“But I am involved.”
“Like how?”
“By the fact that I love you.”
He heard her take a breath. She turned away and her hair fell over her eyes, so that he couldn’t read her expression. “Rick-”
“I can’t help it, Karen. Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with you. I don’t know how it happened, but it happened. When you got swallowed by the bird, I thought you were dead, Karen. At that moment I would have thrown my life away to save you. And I hadn’t even known I loved you. And then, when I got you back and you weren’t breathing-it scared me so much-I couldn’t bear to lose you-”
“Rick, please-not now-”
“Well, why did you save me?”
“Because I had to,” she answered in a tight voice.
“Because you love me,” he went on.
“Look, get off this-”
He thought he had gone too far. Probably she didn’t love him, didn’t even like him. Maybe he should just shut up. But he couldn’t. “I’ll stay with you. We’ll have the bends together. We’ll get through it. Just like we got through everything else.”
“Rick, I’m not somebody to stay with. I’m basically-alone.”
He folded his arms around her, feeling her body trembling. He pulled her hair aside and found her cheekbone with his fingertips, and turned her head gently toward him. “You’re not alone.” He brought her mouth to his, and kissed her, and she didn’t try to stop it. And then she was kissing him deeply, wrapping her arms around him. That was when he noticed how much it hurt to kiss her. Every part of his body hurt with a deep, unfocused pain, an ache in the joints and bones that seemed to be spreading everywhere, like a spilled liquid. Was he bleeding internally? She winced suddenly, and it made him wonder if she hurt the same way he did. “Are you okay?”
She pushed him off without answering. “Don’t stay.”
“Why? Give me a reason.”
“I don’t love you. I can’t love anybody.”
“Karen-”
Their talk got no further, because the ceiling lights went out, plunging the room into gloom except for the glowing fire pit. Almost immediately a weird odor began to filter through the tunnels. The room smelled like a gas station. The smell grew stronger.
Ben Rourke came running. “Gasoline!” he shouted. “Get out!”
Chapter 46
Tantalus Crater 1 November, 1:20 a.m.
A rumbling sound started up, making the tunnels shake like an earthquake, and then a glow of yellow light appeared in the ceiling smoke hole over the fire hearth. Rick and Karen jumped up, throwing the blankets off, as Ben rushed into the room. “To the hangar!” he shouted.
They began to run down the tunnel, but were hit with a blast of rushing air, hot and soaked with fumes. Karen fell; Rick picked her up and started dragging her, but she wrestled him away. But then she fell to her knees and collapsed. She seemed to have fainted or something. He couldn’t see anything, and smoke had suddenly flooded the tunnels. He picked her up and slung her over his back and started to run, following Ben. He got dizzy and had trouble breathing, and realized that the oxygen was being sucked out of the tunnels. Ben was shouting, hauling him along, and he fell, dropping Karen.
This time Karen came around. She stood up and grabbed him, and started hauling him along. “Come on Rick! Don’t fall apart on me!”
Stumbling, choking, coughing, they ran through the smoke. It filled the ceiling.
“Get under the smoke!” Ben shouted.
They began crawling, keeping their heads under the swirling black smoke, while a horrifying deep roar made the ground shake. They made it to the hangar. Rick and Karen leaped into the planes, while Rourke flung open a hangar door. Just then, the door collapsed, revealing a curtain of flames blocking the mouth of the cave.
Rourke fell back, coughing.
“Ben!” Karen screamed. She saw him fall to his knees, then stand up, and he waved them on. “Go!”
But there were only two planes. Ben would not be able to fly.
Karen cried, “Ben! What about you?”
“Get out!” He was staggering backward toward the tunnel. Smoke poured from it, now.
Choking, her head spinning, Karen started her plane and waved at Rick. “Take off!” she screamed at him. They took off at the same time, flying side by side through the cave, while Rourke staggered backward. Karen looked back and saw him fall to his knees. He was crawling into the Redoubt. He couldn’t breathe; he would never make it.
But now the wall of flames approached. She ducked, hunching herself in the cockpit, and the micro-plane burst through the flames and into cool night air. She looked over and saw that Rick Hutter flew next to her. He seemed okay.
She banked gently, testing the stick, and looked back. Rourke’s Redoubt had become a sea of fire. The flames leaped up against the Great Boulder, painting its face with firelight, while the shadow of a giant man appeared outlined against the flames. The man held a red plastic gasoline container, and he was dumping it around Tantalus Base. The man stepped back, and tossed a match, and a burst of flames leaped up, revealing his face. It was Vin Drake. Bathed in the firelight, Drake’s face radiated calm. He could have been staring into a campfire and thinking peaceful thoughts. He tipped his head from side to side, as if he were shaking water out of his ear or listening for something.
Rick lost control of his plane. He threw it into a barrel roll, and smacked into the Great Boulder. For a moment he thought he was dead, but the micro-plane bounced off the rock, corkscrewed, and stabilized, flying straight and level. These micro-planes were really tough. He looked around: he had lost sight of Karen. The trees extended upward in a tangled wall. He searched the trees but found no lights, nothing to indicate where Karen had gone. There was a radio in the cockpit, and he debated calling her on it. Just then, ahead of him, Rick saw a pair of lights wink on, green and red. Karen’s running lights.
He switched on his running lights, then waggled his wingtips at her. She waggled back. Good: they could see each other. She flew into the crown of a tree, and Rick followed her lights. He could barely see the branches and limbs all around. He was flying through a dark maze, following Karen King.
Rick ran up the power and caught up with her while she circled inside the tree. Then he switched on his radio. What the hell. Drake couldn’t reach them now, even if he could hear them.
“Are you all right, Karen?”
“I think so. What about you?”
“Doing okay,” he answered. He realized that she had nowhere to go now except Nanigen. She couldn’t stay at Tantalus since there was nothing left. He decided not to remind her of that reality.
They could see Drake through the branches as they circled. He walked downslope, and more flames leaped up. He was burning something else; whatever it was, he seemed determined to eradicate all traces of the base and of Rourke’s Redoubt. The fires were burning in wet forest, and would probably die without attracting attention, leaving Rourke’s Redoubt and Tantalus Base gutted ruins.
Drake moved off into the forest, his flashlight bobbing. They heard the sound of an engine, and they saw a pickup truck bouncing on the dirt road at the lip of the crater. The vehicle’s lights vanished past the far side of the crater and darkness closed in. But the darkness wasn’t total, for the lights of Honolulu sparkled through the branches. Karen flew up out of the top of the tree and into the open.
“Bats. Gotta land somewhere,” Rick said to her.
