We went our separate ways.
There were 86:44 minutes left.
* * *
The big problem was the depth delimitation of one hundred meters on the chart. The floor of the big cavern was more than eighty meters deeper, and therefore missing from the printout. The chamber's higher reaches were shown in rather confusing detail (which had enabled me to locate it in the first place), as was the superimposed twisting route of the relatively shallow tunnel system heading south toward Pickle Pothole. This, our potential escape route, I dubbed Pothole Passage.
Unfortunately, the navigable portion of the passage seemed to peter out nearly half a kilometer short of our present location. Approaching the cavern, Pothole Passage deteriorated into a labyrinthine braid of impossibly narrow crevices and partially collapsed, dead-end galleries. Somewhere back in the passable section, an unscanned tunnel had to descend to the lower level of our cavern's floor. It was through this uncharted connector that Luckless Larry would have wandered through the dark to meet death.
No matter how Matt and I studied the mystifying chart, we couldn't decide which branch of the maze might contain the link. There was no way to get an accurate fix on its opening into the cavern.
"We'll have to work by guess and by golly," I said. "Let's go out into the big cave, turn south, and see what turns up. The passage link can't be too tough to spot if a lepido discovered it."
I folded up the chart and stuffed it under my sweater. Besides my belt and pouch, which held a few items of useful gadgetry, I also retrieved the wrist navigation unit that had been taken away from me earlier. It wouldn't be able to receive satellite bearings through solid rock, but its distance-traveled system would operate underground as readily as on the surface, as would its inertial compass; and the transponder would serve as another beacon to rescuers, if we ever got within range of them.
In the cavern we found Haluk converging on the central genetic complex from all directions. There seemed to be about forty or fifty of them, graciles trotting briskly and lepidoder-moids more or less poking along according to their relative proximity to the Big Change. My heart sank at the prospect of trying to herd a mixed mob of frightened aliens up some constricted crack in the rock in time to escape a holocaust.
None of them paid any attention to us as we traveled in the opposite direction toward the chamber's southern perimeter, following one of the floor drainage gutters. The wall-ramp that curved around the cavern had its foot at the southern end. A dozen or so meters left of the ramp we found a dry, well-lit corridor with many doors along its sides, looked into it briefly, and then moved on. The only other opening in that part of the cavern wall was a large culvert some forty meters farther along, into which several of the floor gutters drained. An alien ideograph was painted on the rock beside it.
I touched the wrist communicator and Woritak promptly responded.
"This corridor near the base of the ramp," I said. "Where does it lead?"
"To the sleeping quarters, dining room, and kitchens serving the lepido workers. It has no outlet."
"Do you know whether it's an artificial construct—or does it incorporate any natural caves?"
He told me to wait while he asked one of the others. Then: "The lepido quarters were carved from solid rock, as were the quarters occupied by graciles and humans, the administrative and hospital rooms, and the principal storage areas. This was done so that the areas would remain dry and geologically stable."
"Right. How about the big culvert down at this end? Is it completely artificial, too?"
There was a pause. "Culvert does not translate. Do you mean sump number five?"
I felt a cold chill along my backbone. "I guess I do."
"Please wait while one consults."
I looked at Matt. "It's the drain where the troopers disposed of Ivor."
Her eyes widened in horror. "Oh, dear God."
Together we peered into the semicircular opening. The radius was about a meter and a half. It was darker than Satan's asshole and smelled about as appealing. There was no grill or other barrier.
Woritak's voice spoke from the communicator. "Sump number five is an artificial conduit thirteen meters in length that debouches into a natural subterranean stream. It receives water runoff and floor sweepings from the cavern, sewage from the worker quarters, and effluent and garbage from the kitchen."
"Thank you for the information... Is Eve Frost safely out of dystasis?"
"We are treating her. She is resting in an invalid chair. This one must tell you that Administrator Ru Lokinak is not persuaded by your hypothesis of another exit from the cavern. He has declined to speak of it to the others, lest it raise false hopes. Shortly he will begin to recite the thanatopsis. Is there any encouraging information you wish conveyed to him?"
"Not yet," I said, "but stand by." I clicked off, then set the navigator's inertial odometer to zero. The countdown was at -69.03.
My belt pouch held a very small flashlight. Its meager beam revealed almost nothing when I shone it into sump number five, but my eyes hadn't yet accommodated to the darkness. I stripped off the Haluk uniform jacket and the helmet and tossed them aside. The Allenby stunner, which was waterproof, had a sling and went diagonally across my back. I crouched and stepped down into the water. It came to my knees.
"Stay there," I told Matt, when she would have followed. "No sense both of us getting soaked. I'll do this faster alone. You'd better go back and see about getting the others organized. Probably best if you ditch your weapon. I'll transmit progress reports to Woritak."
"I think I'll just wait until you're out of sight. Give a shout if you run into any problem."
"And then what? You'll come splashing to the rescue?"
"Of course! I'm a terrific swimmer—especially in sewers." She gave me a lopsided grin. "Get going, cowboy. Do what you gotta do. But I have my doubts about this culvert being the way out. If the Haluk troopers threw Ivor into it and expected him to drown, how could a lost lepido have gone through safely?"
"Ivor went into the water unconscious. Luckless Larry could have waded... I'll give you three blinks with the flashlight if it looks promising. Two plus two if the route taps out and I start back. So long, Mattie babe. You're the best."
All she did was nod.
I struck off, moving as quickly as I could. The culvert floor was slippery beneath my sneakered feet. The water deepened, then remained consistently at crotch level. It was miserably cold, but there didn't seem to be any sewage in it—yet.
"It's okay so far," I called out to Matt. She stood silhouetted against the golden light of the cavern. "There's not much of a current."
I continued on, staying close to the left-hand side of the culvert and shining my light on the inky waters ahead. I checked the navigator. At thirteen meters traversed, the smooth arch of the culvert ended and the walls became irregular limestone rock. The water deepened by a few centimeters, but I was now able to stand upright in a larger natural tunnel. Pausing, I shone my flashlight around. Droplets falling from small blunt stalactites sprinkled my hair and shoulders. Ahead on the right I saw a protruding pipe spewing crud into the stream.
On the left there was a very narrow ledge.
It was a miniature ramp, extending underwater. Facing the wall and using my hands so steady myself, I could sidle up into welcome dryness. The ledge continued above the water, widening as the tunnel enlarged. The stench got worse, inspiring me to move along the shelf at a fair clip, playing torchlight on the rock at my feet.
After I'd gone a considerable distance, I stopped to call up a course diagram on the navigator. Its tiny display showed I had traveled almost in a straight line, 93.5 meters on a rough southerly bearing of 183 degrees. When I turned around, I could still see Matt's tiny figure. I blinked the light at her three times. She waved and went away.
So far, so good.
I flashed the beam around. The ceiling was about ten meters high, crowded with thin, pointed stalactites that wept stea
dily, making a plurping sound on the sluggish stream, which now had nameless things floating on its surface. Wet rock with small protruding ledges rose almost vertically to my left. Ahead, along the wall, I spotted an elongated shadow.
I went to inspect it and discovered an alcove.
It was the size of a room, reasonably dry, accessible through an opening just large enough to admit a man ... or a Haluk. An alien lantern, unlit, stood on a long, thin slab of rock that formed an improvised table. It also held a few closed canisters and what looked like an alien board game. On either side of the table were smaller rocks with flat tops that served as stools. Neatly lined up along the inner wall were dozens of transparent alceram flasks, curiously shaped. Each of them held about five liters of colorless liquid.
Unstoppering one, I took a sniff. The unmistakable odor of ethanol flooded my nostrils, canceling the abominable stink.
I had discovered the secret recreation room and booze stash of the lepido workforce.
Perhaps Luckless Larry and his thick-skinned asexual comrades were accustomed to assuage their boredom here after finishing the scut work. Perhaps, on one ill-starred day, Larry had exited the makeshift groggery after wetting his whistle excessively and turned left instead of right.
Resisting the temptation to sample the exotic elixir myself, I left the alcove and forged deeper into the tunnel. The roof lowered rather quickly after I had gone another fifteen or twenty meters, and simultaneously the route veered off to the right, cutting off all light from the culvert entrance.
With the constriction of the passage, I was forced to proceed at an awkward crouch. To make matters worse, the ledge, rendered almost as slick as glass by a thin film of watery mud, began to tilt in the direction of the stream, which was flowing much faster (and, I suspected, much deeper) than before. Long stalactites menaced my head, and nasty little spikelike formations underfoot threatened to impale me if I should slip and fall.
There was also a danger of skidding into the river. At best I'd probably get a mouth- and noseful of alien sewage; at worst, climbing out might prove impossible, since the bank now dropped off almost perpendicularly, with the surface of the water over a meter below. The nauseating smell combined with the speleological hazards nearly made me turn back. Cursing, wet to the skin from the drips that fell from the stone daggers, I toiled on—wondering how any lepido, drunk or sober, could have deliberately chosen to come through this fucking Spike Farm.
Maybe none had...
The ledge eventually leveled out, becoming a virtual promenade over two meters wide. The pointy-tipped rock formations also disappeared as I came into a drier region. 1 was grateful for small favors, because the cave roof was getting lower and lower. In fact, the passage was turning from a tunnel into a mere crawlway.
Dropping to my hands and knees, I slithered gamely onward, carrying the flashlight in my teeth. The space between ledge and ceiling decreased to less than sixty centimeters and the carbine on my back rasped against the rock. Eventually I was forced to squirm on my belly.
Above the river to my right, the clearance was even less. Then the waterway vanished altogether. Happily, so did its stink. I kept crawling.
Until my probing fingers felt empty air ahead.
I squirmed to the edge of what I feared might be a precipice and shone the light down. The bowl-shaped depression was less than a meter deep and about five meters wide. I gave a little yip of exultation when I spotted another of the alien liquor flasks, lacking a stopper, among some boulders at the bottom. On the opposite side of the cavity, a tall, very narrow crevice led deeper into the rocks.
Way to go, Larry!
I crossed the Bowl Chamber and squeezed into the crack, praying I wouldn't get trapped. My own bulk was less than that of a lepido, even though I was considerably taller. If Larry had managed to get through this Needle's Eye, then so could I.
The narrows turned out to be mercifully short. Almost immediately I found myself in an immense subterranean room containing the most beautiful speleothems I'd ever seen, all of the formations gleaming with moisture so that they seemed carved from pale polished gemstone. My flashlight revealed translucent striped draperies and ornate stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Some of the latter extended all the way to the floor, forming elegant columns as wide as tree trunks, adorned with dripstone fringes. They framed looming masses resembling fantastic pipe organs, huge animals, and the shrouded statues of ogres. Pools of water were everywhere, fed by droplets tinkling into them like music in a goblin's cathedral.
The river also seemed to have reappeared, somewhat less odoriferous due to dilution of its sewage content. I followed both my nose and my ears to locate its rushing course over boulders along the far side of the great chamber. The river finally led me out of the Goblin's Cathedral into a new tunnel that had a muddy bank littered with rocks and large broken stalactites. As I slogged along, avoiding increasing numbers of obstacles, I heard a distant rumbling sound that rapidly increased in volume. I wondered if there might be an underground waterfall ahead.
Belatedly, I remembered to check the countdown. Glowing red numerals on the alien wristcom showed that it had reached —45:12. I had been inside sump number five for twenty-four minutes, but I still had no evidence that this route provided a link to the higher level of Pothole Passage. If I brought the others in here, we might escape the catastrophic photon flare—clean instant death—only to perish in a gorgeous, putrid-smelling abyss.
Perhaps just a little bit farther.
I hurried along the river, only to be brought up short by a rockfall barrier higher than my head. I decided to see what lay on the other side and then turn back.
Holding the flashlight in my mouth again, using the long stun-gun as an alpenstock, I ascended the unsteady heap. Water was flowing in the midst of the tumbled rocks, and they were very slippery. I stumbled, barked my shins painfully, and nearly lost the flashlight. The pile was three or four meters wide. On the far side I found level ground and deeper mud, as thick and clinging as pancake batter.
The sound of rushing water was now extremely loud, and I was suddenly aware that the air was filled with mist. Thinking only of how little time was left, I restored the gun to my back and squished through foot-grabbing gray mire to the edge of the embankment to see if the cascade was visible. The grade steepened unexpectedly. I lost my footing again and began to slide downslope on my butt. Luckily, a large fallen stalactite checked my skid. Cursing a blue streak because I was now coated with mud, I shone my inadequate light out over the river.
And experienced a start of raw terror.
There was no gleam of dark water—only rags of swirling vapor that danced above a great cylindrical chasm.
By straining my eyes I was able to see the waterfall a stone's throw away, pouring off the opposite edge of the pit, into the depths.
Poor Ivor...
I scrambled back up the bank and made a hasty inspection of the area surrounding the chasm. My flashlight barely illuminated the bizarre scene. Just beyond the rockfall were tiered formations edged with sparkling dripstone, looking for all the world like a collection of gigantic fossilized wedding cakes. Water seeped down them sluggishly, and also over adjacent terraces that rose stepwise for about fifteen meters to a lumpy wall pierced by a tall opening shaped like a keyhole.
With my heart pounding, I splashed up the terraces. Each one contained a limpid pool a few centimeters deep with a floor of crunchy crystals. At the top the keyhole opened into a corridor that split almost immediately into two branch tunnels. The stream that bathed the wedding cakes and terraces flowed noisily out of the left one.
The right-hand tunnel was completely dry, even dusty. But at some time in the past it had also been a streamway, for the rocks lining it were well worn, forming irregular stairs leading steeply upward. In an expanse of dust at the tunnel entrance, blurred but still distinctive, were tracks made by a single pair of three-toed lepido feet. The footprints were headed inside. No prints came ou
t.
The countdown was at -33:24. My navigator showed that I had come 416 meters from the cavern. The chart, I remembered, indicated Pothole Passage's navigable section at around half a kilometer.
Was this the link I'd been searching for?
Tapping the wrist communicator, I called Woritak and told him that it was.
Chapter 21
"But you are not absolutely certain," the expressionless voice said, "that the passage will lead eventually to the surface."
"It looks very promising. Well worth taking a chance on. Tell your people to hurry—"
"First one must consult with Administrator Ru Lokinak."
"Physician, you've got to get moving immediately. The blast will go off in thirty minutes and there's no time for palavering!"
"Palavering does not translate."
I bit back an angry obscenity. The last thing I needed was to antagonize the only Haluk who'd behaved like a mensch. "Okay. You go and do your consulting. Is my human associate Matt Gregoire there with you?"
"She has gone to procure portable lanterns from the storeroom."
"I see. Please give your communicator to Em—to Scientist Milik so that I can transmit some important instructions."
"This will be done."
After what seemed an interminable time—but was probably less than ninety seconds—I heard Konigsberg's grating voice. "I'm here, Frost."
"Is Eve all right?"
"Yes. She's groggy but rational. I've dressed her in the en-virosuit but I haven't activated the ventilator yet. We're giving oral medication. She knows you're here. I haven't said anything about the—the problem."
"Okay. Now listen carefully, Emily. The exit through sump number five looks feasible but there's not much time left. Woritak said that Matt was getting flashlights. That's good. Each person will also need a space blanket. You know—those plasfoil reflective things they have in the hospital."
"There are some in the genen complex as well."
"Great. Be sure you and Matt and Eve have large ones. Don't bother with any supplies other than lights and the blankets. Just get going immediately. You'll have to carry Eve once you're inside the tunnel. Do you think you can do it?"