"Escape From The Crater"

Escape From The Crater

by Carl L. Biemiller

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

“Why am I doing this when I could be looking at beautiful mountain scenery and getting a tan?”

“You’ve got a tan.”

“Not on my right white arm.”

“I could also be back at the colony seeing that our Kirl crew put a proper lip on the slide.”

“You gave them Major Bell’s little sketch. They are as bright as you are, and they know more about mud than you do.”

“No way. I am an old sediment scholar, a specialist in ooze. Besides, whose idea was it to change the slide? Mine, natch. What did the cryo call it? A ski jump? What’s that?”

“I don’t care what he called it, but I didn’t like the way he called it with that low-type laugh. Do you suppose he expects that little loop-lip to give us something more than a small ride in the air before we hit the water?”

“I am too tuckered figuring out what Kim expects. I know he’s worried about this tunnel getting clean enough to use in a hurry, and he was afraid that quake might have banged it closed for good. But what he expects us to do with a glacier full of cryos escapes me for the moment.”

“Well, right now he expects us to put laser drill holes into the ice wall, dividing it into small, individual berg sections, each containing two or three cryos, as many as we can get of ‘em. Sort of floating ice cakes like the one that held the Major. Then he wants us to drill the bergs and run a cable through them like beads on a necklace so he can snatch ‘em with the Adam and tow them out to sea when we leave.”

“Won’t the cable pull out of the tow holes?” asked Genright. “That’s only ice, you know, and it breaks.”

“Not this ice. It’s been compressed under enormous pressure under unbelievable weight and time. You’d need some explosive wallop to shatter it. Otherwise, you wait for it to melt, and that may take weeks and weeks in warmer waters than we’ll find outside.”

“It was hot when we came in.”

“Not in the open sea.”

“Where are Joshua and Lemuel?”

“Out at the end of the tunnel, seeing if the sea end’s gotten bigger since we left. We ought to take a look, too. I’ll bet half the clearing job is done with the water flow going through here.”

“Drill first.”

They had come down-lake in shield suits towed briskly along by the undersea work sleds loaded with odds and ends riding high on the surface.

“I love to see everything,” said Genright. “I have the feeling we might not be in these parts forever, you know.”

Two young Kirl citizens assigned by Moses came with them to be helpful. “Just to make sure nothing happens to you,” explained Joshua. “That you don’t get lonesome,” added Lemuel.

“How would you both like a bushel of fleas?” asked Tuktu.

They located the tunnel well before noon.

“In the nick of time,” said Tuktu.

“What’s that mean?”

“It means I saw Tube Steak, I think,” explained Tuktu. “You know he checks in here all the time. He wants out. And if he spots us, he’ll decide it’s go-away time and come barreling in after us and maybe get hung up on something and block the works for good.”

“We could back him out.”

“Does he have a reverse?”

“Ask Lem. The Kirl are the whale herders, and Tube Steak has been their stooge for a long time. But I don’t think they could back all those tons out of a space he almost fills.”

“Do I worry too much?”

“Nah. We could always slice him up into small pieces.”

“I thought he was your only true friend.”

“I think he owes me an oarfish.”

“Work.”

The job took surprisingly little time, thanks to the intensity of the focused heat of the laser beams, but it took great care to make certain the ice wall was honeycombed into sizes which would protect the occupants of the individual bergs. They were meticulous. They left support areas sufficient to keep the glacier face intact, varying and angling depths of drilling. But, with fine precision, they made certain that the facing of the great ice wall would divide into separate bergs when the Adam applied towing force to the linked ice cakes.

“There may be cryos deeper within this stuff,” said Genright.

“We’ll get as many as we can. Thing that worries me is another boom-boom, which will shake the whole thing down into the tunnel,” said Tuktu. “And, from living with those instruments, I’m mortally sure of more seismic activity.”

“As long as the cookies are roped together and ready to tow, they could still float free in the tunnel even if they popped out in the lake, and we could pick them up for the trip.”

“You think we’re taking on more than we can handle with all this?” asked Tuktu, waving a vague arm at nothing in general.

“You know I’m smarter than anybody, ol’ square buddy. You know that, don’t you? Well, that makes me smart enough to almost recognize, almost, that is, that Kim usually thinks straighter than all of us. He prepares things. Then he takes his chances. I know he wants to save the Kirl. He wants to save our hides. He wants out of this lake and this situation. And underneath it all, he wants to do something constructive for the Service.”

“Okay, we’re taking on more than we can handle. You always answer questions like the fish brain you are.”

“You want to take a ride? See the sights?”

‘Oh, yes, and yes again. It’s so great down here I can hardly stand the happiness.”

There was a flow within the tunnel and it had made itself felt. Many of the obstructions they had noted previously were washed and silted away completely. They took constant depth readings to make sure that they hadn’t reformed into unseen hazards along the bottom. They probed and re-probed the tunnel ceilings, looking for incipient rock falls, throwing light into crevasses.

They found Lemuel and Joshua at the last barrier separating the outside bay from the tunnel, pawing at the hole, which had been larger than fist-size when they’d left it during the previous exploration and was now three feet in diameter. There was diffused light around the hole and a small glow offered visibility. That light came from the sunlight on the surface of the outside sea.

“Joshua’s been out,” said Lemuel. “The Kirl can get through. If you want to trim with your tools, this exit can be widened still more.”

“If Josh made it, we can,” said Genright. “And before we start anything, we’ll take a look. Might be some funny overhang ready to drop out there, or something ready to collapse on the bottom. Anyhow, it’ll be a change of scenery.”

“You know what I think?”

“Would it make you a better person?”

“That was a pretty good quake the other night. It must have vibrated along this tunnel like a sonic explosion, yet nothing fell down. I think all the damage that could be done was done with the seismic eruptions that drove us into the lake in the first place. I think we could even use charges to blow away what we have to clean up in there without worrying too much.

“That’s what you think, eh?”

“Yessir, that and the fact that you can mind the sleds while I escape and never come back.”

“You tried that once,” said Lemuel, his flat voice flatter than ever, “and we caught you.”

“That was before we knew you as well. If I escape this time, maybe I’ll come back to visit you.”

“Will you get out of here if you’re going,” said Genright.

Tuktu popped into the hole and vanished. Genright followed him.

The ocean bed was exploding when they had last seen the bay. The waters were steaming. Sections of the craggy cliffs, which rimmed and embraced the bay, were falling under volcanic shock waves. And somewhere out there was the crippled hull of workboat Adam II lying on the bottom. But the bay was serene now, its blue-green surface docile as the amiable summer sky above it. There were no obstructions to navigation for the compact Adam near the tunnel opening, and nothing to impede a tow train of small bergs with human cargoes either.

“So let’s get back,” said Genright. “Finish what we can inside and maybe expand that exit a bit more to save time later.”

“Because you can’t wait to get back to the Kirl colony to see if the slide project is working.”

“Something like that,” admitted Genright.

They re-entered the tunnel, where the four of them picked, drill-burned, and used the sonic agitators to enlarge the opening to a gap of perhaps twenty feet. They moved toward the lake, smoothing the bed of the waterway where the depth indicators showed suspicious knolls that might impede the passage of craft like the Adam. There were sections where the water level reached the roofline, creating a solid, hose-like flow, and they dived through them. In other sections the ceiling arched away into air pockets and crevasses poking high into the mountain above them, and they beamed them with the lights, seeking potential rock falls.

“Anybody hear anything?” asked Joshua. “You, Lemuel?”

The other Kirl shook his head in a negative which rearranged the drops in his whiskers.

“Wait a minute,” said Tuktu. “I’m picking up a sound in the mask. A clicking, maybe a clacking, sort of a far rattle.”

“We’ve heard that sound before, but where?”

“It’ll come to me.”

“It better come fast, because that clack is moving toward us and getting louder.”

“It’s come to me. The whale pods!”

“Tube Steak!”

“Finally made up his mind that out is where he wants to be.”

“Not enough food in the lake for him…”

“Upset about that earthquake…”

“And maybe knows that more hot jelly is ready to blow.”

“Go ahead, say it!”

“In about ten seconds there ain’t gonna be room enough here for five of us when one of us might not have room for himself.”

“Lem? Josh?”

The Kirl humped their backs and dived. Genright and Tuktu tilted the sleds and sloped for the bottom.

“Stay tight together. Maybe his radar will show us as a big rock,” said Genright.

“Only if he bounces it off your head.”

The sound became a sharp rataplan, as though a great drummer were rim-shotting a ripple beat. The water seemed to bulge against its normal flow. It pushed them against the bottom.

The sound became a great moan, as though a storm wind were forcing itself through a funnel. It tore at their ears, sunk fists into their stomachs, and twisted every nerve end in the bodies.

The black water around them was whipped into white suds. Above them there was a massive passing, as though a mighty ocean liner had sailed through a small fish tank. The turbulence of its going threw them into a jangle of skee-jeed sleds, gear, and assorted arms and legs. The Kirl were fur balls rolled and bounced on the rocky bottom.

The clacking sound faded rapidly. Tube Steak was making a flank speed exit, impelled by whatever whale foreknowledge he possessed.

They surfaced and waited. The seconds, seemingly grown hour-sized, stretched. There was a dull, soggy thud, a tremor in the tunnel walls, then a single unearthly shriek. There was silence and they stared at each other.

“You go.”

“We’ll all go,” said Tuktu firmly.

“Seventy tons of flab and a two-ounce brain.”

“Your own true friend.”

There was blood in the water at the tunnel mouth, but no battered bulk of whale in a welter of self-destruction. There were shreds of blubber, however, and slivers of peeled flesh.

“I don’t think this exit will need further expansion,” said Tuktu thoughtfully.

“All you care about, eh? How about my sick true friend.”

“Who doubtless ate an oarfish.”

When they surfaced into the bay, Tube Steak was leaving harbor headed for the open surges of the Pacific along the south side of the Aleutians. The whale was swimming strongly and steadily, yet it seemed to be having trouble holding a straight course.

“He’s hurt,” said Tuktu, “and bleeding, and even a creature his size may find a lot of nasty company in open ocean.”

“You want to trail him for awhile, Lemuel? Josh?”

The two husky Kirl exchanged glances.

“We’re suppose to stay with you.”

“You need ol’ Tube Steak in your business. We don’t. I’m changing your silly orders and I’ll tell your boss about it. Get cracking. At least get a look at him and bring back a report. How many traitor meat herders do you have to spare? I hate to sound nasty, and I know all about your shiny big teeth, but unless you want singed hides, take off. We’ll see you back in the lake.”

“We’ll help your friend if he needs it,” said Lemuel.

“We’ll tell him you sent us,” added Joshua.

“Nothing worse that four-footed wise guys,” growled Genright. “Move out. We’re going back to base.”

“Want to try out a wet-clay ski jump, whatever that is,” said Tuktu, heaving the work sled around and pointing it for the tunnel.

“Yeah, gets boring around here being run over by old friends.”

“Good thing that Tube Steak’s a California gray, and not a sperm whale.”

“So?”

“Tighter plug.”

“I ought to plug you.”

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

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