Crysalis: Merrill's Tale

Look for a Rope

I opened my mouth to argue with the boys, but first I looked around, sighed and changed direction. I confess, I had missed our last turn, but that was no reason for them to remind me. I’d been busy trying to decide which place to visit after I’d dropped off our—okay, their acquisitions—so we could take some more samples, spread around some vaccines, now that we’d inoculated the entire population of World. All thirty odd of them. Maybe a trip to Silverberg was in order, just to make sure no new disease had cropped up out that way. Or we could try deeper than World, down into the Wilds of Tredecim. I really didn’t want to go too close to the Rim, not yet. The Rim can be dangerous at the best of times. But, then again…

“Hey, Mendel?”

Only one boy talking shook me out of my reverie. I looked around, noting we were once again off our path.

“Yah, Darwin?”

“I’m Newton,” he said. “Darwin’s gone to look for a rope.”

“Very funny,” I said at his little joke. They both kept threatening to tie a rope to me to keep me on course. It had been funny the first ten-thousand times they’d said it, but it was getting old. “And you can’t fool me; you’re not Newton, you’re Darwin. I recognize you by your freckle pattern.”

Darwin shrugged and grinned. “You got me. Newton’s gone on ahead in the right, correct and otherwise accurate direction. Maybe, anyway, since we’re still in uncharted territory. We go this way, we think, so come on.”

I followed Darwin down a short path, around a hill and across a narrow bridge carved from rock over a deep defile with water trickling through the bottom. Newton was waiting for us on the other side.

“She got lost inside her brain again, right?” he asked his twin.

“How could anyone, even her, get lost in such a tiny place?” Darwin asked, spreading his hands in fake wonderment.

“Yo ho,” I said as cuttingly as I could manage, seeing as how I sometimes suspected they were right. I do tend to get lost in my own thoughts. “So, Twin Smartasses. Where are we now, since you both know best?”

“Seems to be a straight shot that way…” Darwin pointed.

“…to that path over there, leading up a couple of levels,” Newton said.

“…which we need to get to…” Darwin again.

“…but we don’t like the looks of that plain in front of us,” Newton pointed too.

I looked in the direction they’d both pointed. With the little bridge behind us, it looked like an easy walk across a clear, smooth, almost flat plain to the opposite wall. I could just make out in the dim light from the ever-present fluorescent fungus a pathway carved into the rock wall and switchbacking up to a broad ledge, about ten meters above the plain and lined with lots of openings. Obviously some kind of intersection to other levels and sectors and thus just what we needed.

“What don’t you like?” I asked. “Looks like no trouble.”

“That’s what…”

“…we don’t like.”

I shrugged. “According to the information available, which granted isn’t much, we should probably get up on that ledge. One or more of those opening will, maybe, lead us back into the charted areas. Just because this space we’re in isn’t on the map doesn’t necessarily mean there’s danger. Right?”

“Doesn’t mean…”

“…there’s not.”

“Only one way to find out,” I said.

But I was uneasy. The boys had an uncanny sense for threats. I’d noticed it more than once, and it had often saved my life and theirs. Still, we were still definitely off-Grid, we had to go somewhere, and back towards World wasn’t an option. I stepped forward, but Newton pulled me back.