"Simple." Dumarest hauled up the lamp. "We'll aim for that ledge and drop down by rope. "You first, Zarl, then I'll lower the packs and the others will follow. I'll come last." He was working as he spoke, splicing the thin, strong rope into a double line. "Lets go!"
Zarl dropped like a wingless bat, lights gleaming, coming to rest as he dropped to the ledge, waving as he released the rope. The packs followed, then Santis. Kemmer hesitated.
"How do we get back, Earl?"
"Climb if we have to. The rock's soft enough to take steps but I'm hoping we'll find another way out. Come on now, move!"
The rope followed him down as Dumarest twitched it from the holding pitons. Another long drop and they stood at the bottom of the shaft. Grit covered it and dust rose to hang suspended in the air, shimmering in the lights as they moved down toward a peaked opening.
They were still within the mountain range and the guide relaxed as the peaked opening narrowed until they had to push the packs ahead of them and turn sideways in order to pass through. A space which would prevent the passage of any large sannak. He grew tense again as it widened into a vaulted chamber clogged with sand.
"Any openings?" Dumarest swung the beam of his light around. "All of you check for openings."
Zarl found them. The guide, knowing what to look for, waved his lamp in a signal. The mouth of the tunnel at which he stood was fretted, sand fallen inside to destroy the neat circle.
"Old," he said as the others joined him. "The others are more recent but none are fresh." They lay to one side, overlapping, gaping mouths filled with dancing shadows, becoming invisible as the lights moved away. "There could be others on the far side."
Dumarest examined the walls of the cavern as he went to check. The stone was rasped smooth and bore a faint polish. He moved closer, focusing his lamp, looking up to follow the trace of a shimmering blue mineral. It faded a few feet above where he stood. Other traces, all faint, blocked the extent of the chamber.
"Malabar," said Hine. "Too scarce to attract. They've eaten this place out."
A disappointment but proof of Jwani's theory. Dumarest swung his light to the floor and began to search the fine detritus.
"No." The guide was emphatic. "They don't void where they eat. There'll be no tranneks here."
"Where, then?"
"Out in the runs. Maybe in a lair, certainly in a hatchery, but to find one of those is rare and to live to talk about it rarer still." Hine examined the wall. "Malabar but no chinteny. No elmish, either. This place was eaten out long ago. Those tunnels came from questers-young sannaks on the browse. They like to stay away from the big ones."
Santis said, "A bust. What now, Earl?"
"We camp."
"Here?" Kemmer's face through his helmet was startled. "What if we get visited? Other sannaks could want to have a look around."
"We need to rest," said Dumarest. "And here is as good a place as any. You pair with Zarl, Maurice, and I'll take first watch with Carl. Let's get the tent up."
It was small, inflatable, designed to muffle vibration and retain heat and moisture. Inside it they could strip off the suits, cool down, apply salve to chafed and itching flesh, void wastes, eat and sleep in relative comfort-relative only when compared to remaining cooped up in the confines of the suits. With the tent they had carried cans of water, packs of food, lamps, electronic apparatus and weapons.
Dumarest checked his as Santis busied himself with a sonarscope, crouching, leads plugged into his helmet, ears alert for the telltale vibration which would herald the approach of a sannak. The weapon was a large-calibre rocket projector firing a shell an inch in diameter at a velocity which would penetrate a sannak's hide. The missile was soundless aside from a spiteful hum, the explosion of the warhead, muffled by surrounding tissue would, hopefully, be insufficient to bring down the walls of a tunnel. The magazine held five rounds and Dumarest checked them all.
From where he sat Santis said, "You've been in combat, Earl. A mercenary?"
"Yes."
"I thought so. You can always tell a professional by the way he handles arms. Never to take anything on trust, to check and recheck, to examine each load and to test the action. I've known raw recruits go into firing position with stuck safeties and damaged blocks. They last about as long as those who try to fire unloaded guns. Well, those who survive don't make that mistake." He adjusted a dial on the sonarscope. "Something-no, it must be the blood in my ears."
"Take a rest." Dumarest knelt beside him. "Check your piece while I take over."
"Check it and hope to God we never have to use it." Santis chuckled. "The prayer of every soldier working for pay."
"A long, quiet war," said Dumarest. "No fighting and regular pay."
"Good food and restful nights." Santis smiled, remembering traditional toasts, hopes rarely fulfilled. "It can be a good life if you've a decent commander. Let me take over now."
He settled as Dumarest rose, stretching, picking up his rocket-rifle before moving softly toward the tent. Only a soft susuration reached his ears as he rested his helmet against the rigidly inflated dome; Kemmer snoring or the guide muttering in a dream of vast riches. Lower down in the cavern he paused to study the drift of sand which half filled the cavern, tunnels gaping like fretted lace where the wall swept in a dully polished curve. The beam of his lantern turned blue as Dumarest triggered the ultraviolet and swept it over the grit before him. Tranneks fluoresced in such light but he saw no answering glow. As Hine had said the area was barren.
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