Oscilloscope displays showed unpredictable peaks and valleys of brain rhythms, as cycles of waves rose, fell, and merged.
Even to the experienced eyes of the watchers, everything on the monitors looked odd and unfamiliar. And yet that was no surprise. As she had requested, Judith Niles was embarked on a strange journey. She would be exploring a region where blood was close to freezing, where the body’s chemical reactions proceeded at a fraction of their usual rates, where only a few hibernating animals and no human had ever ventured and returned to life.
The frozen heart slowed further, and the blood drifted lazy along cold arteries and veins. The body on the table suddenly shuddered and twitched, then was quiet again. The monitors fluttered a warning.
But there would be no going back. The search was on. In the next few hours, Judith Niles would be engaged in a desperate quest. She had to find a new plateau of physiological stability, down where no human had ever gone before; and her only guide was the uncertain trail left by one Kodiak bear.
PART TWO:
A.D. 27,698
CHAPTER TWELVE
The last shivering swimmer had emerged from the underground river, and now it would be possible to assemble the final results. Peron Turco pulled the warm cape closer about his shoulders and looked back and forth along the line. There they stood. Four months of preliminary selection had winnowed them down to a bare hundred, from the many thousands who had entered the original trials. And in the next twenty minutes it would be reduced again, to a jubilant twenty-five. Everyone was muddied, grimy, and bone-weary. The final trial had been murderous, pushing minds and bodies to the limit. The four-mile underwater swim in total darkness, fighting chilling currents through a labyrinth of connecting caves, had been physically demanding. But the mind pressure, knowing that the oxygen supply would last for only five hours, had been much worse. Most of the contestants were slumped now on the stone flags, warming themselves in the bright sunlight, rubbing sore muscles and sipping sugar drinks. It would be a little while before the scores could be tallied, but already their attention was turning from the noisy crowds to the huge display that formed one outer wall of the colosseum.
Peron shielded his eyes against Cassay’s morning brilliance and studied each face in turn along the long line. By now he knew where the real competition lay, and from their expressions he sought to gauge his own chances. Lum was at the far end, squatting cross-legged. He was eating fruit, and he looked bored and sweaty. Somehow Pentecost’s hot summer had left his skin untouched. He stood out with a winter’s paleness against the others.
Ten days ago Peron had met him and dismissed Lum as soft and overweight, a crudely built and oafish youth who had reached the final hundred contestants by a freakish accident. Now he knew better. The fat was mostly muscle, and when necessary Lum could move with an incredible grace and speed; and the fat face and piggy eyes hid a first-rate brain and formidable imagination. Peron had revised his assessment three times, each one upward. Now he felt sure that Lum would be somewhere high in the final twenty-five.
And so would the girl Elissa, three positions to the left. Peron had marked her early as formidable competition. She had started ten minutes ahead of him in the first trial, when they made the night journey through the middle of Villasylvia, the most difficult and dangerous forest on the surface of Pentecost. Peron had been very confident. He had been raised in wooded country. He was strong and agile, and his sense of direction was better than anyone he had ever met. After two hours, when he had failed to overtake Elissa, he was convinced that the dark-skinned girl had gone astray and was lost in the dangerous depths of Villasylvia. He had felt mildly sorry on her behalf, because before they began she had smiled and wished him luck; but most of his attention was on avoiding the darters and night-lappers that ruled the nightwoods. He had made splendid time, striking a lucky path that took him back to base without any detours or backtracking. It had come as a great shock to reach home and find her there well before him, fresh and cheerful, humming to herself as she cooked her breakfast.
Now Elissa turned to look at him while he was still staring along the line at her. She grinned, and he quickly averted his eyes. If Elissa didn’t finish among the winners, that would be bad news for Peron, too; because he was convinced that wherever they placed, she would rank somewhere above him.
He looked back at the board. The markers were going up on the great display, showing the names of the remaining contestants. Peron counted them as they were posted. Only seventy-two. The last round of trials had been fiercely difficult, enough to eliminate over a quarter of the finalists completely. No Planetfest celebration for them. They would already be headed back to their home towns, too disappointed to wait and find out who the lucky winners might be. Peron frowned and looked again along the line of finalists. Where was Sy? Surely he hadn’t failed to finish? No, there he was, lounging a few yards behind the others. As usual, he was easy to miss — he blended inconspicuously into any scene, so that it had taken Peron a while to notice him. He shouldn’t have been difficult to pick out, with his black hair, bright gray eyes, and slightly deformed left forearm. But he was somehow difficult to see. He could sink into the background, quietly observing everything with the cynical and smug expression that Peron found so irritating — perhaps because he suspected that Sy really was superior? Certainly, on anything that called for mental powers he had effortlessly outperformed Peron (and everyone else, according to Peron’s rough assessment); and where physical agility or strength was needed, Sy somehow found a way to compensate for his weakened arm. It was a mystery how he did it. He was never in the first rank for the most physical of the trials, but given his handicap he was much higher than anyone could believe.
Now Sy was ignoring the display and concentrating all his attention on his fellow contestants, clearly evaluating their condition. Peron had the sudden suspicion that Sy already knew he was in the top twenty-five and was looking ahead, laying his plans for the off-planet tests that would determine the final ten winners.
Peron wished he could feel that much confidence. He was sure (wasn’t he?) that he was in the top thirty. He hoped he was in the top twenty, and in his dreams he saw himself as high as fourth or fifth. But with contestants drawn from the whole planet, and the competition of such a high caliber…
The crowd roared. At last! The scores were finally appearing. The displays were assembled slowly and painstakingly. The judges conferred in great secrecy, knowing that the results would be propagated instantly over the entire planet, and that a mistake would ruin their reputations; and the individuals responsible for the displays had been influenced by the same obsession with care and accuracy. Everything was checked and rechecked before it went onto the board. Peron had watched recordings of recent Planetfests, over and over, but this one was different and more elaborate. Trials were held every four years. Usually the prizes were high positions in the government of Pentecost, and maybe a chance to see the Fifty Worlds. But the twenty-year games, like this one, had a whole new level of significance. There were still the usual prizes, certainly. But they were not the real reward. There was that rumored bigger prize: a possible opportunity to meet and work with the Immortals.
And what did that mean? Who were the Immortals? No one could say. No one that Peron knew had ever seen one, ever met one. They were the ultimate mystery figures, the ones who lived forever, the ones who came back every generation to bring knowledge from the stars. Stars that they were said to reach in a few days — in conflict with everything that the scientists of Pentecost believed about the laws of the Universe.
Peron was still musing on that when the roar of the crowd, separated from the contestants by a substantial barricade and rows of armed guards, brought him to full attention. The first winner, in twenty-fifth place, had just been announced. It was a girl, Rosanne. Peron remembered her from the Long Walk across Talimantor Desert, when the two of them had formed a temporary alliance to search for underground water. She was a cheerful, tireless girl, just over the minimum age limit of sixteen, and now she was holding her hand to her chest, pretending to stagger and faint with relief because she had just made the cutoff.
All the other contestants now looked at the board with a new intensity. The method of announcement was well established by custom, but there was not a trial participant who did not wish it could be done differently. From the crowd’s point of view, it was very satisfying to announce the winners in ascending order, so that the name of
