It had been a wasted journey; there was no way out.
The way back was easier and could be taken confidently; he went along fast. By the time he reached Flame again he was soaked through with sweat and was close to exhaustion.
Later he tried to sleep, with Flame in his arms. He couldn’t tell whether she was sleeping herself or whether she had fallen into a coma from sheer lack of air; even in this side tunnel conditions were appalling. His imagination rioted now, gave him nightmare visions of a horrible death, no less alarming visions of what was about to happen in the world outside, the world that in a sense would soon be as much a helpless prisoner as he. Once again he saw London in the grip of the mobs, saw New York reeling under the hammer-blows of swift and lethal change: revolutionary gangs in armed and bloody charge of the two most important commercial centres of the Western World, the cities which in the world’s eyes represented the whole of the West. The global bloodshed that was soon to follow… the world uprisings of those numerically superior Black, Yellow and Brown populations, the swamping of the White pockets, the murder and the looting and the rape, the hideous rule of Mob Law that would prevail until the Chinese hordes swept in and imposed the mailed fist of World Communism upon them all, irrespective then of their colour.
What could stop the Red outflow from China now? Even supposing Peking’s plans could be exposed, such a course might only precipitate the putting of those plans into effect. Tucker would certainly have taken into account the possible leakage factor and would have alternative plans ready. Even more so would Red China. Shaw believed that the one possible thing to do would be to discredit Tucker and his bosses publicly — as publicly as possible. And there were only three days left.…
Shaw’s mind, lethargic, half asleep now, half drugged by the lack of oxygen, went round in useless circles. Very likely he wouldn’t be caring much longer. Although he refused to give up hope, he knew with the logical part of his brain that neither he nor Flame could last very many more hours in this atmosphere.
He had dropped into a welcome period of deep sleep when he was brought suddenly wide awake by a fresh outburst of rumblings far below, followed by more earth tremors. Something down there, fractionally closer to the centre of the earth, had been quiescent after the first shocks caused by Lee’s charges, but now that something was on the move again, like the stomach of some ancient legendary giant turning over in his sleep, and this time more violently than before.
Sweat ran in rivers down Shaw’s face.
He felt Flame stirring in his arms, but still she remained silent and passive. A moment later there was an exceptionally heavy rumble and then the world, their cramped subterranean world, revolved about them. One moment Shaw was sitting holding Flame close, the next the roof of the side tunnel was pressing into his body, though quite gently, as if he had been wafted up on some cushioning current and lightly held against the rock. Then everything lurched sideways and he found himself sliding down one of the walls to be deposited like a sack of potatoes at the bottom once again, still clutching Flame. Now the whole place was heaving up and down, up and down… fragments of rock flew — something gashed his head, another jag ploughed a furrow along his thigh. He felt blood on Flame’s legs and arms. All the while his ears were filled with the rumblings, the terrible sounds of subterranean thunder. There was no doubt about it now; they were imprisoned in the tremors of an earthquake — not a big one, perhaps, not a world-shaker… but big enough, in their current situation, to take them and shake them and then flatten them like ants crushed beneath the heel of a jackboot.
This, then, was the end. It must be, it had to be. There was nothing they could do to help themselves. They were fast in the grip of one of Earth’s most potent natural forces and it must be merely a matter of time before the walls of their tomb closed in upon them. Shaw tried to shut his mind to what would happen to the millions of tons of earth and rock that would squeeze the tunnel flat, squeeze skin and bone to a wafer thinness to be embedded for all time in the Kansas hillside’s womb.
The tremors and the rumblings went on, as it seemed, for hour after hour after hour. And then, as though some miracle had occurred, there was a pause, a stillness, after which the tremors, though resumed, grew less frequent and gradually more distant.
Then they ceased altogether.
Shaw waited for the next lot to start up, the third wave that would certainly finish them off. His dazed mind failed at first to comprehend the fact that his body was growing cooler and when he did realize it he didn’t tick over right away. It wasn’t until his head began to clear and he found he was suddenly breathing more easily that it dawned on him what was happening.
Air — good, clean fresh air from the outer world — was blowing in on him.
Chapter Eighteen
“Something’s opened up somewhere, Flame!” He slapped her cheeks. “There’s air coming in!”
Already she was stirring. The movement of air was such now that it could almost be called a draught, and the temperature had dropped several degrees. The inflow had brought the girl round, and only just in time. Shaw bent close and her face brushed against his; again he felt tears. He said urgently, “Take a grip, Flame. I’m going to leave you again and look for the source of this air.”
She made no protest this time and he scrambled to his feet. The floor had taken on different contours now; there were ridges, sharp variations in level that hadn’t been there before. The rock was cracked and broken. Shaw picked his way onward with great care, making for the air inflow, feeling ahead for his footholds as he had done when investigating the long tunnel earlier. Feeling around the walls, which still seemed solid, he soon found the tunnel intersection. As on his last journey to the blocked section, he groped his way blind and made contact — sooner this time than before — with the shifting debris underfoot. The earth tremors, it seemed, had brought down more rubble to seal them off even more surely. Yet, curiously enough, the current of fresh air was stronger here and, by contrast with the foul atmosphere they had been enduring, was sweet and clean.
He soon discovered why.
The current was coming at him from dead ahead, straight along the tunnel; and a few moments later, straining his eyes through the dark, he saw a very faintly lighter patch, an oblong patch of what seemed to be a twilit sky, away ahead. He wormed his way onward, flat on his stomach as the rise of the rubble brought him closer to the broken tunnel roof. There was not much clearance but thus far anyway there was just enough; at any rate there was now a clear passage, however narrow it might prove, to the entrance.
Pulling himself backwards, he went for Flame.
He said confidently, “I’m quite sure we’ll be able to do it. What’s happened is this: the earth tremors and the shake-up in general have acted like a sort of leveller. You know if you heap some flour, say, in a baking tin, and then shake the tin from side to side, it levels off the flour, right? Well — the tremors have done that with the rubble left by the explosions. They’ve shaken it down and spread it out flatter, shifted it farther along the tunnel either end. It’s left room for us to crawl out. We’ll be outside in under an hour with any luck, and the sooner we start the better, Flame — and we’ll do that just as soon as I’ve tried that telephone to see if the man’s still on watch.”