a sound, least of Honath.
The gloom closed around them. It seemed extraordinarily still. The occasional harsh screams of a lizard-bird somehow distended the silence without breaking it. The light that filtered down into the long aisles between the trees seemed to be absorbed in a blue-green haze through which the lianas wove their long curved lines. The columns of tree-trunks, the pillars of the world, stood all around them, too distant in the dim light to allow them to gauge their speed of descent. Only the irregular plunges of the basket proved that it was even in motion any longer, though it swayed laterally in a complex, overlapping series of figure-eights.
Then the basket lurched downward once more, brought up short, and tipped sidewise, tumbling them all against the hard cane. Mathild cried out in a thin voice, and Seth uncurled almost instantly, clawing for a handhold. Another lurch, and the Elevator lay down on its side and was still.
They were in Hell.
Cautiously, Honath began to climb out, picking his way over the long thorns on the basket’s rim. After a moment, Charl the Reader followed, and then Alaskon took Mathild firmly by the hand and led her out onto the surface. The footing was wet and spongy, yet not at all resilient, and it felt cold; Honath’s toes curled involuntarily.
“Come on, Seth,” Charl said in a hushed voice. “They won’t haul it back up until we’re all out. You know that.”
Alaskon looked around into the chilly mists. “Yes,” he said. “And we’ll need a needlesmith down here. With good tools, there’s just a chance—”
Seth’s eyes had been darting back and forth from one to the other. With a sudden chattering scream, he bounded out of the bottom of the basket, soaring over their heads in a long, flat leap and struck the high knee at the base of the nearest tree, an immense fan palm. As he hit, his legs doubled under him, and almost in the same motion he seemed to rocket straight up into the murky air.
Gaping, Honath looked up after him. The young needlesmith had timed his course to the split second. He was already darting up the rope from which the Elevator was suspended. He did not even bother to look back.
After a moment, the basket tipped upright. The impact of Seth’s weight hitting the rope evidently had been taken by the windlass team to mean that the condemned people were all out on the surface; a twitch on the rope was the usual signal. The basket began to rise, hobbling and dancing. Its speed of ascent, added to Seth’s took his racing, dwindling figure out of sight quickly. After a while, the basket was gone, too.
“He’ll never get to the top,” Mathild whispered. “It’s too far, and he’s going too fast. He’ll lose strength and fall.”
“I don’t think so,” Alaskon said heavily. “He’s agile and strong. If anyone could make it, he could.”
“They’ll kill him if he does.”
“Of course they will,” Alaskon said, shrugging.
“I won’t miss him,” Honath said.
“No more will I. But we could use some sharp needles down here, Honath. Now we’ll have to plan to make our own—if we can identify the different woods, down here where there aren’t any leaves to help us tell them apart.”
Honath looked at the navigator curiously. Seth’s bolt for the sky had distracted him from the realization that the basket, too, was gone, but now that desolate fact hit home. “You actually plan to stay alive in Hell, don’t you, Alaskon?”
“Certainly,” Alaskon said calmly. “This is no more Hell than—up there—is Heaven. It’s the surface of the planet, no more, no less. We can stay alive if we don’t panic. Were you just going to sit here until the furies came for you, Honath?”
“I hadn’t thought much about it,” Honath confessed. “But if there is any chance that Seth will lose his grip on that rope—before he reaches the top and they stab him—shouldn’t we wait and see if we can catch him? He can’t weigh more than 35 pounds. Maybe we could contrive some sort of a net—”
“He’d just break our bones along with his,” Charl said. “I’m for getting out of here as fast as possible.”
“What for? Do you know a better place?”
“No, but whether this is Hell or not, there are demons down here. We’ve all seen them from up above. They must know that the Elevator always lands here and empties out free food. This must be a feeding-ground for them—”
He had not quite finished speaking when the branches began to sigh and toss, far above. A gust of stinging droplets poured along the blue air and thunder rumbled. Mathild whimpered.
“It’s only a squall coming up,” Honath said. But the words came out in a series of short croaks. As the wind had moved through the trees, Honath had automatically flexed his knees and put his arms out for handholds, awaiting the long wave of response to pass through the ground beneath him. But nothing happened. The surface under his feet remained stolidly where it was, flexing not a fraction of an inch in any direction. And there was nothing nearby for his hands to grasp.
He staggered, trying to compensate for the failure of the ground to move. At the same moment another gust of wind blew through the aisles, a little stronger than the first, and calling insistently for a new adjustment of his body to the waves which would be passing among the treetops. Again the squashy surface beneath him refused to respond. The familiar give-and-take of the vine-web to the winds, a part of his world as accustomed as the winds themselves, was gone.
Honath was forced to sit down, feeling distinctly ill. The damp, cool earth under his furless buttocks was unpleasant, but he could not have remained standing any longer without losing his meagre prisoner’s breakfast. One grappling hand caught hold of the ridged, gritting stems of a clump of horsetail, but the contact failed to allay the uneasiness.
The others seemed to be bearing it no better than Honath. Mathild in particular was rocking dizzily, her lips compressed, her hands clasped to her delicate ears.
Dizziness. It was unheard of up above, except among those who had suffered grave head injuries or were otherwise very ill. But on the motionless ground of Hell, it was evidently going to be with them constantly.
Charl squatted, swallowing convulsively. “I—I can’t stand,” he moaned.
“Nonsense!” Alaskon said, though he had remained standing only by clinging to the huge, mud-colored bulb of a cycadella. “It’s just a disturbance of our sense of balance. We’ll get used to it.”
“We’d better,” Honath said, relinquishing his grip on the horsetails by a sheer act of will. “I think Charl’s right about this being a feeding-ground, Alaskon. I hear something moving around in the ferns. And if this rain lasts long, the water will rise here, too. I’ve seen silver flashes from down here many a time after heavy rains.”
“That’s right,” Mathild said, her voice subdued. “The base of the fan-palm grove always floods. That’s why the treetops are lower there.”
The wind seemed to have let up a little, though the rain was still falling. Alaskon stood up tentatively and looked around.
“Then let’s move on,” he said. “If we try to keep under cover until we get to higher ground—”
A faint crackling sound, high above his head,
