Tunnels 04, Closer

they'll look after you well. I guarantee you that. Drake scanned the scene before them. "And you should be safe here. They avoid the police like the plague, which is a real plus, but the best thing is that the Styx are unlikely to have infiltrated them. Why would they bother? There's nothing for the White Necks to gain from it."
    Chester nodded.
    "Just, please, make sure Colly's kept well away from their dogs," Drake added as an afterthought. "They won't take kindly to it if she stiffs one of their prize greyhounds."

    * * * * *

    A shout came above the sound of the wind. On the slope leading down to the Pore a cluster of basic huts had been erected, and three Limiter officers now exited hurriedly from one of these. They slowed to look at where their mounts were tethered. The horses were agitated and whinnying as a cave cow, one of the huge insects indigenous to the Deeps, helped itself to oats from the food trough. The cave cow was only a young calf, similar to the one Dr. Burrows had befriended, but it still had the dimensions of a small family car. The front pair of its three sets of articulated legs was buried in the grain in the trough as its mouthparts clacked hungrily away; food was hard to come by in these lands of constant night, and it wasn't going to waste the opportunity to gorge itself.
    The tallest of the three Limiter officers raised his rifle at the large dome of its carapace, using his scope to seek out its smaller head. Oblivious to the danger it was in, the cave cow continued in its feeding frenzy, its chopstick-like antennae vacillating so quickly they were a blur.
    "Leave it -- it's no threat to the horses," one of his comrades told him. "We'll deal with it later."
    The constant shower of water falling from above grew more intense as the trio approached the edge of the Pore then walked the full length of the wooden platform, which had been built some thirty meters out over the titanic void. At the very end of the platform, two of their subordinates were manning long-range, light-gathering telescopes as they scoured the blackness below.
    The three officers now spoke to them.
    "You called. Have you got something?"
    The Limiter on one of the telescopes looked up. "Yes. We saw a single flare."
    "You're sure?"
    "Positive," the other observer said, without moving from his telescope. "We're just waiting to see if there's a second one." Several seconds passed, then both the observers spotted it.
    Although it didn't register on their ghoulish faces, a palpable sense of relief emanated from the three Limiter officers as they went into a huddle.
    "Two flares. So someone's made it back. We need to pass this news up the chain of command," the tall Limiter said. "Immediately."
    "And we may need more balloons, because we've already lost four in accidents," his fellow officer remarked.
    "Yes, and if we're going to recover our men in relays between the balloons, it's going to take too long," the third officer suggested. "The current arrangement is far from ideal. I hate this reliance on such outmoded technology."
    Moving to the wooden rail at the side of the platform, all three officers stared down into the unbroken darkness of the void below. But they had no hope of seeing the hot air balloon thousands of meters below them, or the many others below it, in a chain that stretched all the way down the Pore for hundreds of kilometers.
    "We can only pray that down there somewhere, one of our men has recovered the Dominion virus," the tall Limiter officer said, voicing the concern they all shared.

    * * * * *

    "Aren't you ready yet?" Will called out, chuckling as he waited for Elliott to emerge from the quartermaster's stores. Located in one of the rooms around the dormitory area in the fallout shelter, it was an Aladdin's Cave of military uniforms and equipment.
    For several hours Will had buried his nose in a book he'd found on fiberglass vessels. Having finished the chapter on repairing hulls, he'd announced to Elliott that he thought he might be able to patch up the least damaged of the launches from those left in the outhouse. On hearing this, Elliott's whole demeanor had brightened, and she'd suggested he take a break so they could try on some of the military gear from the racks in the stores.
    And now, as Elliott still failed to make her big appearance, Will adjusted his clothes. He'd had his turn first and was sporting a ridiculously baggy light-fawn tropical outfit, complete with a pith helmet.
    "Can't you