Tunnels 05 - Spiral

said, recalling his name for it.
    Drake nodded. “And I also agree with you that it’s going to be a bit hit-and-miss if we do a swan dive with the nuclear weapons tied to our ankles.”
    Will was frowning. “You don’t have a plan at all, do you?” he accused Drake. “You’re just making this up as you go along!”
    “That’s the way it works,” Drake replied.
    Will was shaking his head angrily. “Wow, that’s just great. So you don’t actually have a clue what we’re going to do next.”
    “Will,” Elliott intervened, reaching out as if to touch his shoulder but then lowering her hand to point at the ground. “Look at the tracks you’re on.” It was clear that something heavy had passed that way, because the rocks had been pulverized. “Lots of Coprolite machines went by here.” She raised her rifle to peer through the scope. “And I can see one of them way over there . . . around the side of the Pore. Drake and I think we should recce it.”
    Drake indicated the balloons by the huts. “The Styx must have been using those to get up and down, but from the state of them, they obviously switched to another method some time back. And I ask myself what that could be — did they find or even
make
themselves an alternative route? I think we owe it to ourselves to find out, don’t you?” He punched Will gently on the arm. “Happier now?” he asked, smiling at the boy.
    “Much,” Will replied, smiling back.

    With Will beside him in the cart, Colonel Bismarck drove the stallions along the tracks by the edge of the Pore. Will was soon able to make out the Coprolite digging machine. The cylindrical body of battered steel shone like quicksilver as he squinted through his lens.
    They came nearer and the Colonel slowed the horses, but there was no sign of either Elliott or Drake by the machine.
    “Where are they?” Will asked as Sweeney caught up with the cart. “And why aren’t they keeping in touch over the radio?”
    “Wait here,” Sweeney replied, and went to find out.
    As Will saw him reach the digger, he, too, disappeared from sight. It was a good twenty minutes before the horses began to stamp the ground and become agitated. Then Will heard what he thought was the distant rumbling of a vehicle. And it sounded heavy.
    “What’s that?” he asked, angling his head and looking around. “And where’s it coming from?”
    “There!” said the Colonel, pointing.
    Where Will had last seen Sweeney, a Coprolite digger rose into view. As it came at full pelt toward them, the Colonel struggled to control the horses. It stopped, spinning a hundred and eighty degrees on the spot, boulders popping beneath the massive rollers that bore it along.
    The rear hatch swung open, and Elliott and Sweeney dismounted into the cloud of smoke issuing from the machine’s exhausts. “Got ourselves a ride!” Sweeney called over to Will.
    It turned out that Drake had found the Coprolite digger fueled up and ready for use. Will didn’t question it — he was just relieved that there was an alternative to jumping down the Pore.
    Once all the equipment was on board and lashed down, the Colonel freed the stallions and watched them gallop off. “I do hope they make it back to the station,” he said with some regret.
    Then everyone boarded the digger. The interior of the vehicle was fabricated from beaten metal — most of it was grimy except for several areas that shone brightly from their regular use. Will took in the display at the navigator’s station, and the red glow coming from an inspection port in the boiler.
    Drake, sitting at the front of the vehicle, pushed in and twisted a rod to engage the engine, then depressed a pedal. The digger lurched forward, and he steered it around to face the opposite direction. Will joined Elliott and Sweeney to watch from the open hatch at the rear of the vehicle as the digger’s nose dipped down an incline.
    “Some tunnel!” Will shouted over the thunderous din of the vehicle.
    It was approximately forty feet to the roof, and easily as wide.
    “The Styx rounded up some Coprolites and forced them to bore this out with one of their megamachines!” Elliott shouted back. “But get a load of what’s coming up!”
    They roared past scores of the diggers parked at the side of the massive tunnel. Then there were what had to be spoil movers, judging from the scoops mounted on their fronts, and the long trains of trailers behind them. Will had never seen this second type