Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [62]
“Lando,” he said, “speaking of architecture, there’s something very odd about this place.”
Lando had to stop to catch his breath. He sat down on the floor.
“That would be consistent with everything else around here. What is it this time?”
“Well, from the entrance, the room looked circular, with a high domed ceiling, and perhaps a thousand meters across the floor to the altar.”
Lando looked around. “Still seems that way to me.”
“And to my vision, too. But, checking with radar and a number of extra senses, the room is ovoid—shaped like an egg with a big end and a small end. The big end was the entrance. The roof keeps getting closer to the floor.”
Lando had another flash of his dreams. Something Vuffi Raa said earlier had triggered the first, something about the idea that it wasn’t he, the robot who was growing, but Lando who was shrinking. Yet if that were true—the tunnel had seemed to stay the same size the duration of the two-day trip—then the moving passageway had to have been shrinking. Lando had appeared to Vuffi Raa to be a hundred and ten or twenty meters tall in the beginning. Now he was back to being a little shy of two. The corridors had to have been shrinking accordingly.
At that rate, when they reached the Mindharp, Vuffi Raa would tower over Lando, and they’d both have to travel on hands and knees to reach the artifact.
“HALT!” said a voice.
“What?” Vuffi Raa and Lando cried simultaneously.
“IT IS NOT PERMITTED TO CROSS THE HALL.”
“What happens if we do?” inquired Lando.
The voice paused, seemed confused, “WELL, I’M NOT SURE I KNOW, NO ONE EVER ASKED ME. BUT IT IS NOT PERMITTED.”
Lando opened his mouth—
“Just who in the Hall are you, anyway?” Vuffi Raa said. Lando looked at the robot sharply. He hated having his good lines stolen. It was exactly what he’d been planning to say, himself.
“WHY, I AM THE HALL, OF COURSE. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO LOOK AT THE EXHIBIT AS YOU APPROACH THE SACRED OBJECT.”
“And it’s your job,” Lando suggested, “to make sure we do? Well, let’s get a few things straight here, Hall: I’ve been tugged along by everything that’s happened so far. I’m not going to let an empty room tell me what to do. Now answer me truthfully: does anything bad or dangerous happen to someone if they don’t skulk along the wall like vermin?”
“NO, I DON’T SUPPOSE IT DOES.”
“Then I guess we’ll go on. You don’t happen to have a cigarette, do you?”
“I’M AFRAID I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN.”
“I thought you were going to say that. Come on, Vuffi Raa.”
They continued across the broad expanse of the Hall, Lando sliding occasionally just to demonstrate his spirit. Vuffi Raa’s legs twinkled in the weird lighting. Lando had a thought:
“Hey, Hall?”
“YES, HAVE YOU DECIDED TO GO BACK TO THE WALL?”
“No. I was just wondering: how much do you know about this place?”
“ABOUT MYSELF?”
“No, about the pyramid and the moving tunnel we were in before we got here.”
The Hall considered. “A GREAT DEAL. WHAT, SPECIFICALLY WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW?”
“Well, just to begin, what size am I?”
A very long pause this time. “IN WHAT UNITS OF MEASUREMENT?”
“Skip it, then. What I really want to know is: was I gigantic a few kilometers back, or was my friend, here, very tiny?”
“DOES IT MATTER?”
“Of course it matters. Would I ask, otherwise?”
“Organic entities seem to take considerable delight in doing things to no good purpose,” Vuffi Raa offered. “But in this case, Hall, I’d be interested in knowing, too.”
“Right,” Lando said under his breath, “so the two of us can compare notes on the frailties of humankind. Play your cards right, Vuffi Raa, cozy up to this Hall and they may make you a telephone booth or something.”
“VERY WELL. THE CHANGES IN THE DIMENSION WERE WROUGHT ON THE ORGANIC LIFE-FORMS HERE. IT IS A NECESSARY PART OF THE PROCESS WHICH CULMINATES, PROPERLY, IN TRAVELING AROUND THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE HALL AS YOU ARE INTEN—”
“Skip the commercial, Hall,” said Lando, “and get on with the explanation.”
“VERY WELL. THIS INSTRUMENTALITY