Barrington Bayley - The Rod of Light

Once they were alone together Brass’ resistance evaporated and he became a cooperative guide. For nearly an hour they journeyed through a decrepit maze, past old faces, skirting water-filled pits, treading carefully where Brass suspected the roof supports were unsafe. Jasperodus was glad he had not tried to find his way unaided. It would probably have been the end of him.

They came to an artificial cavern where they climbed a long bank, scrambling up the slag on their hands and knees, listening to the fragments dropping into a pool below. He realized they were mounting nearer to the surface. Soon afterwards, he could feel a quickening of air current, until suddenly there in front of them was a big wire grating, behind which could be seen cables, machinery, and part of a shaft.

Beside it was a metal door, painted green.

Brass stopped and turned to him, shifting uncomfortably.

‘This is it?’ asked Jasperodus.

Brass nodded.

Jasperodus tried the door. It opened easily. Within was a cage. Within the cage, a handle.

He turned to Brass. Simplest would be to send him straight back to his work… but he had been promised the upper world, the world of light. Besides, Jasperodus was curious to know what he would make of it.

He slid open the cage gate. ‘Get inside.’

‘We are going to the upper world?’ asked Brass nervously.

‘Yes, get inside.’

Brass obeyed. Jasperodus followed him. He closed the gate and experimentally moved the lever, to be rewarded with a whirring sound from above.

Smoothly, the cage began to climb.

The ascent did not last long. The lift had been installed when the mine was still relatively shallow. Over the years, the engineers had delved deeper in search of coal.

The Borgor robot was trembling. ‘Don’t worry,’ Jasperodus told him. There’s nothing to be frightened of.’

The lift came to a halt. Through the gate their headlamps shone on another green door, separated by a gap of five feet or so. Opening the cage, Jasperodus stepped to it, beckoning Brass to follow.

Opening the door without difficulty, he stepped through to survey his surroundings.

It was night, with dawn approaching. They appeared to be in open countryside. The lifthouse was a small brick building, above which hung the branches of a tree. Next to it, the mesh-covered flue of the air-vent emitted a continuous breathy whine.

A few feet away lay a cindery track, and beyond that, coarse grass and bush. In the distance, Jasperodus heard a busy clanking, which he recognised as the sound of a railway.

Brass had sidled up to stand by his side. He turned his headlamp this way and that, and then up to the sky.

‘This is the biggest face I have ever seen,’ he mumbled. ‘Yes, there is some light, but not like Yoshibo said… whose are those headlamps overhead, Jasperodus?’

He was looking at the scattering of stars that had not yet been obliterated by the false dawn. ‘They are not headlamps,’ Jasperodus corrected him. ‘There is no roof. What you see above you goes on forever, as Yoshibo told you. The points of lights are called stars. It is rather hard to explain what they are.’

‘So you say,’ Brass answered dubiously. He looked at the tree that swished gently in the breeze. ‘This part of the mine is strange, certainly, but it is not the new world you promised. Where, to be specific, is the sun?’

‘It will appear. We will wait here for a while. Then you will see.’

Removing his own headlamp, he threw it away. They stood quietly, waiting.

And gradually, the sun rose, tinting the east first with a red fanfare, then edging above the horizon, gradually illuminating the landscape until it rose clear into the sky and everything was flooded with its light.

Jasperodus had wondered whether Brass’ eyes would be able to see anything in daylight; but he realized that the Borgor roboticians would never have gone to the trouble of designing special eyes for underground. They were standard issue. Nevertheless as the environment brightened Brass uttered cries of astonishment and alarm, continually squirting water onto his eyes from his finger-tips, as he was wont to do to clear them of grime.

Finally he just stood staring all around him.

The landscape was all revealed. It consisted mainly of overgrown slagheaps on which flourished a few stunted trees. There was no sign of any of the buildings which were clustered around the adit trench. But Jasperodus could see the railway line, now. A train of wagons waited on it, piled high with coal, while a smoke-belching engine (also burning coal, no doubt), backed towards it. The line headed north.

‘It’s true’ Brass murmured in stunned tones. ‘All true. A world of light that goes on forever. Why, the colours….

‘Oh…’ He flung his arm before his eyes and turned away, as though unable to bear the sight any longer.

‘And this world offers infinitely more than your poky mine,’ Jasperodus added. ‘Though it holds infinitely more danger, too.’

Bending, he pulled up a clump of grass and began rubbing off some of the dirt that caked Brass’ body, until the metal of his casing showed through.

‘Look, Brass. See how you shine in the light of the sun. Properly cleaned and polished, what a splendid-looking creature you would be.’

‘Yes. I shine….’ Brass looked down at himself perplexedly.

‘Well, I am leaving now. What of you? You may take your chance with me, if you wish.’

He felt bound to make some sort of offer, even though Brass would be far more of a liability than a help if he were to accompany him. He did not imagine for a moment, however, that the other would accept.

And as he expected, Brass shook his head. ‘This world is not for me,’ he said sadly. ‘I could not bear always to be surrounded by so much light and unfamiliarity. I must return to the world I was made for… the world of darkness.’

Head bent, he shuffled to the lift gate. ‘You have taught me a great secret, Jasperodus. You have shown me a way to the upper world. It is a secret I shall keep to myself.’

He opened the lift gate, but then turned for one last lingering look at the incredible and dazzling terrain before him: at its colour, its beauty, its immensity. After which, with dragging steps, he entered the cage and operated the lever.

Jasperodus watched him sink out of sight. He stepped to the lifthouse door, and closed it.

The coal train, which he presumed was destined for an industrial centre further north, was ready to leave. He set off at a lope along the gritty track, which for a distance approached the railway line at a shallow angle; then where it swung to the right he clambered over the low, crumbling heaps. By the time he emerged from the bushes, within striking distance of the train, it had caught up with him and was picking up speed.

The railway curved to the left at this point; he was out of view of whoever was in the locomotive cab, though he would have to trust to luck that there was no one else about to spot him—no one who cared, at any rate. He ran alongside one of the wagons, studying its cambered side, and made a leap, catching a handhold on a closed emptying-hatch. Instantly he swung his feet up, fearful of the trundling wheels, then reached for the rim of the wagon with his other hand and, somewhat awkwardly, hauled himself over and onto the mound of coal.

The stuff was wet, as if it had been rained on. Keeping his profile low, he burrowed into the damp mixture of lumps, nuggets and slack, until he was satisfied that he had covered himself completely.

Then he lay motionless, to wait out the journey.

How oddly familiar, yet strangely unfamiliar, it was to be back in the world of men after so many years.