Tunnels 04, Closer

vacantly back. Then she makes a huge effort to speak, but only gets as far as forming a 'W' with her lips.
    "Why?" Rebecca Two articulates the word for her. "Look above you," she says, prompting her sister to focus on what she's instinctively sought out as a handhold. Several snake-thick cables are fixed to the roof of the channel -- old power lines coiled together with their casings broken away and their cores visible, crusted with slimy brown rust. "We're in some sort of excavation. There could be another way out."
    Rebecca One nods slightly and closes her eyes, barely clinging to consciousness.

2

    After more than two days on the subterranean river, Chester steered the launch toward the long quayside.
    "Use your light! See what's there!" he shouted at Martha over the roar of the outboard motor.
    Martha lifted her luminescent orb, directing its beam at the shadowy structures to the rear of the quayside. As he eased off the throttle and the launch coasted along, Chester took in the buildings and dockside crane. This harbor was certainly much more substantial than any of the other, smaller ones along the route, where they'd stopped to refuel and catch an hour or two of rest. Chester's heart thumped with anticipation as he dared to let himself think that they'd finally reached the end of their journey.
    The launch bumped against the side, and Chester cut the engine. Martha grabbed hold of one of the bollards, tying the mooring line to it. Then she shone her light again, and Chester spied a large archway picked out in white paint. He remembered what Will had told him about the bricked-up entrance to the harbor, and how he'd said it was wide enough to drive a lorry through. It had to be the same one.
    Although he was sopping wet and very cold, Chester was filled with elation. I made it! I bloody made it! he was shouting inwardly, but he didn't utter a word as they hauled themselves from the launch and onto dry land.
    I'm back Topsoil again!
    But despite the fact that he was almost home, the situation was far from ideal.
    He shot a glance at Martha as she lumbered a few clumsy steps along the quayside. The round woman, in her many layers of filthy clothing, was making grunting noises like a wild boar about to charge. That was nothing new -- her behavior had always been rather erratic -- but now he watched as she jerked her head round to the darkness and cursed as if someone was there. There wasn't.
    Chester just wished Will had come back with him. Or one of the others. The way the cards had fallen, Chester had been stranded with this woman. She grunted again, even louder this time, then yawned so widely he caught a flash of her stained teeth. Chester knew she must be exhausted from the journey, and also that the full force of gravity probably wasn't helping. Even he felt it tugging down on his body, so he imagined it must be that much worse for Martha, who hadn't experienced anything like it in years.
    And it also struck Chester how strange this moment must be for her. Raised in the Colony, Martha had never been to the surface before, and she was about to see the sun for the very first time. She certainly hadn't led the easiest of lives: she and her husband had been Banished by the Styx to the Deeps five miles below the Colony. Here they'd become part of the roving, lawless brigade of renegades, who were just as likely to kill each other as they were to succumb to the dangers of those darklands. Incredibly, she'd given birth to a son, Nathaniel, while in the Deeps, but her husband had later attempted to murder both of them by shoving them over the side of the Pore.
    Although they'd survived the fall, Nathaniel had later died of a fever, leaving Martha to fend for herself. For more than two years she'd been totally cut off from any other living soul. Barricading herself in an old shack, she'd survived by trapping and eating the bizarre creatures which were in plentiful supply down there.
    When Will, Chester and a badly injured Elliott had arrived on the scene, she had instantly formed attachments to the boys, as if they were substitutes for the beloved son she'd lost. In fact, these attachments had been so strong, she'd been quite prepared for Elliott to die so that the two boys weren't put at risk. She'd kept it from them that there was a supply of modern medicines in a submarine that had been sucked down another of the pores. But after Will had discovered the truth, she redeemed herself by taking him and Chester there,