Incandescence

When they woke, Ruz was first in the harness. After a dozen light/dark cycles Roi took his place, and this time she finally felt the burden of pulling the cart uphill. The junub weight grew less than half as rapidly with distance as the garm and sard weights — and they were also traveling rarb, which contributed nothing — but beyond those excuses it was a measure of how slow their progress had been that it had taken so long to reach the point where they really cared which way was up.

The Calm appeared more sparsely populated than ever; apart from occasional couriers that Roi glimpsed in the distance, their role made obvious by carts of their own, the tunnels seemed deserted. The expeditioners passed the time with light-hearted speculation, eschewing any grim predictions about the fate of the Splinter. By the end of the journey's second shift, Roi and Ruz were dragging the cart together, with the lead harnessee also keeping a lookout for obstacles. It was hard work now, and Roi was beginning to feel that their enforced breaks didn't come a moment too soon.

Halfway through the third shift, as they slowed for the onset of darkness, Roi noticed a flicker of light ahead. At first she thought it was merely a lode in the rock that was dimming more slowly than its surroundings, but as the darkness deepened the contrast only grew stronger. A reddish patch of light stood out against the blackness; it was an unsteady glow, but it never failed entirely. It was moving slightly, with a rhythm that reminded her of a person's gait, as if someone was carrying the source of the light toward them.

Ruz said, "Can you hear footsteps?"

Roi listened carefully. "Yes."

"There are five people," Ruz declared. "And some kind of machine."

"I'll take your word for it." A dozen heartbeats later, she could make out two people in the front of a small group. The light was coming from an object strapped to one of their backs.

Zak said quietly, "That I lived to see such wonders."

Roi called out a greeting, unsure if the three of them would be visible by this strange illumination. A reply came back, cautious but friendly.

When the group drew closer, Roi could see that Ruz was correct: there were five people. They made introductions; the light-bearer was called Lud, and the others were Jos, Rud, Cot and Sad.

The light that emerged from the machine on Lud's back was weak, rendering the group sketchily. Their bodies were merely hinted at by a glimmer of surfaces, as if their carapaces had turned to metal. Seeing your companions' beating hearts was not the point, though; this modest light would still be enough to allow you to spot obstacles and walk through the darkness with confidence.

"Where are you headed?" Ruz asked politely. Roi was sure that he was twice as eager as she was to hear how the light machine worked, but it would be discourteous to raise the matter immediately.

"We have no destination yet," Jos replied. "We want to know what's happening to the Splinter, so we've left our teams to search for answers."

Roi could hardly believe what she was hearing. They'd left their teams? How? Had the Jolt shaken them free, like the rubble it had torn from the solid walls?

She said, "We have some ideas about what's happening to the Splinter. We believe something has pushed it, and now it's falling back and forth, in and out of the Incandescence."

Lud said, "Falling back and forth?"

"If you throw something shomal from the Null Line," Ruz explained, "it will reach a certain distance, fall back to the Null Line, go past it some way junub, fall back again, and so on. We think the Incandescence ends if you go far enough shomal or junub, and that's why the light comes and goes."

The group talked this over among themselves, then asked to hear more. Zak remained quiet, which usually meant that he was tired or in pain, so Roi explained his idea of the Splinter orbiting the Hub, and the experiments in the Null Chamber that seemed to support it.

While they were talking the light from the machine faded, and its whirring sound died away. But the walls were already beginning to brighten, and soon Roi had a normal view of everyone. They had a small cart with them, full of metal parts.

Cot climbed on to Lud's back and began turning a handle attached to the machine. Ruz could no longer contain himself. "It's spring driven, isn't it?"

"Of course," Lud said. "Trying to crank it smoothly and walking at the same time would be impossible."

"But what makes the light?" Ruz's tone was drenched with such longing that he might have been a starving child begging for food.

Lud chirped with amusement. "Just two rough surfaces scraped over each other, under pressure. Rough enough to make a disturbance, but not so rough that they'll stick."