Tunnels 02, Deeper

whole notion was too fantastical for him, but, just the same, the primitive people quite evidently believed the act would take them to their idyllic paradise -- believed it with a fervor.
    Certainly Dr. Burrows was overtired and suffering from a lack of food, but a nonsensical suggestion popped into his head.
    Should I chance it all and jump into the hole?
    "You've got to be joking!" he immediately answered himself out loud.
    No, it was lunacy! What was he thinking? How could he, a man of considerable learning, subscribe to a pagan belief that by some miracle he'd survive the fall and find wondrous groves of fruit trees and a blazing sun waiting for him?
    A sun in the center of the earth?
    No, he was being exceedingly foolish. Talk about rational scientific deduction!
    Roundly dismissing the suggestion, he pulled himself back onto the step, and then turned around.
    He screamed with fright.
    The giant insect was there right behind him -- his oversized dust mite -- its mandibles swishing in his face.
    Dr. Burrows recoiled, scrabbling away from it in complete and utter panic. He lost his balance, his arms cartwheeling as he tipped backward from the step.
    There was no heroic yell as he fell, just a brief squawk of unwelcome surprise, and he was gone, a tiny figure corkscrewing through the air, down into the dark oblivion of the Pore.

     

46

    From up ahead Chester pulled the rope with such force that it caught against Will's wrist and yanked his arm from under him. He dropped into the hot, sticky mud. He heard Chester's voice, muffled and indistinct, as it uttered what Will took to be curses, most likely directed toward him. Chester yanked the rope again, even more fiercely this time. In light of their earlier exchange, Will knew without a doubt that Chester would be blaming him for this unpleasant leg of their journey, just as he did for anything else that came along. Will's resentment grew -- wasn't he suffering just as much as the others?
    "I'm coming! I'm freakin' coming!" he shouted back furiously as he began to haul himself along again, spitting and swearing as he went.
    He thought he was closing the gap on Chester, but he still couldn't see him through the mist. It was only when Will pulled on the rope that he discovered it must have snagged on something. It was stuck fast.
    Chester was shouting again at the delay. Whatever he was saying sounded pretty disagreeable.
    "Shut up, will you? The rope's caught!" Will screamed back as he lay on his side and used his lantern to try to see what was causing the problem. It was hopeless; he couldn't see a thing. Guessing it had become hung up around a piece of rock, he flipped the rope several times until it eventually came free. Then he crawled up the slope like crazy until he caught up with Chester, who, once again, had stopped -- presumably because Cal, in front of him, had also come to a standstill.
    Right from the start the seam had climbed at a constant gradient of thirty degrees. The lack of headroom meant there was no choice but to go up the incline on all fours. The underlying substrate was smooth and ran with copious amounts of water as it drained down the slope and into the sea below. As they climbed, the water was replaced by warm mud. With the consistency of crude oil, it was incredibly slippery and made the going that much more difficult.
    A little farther up they came to a stretch where the rock became quite hot to the touch, and Will could see little pools of the mud bubbling. Then they passed through an area in which small jets of steam puffed around them like miniature geysers -- clearly these were the source of the ever-present mist.
    It wasn't dissimilar from being in a sauna turned up to its full setting -- it was intolerably hot and humid. Will was breathing quickly and pulling at the collar of his shirt in a futile attempt to cool himself down. And every so often, the stench of raw sulfur permeated the air, so much so that Will felt quite dizzy and wondered how the others were dealing with it.
    Elliott had allowed them to have their lanterns on full beam, saying that the light was unlikely to be detected within the confines of the seam, especially since the mist masked everything. Will was grateful for this; it would have been horribly claustrophobic without any illumination to show the way.
    On a couple of occasions, Will heard his brother's voice up ahead. From his curses, he sounded distinctly unhappy. Indeed, all three boys were giving vent to