Kolabati stepped forward. 'You can't go down there alone.”
Without another word, she kicked off her sandals, hiked up her sari, and sat on the floor. She swung her legs into the hole and began to lower herself through.
'Hey!'
'I'll go first. I'm the one with the necklace, remember?'
Jack watched in amazement as her head disappeared below the level of the floor. Was this the same woman who had screamed in abject terror a moment ago? Going first through that hole took a load of courage—with or without a 'magic' necklace. Didn't make sense.
But then, nothing seemed to make much sense anymore.
'All right,' she said, popping her head back through. 'It's clear.”
He followed her into the darkness below. When he felt his feet touch the suspended walkway, he eased himself into a tense crouch.
They were at the top of a high, narrow, tenebrous corridor. Through the slats of the walkway Jack could see the floor a good twenty feet below. Abruptly, he realized where he was: the same corridor he’d followed to the aft cargo hold on his first visit.
Kolabati leaned toward him and whispered. Her breath tickled his ear.
'It's good you're wearing sneakers. We must be quiet. The necklace clouds their vision but does not block their hearing.' She glanced around. 'Which way do we go?'
Jack pointed to the ladder barely visible against the wall at the end of the walkway. Together they crawled toward it. Kolabati led the way down.
Halfway to the floor she paused and he stopped above her. Together they scanned the floor of the corridor for any shape, any shadow, any movement that might indicate the presence of a rakosh.
All clear. But he found scant relief in that. The rakoshi could not be far away.
As they descended the rest of the way, the rakoshi stench grew ever stronger. Jack felt his palms grow slick with sweat and begin to slip on the iron rungs of the ladder. He’d come through here in a state of ignorance last night, blithely unaware of what waited in the cargo hold at its end. Now he knew, and with every step closer to the floor his heart increased its pounding rhythm.
Kolabati stepped off the ladder and waited for Jack. During his descent he’d been orienting himself as to his position in the ship. He’d determined that the ladder lay against the starboard wall of the corridor, which meant that the cargo hold and the rakoshi were forward to his left. As soon as his feet hit the floor he grabbed her arm and pul1ed her in the opposite direction. Safety lay toward the stern...
Yet a knot of despair began to coil in his chest as he neared the watertight hatch through which he’d entered and exited the corridor. He’d secured that hatch behind him last night. He was sure of it. But perhaps Kusum had used it since. Perhaps he’d left it unlocked. He ran the last dozen feet to the hatch and fairly leaped upon the handle.
It wouldn't budge. Locked!
Damn!
Jack wanted to shout, to pound his fists against the hatch. But that would be suicide. So he pressed his forehead against the cold, unyielding steel and began a slow mental count from one. By the time he reached six he’d calmed himself. He turned to Kolabati and drew her head close to his.
'We've got to go the other way,' he whispered.
Her eyes followed his pointing finger, then turned back to him. She nodded.
'The rakoshi are there,' he said.
Again she nodded.
12
Kolabati was a pale blur beside him as Jack stood in the dark and strained for another solution. He could not find one. A dim rectangle of light beckoned from the other end of the corridor where it opened into the main hold. They had to go through the hold. He was willing to try almost any other route but that. But it was either back up the ladder to the dead end of the pilot's cabin or straight ahead.
He lifted Kolabati, cradling her in his arms, and began to carry her toward the hold, praying that whatever power her necklace had over the rakoshi would be conducted to him as well.
Halfway down the corridor he realized that his hands were entirely useless this way. He lowered Kolabati back onto her feet and took two of the lighters from his pockets. Then he motioned to her to hop on his back.
She gave him a small, tight, grim smile and did as directed. With an arm hooked behind each of her knees, he carried her piggyback style, leaving his hands free to clutch a lighter in each. They seemed ridiculously inadequate, but he derived an odd sort of comfort from them.
When he reached the end of the corridor he stopped. Ahead and to their right, the hold opened before them. Brighter than the passageway behind them, but not much. Darker than Jack remembered from last night. But Kusum had been on the elevator then with his two gas torches roaring full force.
He noticed other differences. Details were scarce and nebulous in the murky light, but Jack could see that the forty or fifty rakoshi were no longer clustered around the elevator. Instead they'd spread throughout the hold; some crouched in the deepest shadows or slumped against the walls in somber poses; others were in constant motion, walking, turning, stalking.
The air was hazed with humidity and with the stink of them. The glistening black walls rose and disappeared into the darkness above. The high wall lamps gave off meager, dreary light, such as a waning moon might provide on a foggy night. The creatures’ movements were slow and languorous. Like looking in on a huge, candle-lit opium den in a forgotten corner of hell.
A rakosh began to walk toward where they stood at the mouth of the corridor. Though the temperature was much cooler down here than it had been up in the pilot's cabin, Jack felt his body break out from head to toe in a
