyond, Aubry saw what looked like the inside of a pumpkin, minus the seeds. It was very stringy, and looked very sticky. “Our own personal transmitter pod,” said Leo. “Made to order. Sort of.”
“People ride in this thing?” said Aubry.
“Well, they can, and we will,” answered Leo. “But most people visit the mycelia using transport ships, or just wait for a conjugation with the Met. But Nirvana is one of those places that never conjoins—by design. You can’t get there from here.”
“But we’re going?”
They stepped inside the transmitter. It was just as sticky as it had appeared, and Aubry soon found herself coated with orange fibers. She had to pull up hard on her feet to keep them from sticking to the floor. She was very glad she had ordered the Tromperstomper boots she wore. They stayed firmly on her feet no matter how hard she pulled. They walked a long way into the transmitter pod, and it got darker. Leo had broken off a piece of glowing pulp from the tunnel, however, and he held it up and led the way.
“Where are we going?” Aubry asked.
“All the way to the other end,” said Leo. “And then we’ll activate this thing.”
“Activate it?”
“There are some control sacs up front,” said Leo. “You break both of them, and when the chemicals inside mix together, the whole transmitter pod activates.”
“And then what does it do?”
“Then we get shot out like a watermelon seed between two squeezing fingers,” said Leo. “Or don’t you have watermelon on Mercury?”
“Of course we have watermelons,” Aubry said. “They’re Sint’s favorite food.”
“Sint?”
“My brother.”
“Oh,” said Leo. “Oh, yeah.”
They pushed through more gooey strands and finally made it to the other side of the transmitter pod.
“Now normally,” Leo said, standing in the last fading light from his piece of pulp, “if you got shot out at the speed we’ll be traveling, the initial acceleration would kill you. But instead of getting smashed, we’re going to sort of fall back through all those strings and inner meat, and by the time we hit the back wall, we will have been cushioned enough to survive.”
“Wow,” said Aubry. “Are you sure it works?”
“I’ve done it before, kid,” said Leo. “Lots of times.”
Aubry resolved to get ahold of herself and face whatever lay ahead. “Sounds like fun,” she said, as brightly as she could.
“Oh, it is,” said Leo. “And a little bit dangerous. You and I and Jill will want to sort of ball up and hold our knees to our chins before I activate the thing.” Leo glanced at Tod. He was standing, looking away from them, great tendrils of gooey strings dangling from his head and shoulders. “Tod will have to take his chances. But that old tower is made of tough stuff, I think.”
“But if it’s so dangerous, why were these things invented in the first place?” Aubry asked.
“They weren’t invented,” Leo said. “They evolved. Very quickly, actually. And they started out in the mycelia and then were adopted by the Met Integument.”
“But why did they evolve?”
“To exchange gases and other stuff. We’re surrounded by a sluice reservoir, as a matter of fact. It serves the double purpose of filtering out cosmic rays and other nasty stuff, like micrometeorites. If we hit a big enough chunk of rock, though . . . well, let’s just hope we don’t. I never have, obviously.”
“So people aren’t actually meant to travel in these things?” Aubry said.
Leo didn’t answer. He set the glowing pulp on the floor and searched with his hands until he found the two activating sacs he was looking for. They looked sort of like long cow udders—with no cow.
“Are we ready?”
Everyone spread out a ways.
“What about light?” Aubry asked. “After?”
“You’ll see,” Leo replied. “Now tuck your head between your legs and kiss your ass good-bye!”
Aubry was trying to figure out if he meant this literally when Leo squeezed the activation sacs. The entire world lurched.
Aubry was immediately and forcefully thrown backwards, very hard. She smashed into a clump of tendrils. She was pressed against them. They stretched, stretched, then gave.
Back again, into another thick rope of them. She couldn’t keep her legs held tight, couldn’t do anything, the force pushing her back was so strong. The rope gave.
She smashed into another clump, and another. Every time she hit, she felt as if her teeth might jar out of their sockets. She was sure she felt the fluid in her eyeballs sloshing up against her retinas. There was a reddish light that must have come from this pressure, for it was not completely dark in the transmitter.
Another clump.
Splat!
Another. She felt herself near to blacking out, fought it. But that wouldn’t work. She couldn’t help it if all the blood in her body was rushing in one direction only, like a tide coming in. Goo, falling, goo, goo, goo.
And then she slammed into the back wall, felt herself sink into its pulpy mass. But the pressure was lessening. She was no longer in any danger of blacking out. That is, if she could breathe!
She forced air out of her mouth, sucked in. It worked. She did it again, and again, fighting for each breath. But she could breathe! And suddenly, all the fear left her, and she began to get into this wild ride. It was fun, and nobody she knew—not one of the kids at school—had ever done anything like this before.
Then, quickly, the pressure subsided and Aubry was floating in free fall. If the sticky pulp hadn’t held her to it, she thought she might go flying about if she moved.
“We’ve reached maximum acceleration!” she heard Leo call out. “It’s all speed now!”
And Aubry could see. The red had not been within her eyes—or within her eyes alone. Falling through the mass seemed to have activated some luminescence mechanism in the pulp. The entire transmitter pod glowed with a low red-orange light, exactly as if they were inside a Halloween pumpkin. But a pumpkin from which the goo hadn’t been removed.
Leo maneuvered over to her, floating in the air. “Is everyone all right?” he asked.
“I’m here,” said Jill. “Wherever here is.”
“Hair of the dog that bit you!” yelled Tod. “Slice an apple and out comes a worm!”
“By the way, Leo,” Aubry said. “How do we stop?”
“Same as we started, only backwards,” answered Leo. “But we have a ways to go yet.”