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"They are not creatures of our universe but of another, darker one! Now they
have sacrificed for their energy and gorged on the flesh of their sacrifices
for strength."
Morok raised a hand. "These demons appear more bound to our sort of
limitations than one might expect. For now, I agree with the captain." He
looked up at the sky. "No way to tell if this is dawn, dusk, mid-day, or
midnight, but we must assume the worst I prefer to be out of sight of this
place in case it gets very dark, though. Come, let us make haste. Patrol
formation, but relaxed. Krisha, you take the point; Savin, you take the rear.
If any threat comes, I think it will be from our back in any event. There is
no way to tell how old these markings are, but from the condition of the
bodies and the amount of time it took us to receive and act on the distress
call, it may well be weeks. We are going where they went, but I do not expect
them just ahead of us."
Modra Stryke looked around the bleak landscape and sighed. "This has got to be
the flattest, dullest piece of nothing in the entire universe."
"Aye, Limbo," Jimmy McCray responded, staring into the nothingness. "But where
is our Virgil?"
"What?"
"Dante."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Dante. Ancient writer from the even more ancient home of our ancestors yours
and mine, anyway. He wrote a book once, a thousand years or so ago, give or
take a century or two. Walked right into Hell he did, in that book, all the
way to
Satan's throne and beyond. They still make all the good little Catholic lads
read the thing, son of as an example."
The Durquist was unimpressed. "I rather doubt that some primitive book based
upon some ancient, localized religious cult has any bearing here."
"Religious cult indeed!" McCray sniffed. "That's the trouble with all this
interstellar civilization. Overrun with all you heathen, it is. The first
place that primitive fellow hit when he went to Hell was a gray, dull,
featureless sort of place called Limbo. Went into several languages of Old
Earth as a legitimate word a place of nothingness, neither here nor there. We
are following demons, right? Against all our better instincts, and no matter
how we explain them, mat's what we're doing. Walking to Hell just like that
old fellow, and look at the first place we come to! Limbo it is, if it's
anything at all. The rest of Hell is for the evil ones of the world. Limbo,
though, is for the heathen and the losers."
"I should think, then, that we should be over our heads in people," the
Durquist
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"Point taken," McCray replied. "Yet I am still struck by the similarities
here.
If this holds up, there are nine more worlds to go, all without divine
protection, each one a worse horror than the one before."
"I'm not sure I can imagine a worse horror than this nothingness," Modra
commented. "It's so bleak."
Tris Lankur examined the ground. "Well, we're not the first. The question is,
after that maze, are we the last?"
here,> Grysta commented to Jimmy.
"Shut up, Grysta," he mumbled. "I'd rather be last than sandwiched in between
Mizlaplanians and Mycohlians."
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Lankur stood and shook his head. "Can't tell from those marks, except that
we're not first and everybody's going the same way." He straightened, then
slowly turned three hundred and sixty degrees around, looking out at the
horizon.
' 'May one ask what that was for?'' the Durquist said with an amused tone.
"There's no curvature," Lankur told him. "Even without landmarks, light acts
differently as it strikes a sphere the further away you get. There is a slight
deflection."
"Too small for any but the finest instruments to see," the Durquist responded,
then stopped. It had become routine to think of this creature as the same Tris
Lankur they'd always known, but that was a fraud, a masquerade, for whatever
had been made out of Lankur's parts. "You can see that and measure that by
eye?"
The cymol nodded. "That's not the important thing. The important fact is that
this place is dead flat. Either we're on a massive polished mesa, or on some
artificial structure, or this world is in fact flat."
McCray noticed Modra give a slight shiver, and read her thoughts as a telepath
could.
He tuned out. The basic flood of thoughts surrounding the kernel were anything
but logical or rational. She still blamed herself for Tris's condition, and
rightly so in McCray's estimation, but he was glad that she was the empath. He
was picking up enough of Modra's inner turmoil from what he could read of
Molly's mind.
"She close to fall to little pieces," Molly whispered to him, and he nodded.
He was still unsure just how intelligent Molly really was, since her mind
worked in ways too alien and twisted for him to comprehend, but she, too, was
an empath, and working the clubs had given her a practical knowledge of
troubled souls.
Jimmy, too, worried about Modra as the tensions and pressures increased, and
he knew the Durquist shared those concerns. Only Lankur, with the soul of a
machine, seemed oblivious to the problem. Feigning emotions was not the same
as having them, or, perhaps, understanding them.
Grysta commented.
"Not until we have to," he responded in a low voice. "We keep our aces in the
hole."
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"Look who's talking," he muttered sourly. Aloud, he said, "So, shouldn't we
get started? Who knows how long this light will last?"
"Started, yes, although cautiously," Lankur responded. "If this place is in
fact flat, and without cover, then if we get close enough to see someone
ahead, they'll be able to see us as well. Suits on minimum power, stay close
and on voice, and go easy on the food and very easy on the water. I'm not sure
we'd like eating what these Quintara eat, even their scraps you saw the
bodies and they might know a water source we can't tap." He paused.' 'Last
chance to check out of this. I'll be willing to bet you that you can get out
the exit in that place now, particularly if we're the last ones. The odds are
very good that just re-entering that entrance there would reset the thing."
Jimmy just shook his head, although she couldn't see it. Ahead was probably a
quick and ugly death; back there was the same, only real, real slow. He knew
she could force him back and wasn't doing so; possibly she knew it might be
the last straw for him, but, more likely, she just wasn't at all certain they
wouldn't be wandering around in there forever.
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"I admit to being increasingly intrigued," the Durquist commented. ' 'I still
think you should return, Modra, now that it's likely you can."
She whirled and stared at them, an angry, almost dangerous expression on her
face. "I will not desert my team! We've been all through this! Let's move!"
Seeing that it was impossible to convince her, even by coming right out and
saying it, that their concern was less for her than for her value in a
desperate situation, they set out.
Trekking through the vast nothingness was not only boring and additionally
wearing for mat, it left each of them alone with their thoughts and plenty of
time to do nothing but brood. Normally Jimmy McCray could shut the others out,
but his power was most likely their first, and perhaps only, line of defense,
and that meant that he had to have most of his shields down and allow the
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