Maggie's voice cut in. 'We have a preliminary reading from the 'sex' tablet.' She was referring to the character group that appeared atop the wedge, and in the Oz inscription. 'We don't think it's a sexual term.'
'What is it?' asked Richard.
'We've located parts of the same cluster of symbols elsewhere. We've got the root, which suggests duration, maybe infinite duration.'
'You're right,' said Sandy. 'That does it for sex.'
'There's a positive connotation. It's linked with sunlight, for example. And ships in peaceful circumstances. I would be inclined to translate it along the lines of good fortune rather than pleasure.'
'You sure?' That sounded like Tri.
'Of course I'm not sure,' she snapped. 'But there's a fair degree of probability.'
'So,' said Richard, 'we have good fortune and a mythical beast. What's the connection?'
Ahead, George turned off the projector, and waited for the water to clear. 'I think we're through,' he said. 'We have a tunnel.'
Henry and Sandy moved forward to insert the braces. George poked at the roof. Gravel and silt floated down. 'No guarantees,' he said.
Henry shrugged and plunged ahead. 'George,' he called back, 'do what you can to widen it.'
'Not while you're in there.'
'Do it,' said Henry. 'My authority.'
Your authority's not worth much if you're dead. Suppose George started cutting and the roof fell in? He shouldn't even allow Henry to proceed before he conducted a safety inspection. But things were happening too fast.
Obediently, he activated the particle beam, and chipped away at the sides of the tunnel.
The chamber had partially collapsed. Henry crawled between broken slabs and decayed timbers. His lamp blurred. 'Up ahead somewhere,' he told his throat mike. The printing press should have been close enough to show on the sensors. But he was getting no reading.
He came to a wall.
He floated to a stop and laid his head against it. That's it, he thought. He hated this place the way it was now: squeeze past rock, dig through mud, grope in the dark.
Richard moved up behind him, held his lamp up. 'Over there,' he said. 'It's open to your right. Look.'
He pointed and Henry saw that it was so. But he knew it was getting desperately late and that he had a responsibility to get his people out. While he hesitated, Richard pushed past. His lamp moved in the dark.
'I think I can see it,' he said softly.
Sandy's hand gripped his shoulder. 'We ought to wait for George,' she said.
'Attaboy, Richard,' said Maggie. She was ecstatic.
Henry followed the light, turned a corner, and swam down into the small room that he remembered from his previous visit. 'We've got it,' Richard was saying. He knelt two meters away, blurred in the smoky light.
The frame was half-buried. They scrounged around, digging with their fingers, trying to work it free. They found a rectangular chase. A gearbox lay beneath loose rock. 'It's the press bed,' said Maggie.
A second chase was wedged under a cut slab.
Sandy's scanner revealed something in the floor. She dug it up. At one time, it had been a compartmented drawer or case.
Henry poked at the chases. 'There is type set in these things,' he said.
'Good!' Maggie egged them on. 'It's enough. Let's go. Get it out of there.'
The frame was stuck tight. 'We need the pulser,' said Henry.
Richard touched his arm. 'I don't think we want a beam anywhere near it.'
It was large, almost two meters long, maybe half as wide. Sandy and Richard tried to pry it loose.
It did not give.
'This is not going to work,' Sandy said. 'Even if we get it out, it's too big to take back up the tunnel.' She looked at it in the lamplight. 'How about just taking the chases?'
'Why the chases?'
Maggie's voice crackled. 'Because that's where the type is set.'
Hutch broke in. 'It's about to get wet up here. If you're planning on leaving, this would be a good time.'
Henry measured the chases with his hands. 'We'll still need to widen the exit,' he said.
'How about just taking a good set of holos?' George suggested.
'No help,' said Maggie. 'We need the chases. And we need the type. We're going to have to do a major restoration if we're ever going to read those.'
Henry was playing his light around the room. 'Should be some type trays around somewhere.'
'Forget it.' Richard tugged at the chases. 'Sandy's right. Let's make do with what we've got.'
'If there's more type down there,' said Maggie, 'it would be nice to have it. The type in the chases will be pretty far gone.'
'Goddammit, Maggie,' Hutch exploded. 'You want the type, go down and get it yourself.'
The common channel went silent.
'Okay, let's do it,' said Henry. 'Cut it. We've no time to be particular.' The particle beam ignited.
George cut with a will. He broke the press apart and dragged the chases free.
'Sandy,' said Henry, 'get to the top of the shaft and be ready to haul when we're clear of the tunnel. Richard, why don't you go up and give Hutch a hand? No point in your hanging around.'
'You'll need help with these things,' he said. 'I'll wait.'
Henry nodded. 'Okay.' He checked the time. 'We can manage it.'
'Hurry up,' said Maggie. Henry remembered an incident years before when a football had rolled onto an ice- covered lake and the older boys had sent him out to recover it. Hurry up and throw it in, they'd cried, before you fall through.
0935 hours.
The tide sucked at the Tower. There were a couple of icebergs on the horizon. The coastal peaks glittered in the sunlight.
Hutch, angry, close to tears, swung the winch out, hooked a ten-pound ring weight to the cable, and punched the button. The ring fell into the sea, followed by fifteen meters of line. The shuttles lay side by side in the water. Carson stood on Alpha's wing, rocking gently with the motion of the waves. 'This is crazy,' he said. 'I can't believe this is happening.'
It was a gorgeous day, clear and gold. The hour before the end of the world.
Four of Quraqua's flying creatures, animals that resembled manta rays, flowed in formation through the sky, headed north.
'Maybe,' he said, 'we should talk to Kosmik.'
Hutch stared at the cable.
Inside the military chapel, George, Richard, and Henry had completed their work and started down the tunnel at last.
Kosmik Station. 0945 hours.
Truscott stood behind Harvey Sill with her arms folded. Her face was dark with anger. 'Any progress yet?' she demanded.
'Negative.' Harvey pressed his earphones tight. 'They're still on the surface.'
'Can you tell what's happening?'
'They're in the tunnels. That pilot, what's-her-name, is pretty upset. She's got something going for her, that one. But I don't know what it's about. It's even possible this stuff is all prerecorded to drive us nuts.'
'You've gotten paranoid, Harvey. Have you asked them what their situation is?'
Sill shook his head. 'No.'
'Why not?'
'Because I thought it would encourage them if they thought we were worried.'
Truscott was beginning to feel old. 'Harvey, get them on the line.'
