“Then you can make no use of our legacy. I must go back to work now. Please return to the surface and never go inside the machine again.” The alien walked toward the stairs, apparently with every intention of ending contact.

Jill went after him. “Wait! You have space technology. If you can help us get back to our planet, our people would be very interested in your legacy.”

The alien stopped and gave this brief consideration. “I have noted your interest in the spaceport. Perhaps you are considering that as a means of transportation. It is impossible. I have detected from your physical makeup that you are from a dark universe. Our intergalactic space travel functionality was shut down four hundred years ago. Our interuniversal was shut down one thousand years ago.”

Jill tried to comprehend what he was saying. One thousand years ago they had had the technology to travel between universes. One thousand years ago—but no more. “But… if you had the technology once, surely it can be resurrected!”

“Reinstated is a more accurate word in your language. At this time most of our power grid has been redirected to our maintenance program. We cannot spare the energy. Also, our space program shutdown program was not designed to be reversible.”

Jill felt that news sink in. The spaceport was a bust, just as Nate had feared.

“Furthermore, a species from a dark universe would not be suitable recipients for our legacy.”

“What do you mean by ‘dark universe’?”

“A ‘dark universe’ is any universe with a greater than forty percentile negative force. It is difficult to believe, but we once came from one ourselves. Before that.” He pointed at the machine and shuddered, his face showing dislike, though Jill couldn’t have said how. “But that was over two hundred thousand years ago. We have few records left of what it was like on the dark world.”

Jill stared at the machine and back at him. She was struck anew, first by the unbelievable time frame he was talking about, two hundred thousand years, then by the picture that was slowly forming in her mind.

“Your people came from a universe like mine? In that… that disaster? How? How did that happen?”

“That is not my area of expertise.”

“But those were your people in there, your ancestors? On the video?”

The alien blinked slowly, processing this. “They were dark people. Yes, they were our progenitors, but many species evolve from lesser things. It is the way of it.”

Jill turned and looked at the machine again, hand over her mouth. She had known it was ancient, but two hundred thousand years? Early Egypt had existed only three thousand years ago. The computer had been around for sixty.

“The machine manipulates the one-minus-one… I mean, the universal wave?”

“Yes. It was bad technology. This place was left here, never to be touched. I learned of this through the legacy. I repeat my request that you do not go inside the machine again. At this moment, I must return to the surface.”

The alien began once again for the stairs. Jill followed him. “Are there records of what the machine did, of what happened?”

“Our records are excellent, but you would be wasting your time. It was bad technology.”

But what Jill wanted to know, and badly, was why, why it was bad.

Nate was right—he had always been right. If she had remained on Earth she would have gone to work for the DoD and she might well have made a machine just like that one. And maybe what she had seen on that tape would have happened to Earth. There was a branding iron in the pit of her stomach, an anchor in her chest. It was like having a terrible nightmare that one had committed murder only to wake and realize with relief that one had not. Only she wasn’t sure if she had really escaped her destiny or not.

By the time they pushed open the bunker door the alien was worn out from the long climb. He was a frail thing, and his body heaved with the effort. He looked even more insubstantial than he had before.

“I must return to my work,” he said between gasps. “Good-bye.”

“I’m going with you.”

As if too depleted to argue with her, the alien only waved his fingers in the air and went to his car.

19.2. Sixty-Forty Denton Wyle

Denton and Eyanna traveled for another three days. After the night of the… the incident, he got sick. It was probably some horrible local virus, but he was sick to his stomach, shaky, and the thing in his throat burned like a lump of radioactive coal. And he was afraid that at any moment Eyanna was going to leave him.

Between that and the constant worrying about skalkits he was a basket case on two legs. Trying to make himself feel a little better, he bombarded Eyanna with apologies, sticking to the “I was asleep” story. He picked their fruit, made their fire, tried to help her over obstacles (which she wouldn’t allow), and in general was the picture of abject misery around her. He did not touch her or sleep close to her again.

At first she would not speak to him. But finally his persistence wore her down. On the morning of the third day she commented with amazement on how big the mountains were now that they were close to them, and he felt reprieved. Maybe, in her own way, Eyanna needed company, too. Even a yellow bellied bunny like him.

On the evening of the seventh day after they’d left Sapphia, Denton and Eyanna found another village. They were at the foothills of the mountains, and there were strange small peaks in the land, like baby mountains or blips on a heart monitor. They were passing one of these abrupt peaks when Eyanna stopped and pointed upward.

There were bright bits of color up there, like the dyes the Sapphians used in their native fabrics. And as Denton squinted he saw movement—tiny people. There was a village at the top of the hill.

Eyanna was nervous about approaching strangers. She also didn’t like the looks of the place. “It is a bad place to live,” she said with contempt. “Look how far they have to go to get food.”

She was right. Even from the valley floor they could see that the top of the peak was rocky and barren. The inhabitants of the village would have to climb up and down a considerable distance to reach the jungle primordial and the food the Sapphians took for granted.

Denton studied the layout, hand shielding his eyes from the sun; then he grinned. “Yes, but that is good, Eyanna! The skalkits cannot get up there! That is why they put the village on the hill!”

Eyanna looked unsure, but Denton was convinced he was right. With a little difficulty he talked her into checking out the place. He was tired and sick, and putting an end to their barrel-of-laughs journey sounded just fine.

It was a difficult climb. The hill was not so steep that it couldn’t be walked, but it was close. About halfway up, the vegetation gave way almost entirely to rock. Denton had second thoughts as they neared the top. He had already been suckered once on this world. But this was exactly the kind of physical refuge he’d been searching for, and if it came with some people for company who were not playing nun like Eyanna and who also, by the way, didn’t hand-feed their members to huge predators, then he’d be one happy camper.

The village at the top of the hill was small and modest. It consisted of no more than thirty huts around a single community circle. They were seen at once and were soon facing about forty or so staring inhabitants.

They were a more ragtag group than the Sapphians—not as elaborately groomed, not as uniformly attractive, and among them were several who looked very old. Denton was happy to see the old people. If he hadn’t still been just a teensy bit wary, he would have hugged ’em.

An old male stepped forward. His abundant hair was white and his long, narrow face was wrinkled. He bobbed his head in greeting.