"Escape From The Crater"

Escape From The Crater

by Carl L. Biemiller

Published by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York.

“How do you know ol’ Mose is home?” Tuktu asked Kim as the little group rolled its ankles along the scree beach.

“I wouldn’t bother answering that,” said Genright.

“Who asked you?”

“He got a message,” said Toby Lee.

“How do you know?”

“Tube Steak whispered in her ear.”

“If he’s not home, we’ll wait,” said Kim firmly. “If I’m right, he’s expecting us. Or do I have to explain again that he takes a big interest in our movements.”

“All I did was ask how you knew ol’ Mose was home.”

“Who’s Mose?” asked Major Bell curiously.

“Moses…” said Toby Lee.

“All right then, Moses. Who’s Moses?”

“Don’t you start,” said Genright.

“Major, you know that I’m crowding you, don’t you?” asked Kim.

“I do, and I know why, Warden Rockwell,” said the cryo steadily.

“You’re older than I in life years, and you’ve been a leader among your own people…” Kim’s voice was questioning.

“I am, and I have held command as well.” Major Bell smiled wryly. “And what you’re trying to tell me is that you believe that the more shock I can absorb during my adjustment, the greater the degree of that adjustment, and the quicker it takes place…if I make it at all.”

“Moses is the leader of the Kirl,” said Kim. “We are their guests.”

“You might say that we are also their cousins, and they ours, with some alterations,” added Toby Lee.

“So start getting extra-adjusted,” said Tuktu.

“And be polite about it…or glop!” muttered Genright.

Unwittingly, Major Bell was not particularly polite as they paused at the entrance to the cavern. His nose wrinkled and he sniffed.

“Smells like a zoo,” he said.

“What’s a zoo?” asked Kim.

“A place where strange animals are kept so that people who have never seen any strange animals can go see some and learn about other forms of life besides their own,” said Major Bell.

“Hummnn,” said Toby Lee.

“Anybody home?” yelled Genright.

There were three: The Kirl, and two white-muzzled associates Genright greeted as Jotham and Jeremiah.

“Welcome and be seated,” said Moses in a slow, flat, low pitched voice. “And welcome to you, Long Sleeper,” he added, a flicker of amused light in his dark, deep-set eyes.

Major Bell sat, crossed his arms over his knees, and hunched over them as though seeking support. He seemed glad to be on the warm floor.

The rest of them knelt and leaned back on their heels before their hosts, who more than ever seemed as relaxed as throw-rug pelts.

“Sir, this is Major Bruce Bell, Vulcan Unit of the United States Army,” said Kim. He was thoughtful. “From a year numbered 1999…?” His eyes questioned The Kirl.

“Perhaps in the archives, but you should know that our records are a history of the Kirl for the Kirl. Not all of the long past of the Forerunners is there, young Rockwell.”

The old leader, having answered Kim’s unspoken query, spoke directly to the cryo.

“Major Bell,” he said, “You appear to be a sensible man, and one in glad health. When your awakening was near, Warden Rockwell asked if you might see some of the older records of my people in the hope that they might help you more easily accept a part in a new life. I agreed. Two of my elders will go through them with you and answer any questions within their knowledge.”

“Toby Lee will stay with you,” added Kim.

“She will?” asked Toby Lee.

“She shall,” said Kim.

“How about us?” muttered Tuktu.

“You and Genright will be busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Showing off your teeth. Now, shut up.”

“There is a risk involved, Major Bell,” continued The Kirl patriarch, “and you should know it. Much time has passed since you became unconscious of all time passing, and it may be that knowledge of what took place during your absence from life could be too heavy a burden for you to carry.”

Major Bell shook his head. His lips were compressed into a thin, white, bloodless line, but when he spoke his voice was even.

“Thank you, sir. I’d like to see what I missed. A wise teacher once told me that a man was only a product of his people’s past, and that was what ailed most of them.”

“Nothing ails me. Does it, Jeremiah?”

The Kirl’s muzzle parted beneath his scrubbing-brush whiskers.

“You have a funny name, Genright.”

“Haw! And that ain’t all,” said Tuktu.

“Good, then,” said Moses. “We shall leave you to your education for a time. You may come back as often as you wish. Just let our people know. And, hopefully, when you speak of your own previous experiences, I shall be there to listen.”

The Kirl leader swung his lambent glance to Genright and Tuktu.

“It pleases me to see all of you in the formal wear of your Service. Among other things, uniforms uphold their own traditions of dignity and occasion.”

They were not dismayed.

“Squelch,” said Genright.

“Stepped on,” said Tuktu.

“You are dismissed,” rapped Kim, the ice back in his voice. “Wait for me outside.” He rose as he spoke, reaching for Toby’s hand as he did so, and pulling her upright with him. “A word with you in private, if I may,” he said, excusing himself with a nod to The Kirl and Major Bell, who also rose and stood erect with an automatic instinct for formality.

“I don’t like leaving you with our friend,” said Kim softly, “But I think, of all of us, he’d be less likely to slip over the edge with you. How do I say this? And less likely to show, ummn, male weakness in front of a sympathetic female, especially when males like me have been coming on strong to him. He doesn’t know you’re a tough guy the way I do, or as smart and as able…and anyhow, I need your special help.”

They stood for a brief moment in the comfort of their own warming oneness, holding and sharing.

“How about a word regarding danger to my life and limbs if he goes bonk again? How about risk and peril? Yes, and how about his maleness and my femaleness, and all that?”

“Either you need more conditioning or I need less,” said Kim. “But seriously, I’ve got an idea we’re sort of running out of time in getting things done. And that something’s about to happen that we can’t control, and that Major might be useful when it does. You know how I get…?”

“I know you,” said Toby lee tenderly, “but not always at all times, I think.”

“Well, just in case, slip this little stun-gun rod into a pocket, and get to work, Warden Second.”

“What do you think’s in my pocket?”

“My, my.”

“Well, we don’t know much about him yet…or the Kirl either,” she added darkly.

“Truce with the Kirl. Lots of things planned.”

“But not shared.”

He put his hands on her shoulders.

“Shared,” he said. “Just not spoken. Frankly,” he added, “I hope to see those Kirl archives myself sometime. But let’s go.”

They rejoined the others.

“Major,” said Kim, “You’re in good hands. Learn what you can. Stop when you get tired or for any other reason. We’ll be back at the Adam ready for rest and some food when you and Toby join us. I have a feeling this day’s getting a bit long for all of us. We don’t have to use up all this great northern daylight just because it’s around.”

“Thanks, Warden Rockwell, and we’ll be along in good shape. Thank you too, sir.”

“That’s a polite Forerunner,” said Moses, waddling toward the cavern lakeside opening. “And should you be concerned, young Forerunner, yourself, my two archive keepers, ummn, Jotham and Jeremiah indeed, are not the only Kirl within voice range. But I must say, the new guest looks suspiciously sensible.

“Incidentally, I’ll walk you along the shore for a bit. I want to hear what you tell Genright and Tuktu.”

“What do you mean ‘suspiciously sensible’?”

“Just that Major Bell is a product of his time, and not too far removed, I’d say, from the Forerunners who laid waste to earth. Besides, being suspicious is a distinct part of my responsibility.”

Kim stopped. He squatted on his heels and looked directly into The Kirl’s grizzled muzzle.

“You know, old man, you sound more like a storybook fox than a sea otter?”

“You’re just getting to know me better, son.”

Maybe, thought Kim, rising. Whatever it was, there was a nice thing going between them, and, come to think of it, why wasn’t he suspicious? Too many other things to think about maybe.

Two of them awaited around a bend of shoreline. They were standing at attention; stiff and rapt as though they’d been gigged at an inspection.

“Hey,” they announced. “Here we are standing at attention waiting for you all Service nifty and ready.”

“You just spoiled the effect,” grunted Kim.

“What’s with showing off our teeth? Tell us about teeth. Hello, Moses. Didn’t we just see you?”

“Come on, teeth,” demanded Tuktu.

“It was only an expression I used,” said Kim patiently.

“Fine. Express some more. Especially about the part that you said would keep us busy. It’s not nice to be busy in ignorance.”

“Look at me not saying a single thing,” said Tuktu proudly.

“Well, Moses thinks that some of his people would be less likely to be unfriendly if we showed more of what makes us great.”

“Again?” asked Tuktu.

“If we show we’re too tough to be scragged, it would be easier for Mose to tell his tough guys not to scrag us.”

“You mean blow up something? Hurt somebody? Blood and battle?” Genright chortled.

“I mean pick something the Kirl do better than we and then do it better, a contest, a show of skills, survival skills, or skills that command respect…”

“Like log biting?” asked Tuktu.

“Have you anything to suggest, sir?”

“Stricter discipline,” said The Kirl.

“Agreed, but I meant…”

“All water achievements are admired by my people. Speed swimming. Extraordinary fishing techniques. Diving endurance. Agility. Body control. Grace. Strength. We are an amphibious people, you know, and you call yourselves hydronauts. Think of something and challenge us.”

“Okay. A long-distance swimming race,” said Tuktu. “Since we first saw the Kirl about five thousand miles from here, we’d win that one easily. Right Moses?”

“Okay, a short race?”

Genright was scornful. “you remember when they chased us out the tunnel to the sea and caught us?”

“That was in another book. It doesn’t count.” Tuktu’s round face was bland with assumed innocence.

“Both of you think about it,” snapped Kim, “and while you’re thinking, think also about getting Adam ready for a short cruise.” He turned to The Kirl. “I’d say we had an hour or so, sir. Would you care to join us?”

“The tunnel?”

“For a quick look, sir. Major Bell indicated that he’d once done business with volcanoes. That means an engineering and geologic background. We’ll know when we get his story. But I’d like another survey of our mutual problem in case we decide to ask his help later.”

“Let me summon one of my swimmers before we leave. We might need help of sorts.”

“And let Toby Lee know we’ll be back soon, sir.”

The Kirl slid into the lake without a ripple. The hydronauts shoved off in the dinghy. Genright, moving awkwardly on purpose, managed to see that Tuktu got a boot full of water.

“Tuk, that seismograph is your assignment,” said Kim.

“Constant activity all around us, and I’ve kept the tapes handy for comparison data. This is no place to stay, Kim.”

“And not too much to visit either,” mumbled Genright.

“Why did you mention the seismograph? You know I make it a routine check every day aboard.”

Kim waved toward the plumed peaks on the high horizon. “Some days I’m more aware of them than on others.”

“Hello, Adam, did you miss me?” asked Genright, patting the deck as he scrambled aboard.

“What’s she say?”

“She said she missed me but not you, o’ Tukker.”

“How come I didn’t hear her?”

“She spoke softly in boat. Anyhow she knows you can’t speak boat. Your lips are too thick, and your head too…”

“You want a thicker lip?”

“All right, all right,” said Kim. “Let’s get the buoy line and get this craft on it till we get back. Here comes Moses.”

Kim didn’t worry about hydronaut teeth, just Kirl teeth and Kirl respect, and a resolution of their problems without loss of that respect or his own. He was far from the psych conditioners and the authorities of the cities, further than he knew, perhaps. And so were Toby, Genright, and Tuktu.

On the other hand, their responsibilities to the Service, and, through it, the cities, were as much a part of them as breathing. It was up to him, Kim, to determine them, even if it meant defying authority and orders. It was not easy to be in a strange land of new situations, knowing that sometimes orders from afar had no real meaning under actual field conditions—and knowing that punishment usually was sure for those who disobeyed orders.

Kim didn’t want any of the city psychs reconditioning his mind. He allowed himself a small, chuckling thought. He knew what was better for his own civilization than anybody else at this time in this place. And that didn’t include his own destruction or that of any Kirl, although he wasn’t exactly certain as to what it did include. It was better to figure things out as he figured out what to figure.

“Genright couldn’t have said it better,” he said aloud.

“What?” asked Genright. “I heard that.”

“What’s what? added Tuktu.

“What’s what is the tunnel,” said Kim firmly. “You clowns can rig for swimming. I’ll want a close examination when we get where we’re going.”

“Suppose something falls in on us like a chunk of mountain?”

“Just say good-bye to each other. Moses and I will be sad and safe in the boat.”

“Just remember you can’t replace our equipment, that’s all,” said Genright. “And I’m going to take the newest stuff I can find.”

The tunnel was nearly three hundred feet beneath the surface of the bay at its sea end in the base of a cliff, and about the same depth in the lake, which also washed a cliff-side. In fact, it was only a few feet above the bottom of the lake, which formed a deep pool pocket, probably scoured by movement of water within the tunnel.

“The Adam moved through the tunnel cautiously. Her lights and sensing gear recorded her passage as Moses and the hydronauts watched on the scanners. Kim had the faint, nagging notion that perhaps Moses was more familiar with the working of Adam’s systems that seemed logical for a Kirl—or any other stranger, for that matter.

Temperatures, water quality, depth, and bottom configurations, and those sections of the tunnel not filled with water where air pockets and ceiling voids leading upward into unknown vaults of earth, were made part of the records for later study, even occasional fishes and mollusk clusters.

The Adam passed that section of tunnel whose walls were old glacier, glittering yet clear in Adam’s lights. And through them they could see the eerie forms of perhaps fifty bodies very like Major Bruce Bell’s, only a few were female, locked in timeless keeping. It was likely that Major Bell knew them, and might know them again in life, were some large flagship submarine like the Polaris and her facilities available.

“It would not be well for the Sleeper to see this too soon,” said The Kirl, propped half erect on his stubby tail watching a view scree.

“I’m not comfortable seeing it myself,” muttered Tuktu.

Kim felt an uneasy anger at himself. “He might have to see it and soon,” he said. “His services might be a swap for some of those lives.”

Genright’s voice was mournful. “You’ve changed or you’re expecting hard days.”

The instruments were picking up loose rubble and loose rock on the bottom as they neared the tunnel’s sea exit. The passage narrowed to a width less than Adam’s beam, then became a bore about five feet in diameter leading into watery darkness.

“No flow here,” said Kim, halting the Adam. He manipulated the lights. “Tunnel top is solid. No unanchored rock. Nothing seems likely to fall.”

Tuktu and Genright donned shield suits and thin, chest-contour tanks. They tested masks and the com systems.

“What do you think, Gen?” asked Tuktu.

“Hand pulsars in case we need vibes and laser rods for probes and force. Shoulder cameras to record in the boat. Will you want a little something to eat?”

“If we dig out to the beach in the bay, a picnic would be nice.”

“Move out,” snapped Kim. “I’m going to stick Adam’s nose right up your backs. Use the top bubble and leave it open. Plenty pressure in the boat, and in case you come back in a hurry you won’t have to knock.”

“Suppose we have company? It looks real scary in there. What do you think’s in there, Tuk?”

“Commander Brent.”

“If he’s there, I’m not here.” Kim grinned, then paused thoughtfully. “Make talk in there,” he said. “I want everything you see or think about on record. And remember, we don’t have a lot of time for this quickie look. We ought to be home before Toby and the major get tired of waiting for us.”

Tuktu and Genright swam away into the bore. Kim made adjustments on the com console.

“They are competent people,” said Moses softly.

“Trained, able, great, and totally bananas.”

“I heard that, especially the bananas part,” said Genright.

“Only about ten feet of this alley,” said Tuktu. “Then it opens into full tunnel width again, but with air space overhead. I’ll make a small dive for depth. Wait a minute.”

“Tunnel sides seem intact here,” added Genright.

“Seems to be lots of water under us,” said Tuktu surfacing. “Adam doesn’t draw much anyhow.”

“Oh, oh.”

“We see it, Gen,” said Kim. “Block ahead, and a little alley on the left. Get some light overhead. That’s fine.”

“Chunk of the top gone completely. Nothing but a big dark vacancy up there. I’m bouncing some sound up there, but I don’t get any echo. Anything show in the boat?” asked Tuktu.

“Nothing,” answered Kim. “Could be open all the way to the cliff-top along the bay.”

“Well, it ain’t a hole into the bay or we’d be able to swim up. Right, Tuk? Wrong, Tuk? Speak to me, Tuk.”

“I do not choose to converse with you. I am busy putting some pieces of rock from this blockage into a bag for later examination.”

“Okay, bring your bag and follow ol’ Sea Eel into this hole. We’ll see how far it goes. I think we’re fairly near the place where the exit ought to be.”

“When we came in it was an entrance.”

“Yeh, but we want out now.”

Kim spoke into the com console. “Genright, when you get to the end of that alley try a beam. Maybe we can dissolve some passage, or at least get an idea of what it would take to get rid of the blockages.”

“Will do. Are our cameras showing you everything we see?”

“And all sequences recording too,” answered Kim.

The alley ended, opened out into another length of full width tunnel, which narrowed again. Eddies swirled around the swimmers.

“Big rocks sticking up,” reported Tuktu.

“And a solid wall ahead,” added Genright. “I’m going to put a laser hole in it.”

“If you get any kind of a trickle from that hole, I’m leaving,” said Tuktu.

“Tuk’s right, Gen,” said Kim from the Adam. “Any trickle and we leave and let the outside bay do our work for a while. And get back here fast in case some wash-slide does it quicker than we want it done.”

“Advice, advice, advice, all the time advice. Big wits and yammer, yammer, yammer.”

A lance of lavender light streaked through the inky water and vanished into the wall before them, leaving a trail of tiny, steaming bubbles. Genright held the beam steady. Together, he and Tuktu watched the rock wall bubble at the ray’s point of impact, then dissolve away into a hole about the size of a water-polo ball. The hole kept changing shape as though the wounded wall tried to seal itself from the steady beam. Genright cut the probe. They could see a froth forming at the hole, then a jet flow from the rock into the tunnel.

“I think we’re through,” said Genright. “That’s outside bay pressure pushing water into this passage.”

“I’m leaving,” said Tuktu. “That could bring a lot of stuff down on us.”

“I’m leaving too,” said Genright. “But that ain’t the reason. Don’t look now, just swim like something was after you, because it is.”

Tuktu spun, caught a side glance of living nightmare from the corner of an eye, and surged for the alley in retreat as fast as fins would take him. Genright was right behind him.

“Kim, watch our backs,” snapped Tuktu.

“We disturbed a lot of something,” wheezed Genright.

“Can you give me a look?” asked Kim. “There’s nothing in the viewers yet. Can you give me a look without too much risk? Some light? Something your cameras can pick up?”

“Hoo, boy, he wants pictures,” snorted Tuktu. “Gen, split when the tunnel widens and we’ll face it and use the rods. We’ll have your mask and shoulder lights on it as well as the cameras. You think it’s coming closer? Really after us?”

“Some of it is. I think there’s miles of it. Swim! Okay, peel off, and we’ll grab a peek.”

“They face danger well,” said The Kirl, and as he spoke, Tuktu’s yell echoed in the boat and the viewer on the com console filled with monster.

“No sweat,” shouted Genright. “No jaws. Tube mouth. It’s a slurper not a biter. And it isn’t in a hurry. We’ll try a soothing note on the pulsars.”

“But let’s head for the boat and give it room. It needs it. It’s endless.”

Most sea creatures are sensitive to sound. This one slowed uncertainly as the pulsar notes reached it, and lifted a head set with two big round eyes. It was a horribly beautiful animal, quite literally a silver-blue ribbon of narrow fish which rippled down an incredible length of slender body. Its dorsal fin, perhaps forty of fifty feet of it along the top of its flat, ribbon eternity, was flaming red.

Two long, trailing pectoral fins draped from behind its head.

It stared at the hydronauts pensively with an almost gentle concern.

“Got it,” cried Kim from the boat. “We’ve seen one before, off the coast near Olympia Base, remember? It’s rare but it’s no predator. It’s an oarfish. The archives say it started all those legends about fierce sea serpents. Oarfish, thirty, forty, fifty feet long like a giant ribbon, a snaky type. Scientific name Regalecus glesne. Must have come in from the sea to the lake and tried to get back again. Probably headed for the lake again after you frightened it.”

“What do you mean, we frightened it?” asked Tuktu. “Well, maybe we did. It looks sort of friendly.”

“Yeah, he does,” agreed Genright. There was an odd note in his voice.

“Okay, let’s pack it in,” said Kim. “We’ve got to get back for Toby and the Major, as I said.”

“Can I have this oarfish?” asked Genright.

“What?” barked Kim.

“This old oarfish. You take Tuk’s bag of rocks and float us out a couple of those bags that hold filament nets, and Tuk and I will swim back with the redhead here.”

“I don’t want to herd your fish home,” said Tuktu.

“Sure you do. No trouble. Little pulsar music, an easy exercise, and we’ll be back for a late dinner.”

“Genright, are you insane?” demanded Kim.

“Thoughtful, just thoughtful. Are you going to trust ol’ Gen or not?”

“You want to stay with him, Tuktu?”

“No, but I will.”

“Good-bye. The Adam is shoving off, then.”

Kim and The Kirl were almost out of the tunnel into the lake before Moses spoke.

“I think I have something to learn about the use of authority,” he said.

“Well, they get bored easily,” said Kim with a smile.

Chapter One	Chapter Two	Chapter Three	Chapter Four	Chapter Six
Chapter Seven	Chapter Eight	Chapter Nine	Chapter Ten	Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve	Chapter Thirteen	Chapter Fourteen	Chapter Fifteen

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