"Escape From The Crater"

Escape From The Crater

by Carl L. Biemiller

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

“Would you suggest Genright and Tuktu?” asked Toby Lee.

“And about forty of my best young men walking wounded?”

Major Bell looked a trifle sheepish. “Mud slide, I suppose? I thought I put a trifle too much curve in that take-off slip. Oh, well, a mere fifteen minutes with a shovel and some fresh mud will do the job.”

“Not until your crew is beat to a pulp,” said Moses sternly. “But come see for yourselves before I split them and salt them for ocean rations.”

The slide was a one-man tunnel of slick red clay dropping at nearly an eighty-degree angle along a path that looked as though it had been engineered with a plumb line. Once embarked downward, it was impossible to leave the groove until it ended in a deep-diving plunge into a deep pool, which awaited at the lake surface. It was a favorite Kirl sport, and they rode it belly down at incredible speeds on a cushion of muck and trickling water. It was the epitome of otter slides. But Genright was a natural-born improver.

“Sort of level it out,” he explained to Tuktu. “Right there at the end, and zing, you go zooming out over the lake for a long flying dive. Maybe rig some bushy sleeves for wings. All sorts of possibilities.”

“Forget it.”

“Major Bell will give us a sketch, and then only a little donkey work and we’d have a sensation.”

Major Bell had, but one with a small error that put a careening rider into more of a loop-the-loop than a straight take-off, more suited to ski jumping in some long-forgotten, much younger world. Riders were flipping back on the chute or falling, off balance, down the hillside into the lake, collecting a variety of bruises and lacerations en route.

There was a band of interested Kirl at the foot of the slide, but only Genright and Tuk were performing. The best one could say of their skill and agility was that they conspired to save their lives. When they managed to find themselves on the hillside outside the chute, the onlookers chased them up again to try another descent. They were daunted but as yet undiminished.

“Traitors?” they yelled.

Despite bruises and sore sides, the Kirl were amused. Babies chuckled. Some of the more dignified clubmen types floated on their backs and thumbed their tummies in glee. Admittedly, there was an amused ebony flicker in Moses’ dark eyes.

“Tube Steak had sense enough to leave this stupid lake,” shouted Genright.

“I haven’t had a chance to talk to them,” said The Kirl. “I was most anxious to have them try the slide, I’m afraid.”

“Permission, sir?” asked Major Bell.

“Yes, no sense in twisting them into eels.”

It was the work of minutes, three flat log removals to cure the flip-lip effect, a minor extension of the launch platform and much fresh globby clay to lubricate the take-off. Major Bell was enthusiastic. “What brave warrior wants to try first?” he asked loudly.

He won his own honor, and a triumph. Stripped with the minor oversight of his shoes, he belly-whopped down the chute in a spray of tawny muck, zoomed off the end of the flattened platform, and shot far out into the lake in an arrow-like dive, which he managed to convert into a skin-pinking flop upon impact. The Kirl cheered. The rush was on.

Even Moses tried it and pronounced the ride a success.

Toby Lee, lying full length on Kim’s back, whizzed down the chute. They split in midair, and performed a brace of swan dives.

Genright elected to make the ride standing on Tuktu’s broad back, a feat Kim and Toby had often seen when the two romped in the curling breakers along the coast, and had just as often marveled at the teamwork and balance of the long-practiced pair. “What’s the diff? We’re all beat up anyhow,” said Genright. “Suppose I stop short to pick a flower or something?” “Smell it quick, then. You may never get another chance. My back will be too slippery.” “I have very long toenails, and could practically stab you to death.” “Why do I do this?” “Because you are my own true friend.” “Lost an oarfish,, chased away a whale, and now you settle for what you can get. Last time I go to sea with you, buddy.”

The act was hilarious. The pair parted at the peak of zoom over the water, and Genright even managed to go into a backward tuck from which he landed with a slovenly splash.

“That slide may make history,” said Major Bell.

Kim picked up Moses with his eyes.

“We’d better make some of our own,” he said softly.

“Who’s going to mind my bear?”

“Just nobody. It lacks a certain food value.”

The meeting aboard the Adam was somber.

“It all boils down to the Kirl,” said Moses. “For thousands of years the fear of the surviving cities has been that they might lose exclusive use of the seas as a means to life itself. The fear is stronger today because the hive rulers, or those who know about us, must be certain in their hearts that we are a thinking stock of their own race, however altered physically. They know that a people trained to freedom, mobility, and independent action cannot be controlled by the techniques necessary to city life style. They distrust the outside world. Why not? It has killed them too long, although they long ago foresaw a need for people trained to cope with it.”

“That seed stock is planted in the Service,” said Kim quietly.

“You have been exposed to wise men,” said The Kirl.

“Civilizations have to change,” said Major Bell.

“Yours made the big change,” muttered Genright. “It died.”

“Speak one at a time,” suggested The Kirl. “Kim?”

Kim’s trust and affection for Commanders Torrance and Jensen came through his words. So did Toby’s. Major Bell’s impressions, including the shock of learning from Commander Torrance that he was not the only remnant of his people, were pertinent. But Moses probed at them.

“Suppose your superiors did not know all that their superior, Commander Brent, knew, especially if Brent were occupied with influential members of the Council of Cities?”

“It’s possible. But they wouldn’t lie to us,” said Kim.

“Wouldn’t suggest it. They just might lack information.”

“Major Bell shook his head. “I know that Kim’s report on new land and its potential impressed his bosses. They were serious about colonization possibilities.”

The Major’s face was grave. “So am I,” he continued. “Just a handful of good men to start…” He paused uncertainly. “They were surprised apparently when Kim asked for background data on one of the old prewar scientists.” He stared at The Kirl.

In the steady light of the Adam’s interior, Moses’ face was an onyx mask.

“And who might have that been?” he asked.

“One Albert Preston Kirl,” said Kim.

“Ah, Toby Lee and the Kirl archives. She has a keen eye, and one doubtless made more perceptive by the emotional content of that old film tape. There is a man named Kirl on that film. But why would you explore the matter further?”

“He gets hunches,” murmured Tuktu.

“Because I think there is a Kirl who ought to be named Kirl somehow, and don’t ask me how or why I think it,” said Kim.

“And if that were true?”

“You created the Kirl to keep a form of humanity alive. Would you do less when your science might give the Kirl life for a second time if it were necessary?”

“Still, you haven’t answered me why you connected me with Toby Lee’s impression of something seen on a historic film.”

“A biology lesson Toby gave Major Bell about Tardigrades.”

“Ah, yes, the eternal-life factor, and by some odd thought process, I become Kirl and a possible hostage for my people. Right? Of course.

“But suppose I were unwilling? Worse, what if the cities already have my knowledge? Much time has passed since I walked as you do.”

“The gaps in our sciences are great. I know that. Who knows what our cities know? And we buy time if I can tell my people about you. You could leave your own for a time. Their adaptation has been long seasoned. And nobody could question their ability to get along without you. I’ll bet you’ve already picked and confirmed a successor.”

“So the last sacrifice?” barked Moses. “Well, let’s hear the rest of your plans.”

“I’d say move tonight,” said Kim easily. “Gen and Tuktu say the tunnel’s clear enough for our purposes. Anyhow, the exit was big enough after Tube Steak rammed his way to sea.” His voice grew absent. “I’d like to know what excited that beast… did he know something that we don’t? Anyhow, your two Kirl were following him to see if his scrape wounds were serious. They should be back soon. They may have seen something. According to Commanders Torrance and Jensen, the Polaris may sail four days from now, but who knows what may have mooched into these waters ahead of her?

“So we go up-lake to pick up the Kirl archives and whatever else Albert Preston Moses Kirl may want after he takes some time here to instruct his people. Then I don’t know what we do exactly…to sea, I guess, after we jar loose a cargo of Major Bell’s troops and leave them for the Polaris to revive and make well…”

“What?” The cryo’s query was explosive.

“No nonsense,” said Tuktu, poking the Major in the chest.

“How many?” asked the cryo incredulously.

“Maybe fifty. The work down there was sort of chancy,” explained Genright.

“I came with them. I go with them,” said the Major flatly.

“We’ll see,” said Kim. “That might not work out.”

Major Bell kicked his foot impatiently.

“What’s in this silly sack?”

“My rocks from the tunnel. Haven’t had the chance to analyze ‘em,” said Genright.

“Whose rocks?” asked Tuktu.

He leaned over and spilled them on the deck. “Take a look,” he invited.

The Major dropped to his knees as though he didn’t believe his eyes. “I know these specimens, or ones much like them. And I don’t think your tunnel was a tunnel originally. It was a deep shaft, maybe the deepest we ever drove. “Look, the study of the earth is a study of stratification, or layers. The first layers are the oldest in history usually, although turbulence, crust movements, and formations of plant and animal life can change this.”

“We’re wasting valuable time,” snapped Kim.

“Bear with me,” pleaded major Bell. “I’ve got the glimmer of an idea.”

“Glow then,” said Genright.

“Geologists divided earth’s history into four eras of varying length, the Pre-Cambrian, the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. Had to call them something.

“Here’s a rock that shows the first formation of chemical compounds, mostly carbon, and it’s maybe four billion six hundred million years old. Here’s another, Probably Pre-Cambrian sediment about three billion two hundred million years old. Found the first evidence of life on earth in such stuff.”

“Get on with it,” said Kim.

“Point is that Tuktu and Genright picked this stuff up in your tunnel when it belonged about eighty-five hundred feet in the earth, in deep rock of cold magma. That’s where we found it. Your tunnel is our old shaft, tilted and laid laterally by some titanic wrench of the earth. And our shaft was a working installation with living quarters, circulating air, all that…”

“If you’re going dispy again, say so,” said Kim coldly.

“Nah, nah, nah, here’s the meat. Your tunnel, our shaft, was an improvement. We’d already built an installation, which was working at Kodiak Island, not too far from here, if the old maps are right. It was built near the Harding ice field and was concealed, partially, in a shallow harbor basin. We had some security problems too. Anyhow, I think I could find it. If it hasn’t been destroyed, and that’s a chance, the whole Kirl population could hide there and go away in dribbles later. Can’t just go to sea and swim around like ducks. Is that an idea?”

“Suppose it isn’t there at all?” queried Genright.

“We look,” said Moses, and Kim nodded approval. “Concealment first, talk with your people next, I think. We need shelter. Can you imagine the detection devices that will be used to find us or anything which moves, emits heat, light or sound…”

“I think our people will be sane and reasonable,” said Toby Lee, breaking a long silence.

“But maybe later than sooner,” said Moses.

“Didn’t hurt you ankle, did you, Major Bruce?” asked Genright.

“What?”

“Falling over that sack of rocks, ‘cause now you’ll have to stay with us awhile and let the Service pick up your army.”

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

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