Tunnels 05 - Spiral

the booster and steered them around the loose aggregation of boulders where the digger had come to rest. Then they were on the way out of Smoking Jean and rushing toward the huge emptiness, the far-off flicker of the lights from the crystal belt an unimaginable distance ahead of them.
    Both Will and Drake took turns on the boosters, with Elliott continually checking the direction with the tracker.
    Will intentionally gave the crystal belt a wide berth, just as he and Dr. Burrows had when they’d made the same journey. The boosters were far more effective than using the recoil from the Sten gun. Will had no conception of how fast they were actually moving, but the wind in their faces was so strong it snatched their breath away.
    And after hours passed and they worked their way around the ethereal lights of the crystal belt, Will finally spotted the column of sunlight in the distance. He knew then that they were going to make it to the inner world.

ONCE THEY WERE OUT of the zero-gravity belt and moving into the cone-shaped opening, the rays of the second sun made everything shimmer as if they were underwater. Will continued to blip his booster to maintain their speed while Elliott checked the readout from the tracker. There was no way she could hear the clicking emanating from it: The rumble from the zero-gravity belt continued to drown everything out.
    It was half an hour before Drake signaled that they should head for the side of the void. As soon as they touched down, he and Sweeney detached themselves from the raft of nuclear weapons and equipment. Then they slid one of the bombs into position behind a large rock, securing it in place with a rope. Drake immediately opened a hatch in its side and began to prep it for detonation.
    “We did it,” Elliott sighed wearily, as she lay down in the scree.
    “Yep. Never ever thought we’d be here again,” Will said, slumping next to her. They shared a bar of chocolate, washing it down with water from a canteen. There was a loud gurgling noise, and Will looked away in embarrassment.
    “Ohhhh,” he groaned. “It’s messed up my stomach again.”
    “Mine, too.” Elliott laughed. “It’s the low gravity, isn’t it?”
    Will didn’t reply as he peered around in an attempt to find a feature he recognized from the last time they were there. He thought of the ledge where he, Elliott, and Dr. Burrows had landed, all of them immediately falling into a dead sleep because they were so thoroughly exhausted.
    Will regarded the small Alpine plants around him — they were clinging on to the scree with trailing root systems like unraveled cotton, and there was also a number of the dwarf trees with tortured trunks. He could tell from the abundance of vegetation that they must have long since passed the ledge he’d been looking for. Realizing it was futile to try to find anything familiar — the vast scale of the place made that highly unlikely — he shut his eyes.
    “Are you thinking about the Doc?” Elliott asked gently.
    “The Doc?” he said, blinking his eyes open again. It took him a moment to work out who Elliott was referring to. She was using her and Drake’s nickname for his stepfather, Dr. Burrows.
    “I suppose that means you weren’t,” Elliott decided after he failed to reply.
    “No, I wasn’t, and, you know . . . I don’t think about him so much anymore,” Will admitted. “It’s funny — but you’ve got your dad back now, and I sort of feel as though mine’s gone. If all those years of Darklighting made him the way he was, then everything he did and said wasn’t really
him
. . . and he doesn’t seem so” — Will frowned, trying to come up with the right word — “
important
. . . so important to me any longer,” he said eventually.
    “He was still your father,” Elliott reminded him.

    Drake finally closed the panel in the casing of the nuclear weapon, replacing the screws to secure it, then rejoined everyone. Sweeney and the Colonel had attached a harness around the remaining bomb so that it would be easier to carry.
    “Okeydoke,” Drake said, unhitching a radio detonator from his belt and pressing a sequence of buttons. Sweeney had an identical detonator in his hand. “Check?” Drake asked.
    “Check,” Sweeney confirmed.
    “Good — that’s one nuke ready to rock ’n’ roll,” Drake announced.
    “
Was ist das
rock ’n’ roll
?
” the Colonel asked.
    “Oh, sorry, I meant that it’s primed,” Drake explained.