Six tread ortholiquid. “The only way out of here is down.”
“DOWN?”
Six nodded. “This is impossible. Our only hope is if it is connected to another cavern under the surface. We will have to dive to see if we can find an underwater opening.”
“You know, I can’t help thinking that Grace and I should probably have stayed on Xiantha.”
“I can’t say I blame you. But if Arcan can escape then I think we have a chance.”
“He wasn’t doing too well last time we were connected to the mindmerge.”
“Yes. But that was before Diva got away in a shuttle. She will soon sort that out. There is no-one quite like Diva.” Six’s voice was proud.
“Of course she will.” Ledin tried hard to inject enthusiasm into his voice.
Six looked at him strangely. “She will, you know.”
Ledin gave his lopsided grin. “If anyone can, it will be Diva.”
“So we should concentrate on getting to Grace.”
“And avoid getting caught up in the mindmerge. If we do, they will know just where we are, and come after us again.”
“Agreed. Are you going to dive first, or shall I?”
Ledin looked down at the surrounding liquid. It wasn’t exactly beckoning. He gave a shiver. “I will.”
“I’ve got your back.”
“It’s not just my back I’m worried about.” But he jackknifed his body and kicked into a dive.
The well they were in was small, and it didn’t take very long for Ledin to find the only possible exit. It was about three metres down, and there seemed to be a tunnel. He kicked back up and surfaced.
“There is a tunnel. The problem is it is too narrow to get back through if it doesn’t lead anywhere.”
Six calmly took his mask pack from his belt and began to fasten it. “Not a lot of choice,” he said. “If we stay here swimming around in this we will eventually run out of strength and sink. We might as well take the risk now.”
Ledin couldn’t find much wrong with that logic. He pulled his own mask pack from his belt and began to settle it over his face. “At least we have the air left in this pack,” he said. “Pity we didn’t bring more.”
“We weren’t planning on underwater warfare.”
“Follow me, then, Six.” Ledin tip-tilted his body again, and disappeared under the surface of the ortholiquid. Six snapped the last clasp into place, and followed.
The tunnel was pitch black, and curved. There was no sign of any end to it, and Ledin had been right about the size; it was only slightly wider than Ledin himself. Ledin thought that he had never been in a place he liked less, and felt a sudden sense of panic. Then he remembered that Grace had had to crawl along a pipe filled with toxic fuel, back on Kwaide. He had not been a part of that epic moment in history, but he was a part of this one. And he was not about to let anybody down. He firmly clamped down on the fear, and made his mind turn to Grace, to the future he might now be allowed to have near her. It was a nice vision to hold, enabling him to ignore the ever smaller walls of the tunnel which were closing in around him. It helped him to take slow, even breaths from the mask pack. This was not a nice place to risk a blockage.
The tunnel weaved its way through the rock, sometimes wider and sometimes narrower. At its widest it was about the size of the escape hatches on Dessia. At its narrowest, Ledin had a struggle to force himself along. Jagged spurs stuck out of the rock and caught at his clothes. It took time to disentangle them.
Then he came to a fork in the tunnel, and knew that he had to make a decision that could affect his life. He felt both branches with his hands, trying to decide which was the largest. It seemed to him that the right-hand branch was slightly bigger in diameter, so he fed himself into it.
About fifteen metres into the fork, he knew he had made a mistake. There was a particularly narrow part of the tunnel, together with a bend, and he pulled himself with some difficulty into it. About five more metres in, he came to a dead end.
Absolute, black, dark terror swept over him. His mind didn’t take in what had happened at first, and then it blanked out altogether. He thrust hard against the blockage and pushed away from it, trying to twist backwards along the way he had come, but the bend in the rock made that extremely difficult, and he had become trapped on a spur of rock jutting out. His mask pack blocked, and he knew that he wasn’t going to make it. He stopped struggling, and waited for the end to come.
The sudden calmness which had crept over him at least enabled him to breathe again. The mask pack unblocked, and he was permitted to take in a careful breath of air. It kept him alive, but didn’t change the prognosis. He was about to die down here.
He tried again to edge his way backwards past the spur, but it was impossible. He was wedged into the tunnel and utterly incapable of doing anything about it.
Then he felt two hands grasping his feet, pulling at him. He wished he could tell Six to go; to save himself. It made no sense for both of them to die down here in the dark bleakness of the solid rock. Then he felt the hands push him gently forwards, turn him slightly and then try again to pull him back. He was still trapped.
The hands manipulated his feet again and again, patiently pushing and pulling him as if he were a lock tumbler, trying to find the combination of movements that would free him. Ledin was powerless to do anything. Even thinking was too much of an effort just at that moment. He was in a grim spiral to oblivion.
Then the spur freed him. It was sudden, immediate. The hands on his feet paused, and then started to drag him carefully back, navigating the curves of the tunnel with great care. Cubit by cubit, they began to retreat. Ledin was still unable to take in what was happening. His mind dared not give him any hope. He lay passively as his feet made their way backwards.
Then he realized dimly that they were back at the fork in the tunnel. The hands pulled further, until he was completely clear of the right-hand fork. His mind began to work, still in a dim blackness, but now gradually becoming aware again. He strained to pull himself into the left-hand tunnel, and knew that there was still just the faintest of chances for survival. It didn’t seem possible. But he was still breathing.
Then the hands on his feet released him, and he knew that it was time to act on his own. He forced his muscles to obey him, to make the effort, to pull him along the left-hand tunnel. And slowly, agonizingly slowly, they did.
He had progressed perhaps another ten metres when the mask pack blocked for a final time. There was no more air left. Ledin gave a desperate kick forward. And another. And another. The next would be the last. He had no air left.
He struggled to hold his breath, but now he was seeing stars and his lungs were bursting. He tried one feeble last time, and his hands found an edge to the tunnel. He pulled frantically and his body shot out, and up. He was almost unconscious, but he turned back to the opening, knowing with some small part of his brain that Six would have run out of air at the same time, and that, as he was behind in the tunnel, he might never get to the edge before he passed out.
Ledin reached into the tunnel and felt around with his hands. The blackness in his lungs was a dead weight on his chest now. Still he struggled to find Six’s hands.
At last, he felt the unresponsive fingers, and curled his hand around them, pulling with every last shred of strength he had left. The dead weight of Six seemed to drag him back into the tunnel before ceding to his pressure, and gradually inching out of the rocky trap. At last he was free, and Ledin pushed up from the outer edge of the tunnel, pushed up for freedom.
They broke the surface of the ortholiquid and Ledin ripped both his own and Six’s mask pack off. Then he managed to hold Six’s mouth out of the ortholiquid as he himself gulped back the first breath of lifesaving air. He turned to his friend, and pulled his head back, so that the mouth fell open.
For a long moment, it seemed as if Six were not going to respond, but then there was a flutter of the chest, and the mouth opened like a fish out
of water. Some small amount of ortholiquid spurted out, and then Six gasped in a very ragged breath, and began to choke. Ledin held his friend’s head above the liquid and closed his own eyes for a moment. It had been a close-run thing.
It was some minutes before either of them could speak. Ledin was the first to recover, and he looked around them to see where they had ended up.
Six saw his glance around the cavern and waved a hand. “It’s all right. This is the cavern I was brought to last time. We can get out the same way I did before. I know the route up the cliff. No problem.”
Ledin nodded. “Thank Sacras!”
They made their way wearily to the shore, and staggered out of the ortholiquid. Both of them folded to the ground. Six grinned over at Ledin.
“Thought I wasn’t going to make it back there.”
“Mmm. So did I.”
“Don’t fancy doing that all over again.”
“Me neither.”
Neither of them liked speeches, so there was no need to say anything more. They both lay on the hard rock floor and concentrated on getting their breath back. It would soon be time to force their groaning muscles to take them up the cliff wall. But it was good to be alive.
GRACE THOUGHT THAT the avifauna would leave her in peace, but she soon learned her mistake. The subjugated birds were unnerved and restless, and they kept looking towards the south and cawing to each other unhappily.
Then she realized that they would have to take cover before the nightly winds came. And they weren’t likely to fit into the shuttle. At least, perhaps one of the small ones might, but the others wouldn’t. She lay as still as she could, unwilling to remind them of her presence, not wanting to create any reason for them to attack her. Those beaks were lethal. With the Dessites in control, even Diva wouldn’t have thought these creatures could be pets. They were scary and impressive, and she rather wished she were somewhere else.
She must have lain on the ground for about an hour before she detected some sign of movement amongst her captors. There was a meaningful shuffling of talons on the sandy ground, and she heard one or two chirks of expectation.
She tried to remain where she was, but a couple of nudges with one of the long beaks brought her quickly to her feet. They were even sharper than they looked – that one touch had drawn blood! She rubbed at her skin, and stared at the welling red traces which showed that the contest between her skin and their beaks was decidedly uneven.
The nudge was repeated, with more determination, and she staggered unsteadily to her feet despite the pain. “All right! I’m coming!” She winced as the muscles in her back moved, and she felt sharp pain where the claws had dug into her flesh earlier.
The biggest avifauna examined her with its head twisted to one side, so that one eye could have maximum viewing advantage. “Gackkk!” it said, encouragingly.
“What do you want me to do?”
But her reply was ignored. Whether the Dessites in charge of the creatures’ minds were unable to understand her spoken and thought sentence, or whether they did, but were unable to reply, was not clear. Still, the best thing she could do, thought Grace, would be to treat them as if they did understand her. It was an opportunity to communicate with the aliens, at least on some level. And it seemed a little strange that beings that had spent thousands of years searching the Ammonite Galaxy for superior life-forms would only be interested in taking those life-forms over. It didn’t make much sense. The only way she could be useful in her present circumstances was by trying to establish some sort of first contact with the species.
“You want me to move in front of you?”
“Gackck!”
“Then there is no need to push at me. I will go of my own accord.” She showed them what she meant by moving one foot in front of the other and walking towards the nearby ridge. “See?”
But they clearly weren’t satisfied, for the biggest bird came waddling over and pushed at her insistently. They wanted her to move faster.
“All right! I understand. I will go as fast as I can!”
Even so, many of her escort decided not to wait. They simply ran and hopped up the risers of the ridge, and then flung themselves off the top, using the smaller wings which ran along their back legs as horizontal ailerons and stabilizers as they strained to get into an efficient glide. Grace gazed at them as they took off, one after another.
There was a muffled caw from behind her, and she turned to see the biggest of the avians regarding her.
“What? I can’t just glide off like you can …”
It chirruped at her, and then gave a sort of cluck, bowing its head. Another bird behind her nudged her towards the neck.
Grace went white. “I can’t! I have nothing to hold on with!” She held up her mangled hands. “I would fall off!” They couldn’t be suggesting she climbed onto an avian, could they? “It isn’t possible!”
Three birds clustered around her now, and suddenly several amorphs appeared too. There seemed to be some sort of discussion going on, for the amorphs shimmered and glistened in the rays of the sun which were now quite low in the sky. Setting sun! Grace looked around. Twilight would be on them soon, which meant that the wind was about to make its appearance. None of them had much time. She turned to the largest avian.
“I would be safe in the shuttle,” she ventured.
A strident squawk told her that they were not going to accept that as a possible solution.
“Then I will go with you … to the butte. That is where you are going, I presume?”
The birds inclined their heads, and Grace gave a small bow in return. Some communication was better than nothing. “I will make my own way to the butte. The amorphs can come with me. I know where the entrance is, and once we are through that we will be safely out of the wind.”
There was more communication between the amorphs and the avifauna, and then the last birds hopped quickly to the top of the ridge and pushed off with their immensely strong back legs. Soon their open wings gliding toward the butte were all that could be seen.
Grace nodded to the amorphs, and began to run lightly up the steps which the wind had eroded in the first ridge. Then she tracked along the summit for some minutes, before running down the tiered ledges of that ridge and up the smooth risers of the next. She was accompanied by the subjugated amorphs, hovering at eye level and easily keeping up with her. She looked behind her at the setting sun, and tried to pick up her pace, despite the gashes on her back, and the bruises which were telling her to slow down. Whatever else, it would be stupid for her to be caught out in the open when the winds hit. She wouldn’t last a minute.
So she raced as fast as her legs would take her from one ridge to the next, and along them, until at last the butte loomed into view. If she had been on Kwaide, she would never have made it, but luckily gravity was much less here on Pictoria, and each leap seemed to take her at least twice as far as it would have there.
Even so, by the time she reached the entrance to the butte, she was clutching her sides and was completely out of breath. She had no time to waste, for the clouds were already racing overhead and she knew it was a matter of seconds before the front edge of the wind hit them. She scrambled as best she could up the red boulders around the entrance tunnel, and dragged herself hurriedly inside. Even the tunnel held fewer terrors now than staying outside to experience the solid block of pressure that was about to hit. She shimmied along the tunnel like a puffer eel after a flatfish, caring little about whether she was being followed by the small amorphs. Thankfully, the first turn blocked out the wind, already pounding at the entrance, and she could relax.
She made her way more slowly now through the entrance tunnel, coming out into the interior path. Here, she sank to the floor and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Ouch!” One of the amorphs had drifted over to her, and burnt her arm, spinning rapidly against it. “Ow! Now what do you want? All RIGHT! I’m on my way. But I can’t see anything in this light, and I am going to fa
ll over any odd bump in the—” She matched action to words, and ended up with a scraped knee and a cut on her forearm, “—you see?”
She hoped that they would let her rest where she was, but the amorphs were absolutely relentless in their insistence, forcing her on every time she stopped, not willing to allow her any time to rest at all.
She fell over countless times, and ended up hobbling and limping up the slopes. “You should let me stop,” she told them crossly, half crying now with pain and exhaustion. “I can’t go on like this!”
But they didn’t listen. It must have taken hours to cover the distance up the butte. Grace was so tired that she could have dropped where she was and fallen into a blissful sleep. Still the amorphs buzzed around her, harassing and scalding her whenever she seemed to slow down, determined to get her to the top of the butte.
“You should have just killed me,” she grumbled, as they neared the top. “It would have been much cleaner, would have saved you all this trouble.”
One or two of the amorphs flashed, as if amused by her comment. She batted at one of them that got too near. “You nearly made me fall! Keep out of my way!”
Finally she sensed that they were nearly at the main chamber, where the avifauna would be sitting out the windstorm. As she tottered into the large area, she was aware only of the flash of hundreds of eyes shining in the dark, observing her arrival. Then she sank down to the floor and fell into an instant, dreamless sleep, unaware that one of the avifauna had half covered her with one wing.
Chapter 17
THE NEW SPACESHIP hovered close to the Kwaide Orbital Space Station, and Arcan appeared on the bridge, where Diva was consulting with Samoso about supplies.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“What took you so long?”
Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5 Page 21
