Close, so close—but not enough! Probably no more than the thickness of a brick separated them. It might as well have been the thickness of the ziggurat Etemenanki.
He put his mouth to the hole and whispered into it. No response. He tried again, this time calling out as loudly as he dared, not knowing how sharp the eunuch guardian’s ears were. He waited. Presently came a sound that might have been a reply—possibly a muffled and distorted human voice.
Voice communication wouldn’t work.
“Aten,” he prayed, “show me how to complete the tunnel, so that I may transfer my tablet.”
In the dark he stumbled over the piled excess bricks, but Aten did not reply. Dejected and utterly exhausted, Enkidu lay down on the now-gritty floor and slept.
NK-2 had seldom faced such frustration. He was sorely tempted to extend and touch the person in the next cell—but did not dare, because that might be the very thing the enemy wanted. If the enemy pounced while he was vulnerable he could certainly amputate NK-2’s penumbra and grievously wound his umbra as well. But if it were not a trap, and if that prisoner were a normal, unoccupied human animal—then NK-2 was passing up what might be a promising alternate host. A wrong decision either way could be fatal.
Meanwhile, his own host was being extremely obtuse about the hints presented. He had almost missed the stylus, and had missed the potentialities of the piled bricks. But if NK-2 dissipated his strength by trying to control his host more specifically, he would lack the resources to change hosts later.
All he could do was remain withdrawn, providing minimal hints, and waiting for some advantageous development. He almost felt like praying to “Aten” himself!
Tapping woke him in the morning. The other man was warning him. Dishon was coming—and the bricks were still stacked in plain sight! Enkidu scrambled to his feet, grasped a brick in each hand, and began shoving them into the hole. In his haste he jammed some in cornerwise, so that not all of them would fit. Why had he taken out so many!
Dishon’s solid feet were tramping toward the door. Enkidu put his foot against the outermost brick and shoved. It gave slightly. He shoved again, desperation giving him strength. The column of bricks slid back, into the wall—making room for the front layer.
Enkidu swiftly fitted the baked front bricks into their slots—and discovered that one was his tablet-brick. He would shatter his carefully mudded surface, message and all, if he tried to jam it into its original place.
The feet stopped outside. The bars lifted. Dishon was coming in!
Enkidu stood up, trying to kick the damp matting of the floor over to conceal the vacant spot. It refused to kick. The gate creaked open.
Enkidu backed against the wall, holding the tablet behind him as the lamplight spilled in, trying to cover the hole with his heel though it was far too large for that. The light was incredibly bright, illuminating every detail of his cell. Quickly he squatted to cover the gap with his body. He was almost sitting on the tablet now, and hoped the cold sweat of his body was not smearing its surface.
Dishon’s bulk was outlined in the bright flicker. “You have been restless, pretender. There have been noises!”
“I’ve been trying to clean up this filthy cell,” Enkidu said quickly, then cursed himself for the half-truth. Did his principles vanish so readily under pressure?
Could he strike the eunuch over the head with the brick and make his escape? No. Too risky. And he had, as yet, no cause to injure the big slave—assuming he could.
“Recant!” Dishon repeated. “You will then be freed.”
Enkidu tried to see him better. Was this man actually trying to help him? He sounded sincere. To him, no doubt, it was a simple matter: if the worship of one god offended someone, change to another that offended no one—or to no god. Avoid discomfort and stinking cells.
“I’ll think about it,” Enkidu said. His heel ground sweatily against the wall and the tablet brick almost slipped from his grasp. Had he exposed the gap?
To his immense relief Dishon withdrew, leaving the customary victual and removing the empty jar. It had been a nasty moment.
The tapping signaled all-clear. Enkidu went to his perilous aperture and once more removed the bricks. He had miscalculated, but was still fortunate that he had been able to cram all the rest in. If there had not been that resiliency—Resiliency. Sand?
Unlikely. No, the give must have been a result of the excavation from the far side. The small remaining barrier had given way under the pressure of the lined bricks. The sand between tunnels had been shoved out, displaced by a brick. The other prisoner would have more cleaning out to do.
Enkidu looked at his tablet-brick and thought of the column effect. Push on the rear brick hard enough and the front brick would advance. It had to. It might be possible to ram a brick right through to the other side, if the column were long enough.
Suppose the tablet were the leading brick?
Feverish now, Enkidu hauled out bricks, to empty the tunnel. But he was disappointed. No bricks had been jammed into the sand; the end brick had merely straightened out so that it was even instead of cornerwise, and another had slid in above it. A neat packing job, the hard way.
Yet the column effect should still hold. Perhaps the idea was more important than the fact. It was worth trying.
He carefully inserted the hardened tablet, which was mercifully free of moisture, and lined another brick behind it. The third brick projected from the wall somewhat.
He tapped to indicate that something special was happening, then pushed. The bricks jostled together but refused to slide as a unit. More power was needed. He braced a foot against the projecting brick and shoved. Still no result. Was he too weak, after all?
“Aten, grant me strength!” he prayed, then placed his heel against the brick again, set himself, and made as though to leap away from the wall. He did not stint.
His body flung back. He slid ridiculously in the slop and crashed into the far wall. But the brick had not budged. He simply did not have the weight to push the column.
Had it come at last to defeat? He saw that no amount of strength would avail him unless he had something to brace against—and there was nothing. If he were to use the bricks, lining them across the cell to support his feet while he pushed with his hands, he would have none left to shove through the wall, unless he excavated a much greater number—but then the wall itself might well collapse, and bring Dishon galloping. And it would take too much time. He needed something now.
He removed the bricks and explored the dark recesses with his reaching fingertips. Had there been any movement at all? He detected none; the rear of the hole was still within reach. Yet there was something—a vertical crack, a flaw in the packed sand. It must have been there before, but he had been too busy to notice it. He traced it from the bottom to the top of his excavation, then felt for other cracks. They were there—so narrow that his finger could barely detect them, but evidently projecting deeply into the wall’s interior. He stopped and thought about it.
How could there be cracks in a solid sand wall? This was no random mudbed!
But perhaps it was! Water could have seeped into the walls during one of the infrequent rains, helping the dirt to pack and jell. Then months of hot sun—and the water vanished in its mysterious fashion and left deep cracks…
Probably such flaws existed throughout the walls. Vertical, of course, because the flat cracks would immediately fill in from above. Too bad, because he needed to push flat bricks through.