|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- OFFICE COMPLEX--CUP 36--"ROYAL" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Office Complex  ||  -------> (Cup SRoc036, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = "The river." Prince Ferrajalt said, looking at the vector display to his right, sitting in the driver's seat of the Warhome. "Where?" Treyess Arcomany asked. "Coming right up--I guess this baby is constantly scanning the surrounding area. It even shows the river being frozen, even though it's not cold enough. See, some sort of anomaly reading by the river..." "Huh." The enormous vehicle rounded a corner and crashed over a small fence, out onto a dock. "Prince..." Treyess said, as they sped toward the end of the dock. Ferrajalt looked over at Treyess for a moment. "No problem." he said, smiling. Treyess raised her eyebrows and wore a frown of puzzlement, nodding and grabbing the arms of her seat. In a moment, the Warhome flew off the edge of the dock and then slammed onto the frozen river an instant later. Ferrajalt gently braked, and the huge thing quickly skidded to a halt. The two surveyed the glassy, ultrasmooth surface of the frozen river, lit in the eerie glow of the giant streetlights that lined its banks. "Now this is more like it." Treyess said. "Yeah..." Ferrajalt said. "But which way to the waterfall?" "You think I know after all the twists and turns we had to take to get here? Doesn't your little viewscreen tell you?" Ferrajalt checked the vector display. "No." "Huh. Well everything is so changed anyway, I don't know if--" "--no wait--it's coming up on the display. See? It's so cool! A 3-D map of the river." "There ya go." "So it's down, uh, that way." Ferrajalt said, pointing. Treyess looked over at Ferrajalt, and the Prince swam in the beauty of her eyes. After a pause, Treyess said "So now we get to see if this office complex thing is still there." "Yeah." Ferrajalt said, turning back to the river, and easing forward on the controls. The Warhome's wheels spun a little, but then some sort of traction control kicked in, and they were cruising along at a fair pace. Treyess looked around, at the surreal landscape all around them--giant streetlights, river like a mirror, creepy shapes on either bank, and the feeling of being nowhere. "Now remember, there IS a waterfall coming up sometime." she said. "We don't want to go over it." "I know." Ferrajalt said. "I don't think we're near it yet, and I'm sure the Warhome will detect it and start blinking and beeping all over the place." "I sure hope so." Treyess said, not at all sure they should depend on that in this situation, but not wanting to insult the Prince's handling of the matter. They drove on in silence for a while, then Ferrajalt spoke. "So what do you think is really going to happen to us? I used to have a good life. I mean, I was a Prince--I AM a Prince. Back on my Earth. I mean, I thought it was all bullshit, I had all these ideas, like why should we be so much better than commoners? All that. But right now, I don't know. I kind of wish I was back there." "Well to me, this is pure adventure--and that's what I live for. Back on my Earth I was quite well-known also. Our technology hasn't developed quite as smoothly as on all you guys Earths. I mean, the internal combustion engine, flight, all that we've just recently got going. And computers, forget it--they might have the first building-sized prototype going in a few years. So there are a lot of places on my Earth where it's very difficult, maybe even impossible to get to. And adventure was popular. I was popular. And there IS some weird stuff on my Earth, weird hidden places." "But what's this?" Ferrajalt asked, waving his hand. "Look around--this isn't anything! It's a nightmare. It has no relation to anything. It's like the universe ended and we just don't know it yet. Yeah--maybe all this is just a hallucination." Treyess studied Ferrajalt's face. He had potential. You could see somewhere in there ancestors who were great heroes, great warriors. But he needed to stop being such a wimp. "Well you know--from what I read, this may have happened once before--in Sweptim. I guess this IS what happened. They said that a whole bunch of Earths, maybe all of them, were somehow destroyed, and how they managed to salvage Red Alley Earth, but nothing else." "And maybe this time it'll be Timber Serious that gets saved. Then I could never go home." "Oh come on, Prince. Don't despair--this may not be the same sort of phenomenon at all--I was just saying. And remember--Fife created his Earth searching system and the whole Primate thing so that if something like this happened, there might be enough remarkable talents to find a solution. And remember--YOU are a Primate, and there IS a reason for that." "I wish I knew. There are a lot of other royal families of my planet--why me?" "I'm sure we'll find out." -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----