Blind Descent

"I've got to sit up," Frieda said. A

"God, that feels good," Frieda said as she gently worked her arms and shoulders. "Have you ever had a tooth crowned? Lain in the dentist's chair till you felt you were going to La La Land or bite the next finger that came into your mouth?" A

She drank from the water bottle secured in the Stokes near her hand. "Are we alone?" she asked.

A

"Good. I'm tired of being a good sport, a real trooper. This sucks. I hate it. I hate everybody and everything, and I especially hate this blasted cave and sincerely hope all caves the world over fill with bat shit. God," she said with a deep-seated sigh. "God, but I needed that. Now I can be cheerful and grateful and optimistic for another hour or so."

A

A caver A

Munk was young but not young enough to be excused, early thirties. Muscles bulged from hours at the gym. Flat, tiny ears were stuck on a square head. Muscle ridged the points of his jaws. A

"Since we've got a minute, I thought I'd check your packaging," he said. "You're putting a lot of strain on this group. What do you weigh? One fifty? One sixty?"

Frieda's mouth crumpled at the corners. Confidence and courage leached away.

Munk reached to rearrange the patient's catheter tubing.

"Don't." A

Munk sat back on his heels, his eyes small, carplike. "She's not packaged properly. Holden may be an okay caver, but he's no EMT."

A number of arguments came to mind, but A

"I think Frieda-"

"Away. Far, far away."

"Ahoy!" rang out from across the void.

A dozen lamps switched on, beams crisscrossing like searchlights at a mall opening, to center on two figures waving from a narrow aperture on the opposite side and near the top of the chamber that opened into Razor Blade Run. The response from the cavers in the lounge was exuberant. Everyone, including A

"Landline!" came the shout.

"Good work," Holden called back. Energized by the sight of the others, the rigging team returned to work with redoubled vigor.

Holden came over to where A

"I'm good," Frieda said firmly. "You guys are doing all the work. I get a free ride."

"You'd do it for any one of us," he reminded her. "And will probably have to this year or next."

Frieda didn't say anything, but it was clear she appreciated the thought.

"Are you up to being famous for a minute? Now that they've brought the phone line down you can bet there's going to be a newspaper guy on the other end wanting to talk to the heroine."

Frieda looked pained. "I hadn't thought of that," she admitted.

"You don't have to do it. You don't even have to make any excuses. If it bothers you, we'll just make like static and hang up. That equipment is left over from the Korean War. Who's to say it's not going to break down?" He smiled what he probably thought was a wicked smile, but on his worn and weathered face it was so sweetly mischievous, A

Knowing she had an out gave Frieda courage. "I'll talk," she said. "My folks are probably glued to the television, sweating bullets. They're old. I was Mom's midlife crisis. If I don't call for three days they think I've been carried off by white slavers. I can imagine what they're going through with this mess. They'll feel better if they hear from me that I'm still alive."

"Don't worry," Holden said. "It won't be just you yakking. As soon as a phone shows up, all of a sudden everybody's got somebody they've just got to talk to. We'll probably take a half-hour break for the doggone gabfest." He glanced at his watch. "Not so bad, I guess. By the time we get up that other side we'll have been truckin' for nearly seven hours, and Razor Blade Run is going to be a fun one to rig. Be good to have everybody fresh."

The three of them looked across the pit to the keyhole in black on the ceiling. Razor Blade was rimed with a miniature forest in glittering aragonite crystals, a winter wonderland in snow white that stretched for nearly twenty yards. Some of the flowers were of a size and intricacy seldom seen before and never in such abundance. Aragonite bloomed in wild snowflake patterns, crystals growing from white root-like bulbs of the same substance. Lechuguilla's treasure was its formations and the wonder they created in the too-often jaded imagination of man.

Tears started in Frieda's eyes. The first A

She fell back, tears streaking the mud on her cheeks. "There's not a stick for a day's travel in any direction," she said.

"Lean on me," A

"It can't be done," Frieda said.

Holden smiled. It was inoffensive. The smile of a child. "Au contraire," he said. A

He started to lay a hand on Frieda's arm but didn't, and A

"Good. Okay." Frieda was so relieved she would have agreed to be shot through the keyhole by a ca

"I didn't doubt it," Holden said.

When he'd moved out of earshot, A