Jack McDevitt - Eternity Road

Chaka ordered more wine. “What did it look like in there?”

“Stone walls. Just like you’d expect inside a mountain. A lot of dust. Plenty of footprints. The passageway was about a hundred feet long. It was wide enough to have put the Mindar into it. And it was probably twenty feet high. There was a stairway leading down, folding back on itself every ten feet or so until it disappeared into the dark.

“The passageway was broken up by openings along both walls. The daylight didn’t come much past the door and our lamps didn’t help much. I was about to stick my head into the first opening when the captain pulled me back because there was no floor.

“We looked down and it was just a gaping hole. A shaft.”

“How deep?” asked Chaka.

“Couldn’t see bottom. All the doors on both sides opened into shafts. There was also a cross corridor.

“We called Endine’s name again. Still no answer. Lots of echo but no answer.

“The footprints went down the stairway. None came back up.” Knobby shook his head. “I think if it were up to me, that would have been the end of the search. I’d’ve gone back up the ladder and waited for a while and if they didn’t come, I’d’ve left. Know what I mean? But the captain figured he had an obligation. So he took the lamp and led the way. We started down.

“Every floor looked the same: The shafts opened onto each level, and there was the cross passageway beyond. Karik and his people had gone off several times to inspect the area, but the prints showed us they’d always come back and continued down the stairs. We looked in some of the rooms beyond the shafts. They were just rooms, a lot of different sizes. Filled with junk. Chairs and tables and beds that must have been a thousand years old. Some had baths. But everything was under a layer of dust.

“Every few minutes we’d stop and call their names. But we got no answers and I have to tell you, my skin began to crawl. I mean, how big could the place be that they couldn’t hear us?

“Captain Dolbur said he doubted they were still in there. After aU, it had been hours since I’d seen them climb through the door. The place was damp and cold and absolutely silent. They found another exit,” he said. I mean, this was a place where, without the lamps, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. And it felt dosed-in. Nobody was going to stay long.

“Then we heard Endine.”

“We didn’t know at first it was him. Just a sing-song whine somewhere below us.

“He was sitting hunched up on a landing, his hands wrapped around his knees, rocking back and forth. He was bone white and his eyes looked crazy and his hair was matted with blood. There were books stacked in neat piles. Maybe forty or more. One pile was knocked over.

“The captain tried to talk to him, but it was like we weren’t there. He just kept swaying and making this dying sound in his throat.

“The staircase broke away just below the landing. I looked down into a chamber but saw no one, although there were more books down there, scattered around. They’d strung up a line to climb down. I called out a few names but the only thing that came back was echoes.

“The captain joined me. “He got hit in the head’s all,” he said. “Other than that, I don’t see anything wrong with him.”

“He leaned out over the stairwell to look down into the lower chamber, breathed my name, and delivered an expletive. There was a body down there.

“The lower chamber was a pretty good drop, maybe twenty-five feet. There were knots in the line to make climbing easier. I held the lamp while the captain went down, and then I joined him. It was Shay.

“The body was wet. It was crumpled up and had a washed-out look. But there was nothing to indicate what had killed him.”

“No wounds?” asked Chaka.

“A couple of bruises. That’s all.

“The walls were damp. There were even some puddles. I should mention, there were four exits from the chamber. There was a long, high corridor leading off opposite sides at right angles to the passageway with the shafts. And a fourth short passage led to an underground lake.

“The tall corridor was lined with doors and they were all open. Except one. We looked in the rooms. They were all there, everybody, some in one place, some in another.” Knobby sat staring at a point in space somewhere over her shoulder.

“They were all dead?”

“Yes.”

“How? What killed them?”

“I don’t know. They were just like Shay.”

“What did Endine say?”

“Not much of anything. He never made sense, that I heard of. The captain didn’t think he ever really came out of the delirium. We brought him back here and tried to turn him over to the surgery. But we heard he was out and gone the same night we brought him in. Just took off.” Knobby sucked in air and refilled his cup again.

“Did you look in the room that wasn’t open?”

“We tried. But the door wouldn’t give. On the other hand, to be honest, we didn’t try hard.” He looked at his wine. “This stuff’s not strong enough. Anyway, I heard rumors later he was seen west of Brockett. But I never heard any more about him. Till now.”

“And you never found out what happened?”

“No. We told the story around. People laughed. Blamed us. Some thought we were trying to hide something. Some even thought we murdered the whole bunch. But it was a demon. I mean, how do you kill a half-dozen people without leaving a mark on them?”

“What happened to the bodies?”

“We buried them. We brought the bodies out and buried them.” He looked carefully at her. “With honors,” he added.

“Thank you.”

The waiter came with a fresh carafe and filled both cups. “Could they have been drowned?”

Knobby shook his head. “Hard to see how.”

“You talked about tides. And you said there’s an underground lake.”

“No tide is going to come up so fast that you can’t get away from it.”

Chaka felt a chill edging down her back. Her food lay half finished on her plate. “What about the books?” she asked. “What happened to them? The ones on the landing—?”

“We took them back to the Mindar. The captain thought they were probably valuable, so we took everything.”

“Did you happen to notice what they were?”

“I’m not good at reading, Chaka,” he said. “I’m not sure. The captain mentioned some titles. War and Peace was one of them. And Don Somebody-or-Other. Bleak House. Something called Commentaries on the Constitution.” He made a face as if thinking about it required a major effort. “That’s all I can remember. It mean anything to you?”

“A little. What happened to them? After you got back to the Mindar?”

“Vic threw them overboard.”

“Who? Who threw them overboard?”

“Endine. He came out on deck one day and chucked them all into the water. Every last one of them.”

Chaka’s spirits sank. “You’re not serious.”

“After all the trouble we went to. I could have tossed him into the water. But yes, that’s exactly what happened. He brought them out on deck in piles. And he threw them over the side. One by one.”

Chaka stared at him. “You’re sure? You saw this happen yourself?”

“Yes, I’m sure. We all stood there and watched him.”

She listened to people talking around them. Someone’s father was threatening to cut off an inheritance. “He didn’t destroy them all,” Chaka said. “He got back home with a Mark Twain.”

Knobby shrugged. “Well. All I know is he got rid of a lot of them.”

“You said the bodies, all except Shay’s, were found in the rooms? Not in the corridor?”

“Yes. The rooms. They were big rooms. Bigger than this place. And two stories high.”