hadn't Sosa given the route away?
Then he remembered: Sos-Sosa. Sometime in the past she had been his wife, and she must still have loved him. So she hadn't told. But he had thought she had, and so the surface battle had begun. Just one more irony of many.
Soli lit one of their two lanterns and marched in. Var, perforce, followed.
Could this great tube actually cross under the entire ocean? What kept the water out, he wondered.
And why did no one emerge from it, if other men had entered? If the problem were radiation, he would discover it. But he feared that was not the case. There could ne other dangers in fringe radiation zones, as he knew saw mutant wildlife, from deadly moths to giant amphibians, as well as harmless forms like the mock sparrow. And what else, here?
Deep in the tunnel the walls developed a tiled surface, clean and much more attractive that the bare metal and concrete. Var knew what had happened: the natives had pulled off the nearest tiles for their own use, but had not dared to penetrate too far. The mud on the bottom also slacked off, so that they walked on a fine gray surface, of a coarse texture in detail but marvelously even as a whole.
It was ideal for running; their feet had excellent traction.
But how far could this continue? After an hour's brisk walk, he asked Soil: 'How wide is the ocean?'
'Jim showed me a map once. He said this way was the Pacific, and it's about ten thousand miles wide.'
'Ten thousand milesi It will take years to cross!' -
'No,' she said. 'You know better than that, Var. You can figure. If we walk four miles an hour, twelve hours a day, that's almost fifty miles.'
'Twenty days to cover a thousand miles,' he said, after a moment's difficult computation. 'To cover ten thousand over six months to cross it all. We have supplies for hardly a week!'
She laughed. 'It isn't so wide up here. Maybe less than a hundred miles. I'm not sure. I think the tunnel must come up for air every so often, on the little, islands. So we won't have to walk it all at one stretch!'
Var hoped she was right. The tunnel was unnatural, and his nose picked up the dryness of it, the deadness. If danger fell upon them here, how could they escape?
They walked another hour, Soil swinging her lantern to make the grotesque shadows caper, and Var realized what it was that disturbed him most. The other tunnel, the subway passage, had teemed with life, though touched by radiation. This one had neither. Var knew that life intruded wherever it could, and should be found in a protected place like this. What kept it clean? There had to be a reason and not any swarm of shrews, for there were no droppings.
They rested briefly to eat and drink and leave the substance of their natural processes on the floor, since there was nowhere to bury it. They went on.
Then down the tunnel came a monster. It rumbled and hissed as it moved, and shot water from its torso, and it was bathed in steam. A tremendous eye speared light ahead.
Var froze for a moment, terrified. Then his instincts took over. He backed and turned and started to run.
'No!' Soli cried, but he hardly paid attention.
As he plunged down the tunnel, she plunged too and tackled him. Both fell and the rushing glare played over them.
'Machine!' she cried. 'Man-made. It won't hurt men!' Now the thing was bearing down on them, faster than they could run, and the clank of its sparkling treads was deafening. It filled the passage.
'Stand up!' Soil screamed. 'Show you're a man!' She meant it literally.
Var obeyed, unable to think for himself. Men seldom daunted him, but he had never experienced anything like this before.
Soli took his hand and stood by him, facing the machine.
'Stop!' she cried at it, and waved her other hand in the blinding light, but it did not stop.
