//------------------------------// // Chapter 20. H'ven and HELL // Story: H'ven Sent // by otherunicorn //------------------------------// I was in no particular rush at the moment, so I took my time climbing down the ladders of the service shaft built around one of the massive mainstays of H'ven's structure. The amount of material used in this single structural element was mind boggling, and I tried to picture how many ponies, and what sort of infrastructure would have been required to make it, let alone the... I'd already used the terms massive and mind boggling... how could I describe the... audacity of the entirety of H'ven? The level of technology to achieve something this big was long since lost, along with the history of its creation or purpose. Likewise, we didn't really have the technology or skills needed to maintain this place. The more I explored, the greater I understood this. The highly qualified, such as myself, merely had the ability to judge the condition of these structural elements by visual inspection and recommend or repair them to the best of our abilities. What was going on below the skin of the metal was an unknown. Massive cracks, crystallization, corrosion, any number of metallic maladies could weaken them to the point of failure, and we were limited to the "it looks fine, let's check the next one" approach. Maybe one day not too far away, it wouldn't be one silly mare plunging through weakened floors, but the whole of the habitable zone falling and crushing all that lay below. The ability to scan materials at an atomic level like Brainstorm could, would have made checking the integrity of the structure a lot more efficient and thorough, but that required ponies who could use magic, and according to Central, magic was undesirable because it was hard to control, so they had done everything they could to stamp it out. Central were correct, though; magic was bloody dangerous in the hooves of the wrong pony. I, who had been endowed with magic so recently as to be able to count my experience in hours, was already skilled enough to cause major damage, albeit with the aid of a magically powered weapon. Although I had not yet tried it, I expected some of my spells could easily be adapted to work directly from my horn. Perhaps I could find or be taught spells needed to scan and repair the structure of H'ven properly. It would be a life-time assignment. If Hellites were immortal as Brainstorm suggested, perhaps it really would be possible. One thing was becoming patently clear to me: H'ven was on borrowed time. Its original purpose forgotten, ponies had continue living in it long after its projected life span. What had once been outside was lost to time. What was outside now was unknown to the point it was taught as being literally nothing, as if the walls of the H'ven dome were the edges of reality. I didn't... couldn't buy into that. It was all too clear to me that H'ven had not existed 'forever'. It had clearly been manufactured. That led to the obvious question: were there other H'ven-like structures out there, carrying other ponies, or, heaven forbid, other forms of life? It didn't make sense to me that ponies were the only significant life form. Even if ponies really were the only significant life form, the attitude of those in command was seriously flawed to the point it didn't reflect this. They had already killed off the pegasi, and, if not for Brainstorm's intervention, would have succeeded in totally eliminating unicorns by now too, not that those with the crippled bony nubs on their foreheads could really be called unicorns. Were there really only three true unicorns left in H'ven? I was on the verge of answering a pretty significant question too: what exactly was below sublevel eighty? The doors into this shaft were few and far between, and were exceptionally tough, as if when closed they formed part of some blast wall or fire wall. Hoof scanners made it clear that the shaft was a no-go zone for non-Hellites too. Of course the hole I had blown into it up above might allow some reprobates to enter. Whenever I found one of these doors, I'd leave the shaft and do a little exploring, but the results were the same each time. Nothing but gutted corridors, empty rooms and the occasional piece of heavy plant were out there. The H'ven dome dwellers really had stripped everything salvageable from down here. So, after each exploration, I'd present my hoof to the door scanner, get told I was qualified, then wait while the substantial door unplugged itself from its frame and moved aside to allow me through. The last door I had passed through, the one just behind me, was to the bottom level of the H'ven dome, sublevel eighty. I'd been out there, exploring for a couple of days. Hmm... That would make it about four or five days since I last saw a pony, or more accurately, talked to a pony. I wondered how Brainstorm was doing with that little problem I had left them. What I had been looking for was any evidence of a way to go lower - to sublevel eighty one, should it exist. Whether sublevel eighty one existed or not was moot, because there definitely was more to H'ven below this level, whatever form it took. The huge pipes and cables that shared the shaft with the massive structural beam showed no sign of terminating in any valid sense. They went straight into the floor, and beyond. Having satisfied my curiosity about sublevel eighty, which, while punctuated by frequent structural elements, was more or less an open expanse, I concluded the only way for me to keep going down had probably been underneath my hooves all along. It was just a matter of recognizing how the access point was concealed. For now, I lay on the floor at the bottom of the shaft, eyes closed, ear pressed to the floor, listening to the sounds of H'ven. Something was moving below - creaking, groaning. Spurred on, I stood and glanced around me. On each of the levels above, I would come down the ladder, traverse the landing, and start on the next ladder down. The ladder positions alternated each level. This time, the ladder let me out on a landing that was half the size. To my left was the door out into the level itself, and that was what had drawn my attention, because to the right where the next ladder should have been was... nothing: blackness. It was nearly impossible to focus on. It practically yelled "there is nothing here, look somewhere else" at me. Enchantment. Whatever was there was hiding under some sort of spell. It wasn't meant to be found. I approached, extended my fingers and poked at it. If it was another matte black wall, I didn't want to bash my head against it (again). Instead, I found my fingers sunk into it. It felt... unpleasant: gooey, clammy and somewhat chilling. I quickly withdrew my fingers, raising them up so I could see if any of the gunk had stuck to me. My fingers were clean. Hmm... This was an optical, psychological and tactile illusion. If it was just an illusion, it wouldn't be able to stop me. I took a decisive step forwar... BANG. Ouch. Raising my fingers through the syrupy illusion, I rubbed my poor nose. What was it with me and black walls? I was at least head-deep into the illusion and couldn't see a thing. The virtual murk didn't affect my breathing though, nor could I taste or smell it. Turning my hoof, I started feeling around the wall I had hit. It did not take long to find some ridges and seams that suggested a door outline. Reaching a little further away, my fingers found a hollow, so I allowed them to explore its depths. There was some risk to sticking one's fingers into a hole one could not see, but... "Please wait while your qualifications are verified," a disembodied voice announced in my mind. "Access granted," it concluded. Okay, this was good. As a Hellite I was permitted to pass beyond here, and more to the point, was capable of surviving beyond this point too. The black murk faded to nothing, and I saw that I was standing in front of one of those substantial plug-type doors. I stepped back, giving it room to swing out of my way, then stepped into the illuminated chamber beyond. There was just enough room in here for two ponies. In front of me was another of these doors, and to the right, a control panel labeled 'Air Lock Controls'. There were two buttons, each shaped like an arrow, presumably indicating the direction through the airlock in which you wished to travel. The arrow pointing in the direction from which I had come was labeled 'Life Support Chamber'. It is funny how a single label can impart that much information. The upper part of the H'ven sphere, the H'ven Dome, as I taken to calling it was a giant facility created for the purpose of keeping something, presumably ponies, alive. That implied very strongly that outside the Life Support Chamber regular ponies probably couldn't live at all, thus the existence of Hellites. And I was going out there? I wondered if my facial armor would deploy again. The arrow pointing in the direction in which I was going was labeled 'Lower Levels'. Okay, that label told me exactly nothing that I didn't already know. Above both buttons were another two words, a title I guess, as they weren't really labeling anything specific. Those two words also answered several of my mysteries, including the one that started me thinking about all this. Habitat Eleven. Habitat Eleven... H'ven. So I was going from the Habitat Eleven Life Support Chamber, to the Habitat Eleven Lower Levels... to H.E.L.L. Oh, you had to be kidding me! And this was Habitat Eleven. That implied there were at least ten other habitats (and Habitat Eight would also have a HELL), so that meant there was more than nothing outside the walls of H'ven. If there had been eleven habitats, they must have, at one point, shared a common ground, literally, assuming they didn't still. That brought back my thoughts on bottles. H'ven was a pretty big 'bottle', so whatever contained it and ten other similar sized structures would be huge! Were they all under a non-simulated sky with celestial bodies above them? I sank to the floor, boggled. My mind was too busy imagining, considering the possibilities, trying to picture a world many times greater than mine, trying to grasp the concept of a world that was not enclosed, so big it could contain any number of habitats, any number of clusters of habitats, and so on, forever. I pressed the Lower Levels airlock button. Now that my mind had finished its fantasizing, it was time to proceed, to see if anything I had imagined could in fact be on the other side of this door. Mind you, I didn't expect to step out into great open spaces or anything. More than likely it would be another corridor, or the continuation of this major shaft. Air temperature changed, as did the pressure, my ears feeling briefly uncomfortable as they adjusted to the new environment. The change wasn't huge, well within a normal pony's ability to tolerate, one would think. Nonetheless it was chillier than I was used to. I contemplated the problem for a moment before realizing I had stuffed various clothes into my saddlebags during my escape. Rummaging for them, I found some blue overalls, a light weight, pale green sweater and a grubby white overcoat. They had belonged to the pair of janitors that had been lugging me off for disposal back at Central. I dressed myself in them, feeling marginally warmer for my efforts. Hellites couldn't simply get used to feeling chilled all the time, could they? Of course not. There had to be some way to adjust one's sense of temperature, or to have one's body make the changes needed... oh, it was automatic. Within moments of me realizing the hellite body was taking care of the problem itself, the airlock hatch opened, inviting me to exit into the area beyond. The area was better lit than the entry to the airlock had been, suggesting that this side was not hidden. I stepped into a bluish, metal colored room. Turning I found the expected controls for activating the airlock, as well as more labels informing me that the Habitat Eleven Life Support Chamber could be accessed from there. What was going on with this place? I had already seen two sets of labels that clearly gave the name, and thus function of H'ven, and I had only traveled a few of paces, yet up in the life support chamber, the quoted name could not be found anywhere, its bastardized form coming from legend, officially interpreted as 'Heaven'. Had someone been on a deliberate campaign to hide the truth? Probably. Enough time had passed for there to have been numerous changes in the power structure, thus in the attitude and actions of ponies... could our history have been lost deliberately? Politics. I hated the stuff! The other feature of this little antechamber was, yes, a ladder heading downwards. Unlike the ladders above, this one passed through a much narrower tube - just big enough for a pony to comfortably fit through. The tube was of same sort of metal as the antechamber, and a tap with my hoof suggested the material it was made from was quite thick. Looking down the shaft, I could see it was a greater distance than that between the levels above, perhaps the equivalent of five or six storeys. There were no landings either, suggesting that including any would have complicated the required engineering. I concluded I was about to descend through a large tank. Well, there had been pipes sharing the main shaft down from the upper levels, after all. Feeling adventurous, I hooked my fingers and hooves around the side rails of the ladder, and let myself slide down. After all, why waste effort? I had done that on and off throughout my descent, already. Finding myself on a landing below the ladder, I was surprised to find how open the area was, and that was mostly through lights I could see, dotted off into the distance. Pipes, wires and conduits twisted and turned, ran at odd angles before doubling back and taking another odd turn. Massive arrays of lattice connected the bottom of that huge tank (to which I could see no end) to another equally expansive surface several more storeys below. After contemplating what I was staring at for a few minutes, I realized what it was: a huge suspension system. The life support chamber was isolated from any vibrations or shocks that would come from below. I laughed to myself. One thing I hadn't expected was the possibility that both theories about the shape of the place could be correct. The life support chamber itself was indeed a dome with a flat bottom. I still expected the outer envelope to be spherical though. I would soon know if it wasn't! Glancing around, I soon located the top of another ladder, so I headed in that direction. Before I reached it, I spotted movement, which did somewhat startle me. I had become so used to being alone I wasn't expecting to meet anypony. The pony was black, of course, but had a buoyant blonde mane and tail. Her general form was petite and feminine. I was about to meet my second, or first Hellite, considering I didn't really remember the last meeting. The pony saw me too, angling towards me immediately. Within moments we were face to face, looking each other up and down. "I didn't expect to see you again," she said. Her voice, slightly husky, hit me like a fall from five levels up. That voice. It was that voice that had helped me from where I had fallen, all the way to the elevator where I could get help. If it wasn't for her, I would probably have died down there. She had a bit of an accent, but spoke with what I believed to be perfectly good pronunciation, unlike the gibberish Brainstorm had been spouting before we did our language swap. "I must admit this is unexpected," I replied. "Thank you for your help that time." "What I'd like to know is how a normal got down here," she said, pretty much ignoring what I had said. "You'll have to dress warmer than that if you don't want to die of exposure." Ha! The clothes I had donned were fooling her into thinking I was an unmodified pony. As I had already realized I didn't require them, I began to undress, tossing the overcoat playfully over her head. "Catch!" "Don't! You'll chill!" she warned as she untangled herself from the garment. In the mean time, I had managed to quickly shed the other two items of clothing. There hadn't been any grace in the action. I had practically ripped them off. "Quick, put this back on... oh." Her voice trailed off as she spotted the shiny black skin of my lower body. "So that's how you got past the doors." "Indeed," I responded. "But how? You were wearing a mask when I found you, and I got you away from my trap as soon as I could. You shouldn't have breathed enough modifier to be converted," she stated. "A trap? YOUR TRAP?" I yelled. "You mean you placed those bloody modifiers there deliberately?"