Chapter 12

Monday, June 3, 3089, 3:06 p.m. Rebecca arose from the dais, pushing erect with both hands on her right knee. She swayed, the toe of her left boot just contacting the floor. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” she repeated slowly. She’d yelled herself hoarse, screaming Leda’s name.

Hobbling to the record-shop bag, she snatched it up and searched out the Baby Ruth bars at the bottom. She’d bought one and gotten one free from Mr. Klause, when he’d rung up her sale and bagged her items. The bars were all the food she had; she had no water, at all, so locating Leda’s kitchen and/or a bathroom topped her list of things to do. She could also use an Ace Bandage for her fucking left foot. It ached like a bitch.

At the dais, she dropped carefully onto the edge, and placed one Baby Ruth bar in her coat pocket for later. She carefully opened the other and bit off a third of the length and started to chew. Thank God Mr. Klause had stocked the jumbo 3.7-ounce King Size bars. She’d almost grabbed the regular size, but hunger and greed had intervened. She loved Baby Ruth the best of all candy.

Reluctantly, she folded the wrapper over the open end and slid the remainder into her pocket along with the full bar. She’d eaten the cheeseburger and fries at 9 o’clock, after all; she wasn’t starved.

The silence had her stomach in knots. For all she knew (don’t be ridiculous, she told herself), the ancient palace could be deserted. After all, she’d met no one at all, other than Leda and her maidservants. Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself, again.

When had The High Ones arrived? Leda hadn’t known, only that humanity immediately fell under their reign until their unexpected and unexplained departure in 2912. A finger-assisted calculation confirmed that date lay 177 years in the past.

What did they look like? Had humans driven them off? Sickness or plague? A more advanced race, maybe, rightfully hateful of planet-conquering cretins, as Leda had called them? She thought a good indicator of the subjugator’s shape and size could be surmised from the human-sized shape of the gate. It would also explain the dimensions of the control panel, and the two rooms she’d seen so far in the palace. “Is anybody there?” she shouted half-heartedly. “Hello?” Getting no answer, she muttered: “I wish I’d brought a gun.”

Rising and limping to the console, she again tried the power button, to no avail. She examined every inch of the control mechanism and the shelves below (there were two) finding nothing remotely like a secondary power switch. She then examined the console’s exterior for any indication of an opening, doing the same to the surrounding dais on her hands and knees. Excepting the opening to the corridor she’d traveled earlier, the hall’s circular wall appeared equally monolithic.

“Fuck!” she cursed, banging the wall with her fist. The intersecting corridors led directly to Leda’s quarters, with only one guest bedroom between there and the hall. Other doors must exist, she thought; they must!

Combating panic, she entered the passageway and limped to the approximate location of the guest bedroom, trailing her fingertips along the wall. She felt nothing suggesting a doorway, or any kind of opening in the eerily smooth wall: no ridges, cracks, or depressions. Where she thought the door should be, she pressed her fingertips against the surface in the manner she remembered Leda doing this morning, and made a ‘poof’ gesture, flicking her fingertips quickly outward from center. She staggered back, yelping, as the surface dilated into a circular opening, revealing the room beyond.

No divan and no small round table beside it. No silver tray bearing a decanter of water, and two accompanying goblets. Of course not, she thought, angrily: all that existed 20 years in the future--if they existed at all.

“Dammit, Leda!” she shouted. “Why didn’t you explain shit to me!” Furious, she drew back her fist to punch the wall.

No, no, no, she thought. Don’t you dare do that! Trembling, she banged the fist on her thigh instead, and stared into the maddeningly empty room.

The thought of entering a room with no windows and no visible exists, and no assurance that her ‘poof’ gesture would prove a repeatable ‘key’, made her bowels feel dangerously loose. Unconsciously, she backed slowly away from the door. She blinked as the door suddenly reverse-dilated 30 seconds later, leaving an unbroken wall surface again. “Crap,” she rasped, bumping the opposite wall.

Her only clear option lay to the left: down the passageway to the intersecting corridor, and on to Leda’s quarters. French doors opened onto the balcony, she remembered, and fresh air. Go, she thought shakily.

Taking a deep breath, she started toward the intersection, but then returned to the wall. Touching the surface lightly with her fingertips, she repeated her ‘poof’ gesture, and a door obediently dilated. Beyond laid a second bedroom, softly lit, a twin of the room across the hall. “Okay,” she muttered, stepping cautiously back. 30 seconds later, the door automatically whisked closed again.

Experimentation uncovered rooms all along the passageway, and more down the longer, adjacent corridor leading to Leda’s suite. She discovered additional corridors and passageways off the long corridor, as well: some relatively short, ending in a T-junction or 4-way intersection; others disappeared into the distance, curving out of sight. She entered none, afraid of being trapped inside.

One long curving corridor, 20 yards or so from Leda’s quarters, divulged an important discovery: at the juncture of wall and ceiling, occurring at regular intervals along the length of the passageway, Rebecca noted a slight deformation in the otherwise smooth transition: a notch. Glancing up with a start, she discovered a notch directly above her head at the ceiling line. If she were 2’ taller, or had something to stand on, she could reach up and touch it with her fingertips. Stepping back, she discovered with mounting excitement that Leda’s corridor evinced notches in the approximate location of every room or corridor she’d located. The discovery made her feel like shouting; it offered hope, rather than despair.