near-miraculous recovery so far, he hadn't dared hope he'd ever fly again.
Sensing that he was perilously close to breaking into sobs, the workmen made their excuses, and dove back to making the hole bigger.
Leo handed Harvey a few sheets of paper. "Here's the schematics on the new stuff, for you to take home with you. For now, let me show you what we've got here, so you'll know what you're looking at on the diagrams."
"Leo, I can't thank you enough."
Leo was strangely silent.
"Leo?"
"You might not think that when you get shot down," Leo said, too low for anyone else to hear.
"Leo?"
"We're having a pilot shortage, and it's smelling more like real war all the time. We might have to use you, ready or not. And you might not have anybody to watch your back. I hope I'm not getting you killed."
Nurse Chan was at a discreet distance. She couldn't hear them, but she was watching.
Harvey carefully arranged his face, to keep her from figuring out what they were talking about. "I have reasons to fight, Leo. I'd rather do that than sit it out."
"I know. But if anything happens to you, I'm going to hate it, and that's a fact," Leo said. Chagrined by how emotional he was getting, he abruptly switched back to engineer mode, and started explaining the modifications to his apt pupil.
The trek to the fugitive hole was uneventful, unless you counted Renzo beginning to stagger under his load and shuffle his feet from fatigue halfway there an event. The other men took some of his load into their already overladen packs, and the three of them pressed on.
The fugitive hole proved to be fully stocked, and getting dusty from lack of use. This wasn't surprising, given how close it was to inhabited tunnels, and given how many good ruins were nearby, which offered good shelter without forcing a person to go below ground. Still, Joel and Trevin were glad to see that no one was there, in need of help. With the communications blackout, there weren't any good ways to check other than to hike over and take a look. Other parts of Northam might be used to that, but they weren't, and they didn't want to get used to it.
Joel and Trevin unpacked all three packs, finding room on the shelves for the supplies they'd hauled in. Then they repacked the packs with what they were taking with them, discreetly taking their time to give their greenhorn companion more time to rest. Renzo seemed to be recovering quickly, and there were good ruins for the next mile or two, which provided good rest stops if any were needed, so they headed out for "Morgan Avenue" as the unfinished tunnel was dubbed. Historians had determined that it was a few miles off from an original above ground Morgan Avenue, but was called that for sentimental reasons by former residents of that rural road, which had forthrightly climbed from the flats up into the low hills that lined the broad valley.
Renzo was dumbfounded to see so many ruins. He'd never been this far south, and had assumed it had always been a wilderness area.
"This used to be a thriving area, after dams got put in and irrigation systems were put in place back in the twentieth century," Trevin explained, before he remembered that the topside government had banned the use of any calendar not based on itself. "That would be about a hundred and fifty years prior to the First Era," he clarified, before remembering that Topside was experimenting with non-year reckoning. "What is that, Joel? Between 400 and 500 cycles before the First Era?"
"Beats me," Joel said. "All I know is that this was a healthy farming and ranching area, dotted with farmhouses and small towns, right up until Greatgranddad Eicher was a boy. Then the government decided to try to own all the people in the world, including out here, and some of the family got captured, and the rest were forced into dugouts and other hiding places. He used to tell us stories about it. But maybe we should cut the chatter until we're under again. I don't know about you, but I'm trying to listen for helicopters."
"Aye, aye, captain. Over and out," Trevin said, and was silent until they had climbed into the Morgan Avenue tunnel.
This end of the tunnel, a particularly good muralist had painted vibrant scenes of local history, clear on back to Oregon Trail days. Here was a covered wagon, there was a group of nuns founding the first hospital at Ontario, on the ceiling were pictures of early aircraft doing stunts at an airshow. Along at ground level, children playfully ran more or less in single file, their clothing getting progressively more modern the closer they were to the front of the line. The painting went on and on, with scene after scene. Toward the end, the quality changed abruptly, and then the mural ended, mid-story.
Joel ran his fingers musingly over the border between the quality painting and the amateurish work. "Greataunt Lilas died before she could finish," he said, nodding at the beautifully done part. "Others tried to finish, but gave it up, along with the tunnel itself. It's probably just as well. The rest of the story was about losing freedom, and, to a large degree, hope along with it."
"Do you mind if we go back there, and eat?" Trevin asked, pointing at benches handily placed mid-mural. "If you want to go on ahead, that's fine. But if we're going to spend the night in this tunnel anyway, I'd like to take some time to take some of this in, if that's all right?"
Joel nodded. Back they all went, and ate and mused. Trevin and Joel pointed out this or that in the painting to one another, and regaled each other with historical stories, most of which contained humorous elements.
After a while, Trevin said, "Call me ignorant, because I am, but where does the electricity come from for these lights?"
"A small, private nuclear pile, actually," Joel said. "It was all the rage at the time. If we ever get the land back, we're set to light up a whole city, just from what keeps this tunnel well lit on both ends."
"Both ends? What lights the middle?" Trevin asked.
"Nothing, right now. It's kept dark so people can more easily take naps any time of day. That's the main use for this tunnel these days, you know. A rest stop," Joel said. "Speaking of which…"
They put their litter in their packs, and shepherded the somewhat-overwhelmed Renzo into a dusky area, where there were neatly-blanketed cots along both walls for as far as they could see by flashlight, and beyond. Trevin and Joel flipped a coin to see who got first watch, and the little group settled in for the night.
In the morning, Joel had them leave jackets and anything else deemed extraneous for the next leg of the journey, to lighten the load for Renzo, without singling him out. They'd retrieve the items on the way back, he said.
They shouldered their packs, and headed down the tunnel. The cots near the south end were vandalized. When the threesome came into the fully lighted area near the porthole, it was to find ugly graffiti on the walls.
"This wasn't here before," Joel said. Not having any way to fix it, he led his little group through the ugliness as fast as he could, and got them out into the sunshine in good order.
They were nearing Nyssatun, when Trevin fell and cried out in pain. Joel spun, grabbing his handgun as he went, bringing it to rest aimed squarely at Renzo.
"He had nothing to do with it, I'm happy to report," Trevin said.
"What in the world happened?" Joel asked, as he put the gun away.
"If my leg being almost to the knee in a gopher hole doesn't give you at least a good starting clue, I am sorely disappointed in your powers of observation. Help me out of here, will you?" Trevin said.
Joel helped him out of the hole. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"Not sure," Trevin said. He tried to put weight on his foot. "Oh, oh. This might not work."
"You think you broke something?"
"I wouldn't be surprised if I broke several bones in my foot. It feels like it. Give me a minute. Maybe it's just repositioning nerves or tendons, and will be all right in a minute or two."
"A likely story," Joel said. "Renzo, get on the other side of him. Let's get him to cover."
Renzo did as he was told. Trevin was half carried, half dragged, to the remains of a stone barn, with ancient trees overshadowing
it. They moved to the shadow side of a wall, and got on the ground.
"Don't take your boot off. Not yet. It's the best foot splint we've got, at the moment," Joel said.
"Remind me that it's a bad idea to play If Only, would you?" Trevin said. His face was getting covered in sweat, and was a little bit gray.
"It's bad to play If Only. But it's not always bad to tell your expedition commander what you're wishing was different," Joel said.
"Other than thinking 'if only I'd seen the hole instead of stepping in it,' I'm thinking 'if only we could use our radios.' I'm also thinking 'if only Renzo was a regular defender instead of a probationer, one of you could jog ahead and get troops and a stretcher, or something useful like that.' Personally, I think he's trustworthy enough you could leave him here with me for the short time it would take you to summon help. But I know what my opinion is worth to the top brass, so that's probably out of the question."
Joel looked at Renzo, and at Trevin, then stood and looked down the way they were heading, trying to calculate how far it was they had to go. "You'd have made my life easier, Lexington, if you weren't so loaded with heavy muscle. You are going to be a bear to carry," he said, as he hunkered down again.
"I think I could hop on the good leg, if that helps. If you guys would be living crutches, it shouldn't take us very long. How much farther do you think we have to