Dayworld

They also would be looking at the numerous piles of dirt. It would not take them long to know that he had not gone in the direction they had taken. Though he might jump over some of the dirt, he would eventually step in some. Blundering through the darkness, he could not avoid leaving prints.

Which meant that, when they came back this way, they would see his tracks.

As fast as he could crawl, he followed the walkway. He had estimated that he must be very close to his goal. A few more yards, and he would be there. He was near to the wall so that he would not miss it. Once he got down it, he could use his light. For a while, at least.

Groaning softly, he stopped crawling. Something had driven into his face just below the right cheekbone. It came loose when he jerked his head back, and his cheek burned. He put his hand to it and felt blood flowing. Cursing, though softly, he slipped off his shoulderbag, opened it, felt around, and came out with some tissue paper. After sticking it on the wound, he felt carefully around until he got hold of the thing that had gouged his face. It was the broken end of a pipe or a railing.

He put the shoulderbag back on and slid between the wall and the pipe. The walkway twisted so that he tended to slide into the wall. Wriggling, he got by the railing. He had to stand up then because he kept sliding back. His feet slipped out from under him, but his wildly flailing hand grabbed a railing.

He crouched down at the peak of the bent walkway and slid down on his feet into the next upward slope. Just beyond it, he bumped his head against another railing. He cursed at the pain, then smiled. His hands told him that he had found his second goal.

It had been a protective enclosure around the entrance to the next level down. It was, however, squeezed in at the top. He had to take off the bag and drop it into the entrance hole before he could get his body into the narrow aperture. For a tense few seconds, it threatened to hold him.

Just as he scraped through, feeling that the skin on his ribs had come off, he was speared by light. The men shouted. He dropped and caught hold of the edge of the entrance. His feet groped for and found the ladder rungs. He scrambled down the ladder, which was twisted and at a slant. Halfway down, he had to let his feet dangle while he gripped the junction of the uprights and the rungs. He wished that he had taken the flashlight out of the bag so that he could see how far the end of the ladder was above the ground. Then his feet touched the earth, and he let loose. After groping around, he found the bag. The flashlight in his hand, he turned it on.

The place looked just as he remembered it. He had never been here, but, three Wednesdays ago, he had seen a strip show about it. This was Wednesday's allotted share of the early New Era archaeological dig. It was mostly the old sewage and water and power systems, not very interesting. He went forward on the dirt past bent and broken mains and pipes and snapped cables. The beam shone on the quick-drying plastic the archaeologists had sprayed to keep the walls and ceiling of dirt and debris from falling in. He walked fifty feet and found another safety enclosure around the entrance hole to the level below. This was new and had been put in by the archaeologists.

The old goods transportation and water-sewage level had been filled with dirt and cement and stone blocks and other debris after the second great earthquake. Because the ocean waters were rising as a result of the melting of polar ice, the authorities wanted the ground level to be higher. The present underground system had been built on top of the old one.

The level in which Caird was now standing had been excavated some years ago. During the digging, the archaeologists had found the bent safety enclosure to the ladder. It had not been removed but had been preserved as a historical site. When the level below had been excavated, the ladder had also been left as it was. Though the darkness had kept Caird from seeing the plaque that indicated the historical site, he had remembered it from the show.

Caird went down the ladder into the next level, the flashlight in one hand so that he could see the rungs. He got off the ladder and directed the beam around the immense cavern. The upper part of the cavern had once been dirt and the sewage and water system under the old transportation level. After this had been thoroughly studied and everything measured and photographed, the artifacts had been removed. The level beneath, that which had been the ruins of the city after the first great earthquake, had then been exposed. The cavern in which he now stood had once been occupied by two layers of archaeological treasure.

To the west, a hundred feet beyond the ladder, was a solid wall of dirt from which projected parts of stone and cement blocks and unrecognizable artifacts. Near it were two digging machines, looking like metal elephants on treads, two plastic-spraying machines looking like praying mantises, piles of temporary shoring material, and machines for carrying the dirt away.

Caird had to go the other way. If the two immers knew that, they could go through the level above and try to get to the next exit before he did. Or one could come down to drive him ahead while the other waited above for him.

Today was, however, Monday. The immers might have seen Monday's show about Monday's digs. But that would not be about this area. They had to be ignorant of the layout in this area. Not until they got down here would they realize that Caird had made for the exit and would beat them to it.

He hoped that that was the situation. It was possible that the two, carrying out their organic duties, had once pursued an outlaw down here. If so, they would know the area.

His light stabbing the gigantic hollow, veering to pass by plastic-walled blocks of earth on top of which were artifacts, sidestepping trenches in which were artifacts not yet completely uncovered, he trotted swiftly. The air-conditioning machines were not turned on; the air was dead and heavy. It was also warmer than he had thought it would be. He was sweating and getting thirsty.

It was unfortunate, he thought, that the floors were soft wet dirt. If the floor had been hard, its lack of prints would have slowed down the immers. They would have been forced to look into the huge pipes above to make sure that he was not hiding in one.

He went around a crushed and rusty automobile, an ancient internal combustion vehicle. Its occupants were now pieces of bone. Past that was another obstacle, a tangled mass of steel that the strip-show mentor had said was the ruins of a Ferris wheel. Another detour was around a tangled mess the identification of which he did not remember. It was roped off like all the other artifacts and was marked with a sign. He did not have time to stop and read it.

He came around a block of earth on top of which was a huge mirror which had miraculously not been shattered. He stopped, and, despite the extreme need not to do so, he yelled.

Centered in the beam was a gigantic monster, a thing with a colossal head, enormous many-faceted eyes gleaming a vicious red, dripping mandibles, and a body with many legs. It was crouched, ready to spring upon him.