Sunchild

by James Axler

  J.B. acknowledged Doc's point. "Okay, but where do we look?"

  "There's as good a place as any," Krysty said, pointing to a poster.

  Ryan didn't question her instinct. He simply tore down the poster, which crumbled at his touch, to reveal a small wall safe hidden behind. Set into the wall, it had a simple tumbler lock.

  "Better be something here—can't keep wasting this," J.B. grumbled as he repeated his previous procedure with an even smaller blob of plas-ex.

  The explosion sounded louder in the enclosed space as they retreated to outside the door. When the plaster dust had settled, Ryan could see that the door of the safe was hanging loosely from its hinges, and that the plaster surrounding had powdered in the blast. Advancing to the safe, Ryan used the long barrel of the Steyr to maneuver the door open, mindful of any booby traps that may not have been knocked out by the initial blast.

  The door creaked and fell off the hinge. Peering inside, Ryan could see nothing but a small, spiral-bound notebook. Taking it out gingerly, he could feel that the pages weren't of paper, but rather of some kind of plastic that was as thin as paper.

  He put the book on the desk and opened it. The pages were typed, which made it easier to read.

  "What does it say, lover?" Krysty asked, peering over his shoulder.

  "Makes no sense to me," Ryan said simply, shaking his head. "I can see the words, but what they're supposed to mean…"

  "Let me see." Mildred took the book from him and began to read.

  Obviously, it made some kind of sense to her, as she began to flick through the pages, referring back and forth, and nodding to herself from time to time.

  "Fireblast!" Ryan exclaimed after a few minutes, the tension getting to him. "Are you just going to stand there until we all get old and die, or are you going to tell us what it says?"

  Mildred gave Ryan a withering look. "The psycho who wrote this was clever, but mad. It kind of makes sense, but I need to read it through to get the gist. So lay off for a minute, eh?"

  Ryan grinned in apology. Mildred grinned back and returned to the text.

  Finally, she put the book down.

  "Oh, boy, you're going to love this," she began. "These guys had nothing to do directly with the U.S. military, which means that this redoubt isn't, strictly speaking, the same as the others we've come across. But—and this is a big but—they were part of a secret order that was partly funded by some black operations within the U.S. government."

  "Who gives shit now?" Jak interrupted.

  "Yeah, that bit may all be ancient history, but it does explain why this is different from other redoubts. It was built using official plans and official money that had been siphoned off from official budgets. Strange, really, but I used to kind of think back in the old days that people who talked about that sort of thing happening were all nuts. Guess I was wrong and they were right, for all the good it did them."

  "Nice story, but still no nearer to telling me why it's so important now," J.B. mused.

  "Ah, I think I may have an idea," Doc interrupted. "Would I be right in assuming that some of that old whitecoat paranoia was therefore justified, and that the men behind this redoubt—and doubtless others like it—were more powerful than even their paymasters would suppose? After all, those laser rifles…"

  He paused, waiting for the import of this to sink in. J.B. gestured. "Okay, go on, Millie."

  "Why, thank you, John," the doctor answered with a sardonic edge to her voice. "According to this journal, this order, the Illuminated Ones, was in possession of knowledge that foretold the end of the world, and were hoodwinking the U.S. government. All the while they were supposed to be developing new tech and providing an extra bolt-hole for some government higher-ups, they were working on their main plan, which was to find the secret world at the center of the earth."

  "Crazies," Jak spit, turning away.

  Doc allowed himself a chuckle. "Of course, it does all fit, does it not, my dear Dr. Wyeth? Even when I was a young man, there were secret societies devoted to the accumulation of arcane knowledge, power and wealth, led by men who believed themselves better, and somehow 'illuminated' by secret truths. And men talked about secret entrances to hidden worlds at the center of the earth, and of gateways to enormous knowledge and wealth that lay to the north—"

  "Like Trader's stories and legends?" Ryan asked. "Could that be all they were?"

  "Stupes like him could make it so by going there, Dad," Dean answered, gesturing to the plaster-dusted skeleton on the carpet.

  "It's a fair point, lover," Krysty added.

  Ryan allowed himself a smile, and was about to answer when Mildred cut him short.

  "There's a couple of things I haven't mentioned yet. Important things."

  "And they are?"

  "Firstly, this journal ends about fifty years after skydark. This guy decided to stay behind when some made the jump to another gateway."

  "What? Then there may be—"

  "Hang on, Ryan, I haven't finished yet. Some made a jump, and others decided to move up top. He couldn't face the change, so—" she let the comment hang, with just a glance at the skeleton "—so I guess there may be a colony waiting for us up top."

  The one-eyed warrior shrugged. "It's possible, sure. But this also means that they must have had another base, better equipped, right? They wouldn't just jump at random. Not if they'd been here that long."

  "That's a reasonable assumption," Mildred agreed. "So maybe we should make sure we can get back in here when we've taken a look outside, see all we can see."

  Krysty nodded her agreement, although the way her hair was moving closely around her neck and shoulders suggested a deep-seated unease at developments. "Mebbe their jump was to the mythical base in the north—the promised lands."

  "That is a lot of supposition, and it's possibly joining dots to form an abstract picture," Doc mused, "but it'll do for fitting the pieces together until something better comes along."

  But J.B. had spotted the hesitancy in Mildred's voice. "Why do we need to make sure we leave a way back in? If the main door is in as good condition as the rest of the redoubt…"

  "That's the problem, John. These crazies were so keen on their center-of-the-earth theory that they made their redoubts deeper than any we've ever come across. Deep enough to protect it from quakes nearer the surface that have affected other redoubts. That's why this is in good repair still. But…"

  "But it means it's a whole lot longer of a way up, and there's no knowing what we may find, right?" Ryan fixed his steely blue eye on Mildred.

  "Right. And if the way is blocked, then we've got big trouble. We either risk a quick jump and God knows where this redoubt is linked to, or we stay here and gradually suffocate as the air gets poorer."

  "Shit choice," Ryan said simply. "Guess we'll just have to find a way out."

  Chapter Three

  The Armorer was restless as they made their way through the darkened corridors of the redoubt toward the elevator shafts and stairwells that led to the surface.

  "If there are still survivors up there, then they may be able to tell us about this so-called promised land…if they don't try to chill us first," he added with a wry inevitability.

  "Erewhon," Mildred muttered.

  J.B. gave her a questioning look.

  "Sorry, John," she answered him. "It's just the name that journal gave it."

  "An apt name," Doc interjected dreamily. "A source of much pride to an ancient philosopher who should have known better. Would Samuel Butler smile at his Erewhon Eden being used for something that may be so apt?"

  Dean shot Doc a quizzical stare. "What does all that mean?"

  Doc smiled. "Erewhon, nowhere…just change a few letters. It could all be so apt."

  They came out into a loading bay about forty feet square and ill lit by the one remaining, flickering light. It was dustier than the rest of the corridors, and the temperature dropped a few degrees in the wide concrete expanse.

&n
bsp; Directly in front of them were two large elevator bays, with the tempered-steel alloy doors closed. Small gatherings of dirt and dust on the floor swirled slightly in a faint draft, and collected at the point where the supposedly airtight door met. It didn't encourage a belief in the working condition of the elevators.

  "Could be that just the seals have broken down," Ryan muttered, hunkering down to feel the dirt, and to judge the draft.

  Krysty joined him. "Not good," she whispered, almost to herself. "This isn't just surface dirt—this is rock dust."

  Ryan stood, noting that his own sense of unease was mirrored in the way Krysty's hair had tightened to her skull. The one-eyed warrior examined the comp panels that had controlled the elevator. They were dead, blank screens failing to register any signs of life no matter how many buttons he pressed.

  "Guess it's the stairs and maintenance shafts, then," J.B. drawled, watching Ryan. "Good exercise."

  Ryan smiled. "Guess so. Gonna be a hell of a climb, though."

  "Why?" Jak asked.

  "These people were obsessed with getting deep into the earth, and this is much deeper than the usual redoubt. So we're going to have to climb farther," Mildred explained.

  "So the sooner we get started the better, I guess," Dean said, looking around to find the access door to the emergency stairwells that were used to access a redoubt's maintenance ducts…

  The unassuming entrance was hidden in the dark shadows of the bay, and wasn't on the centralized comp mainframe for the redoubt. This had been a measure to insure that parts of the redoubt could be accessed by engineers in cases where the mainframe had gone haywire and caused a malfunction that jammed the sec doors or elevators. So each door accessing the shafts on every level was notable only for having no see lock, but a large lever lock.

  For Ryan and his people, trying to get out, this became irritating, as they couldn't just tap in a code, but had to blast the lock from the door and waste valuable plas-ex or ammo. J.B. complained bitterly to himself as he used yet more of the valuable explosive to blow the door. He had hoped that the armory would replenish his stocks, but was still sorely disappointed by what they had found.

  The door blew, swinging noisily on dry hinges.

  Coming forward to the dark hole that the stairwell formed, Ryan peered upward, his good eye trying to focus through the stinging dust. Form took shape in the blackness.

  "Still some kind of stairs or ramp, and it looks intact for as far as I can see. We'll spread out and take it at twenty-yard intervals. J.B., you're last. I'll go first."

  With that, Ryan stepped into the darkness.

  IT WAS crushingly claustrophobic in the service shaft. There was no way of seeing which way was up and which down; there was no way of telling where the ceiling lay, and how far in front there was actually a floor left. Ryan kept a hand out to his left, his fingertips brushing the side of the stairwell shaft so that he had some kind of bearing. To his right may have been a wall or a sheer drop as he continued upward.

  The air was fresher, suggesting that somewhere above them was access to the surface that was letting in air untreated by the redoubt's defective conditioning plant. The problem with this was that a gap or hole letting in untreated air suggested that there had been a landslide of some kind. That in turn suggested the unpleasant thought that the shaft may be unstable.

  In the enclosed dark, Ryan could hear his combat boots on the concrete, coming down in measured tread, with only the occasional skittering of small stones, concrete chips and gravel beneath his feet. Behind him, he could hear Krysty, treading delicately on the concrete, measuring each step for danger. Her silver-tipped cowboy boots made a higher note on the sounding board of the concrete. Her breathing, like his, was slow and measured.

  Jak was inaudible, despite being third in line and only forty yards behind Ryan in the enclosed darkness. The albino had uncanny hunting instincts, and was able to move in silence amid the most impossible conditions.

  Doc, in the middle, was even more audible than Krysty. Despite his tenacious strength, the battering of time travel and torture had told heavily on Doc's reserves of stamina and the way in which he could cope with such obstacles. His feet shuffled, his swordstick tapping rhythmically on the concrete floor. His breathing was regular, but hard and rasping.

  Dean, behind Doc, was out of hearing range, but Ryan could feel his son's impatience, lest Doc slow too much and leave the party falling too far behind. With Mildred bringing up the rear, Ryan knew he could rely on her to be on hand to help Doc, and that J.B. would keep things together.

  So far, Ryan had resisted the urge to either call out to his people or to use one of the precious flares that he carried. Like so much other salvaged tech, the flares were inclined to be erratic when set off, and sometimes could fail to ignite…or would explode with enough force to take off the hand of whoever tried to ignite them.

  "Listen up," he said in a low tone that he hoped would carry sufficiently to the back of the strung-out group. "I'm going to light a flare, see what the fireblasted hell is in front of us. So no one jump when the lights go on."

  He had been unwilling to raise his voice. Since entering the service shaft and stairwell they had all maintained silence, broken only by the odd whispered word of warning to the immediate follower if there was an obstruction on the path that could cause injury, a raised piece of concrete that could turn an unwary ankle and hold them all up. Without a recce of the shaft ahead, there was no way of knowing if a sudden noise would set off a collapse of some kind. So they had all kept quiet. But the risk of startled exclamations and shouts when the flare went off was a greater risk than Ryan's hoarse cry.

  "You okay, lover?" Krysty whispered.

  Ryan nodded, forgetting the dark. "Just about. But we need to see what's ahead."

  He took the flare from the canvas bag that was slung on the opposite side to his Steyr. The flare spluttered twice, small sparks illuminating Ryan's concerned, concentrated visage, before seeming to die off. Then, when he was almost at the point of giving up, it suddenly hissed and sputtered into life, throwing a phosphorus glare around the shaft.

  Looking back over his shoulder, Ryan could see his companions in a line behind him, all adjusting their eyes to the sudden light. He could also see the way in which the shaft was constructed. Reinforced-concrete beams supported the roof and lined the walls at regular intervals. Also regular, but falling in between the beams, was a series of graduated steps, each forming a platform of about twenty-five feet in length, some of which were irregularly raised.

  "Most ingenious," Doc murmured on observing this, taking the brief opportunity to halt for a moment's rest. "Not steps, but neither a ramp. The slightest movement of the earth will merely alter the one platform, rather than stress and crack a complete ramp or break a fixed staircase."

  Ryan looked at his wrist chron. They had been progressing up for nearly an hour. The incline was gradual, and the shaft had a slight bend to it. Looking ahead, he could see that the platforms were a little more uneven, suggesting earth disturbance. But all the columns appeared to be intact. He noted that the width of the tunnel was less than he had supposed, and it would have been possible for him to stand in the middle with both arms extended to touch the sides.

  From the elapsed time and the gradation of the tunnel, he suspected that they still had a long way to go.

  "Okay, now we know where we're going," he said, almost to himself. "Let's go."

  A flare would last twenty minutes, the last five showing a fading light, so Ryan knew that they had been walking for over fifteen minutes when they came to a sharp corner, the first they had encountered.

  But even by the fading light he could see that it wasn't a constructed corner. The earth had savagely taken the shaft and bent it to its own will.

  "Problems," he said over his shoulder, trying to make his voice carry without raising it. "We've got an earth move."

  As he said it, he was aware of the platform beneath his feet mo
ving. It was a slight movement, but growing with every second. The concrete platform was tilting on loosened earth, the angle of tilt increasing the momentum in a dangerous equation.

  "Fireblast!" he yelled, the flare falling from his grip as he slid on the platform, a thin coating of moss from the seepage of damp earth causing his heavy combat boots to lose their firm hold as the angle increased.

  Ryan tilted his muscular frame to the bend of the earth, not fighting the momentum but rolling with it, using it to adjust his own equilibrium. As the shaft tilted and rolled in his vision, he saw that the others were also encountering similar problems. Krysty had been slammed into the wall of the shaft, and was fighting to regain both footing and the breath that had been driven from her body. Behind her, Jak was down, but already springing to his feet. Doc was down, and beyond him there was darkness, filled with the rumble of moving earth and the crunch and whine of breaking concrete and twisting metal as the support rods in the columns bent beneath the pressure of the moving rock and earth.

  And then, as suddenly as it had started, it ceased. Ryan stood silent and still, straining every nerve to detect any further movement. By the fading light, he could see Krysty, propped against the near wall of the shaft.

  She caught his glance and briefly shook her head. With her razor-sharp mutie sense, she was the likeliest to detect any further danger in the depths of the earth.

  Doc looked up, not yet daring to clamber to his feet.

  "Safe?" he whispered. It seemed uncannily loud in the silence following the miniquake.

  Ryan nodded, moving slowly to pick up the spluttering and dying flare, and moving with an infinite care back to where Krysty stood.

  "Go back and check," he said quietly. Krysty assented, and they both crept back to Jak, who was standing perfectly still, feeling for the slightest movement through the balls of his feet. As they approached, the albino looked at them, the flare illuminating his red eyes so that they glowed like coals.