Kaspar's Box

"We can move. I can't see any reason not to. Not now, anyway. If one of them did give way it would be a quick death, not a slow one like this. The Rev might not be trapped in heaven like it looked, but we're sure stuck in Hell."

"Li's claustrophobic," she reminded him. "That's the only problem."

Nagel shrugged. "I'm not sure we can do any good by making ourselves martyrs to our problem child. I keep thinking that, if the situation was reversed, the old An Li wouldn't have hesitated a minute if it was her comfort against somebody else's misfortune. She doesn't have to come if she can't hack it. We'll be back over here when it's a little cooler-like now."

"Yeah, can't be more than thirty-five Celsius," she commented. "Not like midday."

She was being facetious, but it wasn't far off the mark. They had some instruments salvaged from the shuttle before it went down in the lava and the midday sun at this latitude had reached as high as fifty degrees, enough to kill any of them if they were exposed for any length of time. Only the countless storms saved them at all.

"You're not just thinking of the lava tubes, are you?"

She shook her head slowly. "No, not really. Just a first step to doing something."

"You're thinking of Magi stones again, aren't you?"

She nodded. "I know, they're probably just a natural phenomenon, an emitter of some kind of radiation that causes hallucinations, but we've compared notes. Even in that horrible overdose, you, me, Lucky-we all had the same hallucinations. And even with the ones and twos, that sense of observing and being observed, of an intelligence out there, looking back at us, aware of us, but in a way that is alien, possible malevolent, possibly just indifferent or removed, like some Greek god looking down on a peasant village. I can't shake the idea that there's something more to them."

"They're definitely natural. We saw where they were formed."

"Yes, there were several such, but all localized, all seeming to extrude from the hard volcanic basalt. It was almost like… like they were being somehow manufactured in those spots. I know it's crazy, but I can't kick it. It's probably the heat and the hopelessness, but what the hell can I do?"

The sameness of the hallucinations had gotten to him as well, almost as if they either were one collective mind at that point or were all receiving the same very strong signal, a signal directly to the brain.

"But it destroyed Li's mind," he reminded her. "She's like a little child. Trusting, not thinking very much, just sort of existing. Almost like a lobotomy. Almost like everything that was there came out in that hallucinatory session and in that butchery of Sark. Little An Li, maybe forty, forty-five kilos, beating up and taking apart a man half again her height and more than twice her bulk."

"And she might do it again, if she got close to the stones."

He nodded. "I've always been afraid of that. I could take the old An Li coming back, but I'm scared of that monster that came out of her. I want to know it left her rather than went back into hiding."

"I think that monster's in all of us," Randi told him. "Except maybe no more in her. In all this time here I've seen no sign of any change. Have you?"

He shook his head. "No, none. Maybe that frenzy killed it, but it makes the point even more. If it's also inside you and me, what's to keep us from winding up letting it out, or letting it run away?"

She shrugged. "After a lot of thought, I've decided that it doesn't matter. If we can learn something by studying the stones, maybe use them, then great. If what was buried deeper in us than in her gets out and one of us dies, so what? Beats living endless years like this, at least to me."

"And if it escapes and runs away?"

"Then we'll be like poor An Li. We'll happily sing little songs and pick flowers and not even care if we crap as we walk and we'll die sooner, but we won't feel a thing."

He looked over at the shelter. "You talk to Lucky about this idea?"

She sighed. "No, but I think we should. Either way, I'm going to try it. You feel like going cave shopping with me?"

He chuckled. "I thought you'd never ask. Our first date. And if we happen to have to go far afield and find an extrusion of Magi stones…"

"Then," she said, "we'll see what develops."

Lucky was divided on the idea, but decided to come along anyway. It was better than being stuck back here as nursemaid to An Li. As for Li, she either came with them or she stayed. She didn't seem capable of too many decisions, and that was one she might hate but was capable of making.

They decided that it was best to simply lay it on her as they were going to leave. There was no use in bringing up anything in the future, even a few days in the future, with her, nor giving her any time to go into hysterics or childish rants. They would simply go. She would come, or not, and that would be that.

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