4
The Mad Tunnel
Yes, we were Tribespeople, and so were they. We were all equally ignorant of the nature of the owners of the vessel in which we were. We exchanged stories.
Their adventures were interesting, but not very helpful. They, with all of their Tribe, had been asleep one evening. (Their Tribe was called the Greystripes—I'd heard of it, but it was too far away from my own village for us to have had any dealings, commercial or martial.) The girl's name was Braid; the man's, Check. Their individual huts were at almost opposite ends of the village; how they came to be together they did not know. They had gone to sleep in their own huts, and wakened, for a brief period, in a dimly lighted cell, together with dozens of other Tribespeople, all in an unnaturally deep sleep. They'd tried to arouse others, and failed. But their activities had drawn the attention of a guard dressed like the men Clory and I had seen, who had come in, found them awake, and pointed something long and tapering at them. They'd gone back to sleep, quite involuntarily, and awakened in the ship.
Our own story, which we then told, took more time. In fact, before we'd finished it, it was halted by an outside event. Braid had been keeping watch on the progress of the boat, and she suddenly cried out, pointing. The river forked off ahead, one branch continuing on into the distance, the other ending in what seemed to be the side of a mountain. Closer inspection revealed a hole, a tunnel, in that cliff wall; into it the boat unerringly sped, not abating its speed.
And a few seconds later the ship halted. The subdued whir of the motors diminished and died altogether. There was a soft jar from outside and we were motionless. I seized the door; it opened freely.
The four of us crowded around the door and peered out cautiously. Not a living soul was in sight. After a moment, we stepped out, timorously at first, then more bravely, as it became evident that we were in no immediate danger.
Unless we wanted to entrust ourselves to that boat again, allowing it to proceed as it would back down the river—if, indeed, we could get it to move—we were trapped here. We might have been able to swim out, but it was a considerable distance; just how far, the darkness made it impossible to say. And there was no way at all of walking back through the tunnel, for the water lapped precipitous walls, except at the landing where we stood.
Set into the face of the rock there was a door, ajar. With one accord, we entered it.
We found ourselves in a long tunnel, which swept in a broad curve away from us in either direction. No human was visible, even now, though the place was brightly lit. Too brightly lit. It showed things that I could not understand, that drove me almost to the sharp brink of madness.
Picture a tunnel, a long one, and high and broad as well, descending in a shallow slant into the ground, as far as you can see. Fill it, in your mind, with a tremendous number of strange and eerie machines of some sort, each in motion. Make sure that every machine is different from the one next to it, and remember that each gives forth some tiny sound all blending together into a low, sustained chord, in which you can nevertheless distinguish individual tones.
Imagine that you are part way into the tunnel, that no human being is visible save three as ignorant as you, that the motions of the wheels and cams and levers of the machines are totally incomprehensible; see with amazement that in some cases there are wheels revolving in thin air, without an axle; that occasionally a piece of one machine will detach itself, float unsupported through the air to another, where it joins on, then recommences its spinning, twisting, gyrating activity; that more than once a wheel will roll completely through what appears to be a completely solid machine, leaving no hole or mark to show where it had entered.
Add to all this the fact that the machines are constructed of strange materials, some transparent, almost invisible, others seemingly transparent but curiously reflective; most of glistening metals—which, you must remember, you have seen comparatively seldom in your former life.
To our left, the tunnel sloped up, and downwards to our right. Up would mean the surface—but the entrance of the subterranean canal was in the direction of our right. Which way would take us out?
We spent minutes in debate, and could not decide. Braid settled it finally. "When you cannot follow your head," she said, "you must follow your heart. We can try the left. If it seems the wrong way, we'll come back."
So the four of us executed a broad left-wheel, and marched down that glittering action-filled tunnel. The machines—as I should have said—lined the walls only. The centre was a broad, flat path for us to walk on.
We walked mostly in silence, all of us gaping at the mad activity that surrounded us. For some distance we walked, until I tore my attention from the machines long enough to note that Check was acting strangely. He was twisting around to stare back, then forward; then tilting his head to peer at the ceiling overhead. A frown of puzzlement was appearing on his face.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I don't know—listen." We listened, but heard nothing more than the constant machine-drone; the same drone we had been hearing all along.
But with a difference? Yes, surely. There was a new, growing note in the symphony. A deep buzz, something like the whir of the ship's motors.
Check peered over his shoulder, and his face changed. He cried out and shoved my shoulder, spinning me around. I looked—and staggered.
Bearing down on us faster than any Eater ever ran was an immense, wheeled metal shape. The noise was coming from it, from the sound of its huge wheels on the flooring, and from the hidden motor within. The thing was large—it almost filled the tunnel from top to bottom, though it wasn't wide enough by far to interfere with the machines that whirled along at the sides.
Leaving Check to look after Braid, I dragged Clory by main force into the maze of machinery at the side of the tunnel. We dodged spinning wheels and bars and climbed behind the pedestal of one of the machines.
Braid and Check were quick to do the same, but on the other side of the passage. But not quite quick enough, it seemed. Before they were well concealed, the metal monster was upon us. And it became evident that we had been seen.
For the thing squealed to a halt fifty feet beyond us, then rolled back to where we were and stopped.