Tunnels 02, Deeper

evaporated.
    Somehow it wasn't enough.
    Sure, he had a mammoth task ahead of him. Just documenting everything on the Coprolite map would be enough to keep him busy for many lifetimes -- and require a huge research team -- but still, he felt a profound sense of disappointment.
    He wanted more!
    The hole shown on the map... what could it be? All the routes wouldn't converge there, it wouldn't be so prominent in the ancient temple's triptych, if it was just some geological feature!
    He halted on the path, muttering animatedly as he began to point in the air at an imaginary blackboard.
    "Great Plain," he announced, pointing at the left of the blackboard with a thrust of his hand as if he was addressing a lecture hall full of students. He swung his other arm up to the right, outlining a ring in the air with his light. "Big hole... here," he said, jabbing repeatedly into its center. "What are you, mystery hole?"
    He lowered his arms to his sides, exhaling through his tea-stained teeth. Yes, that hole had to be important.
    The triptych flashed before him. There was a message in those three panels. And he needed to recall the last letters of the inscription so that he could complete the translation and put the whole thing together. But it remained just out of his grasp!
    He sighed.
    He had to get to the hole and find out for himself.
    Maybe it was what he was yearning for... a way down .
    Maybe there was still hope.
    He started off again with a burst of enthusiasm.

    * * * * *

    About twenty minutes into his new journey, Dr. Burrows heard a scratchy noise ahead of him and immediately looked up.
    The noise came again, clearer.
    Within seconds his light revealed that two forms were gliding toward him on the path.
    He couldn't quite believe what he was seeing -- two people walking together.
    As they drew closer, he saw that it was a pair of Styx: the soldiers known as Limiters, from the look of their long coats, rifles, and backpacks. He'd seen a couple of them before at the Miners' Station when he'd first gotten off the train. The scratchy noise was their voices.
    He couldn't believe his luck. He hadn't so much as glimpsed a single living soul for days and thought how bizarre it was to bump into another human being down here, never mind two, in this network of thousands of miles of passageways and interlinking caverns. What were the chances?
    When they were no more than fifteen feet from him, he hailed them, calling out "Hello!" in an expectant, friendly voice.
    One of them glanced at him, with ice-cold eyes and a face devoid of expression, but there was no effort at any sort of acknowledgment. The other soldier didn't even raise his eyes from the path ahead of him. The two of them continued marching purposefully and talking to each other, not paying him any heed whatsoever as they moved on.
    Dr. Burrows was flummoxed but didn't stop, either. Their total lack of interest made him feel like a street beggar who'd had the effrontery to ask a couple of businessmen for money. He couldn't believe it!
    "Oh, well, suit yourself," he said with a shrug, turning his thoughts back to more important matters.
    "Where are you, what are you, hole in the ground?" he inquired of the silent menhirs around him, his mind again churning with endless theories.

     

43

    "Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!" Chester called as he and Will pulled the oars. Chester had said he'd done some rowing with his father, and Elliott had let him take control the moment they'd clambered into the rickety-looking boat. In fact, boat was to grandiose a word for the canoe-cum-coracle, which had creaked ominously as they all climbed aboard. It was about fourteen feet long and had a wooden frame over which a hidelike material was stretched and stitched.
    It clearly hadn't been designed to carry four passengers, particularly to with all their gear. Scrunched up in the prow of the boat, Cal grumbled quietly to himself as he tried to nurse his bad leg. He was attempting to position himself so he could straighten it out, which was nigh on impossible with Will pressed so close by.
    "Oi! Watch it! There's no way I can row if you keep dong that!" Will protested when Cal dug into his back yet again as he shifted himself around. Cal finally found that the optimum position was for him to lie in the bottom of the boat with his head crammed into the V of the prow -- by doing this, he could hook his bad leg up on the side and extend it fully.
    "This ain't some pleasure cruise, you know!" Will