It seemed to take a little longer than the first time until the capsule burst out into the realm of fiery plasma tunnels and rampant rivers of channeled energy. Having some idea of what to expect, he was able to devote more time to studious observation and less to slack jawed amazement.
After a while the tunnels began to fall from view, exactly as before, until only the one down which he was racing remained. Arching sharply to the left, it punched back into the star-rich region that had so entranced him and his fellow travelers previously.
Somewhat to his own surprise, he recognized several systems and structures in passing. But then, he'd always been good at recording details for future analysis, and when some of those "details" were the size of entire worlds, they tended to remain firmly in memory.
He saw new megastructures, as well, and marveled afresh at the skills of those who had fashioned them. Whoever these beings were, they had mastered the art of materials science, for art it had to be called. They had bent matter to their needs. He made notes using the oldfashioned stylus and paper he always carried in his pack, and sketched as best he could. That human technology, at least, seemed to function without difficulty in this place.
Unexpectedly, the incredible starfield began to shift less rapidly around him. He was slowing, much sooner than on the previous journey. Putting up his writing materials, he turned within the ovoid. No immediate changes were visible, but then, the smooth interior offered little that was subject to alteration.
External motion ceased. All about him, channeled plasma roared silently. The capsule came to, as near as he could tell in the absence of suitable reference points, a complete stop.
While he did not panic, his curiosity was underscored by a growing tension. What if something had gone wrong? As ancient as the system was, it was not unreasonable to expect that individual components would break down from time to time. It was a dazzling, resplendent place to be marooned, but he could die here as readily as in total darkness. As alone as it was possible for a human being to be, he sat and meditated and waited- for something to happen.
Only the sharp curve of the tunnel allowed him to see the object as it approached. Though a long way off, he was able to determine that it was definitely moving toward him. Immense beyond imagining, the star-treading torus was fringed with an exotic and unrecognizable assortment of protrusions and bulges. It was accompanied by a flotilla of other craft that darted and drifted about it like worker ants attending to their queen. The least of these vessels was far larger than the biggest KK-drive ship ever built.
The plasma tunnel down which he had been racing was rapidly vanishing into the exact center of the toroidal wanderer. It did not reemerge on the other side. One did not have to be an alien mega-engineer to understand what was happening.
The road-builders were taking up the pavement.
Where the tunnel disappeared there flared an aurora the size of the Earth. Energy was not consumed so much as it was shifted. Unable in any way to affect his own destiny, he stared, enthralled, as the torus maintained its methodical advance. If it did not stop before it reached him, both he and the ovoid would vanish in an insignificant puff of ruptured particles.
Then he was no longer alone. Vehicles too small to be seen at a distance, which had been dwarfed by the torus and its support craft, were suddenly hovering close by, just outside the raging tunnel wall. As the conduit collapsed around him, he was able to make out more of the big-eyed, smooth-skinned creatures he and his companions had glimpsed so briefly on their previous visit. His earlier impressions were confirmed. Physically, at least, these creatures . were decidedly unprepossessing. Slight of stature, they were small beings with big machines, and they were closing down the Parramati tunnel. All because of him?
Their aversion to uninvited guests could no longer be denied.
While several of the small superfast craft remained nearby, allowing their occupants to study him, others vanished, presumably returning to the vicinity of the advancing torus. He found that he was starting to sweat. Though he'd faced death on more than one world, it remained a confrontation he did not relish.
A jolt sharp enough to knock him backward rattled the ovoid. Acceleration resumed. Gathering himself, he saw that the torus had begun to recede. Or more likely, he from it. His sanctuary had been thrust into reverse. At the whim of alien engineers, he was going to live a little while longer.
Several of the small craft tracked his withdrawal, paralleling the ovoid as it retraced its path back up the tunnel. Though he felt he was moving more slowly than before, he soon lost sight of the plasma-consuming torus. When eventually the starfield vanished to be replaced by the Gordian knot of intertwined tunnels, so did his escort.
For all their inconceivable physical accomplishments, the engineers had struck him as a timid species. It was an impression, a sensation, that ran deeper than a few brief visual contacts ought to have been able to convey, but no less tangible for that. As tangible as the feeling that they didn't want anything to do with him or with his kind.
Though he couldn't be certain from what he'd seen, it seemed that they were in the process of closing down the tunnel permanently. Privacy and isolation were one thing, paranoia was another. Had the entire gigantic apparatus required to shut down the tunnel been brought into use only since his prior journey in the ovoid? Had that visit set off some kind of alarm? Certainly these cosmos spanning beings couldn't be that frightened of him.
The corollaries were unsettling. They implied that there was something else to be afraid of. Something that on the basis of a tiny, insignificant intrusion would drive beings like these not just to close off but to break down a construct as complex as the plasma tunnel, to eliminate it from the fabric of existence. From within the safety of the ovoid he had seen many wonders. What was out there that he had not seen?
What was out there that so terrified these masters of matter?
The rationale for the terminal's original dissipation was clear enough. Its makers no longer had need of it and did not want it used. Its components had been taken apart and scattered, perhaps in haste. Evolving subsequently, primitive Parramati had learned that when combined, certain stones had useful consequences. By far the most complex of these combinations resulted in the auto-reconstitution of the Senisran terminal. No doubt the engineers hadn't counted on anyone discovering the component stones, much less their inherent recombinant capabilities.
Among other things, it suggested that they had left in haste. That, too, was not a pleasant thought.
The blackness returned, blotting out his view of other tunnels and rampaging energies. In contrast to previous journeying, the ride became bumpy and uneven. Once, a violent wrenching to the right slammed him against the opposite wall of the ovoid. Dazed, he lay on the floor, trying to focus on the rose-hued ceiling. How far behind him the consuming torus lay he did not know, but clearly its operation was affecting the entire length of the tunnel.
He found himself wondering if it would collapse completely before he made it back to Senisran.
The ovoid began to slow and he relaxed. Any moment now, he knew, it would start to emerge from the terminal, the end would open, and he would step out to rejoin Fawn and the waiting big persons. Feeling suddenly ashamed, he knew he owed all of them a general apology. Blinded by the light of potential discovery, he had acted in haste and, not to put too fine a point on it, rather badly. He determined to make things right with the Parramati as well as with his dismayed associate.
The capsule came to a halt. Outside the transparent walls, darkness continued to reign supreme. No soft moonlight, no welcoming lanterns illuminated his anxious expression. He could see outside, but only into varying degrees of blackness. A feeling of dread crept over him.
He had been here before.
On the fringes, on the edge, on the half-safe periphery only, he sensed. This time penetration was different, deeper, darker. He had traveled to the place where thrived the worst nightmares of childhood, the threat of oblivion, purgatory, and damnation.
They had sent him here, he realized as he tried to shrink back inside himself. The alien engineers had put him on course to this place, perhaps shunting the ovoid onto another tunnel. He'd been wondering what made them so uneasy, so apprehensive of visitation.
Beware what questions you formulate, he thought feebly, for you may get answers.
Bringing up his knees, he drew himself into a tight fetal ball with his soul in the center. Only the faint pink glow that emanated from the capsule walls kept him sane, gave him something to focus on. Though the tunnel that had brought him to this place remained intact, even the burning plasma of its substance was overwhelmed and subdued by the monstrous, invasive darkness that seemed to be everywhere and everything. While his senses fed him perceptions he didn't want, his mind conjured images he was unable to banish.
Something was out there. A formless form, it was growing curious about the microscopic intrusion in its midst. He wanted to scream but feared provoking more intimate attention. He was also afraid that when he opened his mouth nothing would emerge. While the composition of the Presence remained unknown to him, he had no doubt as to its active nature.
It was Evil.
His mind shrank from confrontation, from contemplation. Once there might have been stars in this place. Suns, planets, people not unlike humans or seni or even alien mega-engineers. All gone now, all vanished; beaten down, overwhelmed, smothered by the darkness that occupied this space. There was only one of it, he sensed, and it was everywhere.
It wanted more. It wanted totality, and was relentless in its search for pathways and conduits to other places. Tunnels, Pulickel told himself. It possessed no directing intelligence, no mindful purpose. It was a disease, a cosmotic pathogen, aimless and blind as a bacterium, and it had to be isolated. Vaster than imagination, it relentlessly consumed galaxies, whole universes, engulfing them like trophies, snuffing out the light of stars and intelligence, leaving behind not so much as a breath of interstellar hydrogen to begin the life-reaction anew.
This, Pulickel knew, was what the engineers were so afraid of. They had used the tunnels to flee. He understood.
Perhaps his understanding triggered some mental mechanical subset of a kind he could not understand, or possibly it had all been carefully timed. The engineers could not only build: they were also capable of compassion. They would show him this thing, but they would not leave even one intelligent being to it. To do so would have been to violate their own rationale for existence.
Besides which, the dead could not lead by example.
A mindless gibbering Something reached out to flay his soul, but he was already beyond its reach. The ovoid was moving again, carrying him away from that place of aversion and loathing, picking up speed as it fled. The doors of his mind, which had shut tight in self-defense, began to reopen. Cold sweat plastered shirt and shorts to his skin.
He'd been exposed to only an insignificant portion of It, he knew, for a minuscule length of time, and that was too much.
It felt as if days had passed, but in reality it had been only minutes. He'd returned full of questions to the universe of the engineers, and had received one answer too many. Now he wanted only to get away, to go home. Home was Earth, but Senisran would do. Anyplace there was light and life would do.
Did universes bicker? he wondered. Oblivious and indifferent to what he thought of as life, did light do battle with the darkness? He'd always thought of the cosmos as a fractious place, but never before as a sinister one. The physical revelations and technological enlightenment for which he had embarked on his present journey seemed suddenly inconsequential. Everything seemed suddenly inconsequential.
Careful, he told himself. That way lies the lassitude that leads to madness.
Not long after he determined that he was likely to survive the experience, he found himself returned. Plainly visible through the transparent walls, agitated Parramati rushed the emerging ovoid. Many were armed. Towering above them, Fawn was borne along in their midst.
Moving, the capsule stopped. Sealed, it opened. Trying to rise, he found that he couldn't move. So tightly had he balled himself up that his legs had cramped in position.
"Help me," he heard himself say. It was a pale shadow of his normal voice, but his voice it was. He was astonished at how relieved he was to hear it.
Several big persons squeezed into the ovoid. Their arms and hands were not strong enough to lift him, but they used their powerful hind legs to gently push him out the aperture.
"Pulickel? You can get up now." Fawn was there, staring down at him with a mixture of mistrust and concern. When she saw that he couldn't move, her misgivings vanished. "He's alive but there's something wrong with him," she said to Ascela, who stood close at hand. As the Parramati bent to assist her colleague, she carefully removed his pistol from its holster.
They carried him away from the terminal and over to the edge of the meadow. With her support and that of the attendant natives, the errant xenologist slowly regained the use of his limbs.
Behind and around them, the chanting had resumed. Not quite a dirge, it rode on a cadence that was noticeably slower than what had gone before. Boosted by his fellows, a big person from Mallatyah stood atop the glowing green terminal. As the others looked on, he removed a large center stone from the summit and passed it down to waiting hands.
The piercing shaft of emerald light winked out. Near the base, the glassy ovoid sank back into the interior. One by one, the howling stones were detached from the remarkable structure they had formed and were distributed among the gathering, like a sugar cube being dissembled by ants. The resonant whine that had filled the meadow and reverberated through the surrounding trees faded to silence.
The Goggelai was over.
Clouds masked the moon, enhancing the importance of lanterns and torches. Fawn eyed her colleague reproachfully. "Think you can walk?"
Bending, he massaged his thighs. "I hope so. I'd like to walk. How do I look?"
She squinted in the intermittent light. "Like you've been through hell."
"Something like that." He looked behind him. "I see that they're taking the terminal apart. Good."
"Good?" She frowned in confusion. "That's not what you were saying a little while ago. What made you change your mind?"
Haunted eyes gazed back at her. "Being through hell. I will explain later, as best I can. There's a lot to explain. I got answers to questions, but they weren't the ones I wanted to ask." Turning, he started purposefully toward the shrinking mound that had been the terminal. "This is taking too long. Let's help them."
She hesitated. "That may not be such a good idea. A number of them want to kill you. A few would like to kill me, as well."
He nodded understandingly. "They can't hurt me. I've already died. If they don't do anything to me, I am certain they will not harm you."
She moved to join him. "You're very sure of yourself. What happened to you in there?"
"A minor epiphany. I'm pretty sure I'm the same person I was when I left, but I believe that the basic model has suffered some improvements."
They were not allowed to join in the dismantling. Before they could reach the remnants of the terminal, they were surrounded by a cluster of excited big persons.
"Do not try to talk to us again. We do not wish an alliance, a treaty, with either you or the AAnn," the leader of the group declared loudly.
Pulickel's response was an apologetic smile. "I know. We won't try to force one on you anymore." Fawn looked at him sharply but he ignored her. "You must do as kusum dictates, and we will abide by that."
Clearly his response was not the one they had been expecting. Gradually weapons were put up and much soft barking ensued. It was Jorana who finally spoke.
"Be warned. You know the stones, but if any others of your kind come to study them, we will throw them into the deep sea."
The stones, Pulickel wondered, or any newcomers? He hoped to avoid either eventuality. It was evident that the stones could be studied only with the aid and acquiescence of the Parramati. Any further attempts to push the issue would result in the loss to science of the stones and all they represented. He wanted very much to learn more about them. He just didn't want to use them to go traveling.
He'd done enough of that.
The cluster of armed Parramati wavered. Pulickel jumped on their indecision. "I promise that if you let us go, neither I nor F'an will speak of this night to our big persons. No others will coarse-at least, not for a long time. Let us stay and learn the ways of kusum. Isn't that what you want?"
"We never tried to prevent it," Jorana responded. "It was only that you and the shiny-skinned ones thought you knew better, that your ways were superior." Flashing, slitted eyes came close to exanune the xenologist's face. "I see that you now know otherwise."
"I'm not sure about that," Pulickel replied, "but I do know that certain roads are meant to be avoided. F'an and I must follow our own kusum, but that does not mean we cannot learn from yours.
"We will report that the Parramat Archipelago is not ready for development. Requests for mining concessions will be denied and actively discouraged. We will help you maintain your kusum."
The Parramati discussed the xenologist's words. Though Pulickel listened intently, he was unable to decipher their overlapping dialogue. But their posture was no longer threatening, and he allowed himself to feel hopeful.
Conversation ceased and Jorana turned to face the two humans. "We will accept this if F' an will guarantee it." The senior big person looked pointedly at Pulickel. "She has never broken her word to us."
"Of course I guarantee it." She put a hand on Pulickel's shoulder and squeezed firmly. "I'll keep him in line."
Now that the tension had been released, he couldn't repress a grin. "I believe I would like that."
Jorana's lips curled approvingly. "It is good that you finally recognize the truth of kusum." A three-fingered hand reached for his own. "Now we can be friends again."
The xenologist accepted the proffered fingers in the traditional entwined manner, having to strain his less flexible joints to accommodate those of the far more limber seni. "I am sorry for what happened and for what I did. Sometimes if you want something badly enough, it can make you blind and dumb."
Fatigue and the lateness of the hour led to the gradual breakup of the great gathering. Carrying their respective stones, individual big persons retired to their assigned longhouses and huts. Tomorrow, Fawn knew, the impressive armada of outriggers lined up on the beach below would once more put out to sea, swallowed up in ones and twos by the blue horizon on their way back to outlying alien islands replete with unknown mysteries and exotic names.
They slept in Torrelauapa that night. By midmorning, Pulickel avowed as how he thought he could manage the hike back to the station. Taking no chances, she monitored his vital signs at regular intervals. A couple of times he stumbled, but without injury. By the time they topped the last ridge he was near exhaustion.
"I wonder," she hypothesized as they started down, "if the Parramati have the only correct view of existence and every other sentient species is wrong. Maybe we should all adopt their belief system."
"Not if it means having to live by the rules of the sacred stones." Pulickel spoke with feeling. "Learning their properties is one thing, letting them govern your existence is another." He shook his head. "Too many surprises there."
"If we don't report an occasional revelation, we'll be replaced here," she warned him.
He wasn't worried. "We'll handle it. If we do things right, eventually Ophhlia authority will tire of reading pleasant nothings about the Parramat Archipelago and focus on more fertile and accommodating island groups. We'll bore them with mildly entertaining but commercially unviable discoveries. Meanwhile we'll learn what we can about the stones."
"And then?" she prompted him.
He stepped carefully over a slippery spot. "I don't know, but I'm sure we'll find out." He smiled. "Kusum will tell us how to proceed."
She frowned at him. "You sound like a convert. What happened in there? Did you have some kind of religious experience?"
To her surprise, he took his time replying. "I don't know. I haven't decided yet if it's quantifiable. But I will let you know if and when I figure it all out."
He wasn't joking, she saw. A ready quip sprang to mind, and then she remembered the expression that had been frozen on his face when they'd hauled him out of the ovoid. She decided, for now at least, to swallow the joke.
She watched him carefully all the rest of that day and into the morning of the next. By breakfast time he was nearly his usual imperturbable, infuriating self.
"How do you feel?" She picked at her reconstituted omelet.
"Worn out, dizzy, utterly drained." He sipped at his juice. "Thoroughly ashamed of myself."
"Forget it. The Parramati forgave you. I guess I can, too." She waved a utensil at him. "I understand temptation. I gave in to it once. It wasn't profession-related, but it did cost me a piece of myself."
"Want to tell me about it?" he inquired solicitously.
"No. Let's just say it had to do with the male need to triumph and conquer over all odds." She didn't look up at him.
"Don't gender-generalize me."
"Why not?" Now she did look up. "It's one of those psychological components of human society that we'll never be able to rid ourselves of entirely. Deal with it. I've had to."
"I think we should start with a growing stone," he said calmly, changing the subject. "A small one. From its study we can hopefully extrapolate and infer a great deal."
"I'll speak to Ascela about it." Her comment was noncommittal. "When the time is right." They ate for a while in silence before he spoke again.
"I don't think it's going to matter if the howling stones are ever used to reassemble the terminal again or not. Because they were shutting down the tunnel behind me. The engineers."
"Shutting it down?" She eyed him uncertainly. "How do you `shut down' something like what we experienced? It's too big, it's-"
"Small," he told her. "Very small. In the scheme of things. On the scale of mega-engineering. While they were doing it they sent me someplace else." The dark spot in his mind that wouldn't go away flared like burning oil. "They wanted to show me something."
"Is that what you meant before, when you spoke about being through hell?" Her tone was gentle.
"It was the worst thing you can imagine. Universal evil. Or maybe a universe of evil, I don't know. All I do know is that I am glad no one will ever be able to access it from Senisran. The engineers are hiding from it. At least, that's the impression I received."
"I'm not sure I understand."
"I am not certain I do, either." He finished the last of his juice.
"Why put a terminal on Senisran?" she wondered after a pause. "Why this world?"
"Why not Senisran? Maybe you were right, Fawn, and there are disassembled terminals on other worlds. Now that we know what to look for, we might be able to find them." His voice fell. "I'm just not so sure that would be such a good idea. We might accidentally open a tunnel to the wrong place. To that place. Only when we know more about the stones, about how they function and on what levels, will humanxkind be able to think seriously about collecting howling stones and accessing tunnels."
She nodded understandingly. "Other worlds will have to be searched, of course. It's the way we're made."
46I know. But there are all kinds of searches. Vigilant and circumspect is best. To be safe, the knowledge must be restricted and access controlled."
"I'm certainly not sorry I missed what you went through," she told him.
"Yes. Be glad that you did. Try as I may, and believe me, I intend to, it's something that will never leave me. Each time I relive it, I will die a little. But there is something I will always wonder about."
Leaning back in her chair, she deliberately put her amazing legs up on the table for him to enjoy. "What's that?"
"If the race we've been calling the engineers, with their sun-girdling artificial worlds and plasma tunnels and blackhole energy vents, moved from here to there-and why. Or if this galaxy, this universe, was just another way point in their travels. In their search."
With effortless and unsurpassing grace, she crossed her legs. "Search? What kind of search?"
Reluctantly he shifted his eyes away from the expanse of exposed flesh. "For a safe place."
Swinging her feet to the floor and rising from her seat, she walked around the table until she was standing behind him. With great deliberation, she put one hand on his forehead and eased him back against her. She could not see him close his eyes, but she could hear him sigh.
"The Parramati are right about one thing, Pulickel Tomochelor. Each of us picks his or her own road. Me, I choose not to worry about whether one universe is battling for dominance over another, or over several." She stroked his brow, enjoying the slight but solid weight of him against her. "For a long time I wasn't sure that I liked you. Then I wasn't sure what was going to happen to this installation, or to us. Now I'm not entirely sure what I want to do next."
His voice was easy now, relaxed. "You're not sure of very much, are you?"
"What do you expect? I'm human." He sensed rather than saw her smile. "It's my kusum."