The fishers did not range well ahead as they were wont to do outside. Rather they paced along, one on either side of Sander and Rhin. Now and again they uttered soft hisses, not of anger and warning, but simply communicating with each other.
There had been no sign of consciousness from Fanyi since she had said her name, claiming her own identity. That she now lay in an unnatural sleep Sander was certain. He wanted to get her as far away from the place he had found her as he could.
They passed the scrap heap of the machine sentry. At another time Sander would have liked to study the remains of the thing, perhaps appropriate other bits of its arms. Now he had a feeling that the less he allied himself with anything belonging to this maze, the more sensible he would be.
Rhin climbed the ramp, Sander steadying Fanyi with one hand and carrying the hammer in the other. That climb seemed twice as long as the descent had been. But it was good to emerge into fresher air, fill his lungs again with that which was not tainted with the acrid odors so strong below.
In the upper hall Sander decided to head back to the room where he had found the larger food machine. Though the fishers had wolfed down all the biscuits he had fed them, he guessed that they were not yet satisfied. Also perhaps he could coax from that strange supplier of nourishment something to revive Fanyi.
Rhin went forward confidently and Sander did not doubt that the koyot was retracing their journey. The feeling of pressure, of nibbling, was growing less, the further he withdrew from the chamber below. If the seat of that disturbance lay there, perhaps there was a limit to its influence, though it had reached out before to draw him here. He had no intention of taking off his iron protection to test its strength.
They reached the room he sought. There he loosed Fanyi and lowered her from the riding pad, once more stretching her on the floor with his coat under her head, and though she did not open her eyes or seem conscious, she shivered.
Recklessly, he thumbed the buttons on the machine, tossing to the three animals the meat-tasting biscuits that they snapped up eagerly. But at length, one lucky choice provided him with a capped container that was nearly filled with a hot liquid having the smell and consistency of a thick soup.
Cradling Fanyi’s head against his shoulder, Sander called her name, roused her so she murmured fretfully and feebly tried to escape his hold. But he got the container to her lips, and finally she sipped.
As she drank at his soft-voiced urging, she appeared to welcome the liquid and finally opened her eyes as if to look for more. He speedily got a second helping from the machine and supported her until she finished that also to the last drop.
“Good—” she whispered. “So good. I—am—cold.”
Fanyi still shook, visible shudders running through her whole body. Sander managed to get his coat on her, rather than merely laid over her. Then he turned to Rhin, stripping the koyot of all their gear and pulling over the girl the thick riding pad, strong-smelling though it was.
Having covered her as best he could, he called the fishers and they obediently settled down on either side of her, lending their body heat. Only then did he go to the machine and feed himself.
He was tired; he could hardly remember now when he had slept last. And that ordeal in the lower ways had sapped his strength. Dared they remain here for a space? If Rhin and Fanyi’s fishers would play guard—
In all his journeying through the rooms of the complex, Sander had come across signs of no other inhabitants. The rooms that he guessed had been intended for living quarters seemed empty of any presence save their own as they passed through. Still Sander could hardly believe that Maxim was the sole remaining inhabitant of the place. And any such would have weapons and resources past his own knowledge. The sooner they themselves were out of this underworld, the better. But even as Sander thought that, his head slumped forward on his chest and he had to fight to keep his eyes open. There were too many chances of facing disaster still to come, and he could not meet them worn as he was now. Rest was essential.
He made a further effort and gave hand signals to Rhin. The koyot trotted to the far door and lay down across the entrance, head on paws. He would doze, Sander knew, but he would also rouse at the first stir beyond.
Sander stretched out, the haft of his hammer lying under his hand, on the other side of Kayi. The strong smell of the fishers was somehow comforting and normal, part of the world he knew and trusted, not of these burrows.
“Sander—”
He turned his head. There was an urgency in the call that woke him out of a dream he could not remember even as he opened his eyes. Fanyi was sitting up, his coat slipping from her shoulders, her face drawn and worn as if she had not yet thrown off the effects of some daunting and debilitating illness.
“Sander!” Now she stretched forth a hand to shake his shoulder, for Kayi no longer lay between them.
He sat up groggily and shook his head.
“What—” he began.
“We must get out!” There was a wild look in her eyes. “We must warn them—”
“Them?” Sander repeated. But her excitement reached him, and he got to his feet.
“The Traders—the rest—all the rest, Sander. Your people—everyone!” Her words came with such a rush that he had trouble understanding them. Now it was his turn to lay hands upon her, steady her so he could look straight into her wide eyes.
“Fanyi—warn them against what?”
“The—thinker!” she burst out. “I was wrong—oh, how wrong!” Her hands clutched his wrists with a grip tight enough to be painful. “The Thinker—he—it—will take over the world—make it what it wants. We shall all be things, just things to do its bidding. It has summoned the White Ones—is pulling them here to learn—learn monstrous things. How to kill, destroy—”
Once more she was shaking. “It was made by the Before Men, set to store up all their learning because they foresaw the end of their world. And it did—by the Power, it did! Then, when it was ready, something twisted it—maybe the Dark Times altered what the Before Men set it to do. They—they could not have all been so evil! They could not! If I thought so—” she shook her head. “Sander, if I thought that in my mind lay such inheritance from them, then I would put a knife to my own throat and willingly. That—that thing, it remembers the worst. It wanted me to serve it. And it was taking me—making me into something like it when you came. We must get out of here! I know that it controls this place and—”
She paused, looked to Sander. “But it did not hold you. Was that because you did not have one like this?” She pointed to the pendant Sander had not taken from her, not knowing whether if he did he would remove some protection she needed, as Maxim had suggested.
“It can take over one’s mind, one’s will. It—it promised me”—her lips quivered—”all I wanted, all I sought. I was only to go into its direct communication chamber, open my mind. But what it poured into me—hate—Sander, I thought that I hated the Sea Sharks, but I did not know the depths, the black foulness of true hate, until that taught me. And it wants everything, all of us, to serve it. Some people it can rule quickly. The Shamans of the White Ones, it has already made its own servants. Do you understand, it summons them now—to learn.
“There are things stored here, other things that can be made, easily made with that to teach. And it shall then loose death. Because in the end it wants no life left—none at all!”
“You say ‘it’ and ‘that,'” Sander said. “What is ‘it’ in truth?”
“I think”—she answered slowly, again shivering, her hands loosing their hold on him to half cover her mouth as if she hardly dared speak her belief aloud—”that part of it was once a man—or men. It has a kind of half-life. And through the years it has grown more and more alien to man, more and more monstrous. Those who stayed here—while they tended it, it kept to a little of the purpose for which it was made. But as those grew fewer, feebler, it grew stronger and finally cut all ties with those who were left. Some—like my father—went out to see what had happened to the world because they were not influenced by that so much.