Tunnels 04, Closer

themselves off and they were literally flying through it. For the greater part the passage was straight, with only gentle curves to negotiate, which they did by fending themselves off the sides. And when they did encounter sharp bends, Will would spot these first with his headset and shout a warning to Elliott to slow down.
    It was as if they were falling, only sideways, or maybe upside down. Will wasn't quite sure how one classified up or down , any more.
    And it certainly helped that they had both mastered a similar form of spacewalk locomotion during the months they'd spent in Martha's level back at the Pore.
    The only hazard along the way was if they ran into a dust cloud or some of the loose debris floating freely in the air. It wasn't a regular occurrence but, nevertheless, it could be a painful one as they hit it at the speeds they were going.
    And to keep himself occupied, Will tried to calculate how fast they were actually traveling. He reckoned it might even be as much as fifty kilometers an hour.
    "The radius of the Earth... six thousand, three hundred kilometers... but this tunnel will be shorter... because of space the inner world takes up... therefore... we might have a total distance of... oh, I don't know... four thousand kilometers to go," he said out loud, as he thought it through. "At this speed," he yelled to Elliott, "we're going to get there in no time at all!"
    "Don't count your lizards 'til they've spawned," Elliott advised him.
    Some time later, Will saw that Bartleby had come to a stop up ahead.
    "BRAKES ON!" he yelled at the top of his voice to alert Elliott. He reached out to grab the side of the passage as he tried to slow himself.
    But it didn't go according to plan, and he began to spin through the air until he was close enough to the side again to reach it and bring himself to a halt.
    He heard Elliott's screech from behind, and shot a hand out to seize hold of her as she rocketed past. He managed to catch her, but her momentum swept him off the side again.
    "Didn't you hear me?" he asked as they both finally came to a rest.
    "No. I didn't. Shout louder next time, will you?" she snapped back at him.
    They were so tired that tempers would occasionally flare, and they'd end up arguing over the smallest thing, but this time they were both distracted by what lay ahead.
    Just beyond where Bartleby was performing slow revolutions in the air, there seemed to be something across the passage, blocking it.
    Will approached, finding that it wasn't rock, but thick and slightly shiny filaments projecting from the side walls. They weren't that dense, but as far as he could make out they continued for some way along the passage up ahead.
    He used the barrel of his Sten gun to probe them. The filaments were flexible, wavering as he pushed against them.
    "I have no idea what this is," he admitted, yanking on a single filament to snap it off from where it was anchored. It was gray in color and about seven centimeters in diameter. "Maybe some type of plant? Dead plant? Or maybe a mineral of some kind, which has formed here due to the low gravity environment?" He whistled through his teeth for a moment as he examined it. "But whatever it is, it could slow us down," he said.
    "It didn't slow the two Rebeccas down much, did it, when they came this way?" Elliott disagreed. She pushed herself toward the filaments and yanked another strand from the rock, then moved back and took her Bergen off. She proceeded to set fire to the filament, calling over to Will as she was successful.
    "Yes! It burns really well! Hot food!" she announced.
    "Brilliant. I could do with some," Will replied, taking the tracker out and switching it on. As he pointed it in different directions and it emitted a variety of slow clicking sounds, he was studying the dial on top of the device. "The signal's weak, but we're still on course," he said, nodding to himself.
    There had been a number of passages branching off from the main route, but these were generally smaller, so there was little confusion about which way they were meant to go. And although he was curious to find out where the side passages led, Will knew that their priority was to finish the journey before their supplies of food and water ran out. There was the other consideration that the Styx might not be far behind in the tunnel as they raced back to the surface to use the Dominion virus there. Will didn't much like the idea of bumping into them, and it made it all the more