Bluetooth saw things now with a clearer head. He mourned the world at times. At
times she did. But to be there always and forever…
Sky-sees-her, that was her name; and she had seen truth. The blue was false, a
cover stretched out like a blanket; truth was black distances, and the face of
great Sun shining in the dark. Truth would always hang above them. Without the
favor of humans, they would return to Downbelow without hope, forever and ever
to know themselves shut off from the sky. There was no home now, not now that
they had looked upon Sun.
“Lukases go away sometime,” Bluetooth murmured against her ear.
She burrowed her head against him, trying to forget that she was hungry and
thirsty, and did not answer him.
“Guns,” said another voice, near them. “They will shoot us and we will lose
ourselves forever.”
“Not if we stay here,” said Bluetooth, “and do what I said.”
“They are not our humans,” said Bigfellow’s deep voice. “Hurt our humans,
these.”
“This is a man-fight,” Bluetooth returned. “Nothing for the hisa.”
A thought came. Satin lifted her head. “Konstantins. Konstantin-fight, this. We
will find Konstantins, ask what to do. Find Konstantins, find Old Ones too, near
Sun’s Place.”
“Ask Sun-her-friend,” another exclaimed. “She must know.”
“Where is Sun-her-friend?”
There was silence. No one knew. The Old Ones preserved that secret.
“I will find her.” That was Bigfellow. He wriggled close to them, reached out a
hand to her shoulder in the dark. “I go many places. Come. Come.”
She drew in her breath, lipped uncertainly at Bluetooth’s cheek.
“Come,” Bluetooth agreed suddenly, drawing her by the hand. Bigfellow hastened
off just ahead, a pattering of feet in the dark. They went after him and others
followed, up the dark corridors and the ladders and the narrow places, where
sometimes there was light and most times not. Some fell behind, for they went
among pipes and in cold places and places which burned their bare feet, and past
machinery which thundered with ominous powers.
Bluetooth pushed into the lead at times, letting go her hand; at times Bigfellow
shoved him aside and went first again. Satin doubted in fact that Bluetooth had
the least idea where he was going or what way would lead them to Sun-her-friend;
to the Sun’s Place they had been, and dimly she had that sense she had on the
earth, that said in her heart what way a place should be… up was true; she
thought that it should be left… but sometimes the tunnels did not bend left; and
they wound. The two males pushed ahead, one and then the other, until they were
all panting and stumbling; more and more fell behind; and at last the one behind
her caught her hand, pleaded by that gesture… but Bluetooth and Bigfellow pushed
on and she was losing them. She parted from the last of their followers and kept
going, trying to overtake them.
“No more,” she pleaded when she had caught them on the metal steps. “No more,
let us go back. You are lost.”
Bigfellow would not heed. Panting, he edged higher; she tugged at Bluetooth and
he hissed in frustration and went after Bigfellow. Madness. Madness had settled
on them. “You show me nothing!” she wailed. She bounced in despair and hastened
after, panting, trying to reason with them, who had passed beyond reasoning.
They passed panels and doors where they might have gotten out into the open; all
these they rejected… but at last they came to a place where they were faced with
choices, where a light burned blue above a door; where the ladders extended
everywhere, up and down and in three other directions.
“Here,” Bigfellow said after a little hesitation, feeling of the buttons at the
lighted door. “Here is a way.”
“No,” Satin moaned. “No,” Bluetooth objected too, perhaps recovering his senses;
but Bigfellow pushed the first button and slipped into the air chamber when the
door opened. “Come back,” Bluetooth exclaimed, and they scrambled to stop him,
who was mad with the rivalry, who did this for her, and for nothing else. They
went in after him; the door closed at their backs. The second door opened under