Tunnels 06 - Terminal

from here.’
    ‘No, please tell me the worst, won’t you, doctor?’ Drake said wryly. He picked up an old bottle of iodine tablets Jiggs had also found in the medical stores. ‘Will these have made any difference?’
    ‘They’ll have helped to flush out some of the isotopes, but you were exposed to a massive dose of ionising radiation. Even if we were on the surface with all the facilities there, not much more could be done for you.’ Jiggs shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘So it goes,’ Drake said resignedly, taking in a breath before he continued. ‘I suppose, sooner or later, we’re all drawn to the big light, like a moth. It’s just that my big light happened to be a nuke, and it fried me.’ He began to laugh, but it turned into a coughing fit, and it was a moment before he could speak again. ‘If I’d known it would come to this, I would never have paid so much attention to my diet.’ He leant back in his chair and let out a long sigh. ‘Jiggs, old friend, really – what’s the point of carting me all the way Topsoil again? You may just as well leave me here.’
    Jiggs gazed around the main area of the fallout shelter, a place constructed deep in the Earth that Will and Dr Burrows had originally discovered, and which Drake himself had been to before when he’d come to rescue Will and Elliott. ‘A verylong time ago,’ Jiggs began, ‘I promised your father that I’d look out for you. I intend to keep that promise.’
    He gestured towards the kitchen where he’d been preparing their meals from the fifty-year-old tinned food. ‘And, in any case, I can’t leave you here. The diet of corned beef in this place is enough to see off the strongest of us.’
    ‘But why take me back?’ Drake asked. ‘What difference does it make if I pop my clogs on the surface or down here?’
    Jiggs wasn’t to be swayed. ‘Against all the odds and with those damned animals snapping at our heels, I’ve got you this far.’ Jiggs paused for breath. ‘So let me tell you one thing for sure; there’s no way in hell that I’m just going to desert you. We are setting off up that river together .’
    After Jiggs had managed to resuscitate Drake in the wrecked Short Sunderland and stabilise him sufficiently to move him again, he’d set off for Smoking Jean. He only had the weakest signals from the radio beacons that Will and Drake had left on previous occasions to guide him, but when combined with his phenomenal sense of direction they were enough. Burning almost every last drop of the fuel in the booster rockets, Jiggs had managed to get Drake up Smoking Jean and through into the inclined seam. Once there, Drake had been so weak that he’d been only able to travel short distances under his own steam. However, the low gravity allowed Jiggs to carry both him and their kit on his back.
    But then they’d received unwanted attention from the Brights and monkey-spiders, which were highly sensitive when it came to detecting wounded prey. Drake’s blood was like a magnet to them, and he’d had to pull himself together and help Jiggs fight them off time after time.
    And just when they thought they’d travelled far enough upthe seam to escape all the local predators, Jiggs had nearly walked into the first of the anti-personnel devices left behind by Limiters. He only spotted it because a more regular-sized spider had spun a web on the very fine tripwire strung across the route. Its presence in the seam was bad news as it meant that a patrol had been sent to the fallout shelter, and that there would doubtless be more devices planted along the way. So progress had been excruciatingly slow as Jiggs was forced to check every inch of the passage for more tripwires, and once they arrived at the shelter he’d had to conduct a complete sweep of that too.
    ‘You heard me, didn’t you?’ Jiggs asked Drake, who appeared to have drifted into a reverie. ‘We’re going up that river together. Okay?’
    ‘Yes, okay, whatever you say,’ Drake replied. He languidly raised his eyes to Jiggs, as even that small act was an effort. ‘At least I’ll be able to report back to Parry that, as far as we know, our mission was a success. And find out how he’s got on with the other Styx female.’
    Jiggs nodded, as Drake turned his head slightly towards the entrance corridor where the communications room was to be found. Both Will and Chester had used the ancient telephone there to make contact with the surface before.
    ‘No