“It’s not that deep,” I said. “Listen to the screams. They don’t gradually fade away like they’re falling out of range, they just go on a little and stop. You can even hear guys moving around down there.”
Gag listened. On the other side of the door, the lieutenant was fumbling with the key, trying to fit it into the lock. The other troopers and the jailers were staring blankly at the scene. Boards that had fallen from the ceiling were scattered on the floor, and the floor itself was covered with small dark holes and splintered floorboards that waved their jagged edges in the air. I reached through the bars, grabbed the front of the lieutenant’s tunic, and yanked him sharply toward me. His head swung forward and hit two bars, one on either cheek, he started to slide to the floor, and the key dropped out of his hand, bounced once on the floor and once in the cell, and then spun with a single reflected flash over the edge into the pit and disappeared.
“Nice move,” Gag said approvingly.
“Thanks,” I said, rolling my eyes at another striking example of my luck. “But now we’ve got no choice. Time to go.” The cell had tilted back at an angle, resting partly on the wooden back wall of the jail building. The wall had bowed outward and was creaking ominously. The handful of remaining prisoners were clinging desperately to the bars as far away from the center of the cell as they could get. One man who had still been hanging from the roof of the cell looked down, sighted carefully, swung once, and dropped into the hole. A second later we heard a low thud and an “oof” over the shouts and clatter.
Gag and I edged gingerly out toward the hole and peeked over the edge. The meshwork of iron bars that remained of the cell floor actually extended out over the rim of the pit before the bars came apart from each other and began to curve down. The entire center section had torn completely off, but certain other parts of dangling mesh were still attached to the rest of the floor structure. Right below us, two twisted bars reached down five feet below the level of the floor. Enough crossbars were still attached to these to make a kind of crude ladder leading into the gloom of the pit. Below the bottom-most rung, perhaps ten or fifteen feet further down, we could see a flat floor. This level was now covered with mounds of dirt and rock and former prisoners. “A room,” Gag said. “That’s a room down there.”
“Somebody’s basement, looks like,” I said. The wood frames and braces that had supported the room’s ceiling still stuck up through the rubble. It was certainly a convenient time for a cave-in, though, if that was really what it was. Something went “zzftt!” through my hair and clanged off a bar across from me - an arrow! It was less than half-a-minute since the first rumble, but the Guard was sorting itself out. I pushed off, slid down the curve of the twisted ladder, grabbed the bottom rung with both hands as I passed it, paused, swinging back and forth, identified an open spot, and let go.
The prisoners in the basement were sorting themselves out, too, with many of them already on their feet and the rest either still unconscious or deciding whether their limbs were actually broken or just battered and strained. Gag arrived next to me, looked around, and said, “Where’s the exit?”
“Behind this,” a brawny man said from one side. He was straining at a section of slate covered two thirds of the way up by a rockslide, snapped timbers protruding from the sides of the pile. Another two men were using lengths of broken cell bar to sweep dirt and rocks off the slate. With a crack, another timber splintered and the rock settled further.
“Forget that,” Gag told me with a professional air. A loud clanging came from above as someone set to work on the cage. Gag cocked his head, listened, and then said, “The Guard’s gonna get through those bars inside of ten minutes.”
I had spent a moment orienting myself, and I thought what I had in mind might work. I turned Gag around and led him back, stepping over a groaning form. “The street runs back here,” I said.
“So?” Gag said.
“So I spotted a manhole cover down the block when they dragged me in. There’s a sewer under that street.”
I could scarcely see Gag at all in the darkness, but I caught a glint from his teeth as he grinned. He was running his hands over the surface of the wall, and I joined him. Then, down at the bottom, I felt rock. “Over here!” I yelled. “Another way!”
Men immediately surrounded me, dragging away a stack of crates that blocked part of the wall, kneeling to scrape away at the base, pushing and yanking at the stones. With a low grinding shudder one of the big stones moved. “Here!” someone said. “Push!” We scrambled for a hold, drew our breath, and leaned. The stone rumbled and moved into the wall, one inch, two, and caught up.
Behind us, with a clang and a new crash, more of the cage and a shower of rocks and floor fell into the basement. “Now!” the man said again, and we all strained against the stone. It caught, jerked, caught again, abruptly rattled away from us with a dull bass groan, and then suddenly there was no resistance at all. The stone slid out of touch, we fell against the wall with all our force suddenly released, and a great crash and plop and splash sent a shower of water up through the hole and into our faces.
Below us now was the gurgle of running water. One man squirmed head-first through the hole and slid free with another splash, a second man followed, and all of a sudden a pile-up had formed. “Let’s do this orderly or we’ll never do it at all!” I shouted, the crowd eased up, and I took advantage of the small gap in front to swing my legs through the opening, grab a handhold on the rocks on either side, and lower myself carefully through.
This sewer was square-shaped instead of the usual cylinder, and only about five feet across. The rock we’d pushed out had formed the upper part of one side of the wall just above the surface of the water, and it now sat there on the bottom breaking the sluggish current at a crazy angle. The first man through lay limply over the stone, unconscious from the bash he’d taken when he’d rashly plunged head-first. I took a second to prop his head out of the water and then headed off downstream.
The only light came obliquely through the slats of the manholes and the collection tubes leading up to the streets and buildings. I didn’t need light. though, to tell me I wanted out of there fast. Scuttling and paddling along while bent over like a hunchback through what was frankly pretty disgusting water breathing putrid air was nowhere near my favorite part of the job. As a matter of fact, the lack of light was probably good - I didn’t really want to know exactly what kind of junk was floating along and brushing up against me. It was better to have the trash down here than up in the streets, I knew, but that observation paled a little when you weren’t actually in the streets, appreciating their cleanliness. Sounds of flailing and splashing behind me were suddenly joined by shouts and crashes, and I figured that the Guard had gotten wise and opened a manhole. An intersection appeared, I turned right into a larger tube, and the sounds behind me faded.
I hoped Gag had gotten clear too, not to mention the rest of the poor slobs who’d been swept up in the dragnet, but I wasn’t going to spend all my time worrying about them. I had other things on my mind. There was still Carl Lake, and Gashanatantra, and whether that little earthquake or cave-in had really had something to do with me, and other matters like that. I jumped up to catch the ladder hanging from the next manhole I passed and climbed up through the shaft to the surface. Levering up the edge of the heavy wooden manhole cover, I peeked out. I didn’t recognize the street, but at the moment that didn’t matter. The important point was that the street was deserted.
I pulled myself through and let the cover drop. The street was narrow and short and dull, not much more than a block-long alley, which made it perfect for the kind of entrance I was making. I turned left at the corner and then left again, and then I knew where I was - about ten blocks in from the waterfront and a few blocks north of the south wall.