Pathways - Jeri Taylor [187]
But still she climbed. She lost track of time, and moved in a near-stupor, her only reality the step of her feet on the stairs, the flickering lights on the walls. Her mind drifted, remembering her father, his wisdom, his gentleness. What she was doing now she was doing in his honor, because she knew he would have been as supportive of this quest as her mother.
A twinge of regret nipped at her as she thought of Martis. Maybe she should have waited for a while before leaving. She could have spent some time with her mother, helping both of them to adjust to life without Benaren. And yet she knew her mother was strong, strong enough to urge Kes to take the gift of freedom.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been hearing the strange buzzing noise. It was something she became aware of gradually, then realized she must have been hearing it faintly for some time. It was a sound she’d never heard before, and she paused briefly on the steps, trying to assess it.
Her mind ran down what she’d read in the journals about the journey underground. There had been no mention of a sound like this, and yet it was unmistakably there, growing louder the higher she climbed. Her hands became moist in apprehension.
And then, a significant goal: The stairway ended, leading into a tunnel not unlike those that surrounded their underground city. She was in a cave, but one much, much closer to the surface. Cautiously, she made her way through the passageway toward the buzzing sound.
A faint glow began to emanate from somewhere deep within the tunnel, a glow which intensified as she drew nearer. Finally, she stood before the phenomenon that produced both the glow and the humming noise: a crackling green energy barrier that stretched from one side of the cave wall to the other. It danced and sizzled before her, looking perilous, even lethal, and gave off a faint odor of energized atoms, an acrid odor that intensified its aura of danger.
This must be the barrier the Caretaker had erected to keep out the Kazon. It was still in place, still working, even after all these generations. Did that mean there were still Kazon on the surface? Would the Caretaker keep the barrier in place if there were no longer any need to do so?
But, more importantly, how was she to get through it? She certainly had no intention of quitting now, when she had climbed so far. But this hissing energy field was intimidating. She picked up a stone from the ground and flung it toward the barrier. It hit the grid and clung there, sizzling, for a brief instant, then burst into flame and fell to the ground, rendered instantly into a fine ashy powder.
She sat down on the floor of the cave and stared at the barrier, refusing to admit defeat, studying the crackling grid carefully, trying to figure out a way through. Her eyes roamed over every millimeter of it, and gradually she realized something interesting: The energy emanations seemed to be unevenly distributed through the grid. There were patches of yellow in the green, suggesting a temperature variance that might denote weaker energy. Along the right side of the grid there was a long strip of pale yellow. If that was a weak part of the grid, was there something she could do to attack it, weaken it further?
She found more stones, larger ones this time, and hurled them against the yellow strip on the right side. The stones were vaporized, but each time, the strip became a paler yellow. The impact was having some kind of effect.
She found more stones, and kept up her assault, until finally a gap in the grid developed. Along the side of the cave wall, there was a space where the grid was not functioning at all. If she could widen that space . . .
Some time and many stones later, there was an opening in the energy barrier that she thought she could slide through. She approached