by Susan Cooper
“Come down, quick!” he shouted over the noise. “Both of you—come down!”
There wasn’t time to think; I could feel Lou quivering, and I knew he was on the edge of a terrible seizure. The man looked as scared as I did—that was what made up my mind, I suppose. I pulled Lou over to the hole, and got down so I was sitting on the edge, legs dangling, and the man grabbed Lou into his arms as someone else’s hands, down below, took hold of my feet and set them on some kind of ladder. I ducked inside, and the man came down with Lou. In an instant the cover crashed down over our heads and was bolted shut. The air was clear down here, and the roar of the helicopter was muted, shut out.
Lou was whimpering, in the bearded man’s arms. “It’s all right, Lou,” I said automatically, stupidly. “It’s all right—be still!”
But I hadn’t the least idea whether anything was all right, or ever would be again.
We were standing in a kind of tunnel, with shiny damp walls lit by dim electric lights that stretched into the distance in a double line. There was a second man beside me, the one who must have grabbed my feet, but he was hidden in shadow.
The bearded man’s face relaxed into a big grin. “Beat them!” he said. Suddenly he looked quite different, like a happy pirate. His teeth were very white, and his beard was golden, like the long hair tied down by the black band.
“Let’s go!” said the other man, and he pulled forward a big trolley, a flat wheeled thing the size of a small automobile, with a low rim around it like a fence, and a double seat at the front with a steering wheel.
The bearded man put Lou down on the back of the trolley. “Get up, Trey,” he said, and I got up, without even wondering how he knew my name. All I could think of at that moment was that they had rescued us from the threat of the helicopter. They made me feel safe. Well, safer. I climbed over the little fencelike side and squatted down beside Lou. The two men jumped into the seat ahead, and we took off quite fast down the tunnel, into the dark. The dim little lights flashed by us like markers. The trolley made a humming noise, not like an engine but loud enough to make it impossible to talk, not that I knew what to say.
We swung round a bend, and I reached out to keep Lou from falling. He let out a long high shriek, a sound that came out of fear and excitement and just letting off steam, and he clutched at me; sat there beside me, clutching my leg.
We went a long way. The air was warm and thick, and drops of moisture splashed down on us from the roof as we rushed along. We seemed to go on for miles, for hours, though I’m sure we didn’t. It was like one of those nightmares when something goes on and on, or repeats itself over and over, even though part of your sleeping mind knows that you could change it, if only you could wake up. But you can’t wake up.
Then there was light ahead of us, very faint, growing, glimmering on the rounded walls. It was enough to show that we were moving along inside a gigantic pipe, with a bunch of smaller pipes suspended from its roof, running along over our heads.
And then we came round a bend into a big space, where the small pipes all came together and ran up and down in a huge bank, all set about with control wheels and gauges and flickering screens, before taking off again in other directions, along other tunnel-pipes. Lights blazed down from the roof here, as if it was the only important part of this warren, the only part that needed to be seen clearly.
I felt panic beginning to flood through me again. These people had rescued us from being caught, but where were they taking us? If somebody didn’t tell me something soon, I thought my head would explode.
In a corner, shadowed by the bank of pipes, I saw another trolley waiting, with two figures on it. Like our two, they were dressed in rough-looking black pants and tunics, or jackets—either black or very dark colors, I suppose because it made them harder to see, in this strange hidden-away place.
One of them stood up and looked down at us; it was a woman, tall, with a strong-looking dark-skinned face, and a lot of hair that could have been either white or blond, and she was smiling at us, a sunny, warm smile. “Hey babes,” she said. “Welcome to the pit, Lou and Trey. And well done, Bryn.”
Bryn seemed to be the name of our bearded man. He grinned at her. “Get going, Annie,” he said. He looked back down the tunnel.
I couldn’t bear this for another minute. “What’s happening? Where are we?” It came out in a shriek.
The woman put her hand on my shoulder. “Five minutes, and you’ll know everything. You’re in safe hands in a dangerous place. Get up with them, Gwen. Math, come with me.”
The thin man went to join her, and the girl Gwen scrambled up onto our trolley. Then Math’s trolley took off and we followed, one after the other, fast; running away. Running away from what?
Over the hum of the trolleys I heard a low booming sound from the tunnel behind us, and I saw all the heads turn anxiously. Both Bryn and Math bent over their controls, but the trolleys were going flat out; they weren’t very powerful and this was all the speed they had. In front of me, Gwen made a sudden frightened noise as if she was swallowing a scream, and she whacked Bryn on the leg and pointed back down the tunnel.
I saw a glint of light somewhere back there, and heard a new sound growing. Then the light became a long glitter, and I knew what the sound was, and understood what was following us. It was running water.
Bryn cursed. He looked ahead, and I saw the flicker of a face up there and knew that the others had seen the water too. The sound of it grew, and you could see it gaining on us, a curling grasping wave chasing us down the tunnel, rising, splashing up the sides as it came. “They’ve opened the sluices!” Bryn shouted to Math.
Math shouted something from the trolley ahead; it sounded like “root hole” and it made no sense to me, but Bryn yelled in agreement and wrenched the steering wheel to one side. I saw a dark ragged gap in the smooth white wall just ahead of us; it was a smaller side tunnel, running off to the right. Bryn turned into it, and Math slowed, swung sideways and came after us.
So did the following wave, splashing at the back wheels of our trolley now. The light dwindled behind us; we were headed into darkness. I held Lou tight. I was sick with fear, imagining the water rising over our heads, rising to the ceiling; feeling myself already suffocating, drowning, trapped like a rat in a drainpipe.
Bryn clicked a switch, and beams of light shone out from the front and back of the trolley. They didn’t show much, but you could see that this smaller tunnel was itself rising. The trolley had begun to slow down, but it was going uphill now, and the water wasn’t keeping up with it. The wave was still coming after us, but more slowly.
Math called from behind us, “Turn out the lights! It’s up ahead!”
There were a few scary moments in the dark, when Bryn turned off the lights, but then you could see a dim glow just visible ahead. This new tunnel wasn’t a smooth white pipe; it was carved out of the earth, and we were coming toward a kind of black fringe hanging down from the roof. Bryn steered us underneath it, and paused. He didn’t say a word, but I felt the girl Gwen get to her feet as if on command.
Bryn reached up and pulled down a thick line like a black rope, from the dimlit tangle in the opening above us. It swung across the trolley; I felt it brush against my cheek, faintly damp. Gwen grabbed it, as high up as she could reach, brought up her feet to clutch it as well, and hung there like a monkey. She swung to and fro, while Bryn steadied the line, and then she began to climb.
The trolley was beginning to sway beneath us; the water had caught up with it, and we were almost afloat. Math’s trolley was close behind, and he was holding on to ours; only Bryn’s hold on the line Gwen was climbing was stopping both trolleys from being washed along by the waves. I stared upward, feeling my heartbeat pounding in my ears. Gwen was disappearing into a scribble of black lines that reminded me suddenly of the casuarina roots on the beach at Long Pond Cay.
Where was Long Pond Cay? Where were we?
Then there was a light patch in the black s
cribble: it was Gwen’s face looking down. Something dropped toward us out of the gap; a kind of rope ladder, two long lines with footpieces joining them.
“Quick!” Bryn said urgently. “You first, Trey, and I’ll send Lou after you!”
I hesitated, but I had to trust him; I couldn’t send Lou up there in front of me. I grabbed the ladder and got myself onto it, swinging to and fro so wildly that I would have fallen off if Bryn hadn’t seized the end, holding it steady.
Lou wailed. I looked down at him. “You come right after me!” I said sternly, and then I climbed up.
And up there, on the other side of the gap, I was in a forest, a world where everything was green. Trees reached high, high all around me, festooned with vines and creepers, and the air was hot, stickily humid, loud with the shrieks of birds. Gwen had hold of my arm, and was pulling me sideways, to stand on firm ground. I bent over the hole through which I’d come, and seized little Lou as he came scrambling up, big-eyed, scared into silence.
Bryn came right after him, and then the woman Annie; they were both looking anxiously down, behind them, and from the hole I could hear the distant roar of running water, and a clashing that must have been the trolleys being flung against each other. There was a desperate shout, and Bryn lunged frantically at the gap. With a great heave he brought Math up, gasping, dripping wet.
Math collapsed onto the mossy ground, among the thick green undergrowth and ginger-smelling dead leaves. He coughed up water, and it gushed out of his nose as well. Bryn whacked him on the back. Lou was holding my arm tightly, watching.
When Math could speak he said, “Where does that one lead?”
“To the sewers,” Bryn said. “It was our link between the systems. So in the end it leads out to sea.”
“They must have known,” Annie said. “They were trying to drown us before we could get out. With any luck they’ll think we were washed away.”
“We damn near were,” Math said. He coughed up more water.
“Rest,” Annie said. “Lie there a bit.” She stooped and put her hand briefly against his cheek.
We were all standing beside a huge tree, its roots spreading over the ground taller than my head. The undergrowth was so thick and tangled that you could hardly tell where the gap was, the hole through which we’d climbed. I had to peer through the green tangle to see a glimpse of dark space, and hear the rushing water faint below in the tunnel. It wasn’t spilling up out of the hole; it rushed on, fierce and fast.
Annie took me by the shoulders with both her hands, and looked down into my face—and into Lou’s, close beside me. She said, “This is Pangaia. Very much like the world you know. Very much. Don’t be afraid.”
Considering we’d just missed being drowned, I thought “Don’t be afraid” was pretty funny, but I wasn’t feeling like laughing. Her face had the same soft seriousness that Grammie’s had, when she was trying to tell me to do better at school, and suddenly I felt very babyish. I said, hearing my voice wobble, “I want to go home.”
“You’ll be home all too soon,” Annie said. “The window stays open only a short time.”
“What window?” I said.
She said, “The window between the worlds, when they touch. The way you came here. They’ll be watching when you go through—but for the moment they may think you’re dead. We must use the time well.”
None of it made any sense. I said, “What are you talking about? Who’s they?”
Lou was watching a big bright yellow moth fluttering round his head; he was smiling, making his happy sound.
“Government,” Annie said. “The destroyers.”
Lou put out his hand, and the big moth settled on it. But the girl Gwen called out suddenly, loudly, “No!” and she knocked his hand aside.
It was as if the next part happened in slow motion. The yellow moth spiraled down to the ground, turning over and over; its wings dropped off as it fell, floating away like yellow petals, and the soft dark body changed in midair to a gleaming black shape that hit a root and bounced, once, before Bryn smashed his foot down on it. I heard the body crunch under his heel; then when he lifted his foot again I saw the crushed remains of a creature like a gigantic scorpion, with a terrible sting curved high over its back.
Lou stood very still, looking down at it.
Annie said, “That’s what they’ve done. Nothing is what it seems to be.”
Gwen patted Lou’s shoulder. She was a thin, wiry girl with short curly hair, and older than I had thought at first: eighteen, maybe. “Sorry I hit you,” she said. “We wouldn’t be here, if we hadn’t had to run. Nobody comes here, it’s too dangerous. It’s the wild land, the Wilderness. Forbidden territory.”
“The scientists learned how to change things,” Annie said. “Long, long ago. Plants, animals—everything except people. It was genetic engineering, and cloning, to improve the crops we grew and the herds we raised. But it also produced some awful mutations—and those are kept in here, in this high-security Wilderness. Creatures and plants that would never have evolved on their own.” She sighed. “It’s like everything else they’ve done! The arrogance! The stupidity!”
Bryn said, “Sit down, Trey. You need to know more than this.”
I squatted down on a fallen branch, and he looked down at me with an odd expression, as though he were apologizing.
He said, “We are fighting an underground war, some of us here, against our own kind. Sometimes we call it the Greenwar. The human race is the most powerful that exists, but it is stupid, deaf, blind, and it is killing Pangaia. For gain and greed it has cut down the forests, poisoned the rivers, fouled the air. It pulls down mountains to grind metals out of the rock, it forces rivers to become lakes, to harness the power of the water. Its technology gallops ahead for the sake of more gain and greed—and sometimes, as in this Wilderness, it goes terribly wrong.”
Annie said, “You saw the city. That’s the image of Pangaia now. The balance of the gases in the air that surrounds this planet has been changed, and the rays of the sun shine through uncontrolled, so that the ice that has covered our poles has begun to melt, changing climates, changing the growth of all green things, changing the level of the sea. In the last fifty years the oceans have risen enough to drown whole cities. Our lowest islands have all disappeared, and the lowest coasts are kept from the waves only by great seawalls. But all the time, the paving of the planet goes on. On they go, our masters, cutting down trees, destroying farmland, building, building, building.”
I sat there listening to their quiet angry voices, and it seemed to me that this Pangaia place might just as well be our world, because what they were saying sounded very much like the things Grand complained about all the time. But then I began to hear a difference.
Bryn squatted down beside me, folding his long legs. He picked up a twig and began breaking it absently into little pieces. He said, “So we fight our Greenwar to stop this dance of death, to save our planet from the darkness. Long ago we tried to be reasonable. We pleaded with politicians, we lay down in front of bulldozers, we sang songs. When that didn’t work, we tried violence. We blew up the worst polluters we could find: oil refineries, chemical factories and the like. When that didn’t work either, we went underground.”
“About a hundred years ago, it would be,” Annie said.
I blinked at her. “A hundred years?”
“Oh yes. My grandparents’ time. We literally went underground—into the labyrinth of tunnels and pipes that makes the underpinning of all these great linked cities. And into the desert lands too, and the forbidden areas, like this one, where normal people don’t go. I was born underground. So was Gwen there.”
I glanced over at Gwen, who was standing near Math, wringing the water out of his jacket. She looked like a pretty normal teenager to me, not someone born under the ground. She grinned at me.
Lou was sitting very quietly, listening. I wondered what he was making of all this.
Annie said, “And—we came to know
Pangaia as our ancestors had known her. We learned to hear. To think. To understand things long, long forgotten. We learned—stories. And prophecies.”
She hesitated, and looked over at Bryn, as if she was having trouble saying what she meant.
Bryn got to his feet and came toward me, making me look at him. He said, “Listen carefully to this, Trey. It will sound strange. Pangaia is a planet, but it is also an organism. This whole world. It is made up of everything on it, in it, around it, but it is also a single mind. Its mind is called Gaia. It is a mystery. It will save itself from destruction, it always has. It will save itself from the human race by its own methods—and it plans to use us. We are its agents.”
Annie said, “And so are you, and that’s why you are here.” She was looking at Lou. I didn’t know whether I was included in this. Lou gave her his sweet inscrutable smile.
I said, “But what does that mean? What’s going to happen?”
“Lou will tell us,” Annie said.
I was beginning to think they were all mad. “Lou can’t talk!” I said.
Math reached up and clutched at Annie’s arm, struggling to get to his feet. His lean, lined face looked a bit less pale than before. “We must get on,” he said.
Bryn had climbed up onto one of the huge tree roots; his head was constantly turning, looking from side to side, up and down. All around us there were strange unsettling noises, mutterings and whistlings and the occasional distant shriek, and a sound like a continual wind in the trees, though no branch seemed to move.
“Bryn!” Math said sharply. “Can we go?”
Bryn climbed down. A vine had curled itself round his leg, and he ripped it violently away. I could have sworn I heard it whimper.
He said, “Lou will show us the way.”
“Lou?” I said. “Are you crazy?”
“The tree will call him,” Bryn said.
FIVE
