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«Shut up, Jiz. If they're tracking us by C-phone they could hear you from Mars.»
«S-sorry, Gully. Sorry. I . . .» She took a breath. «Why down?»
«The river, the one we hear all the time. It must be near. It probably melts off the glacier back there.»
«The river?»
«The only sure way out. It must break out of the mountain somewhere. 'W'e'll swim.»
«Gully, you're insane!»
«What's a matter, you? You can't swim?»
«I can swim, but…”
«Then we've got to try. Got to, Jiz. Come on.»
The rush of the river grew louder as their strength began to fail. Jisbella pulled to a halt at last, gasping.
«Gully, I've got to rest.»
«Too cold. Keep moving.»
«I can't.»
«Keep moving.» He felt for her arm.
«Get your hands off me,» she cried furiously. In an instant she was all spitfire. He released her in amazement.
«What's the matter with you? Keep your head, Jiz, I'm depending on you.»
«For what? I told you we had to plan . . . work out an escape . . . and now you've trapped us into this.»
«I was trapped myself. Dagenham was going to change my cell. No more Whisper Line for us. I had to, Jiz . . . and we're out, aren't we?»
«Out where? Lost in Gouffre Martel. Looking for a damned river to drown in. You're a fool, Gully, and I'm an idiot for letting you trap me into this. Damn you! Damn you! You pull everything down to your imbecile level and you've pulled me down too. Run. Fight. Punch. That's all you know. Beat. Break. Blast. Destroy.Gully!»
Jisbella screamed. There was a clatter of loose stone in the darkness, and her scream faded down and away to a heavy splash. Foyle heard the thrash of her body in water. He leaped forward, shouted: «Jiz!» and staggered over the edge of a precipice.
He fell and struck the water flat with a stu
He shouted and heard her answering voice growing fainter and fainter. The roaring grew louder, and abruptly he was shot down the hissing sheet of a waterfall. He plunged to the bottom of a deep pool and struggled once more to the surface. The whirling current entangled him with a cold body bracing itself against a smooth rock wall.
«Gully! Thank God!»
They clung together for a moment while the water tore at them.
«Gully . . .» Jisbella coughed. «It goes through here.»
«The river?»
«Yes.»
He squirmed past her, bracing himself against the wall, and felt the mouth of an underwater tu
«Hold on,» Foyle gasped. He explored to the left and the right. The walls of the pool were smooth, without handhold.
«We can't climb out. Have to go through.»
«There's no air, Gully. No surface.»
«Couldn't be forever. We'll hold our breath.»
«It could be longer than we can hold our breath.» «Have to gamble.»
«I can't do it.»
«You must. No other way. Pump your lungs. Hold on to me.»
They supported each other in the water, gasping for breath, filling their lungs. Foyle nudged Jisbella toward the underwater tu
«Trouble!» Jisbella cried in a shaking voice. She submerged and permitted the current to suck her into the tu
They shot through the tu
«Got to climb out here,» he shouted.
«What?»
«Got to climb out. You hear that roaring up ahead? Cataracts. Rapids. Be torn to pieces. Out, Jiz.»
She was too weak to climb out of the water. He thrust her body up onto the rocks and followed. They lay on the dripping stones, too exhausted to speak. At last Foyle got wearily to his feet.
«Have to keep on,» he sail. «Follow the river. Ready?»
She could not answer; she could not protest. He pulled her up and they went stumbling through the darkness, trying to follow the bank of the torrent. The boulders they traversed were gigantic, standing like dolmens, heaped, jumbled, scattered into a labyrinth. They staggered and twisted through them and lost the river. They could hear it in the darkness; they could not get back to it. They could get nowhere.
«Lost . . .» Foyle grunted in disgust. «We're lost again. Really lost this time. What are we going to do?»
Jisbella began to cry. She made helpless yet furious sounds. Foyle lurched to a stop and sat down, drawing her down with him.
«Maybe you're right, girl,» he said wearily. «Maybe I am a damned fool. I got us trapped into this no-jaunte jam, and we're licked.»
She didn't answer.
«So much for brainwork. Hell of an education you gave me.» He hesitated. «You think we ought to try backtracking to the hospital?»
«We'll never make it.»
«Guess not. Was just practicing m'brain. Should we start a racket? Make a noise so they can track us by G-phone?»
«They'd never hear us . . . Never find us in time.»
«We could make enough noise. You could knock me around a little. Be a pleasure for both of us.»
«Shut up.»
«What a mess!» He sagged back, cushioning his head on a tuft of soft grass. «At least I had a chance aboard 'Nomad.' There was food and I could see where I was trying to go. I could…” He broke off and sat bolt upright. «Jiz!»
«Don't talk so much.»
He felt the ground under him and clawed up sods of earth and tufts of grass. He thrust them into her face.
«Smell this,» he laughed. «Taste it. It's grass, Jiz. Earth and grass. We must be out of Gouffre Martel.»
«What?»
«It's night outside. Pitch-black. Overcast. We came out of the caves and never knew it. We're out, Jiz! We made it.»
They leaped to their feet, peering, listening, sniffing. The night was impenetrable, but they heard the soft sigh of night winds, and the sweet scent of green growing things came to their nostrils. Far in the distance a dog barked.
«My God, Gully,» Jisbella whispered incredulously. «You're right. We're out of Gouffre Martel. All we have to do is wait for dawn.»
She laughed. She flung her arms about him and kissed him, and he returned the embrace. They babbled excitedly. They sank down on the soft grass again, weary, but unable to rest, eager, impatient, all life before them.
«Hello, Gully, darling Gully. Hello Gully, after all this time.»
«Hello, Jiz.»
«I told you we'd meet some day. . . some day soon. I told you, darling. And this is the day.»
«The night.»
«The night, so it is. But no more murmuring in the night along the Whisper Line. No more night for us, Gully, dear.»
Suddenly they became aware that they were nude, lying close, no longer separated. Jisbella fell silent but did not move. He clasped her, almost angrily, and enveloped her with a desire that was no less than hers.
When dawn came, he saw that she was lovely: long and lean with smoky red hair and a generous mouth.
But when dawn came, she saw his face.