“We’ll know soon enough,” Bob added. His parents might be dead or injured, for all he knew. “Find a comfortable spot,” he said confidently. “Air seems to be coming in well enough. We’ll have to wait.”
I noticed the way everyone looked at him. He was Robert Svoboda’s son, after all. I wondered what good that would do us if nothing could be done.
Jake was kneeling by Linda. He kissed her cheek and put his arm around her. I realized how close he had come to dying; the fissure might have closed at any moment, or another shock might have thrown him deeper. All three of us might have died if the tunnel had decompressed—but Linda, I realized with a sudden sick feeling, had now lost all the family she had left.
Ro and I climbed up and sat on the edge of the platform. A few faces glanced up at us from time to time. Linda seemed to grow calmer as Jake held her. They seemed very alone on the open floor, away from the crowd around the platform…
I was in a kind of shock myself, I suppose, as the situation sank into my mind. The universe is a one-way street; you can’t always know what it’s going to do to you, and you can’t do all that much back. We’ve learned a lot, and we’re going to know a lot more before the Sun dies—but what was happening here on Mercury was the result of what we had done to ourselves; many people had seen it coming—but why is it that some see and others don’t? I was a bit frightened, and one of us had died, but the Mercurians had been living with this kind of danger for decades.
The lights went out. A cry of surprise passed through the crowd. Ro’s hand slipped into mine. She squeezed hard and I squeezed back. It seemed strange to be so near the Sun and in total darkness—yet something in me needed to be here, so far from home, in the blackness, before I could become myself. That was the part of me that Ro had complained about not being able to see. We all have it, I suppose, the mysterious bit of ourselves that we feel but don’t often understand. The conscious part of us is not all there is. Self-conscious reason is the new kid on the block, evolution’s jewel—but within us still live the impulses of fish and reptile, unthinking hunger and hatred, to which darkness and danger give a home.
“We’re never gonna get out,” a boyish voice said.
“Who’s
that
?” a girl asked disgustedly.
“One of yours,” Bob whispered. “Sounds like he may panic. Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Shut up!” the same girl shouted.
“That’s one of ours,” Bob said.
“Can’t we do anything?” the plaintive voice asked. My stomach swam at the sound.
“Eat your way out!”
“Come on, you two,” another girl said.
“Leave him alone,” a husky female voice answered.
“He had it too good on Earth. Serves him right!”
“Earth! That’s where you have to wear a strap to keep your balls from dragging on the ground!”
“Boobs too!”
There was some laughter. It was only human to be resentful, I thought bitterly.
Only human
. Why weren’t people better inside as time went on?
“Cut it out!” Jake shouted from near the doors. “Insult us when the lights are on.”
“Just keep yapping, I’ll find you.”
“Okay,” Bob said. “Stay put—or you’ll have to deal with me later.”
“That goes for me too,” the cop said from somewhere on my right.
“Who are you?”
A light flashed onto a face. “Sergeant Black. There’s five of us in here, so behave.” I recognized the ruddy complexion.
“Oooooooooh!”
Everyone laughed.
“I know that’s you, Ted,” Sergeant Black said.
“Big deal,” a girl’s nasal monotone replied.
“Helen Wodka? I can tell it’s you.”
“Whattyaa—a voice printer? She’s not even here, stupid.”
“Cops could help out with work instead of following us around all week.”
“Hey kid—I work two shifts!”
“Crawl away!” Miss Nasal shouted.
“Why do you have it in for me?” Black demanded.
“Get lost!”
Someone laughed nervously. The darkness was taking away the normal walls between people; you could say what you wanted. The fun of the evening was gone, and nothing could be done against old Merk, but cops and strangers were easy targets.
I had a sudden vision of a long chain of
becauses
locking together to trap Ro and me here. Political delays in giving the aid owed to Mercury were going to cost even more lives—including mine and Ro’s. The past had sealed us into this hall. I waited for someone to start picking on earthies in earnest, but it didn’t happen.
We listened to each other’s breathing and to the sound of the ventilator. My eyes were wide open, searching the dark for a spot of light. I began to see patterns of brightness in the blackness. Kaleidoscope universes burst and reformed, one creation after another dying in my brain…
“Black—are you there?”
“I’m here, Helen.”
“Sorry, Black.”
“Me too,” Ted added.
A few more apologies whispered through the hall. I heard a click—a lighter blossomed, and I saw our shadows sitting on the walls. The darkness closed in again, and after a few moments I saw the red ember of a cigarette hanging in space.
Black speared the offender with his flashlight beam. “Put it out—our air might not last.” The beam died before I could see the smoker. The red spot dropped and died as Black’s words sank in.
“There must be something we can do!” Linda cried.
“What do you suggest?” Black asked calmly, and it seemed to me that these people were so beaten down that they didn’t want to do anything. Suddenly I wanted to run time back, so that Kik would come floating out of the abyss, alive and whole, even if it meant that we would have to live backward from then on.
Linda’s voice had made me edgy. I wanted to move around, fight back. It couldn’t be very serious, I told myself, if Bob and the cops were so calm. It was just a minor inconvenience. The lights would go on in a moment and the dance would start up again. But working with Bernie had taught me to be suspicious; anything that could go wrong would go wrong.
“Listen,” Bob said. “Everyone be quiet.”
I heard only breathing. Ro squeezed my hand, and we both knew what had happened.
“We’re not getting any air,” Bob said in a sinking voice. “Can’t hear the ventilator…”
I tensed. “Must be blocked,” Helen said.
“Don’t move around—relax,” Black said. “We’ll make it last. This is a big hall.”
But there are a lot of us, I thought.
“Can we tell if there’s air in the tunnel without opening the doors?” Jake asked.
“No,” Black replied. “It may be blocked even if there’s air.”
“Can’t we crack it a bit and listen for a hiss?” a boy asked, and again I realized how ancient much of the technology here was—there should have been pressure sensors on the doors, so you could tell if there was air on the other side, or what you would be breathing.
“Don’t talk stupid,” Helen Wodka said. “Why risk a stuck door when all we have to do is wait. A small leak will kill us sooner if we can’t close the door, if we’re not sucked out into a vacuum first.”
“We can’t touch the door,” Black added.
“How long can we breathe?” I asked, knowing it would be an unwelcome question.
“Depends on how much we use.”
“You mean we can go quietly, lying around,” the sad-voiced boy said bitterly.
“No more talk like that,” Black answered firmly.
I put my arm around Ro’s waist and held her tightly.
“What if the rest of the warrens got clobbered?” Jake asked.
I heard Bob take a deep breath.
“Leave some for the rest of us,” a girl’s voice said.
“Unlikely,” Bob replied. “It’s never happened—they’ll get us out.” He was sounding less convincing.
“There’s got to be something we can do,” Linda said again, more calmly. Again I felt the pressure to act, even though I wasn’t feeling much like Tarzan.
“Bob,” I said loudly, “—are the ventilation shafts large enough to crawl through?”
“Sure,” he answered, “but there’s probably nowhere to go. The one leading out of here is probably crushed. You might not be able to breathe.”
“We should explore,” I said. “We can do that much.”
“It’s worth a try,” Black said. “We might restore air flow if the blockage is nearby.”
“I’ll go,” Jake and I said at the same time.
“Both of you go,” Bob said. “The buddy system is safer.”
Someone stumbled toward the platform. A flashlight blinked on, throwing the beam into the high vault of the hall. “Here,” Black said, reaching up to me, “take my light.”
“We need another,” Bob called.
I took the light and cast the beam across the crowd. One of the cops handed his over at the edge of the seated crowd; the flashlight passed from hand to hand until it reached Jake.
“The shaft is behind us,” Bob said.
“Don’t lose those lights,” Black said.
I kissed Rosalie. “If you die I’ll kill you,” she whispered.
“Let’s go, pal,” Jake said.
We turned our beams onto the wall behind the platform and found the grill.
“About four meters up,” Jake said.
“Roll the platform over,” Bob said. “It’s on coasters.”
A dozen people pushed the stage up against the wall.
“Get on my shoulders,” Jake said.
I put the flashlight in my chest pocket, so the beam would shine upward, and climbed onto Jake’s shoulders. The grating felt solid when I pulled on it.
“Doesn’t move even a little.” Then I jerked harder and it came loose. “Look out.” I dropped it near the wall and heard the clatter after the slow fall.
Jake boosted me into the shaft, where I turned around carefully and looked out over the hall. Dark lumps sat in the center. Shadowed faces peered up at me in the faint light.
“Coming up!” Jake called.
“Come ahead!” I backed into the shaft.
Jake’s shape appeared in the opening and pulled itself in. I caught his face in my beam for a moment. He coughed and crawled toward me.
“We’re in!” he shouted over his shoulder.
“Be careful,” Black answered.
I turned and crawled ahead with the light in my left hand. There was no movement of air in the pipe.
“It branches here,” I called out after thirty meters. Shining the light to the right, I saw that the passage went on for a few meters and came to another grating. “What’s next to the auditorium?”
I waited as Jake relayed my question. “Bob says go ahead,” he shouted back. “It’s the police station.”
I crawled to the grating. “It’s blocked with debris on the other side—cave-in!” I backed away. “I’m going to try the left-hand pipe.”
My light flickered as I slid forward. I turned it off.
“Can’t see your light!”
“Saving it!”
The dusty air was getting harder to breathe. I crawled for what seemed an hour, scraping my knees and coughing.
Finally I stopped and flicked on my beam.
And froze.
“The pipe’s crushed!” I shouted, choking. It was like a bent straw. I struggled to control my coughing.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes!” I wished he would shut up.
“What?”
“I’m fine!”
I killed my light, turned, and started back, wondering how many of us would die. Help would reach us—but did anyone know we were running out of air? I thought of my life on Earth and Bernal. How small my problems there now seemed. I was drenched in sweat. There was less dust but the air was beginning to taste bad.
“Joe!”
“Coming,” I croaked with a dry throat.
You never really believe you’re ever going to die. When you imagine it, you stand outside yourself, watching yourself go, and you’re still
there
when it’s over, watching from some fabulous beyond.…
I heard breathing.
“Jake?”
His light went on. His face seemed old and afraid suddenly. “What’s wrong, Joe?”
“Gotta rest.” I lay down and put my head on my arms. “There’s no way out…”
“Then we’ll just have to last.”
“I guess …”
My eyes were wide open in the dark, and it seemed strange to be Lying there, doing nothing. I forced myself up on all fours.
“We’d better get back,” Jake said.
He retreated to the opening, left his light for me to see by, and lowered himself over the edge until he was hanging by both hands. I came forward, picked up his flashlight and shone it down on the platform. Jake dropped slowly onto both feet.
“Catch.” The flashlight fell like a dying star into his hands. I crawled over the edge, held, then dropped. Hands steadied me as I came down.
The air tasted better. I saw Ro’s face. She was biting her lips.
“We’ll have to take it easy until help arrives,” Jake said. “Joe says both ways are blocked.” I sat down against the wall. Ro sat down next to me. “What’s going on?” someone asked from the floor.
Silence.
“Well?” the same male voice asked. “What have you big shots come up with?”
“Didn’t you hear!” Jake snapped. “We’ll have to wait.”
I heard murmuring and cursing.
“There’s gotta be something …”
“Ted—is that you?” Bob asked.
“Yeah, I’m not a lump yet.”
“We’ll use less air,” Bob said.
“And when that’s gone,” Ted continued, “we’ll have to open the doors. We won’t have anything to lose then—and who knows, it might be all right out there.”
Again, there was a nervous silence.
“We should have been living in a habitat by now,” Helen Wodka said. “What took you people so long? Explain me
that
.”
“Serves you right,” Ted added.
“Don’t be stupid,” Bob said. “They came to help.”
“Save your breath,” Black cut in. “Get some rest and leave some air.”
Jake clicked off his light and sat down at my other side.
I won’t wake up, I thought as I closed my eyes. This dark will be the last thing I see. There was a lot of shifting and coughing in the hall. Ro rested her head on my shoulder.
I woke up suddenly, surprised that I had been asleep, and took a slow, deep breath. Cool air flowed into my lungs. Ro was curled up against me. The ventilation, I realized, had also brought heat into the hall. We might freeze long before we stopped breathing.