Land and Overland Omnibus

CHAPTER 19



A deep, velvety and infinite darkness—a kind of night which was outside of Toller's previous experience—suddenly pervaded the scene. It was as though an opaque cover had been clamped over the entire planet. The blackness above was made even more intense by the fact that the impeller, after its display of dimensional sorcery, was now glowing like a huge block of fluorescent ice, casting a shallow pool of illumination over the silenced battle field.

Toiler was still, blinking, trying to force his eyes to adapt to the strange new conditions, when Jerene reached him and allowed herself to be brought to a halt by his arms. She clung to him for a brief period, trembling and breathing harshly, then straightened up and stepped back a pace. For an instant Toller half-expected her to give him a formal salute, as though making amends for the breach of some rigorous discipline. Vantara, who had been standing close by, moved to Toller's side and gently enfolded his arm with hers.

Toller was scarcely aware of her presence as he gazed into the awesome emptiness of the heavens. At first he had thought the dark celestial canopy was completely featureless, but as his eyes continued to adjust he began to pick out coldly remote points of light which could be identified as stars. They were faint and sparse compared to those he had known all his life, so meagre with their output of light that an appreciable time went by before he seized on the strangest and most disconcerting factor of all.

Overland's sister world had vanished from its place directly above.

In its place, in the crown of the heavens, there was nothing more than a handful of chilly flecks of light arranged in alien configurations.

Steenameert, overcoming his paralysis, rose to his feet behind Toller and spoke with the rapt voice of a child. "It was all to no avail, Toller. We have been cast out. This place is not home to us."

Toller nodded, not trusting himself to reply, still yielding up his mind and soul to the black void which spanned his vision. We have indeed been cast out, he told himself. This is how the universe will look when it has grown old…

"Such darkness," Vantara whispered, pressing herself closer to Toller. "It pleases me not at all—and I'm cold."

"In that case," Toller said, firmly disentangling his arm from hers, "I suggest that you begin gathering materials to build a fire. It may be a long time until dawn—if dawn ever comes."

"Of course dawn will come!" Vantara, angered by his symbolic rejection, was instantly on the offensive. "How can dawn fail to come? What a foolish thing to say!"

Toller realized with a surge of pity that she had no inkling, no glimmer of understanding of the momentous series of events the group had survived. His own insight, derived from telepathic exchanges with Divivvidiv and Greturk, was nebulous and patchy, but he knew in his bones that Overland—instead of being annihilated—had been projected into an inconceivably remote region of the universe.

And the "universe" he was thinking about was not even the limited and well-defined entity which came to mind when Kolcorronian scientists used the word. It was that woolly, intangible and maddeningly elusive philosophical concept which Divivvidiv had referred to as the space-time continuum. Toller had grasped the notion at the time of his telepathic tuition, but in spite of all his efforts his understanding of it had been fading ever since, like the wistful memory of a dream.

Now it was all but gone, the only lingering remnant being its effect on his modes of thinking. Without being able to justify the idea in any form of words, he was quite prepared to believe that the incomprehensible forces unleashed by the Xa in its death throes could have displaced Overland in time as well as in space, perhaps far into the future of some parallel cosmos.

He was finding it hard to remember why he had ever been enamoured of Vantara in the first place—and now, gazing at her beautiful but petulant face, he sensed an unbridgeable gulf opening between them. She had closed her mind, and as a consequence had no way of sharing Toller's principal worry of the moment. Once, during the long hours of the flight to Dussarra, he had asked Divivvidiv how he knew the relocation device would not deposit the planet in the depths of interstellar space, too far from a sun for "minor" adjustments to be made in its position. Divivvidiv, possibly lost for a good answer, had slipped away from the question with some comments about probability coalescence and abstruse self-generating design features of the Xa which in the final outcome were to cope with biological viability zones and orbital dynamics.

Now Toller had to ask himself if there was a sun hidden behind the passive bulk of the planet. Either there would be a normal sunrise some hours from now, or Overland would grow colder and colder, and all its inhabitants would perish in never-ending blackness. There was only one way to obtain the answer, Toller realized, and that was by waiting. And there was no point in waiting in the dark…

"Why is everyone not gathering wood?" he shouted jovially, turning away from Vantara. "Let us find an agreeable place—away from these miserable alien corpses—and light a good fire to comfort us through the night."

Cheered by having been presented with a homely objective, Steenameert, Mistekka and Arvand darted away towards a clump of wryberry bushes, the rounded outlines of which had gradually become visible in the starlight. Vantara gave Toller a prolonged stare, which he guessed to be one of disdain, then turned and slowly walked after the others, leaving him in the sole company of Jerene.

"Your leg needs many more stitches, but there is not enough light." She glanced at the impeller, which had now faded into a rectangular patch of grey. "I will bind the wound now and finish the job properly in the morning."

"Thank you," Toller said, suddenly realizing that he was quite incapable of walking unaided. The wound, while serious enough, seemed insignificant in comparison to his size, and he was chastened to find that he felt cold, ill and weak. He stood patiently while Jerene bound his calf tightly with a bandage from the field kit.

"This is where my farm upbringing comes in useful," she said, securing the dressing with an expert knot.

"Thank you again!" Toller spoke in mock indignation, grateful to be distracted from his haunting worry about the sun. "You may nail new shoes to my hooves in the morning, but in the meantime will you assist me to join the others by the fire?"

Jerene stood up, put an arm around his waist and helped him walk towards the flicker of orange light which was already beckoning through the darkness. He found it more difficult and painful than he had expected to make progress through the long grass, and he was relieved when Jerene stopped to rest.

"Now I doubly deserve promotion," she said breathlessly. "You weigh nearly as much as my pet greyhorn."

"I'll see to your promotion as soon as…" Toller paused, hesitating to make any promises for a future which might not exist. "You were very courageous when you ran to the machine. My blood froze for fear that you would not get clear of it in time."

"Why were you so concerned?" Jerene murmured. "After all, I had achieved what I set out to do."

"It may have been because…" Toller smiled, realizing that Jerene was playing an ancient game with him, and all at once as they stood together in the darkness that game became more important to him than all his fear for the future of the planet. He drew her closer to him and they kissed with a kind of gentle fervour.

"The countess can see what we are doing," Jerene said, still being provocative as the kiss ended, and her breath was warm in his mouth. "The countess will not be pleased."

"What countess?" Toller said, and he and Jerene began to laugh as they clung together in the dark, dark night.

Toller had not expected to sleep. His wounded leg had begun throbbing like a busy machine, and in any case it had been inconceivable to him that he could lay down the burden of consciousness while wondering if his world was lost in a starless void. But the warmth of the fire had been pleasant, and it had felt good to have Jerene lying at his side with one arm draped across his chest, and he had been more tired than he knew…

He opened his eyes with a start, trying to solve the urgent problem of deciding where he was. The fire had been reduced to white-coated embers, but it gave enough light for him to see the sleeping forms of his tiny band of warriors—and suddenly the great question was again hammering between his temples. He abruptly raised his head, causing Jerene to sigh in her sleep, and scanned the edges of the world.

There was a faint but unmistakable feathering of pearly light above one section of the horizon.

Toller's vision blurred with gratification as he took in the full, wondrous meaning of the tentative glow, then he sank back down to rest.