The tunnels?
Dumarest approached them, halted as he reached the rim of the nearest. The roof curved a clear two feet above his helmet, it and the sides formed of compacted sand forced into a transient solidity by the pressure of the body of the creature which had made it. A large one; the sannak must have been over thirty feet long with a body swelling almost half as high again as a man.
Stepping forward Dumarest touched the side of the tunnel with a gloved hand. The floor, beneath his lantern, was clean of tranneks but there could be some farther down. He shone the beam of his helmet light down the tube, seeing its gentle curve which masked the lower reaches. It was tempting to walk toward it, to search for the precious stones but he resisted the impulse.
Turning, he again studied the wall, shining his beam higher to where a dark opening gaped, one a little smaller than the tunnel behind him but just as neatly formed. Above showed another, more, small in the dim glow, high, obviously old. The marks of sanneks who had come to feed in years long past, clearing the cavern of its mineral attraction, moving on to fresh deposits.
Thoughtfully Dumarest again looked at the tunnels. The curve he had noticed was to his left, away from the cavern. He took two steps into it then halted, feeling a sudden tension, the old, familiar warning of impending danger. As he backed, the roof ahead, without warning, silently collapsed.
It was almost in slow-motion, sand falling, pluming, filling the air with dust, a mound growing with incredible rapidity to block the tunnel, to surge toward him with a low, rasping whisper as if a thousand sheets of sandpaper were being rubbed together, a thousand files at work on steel.
A sound followed by another, a deep tremulation felt rather than heard. A murmur of rushing water blending with the churn of great stones rubbing one against the other. A grind of blunted drills against adamantine stone. The regular throb and pulse of a rotating mechanism which rose from the floor to penetrate boots and tent and skin and air in an awful announcement of the destruction at hand.
Chapter Nine
"It's gone!" Hine straightened from the sonarscope. Beneath the transparency of his helmet his face was strained, dewed with perspiration. "By God, it was close! What happened?" He scowled as Dumarest explained. "You went into the tunnel?"
"Two or three steps only, and I made no noise. The tunnel just fell in ahead of me as I watched. The sannak?"
"Probably. It often happens when one comes too close. In any case the fall must have covered any noise you made getting clear." Hine listened, adjusted a dial, then released his breath in a sigh. "It's quiet enough now, thank God. You and Carl had better get some sleep."
"Later." Dumarest pointed to the tunnels he had seen in the far wall. "After we get up there."
"You want to climb?"
"Those tunnels must be old but in rock they'll be firm. We'd be more secure in one of them-this cavern must act as a sounding board. I've checked the wall and we can make it with luck."
"Cut steps?"
"No. We'll rig a grapnel and throw it into the lowest tunnel. We climb and repeat." Dumarest gave them no time to object. "Carl, you stand guard. Maurice, Zarl, pack the gear. What have we to use as a grapnel?"
He fashioned it from thin metal rods bent to form a bent cruciform with rope lashed to the central joint. Standing back from the wall he swung it at the dark mouth illuminated by Kemmer's lantern, heard the guide curse as it missed and fell with a rasp to the sand.
"The noise! Careful, Earl!"
Again Dumarest whirled the grapnel to send it flying high and this time accurately. Gently he tugged at the rope, felt it catch then suddenly yield. Ignoring Hine he tried again, this time with success. Keeping the rope taut he climbed, boots hard against the wall, walking as he took the strain with arms and back.
The tunnel, like the wall, held a dull polish, the floor clean of tranneks. Dust rested thick on the curved bottom but the wall remained intact beneath the rasp of his gloved hand. In the blue glow of his lantern he saw it sweep in an upward curve, the wall broken in one place where another tunnel sliced across it. Returning to the mouth he signaled to the others to ascend, stacking the packs and gear well back from the entrance.
As Sartis drew up the rope Dumarest explained, "We don't need to climb higher. This tunnel will take us. We need to find a junction which is both firm and even. A spot giving us clear views and alternative escape routes. If this rock is as riddled as I think it must be we won't have much trouble finding such a place."
"You intend to camp at a junction?" Hine echoed his doubts. "Man, you're asking for trouble. Each noise will be magnified as if we stood in the pipe of an organ."
"But dispersed," said Dumarest. "That's why we need a junction. And if anything comes we've a chance to fight and run." He added, "Trust me, Zarl. It will work."
As Jwani had hinted and Dumarest's own experience certified. Hunters such as Hine worked to a rigid pattern and were too close to the wood to see the trees. They found a mouth and searched single tunnels risking falls at every moment. Risking too being scented by a sannak and being crushed, eaten, buried alive. Fear had blinded them to what Dumarest had recognized.
"When moving, a sannak makes noise," he explained. "It can't avoid it. So the safest time for us to move is when one is passing close. In the rock we are in less danger than in the sand and can get better soundings from the more solid material. We'll camp, search for a feeding-node and when we find one we'll move in."
"Just like that?" Hine was sarcastic. "Earl, how long do you think we'd last?"
"Long enough." Dumarest was curt. "All we want to do is to get in, get what we came for then get out. The longer we hang around the greater risk we run. Now let's arrange a schedule."
Sleeping, eating, resting out of the suits. Standing watch in the eerie dimness of the tunnels and checking the findings of the sonarscope. Dumarest had other, more selective apparatus and he moved far from the camp to squat in stygian darkness, listening to the whispers and rustles and murmurs transmitted through the pierced and riddled stone.
Giants had made those tunnels, long, sinuous shapes gnawing and grinding in an eternal search for food. Mating, breeding, roving wide. The city must rest in a leached out part of the desert; the surrounding area devoid of the essential minerals the sannaks craved. The mountains and beyond would provide but no matter how daring and foolhardy the hunters might be they could only reap a fraction of the desired harvest.
Dumarest thought of the wealth which must lie locked deep beneath the sand. The voiding of thousands of the creatures over uncountable years. Entire mountains perhaps crushed and pulverized in the relentless attrition which had followed natural cataclysm. Forces which had turned a fertile world into a barren ball of arid dust laced with remaining ridges of jagged stone.
A thousand years, maybe less, and even they would be levelled and nothing remain but a restless sea of wind-blown grit. And the sannaks? Would they survive, burrowing deep, deeper, searching out the last vestiges of essential ores?
A whisper suddenly swelled into a scratching. A rustle became a roar. Murmurs became shouts and Dumarest spun dials to cut down the gain as a thunder of noise echoed from the pickups clamped to his ears. It held, continued as he felt the rock tremble beneath him, then the grinding roar began to fade and he was up and running back to the camp.