Aybe concentrated, flying them past rock walls, which zoomed by like ghosts that slid out of the storm, flashed by, and then fell away into mist. Cliff realized that rain was the only cover they or any living thing had here. No creature could take advantage of darkness, ever. He saw some animals running nearby and wondered if they, too, were repositioning themselves. Or using the rain as cover to mate?
“Y’know, maybe it’s no accident that most people have sex at night,” he said suddenly. “Or at least indoors.” He had to get them out of this funk, if only because
“What?” Irma shot him a sharp warning look.
So he told them in roundabout fashion. Start with fear of attack while coupled, so do it in the dark and under shelter. Then frame it as really important to everyone. Give social signals, so nakedness implied you were willing to have sex — why else were people so embarrassed to be seen nude, as though they had revealed some deep secret? Set up tribal rules so couples don’t get disturbed then. Make it important, not just a quick jump-on in the dark. It was a contrived theory, made up on the spot, but it did its job.
As he had guessed, Aybe made the first joke. It wasn’t a very good one, but Terry followed that with a real groaner. They got to laugh and sport, and the lines in their faces faded. Talk came fast, short, punchy, delicious. Their group training came out unself-consciously — how to lift the mood, knit up the small abrasions of working together.
Cliff knew he had droned on during the long times they were sand sailing, and now in the mag car for days, so he made use of that history.
After the laughing, he went on just to distract them from the danger they were in and could take only so much of, and still stay steady and focused. So he told them what he thought about this strange huge place. He noticed that there were flowers, pretty unsurprising as a convergent evolution — but here they always bloomed. Trees didn’t drop leaves unless they were dying, since no chill was coming, ever. Animals had no downtime — so burrows where they rested were large, and guarded. Small animals defended their nests ferociously since they had to have a sheltered spot in near darkness to rest, recuperate, and, of course, mate.
Irma gave him a skeptical look and he knew his little seminar was boring them again. When he paused, she said, “Why’s this so big? And why’s nobody here?”
Terry said, “You mean, why so much open land?”
Aybe said, “They don’t like cities, maybe? We haven’t seen anything more than towns.”
Cliff nodded. “Even from
“Maybe the Bird Folk like countryside, not cities,” Irma said. “I know I do.”
They came around a long curve and suddenly the rain died. Without prompting, they all stood and surveyed as far as they could. Terry called, “It’s there!”
The balloon creature was a distant tube hanging above a rocky headland. Cliff hadn’t thought till now that the balloon was subject to the winds that brought the storm. It was plain bad luck that the wind moved the creature to block their path.
Looking through his binocs, Terry called, “They just dispatched one of those silent planes. It’s turning back toward us.”
Only then did Cliff glance in the opposite direction and see that the spire lay behind them. “Damn!” he said. “We have to go back where we were.”
Aybe expertly turned the magcar and took them away, using the canyon walls to keep them screened from the airplane’s view. They ran hard for the spire canyons, which were deeper and afforded more shelter. They all sat in silence. Being hunted was now a gray fear they all carried at the back of their minds, with no letup.
Aybe slowed a bit and let out a yelp. “I got it! I’ve been wondering about that spire. Cliff, check me. We saw a pattern of them from
“Uh, yeah.”
“I know why. They’re in a grid because they’re part of the construction. They’re stress juncture points!”
They looked at him blankly. “They’re like counterweights, see?” Aybe took his hands off the yoke and gestured, palms perpendicular to each other. “They draw support cables and pair them off against each other in bridges, see?”
Irma said vaguely, “This spinning bowl, it’s like a bridge?”
“Yes,” Aybe said eagerly, “one with both ends tied to each other.”
“Why’s it a spire?” Terry asked.
“I’ll bet there’s a counter-spire on the outside of the bowl, too. It’s all about matching stress.” To their hesitant looks, he added, “Think of it as like an arch, each side supporting the other.”
“An arch works against gravity — ,” Terry began.
“And this place works against the centrifugal force — which we feel as gravity,” Aybe said triumphantly.
Cliff liked Aybe’s getting them out of their funk, but had to ask, “So what? I mean, that’s cute but — ”
“Don’t you see?” Aybe asked, wide eyed. “The natural place to lay out a transit system is along the stress lines. That’s where the heavy mechanics gets resolved. Plenty of support for rail lines, things like that.”
Cliff thought he got it, but — “So some transport stops here? Like a train station?”
“Or elevator,” Aybe said. “Same thing, really, in a damn weird contraption like this.”
Cliff called up some pictures he had from the
“So?” Terry asked. “We’ve got airplanes looking for us — ”
“And we can hide, but who knows what kinds of detectors they have?” Aybe rushed on. “So we have to go to ground, get out of their view — ”
“Into that subway system you think correlates with the spire, right?” Irma said brightly.
Aybe jerked a thumb up. “Yep! You’re right, it’s more like a subway, buried below us.”
“And where is it?” Cliff said soberly.
“At the spire, of course. Makes engineering sense. I was stupid not to see it before.”
They were all standing and Cliff slapped him on the shoulder. “Great! Sniff it out, then.”
Irma hugged Aybe, and Terry shook his hand, but as he did so, they heard a distant whispering burr. Terry jerked his head. “The plane. It’s coming.”
“We’d better find this subway pretty damn soon,” Cliff said.
They set off, moving fast.
PART VIII
ONE MAN’S MAGIC
One man’s “magic” is another man’s engineering.
FORTY-ONE
This alien technology had a strange effect on him. Cliff looked at it with foreboding as they approached.
The towering sides of great obsidian-dark slabs let intricate designs play out in the elongated perspectives. Bladelike sheaths of a gleaming yellow metal soared up the flat faces, ornamenting it with geometric shapes that tricked the eye into confusions of perspective. Or Cliff’s eyes, anyway. Triple vertical vents like shark gills suggested a cooling channel.
