Blind Descent

"Time to go. You've been here plenty long, don't you think?"

Childish in extremity, Sondra nodded and pawed away tears with one hand. The other had a fistful of Curt's tee-shirt and looked in no way ready to let go.

"You must be real hungry," A

Schatz did as he was asked. In the confined crawl space leading back to the Trade Route, there was a scuffle and some wailing when he tried to detach himself so he could move ahead. A

Back in the crumpled space whence this side trip had begun, A

A

The ravioli stayed down. A

"Can you tell us what happened?" she asked.

The brown eyes filled with tears fat as summer raindrops. They dripped from the narrow jaw, splashing onto her trousered thighs with audible plops. Tears were an improvement. Tears were human; they helped to melt the u

"You don't have to talk about it," she said quickly. "You just eat and get your strength back."

Curiosity might have rendered her less kindly, but she had a pretty good idea what must have transpired. Sondra had heard someone- Brent or Oscar, or Brent and Oscar-talking about the original injury to Frieda. She'd put together that Frieda had been attacked to keep her from finding something they didn't want found. Sondra sneaked away in search of an exclusive story. Her disappearance was noted by someone wishing her ill. During the night the rescuers had been trapped in the Pigtail, this person had slipped away while the others slept. By the simple expedient of removing the tape, he had seen to it that Sondra would not come out.

A

"Did you get all the way to Tinker's Hell?" A

Sondra shook her head, her mouth full of ravioli. In a shuddering gulp she swallowed it. Her eyes refilled, and she whimpered, "There was somebody following me." Memory, mixed with trauma, was drawing a veil over her mind.

"Don't," A

Curt, still tied to their acquisition by A

Harmless male chatter was a balm to frayed nerves. Sondra's eating slowed, and her eyes dried. Stretching her legs, A

A

"Christmas."

She'd been talking in her sleep. Curt's "Ho, ho, ho" woke her up.

"How long was I asleep?" she demanded.

"Maybe ten minutes," Curt told her.

"Ten years would be a drop in the bucket," she confessed. "How are you doing, Sondra? Do you feel up to heading out?"

"Is anybody there?" She sounded like a frightened child.

"Peter, you mean? He's there." A

Sondra pushed her face into her hands, hid behind a clotted mat of hair. "No. No. Not Peter." Her voice was creeping up the scale, on a collision course with hysteria.

At a loss, A

"Not Peter," he said. "It wasn't Peter. Listen to me." Catching her by the wrists, he pried her hands away from her face. "A

A

"I've got to go into Tinker's Hell," A

"No."

It took A

Tying one end of her surveyor's tape to his and anchoring the knot with a rock, A

Never had wi