Suddenly, remembering, Bart turned to Paolo, three long steps bringing him to the other man. He knelt beside the dormitory Leader. Paolo lay on his side, but he still breathed, if raspingly and shallowly. The whole lower right side of his chest was caved in and the broken end of a white rib bone had pushed itself an inch through the skin revealed by his tom tunic.
His eyes were open, but they focused on nothing—not even Bart, who put his face down close to the other’s. A quantity of blood had run from his mouth and was still draining slowly in a trickle down the slope of the ledge.
“Paolo,” said Bart. Paolo paid no attention. Bart put his lips as close to the other’s ear as Chandt’s had been to his.
“Paolo, man,” said Bart softly. “Thank you. We owe you our lives. Paolo, thank you.”
For a moment Paolo’s eyes cleared—or perhaps it was only Bart’s imagination. But it seemed to Bart that for a moment those ‘ eyes focused on him. Paolo made a sound in his throat, as if he was trying to speak, but it only came forth as a hoarse and bubbling noise.
His eyes closed; and he stopped breathing.
Bart got to his feet, feeling very stiff and old, suddenly, as his muscles reacted to the strains he had put them to. He was sore all over. He turned to see Michel and the others grouped once more by the water’s edge and the moored boats, watching him.
Emma scooped up Chandt’s wallet.
“This will come in useful,” she said.
“We’d better go,” said Bart. His voice sounded strange in his own ears, and his skin seemed to be tingling with heightened sensitivity to the air about him. “What about gear—was there any here for us?”
“No,” answered Michel, His voice was also altered and strange. It was as if both he and Bart had in the last few minutes become different men.
“We’ll find some,” Bart said, “somewhere downstream. We’ll find the outer world and supplies, maybe one or the other first—but both, sooner or later.”
He pointed.
“Take that biggest canoe. It’ll hold us and everything we end up carrying with us. Michel, do you know how to use a paddle?”
“Yes,” said Michel.
“Then you get aboard first. Take the bow. Emma and Arthur, you take the middle. I’ll paddle at the rear and take care of the steering.”
“What do we sit on?” asked Arthur, hesitating at the edge of the canoe, which Michel had already pulled in parallel to the ledge. Wincing and stepping down into the very center of the frail-looking vessel, Arthur got in. Emma followed with much less ceremony and much better balance.
After they were all in, Bart cast off the mooring line and picked up a paddle. In the prow of the craft, Michel also had a paddle. He was obviously unskilled with it, but they added the impetus of their paddling to the slow movement of the stream, which proved to curve to the right, so that almost immediately the ledge, with its grotesque pattern of still bodies, was left behind.
After the lighting of the ledge it had seemed at first that they were moving into utter darkness. But after a moment, to Bart’s surprise, there was a snapping noise from off to the right, and a light mounted on the side of the tunnel came on. A brilliant swath of light from some device perched there lit up the tunnel before them.
The rock ceiling remained high. The air had a somewhat less damp smell now than it had had back in the tunnel. If it were not for the lights on the walls, Bart thought, it would have been possible to believe that they were not moving at all, but paddling a canoe that floated in place in an unvarying watery cavern. As they left the light on the wall behind, however, a new one snapped on before them, and that continued.
Eventually, the lights on the wall began to seem dimmer, and they became aware of illumination up ahead that was overpowering them. A little later, and it became clear that this new light was daylight; and in a moment after that the curving bed of the underground river turned them so that a speck of light at the left of the tunnel ahead of them grew rapidly into a rough half-moon of brilliance that was day.
A couple of minutes later the canoe glided out from under a moss and pine-studded rock face into the quiet expanse of a dark blue body of water perhaps half a mile across, with thick Canadian forest about its shores. To their left, the shore’s rocky face descended to a shoreline only four feet above the water line, and a few dozen yards beyond, it bulged out to hide further view of that part of the lake, almost touching a small island that seemed so close to the shore that at first glance it looked as if an active person could have jumped from one to the other. Actually, the two were about thirty feet apart, and the dark water filled the space between them.
chapter
twenty-five
“NOTHING IN SIGHT,” said Michel up front, resting his paddle across the bow of the canoe. “But there’s got to be something, otherwise they wouldn’t have sent people this way. So we go around the shoreline until we come to something. The only question is—which way? Want to flip a coin to decide?”
“No. Wait a minute,” said Bart. He had put his paddle in the water and with a single strong stroke, started the canoe turning in place upon the water, so that in the canoe they all faced back toward the shore that had been behind them. Bart’s eyes, more woods wise than those of the others, scanned the shore. He began to paddle toward the point where the shore was only a matter of a few feet above the level of the lake.
“Let me take a look around ashore, first,” he said.
The canoe reached the shore, and Bart grabbed the limb of an overhanging spruce and pulled himself up onto the land. He had brought the mooring rope with him and he tied the boat to the spruce.
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” he said.
He walked into the woods. It was strange to feel the springy yielding of earth, tree-needle carpeted earth, beneath him after all these months of hard rock or soft carpet; and to smell the scents of the Canadian northwoods forest. Plainly it was summer, here among the mountains; and for the first time he found himself wondering about the amount of time he had spent in the Inner World. In the mine he had kept track in his head of the time that had passed, as well as he could; but since awakening in the Inner World he had been too busy—had too much occupying his mind—to worry any longer about the time passing.
For the first time in a period too long to easily estimate now, he not only felt freedom—he smelled and tasted it. For a moment the thought even crossed his mind that all he had to do was keep going and he could be free of everyone, including those he had left in the canoe behind him.
But the thought was no sooner born than the memory of Emma blew it away like the white seeds of a dandelion in a young day’s first breeze. He began to work at what he had come up here to find out, evidence of some sort of passage on foot through these woods.
He found sign, the faint fragment of a long-unused trail now almost overgrown, the ashes and burnt wood-ends of an ancient fire. He continued past the fire, and the trail led him to the shore again—on the other side of the bulge of land that nearly touched the small island and had hidden the further shoreline from those in the canoe. He found an open space between the trees that grew thickly right to the water’s edge, and looked out across the lake and down along the shore.
He turned his head and called back over his shoulder.
“Can you hear me, back at the canoe?” he yelled.
A medley of voices answered him from the distance. Only one of them was clear. It was Emma’s, and she said, “Yes. We hear you, Bart!”
“This is the way! Paddle around between the island and the shore!” he called back.
He waited and they came, sliding smoothly on the still water as Michel pulled the canoe forward from his position in the bow.
As soon as he saw the canoe poke its nose around the curve of the shore, he turned his eyes back on what they, too, would now be seeing. About a hundred yards farther up the shore another river fed into the lake. But this was no quiet stream like the one by which they had arrive
d here; it was a surface river from high up, furious and foam-toothed, three to five feet deep with enormous boulders sticking their heads up out of the water that bobsledded down the slope of the mountainside.
Here, where he stood, the water was behind the back-eddy from that torrent, and its surface was as smooth as it had “been where they had emerged. Here, where there were no currents to toss craft around, a small wooden dock, attached to the shore and supported by two heavy log piles at its far end, gave mooring space to half a dozen canoes, some of them badly in need of repair before they might be put to any working use.
From the dock a trail, worn down to the bare rock and earth by boot and moccasin, led up the slope to a little hollow, where a log building too large to be a simple cabin hunched itself down in the shelter of mountainside and pine trees. Only the ever-present sprinkling of brown needles from the nearby trees kept the path from complete earth-nakedness.
He walked down to the dock and out on it to catch the bow rope Michel tossed him, and pulled the canoe in, tying it up. Together they all went up the path to the log building, opened its door, which was on the side facing the wild river, and let themselves in.
They stepped into an interior enclosed by the same logs that made the standing sides of the cabin. The floor was made of rounds of tree wood, chinked with clay. There was remarkably little space free for standing or sitting. What space there was stood opposite the door, against the far wall of the building, and contained a short counter behind which rose shelves loaded with a multitude of sacked and boxed foods. A round iron stove with stovepipe sticking straight up through the roof sat off to one end of the counter and was encircled by a few rough chairs—made of axe-split lumber from the look of them—around it. Some furs had been thrown over the chairs to cushion them.
Behind the counter was a tall, bald-headed man in perhaps his forties; and facing him from the other side were two men in the homemade leather and fur clothing of trappers. These all turned at the sound of the opening of the door.
“Just a minute,” said the bald-headed man behind the counter, in French. He winked broadly at the two trappers, making no attempt to hide the wink from the newcomers. “I’ll be back with you in only a moment.”
He came around the counter and approached Bart and the others.
“Well, neighbors!” he called out in English, in a hearty voice. “Didn’t expect to see you until next week. Come on in back, and make yourself comfortable!”
With his back to the two trappers, he frowned heavily at them, then turned and led them down an aisle between the piles of barrels, boxes, bales and other goods and through a wall made up of the same sort of materials into a room of about the same size as the clearing around the counter. This room, however, held another stove, a bunk against the one small area of wall that was left exposed. Some chests covered with furs made for more comfortable chairs.
“Take your ease, folks!” he boomed out again in English, in what seemed to be a voice pitched deliberately to be heard by the trappers in what passed for the other room. “I’ll be with you in a bit—not more than half an hour, say.”
He turned to leave.
“Say, wait just a minute!” said Arthur. “Don’t you know—”
“Shut up!” said Michel. He spoke softly, but some months of being a slave who did what any Hybrid told him to, had trained Arthur. He shut up.
They took chairs and waited. There was laughter and some talk, still in French, from the other room. Most of what was said was indistinguishable. Bart and the others waited in silence.
At last there was the sound of feet moving across the floor, of the door opening and closing; and a moment later, the bald-headed man had rejoined them, dangling from one hand a liquor bottle with a long green neck.
“Forgive me,” he said. “But I have to keep up my appearance as a trading post.”
He looked at Michel.
“I didn’t get a call saying anyone was coming,” he said in English. “Somebody must have been asleep at the switch. But—” He looked at Michel. “—you’re Michel Saberut, aren’t you?”
“That’s right,” said Michel, “and this is Cousin Bart Saberut, Vincent Saberut’s son—”
“Pleased to meet you, Cousin,” said the bald-headed man. “I’m Lehrer Green. Vincent passed through here more than thirty years ago. I was an apprentice in my second year on the job here, then. I never knew he had a son—beyond Michel, here.”
“Bart was born after Vincent left,” said Michel smoothly.
“Ah,” said Lehrer, accepting as unnecessary to be said Michel’s implication that Bart’s father had left behind him an impregnated concubine. The trader held up the bottle.
“I don’t know if you’re interested,” he said. “This is part of the special supplies we keep on hand for just such situations as you just ran into out there. Good brandy for the French, whiskey for the Scots and English—even a bottle or two of vodka for the occasional Russian. I hint I stole several bottles from the luggage of some company supervisors who were up here inspecting; and then sell it to them at a bargain price. They can’t wait to get out of here for fear they might have to share it with me. If either you or Bart would like a drink, Michel—”
He glanced at Emma and Arthur.
“I assume these two are slaves?”
“Oh, yes,” said Michel carelessly. He produced the original order given him by the Emperor. “But I don’t want them outfitted as servants—at least at first. And I’d appreciate your not talking too much about our coming through here, even to our own people. Our mission’s a little on the special and quiet side.”
“You don’t have to ask me!” said Lehrer. “Do you think anyone would hold this post as long as I have without having discretion? No one going through here is told about anyone else—with the exception of my mentioning your father, which I did only because you did, and your relationship to him. Plus the fact, I assume by this time he’s dead.”
“He is dead,” said Bart, a little shortly.
“At any rate, if either one of you want something to drink, I’ve got some fairly good wines, too, for my own use—”
“No, thanks,” said Michel. “Our business doesn’t leave us time to sit around.”
“Certainly, certainly,” said Lehrer, putting the bottle aside on the top of what looked like a flour barrel. “Now what do you need?”
“I’ll let Cousin Bart tell you that,” said Michel. “The first leg of our trip is going to be through the woods, bypassing civilization. We’ll need some cash—about ten thousand dollars in Canadian and the same in American currency, but perhaps fifty thousand in large denomination English pounds; and about the same amount of value in gems—small and easy to carry.”
“I’ll get busy right away,” said Lehrer, and went off.
There was a look of shock on Arthur’s face. Bart guessed that it had been the first time the other had realized what kind of wealth his masters commanded.
“Quick!” Michel was saying in a low voice. “Help me find it!” “What?” asked Bart and Arthur together. Emma ignored them. She had opened the smaller suitcase she had been carrying and begun rooting around in it. Now, pulling out something that looked like a map, she gave a small exclamation of satisfaction and shut it back up in the suitcase again.
“Lehrer’s call box from the Inner World—ah, here it is,” said Michel, uncovering a screen like the ones with which Bart was now familiar. “I could kick myself for not having thought of this while we were sitting around. I’m no engineer, but I ought to be able to put one of these out of action temporarily . . . there!”
He had opened the box and he came up with a small metal part, which he slipped into a trouser pocket.
“That’ll hold him from getting any word in about us, if they find what’s happened to Chandt and his Steeds. But this will make him suspicious if he tries to use the box soon; we want some kind of interruption in communication that won’t attract attention later. Bart, can you look aro
und outside this cabin—probably on the side leading back to the underground river we came down on. There’ll be a buried wire running from the cabin here to the Inner World, whether it goes back to the river and up the sides or bottom of it, or along the surface until it comes to a hole drilled down into some part of the Inner World. Find that and break it—make it seem like it broke by accident, or because some animal chewed on it or something—can you do that? Then I can put this piece back in with no danger.”
“Once I find it, yes,” said Bart. “I’ll go look now.”
He passed out through the way their host had gone, and waved to him as he passed. The other was busily moving boxes to get at something stacked behind them.
“I suppose you’ve got an outhouse out there somewhere in back?”
Lehrer straightened momentarily to point.
“Yes. Sorry,” he called. “But we couldn’t risk anything less primitive in a place like this. I did manage to put in a heating system if you know where the switch is to turn it on—but in the summertime like this, you won’t need it. Just go straight out back—you’ll find it behind that first screen of trees.”
Bart went out and turned right. This side of the building, he was happy to see, had no windows in it. He went slowly along the outside of the building and around a farther comer, examining the dirt at the foundation of the house. If there was a wire running out of there from the inside, Lehrer would want to get at it in case of breaks or other problems—not only in the summer, as now, but in the nine other months when the ground was frozen. That meant it would probably exit the house just at or just under ground level, but that there would be some mark on the building to help Lehrer locate its exit point. Farther out in the woods, the wire could be buried down below the likely digging range of animals; but here, the wire should be both accessible and marked.
The Earth Lords Page 36