Chapter Twenty

 

 

Twisting suddenly, the raft came around, shifting ends and plunging down the dark throat of the tunnel. The light of the flare vanished behind them, though the brushwooders' bullets hammered into the sides of the tunnel for a few seconds more.

 

Ryan kept his arm tight around Krysty and took a quick head count before all light left them. Everyone had made it.

 

The dark water sucked away all vestiges of light from the flare and left them in darkness. Ryan hung on fiercely, riding out the fight the river was giving them so effortlessly. Though he tried not to consider it, he knew that it would only take one sharp rock to rip out the side of the raft.

 

Abruptly a light flared into life at the front of the raft, splashing against the cavern roof not more than two feet above their heads. In the forward end of the raft, Jak swung the flashlight he'd freed from his gear downriver.

 

Ryan shifted a little, rising but not getting too close to the low ceiling of rock. They were traveling fast; the way the water-worn limestone passed them above and on both sides told him that. The stone looked green in the yellow light of the flash, tracked in horizontal layers that showed years of formation. The rough edges announced the damage that had been done by the monster quakes and passage of water over the decades since skydark. It was possible that some of the cavern had been in existence even before the world had ended.

 

The raft continued to bob and jump, following the irregular path of the tunnel. Jak held the flashlight, shifting it to illuminate the way.

 

"How far before we slow down?" Ryan yelled to Hoyle.

 

"Don't know. I never got on the water when it was like this." Hoyle's gaze remained transfixed on the dark water before them.

 

The tunnel took another twist, almost falling back on itself and causing the raft to ride high enough up on the side to slam into the low ceiling. When Jak got the flashlight turned in the new direction, there was barely enough time for any of them to register the sudden drop-off facing them before they were shooting through it.

 

Ryan's stomach twisted in protest at the sudden feeling of weightlessness, then tried to pull through itself when the raft slammed back into the water.

 

"By the Three Kennedys," Doc exploded, "I should not like to be forced to endure that inauspicious travail again!"

 

Ryan silently agreed, but he could tell by the lurch of the raft that they were already picking up speed. He watched as Jak brought the light around. The raft swung sideways slowly in current, pulled faster still by the river. For a moment it looked as if the river channel was widening and deepening.

 

Then the blank wall rose before them without warning. The water smashed up against it, cresting six or seven feet to the broken stalactites above it. Bats fluttered in the beam of Jak's flashlight, bits and pieces of shadows startled from their resting places.

 

"Oh, shit!" Mildred exclaimed.

 

Then there was no more time. Ryan buried himself in the raft, drawing Krysty down with him. The water wasn't filling the chamber, it was being drawn away completely underground. But he had no way of knowing how far it went. He had one brief hope that the raft might somehow manage to stay afloat on the river without being drawn into the undertow. If it did, there was a possibility they could wait out the time it took to drain most of the floodwaters from the river.

 

The raft smashed into the wall hard enough to jar Ryan's teeth and his eyeball in its socket. He felt the pitch and yaw of the raft beneath him, then it overturned and started taking on water.

 

"Let go," Krysty told him.

 

Ryan released her, knowing she was right. There was no way to stay together in the deluge. He squeezed her hand, then released her. He had time to suck in most of one deep breath before the undertow reached out for them and yanked them under. There was no way to fight against the pull. Concentrating on survival, Ryan went with it.

 

The chill of the river coiled around him, filling his senses with a rush of confusion. He spotted Jak ahead of him, the albino highlighted by a nimbus of weak yellow light from the flashlight he still held. The youth's other hand was wrapped tightly in one of the equipment loops. Ryan didn't know if the albino was hanging on to the raft on purpose or if he'd been trapped by it.

 

With greater width and breadth, the raft acted like a kite caught in a strong wind, moving ahead of the rest of the companions quickly.

 

The bubble of light surrounding Jak faded with the distance, but held long enough to show the underwater exit for the river. Ryan watched the raft and Jake slide into the huge hole, then they disappeared.

 

He let himself go, riding out the current, remembering how the rest of the companions had been spaced out around him, all of them caught up in the river. The current pulled him deeper still, and even colder water ran rampant there, an ice wall that slammed him through the outlet. His left hand slapped into the edge of the opening with enough force to create a blaze of pain, followed almost immediately by numbness.

 

The water picked up speed, shooting him forward with greater intensity. He covered his head with his arms, hoping that he didn't go up against the tunnel's side. The impact would probably be enough to kill him. It would probably also be enough to kill any of the others. But they were all out of choices, and the ace was on the line.

 

 

 

GAZING THROUGH his binoculars, Hayden LeMarck watched the brushwooders walk away from the chimney rock. None of the outlanders appeared to be in their midst.

 

"Mebbe they got away," Wallis Thoroughgood said. "Even if they'd killed the outlanders, the brushwooders probably would have brought out the corpses."

 

LeMarck studied the brushwooders. All of them looked haggard and worn. None of them had any of the outlanders' weapons, giving him even more reason to believe the group had managed another escape. That possibility, however, was also daunting because this final escape might have taken them from him, as well.

 

"Don't appear to be as many of them as there was," the sec commander said.

 

"Three, four," Thoroughgood replied, "mebbe five of them are missing. Probably means they ran into the outlanders somewhere up in those rocks."

 

"And the outlanders got away." LeMarck dropped the binoculars into his pack. "Renstell, given that there's a point of entry to the river in those rocks, where do you figure they'd come out topside again?"

 

Renstell narrowed his eyes against the sun as he looked out across the broken landscape. "Four or five miles away. But they'd be fools to try that river now, sir."

 

"Why?"

 

"That blizzard last night, come this morning with the sun melting it all down the way it did, that river's gonna be raging. There're places in the tunnels where the river goes that fill up sudden when a man least expects it. They went into it, there's every chance they're going to drown like rats before they get through it."

 

The sec boss watched the brushwooders making their way across the land almost three hundred yards away. He wished he knew what was going on inside, hoping that Renstell was wrong about the outlanders' drowning.

 

 

 

LIGHT PENETRATED the water above Ryan's head. Weakened from lack of oxygen, battered by the river current and the stone channel it rushed through, he forced his body to work. He stroked for the surface, kicking as strong as he was able.

 

Long seconds later, stubbornly refusing to give in to the need to breathe, his head came up out of the water. He allowed himself two breaths, swiveling around to get his bearings.

 

The river was quieter here, but continued to exert a steady pull. It was also much wider, sixty or seventy feet at least. But it was still contained in a cavern. Stalactites lined the uneven rooftop nearly twenty feet above. Cracks opened the dome in places, allowing thin streamers of yellow light to pour in and give the cave a semblance of twilight at best.

 

He took another deep breath, then plunged under the water, angling down. There was enough light to see a few yards in all directions. Fish darted past him, some no longer than one of his fingers, and others greater than the length of his arms. Even though chilled by the cold river water, he still felt an arctic kiss thrill along his nape as he thought about what might be in the river with him.

 

When he surfaced, Ryan saw J.B. and Mildred less than twenty feet away. They managed on their own, hacking, coughing and spluttering up river water. Hoyle bobbed to the surface behind them.

 

"Dry land's over that way," Ryan called out, knowing it would take a few seconds for their eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. He pointed.

 

J.B. looked around, managing to hang on to his fedora while he floated. "Where's Doc, Jak and Krysty?"

 

"Don't know." Ryan went down again, kicking violently, knowing they were running out of time. He met Krysty, who was coming up, pulling the slack form of Doc after her, barely illuminated in the ghostly water.

 

Grabbing a shoulder of the old man's frock coat, Ryan helped Krysty swim to the surface. "Let me have him," Ryan said when they were up.

 

Krysty nodded, breaking away and treading water. She gasped, the sound echoing over the flat planes of the water and reverberating in the cave over the movement of the river current.

 

Ryan levered an arm under Doc's chin and started for shore.