The Dark Ground

by Gillian Cross

  At the mouth of the tunnel, he stopped to listen again, crouching to peer into the darkness ahead of him. It was still and quiet. The only sound he could hear was the noise of his own breathing. Leaning forward tensely, ready to run away at any moment, he threw a fifth stone into the opening, flinging it as hard as he could.

  He heard a clink as it hit one of the other stones. Then—nothing.

  Moving infinitely slowly, he put a hand right into the burrow. It touched fur. But the fur wasn’t firm and solid. It gave way under his hand, as though there was nothing behind it to give it shape.

  Still moving very slowly, he curled his fingers, closing them around a handful of fur and skin. And then—slowly, slowly—he pulled. And pulled again.

  It came out easily. It was fur all right, so thick that he could bury his fingers in it. But he couldn’t make out its color in the dark, and he had no idea what sort of creatures would live in that strange forest. Grizzly bears? Wolves? Jaguars?

  His hands moved across the fur, hauling it right out of the tunnel. It seemed to be a single, flat piece, with a ridge running across the center of it, like a rough seam. Someone had sewn two separate skins together to make a fur blanket.

  Some person had sewn them together.

  And someone had pushed the blanket into his burrow while he was out looking for food.

  He knelt with the fur in his hands, listening to the night. Beyond the circle of trees, he could hear rustles and scrapes. There was a strange, deep roar, like the noise of a far-off waterfall. And there were odder sounds, too, noises that he couldn’t interpret. But none of the noises sounded human.

  He thought about shouting, to attract the attention of whoever it was who had left the fur blanket. Hello? Are you there? Can anyone hear me? HELLO?

  But he didn’t shout.

  Instead, he felt around in the burrow, gathering up all the stones he had thrown. Then he wrapped himself in the blanket, with the fur next to his skin, and backed into the tunnel. When he was settled, he piled the stones in a little heap in front of him, where he could reach them easily. He didn’t sleep. He lay with his head propped on one hand, looking up the dark ramp. Keeping watch.

  5

  CAM NOTICED RIGHT AWAY THAT THE BAT FUR HAD GONE. It was her job to notice things. The first ripening of the hedge fruit. Which stores were running low in the cavern. The best places to pick up wood. Where the ropes needed mending.

  There were dozens of things that had to be noticed, every day, just to keep life going. The others all worked hard, but it was Cam who knew what had to be done. Wherever she went she took in scents and sights and sounds and the changing feel of the air. And she knew every inch of the cavern and what happened inside it.

  That was why she spotted the missing bat fur so quickly.

  Lorn had rearranged the other furs, fluffing them up to make the pile look as tall as ever. It was a good try, but not good enough. Cam noticed the difference the moment she glanced into the corner. She didn’t say anything, though. Not then.

  She waited until the evening, when they were all together, after the food. She waited until Zak was about to begin a story, when everyone’s attention was focused in the same place. Then, as Zak reached for his drum, she held up her hand to stop him.

  Standing up she walked over to the pile in the corner and round her own furs. Without any explanation she came back to her place in the circle and spread them on the ground in front of her. Both of them. Then she nodded to indicate that everyone else should do the same.

  They went in turn, fetching the furs and laying them down. Lorn waited until everyone else had moved. Then she stood up slowly and walked across to the corner, where the last fur lay tumbled on the ground. Picking it up, she brought it back to her place in the circle. She didn’t sit down. She stood with the fur hanging from her hands in a single sheet.

  "Do you want to speak?" said Cam.

  Lorn hung her head. "It was the cold," she muttered. "He was very cold."

  Cam knew already where the fur had gone. She had guessed it from the first moment. Now she felt the shock of that knowledge go around the cavern as the others took it in. Her eyes flicked from one face to another, assessing their reaction. Working out the best way to deal with it.

  Perdew and Ab were visibly angry. They had braved the bat tree to collect the last two furs, and they knew the value of the blankets better than anyone else. For some of the others—like Shang and Tina—the broken rule was the most significant thing, because that threatened their security. And some people—like Nate—had gone very quiet, waiting to see what happened.

  Only Bando was unaware of what was going on. He sat playing with a corner of the nearest fur, rubbing his hand backward and forward over the thick, soft surface, as though the whole business had nothing to do with him.

  Cam’s eyes traveled around the cavern until they reached Zak, who was sitting beside her. He met her eyes, but he didn’t react at all. There was no sign to guide her. She had to make this decision on her own.

  She made it quickly. Leaving her furs where they were, she stood up and walked slowly across the circle toward Lorn, aiming straight at her. At the very last moment—exaggerating the gesture so that everyone could see it—she averted her eyes and walked past, so close that she brushed Lorn’s shoulder.

  One by one the others followed her, walking by in silence, as though Lorn didn’t exist. Annet turned her head away, almost in tears, and Nate touched Lorn’s hand quickly as he passed, but no one met her eyes. No one spoke. Led by Cam they all made a new circle, farther from the brazier.

  Last of all, Zak stood up and took Bando’s hand, leading him after the others into the new circle. Bando shuffled past Lorn, muttering wretchedly and turning his head away so hard that the cords stood out on his neck. He and Zak sat down in the last two places, and Zak looked around the circle afresh, catching everyone’s attention for the story.

  Only Cam looked beyond the circle, toward the red glare of the brazier.

  Lorn stood for a moment, waiting for Zak to speak. When he started she knelt down and began to move the furs back into a pile, folding them neatly with her quick, deft hands.

  6

  FOR TWO DAYS, ROBERT HARDLY LEFT THE CIRCLE OF TREES.

  He knew that he ought to explore the whole area. That he should be looking for the wreckage of the plane and hunting for other survivors. But the plane seemed remote and unreal next to the physical warmth of the fur blanket. He couldn’t bear the idea of missing another visit from the person who had left that.

  So he stayed close to the burrow, trying to find enough food and water to survive.

  Water was easy. The strange heavy dew of the first night appeared again on the second evening. And the third. When the sun had gone and the ground around him started to cool, the great, swelling drops of water formed around him, on every leaf edge. He had no way to store it, so he spent large parts of the night drinking, crawling carefully around in the darkness from one leaf clump to another.

  Food was more difficult. He had no idea about what was good to eat and what might be poisonous. On the first day after digging the burrow, he had nothing except seeds from the silk tree. He felt safe with those, because he’d eaten them on the first night, when he was dazed and reckless. They hadn’t done him any harm, but they weren’t enough on their own. The seeds were dry and tough, and their husks caught in his throat if he didn’t peel them carefully.

  On the second day, he realized that there were big seeds inside some of the bamboo clumps. A lot of them were moldy, rotting under heaps of wet leaves, but he picked out the good ones and carried them back to his burrow.

  They were bigger than the silk seeds and harder. He couldn’t crack the husks with his hands or his teeth, but he found a way of smashing them open with stones. The chewing took a long time, and he had to give up before he had eaten them all, because they were so dry. In the end he prepared a heap and kept them until nightfall, when he had water to drink with them.<
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  He ate all he could and then crawled into the burrow to sleep, reminding himself of how lucky he was. He had food and water. He had a dry fleece and a fur blanket. He had survived another day.

  But he knew it wasn’t good enough. He was only just getting by. The seeds were starting to give him a stomachache, and he couldn’t live on them forever.

  I have to find some other people. And other kinds of food. I have to get out of here.

  Tomorrow.

  Tomorrow . . .

  THE NEXT DAY, HE SAW SOMETHING MOVING.

  It was just starting to get light, and he was sitting on the ground outside the burrow, deciding which way to go to hunt for food. Glancing between the bamboo clumps, he saw a movement in the distance, on the far side of the pale wood.

  He jumped up and started forward, peering through the trees. A strange, ungainly shape lumbered across the space between two distant bamboo clumps, moving slowly and steadily. His heart thudded and he stood up abruptly.

  It wasn’t a big animal. It looked the size of a large dog, but there was nothing doglike about it. It had a coat of armor. The whole of its back was covered with gray plates. They rippled slightly as it clambered over the crawling bamboo stems.

  Armadillo, said Robert’s brain. He closed his eyes for a second, feeling sick.

  When he opened them again, the armadillo had disappeared behind the next clump.

  He began to run toward the place where he’d seen it, stumbling and staggering. It was impossible to go fast. His fleece got snagged on the bamboo leaves, and he kept tripping and falling. It took him several minutes to reach the far side of the trees, and when he got there, he could see no sign of the armadillo.

  He poked about, peering into one clump after another, but he didn’t find anything. He’d been too slow. There were no footprints, no droppings—nothing.

  You imagined it, said his brain.

  But he knew he hadn’t. He was in a forest full of strange creatures living their own lives. Creatures with thick, warm fur. Creatures with armor plating. Creatures that made shrill, piercing noises in the night.

  And he ought to be hunting them.

  The cold thought slipped into his brain like a slug slithering over a leaf. I should have caught the armadillo. I should have filled it.

  Instantly he was revolted. Filled with a terrible, longing ache for home. He didn’t want to turn into some kind of macho, survivalist hunter. He wanted food that came on a plate and drink that was there whenever he felt thirsty. He wanted a world that was made to fit him, where everything wasn’t a gigantic, exhausting effort.

  He wanted pepperoni pizza and french fries.

  Ice cream and sausages and microwave meals.

  Cans of cold Coke.

  Even the ordinary, dripping tap in the kitchen seemed like a wonderful, wild dream. Here’s a glass. . . . Put the kettle on for tea, will you? . . . Wash your hands before you slice the bread . . . . I really must change that washer . . . .

  Water torture.

  He dragged himself back to the burrow, collecting as many seeds as he could on the way. The thought of eating them nearly choked him, but he couldn’t afford to be choosy. He had to eat and drink what he could get.

  Sunlight was beginning to filter down through the branches of the pale trees, but he didn’t stay to take advantage of it. He carried the seeds down into his burrow, wrapping them close to his body, inside the fur blanket. Then he closed his eyes.

  For the first time, he slept not because he was tired, but because he didn’t want to think.

  WHEN HE WOKE UP AGAIN, IT WAS EVENING. AND THERE WAS a large, round shape at the top of the entrance ramp, blocking out the light.

  He waited for a moment, holding his breath and listening. The air was full of mysterious sounds, but they all felt distant, unconnected with the round, dark shape above him. That looked inanimate and unthreatening. Almost reassuring. He stared at it for a moment and then slid out of the blanket and went to investigate.

  It was huge—like a beach ball—and its surface was a dull, deep red, with a soft sheen where it caught the evening light. One side was slightly shrunken, as if it had started to dry out, and the top was crowned with a circle of dry, brown fragments sticking up jaggedly.

  Was it a fruit? Was it edible?

  Scrambling up the ramp, Robert squatted down next to it and prodded it cautiously. It seemed to be covered with a tough skin, so thick that his finger hardly made a dent. Could it be some kind of giant pumpkin?

  His body didn’t wait for him to figure out the answer. While he was still thinking, his hands started moving over the ground, hunting for something to help them break through that tough skin. The first stone he found was round and blunt, but the second had a sharp edge. In seconds he was pounding at the top of the thing, putting all his weight behind the stone. The skin was strong and leathery, but it didn’t take long to puncture it.

  As soon as there was a hole, he seized one edge of it and pulled, tugging it taut with one hand and bashing at the stretched skin with the other. A big piece of skin came away in a jagged flap. Pushing his fingers into the flesh underneath, he scooped out a handful and looked at it.

  It felt starchy and rather dry—nothing like melon flesh. When he sniffed it, there was no strong smell. Tentatively he lifted his hand to his mouth and ate a piece. It tasted bland and faintly sweet. Not delicious, but sustaining and easy to eat. He finished the rest of that handful and plunged his fingers back into the skin, scooping again.

  It was an incredible relief to eat something different from the hard, tough seeds. He scooped and ate and scooped and ate, on and on and on. There was a big stone in the center of the fruit and he worked his way around it, tearing at the skin as he went.

  He didn’t stop until he had eaten half the fruit. By that time his stomach was uncomfortably full. He lifted his head to see whether there was any dew yet on the clumps beyond the trees.

  And he saw a figure duck down quickly, dodging out of sight.

  It wasn’t an animal this time. It looked like—

  He flung himself forward, yelling the first words that came into his head. "Stop! Don’t go! You can’t go—"

  Something brown and agile—something that might, just might, have been a human figure—took off running, darting and ducking between the mounds of bamboo, so that he lost track of it almost immediately.

  "Stop!" he shouted again.

  He started to run, but before he was out of the circle of trees, the figure had vanished completely.

  7

  HE THOUGHT ALL NIGHT ABOUT THAT SHADOWY, DARTING figure.

  The fur had kept him warm and the starchy fruit had fed him, but he wanted more than occasional gifts from an invisible friend. He wanted to see another human face. He wanted to ask questions and exchange help and share protection.

  He wanted to make contact with people.

  That came first, before everything else. If his elusive benefactor wouldn’t stay to meet him, he had to make sure he was ready for the next visit.

  He laid his plans carefully, thinking out what he was going to do and then preparing for it. The first thing he needed was a stock of food, so that he could go for two or three days without any distractions. He spent the whole next day amassing that.

  He worked his way systematically across the pale wood, gathering all the bamboo seeds that weren’t moldy. He stripped the rest of the flesh from the beach-ball fruit and draped the strips on loops of creeper, to dry. Then he climbed the spiraling creeper to collect more fibers from the silk trees, and spent hours picking out the seeds.

  In the evening—in case anyone was watching—he made a great show of breaking and eating the seeds he had collected, grinding them between his two stones. But he ate very little. Most of the food was stored inside his burrow, wrapped in the fur blanket.

  The next day, he smuggled the food out, handful by handful. He went backward and forward through the pale wood, pretending to look for more supplies. As h
e went, he trickled handfuls of broken seeds into one of the bamboo clumps. By sunset he had enough for two days stored inside his chosen hiding place.

  He was ready to watch.

  HE WENT TO BED AS USUAL, WRAPPING HIMSELF IN THE FUR and sliding backward into his burrow. But he didn’t sleep. He waited for the early darkness, before the moon rose.

  His fleece and his body were both stained and dirty by now, and he hoped that would camouflage him as he slid out of the mouth of the tunnel. He arranged the fur blanket behind him, rolling it loosely to give the impression that he was still there. Then he crept up the ramp, moving slowly and keeping close to the ground. Inch by inch he worked his way over the bamboo stems, on his hands and knees, until he reached the clump where he meant to hide.

  It was just outside the circle of trees. He wriggled his way in quietly, parting the bamboo and crawling between the stems. In the center, the leaves were soft and damp, and he squirmed around and around, making a space to settle. Peering between the outside leaves, he separated them slightly in two or three places, to make narrow peepholes.

  There was no chance of a long view—he was closed in by other clumps all around—but he could see the entrance to his burrow. No one could approach that without being noticed. Crossing his legs he settled back against the bamboo stems, watching.

  THE NIGHT PASSED VERY SLOWLY, FULL OF MYSTERIOUS NOISES.

  There were roars and creaks and deep, harsh sounds that seemed to come at him through the ground. At first he turned his head about, trying to identify each one, but that made the leaves rustle, so he forced himself to keep still, patiently watching the burrow.

  By morning he was stiff and cold. He stretched his arms and legs as much as he could, and ate a little of the crushed seed meal. In spite of all his determination to stay awake, he found himself dozing fitfully, starting back to consciousness whenever a sound disturbed him.

  Nobody came. The day wore on, slowly, slowly, until he was ready to scream with boredom and frustration. But he made himself stay where he was. He had planned to watch for two days, and he wasn’t going to give up.