"No," Rikud assured him. "It won't."
"Then you broke it and I hate you," said Crifer. "We should break you,
too, to show you how it is to be broken."
"We must go outside--through the viewport." Rikud listened to the odd
gurgling sound his stomach made.
A hand reached out in the darkness and grabbed at his head. He heard
Crifer's voice. "I have Rikud's head." The voice was nasty, hostile.
Crifer, more than anyone, had been his friend. But now that he had
broken the machinery, Crifer was his enemy, because Crifer came nearer
to understanding the situation than anyone except Rikud.
The hand reached out again, and it struck Rikud hard across the face.
"I hit him! I hit him!"
Other hands reached out, and Rikud stumbled. He fell and then someone
was on top of him, and he struggled. He rolled and was up again, and
he did not like the sound of the angry voices. Someone said, "Let us
do to Rikud what he said he did to the machinery." Rikud ran. In the
darkness, his feet prodded many bodies. There were those who were too
weak to rise. Rikud, too, felt a strange light-headedness and a gnawing
hurt in his stomach. But it didn't matter. He heard the angry voices
and the feet pounding behind him, and he wanted only to get away.
It was dark and he was hungry and everyone who was strong enough to run
was chasing him, but every time he thought of the garden outside, and
how big it was, the darkness and the hunger and the people chasing him
were unimportant. It was so big that it would swallow him up completely
and positively.
He became sickly giddy thinking about it.
But if he didn't open the door and go into the garden outside, he would
die because he had no food and no water and his stomach gurgled and
grumbled and hurt. And everyone was chasing him.
He stumbled through the darkness and felt his way back to the library,
through the inner door and into the room with the voice--but the
voice didn't speak this time--through its door and into the place of
machinery. Behind him, he could hear the voices at the first door, and
he thought for a moment that no one would come after him. But he heard
Crifer yell something, and then feet pounding in the passage.
Rikud tripped over something and sprawled awkwardly across the floor.
He felt a sharp hurt in his head, and when he reached up to touch it
with his hands there in the darkness, his fingers came away wet.
He got up slowly and opened the next door. The voices behind him were
closer now. Light streamed in through the viewport. After the darkness,
it frightened Rikud and it made his eyes smart, and he could hear those
behind him retreating to a safe distance. But their voices were not
far away, and he knew they would come after him because they wanted to
break him.
Rikud looked out upon the garden and he trembled. Out there was life.
The garden stretched off in unthinkable immensity to the cluster of
low mounds against the bright blue which roofed the many plants. If
plants could live out there as they did within the world, then so could
people. Rikud and his people _should_. This was why the world had moved
across the darkness and the stars for all Rikud's lifetime and more.
But he was afraid.
He reached up and grasped the handle of the door and he saw that his
fingers were red with the wetness which had come from his hurt head.
Slowly he slipped to the cool floor--how his head was burning!--and for
a long time he lay there, thinking he would never rise again. Inside he
heard the voices again, and soon a foot and then another pounded on
the metal of the passage. He heard Crifer's voice louder than the rest:
"There is Rikud on the floor!"
Tugging at the handle of the door, Rikud pulled himself upright.
Something small and brown scurried across the other side of the
viewport and Rikud imagined it turned to look at him with two hideous
red eyes.
Rikud screamed and hurtled back through the corridor, and his face
was so terrible in the light streaming in through the viewport that
everyone fled before him. He stumbled again in the place of the
machinery, and down on his hands and knees he fondled the bits of metal
which he could see in the dim light through the open door.
"Where's the buzzer?" he sobbed. "I must find the buzzer."
Crifer's voice, from the darkness inside, said, "You broke it. You
broke it. And now we will break you--"
Rikud got up and ran. He reached the door again and then he slipped
down against it, exhausted. Behind him, the voices and the footsteps
came, and soon he saw Crifer's head peer in through the passageway.
Then there were others, and then they were walking toward him.
His head whirled and the viewport seemed to swim in a haze. Could it
be variable, as Crifer had suggested? He wondered if the scurrying
brown thing waited somewhere, and nausea struck at the pit of his
stomach. But if the plants could live out there and the scurrying thing
could live and that was why the world had moved through the blackness,
then so could he live out there, and Crifer and all the others....
So tightly did he grip the handle that his fingers began to hurt. And
his heart pounded hard and he felt the pulses leaping on either side of
his neck.
He stared out into the garden, and off into the distance, where the
blue-white globe which might have been a star stood just above the row
of mounds.
* * * * *
Crifer was tugging at him, trying to pull him away from the door, and
someone was grabbing at his legs, trying to make him fall. He kicked
out and the hands let go, and then he turned the handle and shoved the
weight of his body with all his strength against the door.
It opened and he stepped outside into the warmth.
The air was fresh, fresher than any air Rikud had ever breathed. He
walked around aimlessly, touching the plants and bending down to feel
the floor, and sometimes he looked at the blue-white globe on the
horizon. It was all very beautiful.
Near the ship, water that did not come from a machine gurgled across
the land, and Rikud lay down and drank. It was cool and good, and when
he got up, Crifer and Wilm were outside the world, and some of the
others followed. They stood around for a long time before going to the
water to drink.
Rikud sat down and tore off a piece of a plant, munching on it. It was
good.
Crifer picked his head up, from the water, his chin wet. "Even feelings
are variable. I don't hate you now, Rikud."
Rikud smiled, staring at the ship. "People are variable, too, Crifer.
That is, if those creatures coming from the ship are people."
"They're women," said Crifer.
They were strangely shaped in some ways, and yet in others completely
human, and their voices were high, like singing. Rikud found them oddly
exciting. He liked them. He liked the garden, for all its hugeness.
With so many people, and especially now with women, he was not afraid.
It was much better than the small world of machinery, buzzer,
frightening doors and women by appointment only.
Rikud felt at home.