Patricia had slept— she checked her watch—nine hours.
She lay on the cot, listening to the gentle sound of tent canvas clapping in the breeze.
In at least this region of the seventh chamber, there was little need for solid-walled buildings. The weather was dry and mild, the air temperature warm. She stared up at the awning stretched between aluminum poles, at the smoky outline of the plasma tube through the cloth.
I am here. This is real.
“You bet your life,” she whispered. Inside the tent, a complex of partitions and tarp floors covering about a hundred square meters, Farley and Chang were speaking Chinese in muted tones.
The first few hours in the chamber, while they had arranged a cubicle in the tent for her and prepared for a cookout, Patricia had been hyperactive, darting about like a moth, asking questions that sometimes made little sense. Lanier had watched her glumly for a while; she had felt she was somehow disappointing him. But later he had joined the others in laughing at her—with her—and had produced a surprise bottle of champagne. ”To christen your new self,” he had said.
On the first round, they had tried to find something more fitting in the way of names for what everyone had, heretofore, referred to simply as the “seventh chamber,” or “the corridor.”
“Spaghetti world,” Farley had suggested. No, Wu countered—more like macaroni world, hollow in the middle.
Chang tossed in pipe world. ”Tube” and “tunnel” had already been appropriated for other parts of the Stone;. the words and shapes seemed to echo against each other, a sexually charged confusion of fittings-within-fittings.
A couple of glasses of champagne and Patricia had become desperately drowsy. They had barely set up a cot under the awning before she was sound asleep.
She stretched and propped her head on her elbow, looking across the scrub and sand, and up at the enormous cylinder of land stretching into the haze. Farley came out of the tent and sat beside the cot.
“Dreaming?”
“No,” Patricia said. ”Musing.”
“When Garry gave us the grand tour, a year and a half ago, I thought I’d go crazy. What’s your opinion of the indoctrination? I mean, it’s really just beginning for you, but ...” She trailed off, regarding Patricia with very blue eyes. Farley was perhaps ten years older than she, and there was humor evident in the lines around her lips and eyes. She had a demanding directness in her manner—almost a female version of Lanier, Patricia thought.
“Seeing is not quite believing,” she answered. ”So just hearing about it certainly wouldn’t be enough.”
“After a while, we tend to become complacent,” Farley said, staring down the gray-green road. ”It worries me sometimes. When new people arrive and see what we see every day, we’re shaken back into realizing how strange it really is. Sometimes I feel like a beetle crawling through a fusion power plant. I can feel a certain amount, see a certain amount, but I sure as hell don’t understand everything.”
She sighed. ”I’m not sure Garry approves, but I think you should be warned about the boojums.”
“He mentioned them. What are they?”
“Some of us have seen boojums. Spooks. I haven’t, and none of our group have. The consensus is they’re psychological, a sign of the strain. There haven’t been any really clear sightings, photographs or anything. So be wary of what you see. And be doubly wary—no one has proven that the Stone or the corridor is completely deserted. We’re just too few to adequately explore and police all the chambers. So if you see anything, report it, but don’t believe it.” She smiled. ”Does that make sense?”
“No,” Patricia said, swinging her legs over the side of the cot. “Do I have a work schedule, some idea of what I’m supposed to be doing, when?”
“Garry will tell you all about that in a half hour or so. He’s sleeping now. Exhaled. I mean, exhausted. We’re all a bit worried about him, you know.”
“You and the others—you have green badges, but do you have third level clearance?”
“Heavens, no.” Farley laughed, tossing her long blond hair back over her shoulders. ”We’re Chinese. We’re lucky to have gotten this far. We’re here by courtesy and because our governments happen to be friendly this decade. All the same, we’re much better off than the poor Russians. They get to study the bore holes and the plasma tubes, and very little else. Everyone perceives plasma physics to be their specialty, so they’re stuck on the axis. Americans have no conception what fine archaeologists they have. Now, as for their sociology ...” She shook her head ruefully. ”I’m a born and bred Marxist, but I’m not sure the Stoners would fit strict Leninist dogma.”
“Garry hasn’t given me any details on the agreements. I read about them at home. But I know we weren’t told everything.”
“NATO-Eurospace vessels were the first to reach the Stone and begin exploration. By the ISCCOM agreements, NATO has the right to control exploitation, and NATO is dominated by the United States, of course. The Russians have protested this is a special case, but they haven’t gotten anywhere so far. The Chinese have never been tebbly—terribly—interested in deep space, so we’ve accepted what little we’ve been allowed. By being quiet and subservient, we’ve come much further than the Russians. No Russians in the seventh chamber, you’ll notice.”
“You don’t sound Chinese.”
Farley laughed. ”Thank you. Everyone says my accent is good, but sometimes my words ... Well. What you’re really saying, I think, is I don’t look Chinese. I’m a second-generation Caucasian immigrant. My parents were British expatriates in Czechoslovakia. They were agricultural specialists, and China welcomed them with open arms when they emigrated in 1978. I was born there.”
“I’ve spent all of my life in California,” Patricia said. ”I feel so protected compared to you. Out of touch with the real world.”
“The world of intrigue and international politics? Me too. I spent most of my life on a farm in Hopeh. Rather cut off. And now ... we’re both here.” She looked down at the ground, shaking her head.
“For various reasons, there are a lot of things we shouldn’t talk about. Garry trusts me, and I respect his trust. We’ve all done our best to be courteous and trustworthy. That’s why we’ve come this far. So. Technical matters directly relating to our work, that’s okay. But anything having to do with subjects off limits to Wu, Chang and me—no discussion. None at all.”
“Okay,” Patricia said.
Farley looked north, directly down the throat of the corridor.
“The Stoners made this. They were humans, just like you and me. Beyond that, we’re encaved—in the dark. But sometime, we will run into them—or something even stranger.”
She smiled thinly. ”Is that a prediction strong enough for you?”
Patricia nodded. ”Anything more specific, I’ll get the shakes.”
Farley patted her on the shoulder. ”Must get back. Garry will be with you shortly.”
She entered the tent.
Patricia stood and smoothed down her jumper, then walked a few dozen meters across the sand. She bent down and ran her hands through the blades of a clump of grass.
The length of the corridor was so startling, compelling, that her breath slowed. It was spare, economical, incredibly beautiful. The even lighting, the gradually receding but nevertheless clear details; the sand, the bushes, the lakes and rivers flowing from southern cap condensation ...
Despite what Farley had said, Patricia felt safe walking another dozen or so meters west. And having gone that far, still within a few minutes’ run of the tent, it seemed no big deal to go an equal distance beyond. She reached the edge of the dwarf forest in ten minutes, then glanced back to orient herself to the tent and the ramp emerging from the cap tunnel.
The trees resembled scrubby pines, none more than two meters tall, their gnarled branches intertwined into an impenetrable thicket. She had never seen anything precisely like them on Earth, but their needles were similar to those on the Douglas fir Christmas trees her family used to buy before settling on an aluminum substitute.
She bent down to peer under the low canopy but saw no sign of life.
How strange, that the Stoners should take every living, moving thing with them. Stripping the Stone. Where did they all go?
That much was obvious, now. She could feel the compulsion each time she looked down the corridor. They headed into the infinite north, if the corridor truly was infinite.
“Patricia!” Lanier called from the tent. She jumped, slightly guilty, but there was no urgency or rebuke in his voice.
“Yes?”
“Work to do.”
“On my way.” She returned to the tent.
They sat by a folding table arranged under the awning.
Lanier took a slate and plugged in a memory block, then set the apparatus between them. ”You should have some idea now why we need you here. We have a couple of mysteries to figure out, and that” he pointed down the corridor—”may not be the greater.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” she said.
“I’ve already programmed a first-draft schedule for you. You’ll get a tour of the third chamber city—concentrating on a library there. That city was called Thistledown, just like the Stone itself. It’s a couple of centuries newer than Alexandria. And you’ll make several return visits to the library in the second chamber. That’ll take a week or two, just getting you started.” He pointed to the slate and tapped a RUN button.
Instructions scrolled down the screen. ”Here’s how to use the subways, schedules, and precautions. Obviously, I won’t be able to guide you all the time, or even very often. Work piling up all over. And I’ll probably be returning to Earth for a short while. During that time, you’ll report to Carrolson. Most of the facts you need to know, regarding security, are in that block. Who to talk to, who not, protocol, that sort of thing. Farley, Wu and Chang are fine people, but be circumspect. Be circumspect around anyone who doesn’t have the same privileges you do.”
“Who else can I talk to, besides you?”
“Carrolson. You can talk to her about everything but what you read in the libraries. I’m working to get her clearance for that, too. But not yet. You’ll meet others in a couple of days. Some will have library clearance, and you’ll be working with them, coordinating, cross-checking. Clear enough? For the next couple of weeks, it’s going to be study, study, study.”
“How far from the camp can I go?”
“As far as you can walk, but take along a radio. We have a security base about fifty kilometers down the corridor, with sensors set to pick up any activity in the corridor for several hundred kilometers. If they call a retreat, get back to the tunnel as soon as possible.”
“What’s the likelihood of that happening?”
“Small.” Lanier shrugged. ”Maybe nonexistent. Hasn’t happened yet. I hope you don’t resent kid-glove treatment. If anything happened to you, the Advisor would have new hairless rugs all over her floor.”
Patricia grinned. ”So who’s my duenna?”
“Until Carrolson gets here, Farley. Questions?”
“Let me get started, then I’ll ask questions.”
“Fair enough.” Lanier left her at the table. She picked up the slate and began the first memory block.