Sunchild. James Axler
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walls at regular intervals. Also regular, but falling in between the beams, was a series of graduated steps, each forming a platform of about twenty-five feet in length, some of which were irregularly raised.
“Most ingenious,” Doc murmured on observing this, taking the brief opportunity to halt for a moment’s rest. “Not steps, but neither a ramp. The slightest movement of the earth will merely alter the one platform, rather than stress and crack a complete ramp or break a fixed staircase.”
Ryan looked at his wrist chron. They had been progressing up for nearly an hour. The incline was gradual, and the shaft had a slight bend to it. Looking ahead, he could see that the platforms were a little more uneven, suggesting earth disturbance. But all the columns appeared to be intact. He noted that the width of the tunnel was less than he had supposed, and it would have been possible for him to stand in the middle with both arms extended to touch the sides.
From the elapsed time and the gradation of the tunnel, he suspected that they still had a long way to go.
“Okay, now we know where we’re going,” he said, almost to himself. “Let’s go.”
A flare would last twenty minutes, the last five showing a fading light, so Ryan knew that they had been walking for over fifteen minutes when they came to a sharp corner, the first they had encountered.
But even by the fading light he could see that it wasn’t a constructed corner. The earth had savagely taken the shaft and bent it to its own will.
“Problems,” he said over his shoulder, trying to make his voice carry without raising it. “We’ve got an earth move.”
As he said it, he was aware of the platform beneath his feet moving. It was a slight movement, but growing with every second. The concrete platform was tilting on loosened earth, the angle of tilt increasing the momentum in a dangerous equation.
“Fireblast!” he yelled, the flare falling from his grip as he slid on the platform, a thin coating of moss from the seepage of damp earth causing his heavy combat boots to lose their firm hold as the angle increased.
Ryan tilted his muscular frame to the bend of the earth, not fighting the momentum but rolling with it, using it to adjust his own equilibrium. As the shaft tilted and rolled in his vision, he saw that the others were also encountering similar problems. Krysty had been slammed into the wall of the shaft, and was fighting to regain both footing and the breath that had been driven from her body. Behind her, Jak was down, but already springing to his feet. Doc was down, and beyond him there was darkness, filled with the rumble of moving earth and the crunch and whine of breaking concrete and twisting metal as the support rods in the columns bent beneath the pressure of the moving rock and earth.
And then, as suddenly as it had started, it ceased. Ryan stood silent and still, straining every nerve to detect any further movement. By the fading light, he could see Krysty, propped against the near wall of the shaft.
She caught his glance and briefly shook her head. With her razor-sharp mutie sense, she was the likeliest to detect any further danger in the depths of the earth.
Doc looked up, not yet daring to clamber to his feet.
“Safe?” he whispered. It seemed uncannily loud in the silence following the miniquake.
Ryan nodded, moving slowly to pick up the spluttering and dying flare, and moving with an infinite care back to where Krysty stood.
“Go back and check,” he said quietly. Krysty assented, and they both crept back to Jak, who was standing perfectly still, feeling for the slightest movement through the balls of his feet. As they approached, the albino looked at them, the flare illuminating his red eyes so that they glowed like coals.
“We move, not it adjust us,” he murmured, indicating that the resettled earth should be still for some time. The three of them went back to Doc, who was gingerly picking himself up and dusting himself down. Without a word, Doc fell in behind them and muttered an oath to himself when he saw that a wall of concrete, earth and rock cut them off from the others.
“Hope they behind, not in,” Jak said simply.
IT WAS PITCH-BLACK, and Mildred clung to the concrete floor, aware that she was at some crazy angle where her feet were above her head and her hands were pressing against the angle where the floor and wall now met.
The dust and dirt that filled the air clogged her nose and mouth. “John,” she spluttered through a mouthful of earth, “are you okay?”
“In one piece,” the Armorer replied quietly. “How about you?”
“Everything works and nothing hurts…much,” she replied with a smile no one could see. “Damned quake’s got me almost upside down, but other than that…”
“I’m coming forward,” J.B. replied. And then there was silence for a short while, broken only by the distant shuffle of earth on concrete. J.B.’s voice broke again. “I must be near you. Things seem to have died down, and it’s all pretty solid. There’s a ten-foot raise in front of me, but enough of a gap to get through.”
While Mildred tentatively picked her way around the steeply angled shaft until she was once again upright, she could hear J.B. ascend to the top of the platform and the scrape of his boots against the concrete as he felt his way down to floor level.
“Millie, where are you?” he whispered, only feet from her. She reached out to embrace him, and they silently thanked fate that each was, so far, okay. Finally, he said, “We need to get forward, find the others. Think we can risk a flare?”
“Uh-uh…too risky until we know how much air we’ve got. If we’re in a pocket, then the flare could use it too quickly.”
“Okay, let’s find out,” J.B. said simply, passing her and tentatively moving forward. He went only a few yards before reaching a wall of rock and earth.
“Shit, we’re cut off back here.”
“And no way of knowing how deep that wall of rock is,” Mildred added, almost to herself.
DEAN KNEW that he had been unconscious, but had no idea for how long. He only knew that his mouth tasted bitter, and his head was ringing as he raised it.
Slowly, allowing himself time to adjust to the crazy angle of the floor and for his balance to assert itself over the waves of nausea that washed past him as he sat upright, he took in his surroundings. There was no light, and he waited in silence for his eyes to adjust to the residual light.
But there was no residual light.
Dean fought back the sudden surprise and panic, and tried to think logically. He was still alive, and although the fall and subsequent unconsciousness had left his body aching, there was no damage that would impair him. On his hands and knees, moving slowly to keep any disturbance to a minimum, Dean explored the limits of his enclosed world. It was only a couple of yards each way around, and the roof was too low to enable him to stand straight when he attempted to rise to his feet.
The extent of his problem hit him squarely. He now knew he was cut off from all his companions, and what was more he had no way of knowing which direction was forward, which direction actually led to the unblocked passage or back to the redoubt, or even if there was a way out.
For a second, the black despair of loneliness threatened to engulf him, and hot salt tears pricked at the back of his eyes. If he managed to get out, was there any guarantee that he would find his father alive, or Krysty or Doc or…?
Cursing himself for being weak at a moment when he needed strength, the Cawdor blood began to tell. A steely resolve settled on Dean, and he shifted onto his knees, picking one end of the enclosure at which to begin his attempts to burrow out. Extending one arm upward, he felt once more the concrete passage support that was keeping the roof in place. His fingers feeling along gently, he could trace stress lines and fracture contours in the concrete where it had been twisted in the tunnel fall. In places he could reach into the column where the concrete had broken away and the cold metal of the steel reinforcing rod was bared.