Dark Universe by Daniel F. Galouye

Author:Daniel F. Galouye
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Post Apocalypse
Published: 2010-08-04T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Jared flinched from the absurd impressions, from the contradictory composites of physical orientation. He was certain he still lay in the corridor near the dripping needle of rock. Yet, he was equally sure he was somewhere else.

The drip-drip of the water changed to a weary tap-tap-tap and back to a drip-drip again. The coarse hardness of stone under his feverish body was, alternately, the soft fibers of manna husks piled upon a sleeping ledge.

In the next phase of the here-there alternation, the distant tap-tap-tap commanded his attention. And its sharp echoes conveyed the impression of someone seated on a ledge absently drumming his finger on stone.

Light, but the man was old! Had it not been for the movement of his hand, he might easily have been mistaken for a skeleton. The head, trembling with an affliction of senility, was like a skull. And the beard, unkempt and sparse, trailed to the ground, losing itself in the inaudibility of its thinness.

Tap-tap-tap… drip-drip…

Jared was back in the corridor. And, like commingling sounds, the straggly beard had metamorphosed into the moist hanging stone.

"Relax, Jared. Everything's under control now."

He almost lurched out of the dream. "Kind Survivoress!"

"It'll be less awkward if you just call me Leah."

He puzzled over the name, then thought flatly, "I'm dreaming again."

"For the moment-yes."

Another anxious, soundless voice intruded, "Leah! How's he doing?"

"Coming around," she said.

"So I can hear." Then, "Jared?"

Jared, however, had returned to the corridor-but only for a moment. Soon he was back on the manna fiber mattress in a minor world where the vague outline of a woman bent over him and an inconceivably ancient man sat against the far wall tapping his finger.

"Jared," the woman offered, "that other voice was Ethan's."

"Ethan?"

"You knew him as Little Listener before we changed his name. He's been out after game, but he's coming back now."

Jared was even more confused.

More to soothe him than for any other reason, he felt sure, the woman said, "I can't believe you found your way here after all these gestations."

He started to say something, but she interrupted, "Don't explain. I heard everything from your mind-what you were doing in the passages, how you were bitten by-"

"Della!" he shouted, remembering.

"She'll be all right. I reached you in time."

Abruptly, he realized he was awake now and that Kind Survivoress' last words had been spoken.

"Not Kind Survivoress, Jared-Leah."

And he was astonished by his audible impression of the woman. He sent his hands groping over her face, across her shoulders, along her arms. Why-she wasn't the least bit old!

"What did you expect-someone like the Forever Man?" She sent her thoughts to him. " After all, I was really practically a child when I used to go to you."

He listened more closely at her. Hadn't she once told him she could reach his mind only when he was asleep?

"Only when you're asleep if you're far away," she clarified. "When you're this close you don't have to be asleep."

He studied her auditory reflections. She was perhaps a bit taller than Della.

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