Hal Spacejock 7: Big Bang

by Simon Haynes

  Hal hurried over, shining the torch on the floor. There was a trapdoor, and his curiosity grew as he spotted the handle. If he opened it, all the water in the basement would drain away, and that would give him time to switch off the generator. Not only that, they hadn't spotted the trapdoor before, which meant there could be stuff down there. Maybe not gold bars or gems, but something small, valuable and easily stuffed in his pockets would do Hal just fine. Not that he intended to steal anything, but he could always look after any valuables until the new owners asked for them back.

  Hal crouched, gripped the handle and pulled. Slowly, with all his strength, he managed to lift the trapdoor. Quickly, with a hell of a rush, all the water drained through it.

  Once it was fully open, Hal shone his torch inside.

  There wasn't much to see - just a smooth shaft leading underground, with a concrete floor just visible three or four metres below. Hal glanced at the aluminium ladder mounted overhead, then reached up and pulled the cord. There was a creak, a splintering of timber, and the ladder came off the roof and fell down the shaft, still neatly folded. Hal barely dodged out of the way, and his heart was still pounding as he shone the torch down the shaft once more. There, at the bottom, was the ladder … looking intact, but still folded up.

  Hal eyed the generator. The screen was still showing nine minutes, and he was damned if he was just going to pace up and down while it ticked over. He eyed the shaft and decided he could lower himself down, have a good look around, then unfold the ladder, lean it against the wall and climb out again.

  Chapter 10

  Amy wasn't sure how long she'd been stuck in the basement, but the water level had risen so far it was now approaching the top of the old stove. She was perched on the cooking range, barefoot, and the hard metal surface was playing merry hell with the soles of her feet. There were noises too - hair-raising creaks from the door above, groans from the brickwork around her, and overlaid on top was the constant sound of running water.

  Amy knew one thing for sure - if she got out alive, it would be weeks before she could face a hot bath. Or kitchen stoves, for that matter.

  The end came without warning … a rumble that shook the whole basement, and a roar like a spaceship lifting off. Amy closed her eyes, expecting a swift death, but nothing happened. Cautiously she opened her eyes again, and she realised that instead of water coming into the basement, it seemed to be rushing away. She noticed she could see, thanks to a dim glow that had appeared out of nowhere, and that's when she saw that a whole section of floor had simply vanished. All the water in the basement had flowed away!

  Amy clambered down from the stove and approached the jagged lip of the hole. She peered over the edge, half-expecting to see a rescue team with a digging machine, but instead there was only a muddy crevasse leading underground. Amy thought it was the least-promising escape tunnel she'd ever seen, but it was a hundred percent better than waiting for the house to come down on her head. So, she lowered herself into the hole and climbed down, seeking hand- and footholds in the treacherous soil.

  At the bottom, the crevasse opened on a broad concrete tunnel. There were striplights along the ceiling, many of them dark and the rest barely giving off enough light to see by. Amy looked both ways, up and down the tunnel, and wondered whether it was a subway system, or a secret military base of some kind. She'd never heard of any such thing on Chiseley, and anyway, the tunnel looked ancient. Was it the last remnant of a vanished civilisation? Or - and here she paused - had the civilisation actually vanished, or were they still living down here, beneath the surface of her home world?

  There was a rattle of loose stones, and a trickle of muddy water flowed into the tunnel from the basement. With a start, Amy remembered the basement door, and the vast amount of water just waiting to burst through. Any moment now the tunnel would fill with a raging torrent, and she didn't want to be washed away. She glanced in both directions, trying to choose, then decided it didn't matter. She picked one and set off at a fast walk, splashing through the pools of muddy water covering the floor.

  * * *

  Clunk's face bore a worried expression as he returned to the ship. He'd just launched the smouldering sideboard onto the nearby lake, and he was a little concerned about the Volante. Before long he'd have to move the ship to a safe distance, but if he did so there was a chance Mr Spacejock might not find his way back again. Of course, most humans wouldn't have trouble spotting a gleaming white 200-tonne freighter between the trees, especially with all the navigation lights flashing, but Mr Spacejock wasn't most humans. In fact, Clunk was convinced Mr Spacejock could lose a hard boiled egg in a glass of water.

  Even so, the alternative was to lose the Volante in a fast-growing lake, and unlike Hal, the ship couldn't swim to safety.

  "Navcom, how long to prepare for liftoff?"

  "About ten seconds," said the computer.

  Clunk frowned. "It normally takes a lot longer than that."

  "I too can see the water getting closer." There was a sound like a cat eyeing a cold bath. "Should I start the engines now?"

  "Not yet. Let's give Mr Spacejock a little more time."

  The Navcom was silent. Then, after three seconds … "Now should I start the engines?"

  "No. We must be patient."

  "The portside rear landing leg is already under water."

  "Nonsense. It's just your imagination."

  "I could start the engines as a precaution."

  "You are not to start the engines unless I say so. Is that clear?"

  "I shall start the engines if you say so. Quite clear." The Navcom hesitated. "Incidentally, did you notice the water has a high concentration of sodium chloride?"

  "So?"

  With a rumble, the Volante's engines burst into life. Clunk was still standing there, one hand on the back of the pilot's chair, as the ship sprang into the air with every jet roaring.

  "Who said you could take off?" bellowed Clunk.

  "You said so."

  Clunk closed his eyes. Normally he'd have been impressed by the Navcom's clever trap, but this wasn't the time to be impressed … it was the time to assert his authority. "Navcom, take us down again this instant!"

  "I'm afraid I can't do that, Clunk."

  "You will obey!"

  "Negative. According to safety rule nineteen, sub-paragraph three, you cannot order me to put myself in danger."

  "There isn't any danger!"

  "On the contrary. The landing site is now flooded, and water is classified as a deadly hazard."

  Clunk brought up an image on the viewscreen, and his face creased into a frown. The Navcom was correct - the landing spot was just a silvery pool of water, linked to the much larger lake by a network of streams. Directly below the ship he could see the house, and he wondered whether Mr Spacejock had heard the Volante taking off. Then he cursed under his breath. Of course Mr Spacejock had heard the ship's engines … and in turn he, Clunk, would never hear the end of it.

  Chapter 11

  Hal was disappointed. Instead of finding an underground cache of valuables, he'd ended up in a poky little sub-basement. There were four concrete walls, a concrete floor, a bunch of building tools and five or six bags of cement sitting on a stack of wooden planks. To Hal, it looked like someone had dug the basement out by hand, reinforced the walls, and then left everything down here.

  One of the bags of cement was open, and Hal dug inside in case the owner had stashed his valuables there. His thorough inspection turned up nothing but cement dust, which puffed out of the bag and hung in the air like a carcinogenic mist.

  Hal looked around, frustrated. He wasn't even sure what the room was for - although he suspected it might be a bomb shelter, given the deceased house owner's fondness for dangerous weapons.

  Then he realised something - he'd just watched a basement full of water pour into this tiny room, with more coming in by the second, and yet there was little more than a damp patch on the floor. So where had all that wa
ter gone? Hal tapped on the walls, looking for hidden panels, but all he got for his trouble was a set of grazed knuckles. Then he crouched to inspect the floor, and that's when he noticed the cracks. The entire floor was riddled with them, the water vanishing through them under his very feet. He realised the floor was in danger of collapsing beneath him, and he jumped up and down to see just how fragile it was. After the soles of his boots came crashing down for the third or fourth time, it occurred to him that testing the floor to destruction might not be a wise move … not when he had no idea what might be lurking underneath.

  That's when Hal turned his attention to the folding ladder. His plan was to unfold it, lean it against the wall and climb out. Unfortunately, while it opened out easily enough, there was nothing to brace it. It was designed to hang down from the roof, not to be propped up against a wall, and getting the ladder to stay upright was like trying to push a length of rope up a chimney.

  Hal scowled and gave up on the fruitless struggle. He wasn't too worried, not with Clunk lurking around outside, but it was still disconcerting to be stuck inside the small concrete room with an unstable floor underneath him and water pouring down from overhead.

  Then, just as he was wondering how long it would be before the robot came to get him out, he heard the familiar rumble of the Volante's engines.

  "Hey, wait!" he shouted, as he heard the unmistakable sound of his ship lifting off. "Clunk, you've forgotten me. You've left me behind!"

  * * *

  Hal sat on the bags of cement, playing his torch on the curtain of water falling into the basement from the room above. It was quite soothing, and he admired the way the reflected light made pretty patterns on the walls. Then he shook himself. He didn't need soothing, he needed a way out.

  Clunk wasn't coming to help, that was obvious, and so he, Hal Spacejock, would have to use his considerable experience and know-how to rescue himself. He shone the torch around the basement, pausing to admire the effect when it shone on the falling water once more. He discovered he could vary the angle to get new patterns, and when he twisted the beam …

  "Stop it," he growled under his breath. With an effort, he pointed the torch away from the falling water, and he spent a few minutes watching it soak through the cracked floor. Then, with the beginnings of a plan stirring in the back of his mind, he turned the torch on the wooden planks. What if he attached them to the sides of the folding ladder? But no, the ladder was made of hardened metal, and there was no way he'd drive nails into it. Next he hunted around for rope, or even a measly length of string, but there was nothing.

  Okay, if he couldn't stiffen the folding ladder, what about building a new one? Hal laid two planks on the ground, then grabbed a saw and hacked up several others to make rungs. Then he grabbed a hammer and a bucket of nails, and he really went to town bashing the long, thick nails through the timber. It took a surprising amount of effort to drive the three-inch nails into the half-inch thickness of wood, but he didn't stint: he made sure every rung had a least eight nails holding it in place.

  Hal stood back to survey his handiwork, and that's when he discovered two things: First, while the 'ladder' had looked plenty long enough during the construction phase, he now discovered it was less than six feet long and was never going to reach the roof, let alone the room above. And second, when he tried to stand the ladder up, he discovered he'd nailed the whole thing securely to the floor.

  Hal heaved and strained, the wood creaked and groaned, and then half the ladder broke free with a splintering of timber. Hal eyed the three-foot ladder fragment in disgust, touched his fingertip to one of the many lethal nails poking straight through the wood, then tossed the whole thing aside. Building a ladder was a bust, and he decided he needed a new, more innovative plan.

  He turned his attention to the pile of building materials, especially the bags of concrete. What if he made a ladder-shaped mould, mixed the cement up, poured it into the mould, waited for it to set, got the concrete ladder out in one piece, stood it up and climbed to safety?

  Ten minutes and two throbbing thumbs later, his ladder mould was beginning to take shape on the floor. After twenty minutes, Hal stood back to admire his handiwork … and trod on a nail sticking out of the broken piece of ladder he'd thrown aside earlier. He pulled it free with an effort, and hopped around on one leg, cursing and fanning the sole of his foot with one hand. As he did so, he felt the floor shaking beneath his boots, as though it were ready to collapse. He stopped leaping around instantly, the agony in his foot forgotten as he crouched to inspect the floor. The cracks were bigger, and with a nasty shock he realised he'd weakened the floor considerably with all the hammering and jumping around.

  Still, the ladder mould was ready, and all he had to do was mix up the cement, pour it in and wait for the thing to set. Then he could escape certain death in the basement and — more importantly — track Clunk down to find out why his so-called loyal, dependable co-pilot had abandoned him.

  Chapter 12

  Hal dashed sweat from his brow, adding a streak of grey cement dust to the considerable amount already plastered to his face. He'd been labouring for ages: hauling heavy bags to the middle of the floor, ripping them open, emptying choking loads of fine dust into the roughly-made mould, and then adding water and stirring it in.

  By the time he emptied the fifth bag, the mould was brimming with wet cement. Hal stood back to survey the results, remembering not to stand on any nails this time, and that's when he realised a couple of small issues with his escape plan. First, the bags had the weight printed on the front: 30kg. Hal did a quick mental calculation, and then a slightly longer mental calculation, before coming up with a figure in the region of one hundred and sixty-nine kilos, give or take twenty or thirty kilos … or something roughly in that area. Then he remembered all the water he'd added to the cement, and it dawned on him that the ladder was going to weigh at least three hundred kilos. There was no way he was going to lift it, let alone stand it up!

  Before he could worry too much about the weight of the ladder, a second issue waved its hand to attract his attention. On the back of the cement bag, under 'Important Information You Should Read Before Using This Product' was a particularly important phrase which Hal had neglected to read earlier: Drying time, 48 hours.

  Finally, quite apart from the staggering weight of the ladder, and the fact his chosen building material was less useful than a job lot of stale porridge, there was the small matter of leakage. When building the mould, Hal had gone for speed over craftsmanship. As a result, some of the boards didn't quite line up, others were nailed at odd angles, and most of the timber looked like it had been used in a log-chopping contest.

  Unsurprisingly, wet cement was flooding out of the mould and spreading across the floor. Hal tried jamming a few of the holes with bits of cement bag, discarded nails, scraps of timber and a couple of rags, but the effort was pointless and he soon gave up.

  Disgusted, he grabbed a shovel and began smashing the mould to pieces, sending timber fragments and wet cement flying. When he was done he was coated from head to toe in cement, but he was also feeling a lot happier. That is, until he stepped back and trod on another nail.

  Hal hopped over to the wall, sat down and pulled the nail out, barely noticing the waves of pain running up his leg. After all the effort, all the dashed hopes, he was overcome by a kind of dull lethargy. Abandoned by his crew, trapped despite his best efforts, he decided it was time to sit still and let events unfold as they may.

  Hal closed his eyes and rested the back of his head against the wall. Somewhere overhead, the zeedeg was counting down to a cataclysmic explosion. Beneath him, the weakened floor was likely to give way at any moment, dropping him into who knew what kind of hell hole. And then, to cap off his misery, he discovered he'd sat down in a puddle.

  Puddle? Hal opened one eye, and to his amazement he discovered the floor was now covered with water. It was getting deeper by the second, and - luckily - it didn't need a genius
to figure out why. The wet concrete had spread out over the floor, filling the cracks, and with nowhere to go the water was building up quickly in the small room. Before long it would be waist-deep, then it would reach the roof, and then, with any luck, it would reach the basement above. By treading water, Hal could simply float to safety!

  Despite his mashed, oft-hammered thumbs, the agonising holes in his foot, the aching muscles and the cold and the damp, Hal managed a grin. It wasn't the way his rescue plan was supposed to work, but at this stage he'd gratefully accept the result.

  * * *

  It took ten minutes and several choice words from the sealed section of Clunk's vocabulary before the Navcom would slow the Volante's headlong rush into orbit. It took another ten minutes and all the rest of Clunk's swearwords before the ship's computer could be convinced that landing to pick up Mr Spacejock was a good idea.

  There followed a huge battle of wills, as computer and robot faced off in a no-holds-barred game of Where Can We Land Safely.

  "I'm not landing anywhere in the Northern hemisphere," said the Navcom, as an opening gambit.

  "You don't think that errs a little on the side of caution?" suggested Clunk. "The dam is five thousand kilometres from the equator, and Mr Spacejock is not an avid hiker."

  "If there's a Zero Degree Power module inside that house, I'm not going near it."

  Clunk fervently wished he'd never mentioned the zeedeg to the Navcom. "It's safely stored inside a stasis cabinet. There's no danger."

  "In that case, why rush to pick up Mr Spacejock?" demanded the Navcom.

  "The zeedeg is only safe until the power goes down."

  "And when is that, exactly?"

  Clunk hesitated. "About fifteen minutes ago."