James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

“I won’t do it,” he breathed, and he tightened his arm around Callie’s shoulders, pulling her closer. She tensed under his grip, but he held on tightly. Colonel edged towards him, reaching for the knife. Olivia vibrated with fury a few feet away, while Stanley Tulendij, his eyes alight, twitched behind her. The crowd below strained forward, nearly pushing J.J. into the water. Across the cave Paul saw Bob Wier pushing one more log into the blazing firebox with the iron poker. The smoker was overheating; smoke gushed from the chimney and puffed from the seams of the doors.

“No,” Paul said louder, “I won’t do it.” The knife trembled so violently in his hand that Paul was afraid he was going to drop it, but he waved it unsteadily at the Colonel.

“Mm mm!” said Callie through the gag. “Mm mm!”

“Oh, for God’s sake, we’ll be here all night,” said Olivia. “I’ll do it.”

Paul turned to fend her off, but Colonel grabbed his wrist in a crushing grip. Callie struggled in Paul’s grasp; Paul tottered at the edge of the stony ledge; Colonel squeezed his wrist ferociously, and the knife loosened in Paul’s grip.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” bellowed Bob Wier from across the cave. Reflexively everyone turned to see him heaving on the wooden handle at one end of the smoker. He had kicked the chocks away from the front wheels, and slowly the smoker started to roll forward down the incline. Grimacing and white-faced, Bob dug in with his loafers and pushed the handle from behind, and the smoker picked up speed across the cave, its wheels squealing, its metal panels rattling. Bob had opened the door of the firebox at the front end, and as the smoker rolled faster, flames streamed backwards out of the box, scorching the sides of the drum and sending hot sparks and glowing embers bounding along the cave floor. “ ‘I will pour out my wrath upon you,’ ” cried Bob Wier, banging the long iron poker on the drum of the smoker, “ ‘and breathe out my fiery anger against you!’ ”

“What the hell?” said Colonel, loosening his grip on Paul’s wrist for an instant. Paul tightened his grasp on the knife and, still clutching Callie, yanked his hand free, slashing Colonel deep across his forearm.

“Son of a bitch!” cried Colonel, jerking his arm into the air. He nearly toppled backwards down the slope. The gash in his sleeve flapped, blood soaking into the fabric.

“Ezekiel!” panted Bob Wier, “twenty-one. . thirty-one,” and with a final, mighty effort, he heaved the smoker, jouncing and rattling and flaming, into the crowd. It rocketed down the incline towards the pool like a runaway little locomotive, the blunt snout of its firebox breathing flame and streaming black smoke. The pale, homeless men tumbled away from the blazing firebox in every direction, squealing as the sparks shot among them. Bob Wier charged right behind the smoker, swinging the poker with both hands like a club, sending some pale men flying while others scrabbled away spiderwise on their hands and knees. J.J. scrambled backwards on his ass, like a crab.

“Run, Paul!” cried Bob Wier breathlessly over the tremendous clatter of the runaway smoker. “Take her and run!”

The smoker thundered to the edge of the pool and tumbled in, roaring firebox first. A great wave of cave water heaved over the lip of the pool and washed squealing pale men across the floor, and an immense eruption of steam boiled out of the water, a roiling, hissing cloud that shot to the ceiling and gusted to either side, obscuring the flailing Bob Wier and the sliding homeless men. The wave of cave water sloshed high up the slope out of the cloud, and Colonel, still cursing, pedaled wildly on the slick rock, then toppled backwards, sliding on his back through the water into the steam. Callie broke away from Paul, only to be confronted by a wild-eyed Stanley Tulendij, who hunkered down on his long legs and spread his hands wide like a knife fighter. Callie hollered something through her gag and planted her foot in the old man’s groin, and he gasped long and loud and crumpled in his tux like a bag of bones. Steely-eyed Olivia tried to do the same to Paul, but he staggered backwards, waving the knife, and Olivia lost her balance in her long skirt, landing hard on her hip and sliding down the slick rock into the water, vanishing into the steam.

“Callie,” gasped Paul. Gusts of hot steam wafted past him, and he lost her. But before he could call out again, she shouldered past him like a running back, leaping in long strides down the slope towards the cubescape, losing her footing at last and sliding on her backside into the water.

“I’m coming!” cried Paul, and he dropped to his ass with spine-crushing force and tobogganed after her down the rock. Because of its clarity, the water had looked only a few inches deep, but it turned out to be waist high and, despite the steam, piercingly cold. The shock of it made Paul gasp, and he stumbled, dunking himself, and came up sputtering and waving the knife.

“I’m coming!” he gasped again, but Callie was charging through water up to her waist, swinging her shoulders. She reached the edge and without looking back gripped a stalagmite with her bound hands and hoisted herself, streaming with water, out of the pool. Paul struggled after her through the freezing water, and he glanced back and saw that the steam was slowly dissipating. The spot where the smoker had gone into the pool was still bubbling like a hot spring, and one end of the drum was heeling over like a sinking oil tanker. Somewhere in the mist both Olivia and Colonel were shouting, and through the fading cloud of steam Paul saw the dim silhouette of Bob Wier still laying about him like Beowulf with the poker. “Praise.. Jesus. .,” he gasped, connecting with a solid thud, but he was slowly being pulled down by the swarming heap of pale men.

At the edge of the pool Paul hauled himself out, his clothes clinging and heavy with water. Kneeling on the cold, gritty stone, panting for breath, he saw a few of the nearer figures in the cloud of steam glancing back at him, and he heaved himself to his feet and started after Callie, towards the cubes. He’d lost his sandals in the water, and his feet slapped painfully against the hard surface of the floor, leaving muddy prints in the grit. He still had the knife, though, and he held it before him as he entered the main aisle of the cubicles, the threadbare carpet feeling grainy and rough under his feet. At the junction of the two main aisles, he found Callie crouched with her back to the cube wall, out of sight of the far end of the cave. She had lifted her bound hands to her face and was trying to pry off the gag with her thumbs. Her shirt was plastered to her skin, and she was trembling.

“Wait,” said Paul, and he crouched before her and tried to take her wrist. She jerked her hands away at first, her eyes angry and wild, but Paul showed her the trembling knife, and she nodded curtly, offering her bound wrists. Paul steadied the knife with both hands and sawed through the cords, and Callie flung the scraps away and reached behind her head and tore off the gag. Rubbing her wrists, she opened her mouth wide and drew a long, wheezing breath.

“Callie,” Paul said, glancing round the corner down the aisle into the far end of the cave. The steam had mushroomed to a haze up under the roof, and Paul saw a wriggling heap of men. Bob Wier was nowhere to be seen. Some of the men in the heap were raising their fists and hammering something out of sight, but others were reaching into the heap and coming out again with ragged scraps of something in their fists. One pale face lifted above the scrum, its teeth smeared with blood. Paul looked away.

“We have to. .,” he began, but Callie braced her back against the cube wall and kicked him in the chest. She had lost her sandals, too, but the solid blow of her bare heel knocked Paul on his ass and sent the knife skittering across the carpet.