“I’m sorry, Ludger. I don’t have time to argue anymore.” So saying, he reached down and grabbed the scientist’s shoulder. “You’re coming with me. Now.”
“I am not.” Brink rose to his feet and shook off Low’s hand.
Though the two men were about the same size, Brink was no fitness fanatic. Whereas Low, despite his years, still retained the physical stamina that was a characteristic of his profession. That plus his martial-arts training allowed him to overpower the scientist without much effort.
Flinging Brink into a corner to keep him out of the way, Low began gathering up the glowing life crystals. Apparently the only way to induce the scientist to move was to also move the source of his intractability. Low’s pockets held the crystals as readily as did his companion’s.
Dazed, Brink tried to raise himself from where he’d been thrown. “No! Don’t touch them! Give them back.”
Low found their warmth pleasing but in no way addictive or mind-altering. Still, it was early yet. Having no one else to do so, he would have to continually monitor his own reactions.
To his surprise, Brink rushed him. Low sidestepped easily, used his hands and feet and sent the scientist crashing to the ground. Only the minimal force necessary was employed. His intention was to divert, not injure. Brink wouldn’t be of much use to Maggie with a couple of broken limbs.
Breathing hard, the scientist rolled over. His expression was desperate. “Please, Commander! You don’t understand. I have to—”
Disgusted, Low whirled on him, glaring hard. “You have to what?” He held up one of the sheathed crystals. “Have one of these next to you?”
Brink took a step forward, thought better of it, and stood there tottering with one hand extended. “Yes, that’s exactly it, Commander. I have to be close to them. I can’t explain it, but—”
“Fine,” exclaimed Low, interrupting. “Stick close to me and you’ll be close to them, right? You help me help Maggie and you can have them all back. I’ll even help you reconstruct your little green playpen. What’ll it be?” Following a pause, he added, “I see you eyeing that length of pipe, or conduit, or whatever it is. Don’t even think of it. If you try to hit me, Ludger, I’ll have to hit back hard. You won’t like the result. Use your logic.” He tried to lighten the proceedings.
“Besides, it’s bad for crew morale. Conflict and camaraderie can’t coexist.” He turned to go. “I’m leaving now. Stay behind and I’ll see to it that you never see these crystals again.” His tone thawed.
“I know you’re not entirely responsible for your actions, Ludger. It’s the crystals. You’ve become addicted to them, somehow. Maybe because one dissolved inside you. Come on, man, use your head! Bring your analytical powers to bear. God knows they’re a lot more developed than my own. Try to step back mentally, take a look at what’s happening to you.”
Brink hadn’t moved. Now he lowered his head along with his arm. “I know … ich vergessen… I know I haven’t been entirely myself here lately. I see now that the life crystals have become something of an … an obsession with me.”
” ‘Something,’ hell,” Low replied quietly. “It’s all you think about. It’s driving you. With luck we’ll find out why and figure a way to combat it. But right now neither of us has a clue, so you’re just going to have to handle it.”
“Yes. I know you are right, Commander.” His head came back up, and for the moment, at least, he looked like the old Ludger Brink: confident, self-assured, good-natured and just a touch arrogant. “I will help you assist Maggie. But if she is no longer responding, how will we find her?”
Low drew the communicator from his belt and held it up for Brink to see. “These all have built-in search-and-locate functions. It doesn’t matter that Maggie isn’t talking. All that matters is that her unit is active. Which it is. She may not be talking, but we can still track her. She told me she was on the museum island.” He clutched the compact unit tightly in his left hand. “According to this she still is. That should narrow things down a bit. Come on.”
Brink offered no further objections as he followed Low out of the storeroom and back to the main chamber. Together they hurried toward the transport tunnel that led to the museum isle.
They had to walk, or rather jog, the whole way, praying as they did so that Maggie wouldn’t suddenly appear in the tunnel ahead, riding the glassy transport sphere toward them. While they had no way of ascertaining its chemical composition, both men knew the rolling globe was not fashioned of thin plastic. Roaring down the tunnel, it would reduce them to pulp.
The blackness ahead remained silent. Nor did any active alien abominations come shambling out of hidden side passages to impede their progress. The lightly polished surface underfoot was perfectly smooth and seamless. Darkness might slow them, but they did not trip and fall.
Several times the Commander had to pause and wait for Brink to catch up, but overall the scientist maintained the pace surprisingly well. Either he’d done some running, Low mused, or else the life crystal he’d absorbed was keeping him going. It didn’t matter to Low.
Both men were exhausted by the time they emerged from the subway. Stopping to catch their breath, they took time out to repeatedly bellow the journalist’s name.
They kept calling to her as they cautiously entered the spire. Familiar cases and containers loomed around them. Only this time, instead of revelation, the sea of wonders concealed an unknown danger.
Instead of leading them deeper into the complex, as Low had expected, the communicator’s locate function angled sharply to the right, pointing toward a series of holes or open doorways. When they reached the wall, Low walked back and forth until he was sure which of the openings the communicator was singling out.
“I don’t like this.” Pulling the small flashlight from his service belt, Low flicked it to life and entered the poorly lit tunnel. Here the light emanating from ceiling and walls was feeble, barely strong enough to illuminate the damp floor’s conspicuous downward slope. Their compact beams were a welcome supplement. “Last time I was in a tunnel, I ended up playing dodge-em with a serious nightmare.”
Brink was inspecting their surroundings. “Maintenance passage, I suspect. How did you escape your nemesis, Commander?”
Low smiled grimly. “Gave it a nightmare of its own. Do you hear water running?”
“Yes. Be careful. The floor is growing slippery.” He sniffed. “Saltwater. This tunnel must run out under the ocean. Given the limited amount of space on each island, it would not be surprising to discover that much of this interisland complex’s infrastructure exists below sea level. It is the way I would do it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind next time I need to build me a university, or whatever the hell this setup is supposed to be.” As Low ducked beneath a leaky conduit, cold seawater dripped down the back of his neck and he found himself shivering.
“We must try to break through!” insisted several of the mind-forms which had followed the visitors’ progress from the very beginning. “Otherwise they will all, despite having come so far and accomplished so much, perish here.”
“Break through?” Five hundred perceptions puzzled the problem. “We have tried to break through for a thousand years. There is no breaking through.”
An image formed before them all. It was a representation of the first to encounter the travelers. As a reminder of what they had once been, it was a powerful stimulant.
“We can at least try,” declared the first. “Who will try with me?”
A hundred volunteered. Choosing a comparatively stable nexus in space-time, they sought out the most prominent fracture and pushed, compressing selves into self as they did so. The rip was nanoscopically slim, as they all were, but under the combined and determined effort it gave, ever so slightly.
“Look, over there.” Low pointed to where flashes of light had appeared in the darkness. Fragments of fluorescence, they flowed together for the briefest of instants to form an outline, a recognizable shape. Straining, they sought to show, to reveal, to illuminate. The effort involved was inconceivably immense.
“Air currents.” Brink was casually dismissive. “Phosphorescent gas. A harmless by-product of all this heavy engineering. I suspect as we move deeper, we may encounter other interesting effects.”
“I expect you’re right.” Ignoring the frantic flickerings, the two men pressed on.
With a collective sigh of remorse, the disappointed and discouraged hundred abandoned their efforts.
“Observe.” The vast host of nonparticipants was equally disenchanted. “We are no nearer solution than we have ever been. It is hopeless.”
“Nothing is hopeless where there is life,” promulgated a succession of the first’s supporters. “Better to have tried and failed than not to have tried.”