Fire in the Abyss

by Stuart Gordon

  Poor man, by doing this he sealed his own fate. For, approximately at the right time, we brought it to a close, and set the crucial phase in motion. With the special midnight movie-show coming up next, clearly we had to refill our air-tanks—an operation which could only be done ten at a time.

  Now it was a matter of timing, and not merely our own.

  The first group of ten went at eleven-seventeen. None of the Nine were in this group, though Azurara and Kent were with it, having steered several of its members into answering the preliminary call. While they went, nearly eighty DTIs and Institute staff mingled in shifting groups. We played the social game for all we were worth. I spoke with Ernstein, who was flushed from his success on stage. He was drinking a bottle of Budweiser beer rapidly. He said he hoped there were no hard feelings between us, but that now he had to go and take a shower before catching the midnight bus. He went, and then it was eleven-twenty-six, and the second group went, with two guards, none of our nine being with them. I found myself listening to Piggot amid the crowd. I nodded and smiled and I cannot remember a word he said. Then it was time for the third group to go, Jim Gage and Herbie among them. This left the chapel noticeably less crowded, not all the first two groups yet being returned inside. I felt extremely tense. No more than twenty minutes remained. People were drifting in and out of the main south door, and some of the staff were leaving. We wanted to keep them longer. Somebody exploded a balloon, and some were dancing as Jud began to play the organ again. I escaped Piggot, and Lucie talked with him instead. The mood of the staff and the guards appeared to be quite relaxed as Watanabe called out that the movie would start soon. It was quarter to midnight, and the fourth group was called, and went, including Masanva.

  It was time to act. Discarded Modern clothes had been put back into the laundry bags. Jud and I still wore our costumes. Carlos and Van Roornevink were waiting by the screen next to the side door. I scanned about, then gave them the all-clear. They carried the bags outside and left them in shadow against the wall, then they came back inside without having been noticed.

  The clock said eleven-fifty-two. My heart was beating very hard as I went to the main door. Just outside it, Brynjof and Thord and Jim Guerrero, all of whom had been in the second group, were starting a loud but good-natured argument in front of several other DTIs and some amused guards and staff. “Yes, big animals live in sky!” Thord was insisting. “Live in sky with stars!” Tari was there. She caught my eye. I felt encouragement flow from her.

  Then we heard what we awaited.

  The roar of the bus. The gates of black steel opened. In came the midnight shift. I turned away from the glare of the headlights. The bus backed into its usual space by the wall. We breathed again as the workers disembarked, as the driver got out too.

  The fifth group was called by a guard.

  It was five minutes to midnight.

  We gathered quickly. There were but eight of us in this last group—Carlos, Daraul, Gilbert, Hopkins, Mery-Isis, Utak, Waters, and Van Roornevink. We all had specific functions to perform.

  With one guard in front and the second behind, we crossed the quadrangle to the door of the West Block. There’s too much light! I kept thinking. All the lit windows, and the floodlighting in round overlapping pools on the quadrangle. I looked back at the bus. Its metal gleamed, I could see every inch! Mad to think we might get away with it! A mad dream!—yet my mind was more sharp and awake than it had been at any time since that moment three hundred and sixty-two nights and nineteen hours ago when Vulcan had seized us.

  The door into our block was open, the black man at the switchboard was cleaning his nails with a little knife. As we went in, Masanva came unhurriedly down the stairs, on his own, with fresh air, and the black man, who was called Joe, didn’t even look up, far less make Masanva wait for either of the guards who had escorted his group up the stairs. There was no hint that anyone suspected anything.

  We climbed the stairs, step by step. It seemed to take forever. Tari and Utak were in front of me. I wondered if they were ready, if their stomachs were as knotted as mine.

  We reached the second floor and went thirty yards along a bare passage to the green door, and started into the long low room with its cupboards, closets, and ten tank-changing stalls. The last two DTIs of the fourth group were emerging with their guards even as we got there. The guards of the two groups stopped to talk for a moment, and one of the DTIs, Howell Rees, gave us a good-luck wink. I felt stifled by nervousness and impatience.

  Then the chatter was over and the last of the fourth group were gone and we were in the changing-room. All of us.

  “Right, guys!” The guard who spoke was a big man, slightly paunchy. The other was short but solid. “You know the rout…”

  He stopped talking. His eyes widened. He stiffened, and his mouth fell open, and the moment had arrived.

  The moment we were all inside, unseen by the casual guards, Tari and Utak made the moves we had pictured and feared so often. They had released some of the clasps already. Now they removed their helmets at the same moment and each tapped a guard on the arm and then confronted him naked-eye-to-naked-eye.

  For about two seconds both men were too amazed to move. It was enough. In that time, Lucie shut the door, Jud removed the length of wood that he had hidden under his Modern overcoat and fiercely coshed the guard whose eye was held by Tari, while Utak struck his man in the adam’s-apple with his left fist, kicked him viciously in the groin, then rabbit-punched him.

  And it was done. Both guards collapsed, unconscious.

  We stood, staring at each other. For several seconds there was neither motion nor sound save for Utak’s harsh breathing. I knew what I had to do, but I couldn’t move. My eyes were fixed on the face of Mery-Isis. For an instant, as I gazed at her, there flashed in my mind an image of that door she had described, with the statue of Isis and flanked by the red and black columns. That door which, once entered, allowed no turning-back.

  She nodded sharply at me.

  I took a deep breath. I unclasped and removed the helmet. I breathed unsterilised Modern air. There was no obvious difference. The thudding of my heart was painful. I breathed out… and in… and out… and in, deeply… and then the spell was broken.

  We knew our parts. Everything happened quickly. Jud had taken off his helmet at the same time as I had. Both of us climbed out of Modern clothes and immunity-suits and jumpsuits as Van Roornevink and Carlos stripped the guards of their uniforms. Carlos tossed a chain of keys to Mery-Isis. She and Utak put their helmets back on and slipped out of the door of the room after checking to be sure that the coast was clear. Jud and I pulled on the uniforms. Grey trousers, metal-buttoned jacket, shirt, tie, black shoes. Everything fit more-or-less but for the shoes. Discarding jumpsuits, we struggled back into the transparent immunity-suits, then pulled the disguising Modern clothes back on top, then helmets again, and taped-on hats. We pocketed the guards’ guns as the two men were bound, gagged, and heaved into two of the closets which held empty white-suits. Carlos and Van Roornevink shut the sliding doors on the unlucky pair, then joined Lucie and Connie Waters to recharge their tanks as usual. Jud and I did not. We eyed each other. Jud winked. I tried to smile, but it was hard. I wondered what horrible Modern germs were already crawling round my lungs. It was all right for Jud, he was Modern already. I put these thoughts away as Tari and Utak returned. Tari carried a plastic bag containing drugs from a store along the corridor. She had looted them quickly from shelves and cabinets, which later she told me she had seen through somebody else’s eyes, which made me feel most strange.

  Jud took the plastic bag and it too went under his overcoat.

  Mery-Isis nodded and gestured. It was time to go. But first, each of us embraced Connie Waters and Philius Van Roornevink, saying farewell and thank you. They had agreed to linger behind as long as possible, as if with the guards, to delay the alarm.

  Then we left that room, in ones and twos.

  Tari and Jud
went first, then Lucie. I followed Lucie—along the corridor, down the stairs, step by step. I cannot describe what I felt, but it was hard to put one foot in front of the other without making any mistakes. At the bottom, Joe at the switchboard stared sadly at us. Lucie stumbled and nearly fell as she passed him. He reached out and caught her by the arm, holding her up. She mumbled thanks and hurried out. He met my helmeted eye as I came up.

  “I’m real sorry about all this,” he said. “What’s happening to you all. I want you to know that we’re not all dogs. I’m here cos I need the bread and if I cop out I’ll never get another job.” He shrugged helplessly. “You’re not the only poor dumb bastards. Just want you to know that tonight.”

  I said something to him as Clive Carlos and Utak came down behind me. “Hey, Joe,” said Clive, “the others’ll be a minute or two yet. They’re having a little trouble with Connie’s suit, see?”

  Then I went out into the quadrangle again.

  The lights were harsh. The night above was black, with no stars. I looked over by the chapel, and saw many people, DTIs and Institute staff, gathered between the south door and the main gate, near the front of the bus. I heard voices raised in argument and laughter. Other smaller groups and a few individuals were standing or walking about here and there. The clock said three minutes after midnight. It was Christmas! We had taken eight minutes.

  In front of me, Jud and Tari, then Lucie, were going to the library, as if for the movie. I saw Herbie stroll past them, apparently on his way to the large group at the chapel’s south door. Briefly Tari showed him three fingers spread against her thigh. Three minutes! Give us three minutes exactly! He showed no sign of seeing this, but instead veered briefly in my direction, beckoning.

  “Hey, Humf! That you? How you doin? Coming down this end to see what the fun’s about?”

  “I… think I’ll try the movie,” I called back.

  I realised I was very glad that Herbie was with us.

  One by one we entered the library. It was dark, and almost empty. Mary Poppins had already begun. The movie was at the other end of the room. I followed the others through the darkness behind the beam of the projector to the side door into the chapel. Faint candlelight spilled through. The screen was still in place, and there was nobody to see us as one-by-one we slipped quickly through that door and then through the other one adjacent to it which led out of the chapel.

  I joined Jud, Lucie, Tari, Jim Gage, Masanva, and the laundry bags. We were deep in shadow. “You ready?” Jud muttered. I nodded. Then he and I took off our helmets again.

  The wind! I gasped.

  I’d forgotten what wind felt like!

  It was cold, with a hint of snow and the north. Instinctively I breathed deeply. It rushed like ice into my lungs, and I had to bend double to suppress a fit of coughing that threatened—yet as I straightened up again I felt life rushing through me, a flood of it! I had to restrain the desire to whoop for joy, and Jud did too, and we had to punch each other on the arms instead, in mute jubilation. No matter if it killed us! I was so exhilarated I almost forgot our business, but Tari tapped my arm as Clive and Utak joined us safely.

  We had to be quick.

  Jud and I stripped down to the uniforms. Jud gave me a guard’s cap. He’d carried two of them under his coat. These went on our bald heads. Masanva pushed a pair of canvas shoes against my already-cold feet: our immunity-suits and Modern clothes went into the laundry bags, and I scrambled to tie up the shoelaces even as the shouting erupted.

  The timing was excellent.

  The eight of us moved, Jud first, myself last, but all of us close together, in an arc that took us for the most part through shadow to the back of the bus about forty yards away. We covered that distance in about seven seconds! We went straight past the rowdy shouting crowd all gathered round the squalling fight started by Brynjof, Thord, and Jim Guerrero. I heard Brynjof bellowing amid the uproar: “Solstice is not December twenty-fifth, Modern fool!”—and Jim shouting back, “It’s symbolic, you mindless Viking idiot!”

  The fight was brief, and was being broken up even as we reached our goal. Nobody had been looking in our direction but, as to the photoscanner eyes, we could not tell. And where was Herbie? With hearts in our mouths and in single file we crept up the narrow dark alleyway formed by the proximity and neat parallel of the bus to the South Block wall. Then, crowding each other, we dropped to hands and knees and waited anxiously as Jud carefully tried the baggage compartment door. If it was locked…

  It wasn’t.

  Observation had told us it would not be locked, but nonetheless it was a relief to hear that slow faint rattling of our open sesame.

  One by one, and as quickly as possible, those in front of me crawled into the dark cold space. But where was Herbie? I was cold, my teeth were chattering, I knew that anyone coming out of the gatehouse or passing in front of the bus might or might not see the dark moving shapes of us, and I was starting to clamber in last of all when without warning something solid slithered into me from beneath the bus. My breath hissed out… then I realised it was Herbie.

  We joined the others in the baggage compartment even as the last of the shouting died away. The space was crowded, the ceiling low, the feet of Institute staff climbing aboard reverberating just inches above our heads as we arranged ourselves in cramped squatting positions. As soon as Herbie and I were in, Jud carefully lowered the door without closing it. We’d considered this in Circle. If there were no inside handle we’d have to keep the door slightly open or be trapped. “Nope,” whispered Jud. He laid a thick wad of cloth over the locking port in the deck, then let the door sit on it. It left a crack about an inch high all along the bottom.

  The next few minutes were dreadful. Over five minutes had passed since we’d left the changing-room. It was impossible to tell whether or not tonight there would be any large parcels or baggage to be carried out. We squatted there in the blackness, waiting for a sudden rattling-up of the doors, waiting to be discovered as the Institute staff clumped and stamped into the bus above us. Jud and I were both shivering violently. The compartment was freezing cold, and smelled of oil, metal, and gum. I feared I might be sick, but controlled myself. The seconds ticked on… and on… and on. We dared not speak or hope, or even think what would happen next, if we got out.

  The engine started up!

  It revved, throbbed, roared!

  There was a slight jolt. We began to move… in reverse. Then, an agonising thirty seconds as the driver shunted into position for the narrow gateway. We moved forward. Next, increased booming and reverberation told us we were in the covered passage that burrowed through the South Block to the world beyond.

  From our questionings and Circle searches we knew there was an outer perimeter wall with a gatehouse, then several miles of semirural land, with two country stops, before a small town. There were cities to south, east, and west, and a complex of freeways to the immediate north. To stay at large at all meant we would have to get out of the entire area very quickly. It was a tall order.

  In fact it was this apparent impossibility which had discouraged many of us who might otherwise have been interested in trying the escape, even though Mery-Isis had remained continually confident that Seven, or her Hawk, would see us through.

  But first things first. We were almost discovered. At what must have been the outer gate the bus slowed down. There were shouts:

  “G’night! See you tomorrow!”

  “Happy Christmas, Sam!”

  “Yeah, man, you too—hey, hold on!”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “One of your baggage doors… I’ll give it a slam.”

  Our hearts froze. We saw our castles melting.

  “Naw, don’t bother, there’s nothing in there.”

  “It’s no trouble, I’ll just…”

  “Forget it, you’ll freeze your balls off. Just stay in there where it’s nice and warm and I’ll shut it when I get home. See ya tomorrow. Okay, man? S
ee ya.”

  The bus picked up speed and we breathed again. A bad few moments, but it looked as if Seven was with us… so far…

  Now we had to work quickly again. We had reached another crucial point, another door that opened one way only.

  An electric flashlight came on, and then another, and I saw pale faces, gleaming helmets and suits, the eldritch circle of us crouching in this rattling metal witch-cave! Now! Time for those who’d not yet removed their helmets to do so. The suits could wait, there was no room to change in this cramped space—but it was agreed that we must at least all see each other’s naked human faces before we separated into the two groups.

  Tari and Utak easily removed their helmets for the second time. Then Jud, who held one of the flashlights, played its beam on Masanva, who was next to me. Masanva took off his helmet, and I was fascinated to see that great-headed man plain for the very first time. His eyes gleamed in the light like blackberries washed by rain, he wrinkled his face very slightly and pursed his lips as he laid the helmet down, and yet again I found myself trying to guess his age.

  He looked at me, as expressionless as ever, and still I could see no bottom to those eyes, and he looked at each of us in turn as Herbie said, “Ready or not, here I go,” and removed his helmet, followed almost all at once by Lucie, Jim, and Clive—and then we were all looking at each other, all breathing the air of 1984 as the bus rumbled away from Horsfield. And again, as in the changing-room, there were several seconds during which time seemed frozen, none of us knowing quite how to react or respond. Then Masanva opened his mouth and spoke for the second and last time.