He shocked them somehow; he intruded himself with politenesses he thought were right and at least were true, and refused to care whether they spat on him or thanked him. He had missed saying that to Ghindi and Weig; to the woman at the hatch; to the pilots and to Sagot. He frightened Voegi. (That man was not supposed to talk to me, and now he thinks he did something his guild will disapprove.) Tanunin shouted everything in their movements, the little step back, Voegi’s drawing near his senior with a worried backslant of his ears. The other tanunin moved and made vague bows and showed every sign of leaving; the kosanin were more definite. The eldest hatani looked at Duun and got his dismissal. So the hatani turned and showed the others out.
“What was that about?” Thorn asked.
“Take a walk with me,” Duun said.
They passed through a huge room, after many halls, where a handful of workers in white, body-covering garments labored over terminals in their laps. It was all computers, row upon row of mostly empty risers. The few workers that were there turned in curiosity and stared in shock, and one by one began to get up. “Stay seated,” Duun said. His quiet voice went to the walls of that vast place, stopping all such movement. And more quietly still: “This is the control center. Nothing’s coming in now: this is all housekeeping.”
“What do they do here?” Thorn asked, since questions seemed invited.
“They monitor the equipment.” Duun brought him to the nearest corner of the room and used a card to open an elevator door: it was the sort they had ridden into the wheel. Thorn seized on the nearest support pole as the door shut; and they both held on.
“Where are we going?” Thorn asked. Duun’s reticences maddened him. (But what would I know if he told me? He can’t tell me. He can only pose me riddles arid let me get there as best I can.)
“To the future,” Duun said. (Truth and untruth.) The elevator shifted and the strongest force was the grip of their hands on the pole, while other forces seemed more and more ambiguous. “You’ve seen the earth, from its simplest to its most complex. Its past, its present; you’re in Gatog, do you see no paradox?”
“I’m helpless, Duun. Am I supposed to see?”
“Change is your world. Flux and shift.”
“Will we go home again?”
“Is that your question?”
The car shifted yet again, a violent sway, and seemed to have changed direction. Thorn clenched the pole and looked at the control panel and back to Duun. “We passed the core,” Duun said. “Now we’re going out again.”
“Why did they make me, Duun?”
Duun met his eyes belatedly. There was dreadful amusement on Duun’s face. The scarred mouth tautened on that side. “Is that the question? I’m answering it.”
“In this place?” Thorn’s heart sped. Panic afflicted him. “Is this where I come from? This?”
” I’ll show you something. We’re almost there.”
(I don’t want to see. Stop it, Duun. Duun, tell me, don’t show me anything!)
The car slowed again, turned, slammed home. The door opened on another room much like the last, but all the risers were vacant, their in-built monitors dark. Thorn walked out into it in Duun’s wake. The floors were bare and cold as all floors in this place. Like a ship. Like a laboratory. No foot left traces. There was no record of passage, no hint of time or change: it afflicted him. There were windows. Duun touched a wall-switch and they came alive clear across the far wall, showing the lights, the girders, the strange shapes that were Gatog.
“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” Duun said. “Don’t you see discrepancies?” Duun walked to a counter and pushed a button.
Sounds began, static-filled, a sputtering crackle. “… stop… ” a voice said; it was a voice. “… you… world…”
(Gods. Gods. The tapes.)
Duun pushed another button. (One beep. A word. Two. Word…) Thorn came as far as the console and leaned on it beside Duun. His heart slammed against his ribs. “It comes from here.”