Blind Descent

"Frieda?" she asked.

"No better, no worse."

"Good news," A

Holden nodded. "Peter is putting her on a hundred percent oxygen with a non-rebreather. He's got things well in hand. He separated Frieda from the others to give her a little quiet and privacy. He wants you to bed down over near her. Don't talk to her, he said. Let her sleep. Just be there in case she wakes up."

"Got it."

Holden pointed out the recumbent form that was Frieda Dierkz. In his shielded light, A

Biting back words she was bound to regret, she knelt in the dirt near her friend's head and laid her hand on her brow. "It's me, A

"Interesting bedside ma

Frieda stopped fighting. The tension went out of her muscles, and her breathing evened out.

"Ooh. Hey," the doctor said. "Maybe I'll have to give it a try."

A

"St. Paul, Mi

A

McCarty took his patient's pulse one last time, then turned his light on A

Too tired to laugh at him, she managed a "No thanks," and was rewarded by his departure.

She didn't pull out her space blanket or take off her boots. Laying her head on the unkind lumps in her sidepack, she was instantly asleep.

So deep was her unconsciousness that when she was awakened she didn't know if minutes or days had passed. For a horrifying moment she didn't know where she was; then, with no decrease in the horror, she did. Such was the suffocating blackness, A

Breathing evenly, she quieted her heartbeat to a dull thunder. Through it she heard the noise that had pulled her from sleep: her name, a sound so insubstantial it could have been the whisper of a ghost. "A

On elbows and knees, she crawled over to Frieda. "I'm here," she said.

"A

Shading the light, A

Frieda's gaze skimmed across her face and wandered to the impossible darkness above. "Thirsty," she said. A

"Stay with me, Frieda. I came all this way. Don't leave me now," A

Frieda's hand closed convulsively on A

"What? What wasn't an accident?" A

"Lily pads ruined," she whispered, and A

"Frieda," she begged, but the woman's eyes closed. A

Not an accident.

Marble clouds, dog vomit, and lily pads: Frieda was delirious. It didn't take Freud to figure that out. But there'd been a moment's clarity. And a reason Frieda had asked for a friend, a noncaver friend from outside.

A

Morning was two days away.

4

The next time A

Lying motionless, she watched the wakening camp. This far from the sun, all was shrouded. Shadows claimed more than light, and light cloaked as often as it revealed. Focus flickered, changeable as candle flames, as a lamp caught one plane, then another, lopping off a nose with moving shadow, sparking an eye bright as opal. Colors were fired and quenched, leaving comet trails on the retina as they passed. Beams sought out sudden horizons at varying distances, and the cavern appeared to be expanding and contracting; an uncertain and secretive world, more hidden than would ever be told.

A

Rolling onto her side, she realized that while she slept someone had spread a space blanket over her to keep off the chill. Fear had lain down with her, and at this sign of interference, she instinctively reached for a weapon. The reflex was a mere flick of her hand, aborted before her hand had moved even a finger's width. Here she was not a law enforcement ranger. Her assignment had been quite specific. Ladies in-waiting didn't customarily go heavily armed. A

Remembering her nocturnal exchange with Frieda, she wondered how much danger there was. What was delirium and what was the truth? That, too, was wrapped in shadow. She looked over at her friend. Frieda's eyes were closed. If she slept, A

Holden, Oscar, and Peter McCarty were huddled around a single lamp, heads low and close, fa

A big man, his face lost in darkness, stood a few feet behind them, listening but contributing nothing. Light from the floor caught the bottom of the cup he held, the edges of two large, soft-looking hands, and the underside of a jaw bearded in short red-brown whiskers as thick and shiny as a cat's fur. His bulk took A