Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

An air car was coming toward them, its white running lights flashing. Kasuk plowed to a stop. He pushed her away and disappeared into the dark.

“Junna!”

She stood still, panting. The air car was circling toward her. A blinding light glared in her face. A voice shouted down at her.

“Stay where you are! Put your hands over your head!”

A long shape burst up from the ground and caught the air car’s rear skid. The light reeled off away from her. A gun clattered. Paula took two steps back. The car lurched over, Junna clinging to the skid. The light wheeled in a circle. Kasuk jumped out of the dark. He met the car in mid-air and brought it down nose-first. He tore open the cab door. The gun rattled again. It sounded like a toy. Junna stood beside her, his chest beating in and out. Kasuk came toward them.

“They look like Martians to me. They have uniforms on.”

They went down the field. At the edge of the trees was a low stone wall topped with a strand of wire. They climbed over it into the wood. Kasuk’s shirt was torn along his side. He held her by the arm, helping her run, and when she flagged, he picked her up and carried her. They crossed another field and a stretch of ancient paved roadway. Ahead, a sign glowed white in the domelight: Halstead’s.

“Be careful,” she said.

He stopped and put her down on her feet. Junna was just ahead of them. The windows glowed with light. On the far side of the yard was a small barn.

“There,” she said. “That’s where they cool their beer. It’s an old station on the Underground.” Inside the tavern a burst of music played.

The barn door was open. They went single-file into the dark. The horse nickered in the corner. The barn smelled of hay. Paula went to her left.

“There are steps, somewhere—”

“Here,” Junna said, ahead of her.

Her feet groped down slippery stone steps. A dank cold blew into her face. Mildew. A wet echo rebounded back to her from below. She bumped into a wall. Her outstretched hands touched boxes stacked higher than her head. She went down another flight of steps in the darkness. Under her feet the ground was smooth and wet. She began to shiver.

“It’s running like a river,” Kasuk said. His voice boomed hollow ahead of her. “There’s a tunnel—Paula, where does it go?”

“All the way to New York, if it isn’t blocked.”

Junna said, “What’s going on? Kak, shouldn’t we stay where Papa left us?”

Paula walked forward into the dark, feeling her way with her feet. Something brushed her hip. Groping on the wall, she found a cold metal rail along the wall.

“Junna, stay here with her.” Kasuk was passing her in the dark. “I’m going to look around. I’ll be right back.”

Above her, several yards away, a patch of gray light shone an instant and faded. She closed her eyes, useless in the dark. Junna touched her.

“We should stay where Tanuojin left us.”

“No,” she said. “Kasuk is right, we’d just be killed.”

“Is this a war, now?”

“Yes. I guess so.” Just like in the books.

“Who are we fighting?”

“I don’t know, Junna.”

“Are you afraid?”

“I’m cold.”

He moved; she expected nothing; a moment later the heavy clammy material of his shirt surrounded her. Her skin shuddered at the contact. It slipped down her back and she clutched at it.

“Aren’t you—”

“No,” he said. “I’m not cold. It’s nice in here.”

She put the shirt on, shivering, and moved around to warm it. Her feet slipped on the slick tile floor. Kasuk had been gone a long while.

“We need a torch. Maybe there’s something to eat here.” She found the steps again and started up, and Junna caught her arm.

“Stay here. You said yourself my brother is right.”

“But—”

“Do as he said. He has two stripes, and you’re just a woman.”

She stood breeding arguments suitable for the adolescent mind. A wedge of light pointed across the barn from the door. Kasuk’s broad shape came through it and the light thinned and disappeared.

“We have to get out of here,” Kasuk said. He came down the stairs past them. A narrow beam of light shot from his hand, glistening on black water stretching off as far as the light reached. “There are ships all over the sky, and the people in the house are all listening to the box. Something is going on.”

Up over their heads, a dog began to bark. He shone the torch along the walls and ceiling of the tunnel, overgrown with weed. They went down to the cold water. Along the edge it lapped barely to her ankles, but when Junna walked toward the center he fell in over his head. Kasuk held the torch down at his side. Junna swam toward them.

Paula stooped and dipped her hand in the water. It tasted brackish but not polluted. Something splashed away from the light ahead of them. The red beads of its eyes gleamed at them. Above them, on the surface, the dog was barking steadily.

“What is this?” Kasuk asked.

Paula said, “It was an underground railroad, all up and down the coast.”

“You said it goes to New York.”

“Hundreds of years ago. Before the island sank. Who knows where it goes now?”

He aimed the torch beam at the far end of the cavern. The light glanced off the narrowing walls. The water swirled into the black mouth of the tunnel. A wave broke in a ripple of foam.

“Come on.” He took her arm.

“Kasuk. I can’t swim. You go. Leave me here. I’ll be all right—”

A dull thud sounded like a thunderclap somewhere above them. The floor trembled under her. Her knees quaked. The water leaped along the walls of the cave. Kasuk said, “There, you see? Hold on to my back. Junna, stay behind me.” Paula put her arms around him, her cheek against his back, and he dove into the river.

She breathed deep and shut her eyes. The cold water closed over them. She raised her head into the air. Kasuk swam strongly under her. The light was gone. The air smelled of wet rot. One hand on the neck of Kasuk’s shirt, she let him tow her through the water. She heard the current rushing loud along the tunnel walls, and they were swept along in a close roar of water. Kasuk straightened and switched on the torch.

“Hold this.” He gave it to her over his shoulder. “Junna?”

“Here,” his brother called, behind him.

Kasuk swam on his stomach down the tunnel. Paula aimed the light ahead of them. The walls were massed with velvety weed. Thick curtains of it hung down from the ceiling. She ducked her head.

“Watch out!” Junna cried, behind them.

The river swelled. Paula clutched the torch. The water lifted them up and crashed them into the overhead wall. Greasy water filled her mouth and nose. She lost Kasuk. Her head broke the surface of the water and she gasped for air. She held the torch with both hands. The water leaped around her, booming on the walls of the tunnel. The light of the torch glowed in a green band under the water. Kasuk reached her. She flung her arms around his neck.

“Don’t strangle me.” He caught her hands. “I have you.”

Junna swam up to them. “What was that?”

Paula changed her grip to the back of Kasuk’s shirt. He took the torch. “Another bomb. Maybe the drinking dock, that was close. Let’s go.”

They swam off. The river swept them through the tunnel. Junna went on before them, his hair sleek, diving under the surface and popping up again like a water-puppy. They could not reach New York this way. Somewhere ahead, the air would turn foul, the tunnel would collapse, the roof fall in, they would drown in the dark.

“There’s light ahead,” Junna cried.

Kasuk switched the torch off. Ahead, an irregular patch of light shone into the tunnel through a hole in the roof. Paula sighed.