Tunnels 06 - Terminal

had been imposedby the Styx, the most recent when Will had escaped with Cal after failing to spring Chester from the Hold. But this new lockdown wasn’t to punish the people of the Colony but to protect them. And the good news was that other than going without their consignments of fresh fruit, they were almost self-sufficient again when it came to feeding themselves. The replanted pennybun fields were beginning to produce harvests, and the livestock breeding programme was also well under way.
    ‘You see – he’ll turn up here one day soon. Everything will be just fine,’ the First Officer tried to reassure Mrs Burrows. As the kitten reappeared with the toy and jumped up again with its paws on his leg, the First Officer rubbed the skin on its broad head. The kitten let out an appreciative mew. In an instant, Colly was up, her back arched.
    ‘I think you’d better leave Bartleby kitten alone before she goes for you,’ Mrs Burrows advised.
    ‘Righty ho,’ the First Officer said with a sigh, getting up slowly from his chair with both palms in the air as if he was surrendering. ‘Far be it for me to rock the boat. It’s only my house and my kitch—’
    ‘Something’s very wrong,’ Mrs Burrows burst out, snapping her head around to look at the bare wall. ‘Something just happened!’
    ‘What – with the wall?’ the First Officer asked.
    Mrs Burrows’ eyes had rotated upwards so that only the whites were showing. ‘Water – so much you wouldn’t believe … and it’s heading our way.’
    ‘Where … how far away?’ the First Officer asked urgently.
    Mrs Burrows shuddered, her eyes righting themselves. ‘Far side of the Colony … that direction.’ She pointed at the wall.
    The First Officer was already rushing towards the door. ‘It must be coming through the Labyrynth!’ he shouted. ‘There must be a cave-in somewhere.’ He paused in the doorway, Bartleby kitten watching him curiously. ‘My God – if it’s the Labyrynth, maybe the breach is in the Eternal City! Remember what Eddie told Drake about a fracture in the roof? Maybe it’s that?’
    Once in the street outside, Mrs Burrows and the First Officer collared the first person they came across to raise the alarm. Well into her seventies and showing no sign that she was going to stop doing the job she’d held for half a century, Ruby Withers was carrying her stepladder as she went about dusting the glowing orbs at the very top of the streetlamps. The First Officer quickly told her to go to the nearest temple and raise the alarm by ringing the bell.
    Ruby caught on quickly. Every Colonist lived with three principal fears: the Discovery (when Topsoilers would learn of the city and invade it), a major fire, and lastly being caught in floodwaters.
    Within minutes, the single bell ringing in the nearest temple led to a second sounding in a neighbouring area, and then another, until there was ringing and shouting coming from all over the Colony.
    At first there was confusion amongst the people because there was no apparent danger, and even the First Officer allowed himself the hope that Mrs Burrows had been mistaken and that it was a false alarm. But as they came to the edge of the South Cavern, water was already gushing down the track in the middle of the steep tunnel leading up to the Quarter.
    ‘It’s started,’ Mrs Burrows said.
    The First Officer lumbered quickly up the sharply inclined tunnel and into the first passage that branched off from it. Right at the end of this was a heavy iron door, one of the many that led into the Labyrynth from the Colony. It had been welded shut, and although there was a small trickle of water at its base, there was no sign that anything was amiss.
    Not until the First Officer cleaned the glass inspection port in the door and tried to shine his lantern through.
    ‘Oh, no,’ he said.
    Mrs Burrows didn’t need to be told that he’d seen the water level rising rapidly on the other side. Her supersense was warning her that all the portals to the Labyrynth were increasingly coming under pressure as thousands of gallons of water poured through its tunnels.
    More Colonists were turning up every second. Even the new Governors were mucking in; the First Officer saw Cleaver using his not inconsiderable bulk to haul a cart laden with stone blocks as Squeaky and Gappy Mulligan pushed from behind.
    Although many of the skilled artisans – the stonemasons, engineers and other specialists that maintained the