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."