Nope, we’ve gotta ride, Clyde.
Tomlinson bucked his hips upward, but this time the rocks didn’t move. Twice more he tried, then attempted to think of a better method as he rested. His fins were making it difficult to find purchase with his toes, that was the problem. He couldn’t reach his feet with his hands, so he used his heels to pry one fin off, then the other.
When he felt ready, he got his knees under him, dug his toes into the sand and used his back to lift mightily, straining against the suffocating weight as if lifting a piano. The weight shifted as rocks grated overhead, but there was little gain.
Damn it.
He tried again. He lifted until his muscles trembled and his ligaments popped . . . and then something very strange happened. The limestone above him didn’t move, but a plate of rock beneath him made a bone-cracking sound, then splintered beneath him like a trapdoor. Tomlinson felt his body fall several feet. It was like falling through a rotten floor.
He winced, expecting the limestone above to come crashing down, but it didn’t. There was a brief clattering of rock, then silence. He had thrown his arms over his head to protect himself, but now he opened his eyes and stared up into a blackness that was like looking into an abyss.
The discomfort of crushing weight was gone, and now . . . now he could sense space around him. Not much space, but he could move his arms and legs. Tomlinson got his knees under him and very slowly sat up. When he did, he felt limestone hard against the back of his head, but there was a foot of clearance above his head.
He realized that they had dropped into a karst chamber or vent—a chamber that had been sealed by one or more large slabs of limestone as they fell.
Like a blind man, Tomlinson extended his hands, with his fingers wide, to explore the space around him, only to be suddenly blinded when Will Chaser switched on the little rubber-coated flashlight that he was carrying. The kid was pointing the beam directly at Tomlinson’s face.
Damn . . . the thing was bright!
It wasn’t as powerful, though, thank God, as the little light that Ford had loaned Tomlinson. Of course not. Ford was a flashlight snob. An aficionado of high-tech LEDs and all instruments that manufactured light—understandable in a man who had spent so much of his life in dark places.
Fortunately, or maybe not, Will had insisted on carrying what equipment he had, which included the cheap little vulcanized flashlight. The thing was bright enough, though, to be blinding after so many minutes of total darkness.
Tomlinson made an awwggg-shittt sound through his regulator. He covered his eyes with one hand as he used the other to find the boy’s arm and then he pushed the light away.
Before the rock slide, he and the boy had gotten pretty good at verbal communication despite clinching regulators between their teeth. In Tomlinson’s experience as a diver, not many people could do it. Communication with a chunk of rubber in one’s mouth required mental skills that bordered on the telepathic. Ford refused to attempt it, but Will Chaser was a natural.
The boy spoke to Tomlinson now, saying, “Ooh . . . oou . . . UHHAYE?” Will might have been asking, Are you okay?
Tomlinson responded, “’Ucking . . . linded . . . meee!”
Will apologized, saying, “Aww-reee,” as the beam of light angled downward into blackness. Then Tomlinson heard the teen reprimand himself. “’Ucking id-ot! ’Uck-meee!”
The kid was mad at himself, no doubt, but Tomlinson was heartened by this reaffirmation of Will’s ability to translate vocal rhythms into words. The teen obviously possessed heightened powers of perception. From the moment of their first meeting, Tomlinson had sensed that boy was different—very different—plus it was also good to know that a concussion hadn’t damaged the kid’s brain or his abilities.
Tomlinson found Will’s arm again, then squeezed the boy’s hand, communicating, Don’t worry about it. He sensed that the kid wasn’t panicky. Will was afraid, yes, but the boy hadn’t lost his cool. The information was all right there for Tomlinson to inspect, flowing between their two hands—and still plenty of strength in the kid’s grip, too.
Tomlinson found his own flashlight and spoke three gurgled words—Cover your eyes—before pointing the light at his fins and turning it on.
Visibility was zero. All Tomlinson could see was a universe of swirling silt, the granules colliding against his face mask. Plus, his eyeballs were still throbbing from the recent light explosion.
He closed his eyes, giving himself time to recover, as he traced a hose to his console, then held the console close to his mask. Its two small instruments—a dive computer with depth gauge and a pressure gauge—were luminous green, but he still had trouble seeing the numbers because the silt was so thick.
Finally, though, he read:
1520 psi.
18 ft.
Now he was sure of what had happened. The limestone floor had collapsed beneath them, but not far. The good news was, he had more than half a bottle of air remaining. For Tomlinson, that meant more than thirty minutes of bottom time. And only eighteen feet beneath the surface! He felt the irrational urge to launch his body upward, through the rock. He yearned for sunlight. The sky was so damn close!
Stay cool! Pin your damn butterfly brain to the track.
Visibility seemed to be improving, but too slowly for his mood, so he switched off the light and used his hands to explore the rock chamber. His fingers touched plates of limestone and oversized oyster shells that he knew were fossilized—he’d seen a bunch of prehistoric oyster remnants earlier on the bottom of the lake.
A massive rock seemed to cover the chamber, which explained why they hadn’t been crushed by rubble. The walls were composed of rock and loose sand, which wasn’t a comforting thing to discover. The whole damn place could come crashing down at any moment. Overall, the space wasn’t much larger than a shipping crate, but it was an improvement over where they’d been.
Tomlinson squeezed the boy’s shoulder to reassure him, then sat back, resting one shoulder against the rocks. They weren’t free, but they were in a better position to dig themselves out—as long as they didn’t disturb some weight-bearing slab and get themselves killed when the ceiling collapsed.
Tomlinson calmed himself by reviewing the facts. He and Will both had miniature emergency canisters holstered next to their primary tanks. Redundancy air systems—or “bailout bottles,” as they were called. Tomlinson’s canister, which had SPARE AIR stenciled on the side, was good for only a couple of minutes. But Will’s pony bottle was twice as big—thirteen cubic feet of additional air. That was Ford’s idea, of course, the obsessive safety freak.
Tomlinson remembered rolling his eyes at the man as he had listened, impatiently, to the predive checklist. Later, if Ford gave him a ration of crap about the way he had behaved, no problem. Well-deserved—if they survived.
Tomlinson guessed that Will’s spare bottle was probably good for ten minutes of additional bottom time. Question was, how much air did Will have remaining in his primary tank?
Tomlinson reached until he found the boy’s shoulder. He felt around until he located the hoses, then the dual gauges on Will’s BC. He pulled the gauges close to his face. The numbers were encouraging.
1380 psi.
Most novice divers were air gluttons. Not Will. The kid had steel woven into his heart—not surprising, after what he had survived only a few weeks before.