A Call to Darkness - Michael Jan Friedman [28]
There was still much to do before their preparation was complete, and the Fulfillment Facilitator did not like to hear of tardiness.
“Now, get to work,” snapped Lean’druc. “I want them ready for teleport by day’s end-all of them.”
The undertechnician moved crisply to comply.
Chapter Seven
FOR A TIME, he struggled as if submerged in a nightmare-plagued by a wild dance of indistinct and vaguely disturbing images, circling him, whirling about his head and hands like a school of tiny predators. Shadowy things, real and yet unreal.
He tried to claw his way to the surface, but the things confused him-disoriented him. His chest began to hurt with the effort of holding his breath. His arms and legs lost their strength; they felt leaden, useless, like parts of someone else’s body.
Finally, lungs near to bursting, muscles shrieking with effort, he broke through.
And came up gasping for air, staring into an expanse of pale violet sky. All about him was a landscape of pits and crags and impossible-looking upthrusts of rock-peopled by a scurrying assortment of humanoid and near-humanoid forms. Each of them seemed to have a purpose, a sense of urgency.
He tried to catch his breath, to calm himself, and finally succeeded. But he had a more difficult time getting his bearings. He seemed unable to put everything in the right order somehow. His head felt as if it had been packed with mud.
The wind rose, bringing with it a slight chill. Instinctively, he hunkered down lower into the shelter of his rough-spun cloak. Underneath, he noticed, he wore a tunic of the same material, belted at the waist. There were boots on his feet constructed of something sturdier-animal skin, he decided, and not without a slight feeling of revulsion.
Someone bent down over him-someone big and dark and oily looking, with a knobby head and a wide, mobile mouth. The being’s lidless eyes gave it a queer, startled expression.
“Come,” it said, extending a thick articulated limb with three stubby fingers on the end of it. “It’s time.” There was an edge of anxiety in its voice. “Here-I will help you.”
He moved to accept the help, then stopped himself. “Time for what?” he asked.
“Hurry now,” said the being. It gestured-a sweep of its limb-to indicate a stretch of terrain that ended abruptly in a jagged cliff. On the other side of what appeared to be a ravine there was a similar cliff. “There is work to be done.”
This time, he accepted the proferred help. Felt the strange, wormlike fingers wrap themselves around his hand and pull him up. But he needed more of an answer. As the being released him and started to move away, he called out after it. “What kind of work?” he asked.
It turned back, regarded him. “We are building a bridge.” It seemed to think that this was explanation enough.
He was about to tell it that bridge-building was not his function. That he did not belong here-in fact, had never seen this place before now.
And then a pit seemed to open up in his stomach. A great, yawning hole into which he could feel himself falling end over end.
For if he didn’t belong here… then where did he belong? And if he was not a bridge-builder… then what was he? Blazes…
Who was he? A name emerged echoing from the depths of the pit. Geordi. Yes-that was his name. But who was Geordi?
He didn’t know.
Surely, he had known that once. Before… before he came here. When he was… where? Damn! Why couldn’t he remember anything?
The knobby-headed one was still looking at him. But it didn’t appear that he would remain that way for long. The being seemed to be straining at an invisible leash-eager to get about its business, yet reluctant to leave him where he was.
“Something is wrong,” he told it. “Something is very wrong. I… I can’t remember who I am, or how I got here, or…”
“Don’t try,” it said. “You are not supposed to remember any of those things.” It regarded him with a bizarre rippling of the skin under its eyes. “It is part of your punishment. Accept it, and it will become more tolerable.”
“Punishment?” he repeated dumbly.