Tunnels 05 - Spiral

Committee, although he’d had no choice but to let them go. The horses would be a real boon in the Deeps; Drake wanted to cover the distance across the Great Plain as quickly as possible, and the railwaymen assured him that there was bound to be a cart somewhere in the Miners’ Station to hitch them to.
    The guard’s car was dimly lit by a single shaded luminescent orb suspended at its rear. For a while Will watched the odd fiery spark as it found its way into the car, then traced a short streak in the air until it burned itself into invisibility. Watching the brief lives of these sparks, he found himself thinking about the parting from his mother. Will didn’t know quite what had changed between them, but she hadn’t given him the send-off he’d had on other occasions. Mrs. Burrows was aware of the risks her son would be facing, yet she simply hugged him in a perfunctory way and wished him good luck.
    And Will had to admit that this time he himself had felt differently about leaving her.
    Perhaps they had both changed because of all they’d been through. Or, he asked himself, was it because he was growing up and didn’t need his mother in the same way that he’d used to? He was still mulling this over when the rocking motion of the train began to make his eyelids feel heavier and heavier, and he drifted into sleep.
    And, as the temperature gradient gradually rose the deeper they penetrated into the Earth’s crust, none of them did much more than sleep and eat for the next twenty-four hours. Their journey was broken several times for the horses to be fed and watered, and for the huge sets of storm gates across the track to be cranked open to allow the train through.
    They finally drew into the Miners’ Station, and it was much as Will remembered it — a ramshackle row of rather unimpressive huts. He jumped from the guard’s car, his boots crunching in the layer of iron ore, coke, and clinkers covering the ground. Drawing in a long breath through his nose, the arid air evoked the time when he, Chester, and Cal had stolen through this very cavern. And Bartleby. They’d all been killed or touched by death, and that’s why not one of them was with him at that moment.
    He was still mulling this over as he began to walk toward the station huts but then came to an abrupt stop. The old Will would have taken the opportunity to explore the huts, but he found that he had no desire whatsoever to investigate them. It just didn’t seem important to him anymore. Instead he helped Sweeney and the Colonel unload the equipment while Drake went off with the Colonist engine driver and his assistant in search of a cart. They quickly located one, and once the stallions were harnessed and the equipment in place, Elliott and Drake led the way from the cavern on foot, as the Colonel drove the cart.
    Will had shown the Colonel how to wear one of Drake’s headsets, adjusting the drop-down lens over his eye so he could see the way clearly without the need for any light. Then Will had found himself a place to sit at the very rear of the cart behind the equipment, and put on his own headset. Now back in the familiar world of shifting orange light, he was quite content to watch the sides of the tunnel slipping by as Sweeney jogged along behind the cart.
    Drawing on his enhanced senses, Sweeney was scanning the tunnel behind and checking the side passages for any lurking Limiters, when his gaze fell on Will.
    “Hey, lazy boy,” the huge man ribbed him. “Don’t strain yourself too much.” Will was framing a suitably indignant response when Sweeney continued, “You know, I just
love
this place.”
    “What do you mean?” Will asked, shifting uncomfortably as sweat trickled down the small of his back. “It’s hot and dusty . . . and just foul.”
    “Sure,” Sweeney answered. “But for the first time in a long time, I’m not getting any radio interference.” He touched one of his temples. “You have no idea what it’s like to have some tosspot of a DJ burbling away in your head all day and all night. Some weeks it’s not too bad, but then it suddenly kicks in big-time, and I have to listen to bleedin’ Ryan Seacrest prattling on whether I want to or not.” He curled his lip in disgust. “But in this place, there’s not a whisper . . . there’s nothing. Just glorious peace and quiet.”
    Will nodded to show he understood.
    “Yes, sirree, I can really see myself settling down here one day,” Sweeney said.
    They