Boarmus shrugged. “What they’ll let you, I guess. Before you send anyone out on a mission, maybe it would be a good idea to find out which side the gods are on.”
He tried to sound positive, even while carefully not mentioning he’d learned to his dismay that quite often the gods were amused by being on several sides at once.
When Nela and Bertran next woke from their exhausted slumber, Fringe was sitting cross-legged beside the entry to the larger cavern, peering through it as though to decipher some riddle. When she saw them moving, she came to help them sit upright.
“Is there any of that food left?” asked Nela. “I feel so weak.”
“Lots of it,” Fringe replied, fetching a handful of the dry flakes to divide among the twins and the disconsolate pocket munk that was perched on Bertran’s shoulder. When they had eaten a few mouthfuls and pushed away the rest, she fetched water in her cupped hands for them to drink, then offered the wet kerchief with which she had washed her own face.
“If I look like you do, I look like death warmed over,” Nela said to Bertran as she rubbed the grime from her cheeks.
“I’m afraid it’s one for all and all for one,” he said, trying to smile. In fact, he thought, if he looked like she did, death wasn’t even warm.
“Did anything happen while we were out of it?” Nela asked.
“I had another interview with them,” said Fringe, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the faces. “What do you think they are?”
As soon as she asked the question, she knew it wasn’t a wise thing to have done, but Bertran was already answering her.
“Something that was once human, once alive, but is now … not alive. Something that is at least partly mechanical, and no longer at all sane,” he said.
Fringe put her finger to her lips and looked upward, shaking her head.
Bertran sighed. Well, yes, they were probably overheard, but what difference did it make? “It could have been more careful of us,” he said emphatically. “It didn’t seem to mind hurting us.”
Fringe agreed. The things didn’t mind hurting. Seemed to enjoy it, in fact.
“What did they want this time?” asked Nela.
“Oh, the usual,” she said from a dry throat. “A few threats. They intend to hurt us again, rather badly if we don’t do what they want.” Though she’d tried to think up gentle words while they slept, there was no easy way to say it.
“Which is?”
“Answer a question for them.”
“Gladly,” said Nela. “Our lives are an open book. Anything at all they’d like to know.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that kind of question.”
“What is it?” asked Bertran apprehensively.
“They want to know what the destiny of man is.”
The two stared at her disbelievingly, Nela fretfully rubbing her shoulder and chest where the pain was worst.
“You’re joking!” she blurted.
“No,” said Fringe, wishing she could say yes, all a joke, all a funniness, let’s get out of here and forget it. “Not a joke, I’m afraid. They really want to know.”
“But isn’t that the Great Question? The one you and Danivon have talked about? The one all the people on Elsewhere were supposed to answer sooner or later?”
She nodded. It was indeed.
“But how …” Nela was speechless. She tried again. “Even if we came up with something, how would we know if we’d answered it correctly?”
“We’ll know,” said a voice.
Afar, on the golden wall, a face peered at them, a mouth moved. “We’ll know. The populace will acclaim the answer. The truth of it will be self-evident.”
The three were silent.
“Come now,” said the voice, one of the female voices, Fringe couldn’t tell which. “Come now. You’ve been guilty of blasphemy, you know. If you were more loving, more adoring, more worshipful, you wouldn’t call us insane. But we won’t punish you for that. Not now. Not if you give us the answer.”
“If all of Elsewhere couldn’t answer the question in a thousand years or so, how the hell do you expect us to answer it?” cried Nela, tried past endurance.
The air sparkled among them. On the far wall, the faces came alive, focused, avid, while pain surged through nerves; while their muscles jerked and danced; while flesh burned, then chilled, then burned again.
When it was over, the twins were blue and gasping. Fringe herself was in little better shape, though still able to curse silently at the creatures on the far wall who were watching her eagerly, waiting for her, for any of them to do or say something more.
Bertran’s hand was on her own. He pressed gently, saying, Be silent. Be silent. Don’t give them any excuse to hurt us again. The faces were like the hecklers at the sideshow. One could escalate a mere heckling to physical violence if one wasn’t careful. Certainly these beings were in the mood for it.
Fringe was silent. The red haze in her eyes faded. Tears dripped unheeded. She closed her eyes not to see the faces staring, waiting, ready to do something else, offer some further pain, some further horror.
The pain had left a sick exhaustion in its wake. She slipped into a half faint, half slumber, conscious of where she was, yet adrift. Bertran’s hand was still on hers, still pressing hers. When she opened her eyes again, she saw only darkness.
“They’ve turned out our lights,” she said stupidly.
“To encourage concentration,” Bertran whispered, only a hand-breadth from her ear. “No doubt.”
“Bertran and I have been discussing things,” Nela whispered in her turn. “Our chances and all that.”
“We don’t believe they’re good,” Bertran offered.
“We’ve thought of dying, lots of times,” Nela confessed. “But the idea of doing it here, now, in all this darkness, all this pain, is revolting! Though maybe we will want to die, before they’re through with us.”
Bertran cleared his throat. “We have this thing we’d like to try. It may mean nothing, but then again …”
“It can’t hurt anything,” Nela
