– a high-pitched whistling sounded in his ears – his vision blurred – he felt his stomach drop –
The blurring before his eyes cleared abruptly and Rab found he was squinting into bright sunlight – and the floor had disappeared! He was suspended high in the air over an enormous expanse of sparkling sea. He yelped and reached for something to catch hold of, but there was nothing there to grab.
His Com sighed in his earpiece. ‘What did I say? Test stop, mid Deluvian, remember? Time moves around you, not the other way around, so if you start out 56 floors up in a tower stack and you go back to a time before the stack was built . . .?’
‘Yeah, all right. I forgot. This is – this is amazing . . .’
The Deluvian Period had taken place during the height of the ocean rise, when the part of the Northwest Europasian continent that he lived in – would live in! – had been completely submerged.
‘Look!’
Floating settlements undulated on the silvery winter swell below him like vast mats of seaweed, anchored to the mountains lying out of sight under the surface.
‘Can’t we go in closer?’
But his Com was already humming to itself in the way it did when it was happily engaged in calculations.
‘Not today, not today. Here we go again . . . 19th century . . . 1850 . . .’
The blurring returned. Rab thought, And next there’ll be the I–just–lost–my–stomach thing and the whistling and then . . .
He swore. ‘SCUT! Com? WHAT—?!’
This was different – this was worse – much, much worse – the whistling was rising higher and higher, louder, a shriek that clawed at his ears – there was a blinding flash – a jolt that made his teeth rattle in his head – the shriek became a roar – Rab tried to shield himself but his arms wouldn’t move. Just at the edge of hearing, he could make out his Com crying, ‘This isn’t right – this isn’t supposed to—’ From nowhere something grabbed Rab in an enormous fist and squeezed, hard, so hard he felt his bones grind on one another and his eyes bulged and all the air rushed out of his lungs. His mouth opened and closed uselessly, like a stranded fish – darkness began to swallow him up – then, as if from far away, he heard his Com screaming into the black,
‘WE’RE GOING DOWN – 19TH CENTURY – MAYDAY – MAYDAY—’
Walking Mountain Page 22
