Part 63 (1/2)

”No,” she told him. ”We're going to be all right.” She put her arm through his, the pains in her side stabbing her with every movement she made. ”Get up, Grillo. I'm cold and it's going to get dark soon.” Pitch black, in fact; the luminescence from the decaying terata was dimming fast. ”There's sun up there, Grillo. It's warm. It's light.”

Her words made him open his eyes.

”Witt's dead,” he said.

The waves from the cataract had pushed the corpse to the sh.o.r.e.

”We're not going to join him,” Tesla said. ”We're going to live, Grillo. So get the f.u.c.k up.”

”We...can't...swim up...”he said, looking at the cataract.

”There's other ways out,” Tesla said. ”Easier ways. But we have to be quick.”

She looked across the chamber to where Jaffe was surveying the cracks in the walls, looking, she presumed, for the best exit. He was in no better shape than the rest of them, and a strenuous climb was going to be out of the question. She saw him call Hotchkiss over, and put him to work digging out rubble. He then moved on to survey other holes. It crossed Tesla's mind that the man didn't have any more clue how to get out of here than they did, but she distracted herself from that anxiety by returning to the business of getting Grillo to his feet. It took some more coaxing, but she succeeded. He stood up, his legs almost buckling beneath him until he rubbed some life back into them.

”Good,” she said. ”Good. Now let's go.”

She allowed herself one last glance at Witt's body, hoping that wherever he was, it was a good place. If everybody got their own Heaven she knew where Witt would be now. In a celestial Palomo Grove: a small, safe town in a small, safe valley, where the sun always shone and the realty business was good. She silently wished him well, and turned her back on his remains, wondering as she did so if perhaps he'd known all along that he was going to die today, and was happier to be part of the foundation of the Grove than wasted in smoke from a crematorium.

Hotchkiss had been called away from his rubble-cleaning at one crack to the same duties on another, fuelling Tesla's unwelcome suspicion that Jaffe didn't know his way out of here. She went to Hotchkiss's aid, bullying Grillo out of his lethargy to do the same. The air from the hole smelled stale. There was no breath of anything fresh from above. But then perhaps they were too deep for that.

The work was hard, and harder still in the gathering darkness. Never in her life had she felt so close to complete collapse. There was no sensation in her hands whatsoever: her face was numb; her body sluggish. She was sure most corpses were warmer. But an age ago, somewhere in the sun, she'd told Hotchkiss she was as able as any man, and she was determined to make that claim good. She drove herself hard, pulling at the rocks with the same gusto as he did. But it was Grillo who did the bulk of the work, his eagerness undoubtedly fuelled by desperation. He cleared the largest of the rocks with a strength she'd not have thought him capable of.

”So,” she said to Jaffe. ”Do we go?”

”Yes.”

”This is the way out?”

”It's as good as any,” he said, and took the lead.

There began a trek that was in its way more terrifying than the descent. For one, they had only a single torch between them, which Hotchkiss, who followed after Jaffe, carried. It was pitifully inadequate, its light more like a beam for Tesla and Grillo to follow than a means to illuminate the path. They stumbled, and fell, and stumbled again, the numbness welcome in a way, postponing as it did any knowledge of what harm they were doing themselves.

The first part of the route didn't even take them up, it merely wound through several small compartments, the sound of water roaring in the rock around them. They pa.s.sed along one tunnel that had clearly been a recent water-course. The mud was thigh-deep; and dripped from the ceiling on to their heads, for which, a little while on, they were duly grateful, when the pa.s.sage narrowed to the point where had they not been slick with the stuff they'd have been hard pressed to squeeze through. Beyond this point they began to climb, the gradient gentle at first, then steepening. Now, though the sound of water diminished, there was a new threat in the walls: the grinding of earth on earth. n.o.body said anything. They were too exhausted to waste breath on the obvious, that the ground that the Grove was built upon was in revolt. The sounds got louder the higher they climbed, and several times dust fell from the tunnel roof, spattering them in the darkness.

It was Hotchkiss who felt the breeze first.

”Fresh air,” he said.

”Of course,” said Jaffe.

Tesla looked back towards Grillo. Her senses were so whacked out she wasn't sure of them any longer.

”You feel it?” she said to him.

”I think so,” he said, his voice barely audible.

The promise speeded their advance, though it was tougher going all the time, the tunnels actually shaking at several points, such was the violence of the motion in the ground around them. But there was more than a hint of clean air to coax them on now; there was the faintest suspicion of light somewhere above them, which became more of a certainty by and by, until they could actually see the rock they were climbing up, Jaffe hauling himself one-handed, with a strange, almost floating ease, as though his body weighed next to nothing. The others scrambled after, barely able to keep up with him despite the adrenaline that had begun to pump through their weary systems. The light was strengthening, and it was that which led them on, its glare making them squint. It continued to get brighter, and brighter still. They climbed to it with fervor now, all caution in their hand and footholds forgotten.

Tesla's thoughts were a ragged bundle of non sequiturs, more like daydreams than conscious thought. Her mind was too exhausted to organize itself. But time and again it visited the five minutes she'd had to solve the problem of the medallion. Quite why she only grasped as the sky finally came in sight: that this ascent from the darkness was like a climb out of the past; out of death, too. From the coldblooded thing to the warmblooded. From the blind and immediate to the far-sighted. Vaguely she thought: this is why men go underground. To remember why they live in the sun.

At the very last, with the brightness from above overwhelming, Jaffe stood back and let Hotchkiss overtake him.

”Changing your mind?” Tesla said.

There was more than doubt on his face, however.

”What's to be afraid of?” she asked him.

”The sun,” he said.

”Are you two moving?” Grillo said.

”In a moment,” Tesla told him. ”You go on.”

He pressed past them both, scrabbling up the remaining feet to the surface. Hotchkiss was already there. She heard him laughing to himself. Postponing the pleasure of joining him was hard but they hadn't come this far to leave their prize behind.

”I hate the sun,” Jaffe said.

”Why?”

”It hates me.”

”You mean it hurts? Are you some kind of vampire?”

Jaffe squinted up at the light.

”It was Fletcher who loved the sky.”

”Well maybe you should learn something from him.”

”It's too late.”

”No it isn't. You've done some s.h.i.+t stuff in your time, but you've got a chance to make good. There's worse coming than you. Think about that.”

He didn't respond.

”Look,” she went on, ”the sun doesn't care what you did. It s.h.i.+nes on everyone, good and bad. I wish it didn't but it does.”

He nodded.

”Did I ever tell you...” he said, ”...about Omaha?”

”Don't try and put it off, Jaffe. We're going up.”

”I'll die,” he said.

”Then all your troubles will be over, won't they?” she said. ”Come an!”