Deeper

20

"It's just terrible," Chester kept saying over and over again as the enormity of what had happened sank in. "But there wasn't anything we could do. He didn't have a pulse."

Chester was remonstrating with himself, laden with a mounting sense of guilt. He believed that he was partly to blame for Cal's death. Perhaps, by being so critical of the boy, he had goaded him on, provoking him into being so reckless and entering the cavern by himself.

"We couldn't go back in…" Chester babbled on to himself.

He was rocked to the very core. He'd never seen anybody die, not before his very eyes. It took him back to the time he had been in the car with his father and they'd driven past the aftermath of a bloody motorcycle accident. He didn't know if the twisted body by the roadside was dead — and he'd never found out. But this was different. This was someone he knew, who had died while he'd actually been watching. One minute Cal was there, the next he was just a limp body. A dead body. It was so absolute, and so brutally final; it was as if he'd been talking to someone on the telephone and they'd been cut off, never to speak again. Chester just couldn't come to terms with it.

After a while he lapsed into silence and he and Will walked side by side, their boots scuffling in the dust. Oblivious to his surroundings, Will placed one foot mechanically in front of the other like a sleepwalker, as the canal continued for mile after monotonous mile.

Chester watched him with concern. If Will didn't pull through this, he didn't know how they would be able to go on. The Deeps weren't the sort of place that gave you any leeway; you had to have all your wits about you if you wanted to stay alive. The grim spectacle of Cal's demise chillingly confirmed that hard truth. All Chester could do now was keep them on course by the side of the canal, which had altered direction and seemed to be taking them directly toward one of the flickering points of light. With every hour, the light grew brighter and brighter, like a guiding star. Guiding them to what, he didn't know.

On the second day, they came close enough to the light to make out the unsteady illumination it was shedding on the curving rock wall around it. They were evidently at the limits of the Great Plain. As Chester crept stealthily, Will just ambled along behind, not giving his surroundings the slightest attention.

They arrived at the source of the light. A metal arm, about a foot and a half long, sprouted from the rock wall with a blue-tinged flame dancing at its end. It hissed and spluttered in the breeze as if disapproving of the boys' presence there. Under this gaslight, the canal continued undeterred, straight into an opening in the wall so perfectly round that it had to be man-made, or at least Coprolite-made. But there was no ledge, or anything else that would afford them a way beside it.

"Well, that's that," Will articulated miserably. "We're snookered."

He backed away from the canal, totally disregarding a small stream issuing from the wall beside it. Water was trickling out of a fissure at about chest height and had worn a smooth groove down the cavern wall. It ran into an overflowing basin of water-polished rock. From there it flooded over the lip and down several small plateaus until it drained into the canal. The passage of water had left a brownish stain around its path, but this didn't deter Chester from sampling a mouthful.

"It's good. Why don't you try some?" he called over to Will. It was the first time he'd attempted to speak directly to him in nearly a day.

"Nope," Will replied morosely, flopping down on the ground with a forlorn sigh. He hugged his knees to his chest, rocking gently, and lowered his head so his face was hidden from Chester.

His frustration building to the bursting point, Chester resolved to snap his friend out of it, and stomped over to him.

"OK, Will," he said in a level, carefully controlled voice, so much so that it didn't sound natural at all and alerted Will to what was coming next. "We'll just sit here until you make up your mind you want to do something again. Take your time. I don't care if it's days or even weeks. Take as long as you want. That's fine with me." He blew through his lips. "In fact, if you want to just stay here until we rot, that's fine with me, too. I'm very sorry about Cal, but it doesn't change the reason why we're here… why you asked for my help to find your dad." He didn't speak for a moment, hovering over Will. "Or have you just forgotten about him?"

The last sentence had the effect of a jab to the stomach. Will gasped, but still he didn't raise his head.

"Suit yourself," Chester snapped at his friend, then retired a short distance, where he lay down. He didn’t know how much time had passed when he heard Will talking. It came like words in a dream, and Chester realized he must have nodded off.

"…you're right, we must keep going," Will was saying.

"Huh?"

"Let's be on our way." Will got briskly to his feet and went directly to the trickling stream to give it a cursory investigation. Then he began to study the opening where the canal passed into the cavern wall, shining his lantern just inside the entrance, in the hard shadows where the gaslight didn't penetrate. Nodding to himself, he focused his attention on the vertical rock face above it.

"We're all right," he announced, returning to where he'd left his backpack and shrugging it onto his shoulders.

"Huh? We are what? "

"I think it's clear," was Will's inscrutable response.

"Yeah, clear as mud!"

"Well, are you coming or not?" he harshly asked Chester, who stared at his friend, suspicious of the sudden change that had come over him. Will was already by the side of the canal, clipping his lantern onto his shirt pocket. Ha faced the wall for a few seconds, then began to heave himself up it. Finding foot— and hand-holds, he climbed in an arc that took him under the spluttering gaslight but over the entrance of the slow-moving canal, until he was safely on the opposite side.

"Not the first time that's been done," he declared. He called to Chester, still on the other bank: "Come on, don't just stand there. It's a piece of cake — not difficult to get across. Someone's chiseled out some grips."

Chester looked indignant and impressed in equal measures. His jaw dropped, as if he was about to say something, but he thought better of it, muttering only, "Business as usual."

Although Will wasn't following any discernable path, he now seemed to be so convinced they were going in the right direction that it was Chester tagging along after him again. Marching swiftly, they moved deeper into the featureless expanse, not encountering any other landmarks, until they eventually arrived at a place where the floor became looser and began to gradually ascend. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the canopy above their heads was also increasing in height but, with every step the boys took, the winds around them seemed to be blowing with much greater force.

"Phew, that's better!" Will said, running a finger around the inside of his sweat-soaked shirt collar. "Bit cooler now!"

Chester couldn't have been more relieved that Will appeared to have pulled himself out of the appalling melancholy into which he'd sunk. In fact, he was chatting away quite normally, although it felt so much quieter without Cal there to badger them. As if his mind were playing tricks on him, Chester had the oddest feeling that the boy was still there with them. He found himself glancing around in an effort to locate him.

"Hey, this feels sort of chalky," Will noted as they clambered up the slope, slipping and stumbling as the light-colored substrate shifted beneath them. For the last stretch, the incline had become more pronounced, and they had been forced to climb it on all fours.

Will suddenly stopped to pluck a rock the size of a tennis ball. "Wow! A fine specimen of a desert rose." Chester saw the pale pink blades that radiated out from a central point to the pale pink blades with his nail. "Yep, this is gypsum, all right. Nice, isn't it?" he said to Chester, who didn't have time to answer before Will was spouting forth again. "A fine example." He glanced around. "So there must have been evaporation going on here for the last century or so — unless, of course, this was buried and it's much older. Anyway, think I'll keep it," he said, slipping off his rucksack.

"You're going to do what? It's just a hunk of rock!"

"No, it's not rock. It's actually a mineral formation. Imagine some sort of sea right here." Will opened his arms expansively. "As it dries up, the salts all come out of solution and… well, the rest of what you see is sedimentary. You know about sedimentary rocks, don't you?"

"No, I don't," Chester admitted, studying his friend carefully.

"Well, you have three classes of rock: sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic," Will blathered on. "My favorites are sedimentary, just like we're finding down here, because there's a story in them, from the fossils you get in them. They're formed…"

"Will," Chester said gently.

"…formed generally on the surface, mostly underwater. Why would you find sedimentary rocks so deep in the earth? I wonder." He looked mystified at his own question, then answered it. "Yes, I suppose there must have been a subterranean lake or something here."

"Will!" Chester tried again.

"Anyway, sedimentary rocks are cool — I don't mean cool as in cold, as opposed to hot, not hot like lava, which are the igneous rocks, which are…"

"Will, stop it!" Chester shouted, becoming quite alarmed by his friend's bizarre behavior.

"…called the first great class because they're formed from hot, molten…" Will trailed off in midsentence.

"Get a grip, Will. What the heck are you talking about?" Chester's voice was hoarse with desperation. "What's wrong with you?"

"I don't know," Will replied, shaking his head.

"Well, shut up and concentrate on what we're doing. I don't need a freakin' lecture."

"Right." Will blinked around him as if he'd wandered out of a fog and couldn't quite figure out where he was. He realized the desert rose was still in his hand and he lobbed it away. Then he put his rucksack back on. Chester watched him with concern as he set off again.

They were approaching the high point of the slope, and the floor began leveling off. A ray of light streaked through the air and raked across the ceiling. It looked like a distant spotlight of some sort. As a precaution, Chester turned his lantern down to a mere glimmer and, at his insistence, Will did the same.

They crawled along the last stretch, keeping low, with Chester making sure that Will, in his unpredictable state of mind, stayed tucked in behind him. At the top, they peered over, into a large circular space the size of a stadium. It could have been a moon crater, it looked so barren and dusty.

"Dang, Will, look at this," Chester whispered, waving his friend alongside him and hastily switching off his lantern altogether. "Do you see them? They look exactly like Styx, but they're dressed like soldiers or something."

On the floor of the crater, the boys could make out that there were around ten Styx — although their clothes were unfamiliar, their thin bodies and the way they carried themselves meant they couldn't be anything else — and two of them had stalker dogs. The men were drawn up in a single line, with a further Styx standing slightly forward from them and brandishing a large lantern. Although the base of the crater was illuminated by four large light orbs mounted on tripods, the main Styx's lantern was phenomenally powerful, and he was directing in on something before him.

A tremor went through Chester's body — as he watched the Styx, he felt as though he had stumbled upon a nest of the most evil and poisonous snakes imaginable. "Oh, I hate them," he growled through his clenched teeth.

"Hmmm," Will answered vaguely as he casually examined a pebble with glittering striations that had caught his eye, then flicked it away with his thumb.

It didn't take a clinical psychologist to recognize that something was wrong with him; that his brother's death had knocked a screw loose.

"Hello! Earth to Will! You're acting pretty spacey," Chester said. "Those are Styx down there, murderous, mind-warping Styx."

"Yeah," Will said. "Sure are."

Chester was stunned by his total lack of concern. "Well, they make my skin crawl. Let's just get away from here," he suggested urgently, beginning to edge back.

"See the Coprolites," Will said, pointing carelessly at the scene below.

"What?" Chester grunted as he tried to locate them. "Where?"

"There… opposite the Styx…" Will replied, pushing himself up on his arms to get a better view. "Right there in his light."

"Where exactly?" Chester asked again in a whisper. He glanced at Will beside him and immediately growled, "You numskull, get your head down! They'll see you!"

"Okey-doke," Will replied, ducking lower.

Chester turned back to the scene and, despite the lancing shaft of light from the Styx's lantern, it wasn't until one of them stirred that he located it (or him or her, for that matter — Chester found it hard to think of the lumbering Coprolites as people). The Coprolites' eye-beams were barely noticeable in the well-lit area, and their mushroom-colored suits merged so effectively with the stone of the crater floor that, having found one, Chester still had great difficulty picking out the others. In fact, there were quite a number of them, standing in an uneven row opposite the Styx.

"Just how many are there?" he asked Will.

"Can't say. Twenty or so?"

The main Styx was pacing between the two groups. He would strut up and down and then abruptly wheel to face the Coprolites, thrusting his lantern at them. Although the boys couldn't hear anything he was saying, from the jerking motion of his arms and rapid switching of his head, it was clear he was shouting at the Coprolites. The boys watched for several minutes, until Will became restless and started to fidget.

"I'm hungry. Got that chewing gum?"

"You've got to be kidding — how can you be hungry at a time like this?" Chester asked him.

"I don't know… just give me some, will you?" Will whined.

"Pull yourself together, Will," Chester urged, not moving his eyes from the Styx. "You know where the gum is."

In his befuddled state, it took Will forever to undo the flap on the side pocket of Chester's rucksack. Muttering to himself, he rummaged around until he found the green packet of chewing gum. He put it in front of him as he refastened the flap.

"Want a piece?" he asked Chester.

"No, I do not."

Dropping it several times as though his hands were numb, Will finally tore open the packet and pried out one of the sticks. With his fumbling fingers, he was on the verge of sliding the paper casing off the silver foil when both boys let out simultaneous gasps.

They felt a crushing pressure on their backs as knives were thrust against their throats.

"Don't make a sound." The voice was low and guttural, as if it wasn't accustomed to being used. It came from a point very close behind Will's head.

Chester swallowed loudly.

"And don't move a muscle."

Will let the stick of gum slip from his hand.

"I can smell that stinking stuff already, and you haven't even opened it yet."

Will tried to speak.

"I said shut up." The knife dug even harder into Will's neck. He felt the pressure on his back increase, and a mittened hand reached between him and Chester and began to scoop a hole in the loose gravel.

The boys both watched from the corners of their eyes, not daring to move their heads an inch. It was almost hypnotic, a disembodied hand in a black mitten digging itself a small hole, little by little.

Chester suddenly couldn't stop himself from shaking. Had he and Will been caught by Styx? Or if not Styx, who were they? His mind filled with panic-ridden thoughts about what might happen next. Were these people going to slit their throats and bury them here, in this hole? He couldn't take his eyes off it.

Then the hand very deliberately took the packet of chewing gum between thumb and forefinger, and dropped it into the hole.

"That piece, too," the man's voice ordered. Will did as he was told, throwing the unopened stick in the hole.

Then the hand, in precise movements, scraped the gypsum gravel back into the hole, until the chewing gum was completely buried.

"That'll help, but the smell's still strong," the man's voice came again after the interlude. "If you had opened it, the stalker nearest to us…" The voice trailed off, then resumed again. "You can see it down there… would've picked up the scent in a matter of… what do you think?"

There was a pause during which Will wasn't sure if he was meant to be answering, and then they heard a different and slightly softer voice. This second one came from behind Chester. "They're downwind," it said, "so a couple of seconds at most."

The man spoke again. "Then the Limiters would've slipped the dogs off their reins, and they'd have followed close behind. You'd be dead 'uns, like those poor wretches down there." He drew breath somberly. "You should watch this."

In spite of the threat from the knives at their throats, both Will and Chester made a concerted effort to focus on what was happening below.

The main Styx swung around and barked a command. Three men in clothes of neutral color were each escorted into the center of the crater by a pair of Styx. Will and Chester hadn't spotted them before because they had been huddled in the shadows beyond the scope of the floodlights. They were pushed beside the group of Coprolites, and their escorts returned to the Styx line.

The head Styx barked another order and held his right hand high as a number of his men stepped forward and put their rifles to their shoulders. Then, with a staccato shout, the Styx dropped his hand, and flashes exploded from the barrels of the firing squad. Two of the three figures fell immediately. The remaining one tottered for a moment before he, too, went over, collapsing across the other downed men. As the last echoes of the shots reverberated around the crater and an eerie silence filled the place, none of the three moved. It had all happened so quickly.

"No," Will said, not believing his eyes. "The Styx… they didn't?"

"Yes, you have just witnessed an execution," came the man's inexpressive voice from close behind his head. "And those were our people, our friends."

With another order, the firing squad passed their rifles to their nearest comrades. Then they each drew some glinting weapon from their sides and took several paces forward. There was a horrible inevitability to it as the advancing Styx each strode up to a Coprolite in the opposing line.

The boys watched as the Styx soldiers lunged at the Coprolites, who simply dropped to the ground like felled trees before them.

The other Coprolites stood in their higgledy-piggledy line, facing in all directions. They made no move to help their fallen brothers and, what was even more astounding, they didn’t seem to react to their deaths at all. It was as if, right in the middle of a herd, cattle had been killed, and the rest of them had just accepted it like dumb animals might.

The gruff voice spoke again. "Enough of this. You can feel our knives. We will use them if you don't do exactly as you are told. Is that understood?"

Both boys mumbled a "yes," feeling the blades press harder into their skin.

"Put your arms behind your backs," the quieter voice ordered.

The boys' wrists were bound tightly, then their heads were lifted roughly by their hair and blindfolds tied around them.

As hands grabbed their ankles, they were mercilessly dragged on their fronts, back down the steep slope behind them. Not able to resist, they tried to arch their heads and keep their faces away from the ground racing beneath them.

Then, with equal roughness, they were manhandled up onto their feet, and both felt something being attached to the bindings around their wrists. They were yanked on by these, each boy hearing the stumbling steps of the other, and led at breakneck speed down the remainder of the slope, leaning back lest they fall. Will guessed that they'd been tethered together, like two beasts off to the slaughterhouse.

At the bottom of the slope, Chester lost his footing and rumbled over, pulling Will with him.

"Get up, you slop bags!" the man hissed. "Or we'll finish both of you, here and now."

Using each other for support, the boys heaved themselves to their feet again.

"Move," the other one snarled, striking Will so hard on his wounded shoulder that he let loose a wail of pain. He heard his captor take a step back in surprise.

Will's hurt and fear, coming on top of the intense feelings of loss for Cal, suddenly made something flip in his head. He stood his ground and spoke in a low, threatening voice.

"Do that again, and I'll…"

"What?" the voice said. It was gentler than it had been before, and Will noticed for the first time that it had a youthful and feminine edge to it. "What will you do?" it asked again.

"You're a girl, aren't you?" Will said, rather incredulously. Without waiting for a response, he clenched his bound hands together and squared up to her — which was difficult considering he had no idea where she was actually standing.

"I'll call in our backup," he said fiercely, remembering the line from one of his mother's favorite television series.

"Backup? What's that?" she asked hesitantly.

"A handpicked team of men are monitoring your every move," he added, with as much conviction as he could muster. "All I have to do is give the signal. You'll be taken out."

"He's bluffing," came the man's voice. It, too, had lost some of its sternness, and there was even a hint of amusement in it. "They're alone. We didn't see anyone with them, did we, Elliott?" He spoke directly to Will. "If you don't cooperate, I'll run your friend through with my knife."

This had the desired effect on Will, bringing him quickly back to earth.

"All right, all right, I'll come quietly, but you'd better watch it. Don't mess with us, or…" Will trailed off. He figured he'd pushed his luck as far as he could and began to move forward again, bumping into Chester, who had been listening to his friend with total bewilderment.

21

"And it is written in the Book of Catastrophes that the people shall return to their rightful place from the Ark of the Earth, at such time that the unholy deluge has withdrawn. And the people will once again plow the unplowed fields, rebuild the leveled cities, and fill the wasted lands with their pure seed. So it is said, and so shall it be," the Styx preacher boomed.

In the confines of the small stone room in the Garrison building, he towered above her kneeling form, his clawlike hands raking the air around him, his burning eyes and his black cloak making him look like some terrible visitation.

His cape flapped open from his thin body as he stepped closer to Sarah, his right hand spearing to the ceiling and his left pointing downward to the floor. "As it is in the firmaments, so it is in the earth below," he crackled in his thin voice. "Amen."

"Amen," she echoed.

"God be with you in all that you do in the name of the Colony." He suddenly thrust his hands at her, grabbing her head and pressing his two thumbs into the ghost-white skin of her forehead, so hard that when he finally released her and stepped back, red marks were visible on it.

He gathered his cloak about himself and swept out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.

Her head bent, Sarah remained kneeling until she heard a stifled cough from the corridor. Looking up, she saw Joseph, a plate of food cradled in his giant hands.

"A blessing, huh?"

Sarah nodded.

"I don't mean to intrude, but my mother made these for you. Some cakes."

"You'd better bring them in quickly — I don't think Doctor Doom would approve," she said.

"No," Joseph agreed, and entered hastily, shutting the door behind him. Then he hovered uneasily, as if he'd forgotten why he'd come there.

"Why don't you make yourself comfortable?" Sarah offered as she moved across the floor to the bed mat.

Sitting by her side, he lifted a layer of muslin from the plate to reveal the cakes, their icing an insipid butterscotch color over the gray fungal fibers used for baking in the Colony. He passed the plate to Sarah.

"Ah, fancies." She smiled to herself, recognizing how similar they were to the shapeless but nonetheless delicious cakes her mother would bake for Sunday teatimes. Sarah helped herself to one, nibbling at it without much interest.

"They're wonderful. Please do thank your mother — I remember her well."

"She sends her love," Joseph said. "She's eighty this year and doing—" Without a breath, he interrupted himself, as if he'd been building up to what he really wanted to say. "Sarah, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, anything," she said, looking at him attentively.

"When you've done whatever they want you to, will you come home, for good?"

"Have you any idea why I'm here?" she shot back, studying him carefully.

He rubbed his chin as if to buy time before giving an answer. "It's not my place to know such things… but I'd wager it has to do with what's going on Topsoil…"

"No, I'm headed the other way," she said, tipping her head to indicate the Deeps.

"So you're not involved with the operation in London?" Joseph blurted out, then clamped his mouth shut, clearing regretting that he'd said it. "I don't want to get into disfavor with—" he tried to add hastily before Sarah cut him short.

"No, I'm not part of that. And don't worry, anything you say is safe with me."

"It's not good around here at the moment," Joseph said in a low voice. "People have been disappearing."

As this was nothing particularly new in the Colony, Sarah didn't make any comment, and Joseph also remained silent, as if he was still embarrassed by his indiscretion.

"So, are you coming back?" he asked finally. "After it's done?"

"Yes, the White Necks say I'll be allowed to stay in the Colony when I've seen something through for them." She pushed a crumb from the corner of her mouth, glanced wistfully at the door, and sighed. "Even if you do manage to escape them — to get Topsoil — part of you can never leave. They trap you with everything you hold dear, everything you love, your family… I found that out," she said, her voice thickening with remorse, "far too late."

Joseph heaved himself to his feet, taking the plate from her. "It's never too late," he mumbled as his hulking form made toward the door.

In the ensuing days, Sarah was ordered to rest and build up her strength. Finally, just when she thought she would go stir-crazy from the inactivity, she was summoned to another room by someone other than Joseph. He was dressed almost identically but was smaller and older, his scalp completely bald and his movements excruciatingly slow as he led the way down the corridor.

He peered back at Sarah, arching his fluffy white eyebrows apologetically. "Me joints," he explained. "The damp's got into them."

"Happens to the best of us," she replied.

He showed her into a sizable room where there was a long table in the center and a series of low cupboards around all the walls. The old man shuffled off without a word, leaving her wondering why she had been brought there. There were two high-backed chairs on opposite sides of the table, and she went over to the nearest of them and stood behind it. Looking around the room, her eyes lingered on a small shrine in the corner where a beaten metal cross about a foot and a half tall was positioned between two flickering candles. Before it a copy of the Book of Catastrophes lay open.

Her eyes lit upon something on top of the table. A large sheet of paper with colored patches was spread open, occupying much of its surface. Glancing over her shoulder, she checked the door, at a loss to know what she was supposed to be doing. Then she gave in to her curiosity and, stepping closer, leaned over the sheet.

She found it was a map. She stared at the top left-hand corner, spotting two minute parallel lines, meticulously cross-hatched, which, after about an inch, culminated in an area with a series of infinitesimally small rectangles by them. By these was the inscription, THE MINERS' STATION, and some symbols which were unfamiliar to her. Then she moved on, noting another inscription that read THE STYGIAN RIVER by the side of a meandering dark blue line.

She began to move away from the corner, scanning the rest of the map, which encompassed a huge light brown area with many connected blobs, some shaded with such different colors as darker browns, oranges, and an array of reds ranging from crimson to deep burgundy. In fact, these colors looked to her exactly like blood in various states of clotting. She decided to see if she could find out what they represented.

Choosing one of the areas at random, she leaned even nearer to examine it. It was bright scarlet and roughly rectangular, with a tiny jet-black skull, a death's-head, superimposed over it. She was trying to decipher the legend next to it when there was a sound from close by. The faintest release of a breath.

She immediately looked up.

She recoiled, blundering into the chair and trying not to cry out.

On the other side of the table was a Styx soldier, dressed in the distinctive gray-green fatigues of the Division. He seemed incredibly tall and, with his hands linked in front of him, stood little more than three feet away, scrutinizing her silently. She had absolutely no idea how long he'd been there.

As she raised her eyes, she saw that the lapel of his long coat had a row of short cotton threads protruding from it — they were of many different colors, reds, purples, blues, and greens among them. Like the medals they gave Topsoil, these were decorations for acts of bravery, and he had so many she couldn't count them. She raised her eyes farther.

His black hair was raked back into a tightly bound ponytail. But when her gaze fell on his face, it was all she could do not to take another step away. It was a fearful sight. There was a huge scar, not dissimilar to a cauliflower in both its color and texture, down one side of his face. It engulfed a third of his forehead, extending over his left eye, which was misshapen to the extent that it looked as though it had been rotated ninety degrees on its axis. The scar blossomed out as it spread over his cheek and down to where his jaw hinged. His mouth and the already impossibly thin Styx lips were also stretched wide by the scar, so that his teeth were exposed to the gums and almost as far back as his molars.

It was the stuff of nightmares.

She quickly sought out his unaffected eye, trying not to focus on the damaged, weeping one, which showed blood red tissues above and below it, laced with a network of blue capillaries. It was like an incomplete anatomical investigation, as if some mad coroner had quit halfway through a dissection of his face.

"I see you started without me," the soldier said. His words were breathy through his distorted mouth, his voice quiet but commanding. "Do you know what the map shows?" he asked.

She hesitated, then leaned over the document once more, gratefully lowering her eyes to it. "The Deeps," she answered.

He gave a nod. "I noticed you'd located the Miners' Station. Good. Tell me…" His hand was poised over the drawing of the railway track, and she saw that several of his fingers were completely missing, while others were little more than stumps. He waved this butchered appendage over the rest of the map. "…did you know that all of this existed?"

"The Miners' Station, yes, but, no, not all this," she answered, truthfully. "But I've heard stories about the Interior… many stories."

"Ah, the stories." He grinned fleetingly. The effect was disarming, the glistening margin around his teeth rippling like a lazy sine wave, then straightening out again. He sat down, indicating that she should do likewise. "My job is to ensure you can operate in the Great Plain and its environs. By the time we are finished" — his dark pupils swept toward the items at the very end of the table — "you will be fully versed in our equipment and our weapons, and trained to operate within our strictures. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," she answered, addressing him now as befitted his military manner. He seemed pleased by this.

"We know you are capable — you must be, to have evaded us for as long as you did."

She nodded.

"Your sole objective will be to track down and disable — by any means necessary — the rebel."

The air hung heavy as she stared into his terribly disfigured face. "You mean Will Burrows?"

"Yes, Seth Jerome," he said succinctly. He mopped his weeping eye with the back of his hand, and then snapped his fingers awkwardly, using what remained of his thumb and index finger.

"What…?" She heard a clicking on the stone floor behind her and whipped her head around. A shadow flitted through the doorway.

It was the Hunter, the giant cat that had come to her aid on the surface. Pausing to look around, it briefly sampled the air, and in the blink of an eye it had capered over to Sarah's side and was rubbing itself affectionately against her leg, with such vigor that her chair was pushed sideways.

"You! she exclaimed. She was both astonished and delighted to see the creature again. She'd assumed that the Styx had had it killed back up in the excavation. Indeed, quite the opposite was apparent: It was a very different animal beside her now, compared to the sorry specimen she'd seen Topsoil.

She could tell from the way it carried itself as it scampered off to sniff at something in the corner of the room that they'd been making sure it was well fed. Its appearance was considerably improved, and the festering would on its shoulder had been tended to. A lint pad was bound to its shoulder by a copious amount of gray bandaging trussed around its chest. As it was also sporting a brand new leather collar — not something generally found on these animals — Sarah instantly assumed it had been in the care of the Styx rather than Colonists.

"His name is Bartleby. We thought he might be put to good use," the Styx said.

"Bartleby," Sarah repeated, then glanced across the table at the battle-scarred soldier for an explanation.

"Naturally the animal will be eager to find his old master — your son — employing his keen sense of smell," the man told her.

"Ah yes." She nodded. "How very true." It would be invaluable to have a Hunter when she was tracking in the Deeps, and the fact that it was Cal's scent trail would be incentive indeed.

She smiled back at the man, and then called out, "Bartleby, here!" He obediently returned to her side and sat down, watching her as he waited for another command. She kneaded the scabrous expanse of the cat's wide, flat head. "So that's your name, is it… Bartleby? " He blinked his saucer-sized eyes at her, a loud purr rumbling from his throat as he shifted from forepaw to forepaw. "You and me together, we'll get Cal back, won't we, Bartleby?"

The smile vanished from her face. "And we'll flush out a big rat in the bargain."

Outside in the rose garden of Humphrey House, several pigeons alighted by the bird table, where the cook regularly left slices of stale bread and other scraps from the kitchen. Distracted from the magazine spread before her, Mrs. Burrows looked up and tried her best to focus on the birds with her red, swollen eyes.

"Blast it! I can't see a bloomin' thing, let alone read!" she grumbled, squinting first through one eye and then the other. "This filthy, filthy virus!"

Television news bulletins had begun to pop up a week ago, reporting a mysterious viral outbreak that seemed, as far as anyone could tell, to have originated in London and was now sweeping like wildfire through the rest of the British Isles. It had even reached as far afield as the United States and the Far East. Experts said that although the disease, a sort of mega-conjunctivitis, was short-lived, lasting four or five days at most in the average person, the rate at which it had spread was a serious cause for alarm. The media constantly referred to it as an "Ultra Bug," because it had the unique attribute that its transmission appeared to be both air— and water-borne. A world-beating combination, apparently, for the virus that wants to go places.

According to some experts, even if the government made up its mind to manufacture a vaccine, the process from full identification of a new virus to production of sufficient vaccine for the entire population of England could take many months, if not years.

But the scientific intricacies were of no concern to Mrs. Burrows — it was the sheer inconvenience that made her fume. Dropping her spoon in her cereal bowl, she started rubbing her eyes once again.

She had been perfectly all right the evening before, but, roused by the morning bell outside her room, she'd woken into a living horror show. She was instantly aware of the painful drying of her sinuses and her ulcerated tongue and throat. But all this paled into insignificance as she'd tried to open her eyes and found they were so heavily gummed together that it was impossible to do so. It was only after bathing them with copious amounts of warm water from the hand basin in her room, accompanied by language that would have made a sailor blush, that she'd managed to pry apart her eyelids even a fraction. Despite all the washing, they still felt as though they had a crust over them that could only be removed by scraping it off.

Now, as she sat at the table, she let out a mournful groan. The persistent rubbing only seemed to be making matters worse. With tears streaming down her face, she scooped up a generous helping of cornflakes and, with one bloodshot eye, tried once again to read the copy of TV Guide on the table beside her. It was the latest issue, just delivered that morning, which she'd purloined from the dayroom before anyone else had had an opportunity to get their hands on it. But it was no good; she was hard-pressed to make out the titles at the tops of the pages, let alone the smaller print of the program listings below.

"What a stinking, filthy bug!" she complained again loudly. The dining room was uncannily quiet for this time of the morning; on any normal day, even the first sitting for breakfast would have had a healthy turnout.

Grinding her teeth with frustration, she folded her napkin and used an edge to carefully mop each weeping eye. After a series of deep mooing noises as she tried unsuccessfully to ease her sinuses, she blew her nose noisily into the napkin. Then, blinking rapidly, she attempted once more to focus on the magazine pages.

"It's no good, I can't see a sodding thing. Feels like I've got grit in them!" she said, pushing her cereal bowl away from her.

With her eyes closed, she leaned back in her chair and reached for her cup of tea. She put it to her lips and took a sip, then spluttered loudly, blowing it out in a fine mist over the tabletop. It was stone-cold.

"Urgh! Disgusting!" she shrieked. "The service in this place is deplorable." She slammed the cup down on its saucer. "Whole place has come to a standstill," she complained to nobody in particular, knowing full well that most of the staff hadn't shown up for work. "Anyone would think there was a war on."

"There is," came a distinguished voice.

Mrs. Burrows hiked up one puffy eyelid to see who had spoken. At his table, a man in a tweed jacket, perhaps in his mid-fifties, was dunking a finger of buttered toast into his boiled egg with small, deliberate movements. Like her, he seemed to prefer his own company, as he had chosen to sit at the small table in the adjacent window bay. The room was completely deserted except for her and this other diner. It had certainly been a strange couple of days, a skeleton staff with inflamed and seeping eyes doing their best to tend to the patients, who mostly confined themselves to their rooms.

"Hmm," the man said, and nodded as if agreeing with himself.

"Sorry?"

"I said there is a war on," he declared, munching on his piece of egg-dipped toast. From what Mrs. Burrows could see, he had only been mildly affected by the virus.

"What makes you say that?" Mrs. Burrows asked belligerently, immediately regretting that she'd said anything at all. She ducked her head down, praying that he'd leave her alone and just concentrate on his egg yolk. She wasn't going to be that lucky.

"And we're on the losing side," he continued, chewing. "We're under constant attack from viruses. It could be all over for us before you have time to say Ring-around-the-rosies. "

"Whatever are you talking about?" Mrs. Burrows muttered, unable to help herself. "What rubbish!"

"On the contrary," he said with a frown. "With the planet so overpopulated, we've got the optimum situation for viruses to mutate into something really lethal, and in double-quick time, too. An ideal breeding ground."

Mrs. Burrows contemplated making a break for the door. She wasn't going to hang around to hear this old fruitcake's prattle, and besides, she'd all but lost her appetite. The upside to this mystery pandemic was that it was very unlikely there would be any activities organized for the day, so she could get in some serious television viewing with little or no opposition to her choice of show. Even if she couldn’t see much, at least she could listen to it.

"We're all suffering from this rather nasty eye infection at the moment, but it wouldn't take much for it to shuffle a couple of genes and turn into a killer." The man picked up a salt shaker and shook it over his egg. "Mark my words, one day something really nasty will appear on the horizon, and it'll cut us all down, like a scythe through corn," he announced, delicately dabbing the corners of his eyes with his handkerchief. "Then we'll go the way of the dinosaurs. And all this" — he swept his hand expansively around the room — "and all of us, will be a rather short and rather insignificant chapter in the history of the world."

"How very cheery. Sounds like some naff science fiction story," Mrs. Burrows said sneeringly as she rose to her feet and began to grope her way from table to table, headed for the hallway.

"It's a disagreeable but very likely scenario for our eventual demise," he replied.

This last pronouncement really got Mrs. Burrows's goat. It was bad enough that her eyes were killing her without having to listen to this claptrap. "Oh yes, so we're all doomed, are we? And how would you know?" she said scornfully. "What are you, anyway, a failed writer or something?"

"No, actually, I'm a doctor. When I'm not in here, I work at St. Edmund's — it's a hospital — you might have heard of it?"

"Oh," Mrs. Burrows mumbled, pausing in her flight and turning to where the man was sitting.

"Seeing — so to speak — as you also seem to be something of an expert, I wish I could share your faith that there's nothing to be worried about."

Feeling more than a little humbled, Mrs. Burrows remained standing where she was.

"And try not to touch your peepers, my dear — it'll only make them worse," the man said curtly, swiveling his head to watch as two pigeons engaged in a tug-of-war over a bacon rind at the foot of the bird table.

22

For a couple of miles all that could be heard was the crunch of their feet in the dust. It was hard going for Will and Chester, trudging along with their silent captors, who yanked them roughly to their feet if either of them happened to stumble and fall. And on several occasions, the boys had been pushed and struck viciously to make them pick up the pace.

Then, without any warning, they were both drawn to a halt and their blindfolds tugged off. Blinking, the boys looked around; they were evidently still on the Great Plain, but there were no features to be seen in the illumination from the miner's light on the head of the tall man who stood before them. The glare from the light meant they couldn't see his face, but he was wearing a long jacket with a belt slung around his waist that had numerous pouches attached to it. He took something from one of these — a light orb, which he held in his gloved palm. Then he reached above his forehead and turned off the miner's light.

He unwound a scarf from around his neck and mouth, switching his stare between the two boys as he did so. His shoulders were broad, but his face was the thing that held their attention. It was a lean face with a strong nose and one eye that glinted blue at them. The other eye had something in front of it, held in place by a band around the top of his head, like a drop-down lens.

It reminded Will of the last time he'd had his eyes tested; the optician examining him had worn a similar device. However, this version had a milky lens and, Will could have sworn, a very faint orange glow to it. He immediately assumed that the eye underneath had been damaged in some way, but then noticed a pair of twisted cables attached to the monocle's perimeter that passed around the headband and behind the man's head.

The single, uncovered eye continued to assess both of them, shrewd and quick as it darted from one to the other.

"I don't have much patience," the man began.

Will was trying to guess his age, but he could have been anything from thirty to fifty, and he had such an imposing physical presence that neither boy could fail to be intimidated.

"My name is Drake. I'm not in the habit of picking up outcasts from the Colony," he said, and then paused. "Sometimes, with the wrecks and the broken-down, those that have been tortured or are too weak to last for long… I bring about an early release." With a grim smile, he swept his hand around the belt until it came to rest on a large scabbard on his hip. "It's the kindest thing to do."

As if he had made his point, he withdrew his hand from the knife. "I want straight answers. We've been tracking you, and there is no backup, is there?" He glared at Will, who remained silent.

"You, the big one, what's your name?" He turned to Chester, who shifted uneasily on his feet.

"Chester Rawls, sir," the boy answered in a tremulous voice.

"You're not a Colonist, are you?"

"Er… no," Chester croaked.

"Topsoiler?"

"Yes." Chester looked down, not able to withstand the stare from the cold eye any longer.

"So how did you come to be down here?"

"I was Banished."

"Along with the best of them," Drake said, twisting around to regard Will. "You, the brave — or very idiotic — one. Name?"

"Will," he answered evenly.

"What are you, I wonder. You're more difficult. You move and look like Colonist rank and file, but there's also a touch of the Topsoil about you, too."

Will nodded.

Drake continued: "Which makes you somewhat unusual. You're patently not an agent for the Limiters."

"Who?" Will asked.

"You've just seen them in action."

"I've no idea what Limiters are," Will mumbled insolently at him.

"A specialist detachment of the Styx. They've been cropping up all over the place lately. Seems the Deeps have become a bit of a habit with them," Drake said. "So, you don't work for them."

"No, I bloody don't!" Will replied, so emphatically that Drake's eye seemed to flicker marginally wider, with what could have been surprise. He sighed and crossed his arms, tugging reflectively at his chin with one hand.

"Thought as much." He stared at Will, shaking his head. "But I don't like it when I can't understand something right away. I rend to act rashly… get rid of whatever it is. Tell me, boy, quickly, who and what are you?"

Will decided he'd better do as the man ordered and provide him with an answer. "I was born in the Colony and my mother got me out. Got me to the surface," he said.

"So when did you go Topsoil?"

"When I was two, she—"

"Enough," he interrupted, holding up a hand. "I didn't ask for your life story," he growled. "But that smells right. And it makes you an… an oddity." He looked past the boys, to the darkness behind them. "I suggest we take them back. We can decide what to do with them later. Agreed, Elliott?"

A smaller figure, no taller than Will, stepped into view with the stealth of a cat. Even in the poor light they could see the curves of her body under the loose-fitting jacket and pants, clothes similar to those Drake was wearing. She had a sandy-colored scarf, a shemagh, wound around her face and up over the top of her head, obscuring all her features except for her eyes, which did not once look in the boys' direction.

She was carrying a rifle of some kind. She swung it before her and, digging the butt into the ground, leaned against it. It looked heavy, with a thick pipelike barrel on which, midway along, was attached a chunky sight of some description that glinted dully, like unpolished brass. The weapon was almost as tall as she was, and seemed impossibly cumbersome for a girl of her slight frame.

The two boys held their breath, waiting for her to speak, but after a couple of seconds she merely nodded, then swung the chunky rifle onto her back again as if it weighed no more than a length of bamboo.

"Come along," Drake said to them. He made no move to put on their blindfolds again, but left their hands bound. With just the faintest glow from Drake's miner's light to show them where he was, they followed his broad-backed form as he piloted them through an unremittingly monotonous landscape. Despite the lack of landmarks, he seemed to know unerringly which direction they should be taking. After many more hours of this desertlike terrain, they arrived at the edge of the Great Plain at the mouth of a lava tube. They filed down this at some speed. It was almost, Will thought, as if Drake had the ability to see in the dark.

Now in the enclosed space of the tube, they watched the indistinct outline of Drake's head as he went, but on the occasions when Will and Chester glanced behind to see where Elliott was, there was absolutely no sign of her. And no noise, either. Will came to the conclusion that she must have taken another route, or had remained behind for some reason.

The three of them, Drake, Will and Chester, took a left fork and very soon arrived at what appeared to be a cul-de-sac.

Drake drew them to a halt. He turned up his miner's light and stood there facing them, his back to the wall, while Will and Chester peered around uneasily. They could see no reason for stopping. Chester held his breath as Drake suddenly reached to his side and yanked his knife from its scabbard.

"I'm going to free your hands," he said before they had time to think the worst was about to happen. "Here." He beckoned with his knife, and then, as they held up their wrists, sliced deftly through the bindings with single strokes.

"Is there anything in those backpacks that'll be spoiled by water? Food, or anything you want to keep dry?"

Will thought for a second.

"Quickly!" Drake pressed them.

"Yes, there's my notebooks and camera, quite a lot of food, and… and some fireworks," Will replied. "That's in mine." He looked over at his brother's rucksack, which Chester was now carrying. "In Cal's, there's mostly just food."

Before he had finished speaking, Drake lobbed two folded packages at their feet. "Use these. Get on with it."

The boys each picked up a package and shook it out. They were bags, made from a light, waxed material, with two sets of drawstrings on their openings.

Will tipped out his rucksack, rapidly shoving things he wanted to keep dry into the bag. He tightened the drawstrings, then turned to look at Chester, who was unfamiliar with the contents of his backpack and, as a consequence, was taking more time.

"C'mon, will you," Drake growled under his breath.

"Let me do that," Will volunteered, shouldering Chester aside and finishing off the job within seconds.

"Right!" Drake barked. "Is that everything?"

Both boys nodded.

"A word of advice: Next time I suggest you keep at least a pair of socks dry."

They had been so occupied by the task at hand, neither Will nor Chester had given a thought to what was going to happen next.

"Right, sir," Will said. He was comforted by the words next time and the almost paternal advice this complete stranger was giving them.

"Look, I am sir to no one," Drake snapped back, making Will feel uneasy all over again. He hadn't intended to say it — it had slipped out as if he had been addressing a teacher at school.

"Sorry, s—" Will began, managing to cut himself off just in time. He caught the momentary sneer of Drake's lips before the man began to speak again.

"You are going to swim through this." Drake thrust his toe cap at the floor by the foot of the wall. Where the boys had thought there was solid ground, they now saw ripples spread sluggishly under a thick film of dust. It was apparently a small pool, some six feet in diameter.

"Swim?" Chester asked, and swallowed nervously.

"You can hold your breath for thirty seconds, can't you, boy?"

"Yes," Chester stammered.

"Good. This is a small sump that comes up in another passage. It's like a U-bend.."

"Same as at the back of a toilet bowl?" Chester suggested, his voice brittle with apprehension.

"Oh, nice one, Chester," Will said, grimacing.

Drake gave them both a wry glance, then waved them toward the grimy-looking water. "In you go."

Will put his rucksack on his back and approached the pool, hugging the waterproof bag in his arms. He stepped into the sump without hesitation, each step taking him deeper into the tepid water. Then, with a deep breath, he ducked his head under its surface and was gone.

Feeling bubbles brush his face, he pulled himself along using his free hand. He kept his eyes tightly shut, the noise of the water thundering in his ears. Although the tunnel wasn't particularly wide, pinching down to perhaps three feet at its narrowest point, it wasn't proving too difficult to negotiate, either, even with the dual burdens of the rucksack and waterproof bag.

But despite the fact that he thought he was making good progress, Will didn't seem to be getting anywhere. He opened his eyes in the pitch-blackness, which made his heart beat even faster. The water around him felt thick and resistant.

This was his worst nightmare.

Is this all a trick? Should I turn back?

He tried to keep control of himself, but with the lack of air, his body was beginning to rebel. He felt a wave of panic surge through him and began to thrash around, grabbing wildly for anything that would help him move faster. He had to get out of the inky liquid! He moved with a mad desperation now, driving himself forward through the dark waters in a slow-motion sprint.

He wondered for the briefest moments if this was how Drake was going to kill both of them. But in the same instant he told himself that Drake wouldn't have needed to go to all this trouble — it would have been simpler just to slit their throats back on the Great Plain, if that had been his intention.

Although it was probably no more than half a minute, it felt like several lifetimes before Will burst out into the air with a huge splash.

His chest heaving, he fumbled for his lantern and switched it to its lowest level. The muted light didn't reveal much about the place he was in, except he noticed that the ground and the walls appeared to glisten a little when his beam caught them. He assumed this was merely due to moisture on their surfaces. Grateful for the air in his lungs, he waited for Chester.

On the other side of the sump, Chester reluctantly hoisted the rucksack onto his shoulders and began mooching toward the patch of water, dragging the waterproof bag behind him.

"What are you waiting for, boy?" Drake said, his voice hard and uncompromising.

Chester bit his lip, dawdling beside the slowly lapping water, which was still agitated from Will's passage through it. He turned to look sheepishly into Drake's single, glowering eye.

"Um… he began, wondering how he could possibly avoid submerging himself in the grimy-looking pool before him. "I can't…"

Drake grabbed his arm, but without any real pressure. "Listen, I mean you no harm. You are going to have to trust me." He raised his chin, looking away from the frightened boy. "It's not an easy thing to put your trust in a total stranger, especially after what you've been through. You're right to be cautious — that's good. But I am not a Styx, and I'm not going to do anything to hurt you. OK?" He brought his singular gaze to bear on the boy.

Close to the man, Chester looked directly into his face and somehow knew that Drake was being straight with him. He was suddenly filled with confidence.

"All right," he agreed, and without further hesitation waded into the dark waters, submerging himself in them. And as he propelled himself through, using the half-swimming, half-running method Will had employed, he didn't allow any doubt to cloud his mind.

On the other side, Will was there to help Chester out.

"You OK?" Will asked him. "You took so long, I thought you got stuck or something."

"No problem," Chester answered, breathing heavily and wiping water from his eyes.

"Now's our chance," Will said quickly, trying to see what lay beyond in the darkness, then glancing back to the pool. There was no sign of Drake, but he wouldn't be far behind. "We should make a break for it."

"No, Will," Chester said resolutely.

"What are you talking about?" Will demanded, already turning and trying to pull his friend with him.

"I'm not going anywhere. I think we're safe with him," Chester replied. He widened his stance to resist Will, who saw he meant what he was saying.

"Too late," Will said furiously as a faint light shone from deep within the water. It was the miner's light on Drake's forehead. Will made a growling noise at Chester just as the man's head and shoulders broke from the surface, and he rose out of it like some apparition, barely disturbing the water at all.

Drake's light was more intense than either of the boys' lanterns and it played on the walls around them. Will could now see that what he had assumed to be moisture was something else altogether. Both walls and the ground upon which the boys stood were streaked with a multitude of fine golden veins, as if a priceless cobweb had been draped over them. The veins glittered with a thousand tiny points of light, suffusing the chamber with a glorious kaleidoscope of warm yellow.

"Wow!" Chester gasped.

"Gold!" Will mumbled in disbelief. He looked down at his arms, noticing they were covered in it, too. They had all picked up a good measure on their clothes and skin from the shining dust floating on the surface of the water.

"'fraid not," Drake said, now standing beside them. "It's only fool's gold. Iron pyrite."

"Of course," Will said, recalling the shiny cube his father had bought him for his minerals collection back home. "Iron pyrite," he repeated, slightly ashamed that he hadn't known better.

"I can show you places where there's gold, places where you can fill your boots," Drake said as he surveyed the walls. "But what's the point if there's nowhere to spend it?" The coldness had returned to his voice. "Sort out your kit" — he pointed at their rucksacks — "we need to get going."

Once the boys were ready, Drake turned and was off again, an imperious figure taking powerful, long strides down the exquisitely golden gallery.

Marching briskly through a confusing maze of rock passages, they eventually came to a ramp leading up to a rough archway. Drake reached through the opening and felt to one side. He pulled out a knotted rope.

"Up," he said, holding the rope toward them.

Will and Chester hauled themselves up the thirty feet of so to the top and waited there, panting from the exertion. Drake followed up with no more effort than it would take a normal person to open a door. The boys found themselves in a sort of octagonal atrium, from which they could see openings leading to other faintly lit spaces. The floor was even and covered with silt, and as Will scuffed his boot on it, he could tell from the echoes that the adjoining rooms were of a reasonable size.

"This'll be home for a while," Drake said, unbuckling the bulky belt around his waist. Slipping off his jacket, he slung it over his shoulder. Then he reached to the contraption in front of his eye and lifted it upward. It was hinged, revealing that his other eye was, in fact, quite normal.

As he stood before them, the boys took in the musculature of his bare arms and how exceptionally lean and honed he was. His cheekbones were prominent, and his face so thin that the muscle groups composing it were almost visible through his skin. And every inch of his flesh, ingrained with dirt and the color of tanned leather, was lined by a mesh of scars. Some were large, bleached-white hyphens that stood proud, while others where much smaller, as if pale filaments had been trailed around his neck and the sides of his face.

But his eyes, overhung by his prominent brow, were intensely blue, and simmered with such an awe-inspiring ferociousness that both Will and Chester found it hard to bear their scrutiny. It was as though their depths divulged a glimpse of some terrifying place, a place neither of the boys wanted to know anything about.

"Right, wait in there."

The boys began to shuffle toward the room Drake was pointing to.

"But leave your rucksacks here," he ordered and, still facing the boys, added, "Everything OK, Elliott?"

Will and Chester couldn't stop themselves from peering past Drake. By the top of the rope, the small girl was poised, stock-still. It was evident that she had never been very far behind, all the time they'd been walking but neither of the boys had noticed her presence until now.

"You are going to restrain them, aren't you?" she asked in a cold, unfriendly voice.

"Not necessary, is it, Chester?" Drake said.

"No," the boy answered so readily that Will looked at him with barely concealed astonishment.

"And you?"

"Uh… no," Will muttered less enthusiastically.

Once inside, they sat unspeaking in the gloom on some rudimentary beds they'd found in there — the only items of furniture in the room. Just long enough to accommodate the bys, there was little width to them, and their surfaces were barely padded at all — like a couple of narrow tables with blankets thrown over them.

As they waited, clueless as to what was going to happen next, the room reverberated with sounds from the corridor outside. There were the muffled tones of a conversation between Drake and Elliott, and then they listened as their rucksacks were upended and the contents tipped out onto the floor. Finally they heard retreating footfalls, then nothing.

Will took a luminescent orb from his pocket and began to absentmindedly roll it back and forth across the top of his sleeve. Now that his jacket had dried, the action dislodged glittering grains of iron pyrite, which scattered to the ground in a small sparkling shower. "Looks like I've been to a disco," he muttered, and then, without missing a beat, he addressed his friend. "What's the deal, Chester?"

"What do you mean?"

"You seem to have thrown your lot in with these people, for some reason. Why do you trust them?" Will demanded. "You do realize they're just going to steal all our food and then ditch us somewhere? In fact, they'll probably kill us. That's the sort of thieving scum they are."

"I don't think so," Chester replied indignantly, frowning.

"Well, what was all that about out there, then?" Will indicated the corridor with a jab of his thumb.

"I reckon they're rebels of some sort, at war with the Styx," Chester said defensively. "You know, freedom fighters."

"Yeah, right."

"They could be," Chester maintained, then looked less certain. "Why don't you ask them, Will?"

"Why don't you ask them yourself?" Will snapped.

He was getting more and more furious. Coming on top of Cal's accident, the traumatic way in which they had been grabbed was really the last straw. He fell into a brooding silence and began to formulate a plan of action in which they would fight their way out and make a run for it. He was just about to inform Chester what he thought their next move should be when Drake appeared at the threshold. He leaned against the doorjamb, eating something. It was Will's favorite — a Milky Way. He and Cal had bought several candy bars in the Topsoil supermarket, and he'd been carefully saving them for a special occasion.

"What are these?" Drake asked, indicating a pair of dun-colored rocks the size of large marbles, which he was cradling in the palm of his hand. He shook them as though they were dice, and then closed his hand and began to grind them, one against the other.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Will told Drake.

"Why not?"

"It's bad for your eyesight," Will said, the corners of his lips curling with the hint of a vindictive smirk as the man continued to rattle the stone together. They were the remaining node stones that Tam had given Will, and Drake had evidently found them in Will's backpack. If broken, they became incandescent, releasing a blinding white light. "They'll go off in your face," Will warned.

Drake glanced at Will, unsure whether the boy was being serious. However, taking a large bite of the Milky Way bar, he now held the stones still as he continued to examine them.

Will was incensed. "Enjoying that, are you?" he fumed.

"Yes," Drake answered unequivocally, tucking the last of the chocolate into his mouth. "Look at it as a small price to pay for rescuing you."

"And that gives you the right to help yourself to my things, does it?" Will rose to his feet, his arms bunched at his sides, his face rigid with anger. 'Besides, we didn't need to be rescued."

"Oh, really?" Drake responded casually, his mouth still full. "Look at the two of you. You're a mess."

"We were doing just fine before you came along," Will retorted.

"Oh, really. So, tell me, what happened to this Cal you mentioned? I don't see him anywhere." Drake shot his eyes around the room, then raised his eyebrows quizzically. "Where's he hiding, I wonder."

"My brother… he… he…" Will started belligerently, but suddenly all the bluster deserted him and he slumped back down onto the bed.

"He's dead," Chester spoke up.

"How?" Drake asked, swallowing the last of the candy bar.

"There was this cave… and…" Will's voice faltered.

"What sort of cave?" Drake asked immediately, his voice deadly serious.

Chester took over. "It smelled sort of sweet and there were strange plant things… They bit him or something, and then all this stuff—"

"A sugar trap," Drake interrupted, moving in from the doorway and looking quickly from one boy to the other. "And what did you do? You didn't just leave him there?"

"He wasn't breathing," Chester said.

"He died," Will added disconsolately.

"Where and when was this?" Drake pressed them.

Will and Chester shot glances at each other.

"Come on," Drake urged.

"Two or so days ago… I suppose," Will said.

"Yes, it was by the first canal we came to," Chester confirmed.

"Then there may still be a chance," Drake said, moving toward the doorway. "A slim one."

"What do you mean?" Will asked.

"We have to go," Drake snapped.

"Huh?" Will gasped, not able to comprehend what he was hearing.

But Drake was already striding purposefully down the corridor. "Follow me! We'll need to take some rations," he yelled back to them. Elliott! Saddle up! Break out the weapons!"

He halted by their backpacks, where all their belongings had been stacked into ordered piles.

"Take that, that, and that," Drake pointed at the various piles of food. "Should be enough. We'll carry some extra water. Elliott! Water!" he shouted as he turned to them. They were standing rather dumbly as they watched him, confused as to what exactly they were meant to be doing, and why. "Hurry up and stow that stuff… that's if you want to save your brother."

"I don't understand," Will said, kneeling and hurriedly shoving food into his rucksack as Drake had instructed. "Cal wasn't breathing. He's dead."

"No time to explain now," Drake barked as Elliott appeared from another doorway. Her shemagh was still around her head and her rifle slung across her back. She handed Drake two bladderlike containers that slopped with the sound of water.

"Take these," Drake said, shoving them at the boys.

"What's up?" Elliott asked calmly as she began to pass further items to Drake.

"There were three of them. The third wandered into a sugar trap," he answered, casting his eyes in the boys' direction as he took a bundle of cylinders from Elliott, some six inches or so in length. He opened his jacket and slotted them inside it one by one. Then he clipped a pad with shorter versions of the cylinders — each like a thick pencil housed in its own loop — onto his belt and secured it by means of a short cord tied around his thigh.

"What are those?" Will inquired.

"Precautions," Drake answered abstractedly. "We'll be taking a direct route across the plain. We don't have time for subtlety."

He buttoned up his jacket and flicked the weird contraption over his eye again. "Ready?" he said to Elliott.

"Ready," she confirmed.

23

Later that evening, Sarah was in her room, poring over the map the Styx had given her. She was sitting cross-legged with it spread open on the floor before her, familiarizing herself with the various place names.

"Crevice Town," she repeated several times, then switched her attention to the northern reaches of the Great Plain, where reports were coming in of recent renegade activity. She wondered if Will was somehow tied up in it — given his past record, she wouldn't have been surprised if he was already causing trouble in the Deeps.

She was distracted by heavy, even steps in the corridor outside. Going to the door, she opened it as softly as she could and saw the massive, unmistakable form lumbering down the corridor.

"Joseph," she called quietly.

He turned and came back to her, tucking some neatly folded towels under his arm.

"I didn't want to intrude," he said, glancing through the partially open door and past Sarah to the floor, where the map was laid out.

"You should have come in. I'm so glad you're back." She smiled at him. "I was… um…" she began, then fell silent.

"If there's anything I can do for you, you only have to ask," Joseph offered.

"I don't think I'll be here much longer," she told him, then hesitated. "There is something I wanted to do before I go."

"Anything," he reiterated. "You know I'm here for you." He beamed at her, delighted that she felt she could trust him.

"I want you to get me out of here," Sarah said in a low voice.

Moving like a shadow, Sarah kept close to the wall. She'd already avoided several Colonist policemen making the rounds of the surrounding streets and didn't want to get caught now. Ducking into a recess behind an ancient drinking fountain with a tarnished brass spout, she crouched down and checked the darkened entrance on the other side of the street.

She lifted her head and gazed at the tall, windowless walls of he outer ring of buildings. It had been from this very spot that, so many years ago, she had seen those buildings through her child's eyes. Then, as now, they gave the impression that they hadn't put up much of a fight against the ravages of time. The walls were shot through with ominous-looking cracks, and there were numerous huge and yawning hollows where the facing stones had simply crumbled away. The masonry appeared to be in such an appalling state of repair that at any moment the whole development might come tumbling down on some hapless passerby.

But appearances can be deceptive. The area she was about to enter had been among the first to be built when the Colony was established, and the walls of the houses were strong enough to withstand anything man, or time, could throw at them.

She took a breath and whisked across the street, slipping into the pitch-black passageway. It was barely wide enough to allow two people to pass abreast at the same time. At once the smell hit her: The stale odor of the inhabitants, a reek of unwashed occupation so intense it was like a physical thing, intermixed with all that went with it, with human effluent and the pungent stench of rotting food.

She came out into a gloomily lit alley. Like all the thoroughfares and runnels that cut through this district, it was barely wider than the passageway from which she'd just emerged.

"The Rookeries," she said to herself, glancing around and realizing that it had changed not one jot, this place where the people who had nowhere else to go ended up. She began to walk, spotting a familiar building here or a door there, still flecked with faint traces of paint in the same color she recalled, and reveling in her memories of the times she and Tam had ventured into this forbidden and dangerous playground.

Basking in the warmth of her memories, she strolled down the middle of the alley, avoiding the open gutter where sewage trickled like heated lard. On either side of her were the ramshackle old slums, their uppermost stories overhanging to such an extent that in places they appeared to be almost touching.

She paused to adjust the shawl over her head while a raggedy bunch of street urchins tore past her. They were so dirty as to be nearly indistinguishable from the backdrop of filth coating every surface.

Two of them, small boys, were shouting, "Styx and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me!" at the top of their lungs as they chased after the others. She smiled at their irreverence; if they had done that outside the confines of the Rookeries, the punishment would have been swift and brutal. One of the boys skipped over the open gutter in the middle of the road, past a gaggle of old crones dressed in head shawls similar to Sarah's. They were gossiping intently among themselves and nodding their heads. Almost without looking, one of the women twisted away from the group just as the boy was in reach. Cuffing him with unnecessary roughness, she issued a sharp reprimand. The woman's face was lined and blistered and as pale as a ghost's.

The boy reeled slightly, then, rubbing his head and grumbling under his breath, he hurtled off, undeterred. Sarah couldn't suppress a laugh. She saw in the boy a youthful Tam, recognizing the toughness and resilience she had so admired in her brother. The children were still taunting one another in their high voices, and whooping and screaming with excitement as they hared down a side alley and disappeared from view.

Some thirty feet farther down from Sarah, a pair of brutish-looking men stood talking in a doorway, both with long hair and pendulous, matted beards, and dressed in scruffy frock coats. She caught them eyeing her with vicious sneers on their faces. The larger of the two lowered his head like a bulldog about to attack, and made as if to move toward her. He slipped a gnarled, rootlike cudgel from his thick belt, and she saw the easy way he held it in his hand. This wasn't some vain threat — she could tell he knew how to use the club.

These people didn't take kindly to outsiders straying off the beaten track and onto their patch.

Sarah returned his cold glare but slowed to a crawl. If she were to continue on her original course, it would take her straight by him — there was nowhere else to go. The alternative was for her to do an about-face, which would be perceived as a sign of weakness. If they suspected for even a fraction of a second that she was afraid and shouldn't be there, they'd have a pop at her — that was how things worked in this place. Either way, she new that she and this total stranger were now locked into a showdown and that the situation would need to be resolved, somehow or other.

Although she hadn't the slightest doubt she could handle herself if it came to it, Sarah still felt a frisson of the old fear, the familiar electric tingle running down her spine. Thirty years ago, this was her and her brother's obsession, the start of the contest. Oddly enough, she found it rather comforting.

"Ay! You!" someone suddenly cried behind her, jolting her from her thoughts. "Jerome!"

"What?" Sarah gasped.

She wheeled around to meet the red-rimmed eyes of the ancient hag. Her face was dappled with the most enormous liver spots, and she was pointing accusingly at Sarah with an arthritic finger.

"Jerome," the old woman rasped again, even louder and more confidently this time, her mouth gaping open so Sarah could see her toothless, livid-pink gums. Sarah realized she had let her guard drop, and her face had been in full view of the group of women. But how in the world did they know who she was?

"Jerome. Yes! Jerome!" another of the women cawed, with mounting conviction. "It's Sarah Jerome, ain't it?"

Although she was in a maelstrom of confusion, Sarah did her best to rapidly assess her options. She scanned the nearby doorways, reckoning that if worse came to worst she might be able to barge her way into one of the half-ruined buildings and lose herself in the rabbit warren of passageways that lay behind them. But it didn't look good. All the doors were firmly shut or boarded up.

She was walled in, with only two ways to go — backward or forward. She was looking at the alleyway beyond the old hags, calculating whether to make a break and get herself back out of the Rookeries, when one of them screamed the most piercing of wails:

"SARAH!"

Sarah flinched with the sheer volume of the squall, and a lull descended on the whole place, an eerie, watchful silence.

Sarah spun around, walking away from the women, knowing it would take her straight past the bearded man. So be it! She would just have to deal with him.

As she neared him, he raised the cudgel to the height of his shoulder and Sarah prepared to fight, slipping her shawl from her head and winding it around her arm. She could have kicked herself for not bringing her knife.

She was almost level with him when, to her astonishment and relief, he began to strike the cudgel against the lintel of the doorway and to shout her name in his gruff voice. His confederate joined with him, as did every one of the group of women behind her.

"SARAH! SARAH! SARAH!"

The entire place was stirring now, as if the timbers of the buildings themselves were coming to life.

"SARAH! SARAH! SARAH!"

The cudgel continued to beat time as people turned out from the houses and into the alleyway, more people than she believed possible. Shutters slammed back from glassless windows and faces peeked out. All Sarah could do was bow her head and keep walking.

"SARAH! SARAH! SARAH!" came shouts thick and fast from all over, and people joined in with the beat of the cudgel, the clattering growing as metal cups or whatever else came to hand were struck against walls, windowsills, and doorjambs. It was like a jailhouse chorus, so loud that the tiles on the roofs began to resonate with the singular rhythm.

Still gripped by panic, Sarah didn't slow her pace, but began to notice the grinning faces, infused with wonderment. Elderly men, bent double from disease, and gaunt women, the used-up people that the Colony had consigned to the scrap heap, were hailing her, shouting her name jubilantly.

"SARAH! SARAH! SARAH!"

Many mouths, with broken and blackened teeth, all yelling in unison. Smiling, wild, sometimes grotesque faces, but all with expressions of admiration and even affection.

They were gathering along the way now — Sarah couldn't believe the sheer number of people lining the route. Someone — she didn't see who — thrust a discolored sheet of rough paper into her hands. She glanced down at it. It was a crude etching, the sort of thing the underground press distributed to the people of the Rookeries — she'd seen the like before.

But this one caused Sarah's heart to skip a beat. The largest image, in the center of the sheet, was a picture of her, a few years younger than she was now, although dressed in almost identical clothes. Her face in the picture bore an anxious expression and was looking melodramatically off to one side, as if she was being pursued. It was a reasonable likeness of her. So that explained how she'd been recognized. That and the rumors, which would have most likely spread like wildfire through the Colony, that she'd been brought back by the Styx. There were four other, smaller pictures in similarly stylized roundels in each corner, but now wasn't the time to examine them.

She folded the paper and took a deep breath. Seemingly there was nothing to fear, no threat, so she raised her head, throwing her shawl around her back, as she continued down the alleyway, the masses thronging on either side of her. She didn't acknowledge them, nor look to her left or right, but kept going as the clamor grew even more tumultuous. Wolf whistles and huge cheers and the chanted "Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!" reached the rock canopy above, their echoes falling back to earth and mingling with the uproar all around her.

Sarah reached the narrow passageway that would lead her out through the other side of the Rookeries. Without looking back, she entered, leaving the throng behind her. But their shouts still rang in her ears, and the drumming still resounded deafeningly in the enclosed space around her.

Out in the wider street where the more affluent Colonists' houses stood, Sarah stopped to order her thoughts. She felt dizzy as she tried to deal with what had just happened. She just couldn't believe that all those people, whom she'd never laid eyes on before, had recognized her and had bestowed such adulation upon her. After all, they were the inhabitants of the Rookeries — they neither respected nor admired anyone beyond its confines. It wasn't their way. Before now, she hadn't had the slightest inkling that she was a figure of such renown.

Remembering the sheet of paper still clutched in her hand, she opened it and began to scrutinize it. The paper itself was coarse, with frayed edges, but she didn't notice this as her eyes fell on her name at the top of the sheet, spelled out in ornate copperplate letters within a twisting banner, like a flag stirring in the wind.

And there she was, her picture clear as day — the artist had done a good job of capturing her likeness. Around her picture a stylized and wispy fog, or perhaps it was meant to be the darkness, formed an oval frame, and in the four corners of the sheet were the smaller roundels she hadn't had the time to look at before.

They were just as accomplished as the main picture.

One showed her leaning over her baby's crib, tears making her face shine. There was a shadowy figure in the background that she assumed was her husband, standing by just as he had done while their child was dying.

The next roundel depicted her with both her sons, stealing out of her house, and another had her grappling valiantly with a Colonist in a semilit tunnel. The last depicted a huge phalanx of Styx, scythes drawn, hot on the heels of a running, skirted figure as it fled down the length of a tunnel. The artist had taken liberties here; it hadn't happened like that at all, but the meaning was clear. She instinctively crumpled up the sheet. It was strictly forbidden to portray the Styx in any way whatsoever — only in the Rookeries would they dare do such a thing.

She couldn't get over it. Her life… in five pictures!

She was still shaking her head with utter disbelief as she caught the gentle creak of leather and looked up. She froze at the sight that met her.

Stark white collars and long black coats that rippled with the illumination from the streetlamps. Styx. A large patrol of them — perhaps as many as two dozen. They were watching her, unmoving and silent, in a casually arranged line on the opposite side of the street. The scene had something of an old photograph from the American Wild West about it — a posse of long riders arranged around the sheriff before the start of a manhunt. But in this picture the sheriff was a teenage girl.

Rebecca, in the center of the front row, took a single step forward. As she stood, proud and commanding in front of her men, the strongest sense of power emanated from her.

Who is she really? Sarah thought, not for the first time.

Rebecca flipped her hand vaguely in the air, the gesture telling the Styx at her flanks to remain where they were. As the chanting continued, muffled now by the boundaries of the Rookeries, she gave a faintly amused smile. She crossed her arms primly and looked askance at Sarah.

"Quite the hero's welcome," she called over, tapping a foot on the cobblestones. "How does it feel to be such a big shot?" she added sourly.

Sarah gave a nervous half shrug, conscious of all the dark pupils of the massed Styx upon her.

"Well, I hope you made the most of it, because the Rookeries, and all the scum rotting inside, will be no more than a bad memory in a few days' time," Rebecca snarled. "Out with the old, as they say."

Sarah wasn't sure how to react to this — was it just an empty threat because Rebecca was angry that she'd dared to leave the Styx compound and venture into the Rookeries?

A bell began to toll somewhere in the distance.

"Enough of all this," the girl announced. "It's high time" — she snapped her fingers and the Styx around her stirred into action — "we were on our way. We've got a train to catch."

24

"The place of Cross Staves," Drake said as he looked at the sign by the letterbox opening in the ground. Will estimated it had taken them ten hours of rapid walking, punctuated by frequent bouts of jogging, to reach the place where — he had thought until now — Cal had died. Both he and Chester were thoroughly exhausted but filled with fragile hope.

At Drake's suggestion, they had taken a couple of breaks on the way, but no one had spoken as they drank water and chewed on some salty sticks with a nondescript flavor that the taciturn man had produced from a pouch.

As they had jogged along, with only Drake's faint miner's light to guide them, Elliott had prowled behind, constant yet undetectable in the dark. But she was with them now, as Drake stood by the letterbox opening, a place Will had hoped he'd never again see in his lifetime: a place of fear and dread, a portal into the deathworld.

Drake undid the buckle and slung his belt kit to one side as Elliott handed him a mask, which he fixed over his mouth and nose. "I was given this by a dead Limiter." He smiled dryly at the boys. Then he made sure the strange lens was positioned correctly over his eye.

"I want to help," Will declared. "I'm coming with you."

"No, you're not."

"Cal's my brother. He was my responsibility."

"That has nothing to do with it. You stay with Elliott and keep watch. We've broken every rule in the book on the way over, and I don't want to get pinned down when I'm in the sugar trap." Drake gestured to Chester. "He's the stronger of you two — he's going to help me."

"Sure!" Chester nodded eagerly.

Elliott tapped Will on the shoulder. She was so close to him, he was a bit taken aback. She pointed at the outcrop behind the letterbox opening. "Take that side," she whispered. "If you see anything, don't shout, just tell me. Got that?" She started to hand Will one of the small metal cylinders Drake had been carrying, but he spotted what she was doing.

"No, Elliott, he doesn't know how to use it yet. If it comes to that, just scram and lead them away. We'll regroup at the emergency RV, OK?"

"OK. Break a leg." She smiled under her shemagh as she snatched the cylinder back from a bewildered Will.

"Thanks," Drake said, then jumped in the opening, with Chester close behind.

After they'd gone, Will hunched down low against the rocks, scouring the darkness. The minutes passed.

"Pssst!"

It was Elliott.

Will looked around. He couldn't see her.

"PSSST!" It came again, louder this time.

He was about to call out to her when she landed right behind him, as if she had dropped from the sky. Evidently she'd been on top of the outcrop.

"Something going on over there," she whispered, pointing off into the darkness. "It's a long way away, so don't panic. Just keep your eyes peeled." She was gone before Will had a chance to ask her exactly what she'd seen. He peered in the direction she'd indicated. As far as he could tell, there was absolutely nothing there.

After several minutes, a distant, deep, rumbling boom resounded across the plain. There was no flash, but Will was certain he felt the percussive shock on his face, a faint wash of warm air over and above the constant breezes. He stood up, and Elliott was back in an instant.

"Thought so," she whispered into his ear. "It's the Limiters sending another Coprolite settlement sky-high."

"But why would they do that?"

"Drake thought perhaps you could tell us."

Will saw her keen brown eyes flash through the parting in the shemagh.

"No," Will replied hesitantly, "why should I know?"

"This only started — the hunting of our friends and any Coprolites who deal with us — about the time you showed up. Maybe you brought it on. So what did you do to get the Styx so stirred up?"

"I… I…" Will stammered, stunned by the suggestion that he was somehow to blame for the Styx's actions.

"Well, whatever you did, they won't let it go. I should know." Her eyes flicked away from him. "Keep alert," she said., making a catlike leap up the sheer incline of the rock outcrop, her outsized rifle balanced in her arms.

Will's mind was whirring. Could Elliott be right? Had he brought down the wrath of the Styx on the renegades and Coprolites? Was he in some way responsible for all of this?

REBECCA!

The thought of his one-time sister made him choke. Could she still be out for vengeance? Her evil influence seemed to follow Will everywhere he went, slithering after him like a poisonous snake. Was she behind what was happening? No, that would be just too outlandish.

He thought back to the moment he and Chester had first entered the underground world, through one of the Colony's air locks and into the Quarter, setting off a chain of events over which he'd had no control. Then he began to think about how many lives had changed for the worse as a result.

For starters there was Chester, dragged into this terrifying mess because, out of the goodness of his heart, he'd offered to help Will search for his father. Then there was Tam, who had lost his life defending him in the Eternal City. And he couldn't forget Tam's men: Imago, Jack, and the others, who were probably on the run right now. All because of him. The burden was way too much to bear. No, he tried to convince himself, this can't all be on me. It can't be.

A commotion coming from the letterbox opening distracted Will from his tortured thoughts. He saw Drake racing away from the sugar trap, white particles scattering from his head and shoulders like a sprinkling of confetti. He was carrying Cal's limp body. Chester climbed out behind him.

Drake paused for the briefest instant to shake off his mask, then resumed his mad dash, heading directly for the canal.

"Come on," Elliott said to Will as he stood watching dumbly.

The trio followed Drake, pale particles swirling in his wake. But he didn’t stop once he'd reached the canal. He hurtled from the bank, straight into the dark river, with a huge splash. Water closed over him, until both he and Cal were totally submerged.

Will and Chester stood on the bank, watching. As the water became calm again, there was only a clutch of air bubbles to mark the spot where Drake had jumped in. Will glanced at Chester.

"What's he doing?"

"Dunno." Chester shrugged.

"Did you see Cal?"

"Not really," Chester replied.

There was a small splash as if, far below, the water was being agitated. Small ripples spread out from the turbulence, then the surface becalmed again. Seconds passed.

Still staring blankly into the canal, Chester spoke in a despondent voice. "He looked pretty dead to me, but I couldn't really see."

"You didn't go into the cavern?"

"Drake made me wait outside. He moved inside it very slowly… I suppose he was trying not to set the things off. But then he came out run—"

He stopped speaking as Drake's head broke the surface. The man bobbed up, drawing several deep breaths. They couldn't see Cal's body: Drake kept it underwater. With a few one-armed strokes, he swam to the side, where he braced a shoulder against the crumbling stone bank. He raised Cal out of the water so the upper half of the boy's torso was visible and shook him savagely. Cal's head whipped from side to side as if it might detach altogether from his shoulders. Then Drake stopped, holding Cal still as he peered at his face.

"Shine your lanterns on him," he ordered.

Will and Chester did as they were told. The face was horrible to look at: deathly blue and speckled all over with raised white blotches. There didn't seem to be the smallest sign of life. Nothing. Will began to despair again. His brother was dead and there was nothing anyone could do to change that.

Then Drake shook the boy again and slapped him hard across the face.

Will and Chester both heard a gasp.

Cal's head twitched. He took a tiny breath, and then coughed weakly.

"Thank goodness, thank goodness," Chester was saying over and over again. He and Will looked at each other, wide-eyed with disbelief. Will just shook his head, dumbfounded. This was beyond his wildest dreams — his brother, before his very eyes, seemed to have returned from the dead.

Cal took a couple more wheezy breaths, then coughed again, stronger this time. Then he was coughing nonstop, his throat rasping as though he couldn't get enough air into his lungs. His head jerked around on his shoulders in a spasm and he was violently sick. "C'mon, boy! Good," Drake said, holding him. "That's it!"

He hoisted Cal up as far as he could.

"Take him," he told them. Will and Chester each grabbed Cal under the arms and dragged him out onto the bank.

"No, don't lay him down!" Elliott said. "Get him on his feet. Get his shirt off. Walk him around, keep him moving. It'll work the poisons out."

As they stripped the shirt off his body, they saw Cal's blue-tinged skin in all its glory. Its surface was peppered with raised white welts. His flame-red eyes were open, and his mouth moved in wordless shapes. One on either side, Will and Chester walked the diminutive figure in quick circles. Cal's head rolled loosely as they went, but he was unable to shuffle even a step under his own steam.

Drake had climbed out of the canal and was squatting on its bank as Elliott scanned the horizon with her rifle scope.

But Will's and Chester's efforts didn't seem to be enough. After a while Cal's eyes closed, and his mouth stopped moving as he slipped back into unconsciousness.

"Stop," Drake said, rising to his feet. He came over to where the boys were and, propping up Cal's head with one hand, slapped his face mercilessly with the other. He did this time and time again. Will thought he could see some of the blue color beginning to recede from his brother's cheeks.

Cal's brows twitched, and Drake stopped, watching his face carefully.

"We got to him just in the nick of time. Any longer and the narcotics would've had him in their grip, and the spores begun to take root," Drake said. "In short order they would have digested him. A human compost bag."

"Spores?" Will asked.

"Yes, these." Drake rubbed roughly with his thumb at one of the coarse white welts on Cal's neck. A little of it crumbled away at his touch to reveal even brighter blue skin beneath, oozing with small droplets of blood. "They germinate — like these have — and put down tendrils, which grow into the flesh of the victim, absorbing all the nutrients from the living tissues."

"But he'll be all right, won't he?" Will said quickly.

"He's been out for a long time," Drake answered, shrugging. "Just remember, if any of you are fool enough to make the same mistake twice and blunder into a sugar trap, you have to shock the victim awake. The nervous system almost shuts down and needs a trauma to kick-start it. One way is to shove them underwater. You almost have to drown them to save them."

Cal seemed to be drifting off again, so Drake resumed slapping him, so hard that the noise hurt Will's ears. Then Cal suddenly yanked his head back. He inhaled deeply and screamed the most horrible of screams. Will and Chester shuddered. It was unearthly, like an animal call, reverberating across the dusty desert. But, akin to the primal scream of a newborn baby, it gave Will and Chester such hope. Drake took his hands away.

"That's it. Now walk him around again."

They kept on, in endless circles, and little by little life seemed to be returning to the boy. He began to walk with them, at first with only the feeblest of movements, and then bigger, uncontrolled paces, as his head lolled on his shoulders.

"Drake, better see this," Elliott called, adjusting the sight on her long rifle.

Immediately at her side, Drake took the rifle from her. He looked through the scope. "Yes… I see it… strange…"

He lowered the rifle and looked at her with a bewildered expression. "Styx… on horseback! "

"No," she said with disbelief.

"They've picked up a light trace from us," Drake said, passing the weapon back to her. "We can't hang around here." He strode over to Will and Chester. "Sorry, boys, no time to rest. I'll carry your kit but you've got the patient." He hoisted both of their rucksacks onto his shoulders and started off without a moment's delay.

Will and Chester lugged Cal between them, Will lifting the boy under his armpits while Chester had hold of his legs. They ran in a half trot, using the muted light from Drake's miner's beam to guide them.

"They can't follow us into the tubes on horseback," he called quietly back to them. "But we've got a long way before we're out of the woods. Move it!"

"This is knackering," Will moaned as yet again his foot caught against a rock and he stumbled, only just managing to keep hold of his brother. "He weighs a freakin' ton!"

"Tough," Drake snapped back. "Pick up the pace!"

Sweat poured from Will and Chester as they struggled along; they were suffering badly from exhaustion and lack of food. Will had a foul taste in his mouth, as if his body was burning its last reserves. He felt dizzy, and wondered if Chester was finding it as hard as he was. Making matters that much more difficult, Cal kept twitching and writhing. He obviously had no idea what was happening and was trying to push them both off.

They finally came to the perimeter of the Great Plain. The boys both felt fit to drop, their limbs leaden with fatigue. They entered a winding lava tube and, as it turned a corner, Drake turned to them.

"Hold up a second," he ordered, and unhooked one of the packs from his shoulder. "Take some water. We've left the plain earlier than we should have… It's safer, but it'll mean a longer hike home."

They gratefully slumped down to the ground with Cal between them.

"Elliott, rig a pair of trips," Drake called out.

From nowhere she came into the weak beam of Drake's light, stooping down while she positioned something by the rock wall. It was a stubby canister, approximately the size of a soup can and dull brown in color. Once she had anchored it to a small boulder by means of a strap, she backed away, feeding out a taut length of wire, so fine that Will and Chester could hardly see it, across the width of the tunnel. She attached this to a spur on the opposite wall and then plucked it gently: It gave a low twang. "Perfect," she whispered, returning to the canister. Lying on her front, she gently eased a small pin from it and stood up. "Set," she said quietly.

Drake turned to Will and Chester. "We have to move farther down so Elliott can rig the second one," he ordered as he scooped up the rucksack.

Will and Chester got slowly to their feet and lifted Cal again. By now he had begun to make strange, nonsensical noises, whines and grunts, with the odd drawled word mixed in: "hungry," or "thirsty." But neither Will nor Chester had the time nor the energy to worry about that now. They carried Cal several hundred feet, then came to a halt again as Drake stopped.

"No, don't sit down!" he told them.

So they remained standing as Elliott set up another "trip."

"What do those do?" Will asked, leaning against the wall of the lava tube and puffing, as he and Chester watched Elliott repeat the process.

"They go bang," Drake told him. 'They're charges."

"But why do you need two?"

"The first has a delay on the fuse. So the White Necks trigger it, walk into the second charge at about the time the first goes off, and presto, they're sealed in a section of the tunnel. Well, that's the theory, anyway."

"Genius," Will said, impressed.

"Actually," — Drake leaned toward him — "we often set two or more because the Limiters are so bloody good at spotting them."

"Oh, right," Will mumbled, less impressed.

By Will's reckoning, they must have covered quite a few miles before they heard the charges go off in quick succession, like a pair of giant handclaps. Then, after a brief delay, they felt a burst of wind on their sweat-soaked necks. Drake didn't miss a step, continuing at a pace they found difficult to match. By now, Will was holding Cal by one of his arms while the other flailed weakly, sometimes knocking against Will's shins.

They twisted through tube after tube, climbing and descending, sometimes squeezing through a series of tight cavities, sometimes wading through semi-submerged, echoing caverns. In these, they were forced to hoist Cal almost to shoulder height, as best they could, so his head wasn't dunked under the water.

The boy appeared to be getting his strength back and, as it returned, he became more and more unmanageable, thrashing around in their grip. At times, it was just too much and they dropped him. On one of these occasions, both Will and Chester were too tired to care anymore as Cal hit the sodden ground with a mighty slap. He loosed off a series of garbled and guttural swear words as they were picking him up again.

"DANG T'Y'USE FIRKS! Y'USE SNECKEN THRIPPS!"

These unrecognizable curses, combined with Cal's ineffectual fury, were so comical that Will couldn't stop himself from chuckling. This infected Chester, who also began to laugh, causing the bizarre drawled invectives to issue from Cal at an even greater rate as he flapped wildly about. The boys' fatigue, and the sheer relief that Cal was alive, were making them both feel a little light-headed.

"Hmm… don't think I ever been called that before," Chester said, breathing hard from the exertion. "Sneck-en-thripps?" he repeated, enunciating the words carefully.

"I have to admit," Will snickered, "I've always thought you were a bit of a thripp."

Both of them dissolved into hysterical laughter, and Cal, who evidently could hear everything they were saying, flailed his arms around even more furiously.

"CRUTS Y'BISHTARDS!" he bellowed hoarsely, then went into a paroxysm of coughing.

"Shut up!" Drake hissed from up ahead. "You'll give away our position!"

Cal became more subdued again, not because of Drake's reprimand, but because he realized that the swearing wasn't achieving anything. Instead, he began to try to grasp hold of Will's leg to trip him up. Will's amusement turned to irritation and he shook his brother. "Cal, enough!" he snapped. "Or we'll leave you behind for the Styx."

Finally they found they were back at the base. Since they hadn't had to go through the sump, Will realized they must have approached it from another direction. They pulled up Cal with the rope knotted around his chest and got him to one of the beds in the end room. Drake told them to sponge some water into the boy's mouth. He coughed and spluttered, most of it dripping down his chin, but still managed to drink a good amount before he drifted off into a deep slumber.

"Chester, you watch him. Will, you're coming with me."

Will obediently followed Drake along the corridor. He felt a rising apprehension, as if he'd been summoned to the principal's office for a telling-off.

They entered a darkened area and then, through a metal doorway, Will found he was in a large room, where a single light orb suspended in the center of the ceiling burned brightly. The room was at least a hundred feet long and only slightly less wide. In one corner was a pair of bunk beds made from thick sections of iron, and every inch of the walls was draped with a mass of equipment. It was like some military treasure trove and, as Will's eyes roamed around, he spotted racks with huge numbers of strange cylinders like the one Elliott had tried to give him at the Place of Cross Staves. There were also some deflated gray suits that Will recognized as the ones the Coprolites wore, and all manner of webbing, coils of rope, and kit bags, all hung in neatly ordered rows.

As he continued behind Drake, Will spied Elliott between the two bunk beds. Her back was to him, and he could see she had removed her jacket and pants and was stowing them in a wall locker. She was dressed in an ivory-colored undershirt and shorts, and he couldn't stop himself from looking at her slim and finely muscled legs. They were smeared with dirt and, like Drake's face, they appeared to have a shocking number of scars on them, which stood out white against the reddish-brown of the dust that coated every inch of her skin. Taken aback at seeing her like this, Will stopped on the spot, but then noticed Drake was watching him intently.

"Sit," he ordered, indicating a place by the wall, just as Elliott emerged from between the bunk beds.

She had a strikingly feminine face, with high cheekbones and full lips below a fine nose. Will saw her eyes flash darkly as she gave him a cursory glance, then she yawned and ran a hand through her short-cropped black hair. Her arms and wrists were so slight that Will couldn't believe he was looking at the same person who toted the long rifle around as if it were merely a stick of bamboo.

His gaze fell on her upper arm, where there was a disturbingly deep indentation in her bicep. The skin lining the hollow was rippled through with jagged pink striations, and its surface was rough, as if melted candle wax had been dripped over it. Will's first thought was that something had taken a bite out of her, and a big one at that.

But everything he noticed about her was dwarfed by the remarkable fact that she appeared to be young, perhaps not much older than him. It was the last thing he would have expected, given her intimidating presence out on the Great Plain.

"OK?" Drake asked her as she yawned again and scratched her shoulder absently.

"Yeah. Going to take a shower," she replied, padding barefoot to the door without a second glance at Will, who stared after her, his mouth agape.

As Drake snapped his fingers in front of his face to get his attention, Will realized he had been gawping, and self-consciously averted his eyes.

"Over here," Drake said, more forcibly this time. By the wall were two sturdy-looking metal trunks, and they sat opposite each other on these. Although Will's thoughts weren't quite organized, he started to speak.

"I… um… wanted to thank you for saving Cal. I was wrong about you and Elliott," he confessed, his eyes flicking automatically to the doorway as he spoke her name, although she'd long since left the room.

"Sure." Drake waved his hand dismissively through the air. "But I'm not concerned about that. Something's going on, and I need to know what you know."

Will was a little taken aback by the question, and looked at the man with a perplexed expression.

"You saw for yourself what the Styx are doing. They're killing renegades by the dozen."

"Killing renegades," Will echoed, and shivered as he thought about the incident he and Chester had witnessed.

"Yes. I have to admit I'm not sorry to see some of them go, but we're also losing friends at a rate of knots. In the past the Styx left us largely to our own devices, apart from when they needed a revenge killing because a trapper overstepped the mark and a Limiter went missing. It's different now; we're being weeded out, and I don't think the Styx are going to stop until every last one of us is dead."

"But why would they kill Coprolites, too?" Will asked.

"To send a signal to them not to trade with us or give us any assistance. But that's nothing new. The White Necks have periodic cullings to keep Coprolite numbers down," Drake said, rubbing his temples as if the matter deeply troubled him.

"What are cullings? " Will asked, not understanding.

"Wholesale slaughter," Drake replied brusquely.

"Oh," Will mumbled.

"There's no question that the Styx are hatching something. The Limiters are out in battalion strength, and from what we've seen, there are high-ranking White Necks arriving on the Miners' Train almost by the day." Drake frowned. "We've also got it from a reliable source that the scientists are down here trying something out on human subjects. There are stories they've set up a testing area, although I haven't located it yet."

"This ringing any bells with you?" He paused to scrutinize Will with his striking blue eyes. "You don't know anything about any of this, do you?" he said to the boy.

Will shook his head.

"Well, then, I need to know everything you do know. Exactly who are you?"

"Um… OK," Will answered, clueless where to start or how much Drake really wanted to hear. He was feeling totally fried, and every muscle in his body ached from hauling Cal, but he wanted to help Drake however he could. So he began to talk in some detail, Drake interrupting with the odd question, and his manner softening slightly and becoming almost convivial as Will went on.

He recounted how his adoptive father, Dr. Burrows, had been observing a group of people up in Highfield who didn't quite seem to fit and had thrown himself into an investigation of them. And how this investigation had led him to excavate a tunnel, which had given him a way into the Colony. Then Will explained, swallowing as his throat tightened, how his father had voluntarily taken the Miners' Train. "And my dad's down here somewhere now. You haven't seen him, have you?" he said quickly.

"No, not me." Drake held up a hand, reacting to the boy's evident agitation. "But — and I don't want to get your hopes up — I spoke to a trapper recently…" Drake seemed to hesitate.

"And?" Will said eagerly.

"He heard through the grapevine that there's an outsider hanging around one of the settlements. Apparently this man is neither Colonist nor Styx… He wears glasses…"

"Yes?" Will leaned forward expectantly.

"…and makes notes in a book."

"That's Dad! It's got to be!" Will exploded, laughing with relief. "You have to take me to him."

"I can't," Drake replied bluntly.

Will's elation was immediately replaced by sheer exasperation.

"What do you mean, you can't? You must!" Will implored him, then his frustration boiled over and he jumped to his feet. "He's my dad! You have to show me where he is!"

"Sit down," Drake ordered in no uncertain terms.

Will didn't move.

"I said sit down… and calm down, so I can finish what I was saying."

Will slowly lowered himself back onto the trunk, his chest heaving with emotion.

"I said I didn't want to get your hopes up. The trapper didn't give me any details about where this man is, and the Deeps go on for miles. In any case, with all the activity from the White Necks, the Coprolites are moving their settlements. So it's likely he's upped and moved with them, too."

Will was silent for a while.

"But if it is Dad, he's OK, then?" he asked eventually, searching Drake's eyes for confirmation. "You think he's going to be all right?"

Drake rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "As long as he doesn't get jumped by a Limiter execution squad."

"Oh, thank goodness," Will said, closing his eyes for a moment.

Even if Drake couldn't tell him where his father was, Will was so comforted by the information he was alive that it gave him a second wind.

He launched into his own story; how, after Dr. Burrows had gone missing, he'd enlisted Chester's help, and how they had gotten into the Colony. He told of their subsequent capture and the grueling interrogations by the Styx. Then he spoke about the first meeting with his biological brother and father, and the revelation that he had been adopted. As he mentioned his real mother, and hat she was the only person ever to escape from the clutches of the Colony and survive, Drake interrupted him abruptly.

"Her name? What's her name?"

"Um… Jerome. Sarah Jerome."

"There was the smallest intake of breath from Drake and, in the silence that followed, Will was sure he noticed a change in the man's penetrating eyes. It was as though they were looking at him afresh.

"So you're telling me you're her son," Drake said, straightening his back. "Sarah Jerome's son?"

"Yes," Will confirmed, surprised by his reaction. "Cal is, too," he added in a mumble.

"And your mother, she has a brother."

Will couldn't tell whether this was a question or a statement of fact. "Yes, she did," he replied. "My uncle Tam."

"Tam Macaulay."

Will nodded, impressed that Drake knew the name. "You've heard of him?"

"Only by reputation. He wasn't a favorite with the powers that be in the Colony… they had him down as a trouble maker," Drake replied. "But you said did? What happened to him?"

"He died getting Cal and me away from the Styx," Will answered sadly. As Drake frowned, Will went on to tell him everything he knew about Rebecca, and how Tam had fought and killed her father, the Crawfly.

Drake whistled. "You certainly saved the juiciest part till last," he said, then gazed at Will for a few moments. "So," he pronounced softly, "you've pissed off someone right at the top of the Styx pecking order and," — he was silent for a heartbeat — "and they want to put your head on a plate."

This knocked Will for a loop and he didn't know how to respond. "But—" he started with a splutter.

Drake spoke over him. "There's no way they'll let you remain at large. Just as your mother, Sarah, is a sort of figurehead, a hero for the insurgents in the Colony, you'll be viewed in the same light."

"Me?" Will swallowed.

"Yeah," Drake said. "You should wear a warning label."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you, my friend, are an extremely dangerous person to be around," Drake spelled out for the staggered boy. "It might be another reason why the plain is crawling with Limiters." Then, lapsing into thought, Drake rested his elbows on his long legs and leaned forward to study the floor. "This puts a different spin on everything."

"Why? No, it's not all because of me, it can't be!" Will protested vehemently. "You know how messed up it is in the Colony…"

"No, I don't," Drake rebutted fiercely, jerking his head up. "Haven't been there for a while."

"Well, anyway, why would they still be after me? What can I do to them?"

"That's not the point. You just don't mess with them and walk away." Drake gave a snort. "The Styx don't truck with live and let live."

"But you said all the important Styx have been arriving in the Deeps. They wouldn't come here just because of me, would they?"

"No… that's true." Drake narrowed his eyes, nodding in vague agreement. "They might want to eliminate you, but with all the top brass and scientists turning up, there's no question they're working on something big. And whatever it is, it's obviously important to them."

"What do you think it is?" Will asked.

The man just shook his head and offered no explanation.

"Can I ask you something?" Will ventured, his mind still reeling.

Drake gave a nod.

"Um… Chester thinks you're a freedom fighter. Are you?"

"No, not even close. I'm a Topsoiler, just like you."

"You're kidding," Will exclaimed. "How did you—?"

"It's a long story. Maybe another time," Drake replied. "Anything else you want to know?"

Will had been building himself up to ask the question that had been in the back of his mind for some time.

"Why…?" he began, his voice wavering as he wondered if he was pushing his luck.

"Go on," Drake said, flexing his arm.

"Why… why did you save Cal? What are you helping us for?"

"That stone you're wearing," Drake said obliquely, as if he was avoiding giving an answer.

"This?" Will asked, touching the green jade pendant around his neck.

"Yes, where'd you get it?"

"From Tam." Probing with his fingertips the three slightly converging lines carved into its polished surface, Will contemplated the pendant. "Is it something important?"

"Legends speak of a fabled race far below, at the bottom of the Pore. It's said they're nearly as old as the earth itself. I've seen that same symbol many times… It's on their ruined temples." Drake stared at the pendant, lapsing into another silence, during which Will felt more and more awkward.

If he hadn't been so utterly exhausted, Will would have launched into a thousand questions about this Pore and the ancient race Drake had mentioned. As it was, his mind was on more immediate matters. He shifted uneasily on the metal trunk, and then spoke up. "You… um… haven't really answered me… about why you're helping us."

Drake looked at him and, for the first time, gave a genuine smile. It seemed a little incongruous with his steely gaze.

"You're a stubborn little sod, aren't you? Can't see your chum Chester being so pushy." He leaned back, a contemplative expression on his face. "Where some lead, others follow," he said under his breath.

"Huh?" Will said, not catching what he was saying.

"In answer to your question," Drake said, straightening up, "life is hard down here, but just because we live like animals doesn't mean that we've lost our humanity. There are renegades a lot less accommodating that Elliott or me, who would kill you just for your boots, or keep you alive for — how can I put it? — their own diversions. I snatched Elliott from a similar fate many years ago." He rubbed his chest as if recalling an injury he'd received on the occasion. "I wouldn't want to see that happen to any of you."

"Oh," Will uttered.

Drake sighed, a long, deep sigh. "You and Chester are not like the walking wounded that are usually Banished from the Colony — you've not been maimed or tortured or broken from years of service." He rubbed the palms of his hands together as he continued. "I didn't count on being saddled with the three of you, I admit." He stared into Will's eyes. "But we'll just have to see how your brother shapes up."

As tired as he was, Will caught the implication.

"And you, sonny boy, could be a big liability with the White Necks after your scalp," Drake said with a yawn, his face becoming expressionless as he glanced around the room. "But I need to find out more about what the Styx are up to before we move from the plain. It'll give some breathing space for your brother to get his strength back. And when we get to where we're going, we could certainly do with some extra hands around the place."

Will nodded.

"The fact that you're Sarah Jerome's son and know the ropes Topsoil could be a real asset."

Will nodded again, but then stilled his head as he wondered why this was so important to Drake. "What do you mean?"

"Well, if my instinct is correct, this thing the Styx are working on might have big implications for Topsoilers. And I don't think either of us would just sit by and let them get away with it, would we?" He raised a quizzical eyebrow at Will.

"No way!" Will burst out.

"So, what do you say?" the man asked pointedly.

"Huh?"

"Well, are you in or not? Are you going to join us?"

Will chewed his lip in confusion. He was completely thrown, both by the offer from this formidable man and the suggestion that Cal might not be part of it. What would happen if his brother didn't recover fully? Would Drake just ditch him? And Will wondered what would happen if the Limiters really were out to get him. If it proved too dangerous to have him around, what them? Would Drake simply hand him over? But Will also knew he'd do anything he could to stop the Styx. It would pay them back for Tam's death.

He didn't have any alternative but to accept Drake's invitation. Besides, he, Chester, and Cal were hardly in a position to go it alone, certainly not with the state his brother was in, and not with the Limiters everywhere.

As Drake watched him, waiting for a response, Will knew he shouldn't hesitate — that wouldn't go down well. What else could he do but say yes? At the very least, if he played his cards right, then this man might be the key to finding his father.

"Yes," he said.

They talked some more and then Will was dispatched back to his room, where he found Chester fast asleep on the floor by the bed in which Cal was stretched out.

Will had wanted to say something to Chester, to apologize for being so hasty in dismissing his friend's hunch about Drake and Elliott. But Chester was dead to the world, and there was no way he was going to wake him. Will's fatigue caught up with him, too. He curled up on the unoccupied bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.

25

In the days that followed, Will and Chester looked after Cal, serving him the nondescript food Drake and Elliott provided. All he wanted to do was sleep on the narrow bed, but the boys forced him to exercise. Taking fumbling, clumsy steps as if he couldn't quite feel his feet, he glowered resentfully at them.

His speech became less slurred and the blue hue gradually left his skin. Drake came in every day for updates on his progress, then would whisk one of the others off on reconnaissance expeditions so they could begin to learn the ropes, as he put it.

When Chester was away on one of these outings, Will took the opportunity to have a word with his brother.

"I know you're awake," Will said to Cal, who was lying on the bed, facing the wall. "What do you think of Drake?"

Cal didn't respond.

"I said, what do you think of Drake?"

"Seems OK," Cal mumbled after a while.

"Oh, I think he's better than that," Will said. "He told me there are others in the Deeps that would cut your throat for the clothes on your back. That's if the Limiters didn't get to you first."

"Hmm," Cal grunted, unconvinced.

"I just thought you should know that if you don't stop moping and get yourself back on your feet, Drake's patience might run out."

Cal spun around to face Will, his eyes filled with a sudden fury.

"Is that a threat? Are you threatening me? What's he going to do, send me packing?" He sat up quickly.

"Yes, something like that," Will answered.

"How do you know? You're just saying that."

"No, I'm not," Will answered resolutely. He stood up and started for the door.

"So you'd just let him dump me?" Cal was staring daggers at his brother by this time.

"Oh, Cal," Will groaned, turning around in the doorway. "What can I do if you won't help yourself? You know that Drake's talking of moving on soon. He and Elliott don't live here permanently. And he says he's going to take us with him."

"All of us?" Cal asked.

"That depends. Do you think he wants to look after three of us, especially when one's a real pain?"

Cal swung his legs over the side of the bed and stared nervously at Will.

"Do you mean that?"

Will nodded. "Just thought you should know," he said as he exited the room.

Cal took Will's words to heart and, in the days that followed, was a changed person. He threw himself into an exercise regime, hobbling around on a dark wooden cane that Drake had given him. The left side of Cal's body seemed to be the problem, the arm and leg taking longer to recover than their right-side counterparts.

On one occasion, disturbed by the constant tap-tap of the cane and the abrupt blurting snores of Chester, Will was finding it impossible to sleep. The heat and closeness weren't helping although they had all pretty much acclimatized to it by now. Eventually Will decided it was useless and got up, scratching as he felt lice on his scalp.

"Well done, bro," he called quietly over to Cal, who gave a mumbled "Thanks" in response, continuing his circuit of the room.

"I need some water," Will decided aloud, and headed out into the corridor toward the small storeroom where the bladders were kept. He heard something and drew to a halt. As he stood in the dim half light, Elliott loomed into sight at the far end of the hallway. She was wearing her usual dark jacket and pants and had her rifle in her hands, but hadn't yet covered her head with the shemagh.

"Oh… hello," Will said self-consciously, dressed as he was in just his shorts. He folded his arms protectively across his chest, trying to cover up his lack of clothing.

With an expression of sheer indifference, she looked him coldly up and down. "Trouble sleeping?" she inquired.

"Uh… yeah."

She did a double take at the wound on his shoulder.

"Impressive," she said.

Feeling even more uncomfortable under her scrutiny, he slid his hand over the injury he'd received from the Styx attack dog. The heat of the Deeps made it itch like crazy, and Will couldn't stop himself from scratching.

"Stalker," Will said eventually.

"Looks like it was hungry," she observed.

At a loss for words, Will took his hand away to inspect the red patch of newly healed skin, and nodded mutely.

"Want to come on patrol with me?" she asked, in a non-commital sort of way.

It was about the last thing on Will's mind at that time of night, but he was intrigued because he had seen so very little of her and thrilled that she had offered. Drake spoke of her skills with such respect, telling them she had achieved a level of skills of "field craft," as he called it, that Will and Chester would have to work very hard to attain.

"Yeah… great," he gushed. "What gear do I need?"

"Nothing much — I travel light," she said. "Hurry up, then!" she urged, since Will showed no sign of moving.

He returned to the room, where Cal hardly seemed to notice him as he continued with his exercises, and got dressed in a mad flurry. A minute later, he went back to Elliott in the corridor. She offered him one of the pads of cylinders that Drake always carried with him.

"Are you sure?" Will hesitated, recalling the incident at the Place of Cross Staves.

"Drake seems to think you'll be sticking around, so you're going to have to learn how to use them sooner or later," she said. "And you never know, we just might bump into some Limiters."

"To tell you the truth, I don't even know what these things are," he admitted, attaching the pad to his belt, then looping and knotting the stay around his thigh.

"They're stove guns. Bit more basic than this," she said, lifting up the long rifle. "And you should try this out, too." She handed him something else.

It was a device consisting of a larger and a smaller tube alongside each other, the two looking as though they had been melted together so that the join between them was barely detectable. The whole device was made from a rubbed, dull brass, its surface covered in tiny scratches and dents, and it was about a foot and a half long, with caps on either end of the larger of the two cylinders.

"It's a scope, isn't it?" Will said, glancing at her rifle, which had an identical device mounted on top of the barrel. The only difference was that his version had two short straps attached to it.

She nodded. "Put your arm through the loops… makes it easier to carry. OK then, let's go." She turned to face the exit and, in the blink of an eye, had swept into the shadows at the end of the corridor.

Will went after her, shinnying down the rope to find he was submerged in total darkness as he reached the bottom. He listened by could hear nothing. Unclipping his lantern, he turned it up a notch.

He was startled when the light fell on Elliott — she was several feet away, standing still as a statue.

"Unless I say so, that's the last time you use an orb on my patrol." She indicated the scope on his arm. "Use the scope, but just remember to shield it from bright light, as it'll frazzle the element inside. Also, be gentle with it — they're rarer than slugs' teeth," she said.

He extinguished his lantern and unhooked the device from his forearm. Flicking up the metal caps at either end, he held it up to his eye, looking around him.

"Wicked!" he exclaimed.

It was amazing. As if illuminated by a pulsing, slightly diffuse amber glow, the scope cut through the pitch-blackness. He could see the tiniest detail of the rock wall across from him, and when he pointed it down the length of the tunnel he could see way into the distance. There was an eerie glow to the floor and walls, making them appear as if they were shiny and wet, even though everything in the immediate area was bone-dry.

"This is so cool. It's like… like everything's in a weird daylight. Where'd you get these?"

"The Styx snatched someone from Topsoil who could make them. But he escaped and came down here to the Deeps. He brought a whole load of the scopes with him."

"Oh, right," Will said. "And what powers it? Batteries?"

"I've no idea what batteries are," she said, pronouncing the word as if it were foreign. "In each scope there's a small light orb that's been joined to some other things. That's all I know."

Will swiveled slowly on his heels, peering through the contraption toward the other end of the lava tunnel. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of Elliott's face.

In the ethereal amber glow, her skin was smooth and radiant, as if bathed in the softest sunlight. She appeared beautiful and so very young, her pupils shimmering like twin points of intensely sparkling fire. Even more striking was the fact that she was smiling, which he'd never seen her do before. Smiling at him. It filled him with a kind of warmth — a sensation that was new and unfamiliar. He involuntarily took a sharp breath, then, hoping she hadn't heard, managed to control his breathing again. He continued to move the scope in an arc toward the other end of the tunnel, as if he was getting used to the device, but his thoughts were a million miles away.

"Right," she said gently, coiling the shemagh around her head. "Follow me, partner."

They trekked along the lava tube, pausing briefly in the golden cavern to protect their gear in a small waterproof satchel Elliott was carrying before they swam through the sump. Once on the other side, they stopped again to get themselves organized.

"Can I give you a piece of advice?" she asked as he was tying the pad of stove guns back onto his thigh.

"Sure. What?" he replied, not knowing what was coming next.

"It's the way you move. When you tread, you're like the others — even Drake. Try to use the ball of your foot… stay up on your toes longer, before you lower onto your heel. Watch me through the scope."

He did as she told him, observing how she took each step, moving like a cat sneaking up on its prey. Through the scope, her pants and boots, drenched from the water of the sump, glimmered with a shifting green of pale yellow light.

"It cuts down on the noise and even the tracks you leave, a little."

Will watched her legs as she demonstrated, marveling at what seemed to be second nature to her.

"And you'll need to learn about foraging," she said suddenly, noticing something on the rock wall beside her. "There's plenty of food around if you know where to look. Like this, a cave oyster."

She went over to what he thought was merely a piece of rock jutting from the wall. With the blade of her knife, she began to pry around it. Then she resheathed the knife and put on a pair of gloves.

"The edges are sharp," she explained, tucking her fingers into the gap she had made. Bracing herself, she pulled with both hands and, with a slow sucking noise, the rock gradually came away from the wall. With a final sound like an egg being cracked open, it suddenly came free and she staggered back a couple of paces.

"There!" she said triumphantly and held it up so he could see. It was roughly the size of half a football, and as she flipped it over, Will recoiled. The underside was leathery and pulpy, with a band of small filaments rippling at its circumference. It was an animal of some kind.

"What the heck is it?" he said. "A giant limpet or something?"

"I told you — it's a cave oyster. They feed on the cinder algae around water holes. It tastes disgusting raw, but it's OK boiled." As she poked her thumb into the middle of the pulpy mass, it heaved and the animal began to extend a large, fleshy trunk, like the foot of a snail but many times bigger. Elliott stooped to carefully prop the animal upside down on its shell between two stones. "Should keep it from straying until we get back."

Their journey across the Great Plain was uneventful, although they were forced to cross several canals using the narrow lock gates as bridges. Will worked hard to keep up with Elliott, who moved at an astonishing speed. He practiced treading as she'd shown him, but it wasn't long before his insteps began to ache so badly he had to give up.

She slowed as the cavern wall came into sight. Carefully checking the surrounding area with her rifle scope, she led him along the wall and into a low, wide tunnel. She stopped when they'd gone a few hundred feet.

A wall of smell stayed them.

There was the most intense reek of rotten meat — sour blasts of it assailed them. Will tried to breathe through his mouth, but the horrific stench was so strong in the air, he could almost taste it.

Then, through his scope, he caught something that made his heart skip a beat.

"Oh no!" he gasped.

On one side of the tunnel, there were the bodies of what, from their clothes, had to be renegades. On the other side, facing them, were Coprolites, still in their bulbous dust suits. Will knew instinctively that the Styx had been responsible, and that the corpses had been decaying for some time. The odor could mean nothing else.

He counted five renegades and four Coprolites. The bodies in both ranks were on thick wooden stakes. The victims' heads sagged forward onto their chests, their feet supported by small timber crossbars nailed to the planks approximately two feet off the ground. This gave an eerie effect, as if the dark and silent bodies were actually suspended in air.

"But why did they do this?" Will asked, shaking his head at the terrible loss of life.

"It's a warning, and a show of their power. They do it because they're Styx," Elliott replied. As she walked down the line of renegades, Will stepped over to the Coprolites.

"I knew this man," Elliott said sadly, standing motionless before one of the bodies.

Holding his breath, Will made himself look at a dead Coprolite. The mushroom color of the suit showed up clearly in the amber of his night scope, but there was a darker texture smeared around the eye holes. The luminescent orbs were missing from them. It was evident that the thick rubber of the suit had been slashed to get the orbs out. He shivered. It brought home the full horror of what the Styx were capable of. "Butchers," he mumbled to himself.

"Will," Elliott said suddenly, breaking into his thoughts. She wasn't looking at the bodies now, but glancing up and down the wide tunnel, as if all her senses were straining.

"What is it?" Will asked.

"Hide!" she hissed at him in a strangled whisper.

That was all. He looked at her, not knowing what she meant. She was standing by the last of the renegades' carcasses on the opposite side of the tunnel. She moved so fleetingly that Will could barely keep track of her through his scope. She found a depression in the ground, a small pit, and, tucking the rifle into her body, rolled deftly into it, facedown. Will couldn't see her anymore. She was completely hidden from sight.

He looked rapidly around, desperately seeking a similar hole in the tunnel floor. He couldn't see one. Where could he go? He had to find a hiding place. But where? He ran this way and that, slipping behind the row of Coprolite bodies on his side of the tunnel. No good! The ground was level — it even rose in a slight incline toward the wall.

Hearing a sound, he froze.

A dog's bark.

A stalker!

He couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

He was totally exposed.

26

The abomination of a dog, the stalker, made the most horrific snorting noises and low, snarling grunts as it pulled on its leash. Its handler was one of four Limiters strolling down the middle of the tunnel. He was struggling to keep the beast under control.

On their heads the Styx soldiers wore dull black skullcaps, and their faces were obscured by large, insectlike goggles and leathery breathing masks. A peculiar camouflage of dun— and sand-colored rectangles patterned their ankle-length coats, and the equipment on their belts and in their knapsacks rattled slightly with each stride. It was clear they weren't on active duty — they weren't expecting anyone else to be in the area.

They came to a halt between the two lines of dead bodies, the dog handler hissing an unintelligible command to his animal. It growled and immediately sat on its haunches, still snorting in short, angry bursts as its head craned forward to sample the rancid odor of the rotting corpses. A gush of gluey saliva leaked from its maw, as if it found the stench appetizing.

The Limiters' voices were nasal and reedy, their words clipped and mostly incomprehensible. Then one began to cackle, a vicious, strident laugh, and was joined by the others, until they sounded like a herd of distorted hyenas. They were evidently gloating over their victims.

Will dared not to breathe, not just because of the most appalling smell he'd ever encountered, but because he was petrified the soldiers might hear him.

As the Limiters had closed in, he'd been forced to hide in the only place he could think of.

He was clinging grimly to one of the stakes, directly behind a dead Coprolite. In a blind panic, he'd jumped up, pushing his arm into the gap between the Coprolite's body and the rough timber of the stake. And, as he'd tried to hold on, his feet had scrabbled ineffectually against the stake until the toe cap of his boot had come across the tip of a large nail. Fortunately for Will, it protruded an inch or so through the back of the wood, and at least it gave him some sort of foothold.

But this alone wasn't enough to keep him aloft — as the Limiters approached, he'd needed to find something for his left hand to grip. Desperately feeling around, his fingers came across a gash in the Coprolite's dust suit, just by the shoulder blade. He forced his fingers in, into the thick, rubbery material, touching something damp and soft inside. It yielded as his fingers pushed against it — it was mushy.

His fingers were sinking into the rotted flesh of the Coprolite's body.

Will knew there was not time to find an alternative handhold. Don't think! Don't think about it! tore through his mind.

But the stench from the Coprolite's body seemed to intensify, hitting him with the force of a kick in the head.

Oh God!

If it had been strong before, it was simply unbearable now. His fingers had parted the inch-thick rubber suit and opened the gash in it more widely, releasing the foulest of gases from inside. The stench flooded out. Will wanted to drop to the ground and run — it was more than he could endure. It was the reek of warm, putrid meat from the decomposing man.

It. Was. Gruesome.

Will thought he was going to throw up. He felt the vomit forcing its way up into his mouth and rapidly swallowed the acrid fluid down again. He couldn't allow himself to be sick or to slip from his hiding place. He had to stay put, however bad it was. The memory of the stalker attack back in the Eternal City was painfully fresh in his mind — there was no way he was going to be subjected to that again.

He had his eyes tightly shut and was desperately trying to focus all his attention of what the Limiters were saying. As he listened, he willed them to go on their way again. They began by speaking in the Styx tongue, then alternated between it and English. Every so often, he caught the odd smattering of what they were saying. It seemed to be coming from different members of the patrol, but he couldn't tell because they all sounded equally strange.

"…next operation…"

"…neutralize…"

Then, after a lull during which he could only hear the sound of the stalker as it sniffed the dirt and growled:

"…capture the rebel…"

"…mother…"

"…will assist…"

As he kept his body rigid, his arms were aching, and he realized that the very worst thing was happening: His leg, held in a horribly awkward position, was beginning to shake from the strain of supporting his body. He tried to control the trembling, petrified that his boot was going to slide from its perch on the nail. Sweat coursed from his temples as he strained to disassociate himself from the sheer discomfort and listen to the Limiters' voices.

"…sweep…"

"…thorough search…"

He still didn't dare open his eyes, praying that he was sufficiently hidden behind the rotund body. It would only take one of the Styx to notice his arm or leg, and the jig would be up. He thought briefly of Elliott lying in the small ditch on the other side from him.

Then it happened. His leg seized up with pulses of agonizing pain. The cramps rippled through his calf and thigh as if someone with an iron grip were mercilessly crushing each of his muscles, all at the same time. He yearned to pull himself up ever so slightly by his arms, but he didn't dare.

His leg spasmed again, as if it had a mind of its own. He fought against its involuntary movements. His whole concentration was upon it, so much so that, for a few seconds, he forgot everything — the stench and the terse babble of the Limiters and the stalker so close by. But the pain and the shaking were growing worse. He had to do something.

Oh Sweet Mercy! He tensed his arms and heaved himself up just a fraction. The weight on his leg was reduced and the relief was instant, but the stake shifted slightly. He realized that the Limiters had stopped talking.

Please, please, please! He prayed.

The Limiters began to speak again.

"Topsoiler," one was saying. "We will find him…"

Immediately there came another sentence, but only a single word registered with Will. It was said with a different intonation, as if the Styx was showing great respect.

"…Rebecca…"

Rebecca? No, no, it couldn't be! His mind somersaulted. But it had to be his sister — the witch he'd thought was his sister — they were referring to. Why else would they have happened to use that particular name? It was just too much of a coincidence.

The Limiters fell silent. He detected the dog's snorts, clearly, as if it had moved closer, then heard the sound of boots scuffing in the dust. He half opened one eye and saw lights shifting over the walls and roof. Were the Styx closing around him, encircling him? Had he been caught?

No.

They were moving on.

Their footfalls resumed a single rhythm. They were leaving.

But he had to hold on and wait. Thankful that the Limiters were moving quickly, he clenched his teeth. He didn't think he could tolerate the smell for much longer.

The something tugged at his ankle.

"All clear," Elliott hissed in a whisper. "Get down."

Will immediately pitched backward from the stake, falling onto the ground and crab-walking away from the Coprolite as fast as he could.

"For goodness' sake, be quiet! What is it?" she asked.

He flexed his fingers, the ones that had been inside the Coprolite's dust suit. There was a sticky wetness to them. Juices from the decaying cadaver. He shivered, shocked to the core. Not looking at his hand, he lifted it gingerly to his face, and caught the rancid stench of old death. Instantly he whipped his hand away, stretching it as far as he possibly could. He felt his gorge rising and took some rapid breaths. He rubbed his hand in the dirt, scouring it again and again with fistfuls of loose sand.

"Gross!" he exclaimed, and sniffed at his hand once more. He recoiled, but not so violently this time, the stench having lessened. "How can anyone live like this?" he mumbled through tight lips.

"Get used to it," Elliott replied in a flat voice. "This is what Drake and I do every day." She raised her rifle to scan down the tunnel, adding in a cold voice, "To survive."

She led him, not back out onto the plain, but deeper into the tunnel. He felt in no condition to go on with the excursion, and was stumbling and exhausted. His skin still crawled at the thought of the dead body he'd touched. He was suddenly angry for himself, and for the men on the stakes, and angry that Rebecca seemed to be somehow linked to what was going on. Would he ever be free of her?

"Hurry it up!" Elliott whispered sharply as he dragged his feet.

He stopped on the spot, spluttering "I… I…" It may have been an aftereffect of his terror, but he was filled by a sudden fury that needed release. It found a target in the diminutive girl before him.

He wrenched up his scope and tried to focus on her face, his hands shaking. "Why'd you let us get into that back there? You nearly got us caught!" he fumed at her amber outline. "We should never have gotten cornered like that… not with all those Styx so close. We could have both been killed by that stalker. I thought you were good." He became so choked with rage that he could hardly speak anymore. "I thought you knew what you're doing. You…"

She stood quite still, unperturbed by his outburst. "I do know what I'm doing. That was unforeseen. If I'd been with Drake, we'd have dealt with the Styx and stashed their bodies under a rockfall."

"But Drake's not here!" he snapped back at her. "I am!"

"We take risks every day," she said. "If you don't, you might as well crawl away somewhere and die," she added coolly and began to walk off, but then paused, swinging her head around to face him. "And if you ever talk to me like that again, I'll ditch you. Despite what Drake thinks, we don't need you that badly, but you bet your life you need us. Got that?"

Will's anger rapidly deserted him and he was left floundering, already regretting his words. Elliott didn't move, waiting for his response.

"Um… yes… sorry," Will mumbled. He felt deflated, struck by the realization of just how totally dependent he and the other boys were on Drake and Elliott. It was painfully obvious they wouldn't have lasted very long in this wild and lawless land if someone hadn't come to their rescue. He, Chester, and particularly Cal were living on the hard-won skills of others and should have been grateful for that.

Elliott turned and Will got in line behind her as they continued down the tunnel.

"Sorry," he said again into the darkness, but the girl didn't acknowledge him.

An hour later, after taking a confusing warren of interlinking galleries, Elliott stopped and seemed to be searching for something by the base of the wall. There was rubble strewn over the ground, interspersed with large shieldlike plates of rock that she used as stepping stones. Then she stopped.

"Help me with this," she said tartly and began to lift one of the slabs. Will took the other side and together, straining with its weight, they pulled it aside to reveal a small hole in the floor.

"Stay right behind me — there's caves of Red Hots nearby," she advised him.

Recalling that Tam had once mentioned that Red Hots were dangerous, Will didn't think it was an appropriate moment to ask her what they were. In any case, Elliott immediately got down and began to crawl into the hole, and Will followed obediently, wondering where it would take them. Although he couldn't see a thing, he used his hands to feel around and found the tunnel to be roughly oval in shape, and nearly three feet from side to side. He followed the sound of Elliott in front of him, but in places the accumulated gravel and stone chips on the floor made it difficult for him to get through and he had to worm himself along, kicking the shale behind him as he went.

The passage climbed steeply, and Elliott's movements ahead brought down slews of gravel over him. Not daring to complain, he stopped several times to brush the dust and grit from his face.

Then there was no sound from Elliott. Will was at the point of calling out to her when he heard the reverberations of her movements in a larger space. He climbed up a final, almost vertical section of the passage and, using his scope, saw they were in a gallery some ten by fifty yards. Elliott was already lying next to a fissure in the floor. He brushed himself down and then began to cough from all the dust he'd inhaled.

"Shut up," she growled.

He managed to muffle his coughing with his sleeve, and then joined her, lying by her side.

Together they peered down into the jagged fissure. They were looking from a dizzying height into a huge cathedral-like chamber. Far below, he could see the blur of many points of light. He pulled back slightly from the fissure, and, by angling his head, he could get a better view of the area below, where there were the oddest-looking machines. Will counted ten in all, parked in a row.

They were like stubby cylinders, each having a single serrated wheel-like contraption at one end. They called to mind photos he'd seen of the equipment used in the construction of the London Underground. Will assumed these, too, were some form of digging equipment. Then he spotted several groupings of stationary Coprolites and a handful of Styx watching them from a distance. Will looked at the rifle by Elliott's side and wondered if she was going to use it. At this range, it wouldn't have been difficult for her to snipe at the Styx.

After several minutes, there was a sudden burst of activity. Some of the Coprolites began to move slowly along as the Styx strolled threateningly behind them, their long rifles in their arms. The bulbous men looked tiny in comparison to the strange machines as they climbed into them. One of the machines fired up, its engine turning over with a roar and a black cloud issuing from its rear. Then it began to trundle forward, still under the scrutiny of the Styx, and edged out in front of the others.

Will kept watching as it picked up speed. He was able to see the hatches at the rear and the array of exhaust pipes around it, from which steam and smoke were pouring. He also saw the broad rollers on which it was being conveyed forward and could hear rocks cracking under them. The machine steered toward a tunnel that led off the main chamber and disappeared from view down it. He guessed the Coprolites were going off to do some mining, but he had no idea why so many Styx were monitoring them.

Elliott muttered something as she pulled away from the fissure, and he heard her go to a corner of the gallery. Using his scope, he watched as she reached behind a boulder to draw out several dark packages. He went over to her.

"What's that?" he said before he could stop himself.

She didn't answer him for several moments, then said, "Food," as she stowed the packages in her satchel.

She didn't seem to be about to volunteer anything further, but Will's curiosity was piqued.

"Who… where's it from?" he ventured.

Elliott pulled out a smaller, tightly bound package from her rucksack and tucked it behind the boulder. "If you really need to know, it was put here by the Coprolites — we trade with them." She pointed at the boulder. "I've just left them some of the orbs you filched from the Miners' Train."

"Oh," Will said, not about to complain.

"They're totally reliant on the orbs. The food's not that important to us, but we try to help them whenever we can." She looked rather scathingly at Will. "After what's been happening around here, they could do with all the help they can get."

Will nodded, but he found it difficult to believe he was responsible for what the Styx were doing to the Coprolites and shrugged off the barbed comment. He was beginning to think that he was being blamed for everything that went wrong.

Elliott twisted away from him.

"We're going back," she said, and together they moved off in the direction they had come from, toward the oval runnel again.

The journey home went without incident. They stopped while Elliott gathered up the cave oyster — it was still where she had propped it. Its single stumpy leg had evidently been working overtime, whipping around as it had tried to right itself, producing a disgusting white lather that overflowed from the shell in large gobs. But this didn't put off Elliott. She wound a piece of cloth around the bulky shell and stowed it in her satchel. While she was doing this, Will watched her face through his scope. It was grim and unsmiling. Very different from how it had appeared only hours before.

He regretted his outburst. He knew he shouldn't have said what he had to her. He'd made a stupid, arrogant error and wondered how he could patch things up. He chewed the inside of his mouth with frustration, trying to think of something to say. Then, without a word or even a glance at him, Elliott waded into the water of the sump and was gone. He regarded the lapping water, the film of dust swirling in antagonistic circles from her passage through it, and felt as if he might cry. But instead he took a deep breath and followed after her, actually grateful to be totally immersed in the dark, warm water. It was as if it might clear his mind of his troubles.

As he scrambled out of the water, wiping it from his face, he felt somehow refreshed. The moment his eyes fell on Elliott as she waited for him in the golden chamber, the frustration and confusion returned.

He just didn't understand girls — they were completely unfathomable as far as he was concerned. They seemed to say only some of what they were thinking, then they'd clam up, hiding behind a sultry silence and not saying the part that really mattered. In the past, when he'd put his foot in his mouth with girls at school, he'd tried to fix it by apologizing for whatever he'd done to offend, but by then it always seemed like they didn't want to hear it.

He glanced at Elliott's back and sighed. Oh well, he'd made a pig's ear out of it all, again. What a bloody idiot he'd been. He tried to console himself with the thought that he didn't have to stay with her, or Drake, forever. His single purpose in life remained to find his father. All this was only temporary.

Their water-soaked boots squelched loudly in an otherwise stony silence. They arrived back at the entrance to the base and climbed the rope. There was a stillness in the rooms, and Will assumed Cal had tired of his exercise and gone to sleep.

In the corridor, Elliott thrust her open hand toward him, her eyes averted. He cleared his throat uneasily, not knowing what she wanted, and then suddenly realized she was asking for the return of her scope. He pulled his arm from the loops. She grabbed it from him, but then thrust her hand out again. After an uncomfortable moment, he remembered the pad of stove guns tied to his thigh, and fumbled at the knot to undo it. She snatched this from him, too, then flicked her head around and was gone. He stood there, dripping water into the dust and struggling with a disorder of isolation and regret.

In the weeks that followed, not once did Will again accompany Elliott. What made it worse was that she seemed to be inviting Chester to go with increasing frequency on her "routine" reconnaissance patrols. While Will and Chester never spoke of this, Will would catch glimpses of his friend chatting with Elliott out in the corridor, the two of them whispering together, and felt a sickening pang that he was being left out. Much as he tried to suppress it, he also felt a mounting resentment of his friend. He said to himself that Elliott should be teaching him, not bumbling old Chester. But there was nothing he could do about it.

Will found he had time on his hands. He no longer needed to tend to his brother, who had progressed from the constant laps of their room and the corridor to the tunnel just outside the base. Here he marched up and down, albeit still with the aid of the walking stick. So, to fill the hours, Will either tried to update his journal or just lay on his bed, mulling over their situation.

He realized, possibly a little late, that even in this roughest and most hostile of environments, where you had to do whatever was necessary, however rank and disgusting it might be, consideration for your friends was still paramount. This consideration, this code of behavior, was the glue that held the team together. You did not doubt Drake's or Elliott's judgment. You did not question their orders. You did exactly as they told you, because it was for your own good, and theirs.

But Will had to admit that Chester was better suited than he was to following orders. And very early on Chester seemed to have formed an unquestioning and unwavering loyalty toward Drake, which he'd widened to include Elliott.

Cal, too, was now not that dissimilar to Chester in his allegiance to the two renegades. Cal had changed. Perhaps his brush with death had altered him, or he was understandably afraid of being abandoned. There was still the occasional outburst of the old bravado, but, on the whole, his brother was quieter, even stoic about their current situation. Will used this very word to describe Cal's changed temperament when writing in his journal — he'd learned it from his father and had thought at first that it implied weakness, a readiness to accept anything, no matter how bad. But now Will was beginning to realize he had been mistaken. A person facing a life-or-death situation needed a certain detachment to be able to think straight and not be panicked into the wrong choices.

Over the course of the ensuing weeks, they had regular instruction from Drake on such topics as finding and preparing food. This had begun with the cave oyster, which, once cooked, tasted somewhat similar to extremely rubbery squid.

Drake would also take them on short patrols and teach them field craft. On one occasion, he woke them at what felt like an early hour, although time did not really have any meaning in the everlasting darkness. He told all three boys to get ready and took them down the tunnel below the base, in the opposite direction from the Great Plain. They knew that it wasn't going to be a very long outing because he'd instructed them each to bring only a canteen of water and some light rations, while he carried a full rucksack.

As they went through a series of passages, the boys chatted among themselves to pass the time.

"Stupid moronic things," Cal had piped up as Will and Chester were discussing the Coprolites. Drake happened to overhear the remark.

"Why do you think that?" he asked quietly. Will and Chester fell silent.

"Well," Cal replied, apparently recovering some of his old cockiness, "they're nothing more than dumb animals… grubbing around in the rocks just like worthless slugs."

"So you really think we're better than they are?" Drake pressed him.

"Course we are."

Shaking his head as he continued to lead them down the tunnel, Drake wasn't going to let Cal's comment pass. "They harvest their food without fully depleting it and having to continually move on. And whenever they mine, they even refill the shafts. They put it all back, because they have respect for the earth."

"But they're… they're only…" Cal dried up.

"No, Cal, we're the ones who are stupid. We are the dumb animals. We use up everything… we consume and consume until all the resources are gone… and then — surprise, surprise — we have to pick up and start somewhere new, all over again. They are the clever ones, in harmony with their environment. You and me… our kind are the misfits, the wreckers. Wouldn't you call that moronic?"

Now in silence, they traveled about a mile, until Will increased his step, leaving Chester and Cal behind as he caught up with Drake.

"Something on your mind?" Drake inquired before Will was even alongside him.

"Uh, yes," Will faltered, wondering if he should have stayed back with the others.

"Go on."

"Well, you said you were a Topsoiler—"

"And you want to know more?" Drake interrupted. "You're curious."

"Yes," Will mumbled.

"Will, it really doesn't matter what I was back in the world. It doesn’t matter what any of us were. It's here and now that counts."

Drake didn't speak for several paces.

"You don't know the half of it," he began, then seemed to stop himself, falling silent for several more paces. "Look, Will, the chance are that I could evade the Styx to return Topsoil, where I'd be forced to live a life much like your mother's, always checking over my shoulder as I passed the shadows. But, not meaning any disrespect to Sarah, I believe living here in the Deeps is more honest. Do you get what I'm saying?"

"No, not really," Will admitted.

"Well, you've seen for yourself it's no walk in the park down here. It's hard: a hand-to-mouth, dangerous existence," Drake said, then grimaced. If the White Necks don't get you, then there's a million other things that could snuff you out at the drop of a hat… infections, rockfalls, other renegades, and so on. But, I can tell you, Will, I've never felt more alive than my years here. Truly alive. So you can keep your safe, plastic Topsoil life — it's not for me."

Drake broke off as they came to an intersection with another tunnel. He told them to wait while he proceeded to unpack various pieces of equipment. He did this efficiently, not looking at the boys. Cal held back behind the other two, anxious that he'd annoyed the man, but Will watched with increasing excitement as he saw Drake had brought a selection of the stove guns he and Elliott took with them everywhere.

"Right," Drake said after he'd arranged the cylinders in two groups, each in order of decreasing size, on the sandy bed before them. The boys looked at him expectantly.

"The time's come for you to learn how to use these." He stood to the side so they could see the array of cylinders in the first group, the biggest a stubby tube with a circumference slightly larger than a section of drainpipe and eight inches in length. "All these… with the red bands around them… are charges. The more bands, the longer the fuse. If you remember, you saw Elliott set a couple of these with trip wires."

Will opened his mouth to speak but Drake held up a hand to silence him.

"Before you ask, I'm not going to demonstrate any of the charges here." Drake turned to the other group of items. "But these, as you know," he said, sweeping his hand over a range of smaller tubes, "are called stove guns. This," he said, pointing at the largest one, "is the heavy artillery… a stove mortar. You can see that, unlike the other guns, it doesn't have a trigger mechanism at the base."

He hoisted up the stove mortar and swung it in front of them.

"Simple but very effective for taking out a large number of your enemies, by which I mean the Styx. The casing" — he tapped it with a knuckle and in rang dully — "is made of iron and is capped at both ends." He patted it as if it were an elongated bongo. "This particular version is fired by striking the end." He took a deep breath. "The load can be whatever you want; rock salt, slate pencils, or pig iron are all very effective if you need to wipe out a large number of targets. A crowd-pleaser," he said with a wry grin. "Try it for weight, and, whatever you do, don’t drop it!"

In respectful silence, the boys passed it from one to another, holding it carefully as they inspected the heavier end where the detonator was housed. Cal handed it back to Drake, who laid it down on the sand again.

Then Drake indicated the other cylinders with a wave of his hand. "These are more portable and fired like real guns. They all have mechanical fuses not unlike the cocking arm on a flintlock." He seemed undecided which of the guns to select, and then chose one in the middle of the array. It was almost identical in size to some of the firecrackers Will had set off in the Eternal City, about six inches or so long and an inch in diameter. Its casing shone dully under their combined lanterns.

Drake turned sideways to demonstrate the correct stance.

"Like all these weapons, they are single-shot. And watch the recoil — hold it too close to your eye and you'll regret it. As with the others, they're triggered by a spring lever at the rear. They're fired by pulling the cord." He cleared his throat and regarded them. "So… who wants to have a go?"

The boys nodded eagerly.

"Right, I'll fire one first to show you how it's done." He went forward and searched the ground until he found a stone with the approximate dimensions of a matchbox. Then he walked another twenty paces to an outcrop in the middle of the intersection, on which he balanced the rock. Returning, he took a stove gun, not from the display on the sand but from the pad on his hip. The boys gathered by his side, jostling for a view. "Stand a little farther away, will you? Once in a blue moon they backfire."

"What's that mean?" Will asked.

"They blow up in your face."

The warning wasn't lost on the boys, particularly Chester, who edged well away — so much so that he was almost standing with his back against the tunnel wall. Will and Cal were less cautious, positioning themselves a few feet behind Drake, Cal leaning with both hands on his walking stick and giving the demonstration his full attention. He looked for all the world like an observer at a golf tournament.

Drake took his time to aim, then fired. To a boy, they flinched as the crack resounded. Thirty feet away, they saw the impact on the rock outcrop and a spray of fragments and dust. The target stone quaked slightly but remained in place.

"Close enough," Drake said. "These aren't accurate like Elliott's rifle. They're mainly intended for close-quarter use." He turned to Cal. "Now you," he said.

Cal was slightly hesitant, and Drake had to position him correctly, nudging his front foot forward and pulling his shoulders around so that his stance was correct. Cal was disadvantaged by the fact that his left leg was still a little weak, and the strain of holding the position showed on his face.

"OK," Drake said.

Cal pushed the cord at the rear of the tube. Nothing happened.

"Pull it harder — the cocking arm needs to be snapped back," Drake told him.

Cal tried again, but in the process moved the tube way off target. The slug hit the chamber wall some distance away and they heard a zinging as it ricocheted down the tunnel beyond.

"Don't worry, it's your first try. You've never shot a gun before, have you?"

"No," Cal admitted glumly.

"We'll have more opportunities to practice when we get to the deeper levels. Nothing like a spot of big game hunting with the wildlife down there," Drake said enigmatically. Will's ears perked up, wondering what sort of animals these might be, but then Drake told him it was his turn.

The gun went off the first time Will yanked the cord, and they saw the spray of dust just in front of the target this time.

"Not bad," Drake congratulated. "You've shot before."

"I've got an air pistol," Will said, remembering his illicit sessions with his old

Gat gun on Highfield Common.

"With some practice, you'll get better at judging the distance. Now you, Chester."

Chester stepped forward a little hesitantly and took the stove gun from Drake. He hunched his shoulders over, looking very awkward as he tried to aim the device.

"Rest it on the heel of your hand. No, move your hand underneath more. And, for heaven's sake, just relax, boy." Drake took his shoulders and instead of pulling them around as he'd done with Cal, tried to push down on them. "Relax," he said again, "and take your time."

Chester still looked incredibly awkward, his shoulders creeping up again. It seemed forever before he finally tripped the trigger.

None of them could believe their eyes.

There was no shower of chips this time or whirr of a ricochet. With a crack, the bullet hit the target stone dead on, and it whipped down the tunnel beyond in a blur.

"Atta boy!" Drake said, patting the flabbergasted boy on the back. "Bull's-eye"

"Give that kid a coconut!" Will laughed.

Chester was speechless, blinking at the space where the rock had been. Will and Cal congratulated him profusely, but he clearly didn't know what to say, totally confounded by his success.

They knew the training session was over when, with some urgency, Drake immediately bundled up the charges and the stove guns in the roll of material and shoved them back into his rucksack. However, he left one, a medium-sized cylinder, in the sand. Will was looking at it, wondering if he should bring it to Drake's attention, when a stone flew before them and hit the ground, clattering along until it came to rest in the shale by Drake's feet.

It was the very stone that Chester had hit with such accuracy.

A raspy and lisping voice seeped unpleasantly from the shadows, as if a bad smell had been released.

"Always one fer a bit of showmanship, wasn't yer, Drakey?"

Will immediately looked up at Drake, who was alertly watching the darkness, the stove gun at the ready in his hands. His wasn't a perceptibly threatening or defensive stance, but Will saw the deadly intent in Drake's face just before he flipped the lens down over his right eye.

"What are you doing here? You remember the Rule, don't you, Cox? Renegades keep their distance or suffer the consequences," Drake rumbled.

"Yer didn't keep the Rule when yer gimleted poor old Lloyd, did yer? And took 'is girl."

An amorphous figure emerged from farther down the tunnel, a misshapen and hunched bundle illuminated by the boys' lanterns.

"Ahh, I heard yer 'ad some new lovelies. Some ripe meat."

The shape coughed and continued to move forward, as if it were floating just above the ground. Will saw it was a man, wearing what looked to be a brown and extremely filthy shawl over his head and shoulders, like he was a peasant woman. He was painfully bent over, giving the impression he was seriously deformed. Stopping before Drake and the boys, he raised his head. It was a grisly sight. He had a huge growth on one side of his forehead, like a small melon, and the dirt was rubbed away on it, so they could see grayish skin shot through with a network of raised blue veins. There was another of these growths, slightly smaller in size, on his mouth, so that his lips, black and cracked, were drawn into a permanent O. A constant drool of slick, milky saliva ran from his lower lip and down his chin, where it hung like a liquid goatee.

But his eyes were the worst things to behold: perfectly white, like freshly shelled boiled eggs, with no sign of a pupil or an iris whatsoever. They were the only solid, cohesive area of color on him, and all the more shocking for it.

A gnarled-looking hand, like a sun-dried root, poked out of the shawl and described a circle as he spoke.

"Got anything for yer old mucker?" Cox lisped loudly, with a spray of spittle. "Anything fer the poor old man who taught ya all yer know? How's about one of these choice youngsters?"

"I owe you nothing. Just leave," Drake answered stonily. "Before I—"

"Is them the boys the Blackheads is looking fer? Where are yer keepin' them 'idden away, Drakey?" Like a cobra about to strike, his head jutted forward, the white unseeing eyes sliding over Will and Cal, with Chester lurking terrified behind them. Will saw the thick crosses of darkened scars, one over each eye, and the matrix of many more gray gashes across the coal-black skin of his cheeks.

"Their young scent is so" — the man quickly wiped his nose with a swipe from the gnarled hand — "nice and clean."

"You spend too much time in these parts… you look like you're on your last legs, Cox. Perhaps you'd like me to help you along?" Drake said dryly as he held up the stove gun. The man's head swiveled toward him.

"No need fer that, Drakey, not toward yer old friend."

Then the shape bowed with great ceremony and instantly vanished from the area of light. Chester and Cal were still staring at the place where he'd been, but Will was looking at Drake. He couldn't help but notice that Drake's hands were gripping the stove gun so tightly that his knuckles were white.

Drake turned to the waiting boys.

"That charmer was Tom Cox. I'd rather have the company of the Styx any time than that twisted abomination of a man. He's as sick on the inside as he looks on the outside." Drake drew breath tremulously. "You could've so easily ended up in his clutches, If Elliott and I hadn't reached you first." His eyes fell to the stove gun in his hand, and, as if he was surprised to find it still poised for use, he lowered it. "Cox and his kind are the reason we don’t spend much time on the plain. And you can see what the radiation will do to you, eventually."

He slotted the stove gun back into the pad on his thigh. "We should be on our way." He swung his head to where Tom Cox had been, his gaze lingering on the spot, seeing shadows that the three boys couldn't begin to imagine. Then he led them away, all the time checking to make sure the old man wasn't following behind.

On another occasion, Will had spent a night of unbroken sleep, punctuated by a series of the deepest dreams. He was just drifting off again when he was roused by Elliott's voice from the corridor. It was so faint and unreal, he wasn't sure if he'd really heard it or had been dreaming again. As he sat up, Chester trudged into the room. He was sopping wet, suggesting he had just swum through the sump.

"All right, Will?" he asked.

"Yes, I think so," Will replied groggily. "Been on patrol?"

"Yeah… just doing the rounds. All quiet out there. Nothing happening," Chester said cheerfully as he took off his boots. He spoke with a casual, soldierly acquiescence, as if he was doing only what he was duty-bound to do, and doing it with a forced heartiness.

It suddenly struck Will how much their friendship had changed over the past two months, as if Cal's brush with death in the sugar trap and the introduction of Drake and Elliott, especially Elliott, had somehow redrawn the geometry of their relationships. As he lay back in his narrow bed with his arms crossed behind his head, the recollection of how his and Chester's friendship once had been flashed through his mind. In his sleep-numbed state, Will was able to take up its warmth gratefully and pretend that nothing had changed. He listened as Chester took off his wet clothes, and felt like he could say whatever he wanted to him.

"It's funny," Will spoke softly, so as not to wake his brother.

"What is?" Chester asked, folding his pants as if he were getting his school uniform ready for the next day.

"I had a dream."

"Right," Chester said distractedly, hooking his drenched socks over a couple of nails in the wall so they would dry.

"It was really weird. I was somewhere warm and sunny," Will spoke slowly, trying hard to remember, since the dream was already growing distant. "Nothing mattered, nothing was important. There was a girl there, too. I don't know who she was, but it felt like she was a friend." Will felt silent for a while. "She was really nice… and even when I closed my eyes, her face was still there, smiling and relaxed and sort of… sort of perfect."

"We lay on the grass — like we'd just had a picnic in this meadow, or whatever the place was. I think maybe we were both a bit sleepy. But I knew we were in a place where we were meant to be, where we both belonged. Although we weren't moving, it was like we were floating on a bed of soft grass, a sort of peaceful greenness around us, under the clearest blue sky you can imagine. We were happy, very happy." He sighed. "It was so different from the damp and the heat and always being surrounded by rock like we are now. In the dream, everything was gentle… and the meadow was just so very real… I could even smell the grass. It was…"

He trailed off, basking in what remained of the receding images and sensations. Realizing he had been talking for quite some time and hadn't heard any activity from Chester's corner of the room, he swung his head around to check.

"Chester?" he called quietly.

His friend was already tucked up in his bed, facing the wall. He gave a heavy snort and rolled onto his back. He was fast asleep.

Will blew out a long, resigned breath and closed his eyes, longing to return to his dream but knowing how very unlikely that was.

27

There was the most incredible bang as the Miners' Train lurched and skewed from side to side, so dramatically that Sarah was convinced it was going to leave the tracks altogether. Gripping the bench tightly, she shot an anxious glance across at Rebecca, who seemed completely unperturbed. Indeed, the young girl appeared to be in an almost trancelike state, her face perfectly tranquil and her eyes fully open, but not looking at anything in particular.

The train settle back into its previous hypnotic rhythm. Sarah breathed more easily as she peered around the interior of the guard's car. Once again she allowed her eyes to drift over to the Limiters, but quickly looked away, not wanting them to notice her interest.

She had to keep pinching herself to make sure all this was real: Not only was she practically shoulder to shoulder with a four-man Styx patrol, but these were actual Limiters, members of the "Hobb's Squad," as they were referred to in some circles.

When she'd been little, her father had told her terrifying tales about these soldiers: how they liked to eat Colonists alive; how, if she didn't do as he said and go straight to sleep, these cannibals would come calling in the dead of night. According to her father, they lurked under naughty childrens' beds and if any were to put a foot outside, the Limiters would bite a chunk out of their ankles. He said they were particularly fond of tender young flesh. All that had been quite enough to stop her from falling asleep.

It wasn't until she was several years older that she learned from Tam that these mysterious men really did exist. Of course everyone in the Colony knew about the Division — the teams that patrolled the borders of the Quarter and the Eternal City, the regions closer to the surface — any place, truth be told, that Colonists might use as an escape route Topsoil.

But Limiters were a different kettle of fish, and rarely, if ever, glimpsed in the streets. As a result, the Colony was steeped in myth about them and their prowess. Some of the more far-fetched folklore, Tam had told her, was actually true: He had it on very good authority that they'd actually devoured a Banished Colonist down in the extremes of the Northern Deeps when their food supplies had run out. Tam had also told her "Hobb" was an Old English name for the devil, and a very apt one for these demonic soldiers.

Despite these and many other blatantly outrageous anecdotes that were swapped in whispers behind closed doors, very little was actually known about the Limiters, except for speculation that they were involved in covert Topsoil operations. As for the Deeps, it was said they were trained to survive there for extended periods without support. And now, as she dared to study the Limiters again, she had to agree that they were a most fearsome-looking bunch, with the coldest eyes she'd ever seen, the gray, clouded eyes of dead fish.

There was ample room in the large but rather basic carriage, built on the same chassis as the freight cars, a long line of which preceded it in the train. Its sides and roof were fabricated from timber planking, which had been exposed to intense heat and downpours of water along the route with such regularity that it had become badly warped. Wide cracks had opened up between the planks, letting in the smoke and rushing wind as the train rocketed along, and making Sarah's journey not much more tolerable than the one Will and the boys had experienced in their open car.

Crude wooden benches ran down the interior of the carriage on both sides, and two small, knee-high tables were bolted to the floor at either end, the rearmost of which was occupied by the four Limiters.

The soldiers were clad in their distinctive fatigues, the dun-brown long coats and loose-fitting pants with thick kneepads so very different from the clothes generally worn by the Styx. Sarah had also been issued a set and was now wearing them, although it made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. She imagined what Tam would have said about it if he'd seen her in the uniform of their archenemies. Feeling the lapel of her long coat, she conjured up the look of mortification on her brother's face. She could almost hear his voice.

Oh, Sarah, how did you get yourself into this? What do you think you're doing?

Not being able to dispel the feeling of unease, she found it hard to keep still, and each time she altered her position on the unforgiving wooden bench, the fatigues made not the slightest sound. It debunked the claim she'd heard that they were made from Coprolite skin; they appeared instead to be cut from exceptionally supple leather, the finest calfskin, perhaps. She assumed this was so that the Limiters could move with greater stealth, free from the trademark creaking of the jet-black counterparts they sported in the Colony.

The Limiters seemed to take turns resting, two sleeping with their feet on the table while the other two remained awake and inhumanly still, sitting bolt upright with their eyes staring straight ahead. There was a sort of fierce alertness about all of them, even the ones who were napping, as if they were ready to go into action in the blink of an eye.

Sarah and Rebecca didn't attempt conversation because of the constant noise — louder than usual, Rebecca had informed her, because the train was moving at twice its normal speed.

Instead Sarah examined what looked like a rather old and battered brown school satchel on the table in front of Rebecca. A wad of Topsoil newspapers poked out from it, and Sarah could make out the melodramatic headline of the uppermost one, which read ULTRA BUG STRIKES in bold letters. sarah had been out of touch with events on the surface for some weeks and had no inkling what it meant. Just the same, she spent many hours during the journey pondering how it could possibly be of interest to Rebecca and the Styx. She itched to take out the newspapers and read more.

But for the duration of their journey Rebecca had not once closed her eyes or nodded off. Lounging back against the side of the carriage, her arms neatly crossed on her lap, it was as if she was in a deep meditative state. Sarah found it more than a little disconcerting.

The only exchange with the Styx girl came later on, when the train eventually slowed to a crawl, then stopped altogether.

Snapping out of her strange state of suspension, Rebecca suddenly leaned forward and spoke to Sarah.

"Storm gates," she said simply, then slipped the newspapers out of her satchel and began to flick through them.

Sarah nodded but didn't reply, since at that very moment there was a low clanking from somewhere up ahead. The Limiters stirred, one of them passing around mess tins filled with strips of dried jerky and battered white-enameled mugs of water. Sarah took hers, thanking the man, and they ate in silence as the train started up again. It had hardly gone any distance when it came to another shuddering halt, and the gates were slammed shut.

Rebecca was studying her newspaper intently.

"What's all that about?" Sarah inquired, squinting at the headline, which read PANDEMIC — IT'S OFFICIAL. "are these recent papers?"

"Yes. I got them this morning when I was Topsoil." Rebecca flicked her eyes heavenward, closing her newspaper. "Silly me! I keep forgetting you know your way around London. I bought them a stone's throw from St. Edmund's — you're probably familiar with it?"

"The hospital… in Hampstead," Sarah confirmed.

"One and the same," Rebecca said. "And, boy oh boy, you should have seen the free-for-all outside the emergency room. It's a complete shambles up there — queues a mile long." She shook her head theatrically, then stopped and grinned like a cat that had just devoured a vat of the finest cream.

"Really?" Sarah said.

Rebecca gave a small chuckle. "Whole city's come to a standstill."

Sarah looked askance at her as she shook the newspaper open and went back to reading it again.

But that couldn't be right!

Rebecca had been at the Garrison throughout the morning, preparing for the train journey. Sarah had glimpsed her around the place and heard her voice echoing down the corridors on several occasions — the girl couldn't have been out of the building for more than an hour in any one stretch. That wouldn't have given her enough time to get up to Highfield and back, let alone as far as Hampstead. Rebecca had to be lying. But why? Was the girl toying with her, to see how she would react, or perhaps putting on a show of her power? Sarah was so baffled, she didn't ask anything further about the news reports.

Before the train resumed the journey, Rebecca put aside the papers, and ducked down to yank out a long bundle, wound with sackcloth, from beneath her bench. She held it out to Sarah. Untwisting the sacking, she found it was one of the Limiters' long rifles, complete with light scope. She'd briefly handled a similar weapon in the Garrison when the battle-scarred Styx soldier had given her instructions on how to use it.

Sarah looked questioningly at Rebecca. Receiving no reaction, she leaned forward to the girl.

"Really? For me?" She asked.

With a slow nod, Rebecca smiled demurely back at her.

Sarah brought the weapon to her shoulder. She tested its weight as she pointed it at the unoccupied end of the carriage. It was heavy, but nothing she couldn't manage.

Now it was Sarah who could have purred with satisfaction. The gift of the rifle was a reassuring sign of Rebecca's trust, although she was sill a little troubled by the impossible claim that the girl had been in London that morning. Sarah tried to tell herself Rebecca must have gotten her days mixed up, and put the discrepancy out of mind to concentrate on the job at hand.

She ran her fingers down the length of the matt rifle barrel. Now she had the tools, and was ready to do whatever was necessary to avenge Tam's death. She owed it to him and to their mother.

As the train gained momentum, she spent the rest of the journey handling the weapon, sometimes swinging it up into the ready position as she worked the bolt, pulling the hair-sprung trigger and dry-firing it, sometimes just cradling it in her lap, until she was thoroughly familiar with it, even in the subdued light of the carriage.

28

Drake had taken them out on patrol on the Great Plain and they were making their way through what he called "the Perimeters," where he said the Limiter presence should be minimal.

It was a big day: Cal's first excursion through the water-filled sump and onto the plain since Will and Chester had carried him back to the base as a gibbering wreck all those weeks before. Drake's decision to allow him out was well timed. Cal had been going stir-crazy in the limited space of the base and was truly ready for a change of scenery. Although he was still hobbling slightly, he had recovered most of the sensation in his left leg and was bursting to go farther afield.

As they'd passed through the sump and set off with Drake and Elliott, Will experienced a sense of elation that they were together as a group for the very first time. After several hours of trudging along, with Elliott taking the lead, Drake told them they were shortly going to branch off the plain and into a lava tube. But before they did this, he suggested they have some food, after which he was going to give them a briefing. He stood a dimmed light in a dip in the ground and they gathered around him as they each took their share of the provisions, then settled down to eat.

It wasn't lost on Will that Chester and Elliott had chosen to sit together and were chatting away in secretive tones — even passing a canteen between themselves. Will's high spirits paled and he felt excluded yet again. It rankled him so much that he completely lost his appetite.

He needed to relieve himself. In a fit of pique, he got to his feet and stumped away from the group, grateful he'd be spared the spectacle of Chester and Elliott's cozy little tête-à-tête at least for the time it would take to empty his bladder. As he left, he glanced over his shoulder at all of them sitting around the lantern. Even Drake and Cal were totally engrossed in whatever they were discussing and didn't take any notice of his departure.

Preoccupied by his thoughts, Will just kept walking. It was becoming increasingly evident to him that he was set apart from the rest of them because there was something he had to do. All of them — Drake, Elliott, Chester, and Cal — seemed to be entirely caught up with their day-to-day survival, as if this was their sole lot in life, to scrape out a primitive existence in this forsaken place.

But Will knew he had a single, overriding purpose. One way or another, he was going to locate his father, and, once reunited, the two of them would work as a team to investigate what was down here. Just like the good old days back up in Highfield. And then, finally, they would return to the surface with all their discoveries. He caught his step as it dawned on him that, with the exception of Chester, none of the others had any desire whatsoever to go Topsoil. Well, he had a greater calling, and he certainly wasn't going to spend the rest of his days in this harsh subterranean exile, scuttling away to hide like a frightened rabbit whenever the Styx showed up.

As he reached the perimeter wall, he was the mouths of several lava tubes before him. He stepped into the nearest of these, relishing the feeling of detachment as the inky darkness enveloped him. When he was done, he emerged from the lava tube, still lost in thought about the future. He took ten or so paces, then stopped stock-still.

Where he thought he'd left the others, there was no movement, no voices, and no light. The group was gone.

Will didn't panic right away, telling himself that he must be looking in the wrong place. But, no, he was pretty certain he wasn't — and, besides, he hadn't wandered that far. Had he?

He scoured the darkness for a few seconds, then lifted his flashlight above his head and swept it from side to side, hoping it would alert them to his position.

"There you are!" he exclaimed as he caught sight of them. From what seemed an alarming distance away, somebody in the group signaled back, letting slip a brief flash of light in answer to his waving beam.

And, as if caught by a camera flash, the picture of them running chaotically like a herd of startled gazelle seared into Will's retinas.

The flash had revealed Drake pointing urgently into the distance. But Will didn't understand what he meant. Then he'd lost all sight of Drake and the rest of them.

Will glanced back to where they'd been sitting. He had left his jacket and rucksack there, only taking with him the small battery-powered flashlight. He had no light orbs, no food or water — nothing!

His stomach felt as if it had been dropped from a tall building. He should have told them where he was going, and he knew with inescapable certainty that whatever was making them flee in such disarray was something threatening. He also knew that he should be running. But where to? Should he attempt to catch up with them? Should he try to recover his jacket and backpack? What should he do?

He suddenly felt like a small child again, reliving his first day of school. His father had deposited him at the front doors and, in his usual absentminded way, hadn't thought to make sure Will knew where he was supposed to go. With increasing anxiety, Will had walked aimlessly around the empty corridors, lost and with no one to ask.

Will strained to catch another glimpse of Drake and the others, trying his utmost to figure out where they had been heading. Undoubtedly they would take refuge in one of the other lava tubes. He shook his head. Fat lot of use that was! There were just too many of them. The chances of him picking the same one were slim, to say the least.

"What do I do now?" he said several times in quick succession. He fixed on the dark horizon where Drake had been pointing. It looked innocent enough, but he knew in his heart of hearts that it couldn't be so. What was it? What had made them run?

Then he heard a familiar faraway barking, and the hairs on his neck bristled.

Stalkers!

Will shivered. It could mean only one thing: The Styx were closing in. Again he frantically across to where he had left his kit, but he couldn't see it in the gloom. Could he get to it in time? Did he dare? Gripped by a mounting dread, he stood watching as the tiny points of light from the approaching Styx came into view, seemingly so far off, but near enough to send him into a blind panic.

He took a few tentative steps toward where he thought his jacket and rucksack were when there was a sharp noise, like a loud slap, followed quickly by a second. Mere feet away from his head, flakes of rock scattered down. The report of the rifle shots followed, rolling back and forth across the plain like a ripple of distant thunder.

They were shooting at him!

He cowered as another burst of shots flicked the dirt on either side of him. More came, falling uncomfortably close. The air felt as if it were alive, sizzling with the passage of bullets.

Covering his flashlight with his hand, Will flung himself to the ground. As he rolled behind a small boulder, a salvo hit it, and he could smell the hot lead and cordite. They were zeroing in — they seemed to know exactly where he was.

He scrambled to his feet and, crouching so low he was almost doubled over, he ran awkwardly back into the lava tube behind him.

As he passed around a bend in the tunnel, he didn't stop. He eventually came to a junction and took the left fork, only to find a huge crevasse in the way. As he hastily retraced his steps to the fork, he knew that his first priority was to put as much distance as possible between himself and the Styx.

But he couldn't ignore the fact that he would eventually have to backtrack if he wanted to rejoin Drake and the others, and this would be nigh on impossible if he just kept going. The network of lava tubes was complex, each tunnel virtually indistinguishable from the next. Without some kind of feature or landmark, he didn't have a clue how he would find his way back.

Torn between the need to escape and the knowledge that he was going to get lost if he continued, he hung back for a few seconds at the fork. He listened, wondering if the Styx were really on his trail. As the low baying of the stalker echoed down the tunnel, he was spurred into action again. He had no choice but to run.

He covered a reasonable distance in only a few hours. It hadn't entered his mind that he should be limiting the use of his flashlight. But then, to his horror, he noticed it was starting to lose its intensity. He began to conserve the power, switching it off when there appeared to be an uninterrupted stretch ahead, but it wasn't long before the beam began to flicker and dim to a feeble yellow.

Then it failed altogether.

He was submerged in absolute, pumping darkness.

Will frantically shook the flashlight, trying in vain to squeeze more life out of it. He took out the batteries, rubbing them between his hands to warm them up before putting them in again, but this was no use, either. The flashlight was dead!

He did the only thing he could: He kept going, blindly negotiating the tunnels. Not only was he getting himself hopelessly lost, but he could also hear the occasional sound in the tunnels behind him. The idea of a stalker flying out of the darkness and attacking drove him on, his fear of his pursuers greater than that of the unrelenting darkness into which he was sinking deeper and deeper. He felt so lost, and so immeasurably alone.

Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Why didn't I follow the others? I'm sure there was time! What a fool I am! The self-recrimination came thick and fast as the gloom lapped around him, becoming something tactile, physical, like a viscous black soup.

He was desperate, but a single thought kept him going. He held it in his mind, a beacon of hope to guide him on. He imagined the moment he would be reunited with his father, and how everything would be fine again, just as he'd dreamed it would be.

Knowing how futile it was to do so, but finding it gave him a measure of comfort, he would call out from time to time.

"Dad!" he would cry. "Dad, are you there?"

Dr. Burrows sat on the smaller of two boulders, his elbows propped on the larger one before him, as he nibbled contemplatively on a piece of the dried food the Coprolites had provided. He didn't know if it was animal or vegetable, but it tasted predominantly of salt, for which he was thankful. He had sweated buckets as he'd followed the convoluted route on the map, and could feel cramps coming on in his calves. He knew if he didn't have salt, and lots of it, he'd very soon be in deep trouble.

He twisted around to peer up at the side of the crevice. Lost in the darkness was the tiny track on which he'd just descended — a perilous ledge so narrow he had been forced to flatten himself against the sheer face of the rock, shuffling his way down it, ever so slowly and carefully. He sighed. He didn't want to do that again anytime soon.

He took off his glasses and gave them a thorough wipe with his threadbare shirtsleeve. He'd discarded the Coprolite suit some miles back — it was too cumbersome and restrictive for him to continue to wear, despite the reservations he still harbored about exposure to radioactivity. In retrospect, he might have overreacted a bit about the risks associated with this — it was probably just localized to specific areas within the Great Plain, and it wasn't as if he'd spent very long there. Besides, he couldn't worry about that now; he had more important things to think about. He picked up the map and studied the spidery marks for the umpteenth time.

Then, the food strip gripped in the corner of his mouth like an unlit cigar, he put away the map and, using the large boulder as a book rest, opened his journal to check something that had been nagging him. He flipped through the pages of his drawings of the stone tablets he had chanced upon soon after he'd arrived at the Miners' Station. Locating one of the last drawings in the series, he began to study it. It was a bit rough-and-ready, due to his physical state at the time, but despite this he was confident he'd captured most of the detail. He continued to peer at it for a while, then leaned back again thoughtfully.

The tablet recorded on this particular page had been different from the others he'd found; for a start, it was larger in size, and also some of the inscriptions on it were quite unlike anything else he'd uncovered a the site.

Carved into its face were three clearly defined areas. In the uppermost one, the writing was composed of strange cuneiforms — wedge-shaped letters. Unfortunately these were also the letters used on all the other tablets he'd looked at in the same cavern. He couldn't begin to decipher them. Below was another block of strange, angular, cuneiform letters, very different from those in the first section and resembling nothing he'd ever come across before in all his years of study. The third block of writing was just as bad, but here there was a bizarre succession of glyphic symbols — strange and unrecognizable pictures — all utterly meaningless to him.

"I just don't get it," he said slowly, frowning. He thumbed forward to a page where he'd already jotted some workings in an attempt to translate even the smallest section of any of the three blocks. By looking at repeated symbols in the middle and lower ones on the tablet, he thought he would be able to begin to piece together an understanding of the cuneiform scripts. Even if they were similar to Chinese logographic writing, with a prodigious number of different characters, he hoped that at least some sort of basic pattern would emerge.

"Come on, come on, think, man," he urged himself in a growl, thumping his forehead with his palm. Shifting the food strip from one side of his mouth to the other, he set about his workings again, trying to make more headway.

"I… just… don't… get… it," he grumbled. In pure frustration, he tore out a page of workings and, crumpling it up, slung it over his shoulder. He sat back and clenched his hands together, deep in reflection. As he did this, the journal slipped from the boulder.

"Blast!" he exclaimed, reaching down to retrieve it. It had fallen open at the drawing that was causing him so much trouble. He placed it back on the boulder again.

He heard a sound. A creaking, followed by a series of small clacks. It ended almost as soon as it had started, but he immediately lifted a light orb and peered around. He couldn't see anything and began to whistle through his teeth in an attempt to comfort himself.

He lowered the light orb, and, as he did so, its illumination fell on the page of the journal that was thwarting his efforts to translate it.

He bent his head closer to the page, then closer still.

"You dunderhead." He began to laugh as he scanned the hitherto meaningless lettering before him. The middle section was now getting his undivided attention.

"Yes, yes, yes, YES!"

He had been in such a bad state when he'd sketched the tablet that he just hadn't recognized the alphabet. Not upside down, anyway. "It's Phoenician script, you stupid goat! You had it the wrong way up! How could you have done that?"

He began to write hastily on the page and discovered that, in his excitement, he was attempting to use the half-chewed food strip instead of his pencil. He threw it away and, now using his pencil, quickly scribbled in the margin, guessing at the symbols where he had to because his sketching had been sloppy in places or because the tablet itself had been damaged.

"Aleph… lamedh… lamedh…" he muttered as he worked from letter to letter, hesitating as he came to those that were unclear or that he couldn't immediately remember. But it didn't take him too long to recall them as he was so proficient in Ancient Greek, which was directly descended from the Phoenician alphabet.

"By Jove, I've cracked it!" he shouted, his voice echoing around him.

He found that the writing in the middle block of the tablet was a prayer of some form. Nothing very exciting in itself, but he could read it. Having gotten that far, he began to examine the uppermost block of writing again, which consisted of a group of glyphics. The symbols immediately started to make sense, now that he was seeing the detailed pictograph the right way up.

The symbols were nothing like the Mesopotamian ones that he'd studied for his doctorate. Knowing that Mesopotamian pictograms were the earliest known form of writing, dating back to 3000 B.C., Dr. Burrows was only too aware that what tended to happen was that the pictographic signs became more and more schematic as the centuries progressed. So in the beginning the pictures would have been easily understood — such as a picture of a boat or a bushel of wheat — but with time they would develop into something more stylized, something more like the cuneiform letters in the middle and lower blocks on the tablet. Into an alphabet.

"Yes! Yes!" he said as he saw how the top section repeated the prayer written in the middle one. But it didn't appear as though the writing had evolved directly from the pictographic symbols. All of a sudden, he was hit by the implications of what he'd stumbled across.

"My God! So many millennia ago, somehow, a Phoenician scribe came from the surface… he did this… he carved a translation from an ancient hieroglyphic language. But how did he get down here?" Dr. Burrows puffed his cheeks and blew out a breath. "And this unknown ancient race… who were they? Who in tarnation were they?"

His mind was bombarded with possibilities, but one, perhaps the most far-fetched, loomed far above the others. "The Atlanteans… the Lost City of Atlantis!" He caught his breath, his heart pounding with the supposition.

He babbled breathlessly to himself, quickly switching his attention to the lower block of writing, comparing it with the Phoenician words above.

"By Jove, I think I've done it. It is… it's the same prayer!" he began shouting. And he immediately spotted the similarities between the hieroglyphs at the top of the tablet and the forms of the letters at the bottom. There was no question in his mind that the pictograms had evolved into the letters.

And, using the Phoenician writing, he should have no trouble translating the lower inscription. He now had the key that enabled him to translate all the other tablets he'd found in the cavern and recorded in his journal.

"I can do this!" he announced triumphantly, flipping back through his sketches. "I can read their language! My very own Rosetta Stone. No… wait…" He held up his finger as it struck him. "The Burrows Stone! " He jumped to his feet and turned to the darkness, holding the journal jubilantly above his head. "The Dr. Burrows Stone."

"You poor schmucks, all you in the British Museum, at Oxford and Cambridge… and shabby old Professor White and your cronies from London University who bloody nicked my Roman dig from me… I AM VICTORIOUS… I WILL BE REMEMBERED!" His words echoed all around the crevasse. "I may even have the secret of Atlantis here in my hands… AND IT'S ALL MINE, YOU POOR SAPS!"

He heard the clacking again and snatched up the light orb.

"What the…"

There, where the food stick had landed, something large was moving. His hand shaking, he directed the light at it.

"No!" he gasped.

It was the size of a small family car, with six jointed legs protruding at angles around it and a huge domed carapace for its main body. It was yellowy-white in color and moved ponderously. Dr. Burrows could see its dusty mandibles grinding against each other as it ate the food he had chucked aside. Its antennae twitching exploratively, it advanced very slowly toward him. He took a step back.

"I… just… don't… believe… it." Dr. Burrows exhaled. "What in the world are you… an oversized dust mite?" he said, mentally correcting himself almost as he spoke. He knew only too well that mites were not insects, but arachnids, the same as spiders.

Whatever it was, it had stopped, evidently a little wary of him, its antennae syncopating like two dancing chopsticks. He could see no evidence of any eyes on its head, and its carapace looked as thick as tank armor. But as he examined this more closely, he could also see that it was battered, with slash-like indentations all over its dull surface, and that there were vicious-looking gouges all along its edges, where it appeared to have been shattered.

Despite the creature's size and appearance, Dr. Burrows somehow knew it wasn't a danger to him. It wasn't attempting to come any nearer, perhaps more apprehensive of him than he was of it.

"You've been through the wars, haven't you?" Dr. Burrows said, holding his light orb toward it. It clattered its mandibles as if in agreement. For a moment, Dr. Burrows looked up from the gargantuan creature to peer around.

"This place is just so… rich.. It's a veritable gold mine!" He sighed, and then delved into his shoulder bag. "There you are, old chap," he said, tossing another food stick at the bizarre creature, which scuttled back a few feet as if afraid. Then, slowly, it moved closer, locating the food and cautiously picking over it. The creature obviously decided the food stick was safe to eat, seized it in its mandibles, and instantly began to devour it with a variety of grating noises.

An awestruck Dr. Burrows reseated himself on the boulder and hunted in his pants pocket for his pencil sharpener. Finding it, he began to twist it on his dwindling stub of pencil. Still chewing, the giant creature lowered itself down on its legs, as if waiting expectantly for another morsel.

Dr. Burrows laughed at the strangeness of the situation as he took up his journal and flicked to a fresh page to make a record of the "dust mite" in front of him. He looked at the blank page, then hesitated, his eyes glazing with indecision. The clacking of the giant creature brought him back abruptly, and he know what he had to do. He turned back to the drawing of the tablet again. Translating the rest of the Dr. Burrows Stone had to be his immediate priority.

"Not enough time," he muttered. "Not enough time…"

29

"Help! Anybody! Help me! Is there anybody there?" Oh, wake up, will you… how likely is that? A gruff voice in Will's head wouldn't be silenced. There's nobody for miles. You're on your own, matey, it continued

"Help me! Help! Help!" Will called out, doing his best to ignore it.

What are you expecting… that Dad's going to jump out from around the next corner and show you the way home? Dr. "Super Dad" Burrows, who got himself lost on the London Underground? Yeah, right!

"Get lost!" Will roared hoarsely at his nagging self-doubt, his cry resounding in the tunnels around him.

Lost, huh? That's funny! The voice persisted. It was quietly smug, as if it knew exactly who things were going to turn out. It doesn't get any worse than this, it said. You're history.

Will stopped and shook his head, refusing to accept what it was telling him. There had to be a way out of this.

He closed and opened his eyes, trying to make out something, anything, but there was nothing. Even the blackest night up on the surface had some tiny trace of light, but not down here — this darkness was absolute. And it played tricks on you, giving you hope. False hope.

He moved along the wall, feeling its now all-too-familiar roughness with his fingers, inching forward until he became impatient and tried to move too quickly. His foot snagged against some obstacle and he pitched forward, tumbling down an incline. He came to rest with his face against the loose surface of the ground, breathing hard.

If he allowed himself to think for too long about his situation… Here he was, more than five miles below the surface of the earth, alone and frightened and hopelessly lost.

Every new second in this oblivion was as vital and terrifying as the last, and it seemed to him that millions of these seconds now stretched out behind him. He'd been separated from Drake and the others for what he estimated was at least a day. It could very well have been longer. In truth, he hadn't a clue how long he'd been in these endless tunnels, but if his parched throat was anything to go by, then it had to be at least twenty-four hours. The only thing he was certain of was that he'd never been so horribly thirsty before, not in his whole life.

He got up and reached for the wall. His outstretched fingers encountered nothing but warm air. He immediately pictured himself on the brink of a huge precipice and was beset by a wave of vertigo. He took another reluctant step. The floor didn't feel level to him, but he couldn't even be sure of this anymore. He'd reached a point where he was struggling to tell whether the ground was banked or whether it was he who was at an angle. He was beginning to distrust even his remaining senses.

His vertigo became worse, and he felt sick. He tried to regain his balance by raising his arms. After a few moments of holding his position, like some lopsided scarecrow, he began to feel a little more confident. He took a few tentative steps, but there was still no sign of the wall. He shouted, listening to the echoes.

He had fallen into a larger space — that much he could tell from the reverberations — perhaps he was at the junction of several tunnels. He tried desperately to contain his rising panic, his shallow, hissed breaths and his heartbeat thumping in his ears in mismatched tempos. Relentless waves of dread swept through his body and he shivered uncontrollably, not sure whether he was hot or cold.

How had it come to this? The question knocked fitfully around his head, like a moth in a killing jar.

He summoned all his courage and took another step. Still no wall. He clapped his hands together and listened to the sound reverberating. The report proved conclusively that he was indeed in something with larger dimensions than just a tunnel — he just hoped it didn't mean there was a chasm waiting for him in the darkness. His head swam again. Where are the walls? I've even lost the walls!

A fury rose up in him, and he bit his teeth together so hard they creaked. Clenching his fists, he made an inhuman noise, somewhere between a growl and a scream, but sounding like neither. He tried to order his feelings, finding that he couldn't stifle the anger and self-contempt.

Idiot! IDIOT! IDIOT!

It was as though the gruff voice in his head had won the day, pushing aside any hope that he was going to get through this. He was a fool and deserved to die. He started to blame the others, particularly Chester and Elliott, shouting obscenities at the, at the hushed walls that must have been around him, wanting so much to hurt something, to inflict pain. There, in the anonymity of the blackness, he started to thump himself, striking the tops of his thighs with his fists. Then he punched himself on the side of the head, the pain producing a certain stinging clarity, which brought him to his senses.

NO, I AM BETTER THAN THIS! I must keep going. He sank down onto his knees and crawled, probing in front of him with his fingertips for any gap, any void, checking and rechecking that he wasn't about to plunge blindly into a crevasse. He touched up against something. The wall! With a sigh of relief, he stood up slowly and, hugging it, began the tedious slow-stepping again.

30

Over the next few hours, the Miners' Train went through several more sets of the storm gates Rebecca had referred to.

The first warning Sarah had that they were coming to their destination was a clanging bell, followed by the loud wailing of the train's whistle. The train began to apply its brakes and screeched to a final halt. The side doors of the carriage were heaved back on their rollers, and there was the Miners' Station, lights burning wanly in its windows.

"All change," Rebecca announced, with a suggestion of a smile. As Sarah leaped down from the carriage and stretched her stiff legs, she saw that a delegation of Styx was hurriedly making its way over.

Clutching her satchel, Rebecca told Sarah to remain by the train and went over to meet the delegation. There were at least a dozen of them, walking with such haste that they raised a cloud of dust in their wake. Sarah recognized one among their number — the old Styx who had accompanied her in the carriage the day she had returned to the Colony.

Sarah's old habits kicked in and she made use of the time to make a mental note of the number and location of the personnel on the ground. She would need to know the lay of the land if the opportunity to escape presented itself.

Other than the various Limiters dotted around the place, there was a troop of soldiers from the Styx Division, immediately distinguishable due to the green camouflage of their uniforms. But why would they be down here? she wondered. They were a very long way from home. She estimated that the troop numbered about forty, and around half of them were attending to their weapons, which included mortars and several large caliber guns. The remainder of the soldiers were mounted on horses and seemed about to leave. Horses! In the Deeps?

She turned her attention to the layout of the cavern, scanning the gantries and walkways overhead. She tried to identify ways in or out of the cavern, but soon gave this up — it was impossible to pick out much in the gloomy darkness that cloaked the perimeter.

Already beginning to perspire heavily inside the Limiters' fatigues, she realized how much hotter it was down here. As she drew the dry air into her lungs, everything smelled burnt to her, scorched. The environment was so new and unfamiliar, but she was confident she could acclimatize, just as she'd done when she'd gone Topsoil.

She picked up a movement to the right of the station buildings. She could just about make out six or seven men who were standing still in an untidy line, partially hidden by stacks of crates. She guessed these were Colonists from their civilian clothing. To a man, their heads were bowed as a Limiter stood guard, his rifle trained on them. Sarah found this rather unnecessary, since their hands and feet were shackled together with heavy chains. They weren't about to go anywhere.

Sarah could only think that they must have been Banished. Nevertheless, it was highly unusual for such a sizable group of men to be exiled simultaneously, unless there had been some sort of organized revolt that the Styx had quashed. She was just beginning to wonder whether she was going to be thrown in with these prisoners, when she heard Rebecca's voice.

The Styx girl was showing the Topsoil newspapers to the old Styx, who was nodding imperiously as the delegation stood by. Sarah began to think that all this interest in the headlines — presumably about the Topsoiler disease — had to amount to more than just the Styx's surveillance of current affairs up there. Particularly in light of Joseph's slip of the tongue back in the Garrison about a major operation in London. Yes, there was more to this than she had first thought.

The newspapers were passed to the rest of the party and, as the meeting went on, the old Styx seemed to be doing all the talking, in their scratchy and indecipherable language. Then Sarah caught Rebecca's voice.

"Yes!" the girl exclaimed quite distinctly and full of youthful glee, raising her forearm inn a victorious gesture. Then the old Styx turned to another in the party, who opened a small valise and handed Rebecca something from it. She carefully held it up before her as the entourage looked on.

They all fell silent. Sarah couldn't see precisely what was there, but from the way it glinted briefly in the light, it appeared that Rebecca was looking at two small objects made of a glasslike material.

Rebecca and the old Styx exchanged a significant glance. Then the meeting came to an abrupt end as the old Styx issued an order and, flanked by the rest of the delegation, swept away in the direction of the station buildings.

Rebecca swiveled at the hips to face the lone Styx standing guard over the shackled prisoners. She gave him a sign, spreading the fingers of her hand as if she was shooing someone away. The guard immediately barked at the prisoners, and they began to shamble off, heading toward a far corner of the cavern.

Sarah watched as Rebecca strolled back toward her, holding the two objects aloft.

"What's their story?" Sarah asked her, indicating the prisoners, now barely visible as they moved into shadow.

"Oh, nothing…" Rebecca said, then added a little vaguely, as if distracted, "we don't need any more guinea pigs, not now."

"And I see the Division has brought some pretty heavy duty hardware with them," Sarah ventured, as a couple of the mounted troops towed away the first of the guns.

But Rebecca wasn't interested in Sarah's questions. Flicking her hair back, she raised the objects to head height.

"For this is Dominion," Rebecca intoned in a low voice. "And Dominion will ensure that justice is returned to the righteous, and the upright in heart will follow it."

Sarah saw that the objects were two small phials filled with a clear fluid, and that their tops were sealed with wax. They both had thin cords attached to them, so that Rebecca could let them dangle from her hands.

"Something important?" Sarah inquired.

Rebecca was distant, her eyes glazed with a kind of dreamy euphoria as she contemplated the phials.

"Something to do with the Ultra Bug in the newspapers?" Sarah ventured further.

The smallest glimmer of a smile played on the Styx girl's lips.

"Could be," she teased. "Our prayers are about to be answered."

"So you're going to use another germ against the Topsoilers?"

"Not just another germ. We were only warming up with the Ultra Bug, as they chose to call it. This" — she shook the phials — "is the real McCoy, as they say." Rebecca beamed.

Before Sarah could respond, the Styx girl had whirled around and was striding away.

Sarah didn't know what to think. She had no love for Topsoilers, but it didn't take a great leap of the imagination to figure out that the Styx were brewing up something terrible for them. She knew that the Styx wouldn't think twice before spreading death and destruction if it meant achieving their aims. But she wasn't going to let any of this distract her — there was only one thing she had to do and that was catch up with Will Burrows. She was going to find out if he was to blame for Tam's death. It was family business, and she couldn't let anything get in the way of it.

"We're up. Get moving," one of the Limiters snapped at Sarah's back, making her start. It was the first time any of them had spoken a word directly to her.

"Um… did… did you say we?" she stammered, taking a step away from the four Limiters. As she did so, she heard a scrabbling by her feet and looked down.

"Bartleby!"

The cat had appeared from nowhere. Twitching his whiskers, he gave a low, uncertain meow, then lowered his muzzle to the ground and sniffed deeply, several times. He pulled up his broad head sharply, his nose coated with the fine black dust that seemed to be everywhere. He obviously didn't like the dust because he rubbed his face with his paw, making loud snuffling noises. All of a sudden he gave an enormous sneeze.

"Bless you," Sarah said before she could stop herself. She was delighted to have him back. It was as though she now had the company of an old friend on her quest — somebody she could trust.

"Get going!" another of the Limiters scowled, jabbing his thin finger toward the far area of the chamber beyond the stationary engine, which was puffing out copious clouds of steam. "Now!"

Sarah hesitated for a moment, the dead eyes of the four soldiers on her. Then she nodded and took a reluctant step in the direction they had indicated. Well… if you sell your soul to the devil… she thought wryly. She had chosen her path, and she had to stick to it.

So, with the shadowy figures following behind, Sarah resigned herself to her lot and began to walk more briskly, the cat at her heels.

Besides, what alternative did she have, with these ghouls breathing down her neck?

31

The hours passed. Will's forehead and the small of his back were sopping with a sticky sweat, from both the heat around him and the unrelenting waves of fear that he fought so hard to stave off. His throat was parched; he could feel the dust sticking to his tongue but couldn't summon up enough saliva to wet it.

The dizziness returned, and he was forced to stop as the floor yawned under his feet. He sagged against the wall, opening and closing his mouth like a drowning man, mumbling to himself. With an immense effort, he straightened up and rubbed his eyes hard with his knuckles, the pressure bringing vague bursts of brilliance that helped to ease his nerves. But it was only a brief respite. The darkness immediately flooded back.

Then, as he'd done so many times before, he squatted down and began to check the contents of his pants pockets. It was an exercise in pure futility, a ritual that would achieve nothing, because he knew by heart precisely what was contained in them — though he kept praying he'd missed something he could use, however insignificant.

First he tugged out his handkerchief and spread it flat on the ground before him. Then he took out the other items and laid them by touch on the cloth square. He arranged his pocketknife, a pencil stub, a button, a piece of string, and some other useless oddments, and, lastly, the dead flashlight. There in the dark, he handled each item, feeling it with his fingertips as if by some miracle it might suddenly prove to be his salvation. He gave a short, disappointed laugh.

This was ridiculous.

What did he think he was doing?

Nevertheless he gave his pockets a last check, just in case he'd missed anything. They were inevitably empty, except for some dust and grit. He hissed with disappointment, then girded himself for the final part of the ritual. He picked up the flashlight, cradling it in both hands.

Please, please, please!

He slid the switch.

Absolutely nothing. Not even a suggestion, not even a glimmer of light.

No!

It had failed him again. He wanted to hurt it, to make it suffer just as he was suffering. He wanted it to feel pain.

With a rush of anger, he drew his arm back to throw the useless object, then sighed and stopped himself. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. He growled with frustration and stuffed the light back into his pocket. Then he bundled the remaining items together in his handkerchief and replaced them as well.

Why, oh why, didn't I just take one of the light orbs? I could have so easily.

It would have been such a small thing to have done, and yet it would have made a world of difference to him right now. He began to think about his jacket. If only he'd had the sense to keep it on. He pictured where he'd left it, draped over the top of his rucksack. His lantern had been clipped to it, and in its pockets had been another flashlight and a box of matches, not to mention several orbs.

If only… if only…

Those simple objects would have been so vitally important to him now.

"YOU STUPID FOOL!" he began to yell, urging himself on in a rasping croak and cursing the blackness all around him, calling it every name under the sun. Then he fell silent, imagining he could see something creeping slowly across his field of vision. Was that a light, a flicker of light to his right?

What? No, there, yes, in the distance, a glow, yes, a light, a way out? Yes!

His heart racing, he moved toward it, only to trip on the uneven surface and fall once again. Standing up quickly, he searched for it, peering frantically into the velvety blackness.

It's gone. Where was it?

The light, if there ever had been one, was no longer there.

How long can I go on like this? How long before I… He felt his legs tremble as his breath deserted him.

"I'm too young to die," he said aloud, realizing for the first time in his life what those words really meant. He felt as if he'd been winded. He began to sob. He had to rest, and dropped to his knees. Then he bent forward, feeling the grit beneath his palms. This isn't right. I don't deserve this.

He tried to swallow, but his throat was so dry and swollen that he couldn't. He bent even farther forward until his forehead rested against the sharp grit. Were his eyes open or closed? There was no difference; small spots of colored light, swirling reticulations, massed together into smears, dancing before him, confusing him. But he knew it wasn't real.

He stayed in that position, panting, his head against the ground, and for some reason a vision of his Topsoil mother reared up before him. It was so crystal clear that, for an instant, he felt as if he'd been transported somewhere else. Mrs. Burrows was reclining in front of a television in a sun-filled room. The vision wavered and was replaced by the image of his father in a very different place, somewhere deep in the earth, wandering carelessly along and whistling through his teeth in that high-pitched way he always did.

Next he saw Rebecca, as he'd seen her a thousand times before. She was in the kitchen, preparing dinner for the whole family — a task she'd do every night — a sort of constant in his life that seemed to be present in even his earliest memories.

As if a film had jumped its sprockets, he saw her smiling evilly while she paraded herself in the black-and-white uniform of the Styx.

Witch! Treacherous, lying witch! She had betrayed him, betrayed his family. This was all her fault.

Witch. Witch. Witch. Witch. Witch

In his eyes she was the very worst type of traitor, something twisted and dark and evil, a cuckoo sent from the underworld to wreak havoc on the nest, a quisling.

Get up! The pure hatred he felt for Rebecca galvanized him. He drew in a painful breath and pushed himself up so he was on his knees again. He shouted at himself, urging himself to get to his feet. Get up, Will! Don't let her win! Then, standing on his shaky limbs, his arms threshed out in the emptiness around him, in the endless, soul-sucking night land.

"Get going! Get going! GET OUT!" he shouted in a cracked voice. "GET OUT!"

He began to stumble along, calling out to Drake and his father, to anyone, to help him. But he heard nothing except his own echoing voice. Then there was a fall of small stones behind him, and he thought it perhaps too dangerous to continue to shout anymore and fell silent. But he kept going, counting a rough rhythm in his head as he went:

One two, one two one, one two…

Before long he was seeing horrible things looming out at him from the invisible walls. He told himself they weren't real, but that didn't stop them form coming.

He was losing it. He truly believed he'd go mad if the thirst and hunger didn't get him first.

One two, one two…

He rued the day that he had made the decision to take the Miners' Train and come down here to the Deeps. What had he been thinking? To be lost like this, when he could have gone Topsoil! After all, what was the worst that could have happened to him up there? Spending the rest of his life on the run from the Styx didn't seem so bad now. At least he wouldn't have gotten himself into this situation.

He fell again, and it was a bad one. He'd tumbled across some jagged rocks and banged his head. He slowly rolled onto his back and stretched out his limbs so he was spread-eagled. Then he lifted his hands in front of his face. Where he should have seen the white of his palms, there was no differentiation from the blankness, the canvas that had become his universe. He did not exist anymore.

He rolled over and felt in front of him, terrified there might be some sort of drop just ahead. But the tunnel floor continued uninterrupted, and he knew that he would have to get back up.

Without anything else to rely on, he'd become highly attuned to the familiar echoes his boots made as he trudged through the gravel and dust. He'd learned to read the minute reports of his footfalls as they reflected from the walls — it was almost like he had his own radar. On several occasions, he'd been forewarned of gaping chasms or changes in the floor level, purely by the nature of these echoes.

He got to his feet and took some steps.

There was a dramatic change in the sounds. The feedback was fainter, as if the lava tube had suddenly ballooned in size. He advanced at a snail's pace, filled with trepidation that he was about to stagger blindly into a vertical shaft.

Within a short distance, there were no more echoes at all — none he could discern, anyway. His boots were encountering something other than the usual debris. Pebbles! Knocking and grinding against one another and giving that unmistakable slightly hollow sound. They shifted under his feet and, in hid exhausted state, made it even more difficult to walk.

Then he sniffed, suddenly aware of humidity on his face. He sniffed again. What was it?

Ozone!

He smelled ozone, so evocative of the seaside and trips to the beach with his dad.

What had he stumbled on?

32

Mrs. Burrows stood by the door to her room, watching the events farther down the corridor.

She'd been roused from her afternoon nap by raised voices and the rapid tap of footfalls over the surface of the linoleum out in the hallway. This struck her as odd. For the past week there had been next to no activity in the place. An uneasy silence had fallen over Humphrey House, the patients largely confining themselves to their beds as, one after another, they succumbed to the mysterious virus that had all of England in its grip.

When she'd first heard the commotion, Mrs. Burrows had assumed it was simply a patient kicking up a fuss. But minutes later, a loud crash came from the area of the service elevator, followed by a woman's voice speaking in urgent tones. It was the voice of someone who was distressed or angry and wanted to shout but was just managing to keep herself in check. Only just.

Her curiosity getting the better of her, Mrs. Burrows had finally decided to take a look. Her eyes were considerably better, but still painful enough to force her to squint.

"What's all this?" she mumbled through a yawn as she stepped from her bedroom into the corridor. She stopped as something by the door to Old Mrs. L's room came into focus, and her red eyes opened wide with surprise. Mrs. Burrows had seen enough TV hospital dramas to identify what was there:

A paradise cart — the horrible euphemism for a hospital gurney with stainless-steel sides and top. It was a means of transporting dead bodies without alerting anyone as to what was inside or, indeed, if there was anyone inside.

Essentially a shiny metal coffin on wheels.

As she watched, the matron and two porters emerged from the doorway to fetch the cart. The porters wheeled it into Old Mrs. L's room as the matron remained outside. Spotting Mrs. Burrows, she walked slowly down the corridor toward her.

"No. That's not what I think—?" Mrs. Burrows began.

With a slow shake of her head, the matron told her all she needed to know.

"But Old Mrs. L was so… young," Mrs. Burrows gasped, forgetting herself in her distress and using her nickname for the patient. "What happened?"

The matron shook her head again.

"What happened?" Mrs. Burrows repeated.

The matron's voice was hushed, as if she didn't want any of the other patients to hear. "The virus," she said.

"Not this thing?" Mrs. Burrows asked, indicating her eyes, which, just like the matron's, were still red and puffy.

"I'm afraid so. Got into her optic nerve, and then spread through her brain. The doctor said it's doing that in a number of cases." She took a long breath. "Especially those with defective immune systems."

"I can't believe it. My goodness, poor Mrs. L," Mrs. Burrows gasped, genuinely meaning it. It was a rare moment: She was feeling compassion for someone who really existed, not just for some actor playing a part on one of her soaps.

"At least it was quick," the matron said.

"Quick?" mumbled Mrs. Burrows, frowning with bewilderment.

"Yes, very. She complained she was feeling sick just before lunch, then became quite disoriented and went into a coma. There was nothing we could do to resuscitate her." The matron pressed her lips together and lowered her gaze to the floor. Taking out a handkerchief, she dabbed first one eye, then the other. Mrs. Burrows couldn't tell if this was from the continuing effects of the eye infection or because she was upset. "This epidemic is serious, you know. And if the virus mutates…" the matron started to confide in a low voice.

Just then the porters pushed the paradise cart back out into the corridor, and the matron hurried off to join them.

"So quick," Mrs. Burrows said again, trying to come to terms with the death.

Later that afternoon in the dayroom, Mrs. Burrows was so preoccupied by Old Mrs. L's untimely demise that she wasn't paying much attention to the television. She'd been restless in her bedroom, so decided to seek solace in her favorite chair — the one place that usually brought her a measure of contentment. But when she arrived, she found that there were already quite a few patients lounging in front of the television. Their daily schedule of activities was still disrupted from the lack of staff, so they were mostly left to their own devices.

Mrs. Burrows had been unusually subdued, allowing the other patients to dictate the choice of program, but when an item came on the news, she suddenly spoke out.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, pointing at the screen. "It's him! I know him!"

"Who is he, then?" a woman inquired, looking up from a jigsaw puzzle.

"Don't you recognize him? He was in here!" Mrs. Burrows said, her excited eyes riveted to the report.

"What's his name?" the jigsaw lady asked, holding a piece of the puzzle in her hand.

Mrs. Burrows hadn't a clue what his name was, so she pretended she was so intent on the television that she hadn't heard.

"And Professor Eastwood had been assigned to work on the virus?" came the question from the interviewer offscreen.

The man on screen nodded — the same man with the distinguished voice who had spoken to Mrs. Burrows in a rather disparaging way at breakfast only days ago. He even had on the same tweed jacket he'd been wearing then.

"He's an important doctor, you know," Mrs. Burrows told the handful of people in the row behind her in a self-important way, as if she was confiding in them about a close friend. "He likes boiled eggs for breakfast."

Someone in the room repeated "boiled eggs," as though she was thoroughly impressed by the information.

"That's right," Mrs. Burrows confirmed.

"Shhh! Listen!" a woman in a lemon-yellow bathrobe hissed from the back row.

Mrs. Burrows tipped her head back to glare at the woman, but was too intrigued by the news report to take it any further.

"Yes," boiled-egg-man answered the interviewer. "Professor Eastwood and his research team at St. Edmund's were working round the clock to identify the strain. By all accounts, they were making good progress, although the records were lost."

"Can you tell us exactly when the fire broke out?" said the interviewer.

"The alarm was raised at nine-fifteen this morning," boiled-egg-man replied.

"And can you confirm that four members of the professor's research team also died in the blaze with him?"

Boiled-egg-man's eyebrows knitted together as he nodded somberly. "Yes, I'm afraid that is the case. They were exceptional and highly valued scientists. My heart goes out to their families."

"Do you have any theories what started the fire?" the interviewer posed.

"The laboratory carried a range of solvents in its stockroom, so I suppose the forensic investigation will begin there."

"There has been speculation in the past week that the pandemic may be man-made. Could the death of Professor Eastwood—?"

"I will not be drawn into such conjecture," boiled-egg-man barked disapprovingly. "It is the stuff of conspiracy theorists. Professor Eastwood was a close personal friend for over twenty years and I will not have—"

"Professor Eastwood must have been getting too close — that's what happened! Someone snuffed him out!" Mrs. Burrows boomed, drowning out the television. "Of course it's a bloomin' conspiracy. It's those no-good Russkies again, or maybe the lefties, who've got nothing to moan about anymore 'cept what we're all doing to the environment. You see how they're already trying to blame this plague on greenhouse gases and cows' farts."

"I think it escaped from one of our own labs," the jigsaw lady piped up, nodding vigorously as if she'd single-handedly solved the mystery.

Silence returned to the room, with the news report featuring yet another "science correspondent" who was giving the doom-laden prophecy that, at the drop of a hat, the virus could mutate into a far more lethal form, with dire consequences for the human race.

"Ah!" said the jigsaw lady a her card table, pressing a piece of her puzzle home.

Then the television screen was filled with a piece of highly accomplished street art. Graffitied on a section of wall between two shops in north London, it was a life-sized figure wearing a respirator and clothed in a bulky biohazard suit. Apart from the fact that it had a pair of what were unmistakably large cartoon-mouse ears sticking out of the top of its military helmet, the figure was very realistic. At first glance, it looked as though someone was actually standing there. The figure was brandishing a placard that read:

"Too bloody right it is!" Mrs. Burrows bellowed, her thoughts returning to Old Mrs. L's horribly premature death. The woman in the lemon-yellow bathrobe shushed her again.

"Oh, can't you shut up?" the woman complained with haughty disapproval. "Do you have to be so loud?"

"Yes, I do — this is serious!" Mrs. Burrows growled. "Anyway, at least I'm not as loud as your ghastly bathrobe, you old trout," Mrs. Burrows threw back at her, wetting her lips as she prepared to do battle. Even if the end of the world was looming, she wasn't going to be spoken to like that.

33

Drake didn't have the faintest idea where Will was. He kicked himself for not noticing when the boy wandered off in the first place. It was Chester who had spotted him trying to signal them as they'd all sought refuge in a lava tube. At that moment, pelted by a volley of loosely aimed sniper fire, Drake only had time to return the signal to the stranded boy. His primary concern had been to get the others away from the Limiters, and to safety.

Will didn't know his way around yet, and Drake didn't know him well enough to guess where he might have gone. No, Drake was at a total loss as to where to start looking for the gone boy.

And now, as they crept along the winding tunnel, with Cal lagging behind and Elliott prowling up ahead, Drake attempted once again to blank out all his years of knowledge and experience and adopt the mindset of a complete novice. Think from ignorance.

Caught by surprise and completely terrified, the boy's first impulse must have been to try to catch up with them. Realizing that this was impossible, he might have gone for the next most obvious option and left the plain by the closest lava tube. But not necessarily.

Drake knew the boy didn't have anything with him, no food or water, so he might have attempted to brave the sniper fire and get back to his kit. Like that would have done him any good, anyway — Drake had decided not to leave Will's jacket or rucksack behind as souvenirs for the Styx.

So, had he bolted down a lava tube? If he had, bad news. It would have been one of many, with the overwhelming volume of interconnecting tunnels in the network only compounding the problem. Mounting a search-and-rescue operation in so extensive an area — it would take weeks, if not months. Totally out of the question while the threat of Limiter patrols persisted.

Drake clenched his fists in frustration.

No good. He couldn't form any sort of picture.

Come on, Drake urged himself,what would the boy have done next?

Perhaps…

Perhaps Will hadn't entered the nearest lava tube but had kept to the plain, following the perimeter wall as it curved back — at least this would have given him some cover from the rifle fire.

Maybe he was being overly optimistic, but Drake was gambling on this being Will's most likely course of action. If he had kept to the perimeter, and if the Styx hadn't caught up with him, there was a slim chance he might still be alive.

That was an awful lot of ifs …

Drake knew he was grasping at straws.

Or perhaps the Limiters had already trapped the boy and, at this very moment, were torturing him to extract all the information they could. The Limiters would do their usual and wring everything out of him using their excruciating methods. Event the strongest broke, sooner or later. It was a fate ten times worse than death; if it had befallen Will…

Cal stumbled behind him, skittering a hail of stones across the floor. Too much noise, Drake thought. It reverberated around the space, and he was just about to reprimand the boy when his chain of thought continued, almost stopping him in his tracks. Three new additions to the team, three new responsibilities… all at the same time! With Limiters popping up all over the place like malevolent jack-in-the-boxes, what the heck had he been thinking?

He wasn't some itinerant saint saving the lost souls the Colony spat out. So what was it? A twisted delusion of grandeur? Did he imagine that the three boys would be his own private army if it came down to a pitched battle with the Limiters? No, that was ridiculous. He should have dispatched two of the boys and kept just the one — Will — because with his infamous mother and knowledge of Topsoil life he might have played a part in his future plans. And now Drake had lost him.

Cal tripped again, falling to his knees with a muffled groan. Drake spun around.

"My leg," Cal explained before Drake had a chance to say anything. "I'll be all right." Cal immediately pulled himself up and began to walk again, leaning heavily on his stick.

Drake thought for a moment. "No, you won't. I'll have to hide you somewhere." His tone was cold and detached. "I made a mistake bringing you… I expected too much from you." His intention had been to station Chester and Cal at strategic points where they could lie in wait for Will in case he chanced by. In retrospect, he should have left Cal and only taken Chester. Or left both of them behind.

As he struggled along, Cal was sinking deeper into turmoil. He had caught the tone in Drake's voice, and the implication bounced all other thoughts aside. He remembered Will's words, the warning that Drake didn't carry passengers, and the dread intensified in him that he really would be abandoned now.

Drake surged ahead and, after a final sharp turn in the tunnel, they were back on the Great Plain.

"Keep close and dim your lantern," he told Cal.

Will wondered if he was dreaming. Yet it all seemed so real. To reassure himself, he'd just stooped down to pick up a pebble, feeling its smooth, polished surface, when a faint breeze brushed his face. He stood up quickly. He could feel a wind!

He continued down the gradient and then heard a lapping sound. Despite the warm air buffeting him, goose bumps broke out all over his body. He knew what it was. Water. There was water out there in the darkness before him.

He move forward in baby steps until the pebbles gave way to something else — sand, soft and sliding sand. A few steps more and his foot landed with a splash. He squatted down and tentatively felt before him. Liquid. It was lukewarm water. He shuddered. He imagined a huge, dark expanse in front of him.

He needed water so badly. He gently cupped some of the fluid in his hands and lifted it up to his face. He sniffed and then sniffed again. It was flat and lifeless — it had no smell to it. He held it to his lips and sipped.

He spat it out instantly, falling back into the damp sand. His mouth burned and his throat contracted. He started to cough and then retched. If he'd had any food in his stomach, he would have been violently sick. No, it was no good, it was brine, it was salt water. Even if he was able to force some of it down, he knew it would finish him off.

He listened to the lethargic slap of the water and then rose unsteadily to his feet, debating whether he should go back into the lava tubes. But he couldn't bring himself to do that — not after all the hours he'd already spent in them. Besides, there wasn't the remotest chance he'd find his way back to the Great Plain, and even if, by some miracle, he did survive the journey, what would be waiting for him there? A Styx reception party? No, he had no choice but to follow the edge of the water, its sound continually playing on his mind and making his thirst even more agonizing.

Although the sand was level, it shifted under his every step, sapping what little energy he had left as he plodded laboriously across it. He could no longer think straight. He tried to focus. How big was the body of water? Was he simply tracking around its shores, going in one big circle? He tried to tell himself it didn't feel that way — he was pretty sure he was traveling in a straight line.

But with each step, he fell further and further into a state of numb despondency. With a long, drawn-out sigh, he sank down onto the sand and seized a handful of it, thinking he might never get up again. One day far in the future, someone would discover his remains, a dried-out cadaver in the lonely darkness. How ironic: He would die of thirst curled up next to a subterranean sea. Maybe his bones would be picked bare by scavengers, his ribs sticking up from the sand, like a camel's skeleton in the desert. He shivered at the thought.

Will didn't know how long he'd remained there, beaten and drifting in and out of a fitful sleep. Several times he told himself to get back on his feet and walk again. But he was just too tired to resume his aimless wandering.

He nestled his head in the sand and turned to face the direction that he knew he should be taking. He blinked several times, his eyelids rasping against his dry eyeballs, and happened to glance behind him.

He could have sworn he saw the faintest glimmer of light. His vision playing tricks on him again. But he continued to stare at the spot. And saw it for the second time: a tiny, indistinct flash. He scrambled up and began to stumble toward it, leaving the sandy shore behind him as he scrabbled across the rattling pebbles. He tripped and went sprawling. Got up. Swore at himself because he was disoriented. And caught another fleeting glimpse of it. The light.

This was not something his tired brain was conjuring up — it was real, and he was so close. Yes, it might be a Styx, but he was past caring. He needed light like an asphyxiated man needs air.

More carefully, he crept up the gravel bank. He could see that the irregular flashes were emanating from a lava tube, its mouth clearly outlined by them. And though the light seemed to flicker in intensity, as he came nearer he could see that there was a constant illumination within the tube itself. He reached the opening, treading softly, until he was able to peer around the corner.

He saw shapes without form, shades without color. It took the most immense effort for him to remember how to use his eyes. He had to keep telling himself that what was before him was not just some hollow manifestation of his own making. Rapidly blinking, he struggled to bring his two lines of sight together and force the click-clack vacillation of the images to come to rest. They fused and made a distance, something certain…

"PIG!" he croaked. "YOU BEAUTIFUL PIG!"

"Wha—?" Chester cried, sitting up with fright and spitting the food from his mouth. "Who—?"

Will could see again. His eyes feasted on the light, luxuriating in everything before him. Not fifteen feet away sat Chester, with a lantern in his hand and his rucksack open between his legs. He'd been helping himself to some food, stuffing it unceremoniously into his mouth, and clearly too preoccupied to hear Will's approach.

Will lurched toward his friend, beyond overjoyed. He half fell, half sat by Chester, who was gawping at him as if he'd seen a ghost. Will snatched the lantern from him and clasped it in his hands.

"Thank God," Will repeated several times in a cracked voice, staring straight into the light. It was so bright it hurt, but all he wanted was to bask in its eerie green flicker.

Chester snapped out of his stupefaction. "Will…" he started.

"Water," Will croaked. "Give me water." His voice was so thin and feeble, it came out as a throaty gush of air. Will pointed frantically. Chester realized what he wanted and hastily passed him his canteen.

Will couldn't remove the stopper fast enough, fumbling at it pathetically with his fingers. Then it was off with a pop, and he rammed the neck into his mouth, gulping the water down greedily and trying to draw breath at the same time. It was going everywhere, slopping down his chin and chest.

"Will, we thought we'd lost you!" Chester said.

"Typical," Will gasped between mouthfuls. "I'm dying of thirst" — he swallowed, the water beginning to rehydrate his vocal cords — "while you're stuffing your face." He felt transformed, elated; the long hours spent in the dark were over, and he was safe again. He was saved. "Freakin' typical!"

"You look really terrible," Chester said quietly.

Will's face, normally pallid from his albinism, now appeared even paler, blanched from the salt crystals that had dried in a crust around his mouth and on his brow and cheeks.

"Thanks," Will eventually mumbled, after another large gulp.

"Are you OK?"

"Awesome."

"But how did you get here?" Chester asked. "Where've you been all this time?"

"You don't want to know," Will replied, still rasping. He looked down the lava tube behind Chester. "Drake and the others… where are they? Where's Cal?"

"They're out looking for you." Chester shook his head disbelievingly. "Will, dude, it's so good to see you. We thought you'd been caught, or shot, or something."

"Not this time," Will said and, after a few breaths, he renewed his attack on the canteen, sucking at it until he'd drained the last drop. He belched contentedly, tossing the canteen to the ground, and then, finally, took in the concern etched on his friend's face. Chester's hand, grasping some food, was still poised in front of him. Dear old Chester. Will couldn't help but laugh, gently at first, then building to such a hysterical level that his friend edged back slightly.

"Will…?"

"Don't let me keep you from your snack," Will got out before he lapsed into another fit of sick-sounding laughter.

"It's not funny," Chester said, lowering the food. Will didn't show any sign of stopping his strangled guffawing, and Chester's indignation grew. "I thought I'd never see you again," he declared earnestly. "For serious."

There, on his grubby face, his lips covered with crumbs, a big grin began to form. "Whatever. You're stark, raving bonkers, you are." He shook his head. "Bet you're starving. Want some of this?" he offered, gesturing at the open pouch on top of the backpack.

"Gracias, mate. I certainly would," Will said gratefully.

"No problem. It's your food, anyway — this is your rucksack. Drake grabbed your kit when we ran for it."

"Well, glad you weren't going to waste it!" Will said, punching him gently on the arm. Will felt close to his friend again, and it felt good. "You know… the batteries died in my flashlight. I didn't even have an orb. I thought I was a goner," he told him.

"No way. How'd you make it down here, then?" Chester asked.

"I hitched a ride," Will replied. "How do you think I got here? I walked."

"No. Way!" Chester exclaimed, shaking his shaggy head.

Will looked at the inane grin on his friend's face. He'd seen the same big, stupid smile that day when they were reunited on the Miners' Train, and although it had only been two months ago, it felt like several lifetimes. So much had happened, so much had changed.

"You know," he said to Chester, "I think I'd even rather go back to school than do that again!"

"That bad, huh?" his friend asked with mock gravity.

Will nodded, rolling his swollen tongue around his lips, appreciating the novelty of spit once more.

Chester's voice burbled on in the background, but Will was too exhausted to listen any longer. He gently slipped into a languor, his head lolling back against the rock behind him. His legs twitched slightly, as if finding it hard to break from the rhythm of the protracted slog they'd been put through. But their movement became less and less until they were completely still, and Will found a well-earned oblivion, unaware of the horrible chain of events taking place that very moment on the Great Plain.

34

Cal had been concentrating all his efforts on walking, and when he looked up, what was before him came as quite a shock.

He and Drake had been tracking around the very edge of the Great Plain, but the usual jagged rock wall wasn't there.

In its place, a vertical and apparently smooth surface ran from the ground to the roof, completely filling the space between the two. It was as if the seam that was the Great Plain had simply been sealed up. The barrier was too perfect to be a natural feature and stretched into the gloom as far as the light from his muted lantern penetrated.

He edged closer to touch its surface. It was solid and gray, but not as perfect as he'd originally thought — in fact it was badly pitted, and in places large chunks were missing, from which reddish-brown stains spread downward, marking the wall.

It was concrete. A huge concrete wall — the last thing he'd have expected to find in this elemental place. And he realized just how huge as they continued beside it for another twenty minutes, until Drake signaled him to stop. He pointed at a rectangular opening in the wall, five feet off the ground. Leaning toward Cal, he whispered, "Access duct."

Cal brought up his lantern to inspect it.

Drake grabbed his arm and pushed it down. "Keep it low, you fool! Are you trying to give away our position?"

"Sorry," Cal said, watching as Drake slipped his hand into the shadowy cavity. Then he heard a dull creak as Drake pulled, and a hatch of rusting iron pivoted open.

"You first," Drake ordered.

Cal peered into the grim darkness and swallowed. "You expect me to go in there?" he asked.

"Yes," Drake growled. "This is the bunker. Been empty for years. You'll be all right."

Cal shook his head. "Be all right? I don't want to do this, I do not want to do this!" he muttered, but scrambled unenthusiastically into the duct with a helping hand from Drake and began to crawl.

The light from his lantern licked weakly before him, revealing foot after foot of the regular passage as his hands scrabbled in an inch of dry grit along the bottom of the duct. The sound of his own breathing was intimate and close, and he loathed the feeling of constriction. Caught like a rat in a drainpipe, he thought. Every so often he stopped to reach out with his walking stick and knock against the sides to check the way ahead. It gave him an opportunity to rest his leg, which was beginning to ache badly. It felt as though it was going to seize up completely, leaving him stuck in the passage.

Nevertheless, he continued. The duct seemed to go on forever. "How thick are these walls?" he asked out loud. Then, as he stopped to probe in front with his stick again, the tip didn't encounter anything. He inched a little farther forward and checked again. Nothing: He'd come to the end.

He cautiously clambered down from the duct. His feet safely on the ground, he turned up his lantern and swept it in front of him. He nearly cried out as a shape reared up beside him, and he raised his walking stick defensively.

"Quiet," Elliott warned, and he immediately felt like a fool. He'd completely forgotten that she would have been clearing the way ahead, as she always did.

Drake dropped soundlessly from the duct and appeared behind him. He nudged Cal on, and without a further word, they pushed deeper in.

They'd been in a small, gloomy room, empty except for puddles of stagnant water, but now advanced watchfully into a larger space, their footfalls giving short echoes as they scuffed over a linoleum-like floor. It might have once been white, but was now streaked with filth and stained from piles of rotting acrid-smelling debris.

As Cal and Drake held back for Elliott to scout ahead, Cal's light revealed they were in a pretty large room. Against one of the walls stood a desk, and the walls themselves were mottled with patches of brown and gray damp, with small fungi sprouting in sporadic outgrowths, like little circular ledges. And next to where Cal was waiting, there were some shelves filled with decaying files. The paper had been reduced by the water to a flowing amorphous mulch. It spilled from the shelves to form small mounds of papier-mвchй on the floor.

Responding to Elliott's signal, Drake whispered to Cal to move on. They slipped through a doorway and into a narrow corridor. At first Cal assumed the indistinct sheen from the walls was due to moisture, but then he realized he was passing between massive glass tanks. He thought he glimpsed a reflection of his own face in the black-algae-encrusted glass, but as he looked closer, his spine tingled. No! It wasn't his reflection at all. It was a leached-white human head resting against the glass, its eyes hollow and its features eroded as if eaten away. He shuddered, moving on quickly, not allowing himself a second look.

They rounded a corner at the end of the aisle, past a final tank, only to find the way blocked by massive slabs of broken concrete. The ceiling had caved in. But just as Cal was thinking they would have to turn back, Drake guided him into the darkness beside it, where the collapsed roof slanted down to a rough stairwell. It was bounded by a twisted, misshapen railing. They squeezed under the slab and, together, crept down the crumbling steps to where Elliott was waiting.

The stench of decay that met them was far from pleasant. Cal assumed they'd reached the bottom when Elliott took a few more steps and waded into dark water. He hesitated, but Drake jabbed him sharply in the back until he reluctantly lowered himself in. The turgid warm water came up to Cal's chest. Dust and oily rainbows circulated as their movements disturbed the surface. Above them were radial growths of fungi, so thick and numerous that they had to be growing one on top of the other, rather like a coral reef.

Tiny filaments hung from the fungi, glittering in Cal's light like a million spiderwebs. But the stench was overwhelming. He tried to hold his breath, but was eventually forced to draw the miasma into his lungs. It caught in the back of his throat, and he began to hack away.

As he struggled to stifle the coughing, he looked down. To his horror, he could see movements just below the water's surface. He felt something tangle itself around his calf. Then it tightened.

"Oh God!" he choked, and in a frenzy tried to dash through the water.

"Stop!" Drake rumbled, but Cal didn't care.

"No!" he shouted loudly. "I'm getting out."

Surging forward, he saw Elliott ascending a set of steps in front of him. He caught up with her, clutching at a rickety iron banister that buckled under his weight. He managed to drag himself out of the fetid water. He was stumbling and tripping up the steps, banging his walking stick against the wall, desperate to get to clean air, when a hand grabbed him by the shoulder. It stopped him in his tracks, pressing agonizingly into his collarbone and spinning him around.

"Don't ever pull a stunt like that again," Drake said in a low growl, his face just inches from Cal's and his uncovered eye burning with a fury. He shoved the terrified boy up against the wall, still gripping him by the shoulder.

"But there was—" Cal began to explain, hyperventilating from both the foul air and his fear.

"I don't care. Down here, a single stupid action can be the difference between us making it through this or not… It's that simple," Drake said. "Do I make myself clear?"

Cal nodded, trying his utmost to stop his coughing as Drake prodded him on again. They came up into another corridor, with a much higher ceiling than the claustrophobic passage they'd just left. The sides angled outward and then in again toward the top, like an ancient tomb. The ground was damp, and every now and then Cal's boots crunched and cracked as if he was treading on glass.

Soon they were passing openings that led off on either side from this oddly shaped gallery. They went a small distance into one before taking a turning off it into a substantial space that seemed to be divided into smaller areas. A maze of thick concrete partitioning reached halfway up to the ceiling, forming a whole series of pens. Strewn across the ground at the entrances to these pens were mounds of rubble and heaps of what appeared to be rusting metal.

"What is this place?" Cal asked, daring to break the silence.

"The Breeding Grounds."

"Breeding… for what? For animals?" Cal said.

"No, not for animals. For Coprolites. The Styx bred them to use as slaves," Drake answered slowly. "They built this complex centuries ago."

He ushered Cal on before he could ask any more questions, into a smaller antechamber. It had the feel of a hospital ward. The floor and walls were covered in white tiles, now discolored with years of dirt and damp, and a huge number of beds were heaped haphazardly near the entrance, as if someone had been in the process of removing them but was interrupted halfway through. Strangely, the beds were, without exception, rather small — there was absolutely no way they would have accommodated someone even of Cal's size, let alone an adult.

"Cots?" he spoke aloud. Over each diminutive bed was a circular metal cage of flaking, rusted iron, still locked into position. "Not for babies?" Cal said, horrified. It was like a maternity ward from a nightmare.

"For Coprolite babies," Drake answered as they caught up with Elliott. She pushed through a pair of swinging doors, one of which began to creak loudly from its single hinge. She immediately caught the door, stilling it.

Cal and Drake followed her out into the adjoining corridor, which was lined with warped shelves. On these was a variety of obscure, arcane-looking equipment, corroded to dull browns or bleeding verdigris. Cal's gaze settled on a floor-standing machine with rotted bellows and four glass cylinders protruding from its top. Next to it stood what was evidently a foot pump.

Looking up, he noticed a wooden wall rack housing all manner of lethally pointed instruments, many rusted in place on their rests. Next to this was a chart. Although it was badly affected by mildew, he could make out angular pictures and bizarre writing. He had no idea what it meant and no time to make sense of it.

Tramping through pools of cloudy water, they passed down several more narrow corridors. These were empty except for networks of broad pipes running the lengths of their ceilings, from which old lagging and skeins of cobwebs hung.

And then they turned off into a room. It was L-shaped and stacked floor to ceiling with massive glass cylinders. While he and Drake waited for the signal from Elliott, Cal's attention was caught by the contents of one of the jars.

It contained a man's head in cross section. It had been cut very precisely from the top of the cranium down, so the brain and everything inside the skull was visible. Somehow it didn't look real — it was difficult to imagine it had ever been a person. Cal made the mistake of leaning over to examine the jar from the other side. As the light from his lantern penetrated the yellowy fluid in which the head was immersed, he saw a single staring eye and the growth of dark bristles on the man's bleached-white skin, as if he hadn't shaved that morning.

Cal gasped. It was real, all right.

He turned away, it was so ghoulish. But then his eyes alighted on things just as bad in other jars. Floating, hideously deformed beings, some whole and others partially dissected.

They moved quietly into another area — octagonal and dominated by a single solid porcelain plinth in the very center. Corroded metal bands looped over the plinth, obviously to hold the subject in place.

"Butchers!" Drake muttered as Cal glimpsed scattered tools — scalpels, giant forceps, and other bizarre medical implements — in the shards of broken glass covering the floor.

"Oh, no," Cal blurted, a chill spreading through his gut. Although this room didn't have anything like the ghastly specimens he'd just seen, the most awful feeling hung in the air. It was as though the echoes lingered on, of the acute pain and suffering that had been perpetrated within its walls, from many years ago.

"This place is full of ghosts," Drake said in sympathy.

"Yes," the boy replied, shivering.

"Don't worry, we're not stopping," Drake assured him, and they pushed through into a larger corridor — it resembled the one they'd been in before, with the oddly slanting sides. They trekked down this until Drake brought them to a stop. Cal caught the suggestion of a breeze on his face again — they must have reached the other side of the Bunker. He leaned heavily on his walking stick, grateful to rest his leg, and tried not to think about what he'd just seen.

Drake listened for a while, peering through the lens over his eye, before turning his miner's light on to a low setting. In front of them was a naturally formed area, circular and about a hundred feet in diameter, with an uneven rock floor. Cal counted as many as ten lava tubes leading off from it in different directions.

"Tuck yourself down in one of those, Cal," Drake whispered, pointing randomly at the lava tubes as he wandered out into the open. Elliott had remained behind, crouching low at the exit of the Bunker.

Drake noticed Cal wasn't following him. "Get moving, will you?" The boy groaned and took a few reluctant steps. "Elliott and I are going to split up and look for Will, but you keep watch here. Chances are he could pass this way," Drake explained, adding quietly, "if he hasn't already."

Cal had hardly gone any distance when a hiss came from behind him. He stopped. Elliott was still crouched down, her rifle braced against the side of the opening.

Drake froze but didn't turn to her.

"Come back!" Elliott called to Cal in an urgent whisper, never looking up from her rifle.

"Me?" Cal asked.

"Yes," she confirmed as she panned across the scene through her scope.

Cal crept back to Elliott, who momentarily drew her hand from her rifle to thrust a pair of slim stove guns at him. He took them and backed farther into the corridor behind her, keeping his head down.

Framed by the entrance, he could see Drake standing dead still in the open, his jacket flapping in the slight breeze. He hadn't extinguished the miner's light on his forehead, and its faint beam caught some of the larger boulders and rock outcrops around him, projecting stark shadows against the walls. But nothing stirred.

"Got something?" Drake said quietly to Elliott.

"Yes," she said slowly. "A feeling." Her voice was deadly serious and she looked tense, her cheek pressed hard against the rifle stock. She was rapidly switching her aim from tunnel mouth to tunnel mouth. In a single swift movement she unhooked several more stove guns from her belt and laid them on the ground beside her.

Cal squinted to see what the concern was all about. Nothing was moving in the area beyond Drake. He couldn't understand it.

Seconds ticked by.

It was so silent Cal began to relax. He was certain it was a false alarm, and that Elliott and Drake were both overreacting. His leg ached and he shifted his position a little, thinking how much he wanted to stand up.

Drake twisted around to Elliott.

"I say, I say… the invisible man's at the door," he declaimed loudly, no longer making the least effort to lower his voice.

"Tell him I can't see him right now," was Elliott's response, in nothing more than a whisper. As she rapidly moved her aim to another tunnel mouth, she stopped abruptly, as if lingering on something in it, before she finally swung the rifle back on to Drake.

"Yes," she mumbled with a nod of her head, looking at him through the scope. "I should've been on point. It should have been me out there, not you."

"No, it's better this way," Drake said matter-of-factly. He turned his body away from her.

"Good-bye," she said in a strained voice.

There were a few seconds, as long as centuries, then Drake answered her.

"Bye, Elliott," he said, taking a single step back.

Instant pandemonium.

Limiters spilled out from the lava tubes, their weapons raised. The way they moved, they resembled a swarm of malevolent insects. The shadowy dullness of their dark masks and long dun-colored coats seemed to spread from the dark voids of the tunnel mouths, as if they were an extension of the very shadows themselves. Too numerous to count, they lined up in an unbroken semicircle in front of the lava tubes.

"DROP YOUR WEAPONS!" ordered a piercing, reedy voice.

"SURRENDER YOURSELVES!" came from somewhere else.

As a man they began to advance.

Cal's heart had stopped. Drake remained exactly where he was as the line closed in. Then he took another step back.

Cal heard a single shot and saw the fabric at the tip of Drake's shoulder burst, as if a tiny charge had gone off within it. The impact skewed him around, but he quickly righted himself. Elliott answered with rapid volleys, working the bolt of her rifle at blinding speed. Limiters fell one after another as she picked them off. Every shot found its mark. Some soldiers were flung backward as the powerful rifle bucked in her hands, others dropped where they stood. But still they continued to advance. And they didn't seem to be returning fire.

In one smooth movement, Drake bent down. Cal thought he'd been hit again, but then he saw he had a stove mortar in his hands. He struck its base against a rock and a flame erupted, spearing from its mouth. A swath of Limiters was quite literally obliterated. Where they had stood were just a few patches of smoke — the blast had wiped them from existence. Shouts and cries and screaming came from all over. But more Limiters pressed forward, now returning fire at Elliott.

Cal backed down the corridor, away from the opening, the stove guns clutched tightly in his sweating palm. The sole thought crashing through his brain was that he had to get away. Somehow.

Through the clouds of smoke, he thought he saw Drake totter a few steps and fall. At that very moment Elliott seized him by his arm and whisked him away. Then she was running, running and pulling him behind her, so fast he could barely stay on his feet. They'd covered a couple of hundred yards before she heaved him into one of the side rooms.

"Cover your ears!" she screamed.

A bone-shaking explosion erupted immediately. The blast knocked them both off their feet. A fireball and chunks of flying concrete hurled down the corridor past the doorway. Elliott must have primed some charges as she'd moved off. Before the debris had a chance to settle, she picked herself up and yanked Cal back out into a swirling storm of dust. Little patches of fire sizzled and spluttered in the puddles of water on the ground.

As they dashed through thick eddies of choking smoke, a tall shape loomed before them. Elliott shoved Cal out of the way and dropped to one knee. She worked the bolt. The Limiter was coming straight for her, his gun up. She didn't hesitate. She squeezed the trigger. The muzzle of her rifle spat, the flare illuminating the Limiter's surprised face. The shot hit him square in the neck. His head whipped forward onto his chest as he disappeared from sight, back into the billowing dust. Elliott was already up.

"Go!" she howled at Cal, pointing down the corridor.

Another dark shadow plunged at them. The rifle still at her hip, Elliott pulled the trigger. There was dull click.

"Oh, God!" Cal shouted, seeing the look of deadly intent on the Styx's face turn to one of triumph. The man thought he had them cold.

Cal raised his walking stick pathetically before him as if he was going to use it to beat him off. But in the blink of an eye, Elliott had dropped her rifle and grabbed Cal's hand, thrusting the stove guns he was holding in the direction of the Limiter. She pulled at the trigger mechanisms.

Cal felt the recoil and the intense heat as both guns blasted at point-blank range.

He couldn't look at the result. The man hadn't even screamed. Cal was rooted to the spot, his sweating, shaking hand still clenching the smoking cylinders.

As Elliott yanked something from her rucksack, she yelled at him. But Cal was almost dumb with fear. She slapped him with such force his teeth rattled. It shocked him back into action, just as she slung a charge into the corridor where he thought they were about to go. How were they going to get away if she closed off their escape route?

"Take cover, you idiot!" she bawled, kicking him across the passage. He fell into a doorway on the opposite side.

The explosion was smaller this time, and they immediately sprinted through the section of corridor where it had gone off. Cal tripped on something soft — he knew it was a body — and was grateful the dust shrouded everything from sight as he blundered through.

It was as if time had collapsed to nothing. Seconds did not exist. And Cal's body, not his mind, dictated his actions, making him flee. He had to escape — that was the only thing that mattered. Basic instinct had taken control of him.

Before he knew it, they were back in the operating theater with the gruesome ceramic plinth in the center. Elliott hurled a cylindrical charge behind them. They had only gone halfway through the adjoining L-shaped room when the shock wave from the blast caught up.

Horror of horrors, it shattered many of the specimen jars, cracking them open. Their contents slopped out like dead fish as the air filled with the sharp tang of formaldehyde. He glimpsed the semi-dissected head skedaddling across the floor by his feet, its half-mouth grinning crookedly at him. Its demi-tongue sticking out mischievously. Cal leaped over it as he followed Elliott out of the room, and they tore through the ensuing corridors. They took a succession of left turns and then a right — although the dust and smoke weren't nearly as thick here, Elliott halted abruptly and frantically looked around.

"No, no, no!" she ranted.

"What?" he puffed, hanging on to her.

"NO! Wrong way! Back… go to go back! "

They hurriedly retraced their way around several corners, then Elliott paused to glance down a side corridor. Cal could see the anxiety in her eyes.

"It has to be that way," she muttered uncertainly. "God, I hope it—"

"Are you sure?" he interrupted urgently. "I don't recognize…"

She pushed open a door. He was following so closely behind that as she stopped he crashed into her.

Cal blinked and shielded his face. They were bathed in light.

They found themselves in a big white room.

It was startling.

There was absolute calm.

It was completely at odds with everything else Cal had seen in the Bunker: perfectly clean, with a pristine white-tiled floor and newly whitewashed ceiling, down the middle of which a long line of luminescent orbs were suspended.

Along both sides of the room were polished iron doors; Elliott had already gone up to the nearest of these and was peering through the glass inspection window set into it. Then she moved to the next one. The doors all had large check marks daubed on them in black paint, applied so thickly it had run over the buffed metal.

"I can see bodies," she said. "So this is the quarantine area."

It was more than just bodies. As Cal went to see for himself, there were two — in some cells three — corpses stretched out on the floor. It was obvious they'd been dead for some time, as they'd already begun to decay. A clear, gelatinous fluid, flecked with yellow and red, had leaked from them and pooled on the stark white tiles.

"Some of them look like Colonists," Cal said, noticing what they were wearing.

"And some were renegades," Elliott said in a strained voice.

"Who did this? What killed them?" Cal asked.

"Styx," she replied.

The mention of that name instantly brought him back to the seriousness of their situation, and he began to panic.

"We don't have time for this!" he shouted, trying to steer her back toward the door.

"No, wait," she said. She was frowning at him but not pushing him away.

"We can't mess around here! They'll be following…" he gasped.

"No, this is important. These cells have been sealed!" Elliott said, examining the edges of the door. Like all the others, it had thick new welds on all four sides, and no handle to open it. "Can't you see what this is, Cal? It's the Styx testing area we heard about — they've been trying out some sort of bio-weapon here!"

Cal was right behind Elliott as she reached the next cell, and he noticed its door didn't have a mark painted on it. As she looked in, a face jumped up at the window. The eyes were bloodshot and swollen. It was a man — in a state of extreme panic. Angry red boils covered every inch of his skin and his cheeks were hollow, his face cadaverously thin. He was shouting something, but they couldn't hear so much as a whisper through the glass.

He began to beat weakly on the window with both fists, but still there was no noise. He stopped, peering at them with his demented, darting eyes.

"I know him," Elliott said hoarsely. "He's one of us."

He was mouthing something, trying to communicate with her by emphasizing the words with his lips.

It was meaningless to her.

"Elliott!" Cal begged. "We have to leave!"

She ran her fingers over a length of the weld that stretched unbroken around the edge of the door in a thick slug, wondering if she could somehow blow it open. But she knew they didn't have time to try. All she could do was give the man a helpless shrug.

"Let's go," Cal shouted, then screamed, "now!"

"OK," she agreed, swiveling on her heels to run back to the door through which they'd entered.

They were immediately plunged back into the darkened world of the Bunker, the dust-laden air swirling around them. As their eyes readjusted from the clinical brightness of the strange room, they continued down the corridor in the direction she'd originally been taking them.

"Keep close," Elliott whispered as they crept along.

After a short distance, she came to a halt.

"Come on, come on! Which way?" Cal heard her mutter urgently to herself. "Has to be down here," she decided.

Several corridors later, they entered a small hallway from which two doorways led off. She went from one to the other, then paused between the two, shutting her eyes.

By this point, Cal had lost all faith in her ability to get them to safety. But before he could express his doubt, there was a clanging from nearby. A door was being battered down — the Limiters were closing in.

Elliott's eyes flicked open.

"Got it!" she shouted, choosing which doorway to take. We're in the home stretch now!"

At the end of a sequence of lefts and rights, they were slipping and sliding down the stairs into the submerged basement again. This time Cal had absolutely no qualms about lowering himself into the stagnant water and was clambering up the stairs on the other side in seconds flat. Elliott had held back to set a sizable charge on the opposite stairway just above the waterline. Once she'd done this, she caught up with him, and they were just passing under the sections of collapsed concrete as the charge went off.

The whole place shook and torrents of silt fell over them. A deep rumbling turned into an ominous grinding noise: Everything seemed to be shifting. Huge slabs of concrete crashed down, sending water and dust in all directions, and sealing the way behind.

"That was a close one," he heard Elliott pant as they thundered through the linoleum-floored room and climbed into the duct, scrabbling their way down it.

Emerging from the duct, Cal dropped onto the floor of the Great Plain again with a cry of pure relief. Elliott helped him to his feet and right away began retracing their steps along the wall. They raced on until they were swinging around the corner into a lava tube, away from the plain. And they didn't stop running.

Will didn't know how long he'd been asleep when he was rudely woken by urgent shouting. His head hurt like crazy, a vicious throb stretching across his temples.

"GET UP!"

"Hey…!" Will spluttered. "Who…?"

He blinked groggily. Elliott and Cal were standing over him.

"Get up!" Elliott ordered harshly, then kicked him.

Will tried, but then collapsed back. He was shaky and confused, finding it impossible to order his floundering thoughts. He saw her face. Although it was black with filth, he could see she wasn't the remotest bit pleased to see him again. And here he'd thought that she and Drake would be congratulating him for keeping on, for making it against all odds!

Perhaps he'd totally misjudged how they would react, and they were furious with him for becoming separated from the group. Perhaps he'd broken another of their inscrutable rules. Rubbing the salt crystals from his red-rimmed eyes, he studied Elliott's face again. It was set in the grimmest of expressions.

"I… I didn't… how long have…?" he slurred, noting that Cal's expression was similarly grim, and that both he and Elliott were dripping wet and smelled of chemicals.

Chester had begun gathering the food containers together into his backpack, fumbling in his haste.

"They got him," Cal said, his chest heaving as he lashed his stick demonstratively through the air. "The Limiters got Drake!"

Chester stopped what he was doing. Will shook his head disbelievingly, and then looked to Elliott for confirmation. He didn't need to see the grazes on the side of her face, or the blood welling from a deep gouge on her temple, to know that his brother was telling the truth. The sight of her narrowed, angry eyes was enough.

"But… how…? Will gasped.

She merely turned and marched off in the direction of the subterranean sea Will had spent so long beside.