"Hold up a second," he ordered, and unhooked one of the packs from his shoulder. "Take some water. We've left the plain earlier than we should have… It's safer, but it'll mean a longer hike home."
They gratefully slumped down to the ground with Cal between them.
"Elliott, rig a pair of trips," Drake called out.
From nowhere she came into the weak beam of Drake's light, stooping down while she positioned something by the rock wall. It was a stubby canister, approximately the size of a soup can and dull brown in color. Once she had anchored it to a small boulder by means of a strap, she backed away, feeding out a taut length of wire, so fine that Will and Chester could hardly see it, across the width of the tunnel. She attached this to a spur on the opposite wall and then plucked it gently: It gave a low twang. "Perfect," she whispered, returning to the canister. Lying on her front, she gently eased a small pin from it and stood up. "Set," she said quietly.
Drake turned to Will and Chester. "We have to move farther down so Elliott can rig the second one," he ordered as he scooped up the rucksack.
Will and Chester got slowly to their feet and lifted Cal again. By now he had begun to make strange, nonsensical noises, whines and grunts, with the odd drawled word mixed in: "hungry," or "thirsty." But neither Will nor Chester had the time nor the energy to worry about that now. They carried Cal several hundred feet, then came to a halt again as Drake stopped.
"No, don't sit down!" he told them.
So they remained standing as Elliott set up another "trip."
"What do those do?" Will asked, leaning against the wall of the lava tube and puffing, as he and Chester watched Elliott repeat the process.
"They go bang," Drake told him. 'They're charges."
"But why do you need two?"
"The first has a delay on the fuse. So the White Necks trigger it, walk into the second charge at about the time the first goes off, and presto, they're sealed in a section of the tunnel. Well, that's the theory, anyway."
"Genius," Will said, impressed.
"Actually," — Drake leaned toward him — "we often set two or more because the Limiters are so bloody good at spotting them."
"Oh, right," Will mumbled, less impressed.
* * * * *
By Will's reckoning, they must have covered quite a few miles before they heard the charges go off in quick succession, like a pair of giant handclaps. Then, after a brief delay, they felt a burst of wind on their sweat-soaked necks. Drake didn't miss a step, continuing at a pace they found difficult to match. By now, Will was holding Cal by one of his arms while the other flailed weakly, sometimes knocking against Will's shins.
They twisted through tube after tube, climbing and descending, sometimes squeezing through a series of tight cavities, sometimes wading through semi-submerged, echoing caverns. In these, they were forced to hoist Cal almost to shoulder height, as best they could, so his head wasn't dunked under the water.
The boy appeared to be getting his strength back and, as it returned, he became more and more unmanageable, thrashing around in their grip. At times, it was just too much and they dropped him. On one of these occasions, both Will and Chester were too tired to care anymore as Cal hit the sodden ground with a mighty slap. He loosed off a series of garbled and guttural swear words as they were picking him up again.
"DANG T'Y'USE FIRKS! Y'USE SNECKEN THRIPPS!"
These unrecognizable curses, combined with Cal's ineffectual fury, were so comical that Will couldn't stop himself from chuckling. This infected Chester, who also began to laugh, causing the bizarre drawled invectives to issue from Cal at an even greater rate as he flapped wildly about. The boys' fatigue, and the sheer relief that Cal was alive, were making them both feel a little light-headed.
"Hmm… don't think I ever been called that before," Chester said, breathing hard from the exertion. "Sneck-en-thripps?" he repeated, enunciating the words carefully.
"I have to admit," Will snickered, "I've always thought you were a bit of a thripp."
Both of them dissolved into hysterical laughter, and Cal, who evidently could hear everything they were saying, flailed his arms around even more furiously.
"CRUTS Y'BISHTARDS!" he bellowed hoarsely, then went into a paroxysm of coughing.
"Shut up!" Drake hissed from up ahead. "You'll give away our position!"
Cal became more subdued again, not because of Drake's reprimand, but because he realized that the swearing wasn't achieving anything. Instead, he began to try to grasp hold of Will's leg to trip him up. Will's amusement turned to irritation and he shook his brother. "Cal, enough!" he snapped. "Or we'll leave you behind for the Styx."
Finally they found they were back at the base. Since they hadn't had to go through the sump, Will realized they must have approached it from another direction. They pulled up Cal with the rope knotted around his chest and got him to one of the beds in the end room. Drake told them to sponge some water into the boy's mouth. He coughed and spluttered, most of it dripping down his chin, but still managed to drink a good amount before he drifted off into a deep slumber.
"Chester, you watch him. Will, you're coming with me."
Will obediently followed Drake along the corridor. He felt a rising apprehension, as if he'd been summoned to the principal's office for a telling-off.
They entered a darkened area and then, through a metal doorway, Will found he was in a large room, where a single light orb suspended in the center of the ceiling burned brightly. The room was at least a hundred feet long and only slightly less wide. In one corner was a pair of bunk beds made from thick sections of iron, and every inch of the walls was draped with a mass of equipment. It was like some military treasure trove and, as Will's eyes roamed around, he spotted racks with huge numbers of strange cylinders like the one Elliott had tried to give him at the Place of Cross Staves. There were also some deflated gray suits that Will recognized as the ones the Coprolites wore, and all manner of webbing, coils of rope, and kit bags, all hung in neatly ordered rows.
As he continued behind Drake, Will spied Elliott between the two bunk beds. Her back was to him, and he could see she had removed her jacket and pants and was stowing them in a wall locker. She was dressed in an ivory-colored undershirt and shorts, and he couldn't stop himself from looking at her slim and finely muscled legs. They were smeared with dirt and, like Drake's face, they appeared to have a shocking number of scars on them, which stood out white against the reddish-brown of the dust that coated every inch of her skin. Taken aback at seeing her like this, Will stopped on the spot, but then noticed Drake was watching him intently.
"Sit," he ordered, indicating a place by the wall, just as Elliott emerged from between the bunk beds.
She had a strikingly feminine face, with high cheekbones and full lips below a fine nose. Will saw her eyes flash darkly as she gave him a cursory glance, then she yawned and ran a hand through her short-cropped black hair. Her arms and wrists were so slight that Will couldn't believe he was looking at the same person who toted the long rifle around as if it were merely a stick of bamboo.
His gaze fell on her upper arm, where there was a disturbingly deep indentation in her bicep. The skin lining the hollow was rippled through with jagged pink striations, and its surface was rough, as if melted candle wax had been dripped over it. Will's first thought was that something had taken a bite out of her, and a big one at that.
But everything he noticed about her was dwarfed by the remarkable fact that she appeared to be young, perhaps not much older than him. It was the last thing he would have expected, given her intimidating presence out on the Great Plain.
"OK?" Drake asked her as she yawned again and scratched her shoulder absently.
"Yeah. Going to take a shower," she replied, padding barefoot to the door without a second glance at Will, who stared after her, his mouth agape.
As Drake snapped his fingers in front of his face to get his attention, Will realized he had been gawping, and self-consciously aver
ted his eyes.
"Over here," Drake said, more forcibly this time. By the wall were two sturdy-looking metal trunks, and they sat opposite each other on these. Although Will's thoughts weren't quite organized, he started to speak.
"I… um… wanted to thank you for saving Cal. I was wrong about you and Elliott," he confessed, his eyes flicking automatically to the doorway as he spoke her name, although she'd long since left the room.
"Sure." Drake waved his hand dismissively through the air. "But I'm not concerned about that. Something's going on, and I need to know what you know."
Will was a little taken aback by the question, and looked at the man with a perplexed expression.
"You saw for yourself what the Styx are doing. They're killing renegades by the dozen."
"Killing renegades," Will echoed, and shivered as he thought about the incident he and Chester had witnessed.
"Yes. I have to admit I'm not sorry to see some of them go, but we're also losing friends at a rate of knots. In the past the Styx left us largely to our own devices, apart from when they needed a revenge killing because a trapper overstepped the mark and a Limiter went missing. It's different now; we're being weeded out, and I don't think the Styx are going to stop until every last one of us is dead."
"But why would they kill Coprolites, too?" Will asked.
"To send a signal to them not to trade with us or give us any assistance. But that's nothing new. The White Necks have periodic cullings to keep Coprolite numbers down," Drake said, rubbing his temples as if the matter deeply troubled him.
"What are cullings? " Will asked, not understanding.
"Wholesale slaughter," Drake replied brusquely.
"Oh," Will mumbled.
"There's no question that the Styx are hatching something. The Limiters are out in battalion strength, and from what we've seen, there are high-ranking White Necks arriving on the Miners' Train almost by the day." Drake frowned. "We've also got it from a reliable source that the scientists are down here trying something out on human subjects. There are stories they've set up a testing area, although I haven't located it yet."
"This ringing any bells with you?" He paused to scrutinize Will with his striking blue eyes. "You don't know anything about any of this, do you?" he said to the boy.
Will shook his head.
"Well, then, I need to know everything you do know. Exactly who are you?"
"Um… OK," Will answered, clueless where to start or how much Drake really wanted to hear. He was feeling totally fried, and every muscle in his body ached from hauling Cal, but he wanted to help Drake however he could. So he began to talk in some detail, Drake interrupting with the odd question, and his manner softening slightly and becoming almost convivial as Will went on.
He recounted how his adoptive father, Dr. Burrows, had been observing a group of people up in Highfield who didn't quite seem to fit and had thrown himself into an investigation of them. And how this investigation had led him to excavate a tunnel, which had given him a way into the Colony. Then Will explained, swallowing as his throat tightened, how his father had voluntarily taken the Miners' Train. "And my dad's down here somewhere now. You haven't seen him, have you?" he said quickly.
"No, not me." Drake held up a hand, reacting to the boy's evident agitation. "But — and I don't want to get your hopes up — I spoke to a trapper recently…" Drake seemed to hesitate.
"And?" Will said eagerly.
"He heard through the grapevine that there's an outsider hanging around one of the settlements. Apparently this man is neither Colonist nor Styx… He wears glasses…"
"Yes?" Will leaned forward expectantly.
"…and makes notes in a book."
"That's Dad! It's got to be!" Will exploded, laughing with relief. "You have to take me to him."
"I can't," Drake replied bluntly.
Will's elation was immediately replaced by sheer exasperation.
"What do you mean, you can't? You must!" Will implored him, then his frustration boiled over and he jumped to his feet. "He's my dad! You have to show me where he is!"
"Sit down," Drake ordered in no uncertain terms.
Will didn't move.
"I said sit down… and calm down, so I can finish what I was saying."
Will slowly lowered himself back onto the trunk, his chest heaving with emotion.
"I said I didn't want to get your hopes up. The trapper didn't give me any details about where this man is, and the Deeps go on for miles. In any case, with all the activity from the White Necks, the Coprolites are moving their settlements. So it's likely he's upped and moved with them, too."
Will was silent for a while.
"But if it is Dad, he's OK, then?" he asked eventually, searching Drake's eyes for confirmation. "You think he's going to be all right?"
Drake rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "As long as he doesn't get jumped by a Limiter execution squad."
"Oh, thank goodness," Will said, closing his eyes for a moment.
Even if Drake couldn't tell him where his father was, Will was so comforted by the information he was alive that it gave him a second wind.
He launched into his own story; how, after Dr. Burrows had gone missing, he'd enlisted Chester's help, and how they had gotten into the Colony. He told of their subsequent capture and the grueling interrogations by the Styx. Then he spoke about the first meeting with his biological brother and father, and the revelation that he had been adopted. As he mentioned his real mother, and hat she was the only person ever to escape from the clutches of the Colony and survive, Drake interrupted him abruptly.
"Her name? What's her name?"
"Um… Jerome. Sarah Jerome."
"There was the smallest intake of breath from Drake and, in the silence that followed, Will was sure he noticed a change in the man's penetrating eyes. It was as though they were looking at him afresh.
"So you're telling me you're her son," Drake said, straightening his back. "Sarah Jerome's son?"
"Yes," Will confirmed, surprised by his reaction. "Cal is, too," he added in a mumble.
"And your mother, she has a brother."
Will couldn't tell whether this was a question or a statement of fact. "Yes, she did," he replied. "My uncle Tam."
"Tam Macaulay."
Will nodded, impressed that Drake knew the name. "You've heard of him?"
"Only by reputation. He wasn't a favorite with the powers that be in the Colony… they had him down as a trouble maker," Drake replied. "But you said did? What happened to him?"
"He died getting Cal and me away from the Styx," Will answered sadly. As Drake frowned, Will went on to tell him everything he knew about Rebecca, and how Tam had fought and killed her father, the Crawfly.
Drake whistled. "You certainly saved the juiciest part till last," he said, then gazed at Will for a few moments. "So," he pronounced softly, "you've pissed off someone right at the top of the Styx pecking order and," — he was silent for a heartbeat — "and they want to put your head on a plate."
This knocked Will for a loop and he didn't know how to respond. "But—" he started with a splutter.
Drake spoke over him. "There's no way they'll let you remain at large. Just as your mother, Sarah, is a sort of figurehead, a hero for the insurgents in the Colony, you'll be viewed in the same light."
"Me?" Will swallowed.
"Yeah," Drake said. "You should wear a warning label."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you, my friend, are an extremely dangerous person to be around," Drake spelled out for the staggered boy. "It might be another reason why the plain is crawling with Limiters." Then, lapsing into thought, Drake rested his elbows on his long legs and leaned forward to study the floor. "This puts a different spin on everything."
"Why? No, it's not all because of me, it can't be!" Will protested vehemently. "You know how messed up it is in the Colony…"
"No, I don't," Drake rebutted fiercely, jerking his head up. "Haven't been there fo
r a while."
"Well, anyway, why would they still be after me? What can I do to them?"
"That's not the point. You just don't mess with them and walk away." Drake gave a snort. "The Styx don't truck with live and let live."
"But you said all the important Styx have been arriving in the Deeps. They wouldn't come here just because of me, would they?"
"No… that's true." Drake narrowed his eyes, nodding in vague agreement. "They might want to eliminate you, but with all the top brass and scientists turning up, there's no question they're working on something big. And whatever it is, it's obviously important to them."
"What do you think it is?" Will asked.
The man just shook his head and offered no explanation.
"Can I ask you something?" Will ventured, his mind still reeling.
Drake gave a nod.
"Um… Chester thinks you're a freedom fighter. Are you?"
"No, not even close. I'm a Topsoiler, just like you."
"You're kidding," Will exclaimed. "How did you—?"
"It's a long story. Maybe another time," Drake replied. "Anything else you want to know?"
Will had been building himself up to ask the question that had been in the back of his mind for some time.
"Why…?" he began, his voice wavering as he wondered if he was pushing his luck.
"Go on," Drake said, flexing his arm.
"Why… why did you save Cal? What are you helping us for?"
"That stone you're wearing," Drake said obliquely, as if he was avoiding giving an answer.
"This?" Will asked, touching the green jade pendant around his neck.
"Yes, where'd you get it?"
"From Tam." Probing with his fingertips the three slightly converging lines carved into its polished surface, Will contemplated the pendant. "Is it something important?"
"Legends speak of a fabled race far below, at the bottom of the Pore. It's said they're nearly as old as the earth itself. I've seen that same symbol many times… It's on their ruined temples." Drake stared at the pendant, lapsing into another silence, during which Will felt more and more awkward.