Flinx in Flux (17 page)

He questioned Clarity without much hope of learning anything useful. She was a gengineer, not a quartermaster. They started inspecting individual crates, reading the stamped labels while wishing for a code scanner.

They found plenty of concentrates and stuffed their pockets. Near the back of the big chamber they encountered several small side caves that had been sealed off to prevent unauthorized access. A number of the containers behind the restrictive barriers were marked as radioactive. Most were simply expensive. The barriers protecting them were not complex. They were designed to keep out only casual thieves. None had been erected with foiling professionals in mind.

Flinx fumbled for the tools he had used to such good effect on Alaspin. Ironic how circumstances keep forcing me out of retirement, he thought.

Clarity watched him defeat the locks and pop the gate in less than a minute. “You must have been very good at your trade when you were working at it.”

“I was. Then I started growing, so I gave it up permanently. Tough for a tall thief to remain inconspicuous.” He dragged the gate aside.

The high-priced electronics and scientific instruments did not interest him. What he wanted was the compact, high-intensity chemtubes that illuminated the storage cave itself. Each was half a meter long. It was not hard to pry a couple of the brightly glowing cylinders from their mountings. He passed one to Clarity and kept the other for himself.

He tried to choose the brightest pair. They were designed to operate for a long time without attention or maintenance and required no batteries, no power packs, no charged chips. As long as the tube’s integrity remained inviolate, they should have illumination for as long as they were likely to need it.

“What about water?” He felt better now that they had food and light. “It’s liable to be a while before the situation here is resolved.”

“You don’t need to carry water on Longtunnel. The caverns are awash in it. Keep in mind that there are whole rivers down here.” She eyed him uncertainly. “What are you planning, Flinx?”

“We’re going to wait. We’ll find a deep, dark, quiet spot where nobody’s shooting at anybody else and wait. In a couple of days we’ll come back and see what’s going on. If the port is still holding out, we’ll try to work our way back there. After the initial fighting comes the negotiating. Maybe the destruction of Coldstripe’s facilities will satisfy them. Maybe they’ll bargain for safe, unopposed passage offplanet and leave. Maybe.

“If they manage to take over the entire port, we’ll have to find some way to make it to my shuttle.” He was staring past her. “Do you know your way around the unoccupied caverns?”

“No. There was never any reason to go any farther than the farthest lab. Spelunking was a hobby for some of my friends but never for me.”

“Damn. Well, never mind. We’ll manage.”

They reentered the main warehousing section, keeping low and staying behind concealing crates and packages as she led him toward the back of the chamber. Eventually they halted in front of a spray-wall. It was a theoretical partition more than a realistic one, cardboard thin: a bright blue boundary.

He felt it with his fingers. It was flexible to the touch. “What’s back here?” Without waiting for a reply he flicked the wafer-thin latch holding a spray-door shut. It opened inward, and he shoved the tube he was carrying into the darkness beyond. There was no other light on the far side of the partition, no adamantine overheads or biotubes lining the floor. The ground was rough and pebbly.

“Nothing,” she told him. “Just empty cavern. More Longtunnel.”

“How common are those dangerous lifeforms you mentioned? Are they all as harmless as the photomorph?”

“You wouldn’t think a photomorph was harmless if it got hold of you. It’s a good thing they’re slow.” She was trying to see past him. “Not much of anything comes this close to the installation. Too much light and noise.”

“That’s what we want.” There was satisfaction in his voice. “Dark and empty.” He stepped through the portal. “Come on, what are you waiting for?” He tried to see over the shelves and cylinders that filled the warehousing cavern. None of the invaders had penetrated this far, but eventually they would start hunting for possible pockets of resistance. Depending on what they had brought down with them, they might need to begin scavenging for supplies. The warehouse would be a logical place to start. For any of several reasons they might show up at any moment, and he didn’t want to be around when they did.

The same thoughts must have occurred to Clarity, but she continued to hang back. “I can’t,” she said finally.

“Can’t? What do you mean, you can’t? Are you afraid of dangerous animals?”

“No, it’s not that.” Her voice had grown very small. “It’s just that I—Flinx, I’m afraid of the dark.”

He gaped at her. “And you came to work in a place like Longtunnel?”

“There’s no permanent dark here.” She spoke defiantly. “The biotubes burn around the clock, and some part of the installation is always on work shift. The only time it’s dark is when you turn out the lights in your living quarters. It’s not the same kind of dark as that.” She nodded toward the emptiness that swallowed the light beyond Flinx’s tube.

“There’s all kinds of things down there, Flinx. For every one we’ve found there must be a hundred more we know nothing about.”

“Then it’s a choice, isn’t it? What you don’t know about down there and what you do know about out that way.” He gestured back the way they had come with the brightly glowing tube.

As she stood hesitating, someone screamed far up a branching corridor. It was a long, drawn-out scream, high-pitched but not necessarily female. Not the sort of scream a person would make if he had just been hit by a weapon. It decided her.

“I’m coming—but will you do one thing for me?”

“What’s that?”

“Would you hold my hand?”

He glanced at her extended right hand and tried to hide his puzzlement. Clarity was a mature, intelligent human being. A scientist, for Deity’s sake! The simple absence of light was not something to fear. It did not threaten, it was not a physical presence, it could not hurt you in and of itself. Yet otherwise-rational people were easily terrified of it. He could feel the fear within her and knew it was for real.

Now was not the time or the place to debate unreasonable psychological deficiencies. He just took her hand and gently brought her through the portal, carefully closing the millimeter-thick door behind them. The two tubes enveloped them in a circle of light half a dozen meters in diameter, keeping the blackness at a comfortable distance. He did not feel it pressing in on him at all. It simply was.

The first thing was to move deep enough into the next cavern so that anyone peering through the door they had used would not be able to detect their lights. He doubted anyone would bother to check, since the logical thing for anyone fleeing to do would be to try to sneak out to the safety of the port. But he was not taking any chances.

The floor was relatively smooth except for pebbles and gravel. In places, water had worn a flat but slick path. They crossed a running stream, and Flinx paused for a sip of pure, cold cave water. As he bent toward the rivulet, a host of tiny white legless creatures sped in all directions, fleeing his light.

At the
scritch-scritch
sound of something much larger hurrying away into the darkness he brought his light around fast. There was nothing to be seen, not a suggestion of movement between the glistening stalagmites, but he could feel the life all around, keeping to the hidden places.

As they traveled farther and deeper, he could see pinpoints of light flashing beyond the range of the tubes. Photomorphs perhaps, or some other extraordinary kind of bioluminescent creature, possibly new to science. Whatever they were, their lights winked out when the brighter illumination of the tubes came near them. When they had hiked past, he turned and looked back to see the pinpoints flashing brightly again.

The comparatively easy footing enabled them to cover a lot of ground in a short time. For a while they were able to hear voices and explosions. These faded with distance.

The fanatics must have already reached the warehouse, he surmised. He and Clarity had left just in time. He tried to put himself in the attackers’ position. If they were smart, they would put a permanent guard or two on station at the warehouse cavern’s entrance, but he did not know how much credit to give them. Certainly they were as fanatical as Clarity had described them. That they had gone so far as to openly assault a legitimate commercial enterprise, not to mention an entire Commonwealth outpost, was proof enough of their devotion to their cause and their willingness to risk everything in its service. But that was no indication they would act logically in all things.

They had come far enough from the installation to relax in safety, but he kept going, wanting to be certain. The next clear, running stream, he promised himself, and they would set up a camp to wait out the assault. By then it might all be over, the invaders gone, the port authorities recovering. It would behoove the attackers to act rapidly on the outside chance a peaceforcer might be in the area. But without a deepspace communications beam, he reminded himself, a warship would have to be extremely close indeed to pick up a distress signal.

He checked his chronometer. Technically it was nighttime, but within the caverns that was the only time it ever was. Though he had developed the ability to catnap whenever necessary, he did not think Clarity shared that talent. So for her sake they would try to keep to a normal twenty-four-hour day.

It would have been nice to have had enough time to gather proper equipment: ropes, hard hats, long-range penetrating-beam lamps, maybe even a tent and sleeping bags. Not that he was complaining. They were lucky to have escaped with food and lights. While not frightened of the darkness, he had no desire to go stumbling blindly about in it. It would be easy to become disoriented, lose one’s way, and wander the endless caverns until food or hope ran out.

“We’ll stay here a few days,” he murmured, reasoning aloud. “If they haven’t left and it looks like they’re settling in for a while, provided the port is still holding out against them, then I’ll try something else. I know you’re not enjoying this.”

“You’re so perceptive,” she said, but her heart was not in the sarcasm. “What could you try?”

“After things calm down, I’ll sneak back with Pip. They’ll have made a thorough search of the installation and won’t be expecting any surprises. If I can locate a couple of them who are approximately our size, I’ll try to put them down quietly. Those chameleon suits they’re wearing have hoods. There’s a chance we could pass ourselves off as part of their army and make a break for the port. I don’t want to try it unless I have to. I’d rather take it easy here and wait for them to leave. Except you’re not taking it easy.”

“No, I’m not. Do you really think they’ll negotiate and leave?”

“Depends on what their ultimate aims are. If it was just to destroy Coldstripe, then they’ve done that. If they’re planning to settle in for a long stay . . .”

“Our food will run out.” Her eyes were moving constantly, searching, as though she expected a patch of darkness to suddenly become animate and jump down on her. The determined, self-confident researcher was gradually giving way to a frightened little girl. He could see she would not last a week in the caverns. All because of nothing more than the potential absence of light.

“You shouldn’t be afraid.”

“I know that!” she shot back angrily. “It’s stupid and childish and unreasonable to be afraid of the dark. I’m quite aware of that. I know the medical terms and I know the causes, and it doesn’t matter a goddamn because if you weren’t here I think I’d go catatonic. Or panic and run around until I ran into something. Or until something ran into me.”

“Well, I am here.” He spoke soothingly. “So take it easy. We’ll rest, have something to eat, maybe get some sleep. If you’re that afraid, then I’ll reconnoiter the port tomorrow.”

“All my friends.” She was murmuring to herself now. “Maxim and Ling and Shorona and Amee . . .”

“We saw only a couple of bodies, and we aren’t sure anyone’s dead. Except the fanatic Pip put down. They don’t have to kill people to stop your research and development here. They’ve obviously come equipped and planned for extensive demolition work. If they do a lot of killing, it’ll be much harder for them to negotiate a way out. They might not be able to slip free by the same route they used to sneak in. They may have a use for hostages. Besides, your friends weren’t the ones fighting back. Security was doing that.”

“How could my friends fight? They had nothing to fight with.”

“See? Then maybe they’re safely out of it, waiting to see who takes control. Standing comfortably on the sidelines.”

“Yes.” She looked up gratefully, brightening. “Yes, that’s right, they might be.” She sounded hopeful. “Maybe everyone else will be okay.”

“How many nonsecurity personnel did Coldstripe have?”

She thought a moment. “About sixty, including administration.”

“That’s a lot of hostages. You can bargain efficiently with that many hostages. Sixty corpses do you no good at all.”

“And you’re not even twenty yet,” she said, marveling at him. “When did you ever have to think about hostage bargaining and assault tactics?”

“I had to grow up in a hurry. I kind of regret that now. I didn’t have what anyone would call a normal childhood, which I suppose is appropriate since I’m not normal. But I regret it all the same.”

Another violent explosion echoed through the caverns. Scrap stirred on Clarity’s shoulder. The emotional strain of the past hours had taken its toll on the young minidrag. He flew rarely now, preferring to cling to Clarity’s shoulder and sidetail.

Flinx was surprised. “I thought they were finished with that, and it had to have been close for us to hear it all way back here.” Ten minutes later a second explosion followed the first.

“Something’s wrong. They should have concluded their demolition work by now. Unless there was a part of your complex I never saw.”