Under Eripa's drills and encouragement the morale of the miners changed. No longer thinking of themselves as hopeless, god-forsaken slaves, they were now a part of a larger movement, one that offered hope. For Eripa too things were changing. With each new day it became more obvious that she was pregnant with Hhstt's child.
"I look at what I cannot bear to see." sobbed Lyallya as she buried her face in my shoulder. I stroked her copper hair and turned with her from the bars to face the rear of the chamber. The mid afternoon sun slanted in over the rim of the pit and reached almost to the rear wall. Two days ago a sharp-eyed Ixtet had noticed that the number of a digging tool belonging to the Blue team had showed up on a Red peg.
For the simple error of forgetting to exchange tools when they exchanged places Althea and Balthan-dar, her fellow conspirator, would pay with their lives. Though not yet dead, they had been lowered into the pit. Without food or water to sustain them they could not last long.
All rations were cut to the slave chambers. The hatches remained closed. The rope was not lowered to deliver food or to remove waste. All were in bad condition. No one would eat or drink until those in the pit died. All would suffer with them. It was hard not to wish them a speedy death. With shame I wondered whether it was for mine own sake or theirs that I wished it. Confined here we suffered from hunger of thirst but we could rest, talk with comrads, and have relatively little fear for our lives. Below there was no rest. The glyptron moved slowly, but constantly. Let them stop and one of the great senseless blobs would find and engulf them. Let them lie down to sleep and they would never wake up. Althea and Balthan-dar below must be near the end of their strength. Throughout the first day their comrades above had shouted words of encouragement to them. They could do no more. The gulf between us was as uncrossable as that between the stars.
By the second day they moved as little as possible, one staying on watch while the other tried to capture a moment's rest. The sight tore at the hearts of all watching. . . all save Hhstt who ranted that had he been in command they would not be dying there.
"I know how to deal with the Ixtet" he bragged.
“I bet he did too. He'd turn us all in for a bowl of gruel.” I thought to myself.
Late that night I was awakened by a scream. I rushed to the bars and peered down into that horrible pit. There hand in hand, unmoving on the salt were Althea and Balthan-dar. They appeared to be dead. I would have sworn that their screams had come from an elevation above the pit floor but that was not possible.
I returned to my sleeping spot near Lyallya and tried not to think about the glyptron I'd seen moving toward their bodies. At sunrise I counted an extra glypton in the pit. As usual the largest had divided once a critical size was reached.
The food bucket returned but I had little appetite despite the imposed fast. Still, to live one must drink and eat. I swallowed my portion along with the rest.
CHAPTER 24
"Here" I motioned to Dhars as we placed our digging tools into the crevice. They would be picked up others and smuggled back to the living quarters.
"Let’s join the rest" Dhars urged as we moved inconspicuously to merge with slaves of the red team waiting to be hoisted back to the living level. We took care to ride up separately.
We were counting on the Ixtet to remain creatures of habit and routine. Nothing would be gained if they decided to kill me first and afterward throw my corpse to the glyptron. The plan hinged on being able to last as long as possible in the pit.
To prepare us Eripa had ordered that Dhars and I have as much of the gruel as we could hold during the last 5 days. Others had borne the brunt of our work to see that we were well rested.
We spent much of the day practicing digging the type of handhold/steps we would later make in the pit walls. We practiced exchanging positions at the top without climbing back to the bottom. Of course we practiced this only a meter or two from the floor. It would be very different at the heights from which we would actually work. Those who knew the true nature of our activities were counting on us, supporting us, though I doubted that many yearned to change places.
The call for volunteers had come at a late night meeting. Our group commander, an older Threatian called Searsh, had solemnly intoned: "The mission will likely be the death of the two who take it" he said making no attempt at softening the words. . ."but through it freedom for all may be won".
Dhars laughed wryly to himself when we stood simultaneously, without so much as the usual glance to confirm the other's agreement.
Later that evening Eripa herself gave our orders. Perhaps she accepted us as more expendable than two of her trained Threatins. In any event her appreciation of what we had volunteered to do was clearly sincere.
"Althea and Balan-dar did not simply forget to cover their movements as others generally believe" she began. "Their actions were calculated to place them in the pit. It cost their lives. . . but they spent their lives well". Eripa continued, her eyes shining in obvious admiration for the valor of her comrads. "They used the last of their strength to advance our chances of escape and then plunged to their deaths."
"The plan is simple. There is no chance for escape through tunnels controlled by the Ixtet. They are too well guarded. Even if we killed all guards below, those above would still control all access to the surface. They could simply wait until we surrendered or died of thirst."
Nor would it be possible to tunnel from this chamber to the surface or to dig outward to the walls of the pit. The Ixtet inspected too thoroughly and too regularly. Even without the continual oversight Hhstt or one of his lieutenants would have betrayed any efforts to tunnel out of the holding cell. Our salvation must come from outside. The pit itself is the only area where we might have access.”
Dhars and I nodded our agreement. "To have any chance we must make our way unnoticed to the surface and confront them there. But--make no mistake--it is not enough to win our way to the ships and try to sail away. Without supplies we would die on the salt. No! We must defeat them utterly and bring this place under our control. Slaves and masters will change positions.”
The work shift ended. We were lined up to return our digging tools to their numbered pegs. I knew that mine was concealed in a crevice far below and that death was the price for not having it.
"Your tool slave" whined the Ixtet. In their own speech this whine reached well into the ultrasonic range. When communicating with other species they managed to lower it to a level which grated the ears but could be easily heard.
"It fell into a deep crevasse noble one" I replied sarcastically. I ran no further risk with sarcasm. The nuance of speech was lost when the Ixtet communicated with other races, just as the subtleties of their droning whine were indecipherable to human ears.
"You should have informed the overlord of your crew immediately. The penalty is clear." It motioned for two armed guards who stepped forward to take me away.
I screamed, slumped, struggled, and finally broke free to run to the corner of the room. They advanced with no change of expression and dragged me down a corridor into a guard room beyond. My terror was only partly feigned. I forced myself to take mental notes of all that I saw, knowing that the information about their strength and disposition in this area could be vital.
They held me briefly in an anteroom near the chamber where the workers assembled each morning. In the floor along one side of the room were a half doxen hexagonal pits lined with silky fibers. Each could accommodate a resting Ixtet. With semi-rigid exo-skeletons perhaps there was no advantage to resting/sleeping horizontally.
Along the wall were an equal number of niches holding personal items. Beside each was a weapons rack.
Clearly, the usual compliment of the guard room was no more than 6. We ordinarily saw 4 guards each morning as we were sent to our assigned work for the day. Perhaps two remained here at the ready, perhaps the room was deserted during labor shifts; considered safe and inaccessible once the ladder was drawn up from below.
A few moments later it and another Ixtet reentered dragging Dhars between them. He was struggling--but not so fiercely--as to give them real trouble or to risk injuring himself.
They thrust him in my general direction. One of the others stepped to the wall and blew into a dark tube that disappeared through a shaft in the ceiling. It spoke briefly, bobbled its head in response to a reply inaudible to our ears, and then turned. Two guards at our sides whined something and hustled us forward toward the shaft. A single wooden bar guarded the opening. The shaft walls faded to total blackness within a few meters above and below the dimly lit chamber.
A crude wooden platform held off from the walls of the shaft by rollers creaked to a stop in the opening. Dhars and I were prodded forward by the prick of a short lance at our backs. The safety bar was closed and the platform began to rise unsteadlily upward.
"Dhars?"
"Here Petar"
In the total darkness I reassured myself he was still present. It was impossible to accurately gauge our assent, but after perhaps 50 or 75 meters of uninterrupted rising we were lifted past what must have been the food preparation area. Noses confirmed what eyes could scarcely discern, huge pots in which large chunks of sun cooked glypton gruel were stored there. A few smaller pots simmered over tiny fires. "Food for the Ixtet?" I suggested to Dhars.
We rose past two other side tunnels but saw nothing of interest before breaking at last into the open air. . For several moments our eyes blinked involuntarily shut against the full light of day.
"I can't see a thing yet Petar" Dhars said rubbing at his eye with the back of a fist.
I said something about how bright it was without considering how obvious that was. Within a few moments our eyes adjusted to the glare. The Ixtet were having similar difficulty. They had no ability contract the iris and narrow the opening in their pupils. Instead they had closed leathery eyelids so that only a narrow slit remained between the upper and lower lids. The net effect must have been similar to that produced by the snow glasses early Inuit peoples had caved from bone.
Without waiting for the customary prodding from the lance points Dhars and I moved out of the elevator car. We shuffled along as slowly as possible so as to take in our surroundings. The car itself had been lifted by an enormous muscle powered crane. The motive force came from a large wooden drum mounted like a Ferris wheel on a heavy metal axle at its center. The drum must have been a good 4 meters in diameter. Inside walked three of the Ixtet. Nearby hung a large tubular bell. Attached to the striker was the cord the Ixtet pulled to alert the crane operators to lower or raise the car. A system of ratchets, pulley's and gears allowed even a heavily loaded car to be raised by the efforts of those walking inside the enormous drum. An operator outside the drum reset a lever which reversed the ratchet mechanism and allowed the car to be lowered to the level just outside the guard station where it was generally kept. Colored twine could be seen at intervals in the hoist rope now spooled around the drum. I supposed as these passed a given point they let the operators know sufficient hoist rope had played out to reach the desired level.
Without speaking Dhars and I exchanged glances to note that we would have to control of this elevator if we were free any of the slaves by this route.
To our right the jumble of huts and houses that constituted the town flowed down almost to the rim of the pit. On the crest of the black rock, at the end of a miserable street sat the "palace" of Thark Rhat. It was a squat and formidable building with its back pressed against the black rock cliff. Walls of the same stone enclosed a courtyard on the other three sides. The only visible entrance was a single door strapped in iron and hung on massive hinges. It would take a modern tank to break through.
If the Ixtet were to take refuge there they would have nothing to fear from a band of lightly armed slaves. The only water supply was purported to be a deep well within in the keep of the palace. There were no sentries posted and for the moment the gate was open. Still it would be an important target when we attacked.
It was exceedingly optimistic on my part to say "we". There was a very good chance neither Dhars nor I would live to see others break out.
It was a walk of less than 30 meters to the edge of the pit. Pushed forward by the Ixtet we were forced into the basket of a smaller crane. A boom angled out over the rim of the pit. Once inside two of the Ixtet took positions inside the drive wheel of the crane. The third threw a lever and they began by backing up a few steps. We staggered as the basket lifted from the salt of the rim and rose to the end of the boom where it swayed dizzingly. Below us was what we’d estimated to be as much as a 200 meter drop to the bottom.
The lever was thrown again and the Ixtet in the drum reversed directions. A cog slipped and we dropped for an instant. My heart, which apparently had no fondness for heights, tried to relocate to my mouth. With white knuckles and clenched teeth we rode down in silence. To the north I could see a similar device set on rollers near the opening to the Blue team's quarters. Perhaps in the early days these had carried miners in and out of the pit and to galleries on either side. Now they were used to lower wastes to the Glyptron.
Bit by bit the rope played out over the pulley at the end of the boom, unspooling slowly from the drum. The rope was woven from a fiber unknown to me. It sat unprotected in the elements year after year, and looked neither too strong nor too well preserved.
The trip down was a slow one. As my initial fears eased I noticed we were riding in a leather lined bin. It stank horribly and was coated with feces. We were riding down in the same honey bucket used to lower the night wastes to the glyptron.
Perhaps two or three minutes slid by as the rope played out from the boom above. Our tiny basket rotated so the rim of the pit seemed to be turning in slow circles above us. Below us all but a tiny portion of the floor was in shadow. In the remaining bright crescent of light all the glyptron scoured the salt for food.
They clearly favored the sunny areas of the pit floor. This added some weight to the theory that these giant beast derived part of their energy directly from the sun. Some believed they used their transparent outer tissue to focus solar energy on an internal organ which somehow processed or stored it. Unless Dhars and I succeeded with this mission we would soon be intimately associated with the Glypton digestive system.
We were still 3 meters above the sand when the basket lurched suddenly and the floor fell open. A tug from above on a jerk line had unhinged the bottom of the basket to dump us like the sewage onto the salt below. The impact caught both of us off guard, throwing us sideways onto the salt. The Ixtet wasted no time hauling up the bucket.
"You're bleeding a little" I told Dhars and gestured towards the nasty scrape along one side of his face. My left arm and shoulder were in considerable pain but I could move them. It may have been sprained in the fall but was not dislocated or broken.
"And your arm is hurt" Dhars responded, as we helped each other to our feet.
For the next three hours there was little to do. We alternated resting and looking out for grazing Glypton. It would be a long night. As soon as we judged it dark enough we unslung the "safety" cords which had been coiled about our waists. These had been made days before from strips of clothing.
"Do you believe in God Dhars?" I asked, surprising myself with the question.
"I believe in a great being who formed and guides the universe" he replied. "Right now my thoughts turn in his direction.”
There was little breeze at the bottom of the pit. The stars overhead were steady and unblinking in the chill desert air. We both stood looking upward for a few moments and then began climbing.
Althea and Balthan-dar had lasted most of three days in the pit. We could only wonder how much they had accomplished in that time and whether we would find their digging tools where they were supposed to be.
For several days we had secretly practic
ed digging the steps and changing positions so that one might rest while the other dug. Everything had been well thought out. Each two dozen or so steps we dug an extra step to the side of the main path. There the exhausted miner could be passed by his partner.
The steps were dug with the lip higher than the back and the bottom wider than the top. Each was somewhat like the stirrup of a saddle, allowing the climber to mount to those above more securely. The high front lip offered a good handhold from below. Here we dug the smallest steps which would allow us to ascend. When we reached the level of the living quarters we would make them slightly larger and deeper to assist more than 100 slaves who would need to ascend by them rapidly.
In practice Dhars and I had learned to wedge our digging tools into a step in such a way as to provide some measure of security during the rest period. The rags braided into the safety straps were none too strong and the chock was wedged in salt not granite. We knew not to trust the arrangement overly much.
Standing firmly on the floor of the mine we could dig a step in less than a minute. Working with one hand, suspended above the floor we did well to make 10 an hour.
If it was 200 meters from the pit floor to the rim we’d need to dig a bit more than two steps per meter or around 500 total. At 10 per hour that meant at least 50 hours of digging perhaps more if one allowed for exhaustion, working without food or water, and the necessity of expending such a large amount of energy just to cling to the salt face and avoid a fatal fall.
If Althea and Balthan-dar had completed 300 steps we had a good chance of finishing the job. We counted as we climbed. Dhars took the lead and would dig first.
The Ways Between Worlds: Peter Cooper Page 21