by James Axler
"We move, not it adjust us," he murmured, indicating that the resettled earth should be still for some time. The three of them went back to Doc, who was gingerly picking himself up and dusting himself down. Without a word, Doc fell in behind them and muttered an oath to himself when he saw that a wall of concrete, earth and rock cut them off from the others.
"Hope they behind, not in," Jak said simply.
It was pitch-black, and Mildred clung to the concrete floor, aware that she was at some crazy angle where her feet were above her head and her hands were pressing against the angle where the floor and wall now met.
The dust and dirt that filled the air clogged her nose and mouth. "John," she spluttered through a mouthful of earth, "are you okay?"
"In one piece," the Armorer replied quietly. "How about you?"
"Everything works and nothing hurts…much," she replied with a smile no one could see. "Damned quake's got me almost upside down, but other than that…"
"I'm coming forward," J.B. replied. And then there was silence for a short while, broken only by the distant shuffle of earth on concrete. J.B.'s voice broke again. "I must be near you. Things seem to have died down, and it's all pretty solid. There's a ten-foot raise in front of me, but enough of a gap to get through."
While Mildred tentatively picked her way around the steeply angled shaft until she was once again upright, she could hear J.B. ascend to the top of the platform and the scrape of his boots against the concrete as he felt his way down to floor level.
"Millie, where are you?" he whispered, only feet from her. She reached out to embrace him, and they silently thanked fate that each was, so far, okay. Finally, he said, "We need to get forward, find the others. Think we can risk a flare?"
"Uh-uh…too risky until we know how much air we've got. If we're in a pocket, then the flare could use it too quickly."
"Okay, let's find out," J.B. said simply, passing her and tentatively moving forward. He went only a few yards before reaching a wall of rock and earth.
"Shit, we're cut off back here."
"And no way of knowing how deep that wall of rock is," Mildred added, almost to herself.
DEAN KNEW that he had been unconscious, but had no idea for how long. He only knew that his mouth tasted bitter, and his head was ringing as he raised it.
Slowly, allowing himself time to adjust to the crazy angle of the floor and for his balance to assert itself over the waves of nausea that washed past him as he sat upright, he took in his surroundings. There was no light, and he waited in silence for his eyes to adjust to the residual light.
But there was no residual light.
Dean fought back the sudden surprise and panic, and tried to think logically. He was still alive, and although the fall and subsequent unconsciousness had left his body aching, there was no damage that would impair him. On his hands and knees, moving slowly to keep any disturbance to a minimum, Dean explored the limits of his enclosed world. It was only a couple of yards each way around, and the roof was too low to enable him to stand straight when he attempted to rise to his feet.
The extent of his problem hit him squarely. He now knew he was cut off from all his companions, and what was more he had no way of knowing which direction was forward, which direction actually led to the unblocked passage or back to the redoubt, or even if there was a way out.
For a second, the black despair of loneliness threatened to engulf him, and hot salt tears pricked at the back of his eyes. If he managed to get out, was there any guarantee that he would find his father alive, or Krysty or Doc or… ?
Cursing himself for being weak at a moment when he needed strength, the Cawdor blood began to tell. A steely resolve settled on Dean, and he shifted onto his knees, picking one end of the enclosure at which to begin his attempts to burrow out. Extending one arm upward, he felt once more the concrete passage support that was keeping the roof in place. His fingers feeling along gently, he could trace stress lines and fracture contours in the concrete where it had been twisted in the tunnel fall. In places he could reach into the column where the concrete had broken away and the cold metal of the steel reinforcing rod was bared.
A tentative push showed him that the roof support, such as it was, was firm enough for the moment. Firm enough for him to start disturbing the earth and rock, moving it away from the pile that had formed at one end of the enclosure.
It had never occurred to Dean that any kind of earthmoving work depended so much on being able to see what he was doing. As he moved the loose earth around clumps of rock, he found himself cursing repeatedly as shifting rocks crashed his fingers, and every time he made some small headway into the rockpile he felt other loose rocks tumble in to fill it— rocks he would have shored up if he could see them.
He had no idea how deep the fall went; it was something that he couldn't even think about. It could have fallen all the way to the top of the shaft, in which case he would run out of air long before he had the chance to make any progress. But there was nothing else he could do. So he concentrated on the matter at hand.
SWEAT RAN in rivulets down Mildred's face and neck. She could feel it down her back, gathering in a cold pool in the hollow at the base of her spine. She had stripped down to her undershirt, her clothes bundled beside her in the angle where wall met floor. She felt as though she had been shifting rock and dirt for all her life, and still she seemed to be making no headway. The atmosphere was already fetid and rank, and she was glad for the small flow of cleaner air coming through the gap where J.B. had climbed from his part of the fall.
Loose earth gathered at her feet, while large rocks were passed back to the Armorer, who disposed of them at the back of the enclave, piling them carefully. He would have liked to heft some of the smaller ones over the gap and into the space behind, but couldn't risk one loose rock landing in such a way as to trigger a minor slide.
They worked in silence, to preserve air and energy, and because they had to concentrate intently on the task at hand. Neither wanted to think about the possibility of the rocks building up behind them before they broke through, and their making for themselves an even smaller, tighter prison.
J.B.'s head was filled with random thoughts of the past, or early days traveling with the Trader, of meeting Ryan and of the friends they had lost along the way. Now to be lost himself? He dismissed that as he took another rock from Mildred.
Mildred was remembering when she was a girl, scared of the dark and locked in the basement at her father's Baptist church. She had only been there an hour after the door had closed behind her while she was exploring. How old was she then, about six? It had been so boring and so cold until she was discovered. She could do with that cold now, and someone like her father to just come along and open a door that would let them out.
BY THE LIGHT of the flare, it was easier for Ryan and Jak to remove rocks and brush falling dirt out of the way. Krysty and Doc took the rocks as they were removed from the earth fall, piling them at the sides of the shaft so that they still left a clear path.
With light and more air, Jak and Ryan were working at speed, forming the beginnings of a tunnel. Jak used the flatter slabs of rock to shore up the two-foot-high tunnel, enough for a crawl space if little else. They were working on limited time for themselves as much as anyone who was left on the other side of the landslide: there could be another miniquake at any time, triggered by their activity in the shaft. Jak suddenly froze. "Stop," he hissed. "Listen." Ryan also froze, straining every fiber of his being to pick up whatever Jak had heard. The albino's face was rapt, his eyes narrowed, his teeth biting into his bottom lip with an intense concentration that was beginning to draw blood.
Krysty and Doc exchanged a look, both standing expectantly, feeling useless at that moment.
It was there again: Jak briefly looked at Ryan and nodded once, then again, in time to the noise.
A smile flickered at the corners of Ryan's dust-caked lips. Faintly, so faint that it was almost impossible to hear, cam
e the rhythmic scraping sound of rock being moved.
"Still alive," Jak stated baldly, "and trying to get through."
DEAN FELT exhausted, and was on the verge of giving up. Not with frustration, but simply because it seemed to have been going on forever. Deprived of all other sense, there was just the darkness, the heat, the stench and the rocks. He felt as though he were moving automatically, not even knowing what he was doing or why.
He moved another slab of rock, which jammed against one that was sticking out of the mass at an angle. The stones grated on each other, and Dean pulled at them, powdering small fragments that he breathed in with the increasingly bad air, feeling it scour his nasal passages and bite into his throat. Even to cough was too much effort, and he choked down the bile that the reflex of coughing brought up. He maneuvered the stone from side to side, trying to lever it clear.
The blackness was becoming all-encompassing. It wasn't just lack of light. It was lack of sound, lack of feeling, lack of everything.
Dean began to slide once more into unconsciousness.
"STOPPED…get moving," Jak said, snapping back into action with renewed energy. His sinewy limbs twisted around rocks, digging out earth with his bare hands to grip the rocks and pull them loose, but still making sure that he shored up the small tunnel as he went along.
Ryan didn't waste time on a reply, but joined the wiry albino in his task. Ryan's hands were larger, his arms thicker, but he worked just as determinedly to loosen the rocks and tunnel deeper.
Behind them, Krysty and Doc cleared the rocks and dirt that they left in their wake as their progress increased rapidly. No one spoke, but they all knew that the cessation of the noise was a bad sign. It could only mean that whoever was digging had either reached the point of exhaustion or had become unconscious.
And either option was bad.
MILDRED WAS LIKE a machine. She could no longer think about what she was doing, just act purely on instinct. And instinct was telling her that what she had to do to survive was keep digging out those rocks and dirt, keep shoring up that space she was making, keep passing it back to J.B.
The Armorer was also acting like an automaton. His spectacles—useless in such a situation—were secure in his pocket for when he would need them. His fedora was jammed on the back of his head, his close-cropped hair underneath wet with sweat. His clothes stuck to him with a paste of perspiration and dust that would have felt uncomfortable if he had been able to spare the attention to focus on this. But there was no part of him that could afford to focus on anything other than collecting and disposing of rocks.
Mildred kept burrowing until something jolted her out of the routine she had established. Something that took a moment to register.
She was picking at loose soil, and a warm draft came through that dirt. Then she was picking at nothing…
"John, we're through. It's empty…" Her voice was nothing more than a pained croak, but in the silence it was enough to penetrate the Armorer's consciousness.
"Millie, keep going…got to get there," he returned, suddenly aware of how dry and cracked his own throat seemed.
Jolted back to a form of consciousness, Mildred redoubled her efforts and had soon made a hole large enough for herself to crawl through. She had a bad feeling as soon as she was through, and coughed at the poor air in the new enclave. She crawled a few feet farther to allow J.B. to follow, pushing her clothes and their blasters before him.
"It's too hot. Must be a hollow in the slide," she whispered. Grasping before her, she felt a leg in the darkness. "Oh, sweet God," she wailed, continuing to feel up the leg until she came to the torso, "Dean?"
"Is he alive?" J.B. managed to husk.
Mildred could feel his chest rise and fall in shallow breath. She nodded, then managed to croak "Yes" when she realized that J.B. couldn't see her.
But how could they go on? What lay in front of them?
"FASTER," Jak murmured, his mouth set in a thin, determined line.
"Not too fast—bring it all down on us," Ryan reminded him, feeling tightly enclosed in the dark tunnel. Jak was a couple of feet ahead, passing rocks down his body and packing the walls and ceiling. He was full length, and Ryan knew almost the whole length of his own body was in the tunnel. So they had to have burrowed through at least three yards of earth and rock.
"Nearly there," Jak snapped back. "Earth loose…"
MILDRED HEARD the movement of the rocks and earth grow louder, and climbed over Dean to where the rock that had defeated him stood, jammed in the tunnel entrance he had made.
"Pull him back, John," she whispered, and as the Armorer pulled Dean's prone body back from under her, she began to work at the rock. The rocks and earth around it began to loosen as the opposite side of the rock moved. She used the way in which it had wedged to swing it around and shore up dirt that was beginning to fall from the roof of the small tunnel.
The earth fell away slowly from one side while she clawed at it from the other. A residual light from the other side of the tunnel, almost unbelievably bright in the total darkness she had been forced to work in, backlit the white hair and scarred pale features of Jak Lauren.
Mildred almost cried with joy to see him. The flicker of a smile even flitted briefly across the albino's features. It was driven away as he remembered how precarious their position was at that moment.
"Quick, not last long," he breathed.
Mildred nodded and began to enlarge the hole where the tunnels met. Soon it was large enough for Jak to crawl through.
"Come," Mildred gasped, "Dean's unconscious."
As she backed out of the tunnel, Jak crawled through. He was completely blind in the total blackness, but felt Dean's limp body, and slithered back into the tunnel, dragging the prone boy after him.
Ryan scrambled back out of the tunnel, having heard Mildred and realizing that he would be of better use at the tunnel mouth to help bring his son into the open shaft.
As Jak appeared, pulling the still unconscious Dean, Ryan suppressed the fear that his son was dead…but not enough for Krysty not to notice and shoot him a worried glance.
Mildred crawled through, drawing the cleaner air in great gulps through her tortured throat. J.B. brought up the rear, and lay gasping for breath as Mildred immediately checked Dean, ignoring her own condition.
"He'll be okay," she told Ryan in short gasps as she drank greedily from the canteen of water he offered her. "Just needs to recover from the heat and the air—get some oxygen into him."
Even as she spoke, Dean was stirring slightly. Krysty was resting him in a reclining posture against her, and Doc held the boy's head, gently tipping water to his lips.
"Take it easy, my dear boy," Doc whispered. "The worst is over."
"Mebbe," Ryan said softly, overhearing Doc, "but we need to get moving quickly, no matter how tired we are. We can't risk staying here."
"Take turns carrying Dean until recovered enough walk alone," Jak offered.
Ryan nodded. "Me and you first to give J.B. and Mildred a chance to recoup their strength."
The albino nodded and turned away, looking at the sudden bend in the shaft.
"Hope not hit another slide," he said quietly.
Chapter Four
"Dark night! This explains a lot," J.B. said breathlessly, wiping his spectacles on his shirt.
Ryan whistled softly. "Seems stupe to go all the way up just to go all the way down, but I guess mebbe that's the only way for it to be."
Jak was sitting with his legs dangling over the precipice. "We okay, but how Doc?"
Doc made an expression of distaste. "I think that after the trials of the past few hours, this will be a mere bagatelle."
They had finally reached the top of the shaft after several hours' climb, lengthened because of their weariness in dealing with the landslide. Although all of them would have liked to have rested, Ryan was certain that the only viable course of action was to keep moving. The others knew he was right, even though J.B.
and Mildred were almost unconscious as they walked, and Dean was carried for the first hour by a relay of Ryan and Jak, and then Krysty and Doc, the latter breathing heavily the whole way, but refusing to give in to his own weariness until Dean was able to stand unaided.
Ryan's decision to keep moving was vindicated by the number of partial earthslides and movements that they had to traverse as they made their way up the shaft. It was no surprise that the elevators had long since been decommissioned by the change in geography, as the shaft, which had previously been fairly straight, began to bend at ridiculous angles, so much so that at times they felt they were turning back on themselves. The concrete platforms that formed the steps had moved to angles that sometimes entailed a climb of several feet to get over the top, followed by a drop to where the level had fallen on the other side. It became harder to discern their depth and when they were likely to surface. They could only tell when the tunnel began to lighten, and the hole formed at the top of the shaft became visible.
Eventually, with aching muscles that had begun to weaken to jelly, they saw the top of the shaft widen, and after two more scrambles over bizarrely angled platforms, they found themselves at the mouth of the shaft.
This had to have been the way that the survivors of the redoubt had taken some fifty years before, as the growth of mutated plant and vegetation around the mouth of the shaft was thick and heavily spread, suggesting that it had been established sometime, and therefore the earth movements had occurred during the period when the Illuminated Ones were still in the redoubt.
It was only when they came out of the mouth of the shaft and looked around that they could appreciate what had occurred.
They found themselves some fifty feet above the surrounding country, with the mouth of the shaft facing a sheer drop on one side, and a seventy degree descent on the other among some verdant foliage that almost choked the hillside. The shrubs and plants formed an unbroken carpet, hiding whatever mutated horrors might be found ground level.