Atomic Underworld: Part One by Jack Conner Page B

the way down to some underground sea
or lake or somesuch , I don't know. Well, the G’zai
lived down there. Still do. In some black ocean, can you imagine? One of the
pre-human races. Never had much doings with us. There usedta be a bunch of disappearances, people said they caused them, but who knows?”
    “What
are they doing up here, then?”
    Tavlin
and the sergeant were passing over a bridge between concentrations of the
cocoon-like dwellings, making for a ramp that spiraled toward the upper levels.
Though weak, Tavlin couldn’t help but look over the side of the bridge into the
water, imagining the bed of the cistern chamber, a natural lake bed if the
sergeant wasn’t bullshitting him, and the black rift that led down gods knew
how deep to some prehistoric sea. Ancient seas linking up with sewer systems
linking up with the strange energies of the Atomic Sea ... it would all make
for a heady brew. He didn’t want to imagine the creatures that might live in
it, that might have developed a culture in it.
    “We
trade with ‘em,” Sgt. Wales added.
    “ Trade ? What could you possibly have to
trade? Do they even have hands?”
    “Oh,
you’ll see them, you stay here long enough. They come out sometimes. But yeah,
we trade. They have certain chemicals our alchemists use. Maybe they secrete
them, or spit them, or, well, I don’t know and not sure I want to. Our
alchemists grow all sorts of weird plants in our gardens. You’ve heard of the
Gardens of Taluush? Well, the G’zai trade for our blooms and fruits. Maybe they
eat ‘em, use ‘em in their rituals, whatever. We use their chems, they use our
greens, we try not to kill each other.” He rolled his shoulders. “Been this way
for a long time.”
    “We
have something similar in Muscud, with the Ualissi, but they stay in their own
quarter. They’re part aquatic, too, but they’re from some chain of islands near
the equator—or they were. The islands vanished long ago, destroyed by some
enemies of the Ualissi, I’ve heard, and the Ualissi scattered to all corners of
the globe, always seeking out the darkest corners they could find—in hiding from
whoever did it, I suppose.”
    “I’ve
heard of the Ualissi. The G’zai don’t like them. Old foes of some sort, though
not likely the one that sank their islands.”
    “You
get along with the G’zai?”
    “We
try. They’re not like us. There’s always some in town, though—their ambassadors
or merchants. Workers. You’ll see.”
    Wales
showed Tavlin up the spiraling ramp, which led up a thick tower constructed of
scrap metal, wood, debris and lots and lots of wire. Rooms like caverns opened
from it. The towers of Taluush rose up to the ceiling, all connected by swaying
bridges and ropes and chains. Some ropes and chains held aloft large platforms
upon which people congregated, but for the main part Tavlin saw activity in the
shops and taverns. Actual dwellings seemed to be clustered higher above, as far
as the human and human-like inhabitants of Taluush could get from the G’zai.
Looking down, Tavlin saw that there were doorways mounted in the top of the
G’zai’s hive structures, and the sergeant informed him that the hives were
filled with water; the pipes and hoses Tavlin had seen created a suction that
pulled up the water from the cistern lake; other pipes purified it. The G’zai
came and went via entrances in the hives’ bases and tops. Tavlin looked for the
G’zai themselves but saw nothing but mutants and the occasional uninfected
human ambling about the city.
    Traffic
was slow this early in the morning, but it was starting to pick up.
Lamp-lighters brightened the lamps already lit and sparked others of whiter
hue, bringing an illumination not unlike dawn to Taluush. Music crackled from
cobbled-together radios, the signal poor through so many layers of concrete.
Tavlin knew Muscud boasted a radio station, a little one-room affair, but he
didn’t hear the familiar tones of Raging Marv, so