Tropic of Creation (10 page)

When at last they lay the rugs in their resting slots, several fluxors looked to him, as though he must be censored for what he failed to do. For failing to win Maret to their cause. His connection with Maret was the one strand of digger hope, the only access to power.

Other diggers said their devotions, mumbling of vone and Up World. These were simple dwellers, fluxor and static alike, who clung to their myths. Above, the sunlit world delivered to the dead their rewards, as the vone decreed. Many of the kin gathered at this reliquary were the sort who thronged to the Prime Way dramas, never tiring of the stories, and worse, sometimes
believing
them. It was maddening how otherwise rational ahtra minds could hold at once a scientific understanding of the vone, and at the same time imbue them with mystical properties. When pressed, a dweller given to devotional tendencies would say it gave the vone honor.
Superstition, more
like
. Vod set little store by such notions. This life was all they had.

All the more reason to make it count.

“My mistress wishes for you to walk with me, Eli Dammond.”

Eli had risen when Maret entered his cell. The effect of the drugs had passed, leaving him steady on his feet and clearheaded at last. The only lingering discomfort was his stomach cramping from a diet of fleshy mushroomlike segments. He was beginning to recognize which kinds made him most nauseous, and left them untouched.

She had said
a walk
. So far he had only walked from his holding cell to the communal bathrooms, and once to Nefer’s interview room. And he remembered every inch of those paths.

“As you wish,” he said. He could pretend at conformity, and gladly, if she would show him more of the layout of his prison.

“Your demeanor is agreeable, Eli Dammond. Much improved.”

“I do better when not poisoned by your drugs.”

“Yes, certainly.”

He was getting used to her placidity, though it galled. She spoke of the attack on his crew and passengers as though it were a terrible inconvenience. Worse, she spoke of it as being imminent, and then claimed the right to remain uninvolved. She claimed it would not be ahtra who attacked—who then? And why were the ahtra helpless to prevent it? Perhaps it was some natural disaster they spoke of—but if so, why did they probe for how much
armament
the camp possessed? Under threat of drugs, she expected him to remain calm, as though a display of emotion was more notable than a pending breach of the armistice.

He had asked her, earlier:
“Who is your enemy? Who threatens the surface of this world?”

“We have no enemy except yourselves, Eli Dammond.”

“But we are at peace …”

“Enemies may be at peace.”

He was coming to know this individual named Maret: arrogant and dismissive of him, yet seemingly pleased when he let himself be guided or instructed by her. She was a
fluxor
; she said … perhaps some system of psychological grouping—though the skin markings of fluxors were considerably more pronounced than those of the ones who Maret referred to as
statics
.

“My mistress wishes you to have some understanding of us,” Maret said, “so that you may come to learn that we mean you no harm, despite your unfortunate circumstances among us.”

Again, the insistence on ahtra innocence. It rang hollow, as did the implication of some unnamed threat. But he only nodded at her to continue.

“Therefore, we will walk today along the ways. While we do so, you will remember that my people may be surprised or alarmed to see you, though all have heard of your presence here. Therefore, you will remain strictly courteous. For example, you will not move from my side, nor make sudden movements that may appear threatening. Humans are prone to violence in social situations, a tendency that is alarming to the dwellers.”

“I would not wish to alarm such peaceable people.”

She took time for one of her slow blinks. “You may give me your word that you will be apt to observe these rules.”

“Of course.”

He followed her to the door, which she appeared to unlock with a flick of her skull tendril against a pad in the door frame.

He followed her into the corridor that she referred to as a
way
. This way, like others he had seen, was about five feet wide and eight high, with the ceiling forming a curved arch. The wall surfaces appeared similar to those in his cell, where the irregularity looked like a knobby gelatin substance that gave slightly to pressure of a finger, soon resuming shape.

At intervals along the way, screens arose from the walls on fleshy nubs, displaying ahtran language texts and figures. Individuals stood to view the screens, some with their data tendrils inserted into cables. Without fail, his presence caused every other activity to stop while ahtra stared at him, data tendrils popping out of their holds—the equivalent, perhaps, of jaw-dropping. Maret had said the ahtra had been here a very long time, an intelligence that confounded human assumptions that the ahtra lived exclusively on world ships.

He concentrated on the system of corridors, noting side passages teeming with shadowy ahtra—
dwellers
, as she called them. Several times he’d seen work crews massed around a rupture in the wall, using tools on what might be a deeper mechanical system. In addition to the side passageways, stairways led to what were likely other levels. Somewhere, relatively close by, was the personal transit chute leading to the point he had entered this place. And by which he would escape.

They passed a section of wall where a mass of pale blue mushrooms sprouted. Ahtra freely plucked at them as they passed, eating them as they walked. His stomach spasmed, remembering those blue morsels.

Maret noted his gaze. “In places, the hab is host to these fruiting bodies. Behind the hab, their mycelia form a network in the deep soil. We produce most food chemically, but this would be our traditional food, which is now a—parasite—you would say, on the hab. A beneficial one.”

“The hab is alive?”

“Yes, certainly. The hab is a … symbiont, you would say. Ahtra and hab have lived in relation for a million cycles. Ours is a built environment. But of the living Up World, the hab is a sole and precious remnant.”

“Alive …” Eli scanned the spongy corridor walls with new interest.

“What else? But do not be alarmed, it is … domesticated.”

“It’s an animal?”

“That would be your word. To us, it is the hab, of ancient lineage. Cycles past remembering, these were fierce burrowing creatures. We shared our dens with them, and trained them to protect us. They burst from our holes to devour our enemies, and it tended to provide safety for us. Our wastes supplied a source of food for the habsen.”

Eli looked around him with new sight. “But now the hab …” He struggled to find the words that would express how a creature could turn inside out, if that was what it was.

“Is inverted, yes.” She smiled. “As I said, cycles past remembering.”

“How old
are
the ahtra, Maret?”

“You cannot imagine. Since ancient days the hab has depended on us, as we on it. But it is not everlasting, so we move forward, through Down World, in renewal. Where it has died, we leave.”

“We always thought that you lived in world ships.…”

“Some of us tend to do so. But the—world ships—would provide a subsurface dwelling of a sort you apprehend.”

Ignorant. We have been ignorant of our enemy. And the ahtra preferred it that way to judge by this hidden place
.

She led him to the right as the corridor split into a Y before them. The tunnel now grew more crowded with both heavily marked and lightly marked ahtra. He impressed
the route into his memory, alert for any clue to the way he had traversed from the transit chute to his cell. Though he’d been drugged and beaten at the time, by God, he would remember.

With a turn of the corridor, the way became yet more noisy, and before long they came upon an arch that opened onto a stunning sight. Beneath a massive, arched ceiling lay a tunnel wide enough to contain the
Lucia
.

The ceiling rose some fifty feet over their heads and extended in a straight line as far in each direction as Eli could see. Hundreds of ahtra gathered here, some standing in knots around the ubiquitous—but, here, larger—screens which shifted with displays of ahtran symbols. Many dwellers seemed riveted by what they watched. In pockets along the corridor some ahtra sat like proprietors next to their screens, sharing wall space with what Eli took to be vendors of various sorts. In the center of the way moved a swarm of pedestrians, most talking and gesturing in a hubbub of interaction.

“This is the PrimeWay,” Maret explained. “My mistress wishes you to know us, as much as you are capable. The PrimeWay is the heart of us.” She touched his elbow, guiding him forward.

He controlled the urge to yank away. He would
conform
, as she put it. For now.

They moved into the throng of ahtra. He could see over them, from the vantage point of his height, down the cavernous tunnel, across the smooth skulls of thousands of individuals. As they proceeded, a path opened up for them. Dwellers brushed up against others standing next to the screens, who in turn swung around to stare at the human among them. From all directions, large dark eyes turned to watch him.

For the first time Eli believed in Maret’s claim of the antiquity of this subterranean world. Here was the scale that suggested an extensive population, here was the cacophony
of their voices, the interlocking lives, cohering in groups, clusters, eddies; here was the variety, density, and disorder of a long-dwelled-in city. He wondered what else this
DownWorld
had of vaulted spaces, tributaries of
ways
, and caverns of unknown purpose. All in all it was a staggering discovery.

And since they had taken such pains to hide, Eli had little hope they would allow him to leave. In that case his display here on the Prime Way must have some purpose other than what Maret had claimed.

They walked down the
way
. Eli tried to guess what ahtra roles and occupations he was looking at. By dress, some looked less prosperous than others, but none were shabbily clad. There was no evidence of military presence—no combat uniforms nor visible weapons. He saw that among the ahtra, there were large and small individuals, portly and thin. Some with many oval markings on face, neck, and bare arms, some with fewer. Markings ranged in shading from bright silver to light gray.

“What does Nefer wish me to see?”

Maret answered in her well-modulated manner. “To see that we live as you do, proceeding with our lives, a peaceful community.”

With a few notable lapses
 … Ignoring the public relations, he asked, “Who is Nefer among you?”

“My mistress is Most Prime, and orders all affairs of our dwelling. She also orders my life according to her design, as she does yours.”

“Who is above Nefer?”

“That is Hemms Pre Illtek. You will not have reason to know him.”

Someone in the crowd plucked at his sleeve. The individual was staring at him most pointedly, but Eli and Maret kept moving. Apparently not all ahtra disdained to touch him.

“What are the screens showing?” he asked his guide.

Maret stopped in front of one, where the screen filled with ahtra runes, displayed in concentric squares.

“Different things,” she replied. “This one displays wagers.”

A dweller who sat next to this screen sprang forward and began trying to engage Maret in a conversation. She answered him, in her speech. By the screen, several ahtra had inserted their head tendrils into jacks in the wall.

“Wagers? Gambling, you mean?”

“You might say so. We love to guess how things will occur. We win and lose.” She smiled for the first time, a strange sight. “This one is about you, Eli Dammond. You are of high interest here, being new. As you stay longer among us, interest in you will wane.”

The individual who had touched Eli a moment before was back again. Seeing this, Maret turned from the screen and hurried Eli away. However, the individual refused to be left behind, keeping pace with Eli and Maret. When the ahtra moved, the cloth of the dweller’s white robe took on sheens of red or green, distinctively different from the subdued fabric worn by everyone else Eli had so far seen.

“Ignore her,” Maret said, quickening her pace. “This is only a gomin.”

But the gomin pursued them, finally moving to bar their path. She spoke to Eli, looking up at him eagerly, and then to Maret, as though she might translate. She didn’t.

As a small crowd of ahtra gathered to watch this fracas, the gomin made a distinctive gesture with the palms of her hands, a gesture directed at Eli, and which was followed by a stir among the gathered ahtra—a reaction that Eli sensed was an angry one.

“Do not look at her,” Maret said, now pulling on Eli’s elbow, and attempting to navigate around the gomin.

But she was blocking his path. Eli looked down at her.

The crowd of ahtra grew loud, with some shouting at the gomin, and others at Eli. Feeling something push him
in the back, he pivoted in that direction. His quick movement took those nearest him by surprise, causing them to swerve back from him. Conscious that every movement had meaning, Eli tried to adopt a calm exterior, keeping his face expressionless, looking at no one.

Meanwhile Maret was trying to push past the gomin once again, and succeeded in putting her off balance. For a moment the gomin jostled against Eli, gripping him firmly by the upper arm. Then other ahtra were pulling the gomin away, which she did not resist, but began repeating something, chantlike, which was soon subsumed by the answered chant of the crowd.

Maret was fairly hauling Eli down the way, herding him toward the side of the PrimeWay to an opening where a side corridor led away from the tumult. Keeping her fingers on his elbow, Maret steered him down a narrow way, and then into an even narrower set of stairs, where they climbed to the next level. She paused at the top of the stairs, then chose her direction and silently herded him along the corridor.