Dislocation Space by Garth Nix

Author:Garth Nix [Nix, Garth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

On the morning of the seventh day, the guards escorted her a different way through the camp, to the northern side she had not seen. There was another, internal compound there, a small area surrounded by concertina wire three coils deep and stacked six coils high on special pickets. It had a double gate, manned by four guards. There was an odd, wooden tower in the middle of this compound, a rectangular edifice like a tall, very narrow church, with a high-peaked roof. Or perhaps a bizarre, over-sized grandfather clock case.

Shargei and Termin were waiting outside the door to this thin building, which on closer inspection reminded Aleksandra very much of a four-storey outhouse. It wasn’t big enough to fit more than a couple of people inside, standing up. The door had an enormous bolt on it, and a very large padlock, an American Lockwood which Aleksandra knew she could not easily pick. Not that she needed to, since Shargei had already put the key in the padlock, though he had yet to turn it.

“We are sending you into the Original today,” said Shargei. “The entrance lies behind this door. I remind you that the existence of this … anomaly … is most secret and is not to be discussed, even with others at this camp.”

“Anomaly?” asked Aleksandra. She kept her face still, revealing nothing of what she knew, or suspected, or feared.

“It is a tunnel, of sorts,” said Termin enthusiastically. “An inter-dimensional tunnel.”

“Show me,” said Aleksandra.

Shargei looked at his watch.

“In two minutes,” he said. “We must wait for the orange light phase.”

“We don’t understand the nature of the tunnel, or its composition,” Termin rushed along, waving his hands. “Its walls are coherent energy that behaves as mass or imitates it, yet it has additional characteristics, visible states, indicated by light. It cycles through these states from red to violet, the spectrum visible to the human eye, which is doubtless no coincidence. But the red state at the beginning is very dangerous, a lethal form of … of radiation, as is the violet at the end—”

“The sixteen-minute deadline in the Replica,” said Aleksandra. “That relates to this cycle? And the junctions are safe?”

Shargei smiled coldly.

“No,” he said. “The junctions are not safe. But the rate of progress necessary to get from the entrance to what we believe is an exit to another world requires you to reach Junction A in sixteen minutes from the end of the Red phase, during the Orange period. The phases inside the Original are each of twenty minutes’ duration, or to be exact, nineteen minutes and fifty-eight seconds. You must get to the known exit at the end of the tunnel within thirty-five minutes, make an investigation of no longer than ten minutes and return within thirty-five minutes, before the Violet phase begins. From the times you have managed in the Replica, this should be achievable for you.”

“What’s at this other exit?” asked Aleksandra.

“Another world!” exclaimed Termin, throwing his hands up in excitement.

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