Tunnels

'Search me,' the man said.

Will's face lit up. 'Whatever he was saying, he's still thinking about me. He hasn't forgotten me. Maybe he always hoped that somehow or other I'd try to follow after him, to find him.' He was nodding vigorously as the notion built to a crescendo in his head. 'Yes, that's it… that must be it!'

Something else occurred to him at that moment, deflecting his thoughts. 'Imago, this has to be from my dad's journal. Where did you get it?' Will was immediately imagining the worst. 'Is he all right?'

Imago rubbed his chin comtemplatively. 'Don't know. Like Tam told you, he took a one-way on the Miners' Train.' Sticking a thumb in the direction of the hole in the floor, he went on. 'Your father's down there somewhere, in the Deeps. Probably.'

'Yes, but where did you get this?' Will demanded impatiently, closing his hand over the scraps of paper and holding them up in his palm.

''Bout a week after your dad arrived in the Colony, he was wandering around on the outskirts of the Rookeries and was attacked.' Imago's voice became slightly incredulous at this point. 'If the story's to be believed, he was stopping people and asking them things. Round these parts they don't take kindly to anyone, least of all Topsoilers, nosing about, and he got a good kicking. By all accounts, he just lay there, didn't even try to put up a fight. Probably saved his life.'

'Dad,' Will said with tears welling in his eyes as he pictured the scene. 'Poor old Dad.'

'Well, it can't have been too bad. He walked away from it.' Imago rubbed his hands together, and his tone changed, becoming more businesslike. 'But that's neither here nor there. You need to tell me what you want to do. We can't stick around here forever.' He looked pointedly at each boy in turn. 'Will? Cal?'

They were both silent for a while, until Will spoke up.

' Chester!' He couldn't believe that with everything else that had been going on, he'd completely forgotten about his friend. 'Whatever you say, I've got to go back for him,' he said resolutely. 'I owe it to him.'

' Chester will be all right,' Imago said.

'How can you know that?' Will immediately shot back at him.

Imago simply smiled.

'So where is he?' Will asked. 'Is he really all right?'

'Trust me,' Imago said cryptically.

Will looked into his eyes and saw the man was in earnest. He felt a huge sense of relief, as if a crushing weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He told himself that if anyone could save his friend, then it would be Imago. He drew a long breath and lifted his head. 'Well, in that case, the Deeps it is.'

'And I'm going with you,' Cal put in quickly.

'You're both absolutely sure about this?' Imago asked, looking hard at Will. 'It's like hell down there. You'd be better off Topsoil; at least you'd know the lay of the land.'

Will shook his head. 'My dad is all I have left.'

'Well, if that's what you want.' Imago's voice was low and somber.

'There's nothing for us Topsoil, not now,' Will replied with a glance at his brother.

'Okeydokey, it'd decided, then,' Imago said, checking his watch. 'Now try to get some shut-eye. You're going to need all your strength.'

But none of them could sleep, and Imago and Cal ended up talking about Tam. Imago was regaling the younger boy with stories of his uncle's exploits, even chuckling at times, and Cal couldn't help but join in with him. Imago was clearly drawing comfort from reminiscing about the stunts he, Tam, and his sister had pulled in their youth, when they had run rings around the Styx.

'Tam and Sarah were as bad as each other, I can tell you. Pair of wildcats.' Imago smiled sadly.

'Tell Will about the cane toads,' Cal said, egging him on.

'Oh dear God, yes…' Imago laughed, recalling the incident. 'It was your mother's idea, you know. We caught a barrel load of the things over in the Rookeries — the sickos there raise them in their basements.' Imago raised his eyebrows. 'Sarah and Tam took the toads to a church and let them out just before the service got underway. You should have seen it… a hundred of the slimy little beggars hopping all over the place… people jumping and shrieking, and you could hardly hear the preacher for all the croaking… burup, burup, burup.' The rotund man rocked with silent laughter, then his brow furrowed and he was unable to continue.

With all the talk about his real mother, Will had been trying his hardest to listen, but he was too tired and preoccupied. The seriousness of his situation was still foremost in his mind, and his thoughts were heavy with apprehension about what he'd just committed himself to. A journey into the unknown. Was he really up to it? Was he doing the right thing, for himself and his brother?

He broke from his introspection as he heard Cal suddenly interrupt Imago, who had just started on another tale. 'Do you think Tam might have made it?' Cal asked. 'You know… escaped?'

Imago looked away from him quickly and began drawing absently in the dust with his finger, clearly at a loss for words. And in the silence that ensued, intense sorrow flooded Cal 's face again.

'I can't believe he's gone. He was everything to me.'

'He fought them all his life,' Imago said, his voice distant and strained. 'He was no saint, that's for sure, but he gave us something — hope — and that made it bearable for us.' He paused, his eyes fixed on some distant point beyond Cal 's head. 'With the Crawfly dead there'll be purges… and a crackdown the likes of which hasn't been seen for years.' He picked up a cave pearl and examined it. 'But I wouldn't go back to the Colony even if I could. I suppose we're all homeless now,' Imago said as he flicked the pearl into the air with his thumb and, with absolute precision, it fell into the dead center of the well.

37

'Please!' Chester whimpered inside the clammy hood, which stuck to his face and neck with his cold sweat. After they had dragged him from his cell and down the corridor to the front of the police station, they had pushed something over his head and bound his wrists. Then they'd left him standing there, enveloped in stifling darkness, with muffled sounds coming from all around.

'Please!' Chester shouted in sheer desperation.

'Shut up, will you!' snapped a gruff voice just inches behind his ear.

'What's happening?' Chester begged.

'You're going on a little journey, my son, a little journey,' said the same voice.

'But I haven't done anything! Please!'

He heard boots grinding on a stone floor as he was pushed from behind. He stumbled and fell to his knees, unable to rise up again with his hands tied behind his back.

'Get up!'

He was hauled to his feet and stood swaying, his legs like jelly. He'd known that this moment was looming, that his days were numbered, but he'd had no way of finding out what it would be like when it did come. Nobody would speak to him in the Hold, not that he made much of an effort to ask them, so petrified was he of provoking any further retribution from the Second Officer and his fellow wardens.

So Chester had lived as a condemned man who could only guess at the form of his eventual demise. He'd clung on to every precious second he had left, trying not to let them go, and dying a little inside as one after another they slipped away. Now the only thing he could find solace from was the knowledge that he had a train journey before him — so at least he had some time left. But then what? What were the Deeps like? What would happen to him there?

'Move it!'

He shambled forward a few paces, unsure of his footing and unable to see a thing. He bumped into something hard, and the sound around him seemed to change. Echoes. Shouts, but from a distance, from a larger space.

Suddenly, there came the clamor of many voices.

Oh, no!