Early in the digging, he ran into several heavy stones he managed to work loose and shove out of the way, but if he hit one that was too large to move, he’d have to go around it.
There were so many ways he could fail, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from trying. The sense of satisfaction he felt from moving each lump of sod brought a smile to his face. Despite the mud streaking his body as dirt mixed with sweat, the pain in his leg and ribs, and the sun’s heat beating down on him, the effort itself was an accomplishment.
Around the middle of the day the roots holding his shovel together snapped. He took a break to eat lunch and repair the device while surveying what he had accomplished so far. There was now a trench leading up to the wall. It was about waist deep where it met the rock face, growing slowly more shallow as one walked away from the cliff. There was no sign that John was growing closer to the bottom of the cliff, but that didn’t deter him. This might take a while, but he was willing to patiently continue the work for as long as it took.
“Assuming my arms don’t give out on me, anyway,” John said, rubbing the offending appendages.
He was tired, sweaty, dirty and sore from the efforts of the morning. That said, he’d clearly accomplished a great deal. John ate a hearty lunch and returned to the task, slowly moving more earth from his growing trench.
Somewhere down there might be the bottom of the wall. If he could find it, then he could perhaps tunnel under it, eventually come up on the other side. Whatever lay there beckoned to him, the mystery giving him more drive than anything ever had before.
The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon when John slid his shovel in close to the wall to remove some of the dirt there. He had to be careful when moving soil near the cliff, because if he struck it too hard, the impact might shatter the stone head of his tool. But this time, the shovel slid deeper into the soil than his eyes said it should have.
At first, John thought he’d broken the shovel. He cursed, worrying about the work required to craft a new one. One careless moment… But when he withdrew the shovel, it was still intact.
He slid the stone back into the dirt again, more cautiously this time. Again he met no resistance where the cliff ought to be.
Excited, he knelt down next to the wall and pulled soil away with his hands, scooping the earth free and shoving it aside as rapidly as he could. Within minutes, he had a small hollow space, and it clearly extended below the wall. There was a sharp edge, a corner, where the cliff face ended. Below that was simply more dirt, but to him it looked like something else: freedom.
John pulled a little of the soil out and examined it. It was different from what he’d been digging through before. Where the other dirt was a dark brown color, thick and moist, this layer felt dry in his fingers. It had a reddish tinge to it and came apart easily in his hands.
He stood again to survey the work site. He’d dug a pit his own height. It had required a ton of work to get this far, but he’d done it. There was a bottom to the cliff! He could go under it.
Anxious as he was to continue the work, John set his tools down and went to wash. No sense rushing things. Digging was hard enough without adding darkness into the mix. Tomorrow, he would go deeper and start the tunnel. Who knew? By the end of the next day, he might be in a whole new world.
Twenty-Two
The following two days saw John work furiously at enlarging the hole he’d made. First, he deepened the trench where it was nearest to the wall. His shovel bit more easily into the red soil than the dark brown loam he’d been cutting through, so it made for quicker work. The stuff wasn’t as stuck together, which was both a blessing and a curse. It was easier to move but had a tendency to fill back in where he’d just been digging.
Eventually, there was enough depth that he began working at the actual tunnel, carving out a small space beneath the cliff face. The bottom edge of the wall was strange. Unlike the outer surface with its cracks and rough appearance, it was completely flat, almost smooth. John had never seen a rock quite like it before. How had it come to be so even, like it had been smoothly cut?
As he dug, he imagined some enormous mountain that had cracked and sent this chunk tumbling to the ground. The other part might well be on the far side of this one, he reasoned. Maybe it was struck by a huge burst of sky-light and shattered, and that was what made the wall.
More likely it was something else entirely, but he wouldn’t know until he was through. Assuming there was a through. John paused, wiping sweat from his face. He was entirely inside the tunnel now, crouched over. He’d only dug a space about three feet high to work in. He could dig it deeper, but he was more anxious to press on, press in. Deepening the tunnel would only cost him more time.
Scrape away more red soil. Break up a clump of the stuff. Scoop it up with the shovel. Throw it back behind him. Repeat until there was a pile of dirt behind him, then push the stuff back to the opening with his feet and do it all over again.
By noon of the second day, John was deep under the wall, far enough inside that hauling out each load of soil was taking as long as digging it out. He’d narrowed the tunnel, since carrying dirt was taking so long. It was barely wide enough for his body. He had to be at least twice his body length inside, but there was still no sign of a break in the rock over his head. It was ever-present, a constant reminder he had to press on. He had to go deeper.
His shovel blade bit into the soil, cutting out a chunk of the red dirt like he had done a thousand times before. John pulled the clump loose and raised the tool to strike again.
But this time, the red dirt didn’t come out in a small clump. It kept pouring down from the wall in front of him. For a split-second John was elated, thinking his work had just become that much easier. Then he realized that the dirt wasn’t only coming down from in front of him. The sides of the tunnel were collapsing as well.
Red dirt-like sand rushed in at him from all sides. He tried to dive backward to avoid it, but the space was too small. There was no room to maneuver. No way to escape. The sand poured in around him. John had time for one gasp of dusty air before his head vanished under the cave-in debris.
John had closed his eyes in time, but he could feel the grit that had become trapped inside his eyelids, and the weight of the rest covered his face. The pressure of the sand was everywhere. He struggled to move anything, straining with every muscle in his body. His fingers could twitch some, compressing the loose soil around them. He managed to move his legs, but it was only fractions of an inch. The collapse had buried him completely. Not even a foot was free.
He pushed as hard as he could, but it was like trying to lift a mountain. The soil wouldn’t budge. It was bearing down on him. The dirt felt like it was pressing on his mouth, trying to get inside to fill his lungs, which were already screaming from the effort of holding his breath. But John knew if he exhaled, that would be it. He’d take another breath, but it wouldn’t be air coming in. It would be the red dirt he’d been cutting through.
Wiggling back and forth, he tried to writhe his way backward out of the dirt heaped atop his body. Had he pushed back an inch? He couldn’t tell. There was no way to gauge distance under there. He struggled, feeling each succeeding use of his muscles growing a little weaker than the last had been. John fought desperately against the almost overwhelming urge to breathe and the raw terror that he was going to die trapped there.
As the moments passed and his struggles grew feebler, his body exhausting the last of its energy trying to help him escape, the fear faded as well. John felt it leave him, replaced with—acceptance? Not that, precisely. He didn’t want to die. But it felt like that was a certainty. He stopped moving and gave himself those last seconds to think instead.
He didn’t want his quest to end like this, but he wasn’t regretful for having tried. The struggle, the turmoil, the effort, had all led him to this moment. To his death. But that was all right. That was OK. He’d known from the beginning his attempts to get past the wall mi
ght lead to his death. John had always accepted the risk. Now that it had become a reality, he still felt like trying had been worth it.
That was a satisfying thought. And at least his bones would be buried, like those of his parents, even if he was not directly beside them.
John exhaled. He didn’t inhale again.
It felt like a long time passed. But he would never be sure quite how long he lay there without air.
A jolt ran through his body, like a tingling.
He felt something drag him, saw flashes of light through his eyelids. He tried to open his eyes, struggled to move, but nothing was working. He was only vaguely aware of anything at all. John’s thoughts were a tangled, incoherent storm of feelings and memories. Was this death? He felt pebbles scraping against his back as he was dragged along and didn’t think that was what death would be like.
Air pushed against his face in a cool rush. He inhaled in a reflexive gasp, sucking greedily at the precious stuff that filled his lungs. It felt cold and crisp in a way he wasn’t used to.
John’s eyelids fluttered as he struggled to open them. He had to see what was going on. It was a monumental effort to move anything at all, but he managed to open his eyes for a few seconds. John saw sky, and tree branches overhead, and the bright sun. There was a moment he thought he saw the deer again, hovering over him, but then it was gone.
He was confused. Was it really the deer? Had it somehow pulled him from the tunnel? Where had it gone, and why had it come back just in time to save him? John didn’t understand, but his exhausted mind couldn’t hold on to consciousness any longer. He drifted into a deep sleep.
Twenty-Three
“You intervened. Again,” Felizian said. “I thought we had agreed not to.”
Kantrobil stood his ground. He had perfectly valid reasons for his actions and was more than willing to have this discussion.
“The actions I took were necessary to preserve the subject,” Kantrobil said.
“At the risk of exposing us to it?”
Kantrobil shook his head. “He was not conscious enough to recognize me or the technology used to rescue him. There was no risk.”
“But what if he had woken up and seen you?” Felizian said. “If we could not acceptably adjust his memory, we would have had to euthanize him!”
Kantrobil looked over the small medical platform hovering next to him. He’d brought out a full emergency field hospital, unsure just how much attention would be required to save the human from its latest folly. He’d been right that nanites were insufficient. The human’s heart had nearly stopped beating, and the poor blood flow was already beginning to cause damage to its delicate brain. He’d repaired the damage, but if he had been a little slower, there would have been irreparable harm.
“He was going to die anyway. If he had awoken, seen the technology? Seen the truth?” Kantrobil said. “We could have mind-wiped the memory. Or simply euthanized him. I deemed it worth at least trying to save our investment in this subject.”
“You’re right, of course,” Felizian said. “I simply worry about the raw amount of time and resources we have committed to this one subject. Especially since its sense of self-preservation seems to be damaged.”
“Is it? Or does the animal simply feel that learning something is worth the risk?” Kantrobil asked. His own species had risked everything more than once on the quest for greater knowledge. It was easy to see a similar virtue in an alien animal—too simple, in fact. Far more likely he was supplementing the subject’s animal impulses with his own motivations. It was a trap many a researcher had fallen into.
“Or it could be doing something entirely inexplicable,” Felizian groused.
“Nothing is inexplicable. We simply don’t understand some things. Yet.” Kantrobil felt sure that if they continued to monitor this interesting specimen, they stood to learn more than they had originally supposed. He was excited and intrigued for the first time in years.
He had to admit, it was exhilarating. That sense of being on the cusp of learning something new always brought with it a rush. His brain was wired that way, as were all of his species. It was how they had evolved to such a level—curiosity drove them. Kantrobil knew enough to control the impulse and use caution when it was warranted. But he also knew when it was time to push ahead and explore.
“I think it is time to move the subject into the next phase,” Kantrobil said.
“Are you certain? If they are not ready, it will mean scrapping both subjects." Felizian said.
“Our observations support the idea of moving forward,” Kantrobil said. He wanted to see what would happen next. The need to learn what lay over the horizon was building within him, a yearning not to be denied. “It’s time.”
“Very well. I will prep the other subject and make the move tonight,” Felizian said.
Twenty-Four
John woke slowly to an annoying chirping sound, his eyelids fluttering against the bright daylight. He didn’t remember where he was, or how he had gotten there. A concerned face framed with long dark hair looked down over him. He closed his eyes against the light.
A soft voice that reminded John of his mother said, “Are you all right?”
But his mother wasn’t there. His mother was dead. He’d buried her…and then tried to escape. All of John’s memories came rushing back to the surface of his thoughts, right up until he’d been trapped, buried alive without any hope of escape. He didn’t recall anything after that except the vague feeling of having been pulled free, and something about the deer.
“Did you save me?” John asked. His voice croaked out the words. His mouth felt dryer than he’d imagined it could be, and he was incredibly thirsty. He tried to sit up and had to lay back down again. His head was pounding too much to move.
“Save you? No, I just found you laying there. You wouldn’t wake up, at first. I thought you might have died,” the stranger said. “But you didn’t.”
John managed to heave himself onto his side and slowly push his body up into a half-sitting position. From there, he could better make out his surroundings. He was still close to the wall. The place where he’d excavated the tunnel was only a dozen feet away. Somehow, he’d gotten free from the cave-in. John’s memories were blurry, like seeing the events through a fog. He shook his head to clear it, which was a mistake. The pounding headache returned.
“Water. I need to drink. So thirsty,” John said.
“Not so fast. Who are you, and how did I get here?” the other person said, standing up and taking a step away from him.
John was able to get his first good look at her. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders. It was brown, with brighter highlights. She was dressed in a one-piece outfit of woven grass, which covered her body from just under her shoulders to just above her knees. His mother had worn something similar, although the weave on this stranger’s garment looked somehow different, and it was decorated around the trim with tiny bits of some sort of white material.
Her question bothered John because he had no idea how to answer her. If she didn’t know how she had arrived, how was he supposed to?
“I’m John. Who are you?” he asked.
“Dana. How did I get here? Where am I?” she asked, her eyes darting from side to side.
“I don’t really know. Do you remember anything? Where were you before you came here?” John asked.
“In my world which is not this place,” Dana said. “The last thing I remember was going to sleep in my tree. But I woke up here.”
Her wide eyes darted from side to side like she was in mortal danger. John could understand her reaction. He couldn't explain what had happened to Dana any more than she could, but the experience had to be terrifying and confusing. John felt an instinctive desire to help the woman. How could he calm her?
“I don’t know what happened, but I'd like to help if I can,” John said. He kept his tone light, his words soft. Dana was like the deer, in a way, skittish at first and ready to bolt if he mov
ed too swiftly.
“How? Where are we?”
“My world. It’s safe here, unless you do something stupid like I did,” John said. He mulled over the words as he said them. He should have known better. He’d built little sand mounds on the riverbank as a child. They had always collapsed after a while. He should have shored up the sides of his tunnel with wood, like the reverse of the way his father used mud to hold the old timber bridge in place.
“Well, I suppose you couldn't have brought me here. It looks like you’ve been unconscious for a while,” Dana said. “You were rescued, you say?”
John couldn't recall any other way he could have fought free of the cave-in. It was still terrifying to think of the dirt piling in around him, and he shivered even in the warm sunlight. Someone must have helped him.
“Yes…at least, I think so,” John said.
“Maybe whoever helped you brought me here, too,” Dana said.
It made sense, and John nodded absently in response. He was thinking over the idea. Whoever could rescue him from the cave-in, which he couldn't have done himself, could have moved her, too, but from where?
They also had the ability to travel between worlds. Dana’s world was certainly someplace else. Maybe she was from the other side of the wall. Or perhaps she was from someplace else entirely. Whoever moved her there had powers John could barely begin to comprehend.
He’d failed in every attempt to cross the wall. To bring a sleeping person along, as well, never disturbing her slumber? It seemed utterly impossible to John. He’d never have believed the story, except that the living proof was standing right in front of him.
“Do you know why someone would bring you here?” John asked.
“No,” Dana replied. John waited for her to elaborate, but she didn't.
“I wish I could be more help. I’ve tried to leave my world several times,” John said. “I can’t even get myself out, let alone someone else. I’ve almost died the last two times I tried.”
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