Down to a Sunless Sea

15 On the Stair

At first, the old scientist could not tell whether the voices came from above him, or from below, for the echoes that bounced from wall to wall not only rendered the voices incomprehensible, but made their source unguessable.

With his back against the wall of the platform, and one of Brant’s power guns in his fist, Will Harbin waited with a pounding heart to see what was going to happen.

Before long, he relaxed with a deep, heartfelt sigh. For the voices, he now discerned, came from above, and one of them was calling “Doc! Doc?” hoarsely.

“I’m down here, Jim,” he shouted back. “Just keep coming.”

In time they hobbled down to where he sat resting, Brant in the lead, helping a pale and staggering Zuarra, with the villainous Agila in the rear, helping along little Suoli. If one of his hands was furtively squeezing her plump breasts, she seemed too weary to object to the surreptitious caress.

They joined him on the platform, glad of another chance to rest their aching muscles. Looking his friends over, Will Harbin observed that they had endured the same changes in temperature and humidity that he had noticed, for all had stripped—Brant to ragged briefs, Agila to his loincloth, and the women had removed everything. All three were slick with oily sweat, but the natives seemed to have suffered more than had Brant.

This made sense to the scientist. After all, both he and Brant had been born and raised on Earth and were accustomed to a denser, warmer, damper, more oxygen-rich atmosphere than were the Martians. The two Earthsiders had undergone certain series of medical treatments, including surgical implants, which adjusted their lungs to the thinner, colder air and their metabolism to conditions on the surface of Mars. Akin to thermostats, these devices were self-regulating, and had now, probably, shut down, since the air was warm | and moist and rich in oxygen.

But the natives were thoroughly unaccustomed to these conditions, and were suffering. Stubborn children of a hardy race, they would erelong become acclimated, but it would take some time, he knew.

Resting on the platform, Harbin and Brant compared notes.

“What happened up above?” inquired Harbin. “Did Tuan and his band turn up?”

“They did that,” Brant grunted ruefully. “And we had to back off, they had so much firepower we couldn’t even get near enough to the mouth of the cave to return their fire.”

“So—what happened?”

“Since there wasn’t any cover in the cave, we came out the back door and down the stair, looking for you.”

“Do you think the outlaws will follow?” asked Harbin.

Brant shrugged. “Hard to say … maybe they’re just superstitious enough to shy away from this: you know how they fear and venerate the Ancients and their remains and ruins. Anyway, Agila and I got the metal door back in place and fused it with the lasers. That’s better than nothing.”

Will harbin nodded soberly. It wasn’t much to pin their hopes on, but Brant was right: it was better than nothing.

Just barely.

Brant was unhappy at having to turn and run for it, but there hadn’t been any other viable choice. It also griped him that they had be^p forced to abandon the lopers, most of the > gear, even the tents. They had only brought along the food stores, the weapons, and garments. And now, in this tepid, moist air, even the clothing could have been left behind, except that who could have imagined they’d find heat and moisture down here, so far below the surface?

The one thing Will Harbin had neglected to bring along with him on his descent was a supply of food, so once they were rested and somewhat refreshed, they dug into the chow. It was rude fare, cold meat and the like, which couldn’t even be heated, but when you’re tired and hungry, even cold meat tastes delicious.

Munching sliced meat, Brant remembered one thing he had forgotten to mention.

“One thing may help slow ‘em down a little,” he grunted. “I left the gold dish behind, right in front of the door we sealed up behind us. If that’s all they really want, it might stop ‘em. Anyway, it seemed like a good idea at the time!”

“That’s good thinking, Jim. The writing on the door might scare them off, too. They won’t know what it means, probably, unless they’ve got a renegade priest with them, but it should make them a bit more wary and cautious.”

Brant grinned. “Yeah, they can guess it means more ‘keep off the grass,’ ” he said jokingly.

“More along the line of ‘beware of the dragon,’ I’d say,” Harbin quipped. They chuckled. It felt good to laugh again. Somehow, both men felt the worst part of this was over.

They couldn’t have been more wrong, of course.

They continued the descent again, after resting. After all, there was nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, and they were all consumed by curiosity to find out what lay at the bottom of the interminable stair, which would have to explain why it had been built so many ages ago, and at such a price in human toil.

The farther down they went, the warmer grew the air, ever richer in oxygen. Since they were climbing down at what might well be described at little better than a snail’s pace, the slowness of their descent gave the three natives a chance to adapt to these amazing new conditions, somewhat in the manner of a deep-sea diver back on Earth who avoids the bends by coming up to the surface very slowly.

Zuarra and Agila were the first to recover, for they were strong and hardened, both of them, while poor little Suoli lacked those qualities, as well as courage and stamina. Brant noticed they were constantly together, Agila and Suoli, snuggling together when it was time to sleep, and whispering in each other’s ear, which made Suoli giggle like a schoolgirl.

Zuarra girmly ignored this, and clung to the side of Brant. He figured that it would not be long before Agila and Suoli became lovers, if they were not at that stage already, and readied himself for trouble.

Very often Brant helped Zuarra down with an arm around her waist, and more than once he found Zuarra gazing at him with a strange, indefinable expression in her lovely emerald eyes. When discovered looking at him, the tall woman would glance away quickly, and very often she would blush and even bite her lip.

When they rested at each platform, she sat very near to him and often, seemingly by accident, her naked knee or bare thigh would be pressed against his. She seemed unaware of this bodily contact, but Brant had a feeling she was quite aware of it and was doing it deliberately: what he didn’t know was her reason.

Was it to demonstrate her indifference to Suoli’s cuddling and giggling with Agila, or, perhaps, an attempt to make her former “sister” jealous by seeming to be infatuated with the big Earthsider?

He shrugged, and put the question out of his mind. Sooner or later it would probably come out, and, anyway, there was no trying to understand women. He had never had much luck figuring out the women of his own kind back home on Earth, so why should he even try understanding the moods and motives of a foreign woman on a distant planet?

As if the warmth and moisture were not strange enough, before very long a new enigma presented itself.

Light shone from below.

It was a dim glow, to be sure, but it was light: very welcome in the pitch-darkness of the stair, for even despite the light shed by their lamp, the gloom was all about, and hovered near, and depressed their spirits.

It was not the ruddy light you could expect to be shed by volcanic fires or pools of molten lava, either, but something quite different—a wan, pearly luminance such as none of them had ever seen before, softer than the cold moonlight of the distant Earth, and dimmer than the radiance of day.

They sensed that they were quite close to the bottom of the stair by now, for not only was the strange light visible, but the air was fresher and was quickening with a gentle, welcome breeze.

Weary to the point of exhaustion, they rested again, and fed on the last scraps, and fell asleep. All but Will Harbin. Although he was as weary as any of them, doubtless, his scientific curiosity had roused itself again. He was determined that the discovery would be his alone, and that he would be the first to find whatever it was had lain hidden here for ages, buried in the bowels of the ancient planet. Careful not to awaken his companions, Doc rose and stole limping down the stair and into the growing light.

A time later, Brant roused himself with a grunt and noticed that the old scientist was missing.

“Crazy fool, sneaking off alone, when none of us knows what danger we may find at the bottom!” he growled, cursing and waking up Agila and the women.

They went down the stair, and, quite suddenly; they came to the bottom of k. The passage turned at a sharp angle and then opened into a doorway, on whose broad stoop Will Harbin was sitting, staring about with wonder in his face.

The four stopped abruptly as if petrified in their tracks. Their eyes widened incredulously, jaws dropped open, and Zuarra clutched at Brant’s arm, as they stared upon a secret locked away from the world for unknown ages… .

Far above where they stood, Tuan also stood staring. He was staring at the metal door which shielded the secret stair from the knowledge of men.

“The thief could only have gone this way, O Tuan, for there is no other path to follow. He and his accomplices, the hated f’yagha, will be crouching behind that door, besoiling themselves with fear!”

“Mayhap,” growled Tuan. He and his warriors had lingered for what must have been hours, cautiously watching for any sign of activity within the cave, before venturing therein, only to find it devoid of any living thing save for the lopers, hissing with terror, who had retreated from their fire to the farthest reaches of the cave.

It was not that he was not brave, this Tuan, but the cave—dark and narrow—made a perfect trap, should any of the Hated Ones remain alive. And prudence—caution—was a quality which a chieftain learned to develop early on in his career or that career seldom lasted very long. And you do not go charging by ones and twos into the very teeth of the enemy, presenting a tempting target as you do so, silhouetted against the day.

“Mayhap,” he repeated thoughtfully. Tuan, once a princeling of the Dragon Moon nation, was a tall, lithe, broad-shouldered man, lean and tough and sinewy, with cold green eyes and a hard mouth.

“There is some writing there, O Tuan!” muttered another, pointing. It was in the Old Speech, and none of them could read it. But they knew in their hearts that it was a warning of some kind.

“What shall we do, my chief?” asked another, a one-eyed rogue called Asouk. “We have the sacred dish, safely returned to us. …”

“We shall see what lies beyond the door,” growled Tuan. “Break it down, O Naruth,” he said, speaking to the burliest of his outlaws. “Use the power guns if it be sealed or barred from behind.”

They broke through the door erelong and found the hidden stair. Muttering and signing themselves superstitiously, they peered down the winding stair into the ultimate blackness of the pit.

“What now, O Kiridh?” demanded Tuan. “The dogs are not cowering and wetting themselves in terror, as you said.”

The man called Kiridh blinked stolidly in the face of this small rebuke.

“That is for my chief to say,” he muttered. Scratching his jaw with one thumbnail, Tuan considered. Then:

“We descend the stair,” he grunted.