Tunnels 03, Freefall

There's absolutely no point hanging round here. I'm going to set a charge to blitz everything inside this sub, in case they've left the virus here. Then we need to find out just where they've got to."
    "But how? In this place? Will asked her, then glanced at Bartleby who was cleaning his nether parts. "Use Bartleby the Traitor to sniff them out?"
    She nodded. "We'll do a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree search around the submarine," she proposed. "It'll be faster if we split up -- I'll take the area below the submarine. Will, you can take the shelf and the areas either side, and--"
    "No way," Will countered immediately.
    "Why not?"
    "Because every time they do that in the films something terrible happens. We stick together. And we make bloody sure Bartleby stays with us, because when the cat runs off and someone has to go and fetch it, that's really bad news too."
    "You're your mother's son," Dr. Burrows commented wryly.
    Elliott glanced from Will to Dr. Burrows. "I don't know what you're talking about, but if it makes you feel better, we can keep together," she sighed. "Now make yourselves scarce while I set up the charges."

    * * * * *

    Once she had returned outside, Elliott linked them all together with the climbing rope. Will watched her as she was doing this. Although she had risked everything to reach this phenomenal depth in the Earth, and there might be no going back, there was a grim determination about her. She was set on doing her duty and finding the Styx. Will drew strength from this. Maybe he'd acted on a rash impulse when he jumped after his father, but he was proud that he'd also risked his life to do what he had to do. Just as Drake would have expected of him.
    They made a thorough search of the fungal ledge around the submarine. Bartleby didn't pick up any trails there, so they began to climb down the inclined side of the void underneath the ledge, on the look out for any caves or openings, or any evidence that the Styx had gone the same way. As they reached another fungal shelf below, Bartleby was becoming increasingly agitated. Will didn't know if the constant rumbling was putting him off, but whatever it was, he didn't seem to be finding any trace of the Styx.
    As they climbed still further down the void they found that there were no more fungal ledges below them, and were forced to cling to the bare rock face. The biggest risk remained that if one of them made a sudden movement, he or she might send all of them careering off into the void.

    * * * * *

    When Elliott's charges in the submarine finally detonated, they had covered quite some distance, and heard nothing of the explosion over the unceasing rumbling. Nevertheless, as they all paused to watch the brief blaze of light above them, Will felt a little strange because with the submarine gutted they now had nowhere they could return to. They were very much alone in this alien environment, where trying to find three Styx was tantamount to searching for three needles in the biggest haystack you could imagine, and in the darkest of nights, too.
    After a while Elliott drew them to a halt and indicated that they should reverse direction and go back up. She obviously thought they'd gone far enough and that it was time to search higher up the void.
    It was exactly at this moment that one of the group made an over-zealous movement.
    Before they knew it, they were sailing away from the wall at some speed and out into the middle of the void. Will could see Elliott's panic-stricken face and her open mouth as she screamed, then he realized he was doing exactly the same. But he couldn't hear anything except the jaw-rattling rumbling, and there was nothing that he or any of the others could do but to grab tightly on to each other, with a very anxious Bartleby trailing several meters behind them on his tether.
    They eventually ran out of steam as the air resistance brought them to a halt.
    But it wasn't quite a halt. They were still drifting through the nothingness a the center of the void, similar to when the engine of a boat fails and it's left to the vagaries of the currents.
    Bartleby was thoroughly confused and hadn't stopped threshing his long limbs in an attempt to get back to the side. Now Will and Elliott joined in with him, paddling with their hands and kicking out, anything to get themselves into motion again, but it was all to no avail. As the hours passed the three of them attempted to communicate with each other, but what could they do?