Caird thought that he could get to the tube before the car did. He also had a good head start on the other organic. But he could not outrun the beam from a gun. By the time that he reached the tube, however, he had not been shot at. Or, if he had been, he was not aware of it.
The car was sixty feet away when Caird got to the tube. The man on foot was about a hundred feet back. Caird went around the tube to the side by the street, Washington Square South. The entrance was oblong; the interior, half-lit by the streetlights. He put his hand on a plaque on the back wall six inches above his head. This was a globe with superimposed letters, MSUTS (Manhattan State Underground Transportation System). He pressed the M and then the T The seemingly immovable plaque responded to his hand on its lower edge, swinging up to the left. He reached within the exposed recess and felt the two buttons there. Monday’s code was left button, one short press, right button, one long press, one short press. He was fortunate that Isharashvili, as a Central Park ranger, knew the code and that enough of the ranger was still in him to remember that.
Having released the locking mechanism on the person hole cover, he bent down, lifted the handle inset in its middle, and pulled. The cover came up, but only because he was heavy enough to register as an adult on the security sensor plate around it.
Light had come on in the tube and from the hole as he had raised the lid. Below the hole was an irradiated plastic ladder inside a plastic framework. He let himself down, stopped, reached up, and pulled the cover down with the handle on its underside. It came down easily, restrained by a hydraulic mechanism from falling. Just before the lid closed, Caird saw the organic’s feet. A hoarse voice said, “Stop in the name of the law!”
“Whose law?” Caird muttered.
His pursuers were organics, but they were also immers. There had not been time for them to go to a precinct station and withdraw charged-particle beam weapons. These two must have been in the neighborhood or close to it, and they must have been looking for him. They were lucky—unlucky for him—to be the nearest to Ruth Dinsdale when she had called in. They had brought out the illegal weapons, their own property, from a hidden place in the car, and they meant to use them.
Caird went down the ladder for thirty feet before stepping off onto the rubbery plastic walkway. It extended east and west as far as he could see, which was not more than a hundred feet either way. Whichever way he went, the lights would travel with him and darkness would follow and precede him.
The walkway was bounded on one side by a thick plastic wall and on the other by a guardrail. Beyond it were two goods transportation belts, each fifteen feet wide. At the moment, they were not moving. Beyond them, against the wall, were two huge pipes. One was a water main; the other was for sewage.
Because he was both an organic and an immer, Caird had studied the systems. Every three hundred feet the rock wall bore tunnel and belt identification signs and diagrams of the local system. By each was a communication strip. These could also be used to monitor the tunnel. If the men after him took time to call in to an immer at the monitor control center, they could check with the monitor through the tunnel strips. The monitor could tell them exactly where their quarry was.
He did not know if the immers had anybody at the control center. He could not take the chance they might not have one. He had to get to a place where there were no monitors. Though he knew of such a place and was running toward it, he would encounter dangers there of which his pursuers would be only one.
He ran, his feet slapping the walk and his breathing the only sounds. When he looked back, he saw another light following him. The two men were tiny figures inside a worm of light. They were about six hundred feet behind him, too far for effective range of their guns. He had to keep that distance. So far, they had not stopped to call in and they would have if they had someone at the monitor control center.
The tunnel sloped down so gradually that he would not have been aware of it if he had not studied the system. It would pass under the Kropotkin Canal, but, before it got there, he would come to two tunnels crossing this tunnel at right angles. He took the first one and ran north. The belt by the walkway was lower than the previous one and was carrying a few boxes of goods. The belt plates, two microns thick, were not joined but moved silently like a caravan of caterpillars, one behind the other. They slid on the lubricant provided by the continuous strip beneath them and were propelled by magnetic impulses.
Jogging, looking back often to make sure that his pursuers had not broken into a run, Caird kept on until he came to a three-level tunnel intersection. Just off the walkway was a large room cut out of the dirt, rocks, and cement blocks forming the first level under the streets of Manhattan. The room was walled, floored, and ceilinged with thick plastic. He went into it, the lights turning on as he entered. This was a tool and recreation room and toilet for the workers. After looking hurriedly around, he ran to a table and picked up a flashlight, two batteries, a hammer, and a screwdriver with a long thin shaft. He tested the flashlight and put the five artifacts in his shoulderbag. On the way out, he stopped to drink from a fountain.
Coming out of the room, he saw that the two had gained on him. One raised his weapon and fired. Caird ducked even though the movement was useless. The ray struck close to him but did not damage the wall. He jogged faster than before. The two were gaining on him at the rate of about ten feet every ten seconds. He increased his speed so that he could get to the previous six-hundred-foot distance from them.
Beginning to pant now, he ran toward his first goal, a yellow enclosure of uprights circled by two horizontal rails. He was running so fast that he had to stop himself by grabbing the top railing. He went around it and let himself swiftly down another plastic ladder. Just as his head disappeared into the hole, the light above him went out. An angry yell reached him before he was halfway down the ladder.
“You won’t go so fast now, you bastards,” he muttered. At the foot of the ladder, he groped in the bag and brought out the flashlight. Its ray, poking here and there, showed him what was left of the old transportation belts. This system had been abandoned seven hundred obyears ago when the second great earthquake had struck Manhattan. The plates were thick aluminum alloy, many of them torn off or buckled. The gaps exposed the rusty and dislodged rollers beneath. The system had been obsolete long before it, along with three-fourths of the buildings on the island, had been destroyed by the temblor.
That catastrophe had been terrible, though not as difficult to recover from as the even greater quake of N.E. 498. On this level, however, the quick-drying plastic sprayed thickly to enclose the tunnels had not been as twisted as that on the first level. It was bad enough. Here and there, the plastic had been bent out past its strength to withstand the shock. Dirt had spilled through the cracks, and seepage had brought more dirt through. The flashlight showed no complete blockage trapping him. Not in this area.
The light had come on above him. The two were getting closer. He hesitated. He could get away as fast as possible from here or he could wait and try to knock out or kill the first one to come down the ladder. To do that, he would have to retreat beyond the range of their flashlights while they played the beams from the entrance above. Then he must run in after the first man began the descent, and somehow… No. If he threw the hammer, it might miss or only slightly hurt the immer. Both men would have their guns in their hands, and the one above would be directing his flashlight into the area below.
Just as he decided not to attack, the expected light beam came down through the entrance hole past the ladder. Caird turned and walked swiftly away, hoping that he was going in the right direction for him. There was enough light from the hole for him to see dimly for some distance ahead of him, though he had rough footing. The walkway was buckled and bent, and once he almost stepped into a gap.
Knowing that the man to first come down would stop on the ladder and explore the area with his light, Caird stepped up his pace. He did look back once. Seeing the beam dart around,
he got down behind a pile of wet dirt that had fallen through a hole in the wall. He was just in time. The light played on the mound and then went away.
Caird’s second goal, if he remembered correctly, was about four hundred feet away. He got up and stumbled on, feeling his way by the walkway railing, walking crouched over, afraid that he would fall. And then he did tumble, sprawling forward when he stepped onto a part of the walkway that was not there. He repressed a shout and shot his arms out and across to avoid injury if he struck something. He landed unhurt in a small hole. He did not get up at once because the beam shot above him. If he had been upright, he would have been caught in it.
The tunnel amplified sounds. He heard one of the men say, in a low tone, “Where’d he go so fast? We shouldn’t split up!”
“You’re talking too…” the other man said. His voice died down so that Caird could hear only a muttering.
“Too loud,” Caird finished for him. They would probably stay together and explore the areas in both directions for a hundred or so yards. Watching from the edge of the broken walkway, he saw them turn away from him. He breathed easier. He crawled back onto the runway and continued on hands and knees. When a beam flashed near him, he flattened out. They would be turning from time to time to try to catch him with the beam.
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.
32.
His yell bounced back from the far walls.
He swore at himself and muttered, “I forgot about it.”
His terror was gone, but his heart was still beating hard.
The plastic monster had once been part of a “house of horrors.” Most of that had been destroyed during the earthquake, but there were some exhibits or “monsters” here and there, roped off and labeled.
Hoping that the gigantic spider would give his pursuers heart attacks, he ran on. His beam played on some of the artifacts, one of which was the severed head of a woman with tangled snakes where her hair should have been. Medusa. The unhappy woman of ancient Greek myth whose look turned all she saw into stone statues. He ran on, passing many other remnants of the fun fair until, panting and thirsty again, he stopped. There were four vertical tubes here, shafts for elevators. Two were very large, containing cages for bringing down machinery and supplies and taking up dirt and debris. The smaller cages were for use by personnel. A half-mile east was another bank of elevators.
Caird’s flashlight shone on the control panel by the elevators. It had OVERRIDE buttons that permitted remote control of the cages. According to the indicator panel, these were all on the level of the new transportation system. Caird pressed three of the DOWN buttons and then the corresponding LL (lowest level) buttons. Presently, the doors to three of the tubes opened, and light flooded out from the cages.
He hoped that the immers, when they got here, would believe that he had taken the one still at the top transportation level.
When the cages got to the bottom, he stepped outside of the light that shone from them when their doors opened. He stood in the darkness and looked toward the west. A few seconds later, a flashlight shone from the ceiling, illuminating the ladder. A man climbed down in the beam directed by his colleague in the next level above.