D A Novel (George Right) - By George Right Page 0,113

before walking past the next door, but he decided to continue to the bottom. If there were a cellar, then he will ascend a level upward. At this point a foolish thought came to him that this downward course, going goodness knows where, by a dirty staircase illuminated by an ominous red twilight reminded him of the descent into hell. Yes, so he had remembered the concept of a hell–as well as the fact that he had never believed in it. "Nonsense," he told himself again. "Everything is absolutely material here. Even those goddamned mutant creatures." Yep, "goddamn." However, the freak arthropods and even guts-settling articulated worms were rather small for the standard hellish demons.

At last he reached the bottom. The last platform abutted against half-open door leaves of the high sliding gate which led not into the cylinder but outside. Maybe the door mechanism had jammed in such a position, or the cause could be the deficiency of energy. The remaining gap, however, was wide enough to climb through. Behind the door it was absolutely dark.

And on the right half of the gate one more inscription had been made in the same way and manner: "DO NOT THINK." What was it suggesting that he not think about remained a riddle as part of the door was hidden by a wall. The man tried to move the heavy leaf, but he might as likely pull on a cliff. All right then, as it is clearly known, appeals not to think about something simply result in just the opposite.

He stood for a while, listening, sniffing the air–nothing fresh, the same musty abomination of desolation as everywhere else here. At last, working up the courage and clasping his only weapon–the tablet with the acute angle–he pressed himself through the gate into the darkness.

The faint hope that any automatics would turn on the light remained futile. If ever such automatics existed here, they did not work now. Should he return and look for another way to the outside? But what suggested to him that such a way existed or that it would be more safe?

He stood a little longer, hearing in the darkness only the fast terrified beating of his own heart, and then, reaching forward with his left hand and groping the floor with his bare feet, he nevertheless moved forward.

After several–seconds? minutes?–he was not sure that he could calculate time correctly in such conditions, though he already understood that he was in a really large room, his fingers having touched a wall. The wall was dusty, but under the dust the smoothness of plastic or some similar material was evident. He moved to the right, sliding along the wall by his hand, came across some vertical metal bar, and bypassed it, before his hand again fell into emptiness. He went forward, until his hand rested against a next obstacle.

At first it seemed to him that he had been keeping the direction, but having looked back at a moment ago, he had not seen the doorway gap through which a light from the staircase should seep–neither there, where he expected to see it, nor anywhere. With growing trepidation he understood that he was wandering in a labyrinth and had already moved far from the entrance. And, maybe, the emergency illumination died out completely. What a damned place is this! Why would there need to be a labyrinth here?

He tried again to knock down the panic by shear will. It is possible to find a way out of any labyrinth. It is necessary to just go always along the right wall... or along the left one, the main thing is to choose it once and not change this decision once made. But when he tried to follow this principle, he found that he was walking around a huge cube. The principle works only for topologically connected labyrinths–provided he remembered correctly what topological connectivity was.

In despair he rushed forward, crashing in the darkness against the next wall and began to punching it. Based upon the sound, the wall was very thin (it even slightly caved in under his blows), and behind it there was an emptiness. He tried to cut the wall with the tablet corner, but, while thin, the barrier turned out to be too firm.

"It is not a labyrinth," he thought. "It is a warehouse, and I am wandering between containers!"

This discovery, however, had not much improved his situation. He still had no idea how to get out from where he was