Flux (16 page)

Reaching toward the gate, Nellie ran her fingers along the opened seam and was relieved to feel no wave of pain coming at her, no terrified scream lighting up the inside of her head. So the gate in the Sanctuary of the Blessed Goddess had been a fluke, nothing more. Relieved, she ran her fingers along the opened seam again. Who would have left a gate standing open like this? Had the traveler been intending to return and failed? The gate obviously hadn’t been used in a while, and this presumably eliminated Deller and his mother. Anyway, wouldn’t Deller have told her if he was able to travel the levels? Nellie shrugged. Maybe, maybe not.

She picked up the hem of her nightgown and knotted it at her waist, then stepped through the gate. Immediately she adjusted to the new level’s vibratory rate and found herself standing flat up against the bedroom wall. Turning, she discovered what she’d expected—a mirror image of the room she’d just left, with the same arrow of moonlight along the floor, same furniture, and an oblivious snoring double on the bed. Directly in front of her hovered the gate that would take her back to her home level, and superimposed over it was a second one, also open and vibrating at a slightly
quicker rate. Adjusting her own vibrations to meet those of the new gate, Nellie stepped through it and turned to see a scene exactly like the one that preceded it—another silent bedroom, sleeping double, and superimposed gate. The third gate led to yet another bedroom and open gate, where a fourth gate opened onto a fifth identical scenario. Rarely had Nellie traveled so many levels in sequence and she kept count, not wanting to get lost. Unfamiliar vibrations were fine for a while, but levels were like mindjoys in one respect—if you stayed in them too long, you got queasy and muddled. She always looked forward to the moment she could cross back into her home level and get the uneasy buzz out of her head.

Nothing changed. Nellie went on and on, stepping through what seemed a series of endless open gates, darkened bedrooms, and snoring doubles. Then without warning, she edged through a gate to find herself in a dark closed-in place. Adjusting her vibra-tory rate, she scanned the area but found no sign of a bedroom or her double. Cautiously she stepped forward and bumped into some kind of barrier. When she pressed her hands against it, she could sense vibrations—very faint, but readable.

The image that surfaced into her mind was sharp and unavoidable—a boy with a thin weasely face stepping through a gate into a bedroom exactly like the ones she’d just passed through, except the double sleeping on the bed belonged to him. Nellie blinked and squinted, but there was no doubt about it—the boy was obviously the same one she’d seen last night in the cubicle. Now that he was standing, she could see he was slightly shorter than Deller but had the same brown hair and green eyes, though unlike Deller’s, his were slightly slanted. Staring about himself, he muttered, “This is just like taking a morning crap. Same stuff coming out every time.”

Suddenly the air at the center of the bedroom rippled violently and a brilliant seam of light appeared, opening outward. As the boy stared, two lab-coated men stepped through the gate. Beyond them Nellie could see only a blur, but when she probed it with her
mind she recognized the rapid vibratory rate of the gate that had appeared in her shack. Crying out, she shrank back. As she did, the images began to fade and she forced herself to return to them, just in time to see one of the men grab the boy, upend him over his shoulder, and duck back through the gate.

Just before he passed through the gate, the second man turned back to the bedroom and raised a handheld device. Instantly the place filled with a blinding flash and Nellie felt a scream go up as the molecular field was destroyed. Shakily she withdrew her hands from the charred wall before her. So this was how Deller’s brother had been taken. Somewhere on the other side of this charred barrier Fen was alive, trapped inside a cubicle, his every neuron wired to a machine for some incomprehensible purpose. And he was a traveler. He knew how to walk the levels as she did.

With trembling hands, Nellie traced the scars on her scalp. Once the men had taken Fen, they’d destroyed the gate and its immediate surroundings just as her shack had been destroyed. Both of these gates had led her to Fen, and both shared the same rapid vibratory rate. Nellie tasted fear, remembering the lab-coated men who’d pursued her down the hall until she’d made it back to her shack. What if the room with the cubicles was right on the other side of this wall? Would the lab-coated men be able to sense her here, as they’d sensed Fen?

Panicking, she blundered back to the previous level and shut the gate. Then she stood in the darkness, listening to the soft snory rhythm of her double’s breathing, its whispery question of sound. Why was it, she wondered shakily, that wherever she went her doubles were always sleeping or staring at her in stunned surprise? Except for the one in the corner store, of course, but even she hadn’t tried to follow Nellie back through the gate. Why didn’t any of them travel like she did? What made her so different, even from her own doubles?

In utter loneliness Nellie made her way through the sequence of gates, listening to the dream-breathing of each double as she
closed the corresponding gate. Back in her home level she sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the arrow of moonlight that was now angled up the far wall. Was she safe here, far from the place Fen had been taken, or could the lab-coated men track her vibratory trail to this level? Maybe it would be best to steal some of Deller’s clothes and take off for the hills beyond the quarry where only rumors and wild animals lived. But she was tired, so tired, and who knew what really lived in those hills, what kinds of gates could open there?

Slipping into bed, she sank into dreams and waited for morning to find her.

Chapter 11

Y
OU MEAN FEN
—?” Deller’s mother stopped and pressed her fingertips to her temples, as if fighting off a stab of pain. “You’re telling me my son could step...
can
step,” she corrected herself softly, “into other levels?”

“Yeah.” Nellie nodded emphatically, trying to dislodge the sadness she saw in the woman’s eyes. “I saw him in the vibrations the wrecked level was giving off. It was very clear.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t a dream?” Deller’s mother assessed her narrowly. “You weren’t asleep and making it up?”

Nellie stiffened indignantly. “I can tell the difference between asleep and awake,” she sniffed, and the woman nodded, then gave a long sigh.

“She can do a lot of things, Mom,” said Deller, leaning forward anxiously. “If she says it happened, I believe her.”

“I do too,” his mother said softly. “I don’t want to, but I do.”

They were sitting at the kitchen table, the remains of breakfast spread around them, listening to the house walls creak in a rising wind. Outside the window deep clouds grumbled across the sky, and the rooms above Nellie’s head whispered with doubt and misgivings. How many gates had Fen opened in this house? she wondered silently. What had he seen before he was taken?

“I don’t really understand it,” she said quickly. “I’ve never gone that far into the levels before. Usually I go just one, to get what I want, and then I come back. When I was first learning about them, I’d go four or five levels to see if anything changed but it never did much, so I stopped. The two gates that led to Fen ... “ She paused, screwing up her face as she thought. “Well, their vibrations were way quicker than anything I’ve seen. Usually the vibrations of the next level are a bit quicker, but not like that.” She paused again. “It’s like something from far away, from a place where the vibrations are a lot faster, moved in close to us. That’s probably why it’s different, not a copycat level of this one.”

“How far did Fen go?” Deller asked hoarsely.

“Ten levels,” said Nellie. “But the men who came through and grabbed him—they weren’t coming from the eleventh level or the twelfth. Their vibrations were way too fast.” She looked at them, expecting to see understanding open their faces, but Deller and his mother continued to stare blankly at her. Then Deller turned to his mother.

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” he said eagerly. “The way he’d go to his room, and then we’d go looking for him and he’d be gone. And we never heard him leaving his room or coming down the hall. I tried to get it out of him, how he pulled his vanishing act, but he’d just look at me and grin.”

“When did he start vanishing?” asked Nellie.

Deller frowned, thinking. “Not long. Couple of months, maybe.” His mother poked at a fried egg on her plate. “Can anyone learn to do this?” she asked, not looking up. “Could you teach me?”

Nellie darted her an assessing look. “Maybe,” she said dubiously. “But I don’t think it’s like other things, like cooking or driving a car.” Seeing the woman grimace, she added hastily, “Or using a computer or flying an airplane. It has something to do with the way you see and hear.” She stumbled over her words, thinking. “Like seeing sound or hearing light. You can’t teach someone that, not really.”

She wasn’t going to reveal anything further—nothing about the energy that danced at the core of every molecule, or the way humans showed up as figures of living light in the molecular field. That was hers.

“Fen talked about something like that once.” Deller leaned forward excitedly. “We were listening to the radio, and he said he could see the radio waves moving through the air. Zillions of them, he said. All in different colors. I tried to get him to say more, but he shut up, like he’d let out some kind of secret.”

“Your father was like that too,” Deller’s mother said, gazing out the window. “Saw things the rest of us couldn’t. Heard things. Fen must’ve gotten it from him.”

Deller nodded. “Like his eyes.” As he spoke, his gaze drifted across Nellie’s face.

“What about my eyes?” she asked, instinctively ducking her head.

Deller shrugged. “It’s their shape,” he said. “People with eyes like that are called ‘sarpa’ in the old speech. It means ‘knower of secrets’.”

“What secrets?” demanded Nellie.

“How should I know?” shrugged Deller. “I don’t know them.”

“You have the kind of eyes my husband had,” added his mother quietly, and Nellie thought of the picture of the man on the living room mantel. “We used to say he was descended from one of the Goddess’s five other children.”

“Five other children?” demanded Nellie, astounded. She hadn’t known the Goddess had children other than the twin sons.

“Here in the Outbacks there’s a story that the Goddess actually had seven children,” said Deller’s mother. “The two twins that died, and five others that went on to live normal lives. Their children married and had children, and their children had children, and all of them had the same curious slant to their eyes.”

“But I’m not one of the Goddess’s children,” said Nellie, her hands lifting to touch her eyes.

“It’s just a story,” Deller said quickly. “Probably made up to go along with the Constellation of the Five Children.”

“The what?” gaped Nellie. Never, in all her classes in the Interior, had she heard of a star sign that had to do with children.

“Never mind,” said Deller impatiently. “I’ll show you sometime.”

“Oh,” said Nellie. “Yeah. Well.” She hesitated, then blurted, “What’s a rerarren?”

A hooded glance passed between Deller and his mother, and then she said, “‘Walker between worlds.’ Very few have that power, even among the sarpas. My husband couldn’t, though if you say Fen can, perhaps he could too and just never said. Perhaps that’s why ... “ Another glance passed between mother and son, and then a long silence fell upon the three while the upstairs rooms whispered over their heads. With a shuddery sigh, Deller’s mother got to her feet. “I want you to take me there,” she said, stubbing out her cigarette. “To the place they stole my son.”

Nellie shifted and scratched nervously. This was exactly what she’d feared would happen if she talked about the levels—others wanting to hone in on what she knew, steal her private world. “I can’t,” she said, her face twisting. “Those men we saw will notice if too many start traveling the levels. I know what I’m doing and how to keep quiet, but someone new at it ... “ She fell silent, watching their faces hook onto her last words.
Someone new at it
. Fen.

Deller’s mother stood staring down at her hands. “So there’s no way through?” she asked hoarsely. “They’ve destroyed the way to Fen?”

“It’s all closed over,” said Nellie. “A big burn scar.”

“Just like the place you used to live,” Deller added.

“And even if it wasn’t,” said Nellie, “the gates that lead to Fen are different. They aren’t ordinary gates to ordinary levels.” She paused. “Maybe Lulunar brought them in.”

Deller’s mother moaned and leaned heavily on the table. Outside, the wind came at the house in a rush, sending a long creaky sigh through the walls.

“Well, I have to go to work,” she said. “But I’ll be back around five to make us some supper. We’ll talk more then.”

Taking a quick breath, Nellie surged to her feet. “I think I’ll be going too,” she said rapidly, staring intensely at a spot on the opposite wall. “I can come back later and talk if you like, but there are things I’ve got to be seeing to.” She’d lain awake for hours before she’d gotten up, pondering her way through this short speech. Last night had been foolish, letting a great raw wound come open so others could see it. She couldn’t go around blubbering and playing at hope like that. From now on she would keep her mind fixed firmly on reality. Family meant herself and her dead mother. And the Goddess, of course.

It was Fen they wanted, not her.

“Thank you for supper and breakfast,” she added politely to the stunned faces staring at her. “Have a good day.” She stepped back from the table.

The front legs of Deller’s chair hit the floor with a crash. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, jumping up. “Where are you going to go?”

“That’s my business.” Nellie’s eyes slitted dangerously. “I can take care of myself.”

Deller’s mother took a step toward her and Nellie danced backward. An odd look crossed the woman’s face, a mix of dismay and interest. Then she crossed her arms and put on a firm motherly expression. Warnings ran softly up and down the back of Nellie’s neck.