Cam was taller and stronger. She was the woman who had had him brought into the cave, and she came every day to inspect his wounds. He would wake to find her staring into his face with sharp, steady eyes.
When the fever went down at last, and his wounds began to scab over, it was Cam who moved him out of his cocoon and set him to work by the brazier.
He knew what to do by then, because he had watched the others do it, working in pairs to feed the flames. Whenever he opened his eyes, there were two of them there, toiling away together. Once he recognized the men who had brought him in. The tall one lay on a high ledge, pushing logs into the fire, and every few seconds he called for another one. "Nate!"
That was the short man’s name. Nate.
Each time he was called, he pulled a log off the woodpile and carried it up the earthen ramp to the ledge. It happened over and over and over again. The fire needed to be stoked constantly, almost without a break.
Because they aren’t really logs. And small twigs burn through very fast.
When Cam decided it was Robert’s turn to help, she sent Nate and the tall man—Perdew—to haul him onto his feet. Leaning on their shoulders, Robert staggered down the cavern and crawled onto the ledge. And Cam sent someone else to bring the logs up the ramp.
Bando.
Bando had no trouble lifting logs. He was built like a tree himself, with muscular shoulders and arms like great, twisted branches. He could work all day long without getting tired.
But he had the floating, flitting attention of a moody child. Left to himself he sat on the ground beside the woodpile, playing aimlessly with a little collection of stones. Humming in a deep, hoarse voice, he laid them out and scooped them up, over and over again. The fire painted his heavy face with scarlet, and his shadow loomed bulky and threatening on the wall behind him.
Robert watched the light from the brazier and the shadows on the wall. Every few moments, as they grew duller, he called down to Bando.
"More wood."
To begin with, his call was answered cheerfully. Bando jumped up and heaved a log out of the woodpile, grinning as he waved it in the air. The cheerfulness didn’t fade even if Robert shook his head at the log.
"That’s much too big."
Bando’s grin just broadened as he snapped it carelessly. Like a little twig.
So was it a twig—or wasn’t it? What did you call a twig that was as thick as your whole body? Could something be a log when it burned to nothing in a few seconds? How could you talk about the world when all your words were wrong?
But after the first half-dozen times, Bando grew bored. When Robert called again, he didn’t jump up. He went on shuffling his stones.
"Bando!" Robert raised his voice. And then—because he was bored, too, and getting tired—he shouted as loudly as he could. "BANDO!"
That was a mistake. Bando was instantly furious. He leaped up and bellowed aggressively, "Do it yourself!"
Then he scooped his stones off the ground and lurched away into a corner.
Robert lay where he was, looking around for someone to come and help him. But all the others were busy, and no one took any notice. Not until the red glow from the fire started to fade. When that happened, Cam appeared below the ledge and yelled up at him.
"What are you doing? Get some more wood on that fire right away!"
"But I can’t—" Robert began to protest.
He could have saved his breath. Cam had already moved on to the next job and the fire was still fading. He glared at the brazier, hating it.
There were still a few fragments of label sticking to the can. Soot and scorching had made the words unreadable. Tomato Soup, maybe, or Baked Beans. Either way, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t a can anymore. It was a gigantic, glowing monster that needed feeding day and night.
He hated it—but he dared not let it go out. Without being told, he knew that was the worst sin he could commit. He had to get the wood himself.
The ledge was so close to the roof of the cavern that there was no room to stand up, even if he’d been able to manage it. He had to work his way painfully backward, levering himself along to the ramp with his arms and his good leg.
He slid down the ramp to the woodpile at the bottom. It took all his strength to lift even the smallest log and push it back up to the ledge. All the time he was terrified that he would fall and jar his wound. But there was no other way to do it.
And there was no chance to rest. When he reached the top, he could see that the fire was dangerously low. He heaved the log into the brazier and set out again immediately. And all the time, the thick scabs were pulling painfully at his leg and he was sweating in the heat that roared out from the metal walls of the brazier.
By the time he had fetched three logs, he was exhausted, and he was only just succeeding in keeping the fire alight. He lay on the ledge and lowered his head, just for a moment, to catch his breath. He didn’t know how he was going to make it down the ramp again.
"Hey!" called a voice from below.
He groaned and opened his eyes, expecting to see Cam glaring up at him, ready to bawl him out for being idle. But it wasn’t Cam. It was Nate. He was grinning and holding up a log.
"Hurry up," he said cheerfully. "Or the fire will go out."
Robert hurried. He grabbed the log and pushed it onto the brazier. Immediately another one appeared. Nate held it up to him—and winked.
"Don’t worry," he murmured. "I’ll fix Bando." He raised his voice. "We work well together, don’t we?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Robert saw Bando lift his head. Nate grinned and spoke even louder. "I reckon we make a good team."
Bando came charging out of his corner, with his fists up. "Get out, Nate! You do stoking with Perdew. I’m on this team!"
He shouldered Nate out of the way and grabbed the longest log in the pile.
"Here you are!" he bellowed, holding it up.
"That’s a bit too big," Robert said cautiously.
Bando grinned and bent down to snap the log. Over his back, Nate met Robert’s eyes and winked again. Then he waved a hand and turned away.
Robert waved back gratefully—but he’d gotten the message. Keeping the brazier alight was his responsibility, and staying on the right side of Bando was part of that—unless he wanted to stoke the fire himself. Next time Nate might not be there to help him out.
There were lots of next times. Cam had him stoking every day, for hours at a stretch. It was impossible to think while he was doing it, because he had to watch the fire incessantly. The concentration was exhausting, and the heat was almost unbearable. He knew Tina and Annet because they were the two who brought him water, in a snail shell, like a great, elaborate urn. They held it between them, lifting it up to the ledge so that he could drink and drink and drink.
Cam seemed to know, by instinct, exactly how much work he could bear. Just as he reached the point of screaming, when he was too exhausted to lift another log, she would appear and call up to him. Her nod meant that he could slide down the ramp and let someone else take over. He crawled straight to his sleeping place and sometimes he fell asleep even before Lorn had brought him food.
The moment he woke, Cam appeared beside him again, sending him back to work with a brisk jerk of her head. She had complete authority in the cavern, and he was too weak to think of disobeying. He worked and slept and worked again in a haze of tiredness.
Whenever he stopped, even for a second, his head exploded with questions.
What happened on the plane?
Was it something to do with the food? The air inside the cabin? The videos?
What was I talking about with Emma?
How can I be so different—and so near home?
There MUST be an answer . . . .
The thoughts were there all the time, boiling in his brain, but he never had a chance to make sense of any of them. He was always too tired to think properly—because Cam never gave him a break in the relentless sequence of work and
sleep and work again.
And when he tried to ask her about what had happened to him, she ignored his questions, staring through him as though he hadn’t spoken. The others were the same. As soon as he began to talk about his life before the cavern, they fell silent, turning their heads away and wandering off.
It was a long while before he realized that they were doing it to protect him.
AT FIRST HE HAD TO BE SUPPORTED BY TWO PEOPLE WHEREVER he went. The others took turns walking him down the cavern to the brazier, outside to the patch of ground they used as a toilet, and back to the corner where he slept. Those were the only places he saw. Walking between them, even with support, was so painful that it left him sweating and gasping for breath.
To begin with, half an hour’s work by the brazier was as much as he could manage. He was almost unconscious by the time they helped him down, and the effort of sliding off the ledge tore at the scabs on his leg. They broke open and healed and broke open again, four or five times. And once the wound on his arm turned red and hot, and they had to put the fire to it again.
At least, this time, he understood that they were saving his life.
As his strength came back, he learned which of them were hunters. Perdew, Ab, Nate. He watched them enviously as they crawled into the tunnel, carrying long spears tipped with fragments of tin. He was beginning to long for fresh air and light, and he dreamed about the world beyond the cavern.
But when the hunters came back, they brought strange food that sickened him to look at. Creatures with hard casings and too many legs. Soft, wriggling shapes and slimy things in shells. An animal with thick fur and a long nose.
Beetle. Grub. Snail. Shrew.
He fought against the names that came into his mind, turning his head away and closing his eyes. His dreams of the outside world turned sad and sour, and when the food was served up, he ate it quickly, trying not to know what it was.
HE WATCHED THEM ALL CONSTANTLY, UNDER HIS EYELIDS, trying to figure out what kind of group he was in. He counted twenty-three of them. No small children, no families, no frail, old people. They formed a single unit, and it was impossible to tell how old they were. They all had the same roughened, earth-stained skin. They all moved around the cavern in the same quick, crouching way.
Were they like him? Had they woken up and found the whole world different? He wanted to know but he was afraid to ask, in case they looked back at him with alien, uncomprehending eyes. So he lay in silence, bewildered by the continual shifting movement in the cavern.
Gradually, as the days passed, he began to understand what was going on. The people around him had different skills and different tasks, but they all worked very hard. Food was gathered and prepared every day, some to be eaten immediately and some to be dried and kept. Dew and rain were collected and stored in empty snail shells. Fibers and furs and seed floss were brought in and worked to make all kinds of coverings. And all the time, every day, there was the need to find wood, to feed the insatiable, essential fire.
When Robert could hobble down the cavern on his own, with a stick to lean on, Cam gave him more work to do. One morning she appeared beside him just as he was waking up. He looked across to the brazier, but she shook her head.
"Not today. It’s time you learned something else. You can go and help Lorn."
It was like being promoted out of hell into paradise. Lorn’s corner of the cavern was cool and airy, and she sat among heaps of the different fibers she had collected. Settling down beside her, Robert caught the soft, dry smell of them.
"Can you do this?" Lorn said. "Can you braid?"
Robert had a sudden, piercing memory of Emma twitching her hair out of his hands. That’s not braiding—it’s tangling!
"Not really," he said.
Lorn looked up and smiled. "This one is easy. Four strands, going around." She passed over the half-done braid she was holding and picked up some threads to begin another one. "Look."
Robert fumbled for a few moments and then caught the trick of it quite suddenly. His fingers fell into the right rhythm, and Lorn beamed at him.
"You see?" she said. "It’s beautiful. Keep doing it until you’re sure you’re going to remember, and then you can learn another one."
She was halfway through teaching him the eight-strand braid when Cam came past. She didn’t speak, but she paused for a second. Looking up, Robert saw her glance at him and then nod toward a dark pile in the corner. Lorn nodded back tranquilly and went on braiding.
"What was that about?" Robert said softly, as soon as Cam had gone.
Lorn smiled again. "You’re like Cam. You see everything."
"So what was going on?"
"She was telling me to make you a tunic to go over that fluffy stuff you wear. It’ll be twice as warm with leather over the top. Cam must think you’re nearly ready to go outside."
Robert reached out and felt a corner of the thin, dark leather. It was what they all wore, made into soft, pliable tunics with a hole for the head and a braided belt. He hadn’t realized that Lorn made those as well as the ropes.
Lorn made his tunic—but it was Cam who had given the order. He was beginning to understand that it was how things worked in the cavern. Cam kept track of the whole intricate, busy system of activity, watching the others to see what each one could do. And making sure it was done.
The more he saw, the more Robert understood that Cam was at the center of everything. The others worked hard, but she was the only one who knew the whole pattern. She braided their lives together into a rope that was stronger and more complex than anything Lorn had ever made. Bit by bit he started to grasp how it all came together.
The only one who didn’t fit was the man they called Zak.
As far as Robert could tell, Zak had no special job of his own. He was thin and wiry, but he didn’t seem to have any particular skills. He helped out with everything. Dess called on him to carry bundles of seedheads. Perdew got him to fill the shells with water. He took orders from Nate and Ab and even Annet. He looked like a general gofer.
And yet—Zak was a word full of respect. When he spoke, all the others stopped to listen. And sometimes Cam glanced his way before she gave an order, as if she were checking what he thought. There was a kind of stillness that surrounded him, as though the others were all waiting for him to do something or give some sign.
ROBERT HAD BEEN THERE SIX WEEKS BEFORE ZAK BROUGHT out the drum.
By that time, the feeling of waiting was very strong. Robert still didn’t understand it, but he could feel everyone growing tense and quarrelsome. Once he overheard Nate and Perdew murmuring to Zak.
"What’s all the delay?" Nate muttered. "Isn’t it time for drumming?"
Zak smiled and shook his head slightly.
"It has to be time," Perdew growled. "He’s still seeing things double. He needs to make the break—"
Zak put a finger to his lips. Nate looked around and saw Robert watching them. He touched Perdew’s arm lightly, and the words died away.
The drum appeared a week after that. Zak brought it out suddenly, with no warning.
It was a small drum, made of thin leather stretched over a wooden frame. One moment it wasn’t there, and the next it was lying in Zak’s lap. And everyone was staring at it.
They were all in the cavern, sitting in a great ring with the brazier at one end. There had been a lot of food that evening—strips of meat, and grain porridge, and a mash of berries. The brazier was glowing, the woodpile was high, and Ben and Tina had boiled the water and flavored it with some kind of herb. Robert felt drowsy and peaceful.
Sitting in a patch of light beside the brazier, Zak began to drum, stroking the leather drum skin with one hand and rippling his spread fingers over the surface. At first it was a dancing, irregular rhythm, but gradually the beats fell into a steady pattern, slow and insistent.
Then, above the drum beats, came the sound of his humming. His voice hovered and shifted for a second or two. Then it settled on a note t
hat resonated with the pitch of the drum. A long, continuous note.
Cam gave Bando a push. He stood up and lurched across the cave, with his eyes fixed on Zak’s drumming fingers. Robert was suddenly wide awake, not knowing what to expect.
There was a heap of leaves in one corner of the cave, piled up like sheets of plywood. Bando stepped out of the circle and squatted down beside them. Sliding his stretched arms under the leaves, he lifted the whole pile, balancing them precariously. The circle parted to let him back in, and he went to where Zak was sitting and laid the leaves down on the ground in front of him.
Zak closed his eyes and waited, still humming softly and running his fingers over the drum.
Bando bent down and picked up one of the leaves. It was like a huge, feathered banner, twice as tall as he was, with toothed leaflets growing in pairs down a central stem. Resting the stalk on the ground, he leaned the leaf gently toward Zak, until one of the leaflets touched his right cheek.
From where he was sitting, Robert could see the front surface of the leaf. The leaflets were bright green, covered with silky hair. Bando lowered the leaf, letting it slide gently over Zak’s face. The drumming accelerated abruptly and then slowed again.
"Turn it," Cam said, almost under her breath.
Bando turned the leaf, and it changed dramatically. The underside was a bald, matte gray. For an instant a memory flitted through Robert’s mind. He remembered a small plant growing close to the ground, with leaves no longer than his finger. A plant called . . . called . . .
The word slipped out of reach, obliterated by the reality of the leaf in front of him. The leaf that was so tall and heavy that Bando had to brace himself, leaning back to balance the weight as he moved it against Zak’s face.
Zak turned toward the leaf, still humming, still with his eyes closed. He touched it with his mouth, opening his lips and running his tongue along the serrated edge of one of the leaflets. Then he put up a hand and clutched at it, crumpling it in his fist and pulling it closer, so that he could sniff at it.
The Dark Ground Page 7