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lost names, she was reminded of the simple, moving name-litany ceremonial of the lumberjacks.
She told Adda and Farr of the five upfluxer children lodging, for today, with Deni Maxx. Farr and
Adda smiled, and promised to visit the kids.
"Now tell me what we're doing here. And why you're towing a dead pig about the place."
Adda grimaced, making the leech slither across his crumpling cheek. "You'll find out... damn
foolishness, all of it." He glanced around to the rest of the party; Dura recognized Muub, the
Hospital Physician, with two other men. "Come on," Adda said. "We'd better get on with it."
With Dura and Farr helping Adda, the three Human Beings made their way to Muub and his
companions.

The six of them hovered together close to the center of the huge emptiness of the Stadium; Dura felt
cold and isolated despite the clamminess of the Pole. Ropes and guide rails were slung across the
huge volume all around them, silent evidence of the crowds this place was designed to
accommodate.
The Physician, Muub, was dressed in a severe, dark robe. As before, Dura found it impossible not to
stare at the grand dome of his bald head. He greeted them with a smile which seemed professional
enough but a little strained. "Thank you for your time."
Adda grinned. "Oh, we had a choice?"
Muub's smile thinned. Briskly he introduced his two companions: a Harbor supervisor called Hosch,
cadaverously thin, who seemed to know Farr, judging from the sour glances he cast at the boy; and a
tall, wispy tree-stem of a man called Seciv Trop whom Muub described as an expert on the
Magfield. Like Muub's, Trop's fine old head was shaven, in the style of the academics of the
University.
Muub rapidly sketched in the background to Hork's directive. "Frankly, I'm not certain about the
value of this program; I may as well tell you that from the start. But I do sympathize with Hork's
thinking." He looked about him, his expression hard. "I only need to be here, in the fragility of this
Stadium, to recognize that we have to find some way to protect ourselves from the random danger of
Glitches."
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Dura frowned. "But why are we here? We Human Beings, I mean. You need experts. What can we
possibly add?"
"Two things. One is that you are experts or the nearest we have on the Xeelee. So Hork believes,
at any rate. And second, there's no one else." He raised his arms as if to embrace the City. "Dura,
Parz may seem a large and rich place to you, but the economy has taken a severe battering from the
Glitches. All our resources are devoted to coping with the consequences, to rebuilding the
hinterland... all but us, and we are all Hork felt able to spare." He smiled at them. "Six of us,
including a boy. And our mission is to save the world. Perhaps we will succeed; and what plaudits
we will earn if we do."
He fell silent. The six of them hovered in a rough ring, studying each other warily all but the
Magfield expert Seciv Trop, who stared into the distance with his finely chiseled eyecups.
"Well," Muub said briskly. "Hork asked me to come up with options to achieve the impossible to
penetrate the underMantle, more deeply than any human since prehistory. And I, in turn, asked
Hosch and Adda to bring us suggestions to work with. The Bells from the Harbor descend to a depth
of about a meter. Our first estimates indicate that we must penetrate at least ten times as deeply to
a depth of ten meters below Parz, deep into the underMantle. Seciv, you're here to comment, if you
will, and to add anything you can."
Trop nodded briskly. "I'll do my feeble best," he said in a thin, mannered voice. Seciv Trop was
clearly the oldest of the group. His almost-bare scalp was populated by fine clumps of yellow-gold
hair, left carelessly unshaven. And his suit loosely fitting and equipped with immense
pockets was more battered and patched than Dura had come to expect of the grander City folk.
This old fellow was rather endearing, Dura decided. Farr asked, "Why are we here? In this
Stadium?"
"Because of your friend." Muub eyed the pigskin doubtfully. "Adda tells me he would prefer to
demonstrate his idea rather than describe it. I thought I'd better obtain as much space as possible."
The Harbor supervisor, Hosch, twisted his face into a sneer. "Then maybe we'd better let the old fool
get on with it before his damn pig corpse starts stinking out the building."
Adda grinned and hauled on the short rope which attached the inflated pigskin to his belt. He held
the grisly artifact before him, obviously relishing the squeamish reaction of the City men. The skin
was revolting, Dura conceded; its orifices had been crudely sewn over and Air pumped in to inflate
its boxy bulk, causing its six fins to become erect. Its sketchy, inhuman face seemed to be staring at
her. And, she realized, it actually did stink a little.
Hosch sneered. "Is this some kind of joke? The old fool thinks we could all don pigskins and swim
to the bloody Core."
Adda waved the inflated skin in the supervisor's face. "Wrong, City man. You people travel around
in chariots hauled by pigs. At first I wondered if humans could travel in one of those all the way to
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the Core... but of course the pigs could never survive the journey into the underMantle. So we build
a pig... an artificial pig, of wood and Corestuff. Strong enough to withstand the pressures of the
underMantle."
Seciv nodded. "How is this device to be propelled?"
Adda jabbed a finger at the pig's jet orifice. "With jetfarts, of course. Like the real thing." He flicked
the inflated fins. "And these will keep it stable." Now he pressed the skin between his arm and his
bandaged ribs; Air squirted out of the jet orifice and the pig-corpse wobbled through the air in a
ghastly, comic parody of life.
Hosch laughed out loud. "And where do the farts come from, upfluxer? You?"
Seciv frowned, his crumpled hair waving. "You could mimic the internal operation of the pig's
anatomy. The car could carry tanks of Air, heated by a stock of wood in a nuclear-burning boiler and
expelled through a valve orifice." With a delicate finger he reached out and poked at one flabby fin,
tentatively. "You could even make an attempt at steering, by mounting these fins on gimbals worked
from inside the craft. And the fart nozzles could be made directional, with a little ingenuity." The old
man nodded approvingly to Adda. "A practical suggestion in many respects." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]