Hal Clement - Cycle of Fire

This particular tree arranged its branches in more or less the fashion of a multi-layered umbrella, with four or five feet between layers. The plan was to save some of the branches from the layer nearest the base and from that nearest the top, so that they could serve as “legs” to keep the weight of the main trunk and its burdens off the ground. Kruger would not have been too surprised had the job taken a year, but determination and increasing skill paid their dividends and only a few terrestrial days passed before the work was ready to be dragged to the tunnel. Throughout that time the howl of the steam never subsided; there was no need to visit the tunnel to check the jets’ behavior. If there was any diminution in the sound it was too gradual for either of them to detect while they worked; the phenomenon that did attract their attention was its sudden stopping.

This happened just as they were starting to drag the log toward the tunnel. For a moment the echoes of the whistling roar played back and forth across the pit; then silence took their place. Dar and Kruger looked at each other for a moment, then, without pausing for discussion, started running toward the opening.

Dar reached it first in spite of his shorter legs; the undergrowth barring the way was sufficiently open to let him through fairly easily while Kruger had to force his way. The floor of the tunnel was wet with a trickle of near-boiling water, evidently from steam which had condensed on the walls and roof during the past few dozen hours. The air in the passage was only saved from being unbreathable by the draft entering it from the pit; only a few yards of the corridor could be seen in the swirling fog. Step by step they advanced as the current drove the mist curtain before it, and presently they reached the stones that had been left near the trigger block. Dar would have continued, but Kruger restrained him with a word of caution.

“Let’s hold it a moment and see whether the rock I put on the trigger is still there. Maybe it got washed off by the stream; it wasn’t very heavy.” Dar privately felt that a fifteen-pound boulder would need something more powerful than the trickle in the tunnel to shift it, but stopped anyway. Only a few moments were needed to see that the rock was still in place; presumably the trigger was still depressed, and therefore the steam had been shut off by some other cause. A little uneasily, Kruger shifted his own weight forward until he was beside the rock. Nothing happened, and for several seconds the two looked thoughtfully at each other. The same possibilities were passing through their minds.

Neither knew the details of the valve system that controlled the steam. There might be any number of safety devices for shutting it off before complete exhaustion of the supply — devices which could be overridden by other triggers if a determined effort was made to escape through the corridor. The trouble was that the makers were not human and, as far as could be told, not members of Dar’s race either; there was simply no way of guessing what they might have considered logical design.

“I guess there’s only one way to find out, Dar. You’d better let me go first; I could probably stand a brief dose if the thing started up, but from what your Teachers have said there’s no telling what it would do to you.”

“That’s true, but my weight is less. Perhaps it would be better if I were to start.”

“What good will that do? If it doesn’t trip for you we still won’t know that it won’t for me. You just be set to come on the double if I make it.” Dar offered no further argument but helped his big companion make sure that the small amount of equipment he carried was securely fastened — neither one wanted to come back for anything that was dropped. With this accomplished Kruger wasted no more time; he set off up the tunnel as fast as his strength would allow.

Dar watched until he was sure that the boy was well past the steam jets; then he followed. He caught up with Kruger at the mouth of the tunnel, but the two did not stop until they were outside the building from which the passage led. No sound had come from behind them, and gradually Kruger’s panting slowed as he waited and listened.

“I guess that did it,” he said at last. “Now what do we do? We’re something like half a year late for our talk with that Teacher back at the village; do you think we can persuade him that our lateness was accidental, and that he’ll be in a mood to give back your books?”

Dar thought for some time. Even he had become a little tired of being put off each time he asked for his property, and Kruger’s implied point was a good one. Dar was fair-minded enough to admit to himself that their lateness was not entirely accidental; they should have started back to the village well before the time they became trapped in the crater.

“I wonder why the villagers did not come after us?” he asked suddenly. “They knew about where we were and they certainly were able to find us the other time.”

“That’s a good question and I can’t see any answer offhand. The steam shouldn’t have scared them away; they were used to those geysers.”

“Do you suppose they could have known we were trapped and been satisfied to leave us where we were? A searching party could have heard the steam from a long distance and checked up on us by simply looking over the crater edge.”

“That’s a distinct possibility — except that the trap was so easy to get out of that they would hardly suppose we could be permanently held by it. In that case there would still be guards around, and they’d probably have met us on the way out.”

“Perhaps there was only a single guard, who didn’t think the noise would lead to anything — they might think of the jet as inexhaustible; I’m sure I would have. In that case he might only have just started for reinforcements. I’m armed, and he might not feel it his duty to attempt Our capture single-handed.”

“A possibility which we have no means of checking — except by waiting here to see whether the soldiers turn out. Should we do that?”

“I — guess not.” Dar was still a little reluctant in his answer. “You were probably right all along. We have been wasting time and I have only sixteen years. We had better start for the Ice Ramparts once more and hope we can get there in time to return here with enough aid to get the books.”

“That suits me — it always has. This steam bath gets no more comfortable with time; in fact, I’d swear it got a little hotter each year. Let’s go — and fast.” They suited action to the word and left mountain and city behind them without further discussion.

Travel was a little easier along the seacoast. The beach was usually of hard-packed sand, though it was almost always narrow — Abyormen had no moon massive enough to raise noticeable tides, and this close to the pole even those caused by Theer were not enough to measure. Kruger had been a little doubtful about their traveling on a surface that took their tracks so clearly, but Dar pointed out that they had told enough since their capture to give any would-be pursuers the proper direction. Speed, and speed alone, was all that would serve the fugitives at this point.

There were numerous animals in the forest, which came unbroken to the beach, and none of them seemed to have any particular fear of the travelers. Time and again Dar’s crossbow knocked over their dinner, which was dissected on the spot and eaten either as they traveled or during the occasional stops which were needed for sleep.

Once or twice the tips of volcanic cones could be seen well inland, but only once did one of them hamper their travel in any way. Then they had to spend some hours working their way across a small field of lava which had flowed into the sea at some time in the past.