Free Tuf Voyaging by George R. R. Martin

Had the goddamned cybertech gone and croaked on him?
    Then the lights blinked on, and the thin wild humming rose in pitch, and all the tiny little colored lights flashed on and off, on and off, on and off. Anittas was in the circuit.
     
    Rica Dawnstar was rolling down the main way, feeling almost jaunty despite everything, when the blackness ahead of her became a blaze of light. Overhead, the ceiling panels stirred from long slumber, one after another, racing down the kilometers, turning the night into a day so bright it hurt her eyes for a moment.
    Startled, she braked to a halt, and watched the wave of light recede into infinity. She glanced behind her. Back from where she’d come, the corridor was still filled with darkness.
    She noticed something that hadn’t been obvious before, in the dark. Set into the corridor floor were six thin parallel lines, translucent plastic guide-strips in red, blue, yellow, green, silver, purple. Each no doubt leading somewhere. Pity she didn’t know which led where.
    But as she watched, the silver tracery began to glow with an inner light. It stretched out in front of her, a thin, scintillating silvery ribbon. Simultaneously, the overhead panel just above her darkened. Rica frowned, and edged her scooter forward a couple of meters, out of the shadows and back into the light. But when she paused, that light went out as well. The silver ribbon in the floor throbbed insistently. “All right,” Rica said, “we’ll do it your way.” She gunned her scooter and moved down the corridor, as the lights winked out behind her.
     
    “He’s come!” Celise Waan screeched when the corridor lit up. She seemed to jump a good meter in the air.
    Jefri Lion stood his ground and scowled. He was holding a laser rifle in his hands. A high-explosive dart-pistol rode in a holster on one hip and a screechgun on the other. A huge two-man plasma cannon was strapped securely to his back. He wore a bandolier of mindbombs over his right shoulder, a bandolier of light-grenades over his left, and a large vibroknife sheathed on his thigh. Inside his golden helmet, Lion was smiling, his blood pounding. He was ready for anything. He hadn’t felt this good in over a century, since the last time he saw action with Skaeglay’s Volunteers against the Black Angels. To hell with all that dusty academic stuff. Jefri Lion was a man of action, and now he felt young again.
    “Be quiet, Celise,” he said. “No one’s come. It’s just us. The lights came on, that’s all.”
    Celise Waan seemed unconvinced. She was armed, too, but she kept dragging the laser rifle along the deck because she said it was too heavy, and Jefri Lion was half afraid of what would happen if she tried to arm and throw one of her light-grenades. “Look,” she pointed, “what’s that?”
    The floor had two bands of colored plastic inset into it, Jefri Lion saw. One was black, one orange. Now the orange one lit up. “It’s some sort of computerized guideway,” he pronounced. “Let’s follow it.”
    “No,” Celise Waan said.
    Jefri Lion scowled. “Listen here, I’m the commander and you’ll do what I say. We can handle anything we might meet. Now move along.”
    “No!” Celise Waan said stubbornly. “I’m tired. It’s not safe. I’m staying right here.”
    “I’m giving you a direct order,” said Jefri Lion impatiently.
    “Oh, stuff and nonsense. You can’t give me orders. I’m a full Wisdom and you’re only an Associate Scholar.”
    “This isn’t the Center,” Lion said with irritation. “Are you coming?”
    “No.” She sat down in the middle of the corridor and crossed her arms.
    “Very well, then. Good luck to you.” Jefri Lion turned his back on her and began to follow the orange guide-light alone. Behind him, immobile, his army stubbornly and sullenly watched him depart.
     
    Haviland Tuf had come to a strange place.
    He had wandered down endless dark, narrow corridors, carrying Mushroom’s limp body, hardly