The lift began its descent with a shudder, and then stopped with a jerk which would have sent everyone sprawling if they hadn’t been so tightly packed together. The high pitched whine of a pump went up several octaves, and then there was the screech of tortured metal as the lift broke free from the obstruction and continued its journey downwards.
With a dull thump the lift chamber arrived at its destination and the back wall slid noisily to one side revealing a dimly lit passageway.
A gust of cold air rushed in along with a damp and dusty smell, and this brought forth several comments from those who usually reserved their eloquent verbal skills for the chef.
‘Proceed along the passage until you reach the far end. You will then be given new instructions.’ This time the voice echoed around the box-like enclosure of the passage, distorting the words until they were hardly recognizable.
Obediently the little band of humanity stepped out of the lift, and began the long walk into the distance, the dull lights of the passage giving no idea of how far they would have to travel, or where they were going.
Several lights in the roof had failed, and this along with the hollow sound as their feet struck the floor gave the journey a very unreal feeling, especially to Glyn, who for a brief moment wondered if one of his dreaded nightmares had returned.
‘I’m sure the temperature has gone down since we entered this horrid passage,’ someone commentated, ‘I feel positively chilled to the bone.’
There was no answer to the comment as no one could think of anything sufficiently erudite to say.
A little while later, hoping to break the hollow monotonous sound of their echoing footsteps, someone else suggested ‘I suppose this leads us to a smaller space ship which will take us down to the planet’s surface, the main ship being far too big to land.’
‘I doubt that very much.’ Glyn thought to himself as he trudged along, not really knowing why he thought it.
They came to another blank wall, and the whole party ground to a halt. Before anyone could make any facetious remarks, the mechanical voice boomed down at them from a speaker in the roof above.
‘Please pay extreme attention. Follow these instructions exactly. Do not hesitate. Move together as one unit. Keep together at all times. In a moment a door will open and a long walkway will be seen ahead of you. Go along this until you come to an open vehicle. Board the vehicle, and it will complete the journey for you. That is all.’
With that, a motor started up and with a grating sound which set everyone’s teeth on edge again, the end wall slowly drew back. Before them, the narrow walkway with its trellised steel sides disappeared into the blackness beyond with no indication of where it would lead them.
As they quickly walked out onto the beginning of the steel ramp, a united gasp went up at what they saw, followed by ‘Good God, we’re out in space, we’ll all die, we won’t be able to breathe.’ from the quavering voice of Brendon.
‘Don’t be so stupid,’ retorted Glyn, ‘if that were the case we’d all be dead now. I think this is some kind of illusion.’
They were surrounded by the velvet blackness of space with its countless millions of diamond white twinkling stars. Above them glowed a giant nebula, its misty outlines sprinkled with tiny pin pricks of starlight shining through the haze at its edge.
‘Well, if that don’t beat all,’ exclaimed Arki gazing around in stunned wonder, ‘we saw this from the observation room.’
Before anyone else could comment, the stars did a final twinkle and went out, the total blackness of space rushing in to stifle any further words which may have been offered.
Before the wail of terror could really get under way, it was cut short as the cavern’s maintenance lights flickered on.
Glyn looked back to see just what they had come from. Above him towered the massive bulk of what they had all assumed to be their space ship, carrying them to a new life on a distant world.
In reality it consisted of a vast series of boxes, joined nose to tail, the whole ugly conglomeration being supported on massive stilts. Dotted among the stilts at ground level were more giant boxes, housing the hydroponics gardens, air cycling machinery and other devices needed to sustain life in the living quarters above.
The whole massive contraption was in turn dwarfed by the size of the cavern in which it lay. Somewhere in the distance a motor started up, the high pitched whine echoing around the vast cavern like a soul in torment.
As they turned to look in the direction of the sound, there was a blue white flash followed by an explosion, and seconds later a shower of fine metallic particles rained down upon them. Fortunately no one was hurt, only frightened.
‘I think we should hurry along to the vehicle at the end of the walkway, it looks as if the whole place is about to break up.’ said Glyn, already striding out into the darkness. The others didn’t need much persuasion, the rattle of their feet on the steel plates of the walkway told him they were not far behind him, and coming up fast.
In the dim light ahead of him he could just make out the shape of the vehicle they had been told to board. It was a large open truck mounted on rails, which then ran up a tunnel into the inky darkness of the mountain ahead.
They clambered on board, a little out of breath after the lengthy and speedy crossing of the walkway, the smaller children being passed up to those already in the truck.
‘How do we get this thing started?’ asked Arki, peering around in the dim light for some form of controls.
‘There’s a piece of metal sticking up at the front of the vehicle.’ someone called out.
‘Give it a wiggle,’ Glyn replied, ‘I don’t suppose it’ll do any harm.’
There were a couple of loud clicks, and the truck began to move forward, gathering speed as it entered the tunnel.
‘It’s come off in my hand,’ wailed the man at the front, ‘what shall I do?’
‘Keep if for a souvenir.’ someone called out, and a nervous ripple of laughter ran through the passengers as the truck rattled on into the darkness.
A small lamp suddenly came on at the front of the truck, lighting up the rough hewn rocky walls of the tunnel.
Although the lamp was a comfort in one way, it gave the illusion of travelling much faster than they actually were, and then Brendon began whimpering about feeling sick.
‘Stick your head over the side,’ someone unkindly called out, ‘the next protruding rock will cure it.’ This time there was no laughter as several others were feeling the same way as Brendon, but had the sense to keep quiet about it.
The truck rumbled on, the wheels squealing like a stuck pig as they teetered round bends and occasionally where the track had buckled over the years, they were thrown about, sustaining a few bruises.
The overall noise in the tunnel made conversation difficult, so only the odd shouted remark was heard over the rattle of the truck and the multiple echoes from the walls.
‘I think it’s slowing down.’ Glyn said, realizing that he didn’t have to shout any more to make himself heard.
‘Hope it’s not running out of power and we have to push it the rest of the way.’ Arki rejoined.
The truck finally slowed down to walking pace, and then stopped with a squeal of a breaking mechanism hidden somewhere beneath it. The tunnel had come to an end with a very solid looking steel door barring any further progress.
Arki clambered down over the side of the truck and approached the door carefully, not knowing what to expect.
‘There’s no obvious opening mechanism on this side, so how do we get out?’
Just then a muffled explosion from somewhere up ahead rattled the truck and its occupants, covering them in a fine dust which had collected in the roof structure over the years.
When the coughing and sneezing had stopped, and the complaints dwindled down to a mere few grumbles, the business of getting out of the tunnel had resolved itself.
With the squealing of ancient hinges, the huge door slowly lowered itself to ground level, letting in a blast of hard white light and causing a cry of dismay from the truck’s occupants.
‘Cover your eyes and turn to face the back of the truck. Your eyes will get used to the light after a while. When you feel ready, open your fingers just a little to let the light in, but be careful.’ Arki and Glyn had already done so.
By the time the last few travellers had got used to the new light level, the others had climbed down from the truck and assembled at the tunnel’s entrance.
They could hardly believe what they saw. The tunnel had exited on the side of a mountain, and below them a large lake of green water shimmered in the blazing heat of the naked sun. All around for as far as the eye could see, was a landscape of barren rock, stones and fine gravel. On the horizon, another mountain range shimmered in the heat, its outline seeming to waver about as though it were made from a turgid liquid, and was being disturbed from beneath.
‘We can’t go out there,’ someone commented, ‘we’d fry up in no time at all.’
‘I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks,’ said Glyn, ‘it’s the strong light which makes it seem so hot. Anyway, I don’t think we have any option, you might have noticed that the tunnel just behind the truck is now blocked off, so we can’t go back.’ No one had noticed the massive steel shutter which had quietly descended to cut off their retreat back into the mountain.
‘Well, let’s make the best of what we’ve got.’ said Arki, not feeling as confident as he tried to sound. ‘We have food, water and a selection of tools, according to the voice which sent us on this journey, so all we need to find is some shelter while we gather our wits and decide what to do next.’
A
murmur of agreement rippled through the huddled group, and just to make sure they moved away from the tunnel’s entrance, a low rumble from within the mountain signalled that something was on the move.
‘Come on,’ called Glyn, already a few paces ahead of the others, ‘let’s get down to the water’s edge and see if it’s fit to drink, our own supplies are for emergency use only.’
They needed little encouragement as a section of the tunnel roof caved in to shower the stragglers of the party with dust and small stones.
There was no pathway down from the mountain, there may have been in the dim and distant past, but that was long gone now. Picking their way between large boulders, cracks in the ground and slippery scree slopes, they eventually reached a flatter section of the alien terrain and progress towards the distant lake speeded up.
As they approached the strangely shimmering water, it became apparent that it wasn’t actually green, but only looked so from a distance.
Arki was first at the water’s edge, waving the others back just in case it posed a threat in some form.
‘It looks clear and clean, but the bottom has a definite green colour to it. I’m not at all sure it’s safe to drink.’
The others crowded around, realizing that they were more thirsty than they had realized.
‘Perhaps if one of us takes a sip?’ someone suggested.
‘Who wants to try first?’ asked Arki, and they all took a discreet step back from the water.
Small wavelets sped across the surface of the lake to plop-plop rhythmically on the sandy shore, and apart from the breathing of the assembled group at the lake’s edge, that was the only sound to be heard.
‘This place is too quiet for my liking,’ said Glyn, ‘there’s something wrong about it, but I don’t know what it is.’
‘We’re used to the ever present background hum on the ship, maybe that’s what’s missing, although I must agree, this place does have an unpleasant feel to it.’ Arki had now stepped back a pace from the water’s edge.
While they stood around undecided what to do, the matter was taken out of their hands as a long grey green shape glided towards them just below the surface of the water.
It was about as thick as a man’s arm and approximately two metres long with a large flat head, two hooded jet black malevolent eyes stared unblinkingly at them, daring them to enter its watery domain.
Someone had picked up a small stone, and thrown it into the water just in front of the creature. As the missile touched the surface of the water, the jaws of the creature parted to display a hideous double row of razor sharp teeth, and it surged forward to grasp the stone and then spit it out, all in one continuous movement.
They all stood rooted to the spot, all thoughts of a drink from the lake forgotten. The creature slowly turned and glided back into deeper water, leaving the shoreline undisturbed and as innocent looking as it was before.
‘Bearing in mind how we rely on other living things for our survival, that thing must do likewise, and maybe there are other larger creatures in the lake which use it for food. I’ll taste the water just to make sure it isn’t fit to drink, and then we had better find somewhere to shelter for the night.’ Glyn cautiously edged forward to the water’s edge, dipped a finger in and put it to his lips. The look of disgust on his face and the copious spitting out of the offending liquid confirmed once and for all that it wasn’t fit for drinking.
‘For this water to collect here, there must be a flow of water coming into the lake to make up for evaporation, so let’s go along the side of the lake to find it. It may be pure enough to drink.’ Glyn seemed to be the natural leader, and no one else seemed bothered to query it.
The little party moved off, keeping a few metres away from the lake’s edge as the ground was much smoother close to the water, and it made travelling that much easier.
After they had been walking for a while, the ground rose up from the lake to form a small cliff, and the long climb began. A few moans and groans from those who hadn’t bothered to keep themselves fit when on board the ship accompanied the rattle of small stones as the party scrambled up the ever steepening slope in the blazing hot sun.
At the top of the climb was a small plateau, with a sheer drop on one side to the lake below, which looked even greener from this angle, and another cliff towering up above them. At the end of the relatively flat section, the ground fell away again towards the level of the lake, with another rise in the terrain in the far distance.