well as physical, I might add-in our current situation, and I would be against any plan that left them unprotected and vulnerable—”
“You’re right, Robert,” Richard interrupted. “Several adults, including at least one man, must stay with Benjy and the children. In fact, Nai must have her hands full right this minute. Why don’t you, Patrick, and Ellie return to the children now? Nicole and I will wait for Max and Eponine and join you shortly.”
Richard and Nicole were alone after the others departed. “Ellie says that Robert is angry most of the time now,” Nicole said quietly, “but he doesn’t know how to express his anger constructively. He told her he thinks the whole enterprise has been a mistake from the beginning, and he spends hours brooding about it. Ellie says she’s even worried about his stability.”
Richard shook his head. “Maybe it was a mistake,” he said. “Maybe you and I should have lived the rest of our life here alone, I just thought—”
At that moment Max and Eponine came back into the chamber. “I want to apologize,” Max said, extending his hand, “to both of you. I guess I let my fear and frustration get the best of me.”
“Thank you, Max,” Nicole answered. “But an apology really isn’t necessary. It would be ridiculous to assume that this many people could go through an experience like this without any disagreements.”
Everyone was together in the museum. “Let’s review the plan one more time,” Richard said. “The five of us will climb down the spikes and explore the area around the subway platform. We will thoroughly investigate every tunnel we can find. Then, if we have not found any means of escape and the large subway is indeed there waiting, Max, Eponine, Nicole, and I will go on board. At that point Patrick will climb back up and rejoin you here in the museum.”
“Don’t you think having all four of you on the subway is reckless?” Robert asked. “Why not just two of you at first?… What if the subway leaves and never comes back?”
“Time is our enemy, Robert,” Richard answered. “If we weren’t running so low on food, then we could follow a more conservative plan. In that case maybe only two of us would enter the subway. But what if the subway leads to more than one place? Since we have already decided that for safety we will explore only in pairs, it could take us a long time to find the escape route with just a single couple doing the searching.”
There was a protracted silence in the room until Timmy began to jabber at his sister. Nikki wandered over and began to stroke the avian’s velvet underside. “I don’t pretend that I have all the answers,” Richard said. “Nor do I underestimate the seriousness of our situation. But if there is a way out of here-and both Nicole and I believe that there must be-then the sooner we find it, the better.”
“Assuming that all four of you do take the subway,” Patrick now asked, “how long do we wait for you here in the museum?”
“That’s a difficult question,” Richard replied. “You have enough food for four more days, and the plentiful water at the cistern should keep you alive for some period after that… I don’t know, Patrick. I guess you should stay here for at least two or three days. After that, you have to make your own decision. If it is at all possible, one or more of us will return.”
Benjy had been following the conversation with rapt attention. He obviously understood more or less what was happening, for he began to cry softly. Nicole went over to comfort him. “Don’t worry, son,” she said. “Everything is going to be all right.”
The child-man looked up at his mother. “I hope so, Mom-ma,” he said, “but I’m scared.”
Galileo Watanabe suddenly jumped up and ran across the room to where the two rifles were leaning against the wall. “If one of those octospider things comes in here,” he said, touching the closest rifle for a few seconds before Max lifted it free of the boy’s grasp, “then I’ll shoot it. Bang! Bang!”
His shouts caused the avians to shriek and little Nikki to cry. After Ellie wiped away her daughter’s tears, Max and Patrick shouldered the rifles and all five of the explorers said their good-byes. Ellie walked out into the tunnel with them. “I didn’t want to say this in front of the children,” she said, “but what should we do if we see an octospider while you’re gone?”
“Try not to panic,” Richard answered.
“And don’t do anything aggressive,” Nicole added.
“Grab Nikki and run like hell,” Max said with a wink.
Nothing unusual happened while they climbed down the spikes. Just as they had years earlier, the lights at the next lower level always turned on when anyone descending approached an unlit area. All five of the explorers were on the subway platform in less than an hour. “Now we’ll find out if those mysterious vehicles are still operating,” Richard said.
In the center of the circular platform there was a smaller hole, also round and with metal spikes protruding from its sides, that descended deeper into the darkness. On opposite ends of the platform, ninety degrees away to the left and right from where the five of them were standing, two dark tunnels were cut into the rock and metal. One of the tunnels was large, five or six meters from top to bottom, while the opposite tunnel was almost exactly an order of magnitude smaller. When Richard approached to within twenty degrees of the large tunnel, it suddenly became illuminated and its interior could be clearly seen. The tunnel looked like a large sewer pipe back on Earth.
The rest of the exploration party hurried over beside Richard as soon as the first whooshing sound was heard coming from the tunnel. Less than a minute later a subway sped around a distant corner and headed rapidly toward them, stopping with its front end a meter or so shy of where the spiked corridor continued to descend.
The inside of the subway was also illuminated. There were no seats, but there were vertical rods from the ceiling to the floor, scattered in the car in seemingly random fashion. The door slid open about fifteen seconds after the subway arrived. On the opposite side of the platform an identical vehicle, exactly one-tenth as large, pulled up and stopped no more than five seconds later.
Even though Max, Patrick, and Eponine had all heard stories about the two ghost subways many times, actually seeing the vehicles left all three of them full of apprehension. “Are you really serious, my friend?” Max said to Richard after the two men quickly examined the outside of the larger subway. “Do you really intend to board that damn thing if we find no other way out?”
Richard nodded.
“But it could go anywhere,” Max said. “We don’t have the foggiest fucking idea what it is, or who built it, or what the hell it’s doing here. And once we’re on board, we’re completely helpless.”
“That’s right,” Richard said. He smiled wanly. “Max, you have an excellent grasp of our situation.”
Max shook his head. “Well, we’d better find something down in this damn hole, because I don’t know if Eponine and I—”
“All right,” Patrick said, approaching the other two men. “I guess it’s time for the next phase of this operation. Come on, Max, are you ready for some more spike climbing?”
Richard did not have any of his clever robots to place in the smaller subway. He did, however, have in his possession a miniature camera with a crude mobility system that he hoped would weigh enough to activate the smaller subway. “Under any circumstances,” he told the others, “the small tunnel does not provide a possible exit for us. I just want to determine for myself if anything significant has changed during these years. Besides, there does not seem to be any reason, at least not yet, for more than two of us to descend any farther.”
While Max and Patrick were climbing slowly down the additional spikes and Richard was absorbed with a final checkout of his mobile camera, Nicole and Eponine strolled around the platform. “How’s it going, farmer?” Eponine said to Max on the radio.
“Fine so far,” he replied. “But we’re only about ten meters below you. These spikes are not as close together as the ones above, so we’re being more cautious.”
“Your relationship with Max must have really blossomed while I was in prison,” Nicole commented a few moments later.
“Yes, it did,” Eponine replied easily. “Quite frankly, it surprised me. I didn’t think a man was capable of having a serious affair with someone who… you know… but I underestimated Max. He is really an unusual person. Underneath that brusque, macho exterior…”
Eponine stopped. Nicole was smiling broadly. “I don’t think Max really fools anybody-at least not those who know him. The tough, foul-mouthed Max is an act, developed for some reason, probably self-protection, back on that farm in Arkansas.”
