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“Aren’t you tired?”
I thought about it, then shook my head. “In fact I’m jumping with caffeine. Not in the least tired. So let’s get moving.”
We did, Scurrying like mice through the rooms ahead. More mysterious machinery—and a hopeful sign. Berkk pointed and I nodded agreement. A thick pipe had emerged from some complicated apparatus and was rumbling on nicely overhead. Through a large opening in the wall and into a room beyond. Not really a room, more of a cavern carved from solid rock. It was dimly lit by feeble lights, the concrete floor pitted and dusty. But the pipe was still there, no longer suspended from the ceiling but ru
“It’s still rumbling,” Berkk said, putting his hand against it. “Vibrating. Something is surely going through it.”
Which was fine. The only thing• wrong was that the pipe went straight ahead and vanished into the roughly carved wall. A very solid—looking rock wall with no openings in it.
“No door,” Berkk said.
“There has to be a door!”
“Why?” he asked with repulsively simple logic.
Why indeed? Just because we had been able to follow the pipe this far didn’t mean it was always going to be easy:
“Think!” I said, thinking very’ hard. “That black rock was dug up with great labor. Dumped down here where, with even more labor, it was ground to dust. In those rooms or in the tu
“To the place you told me about, with the robot and the women and everything. There has to be some way of getting there, though it do sift have be anywhere near the pipe.”
“You’re right, of course, good man. We look and we find. But which way first?”
“Left,” he said with positive assurance. “When I was a Boy Sprout we always started to march—”
“With your left foot. So we go left.”
We did. With no results whatsoever. The lights behind us grew dim and distant. We moved in almost complete blackness, feeling our way along the rough stone wall. Which resulted in nothing more than sore fingertips. We came to a corner, then an endless time later to another one. Then as dim tights appeared we saw that there, right ahead of us, was the pipe again. We had worked our way around three sides of the rock chamber to the place where we had come in.
“Maybe we should have gone right,” Berkk said brightly. This did not deserve an answer.
Back to where the pipe ended. But we turned right this time and went on into the darkness, Berkk first, ru
“Ouch!” he said.
“Why ouch?”
“Because I cracked my knuckles on what feels like a door frame.”
We traced the outline with our hands and it not only felt like a door frame but it was one. With a very familiar wheel in the middle of it. It was not easy to turn, but between us we managed to get it moving a bit; metal squealed and grated inside.
“Long time… between openings,” I grunted; “Keep it going.”
With a final squawk of protest the locking bolt was free and the door swung away. We looked into a small room, feebly lit by green glowing plates on the wall. This was more than enough light for our darkness—adjusted eyes to see another door on the far wall. With a handle.
“And a combination lock!” Berkk said, reaching out.
“Stop!” I said, slapping his hand away. “Let me look at it before we try anything.”
I blinked at the thing, trying to make out the details in the feeble light, moved my head from side to side.
“I can just about make out the numbers,” I said. “It is an antique drum lock that was old when I was young. I know this lock.”
“Can you open it?”
“Very possibly. Possibly not since there are no tumblers to drop that I could listen for. But—there is one long chance. To lock this lock it must be turned from the last number that is set in when you open it. Many people forget to do that.”
I did not add that most people did not forget most of the time. The thought was too depressing. And we couldn’t go back. I needed some luck again—a very lot was riding on this. My fingers were damp and I rubbed them on my shirt. Reached out and grabbed the handle and pulled.
The door didn’t budge.
But the handle rattled a bit in my hand. Did it turn? I tried.
And it did. The lock had not been locked after all.
I pulled the door open a bit and put my eye to the crack.
Chapter 22
“What do you see?” Berkk whispered.
“Nothing. Dark.”
And very quiet. I opened the door all the way and enough light filtered through from the glowing plates to reveal a rough floor littered with debris. A bent sign on the wall spelled out, in glowing letters:
They must have found it pretty awful if was like this now. Broken lengths of plastic littered the floor, as well as empty, half—crushed containers. And it stank.
“Yukk,” Berkk said. “Something is rotten in here.”
“No, not in here. In this entire place, that’s the smell I told you about, that came from the dust or sand. I’m back where I started. In Heaven.”
“Doesn’t smell like Heaven.”
“That is because Heaven is up there on the surface. I was grabbed there by that robot with a built—in gravchute. We dropped into a pit and ended up here. Heaven is above.”
“It usually is.”
“On the planet’s surface, you idiot. The planet is named Heaven.”
“Great. But how do we get up there?”
“That is a very good question. For which, at this moment, I do not have an answer. So let us start by getting out of this place first. Is that a chink of light over there? Close the door partway—enough. Yes, stay here while I take a look.”
I stumbled and kicked my way through the junk to a vertical crack of some kind with a reddish light shining through it. My fingers pulled at the edges, apparently the gap between two thin metal plates. I pressed my eyes close and looked out. A barren landscape with glowing red pits in the ground, some with bursts of flame rising from them. And that smell, blowing in stronger. I was back in the same place in the underworld where I had arrived.
“Berkk.”
“Yes?”
“Feel around in the junk and see if you can find something thin to pry with. This wall, or whatever it is, is made of sheet metal plates—and not too well joined.”
The first shard of hard plastic bent, then snapped. We tried again with a length of angled metal and managed to make a bigger opening. It was wide enough to get our fingers through, to pull and curse as the sharp edges cut into our flesh.
“Heave now, together,” I said. And we did. Something screeched and broke free, leaving a gap big enough for us to push through.
Out of one prison and into another. I kept such defeatist thoughts to myself and looked around. Dark shapes.
“Buildings,” I said. “I didn’t see them when I was brought here that first time. Not that I had much of a chance to see anything while I was dragged along.”
“Shall we take a look?”
“Any choice?”
There was no answer to that one. In the red—shot semi—darkness it was hard to see very far. The landscape was open with no place to hide. But no one moved, there was nothing in sight.
“Let’s go.”
When were closer we could see that they were buildings, with dark openings cut into their sides. They looked like windows and doors without glass or covering. There were more of the glowing plates inside shedding some light; we approached cautiously. No sound, no one in sight. Looking through the empty rectangle of a window I could see rows of what could only be beds or bunks.