Slowly she lifted one foot, then the other, over the lip of the air lock doorway and planted them on the shiny-damp cobblestones. She couldn't believe she was actually back in the Colony. She hesitated. Glancing over her shoulder, she looked at the wall that swept up in an elegant arc to where it would join the similarly built opposing wall, although the apex was obscured from sight in the gloom. She reached out a hand to touch the wall by the door, pressing her palm against one of the huge rectangular blocks of precisely cut sandstone. She felt the faint thrumming from the massive fans that circulated air around the tunnels. So very different from the vibrations in the Topsoil city above, it was a constant rhythm and gave her such comfort, like a mother's heartbeat.
She drew the air deep into her lungs. The scent was there, the characteristic mustiness, a distillation of all the people living in the Quarter and the larger area of the Colony beyond it. It was so distinctive, and she hadn't smelled it for so very long.
She was home.
"Ready?" Rebecca called, breaking into her thoughts.
Sarah's head jerked around to the three Styx.
She nodded.
Rebecca snapped her fingers and from the shadows a horse-drawn carriage rolled into view, its iron wheels rattling over the cobbles. Black and angular, and pulled by four horses of the purest white, these carriages were not an uncommon sight in the Colony.
It drew up next to Rebecca, the horses stamping their hooves and thrusting their noses in the air, eager to keep moving.
The austere hansom rocked as the three Styx climbed into it, and Sarah slowly made her way across. A Colonist sat in the driver's seat at the front of the cab, an old man wearing a battered trilby, who fixed his hard little eyes on Sarah. As she passed before the horses, she became self-conscious under the severity of his gaze. She knew what he'd be thinking: He probably didn't know who she was, but it was enough that she was dressed in Topsoiler clothes and had a Styx escort — she was the enemy, the hated.
As Sarah stepped onto the pavement, he cleared his throat in a coarse, exaggerated way and leaned over to spit, only just missing her. She stopped, and very purposefully stepped on the mess he'd coughed up, grinding the ball of her foot into it as if she were squashing an insect. Then she looked up at him, defiantly returning his stare. Their eyes locked together, long seconds passing. His flared with anger, but then he blinked and averted his gaze.
"OK, so let it begin," she said out loud, and climbed into the carriage.
14
"Want a drink?" Will proposed. "I'm parched."
"Good idea." Chester grinned, his mood lightening. "Let's catch up with Boy Scout over there."
They were closing in on Cal, who was still striding quickly along in the direction of one of the distant lights, when he turned to them. "Uncle Tam said that the Coprolites live in the ground… like rats in burrows. He said they have towns and food stores that are dug into—"
"Watch out!" Will cried.
Cal stopped himself short just in time, at the edge of a stretch of darkness where the ground should have been. He teetered and then fell back on the loose floor, his feet scattering dirt over the ledge in front of him. They heard splashes of water as it landed.
While Cal picked himself up, Will and Chester cautiously approached the ledge and peered over. By the light of their lanterns they could see there was a drop of ten feet or so, and then inky, rippling water that reflected their lantern beams, sending circles of light back at them. The water flowed gently along, with nothing like the speed of the rushing stream they'd encountered earlier.
"This is man-made," Will observed, pointing at the regularly cut slabs forming the ledge. He leaned out as far as he dared to examine what lay below. The side of the canal was also lined with slabs, right down to the water's surface. And as far as they could see, the opposite bank was of identical construction.
"Coprolite-made," Cal announced quietly, as if to himself.
"What did you say?" Will asked him.
"The Coprolites built this," Cal said in a louder voice. "Tam told me once that they have giant canal systems to shift the stuff they mine."
"Useful piece of information to have known… beforehand," Chester complained under his breath. "Got any more surprises for us, Cal? Any words of wisdom?"
To forestall a throw-down between the two, Will quickly intervened, suggesting they stop for a rest. They made themselves comfortable by the canal side, leaning on their rucksacks and sipping from their canteens. As they surveyed the canal that stretched on either side of them, all three were thinking the same thing: There was nowhere to cross. They'd just have to follow alongside and see where it took them.
* * * * *
They'd been sitting in silence for some time when a gentle creaking stirred them into activity again. They rose nervously to their feet, peering into the pitch-black and fixing their lanterns on the point from which the noise had emanated.
Like a ghost, the prow of a boat drifted into the far limits of their combined illumination. It was so eerily quiet, except for the odd gurgle of water, that they blinked, wondering if their eyes were deceiving them. As it glided into view, they could make out more of the vessel — it was a barge, rusted brown and unfeasibly wide, and sitting deep in the water. Heavily laden, its midsection was piled high with some organic matter.
Will couldn't believe how long the barge was — it just kept on coming and coming. The distance from the bank where the boys were standing to the side of the vessel — just a few feet — was such that they could have easily jumped aboard if the whim had taken them. But they were frozen to the spot by a mixture of fascination and fear.
The stern came into view, and they saw a stubby funnel from which wisps of smoke were issuing. Next they detected the deep and muted thump-thump of an engine. The noise was gentle, like an accelerated but regular heartbeat, sounding from somewhere below the waterline. Then they saw something else.
"Coprolites," Cal whispered.
Three lumbering forms stood stock still in the stern, one with the shaft of the tiller in its hand. The boys watched, mesmerized, as the unmoving forms drew nearer. Then, as they drifted past, the boys could see every detail of the bloated, grublike caricatures of men, with their round bodies and globular arms and legs. Their suits were ivory in color and absorbed the light into their dull surfaces. Their heads were the size of small beach balls, but the most remarkable thing about them was that where their eyes should have been, lights shone like twin spotlights. The direction of these eye-beams revealed precisely where the strange beings were looking.
The boys couldn't help but gawk, while the three Coprolites seemed not to take the blindest bit of notice of them. With their lanterns blazing, the boys' presence on the bank was unmistakable, so there was absolutely no way the Coprolites could have missed them.
But there was no sign whatsoever that they were paying the boys any attention. Instead, the Coprolites moved very slowly, their eye-beams creeping around the barge like lazy lighthouses, never once alighting on them. Two of the strange beings turned ponderously, their lights creeping down the port and starboard sides of the barge, then both coming to rest on the prow, where they stayed.
But suddenly the third Coprolite twisted around to face them. He moved with greater speed than either of his companions; with some urgency his eye-beams flicked backward and forward over the boys. Cal caught his breath, then murmured something as the Coprolite ran a plump hand over his eyes, the other hand raised as if in a salute or perhaps a wave. The strange being's head bobbed from side to side as though he was trying to get a better view of the boys, all the while sweeping his eye-beams over them.
This silent connection between the boys and the Coprolite was brief, the barge continuing its steady, undeviating passage into the penumbra. The Coprolite was still facing them, but the increasing distance and wisps of smoke from the funnel made the twin spots of his eyes hazier and hazier, until they were finally lost in the darkness.
"Sh
ouldn't we get away from here?" Chester asked. "Won't they sound the alarm or something?"
Cal was dismissive. "No, no way… They don't take any notice of outsiders. They're stupid… All they do is mine and then trade it with the Colony, for things like the fruit and light orbs that were on the train with us."
"But what happens if they tell the Styx about us?" Chester pressed him.
"I told you… they're stupid, they don't talk or anything," Cal replied wearily.
"But what are they?" Will asked.
"They're men… sort of… They wear those dust suits because of the heat and bad air around here," Cal answered.
"Radioactivity," Will corrected him.
"Sure, if you want to call it that. It's in the rock in this place." Cal waved his hand expansively. "That's why none of my people hang around for long."
"Oh, this just gets better and better," Chester complained. "So we can't go back to the Colony, and now we can't stay here, either. Radioactivity! Your dad was right, Will, and we're going to fry in this forsaken place."
"I'm sure we'll be OK for a while," Will said, trying to allay his friend's fears, but without much confidence.
"Great, great, and freakin' great," Chester growled, then stomped over to where they'd left the rucksacks, still grumbling to himself.
"Something wasn't right back there," Cal said confidentially to Will, now that they were alone.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you saw the way that last Coprolite was watching us?" Cal said, shaking his head with a confused expression.
"I did, yes," Will said. "And you just told us they don't take any notice of outsiders."
"I'm telling you… they don't. I've seen them a thousand times back in the South Cavern and they never do that. They never, ever look straight at you. And he was moving strangely… too fast for a Coprolite. He didn't act normal." Cal paused to scratch his forehead. "Maybe it's different down here, because it's their land. But it's weird, all the same."
"I guess it is," Will said thoughtfully, little knowing how close he'd just come to his father.
15
Dr. Burrows stirred, thinking he'd heard the soft chiming sound, the wake-call that rang without fail every morning in the Coprolite settlement. He listened intently for a while, then frowned. There was nothing but silence.
"Must have overslept," he decided, rubbing his chin with a look of some surprise as he encountered the stubble on it. He'd grown fond of the straggling beard he'd sported for so long, and found he missed it now that he'd shaved it off. Something within his psyche had been very comfortable with the image it presented. He'd promised himself that he would regrow it for his glorious return, his eventual emergence back out on the surface again — whenever that was going to be. He'd cut an impressive figure on the front pages of all the newspapers. The imagined headlines loomed before him: "The Robinson Crusoe of the Underworld"; "The Wild Man of the Deeps"; "Dr. Hades…"
"That's quite enough," he said out loud, putting a stop to his self-indulgence.
He pulled aside his coarse blanket and sat up on the straw-stuffed mattress. It was too short for an average-sized man, as he was, and his legs hung over the edge by nearly two feet.
He put on his spectacles, scratched his head. He'd attempted to cut his hair himself and hadn't made a terribly good job of it; in some places it was almost down to the scalp, while in others there were tufts about an inch long. He scratched even more vigorously, working his way around his head and then across his chest and armpits. Scowling with displeasure, he gazed in an unfocused way at his fingertips.
"Journal!" he said suddenly. "I didn't make an entry yesterday." He'd arrived back so late that he'd completely forgotten to record the day's events. Clicking his tongue against his teeth as he retrieved his book from under his bed, he opened it at a page that was blank except for the heading:
DAY 141
Under this he began to write, whistling a random and disjointed tune all the while:
Scratched myself half to death during the night.
He paused and thoughtfully licked the end of his pencil stub, then continued:
The lice are simply unbearable, and they're getting worse.
He glanced around the small, almost circular room, some twelve feet from side to side, and up to the concave ceiling.
The texture of the walls was irregular, as if the drying plaster or mud or whatever it was constructed from had been applied by hand. As for the shape, it gave him the impression that he was inside a large jar, and it amused him that he knew now how a genie trapped in a bottle might feel. This impression was heightened by the fact that the only way in or out was below him, in the center of the floor. It was covered by a piece of beaten metal that resembled an old trash can lid.
He glanced at his dust suit, hanging from a wooden peg on the wall like the shucked-off skin of a lizard but with a light coming from the eye holes where the luminous orbs were inserted. He should be putting on the suit, but he felt duty-bound to complete the entry for the previous day first. So he continued with his journal:
I sense the moment has arrived for me to move on. The Coprolites…
He hesitated, debating whether to use the name he had devised for these people, assuming they were a distinct species from Homo Sapiens, something he hadn't been able to ascertain yet. "Homo Caves," he said, then shook his head, deciding against it. He didn't want to confuse matters before he had his facts straight. He began to write again.
The Coprolites are, I believe, trying to communicate to me that I should leave, although I know not why. I don't think it has anything to do with me or, more specifically, with anything I've done. I might be mistaken, but I am certain the mood has changed in the encampment. During the last twenty-four hours, there has been more activity than I've seen in the past two months. What with the additional food stores I saw them laying down, and the restrictions on the womenfolk and children from venturing outside, they are almost acting as if they are under siege. Of course, these could merely be precautionary measures that they put into practice every so often — but I do believe something is about to happen.
And so it seems it is time for me to résumé my travels. I shall miss the Coprolites in no small measure. They have accepted me into their gentle society, one in which they seem perfectly at ease with each other, and, strangely enough, with me. Maybe it's because I'm not a Colonist or a Styx, and they recognize that I pose no risk to them or their progeny.
In particular, their offspring are a constant source of fascination, almost adventuresome and playful. I have to keep reminding myself the young are not a completely different species from the adults.
He stopped whistling to allow himself a chuckle, reminiscing how at first the adults wouldn't even hold his stare when he tried, fruitlessly, to communicate with them. They would avert their rather small gray eyes, their body language one of awkward submission. Such was the difference in temperament between him and these unassuming people that at times he pictured himself as the hero from a Western, the lone gunslinger who had trekked across the prairies to a town of cowed farmers or miners or what have you. To them, Dr. Burrows was a powerful, all-conquering, he-man hero. Hah! Him!
"Get on with it, will you," he told himself, and resumed his writing:
All in all the Coprolites are such a gentle and chronically reticent people, and I can't claim that I have gotten to know them. Perhaps the meek have inherited the earth, after all.
I shall never forget their act of mercy in rescuing me. I have written of it before, but now that I am to leave, I have been thinking much about it again.
Dr. Burrows stopped and looked up, staring into the middle distance for several moments, with the air of someone who is trying to remember something but has forgotten why he is trying to remember it in the first place.
Then he flicked back through the pages of his journal until he found his first entry on arriving in the Deeps and read it to himself.
The Colonists were u
nfriendly and uncommunicative as they led me a merry dance away from the Miners' Train and into what they said was a lava tube. They told me to continue along it toward the Great Plain, and that what I wanted to see was on the way. When I tried to ask them some questions, they became quite hostile.
I wasn't about to get into an argument with them, and so did what they told me. I walked away, at a brisk pace to start with, but then stopped once I was out of sight. I wasn't convinced I was going in the right direction. I was suspicious that they were trying to get me lost in the maze of tunnels, so I backtracked and…
At this point Dr. Burrows clicked his tongue against his teeth again and shook his head.
…in the process, I became completely lost.
He whisked the page over as if he was still annoyed at himself, then scanned his description of the empty house that he'd discovered, and the surrounding huts.
He moved past the entry as if it didn't interest him much, to a smeary, dirty page. His handwriting, never very legible at the best of times, was even worse here, and his hastily written sentences ran across the page at an array of different angles, blissfully ignoring the ruled lines. In places, his sentences were even written on top of one another, in a kind of literary pick-up sticks. At the bottom of three successive pages, the word LOST was scrawled in large, increasingly more erratic capitals.
"Messy, messy," he admonished himself. "But I was in a bad way."