question, eithernot yet.
McDonough unhooked the torch from his belt. Behind
them, the white aperture of the tunnel’s mouth looked no
bigger than a nickel, and the twin bright lines of the rails
looked forty miles long. Ahead, the flashlight revealed nothing
but the slimy walls of the tunnel, coated with soot.
And then there was a fugitive bluish gleam. McDonough
set the motor back down as far as it would go. The truck
crawled painfully through the stifling blackness. The thudding
of the engine was painful, as though his own heart were
trying to move the heavy platform.
The gleam came closer. Nothing moved around it. It was
metal, reflecting the light from his torch. Martinson lit his
own and brought it into play.
The truck stopped, and there was absolute silence except
for the ticking of water on the floor of the tunnel.
“It’s a rocket,” Martinson whispered. His torch roved over
the ridiculously inadequate tail empennage facing them. It
was badly crumpled. “In fair shape, considering. At the clip
he was going, be must have slammed back and forth like an
alarm clapper.”
Cautiously they got off the truck and prowled around the
gloaming, badly dented spindle. There were clean shears
where the wings had been, but the stubs still remained, as
though the metal itself had given to the impact before the
joints could. That meant welded construction throughout,
MeDonough remembered vaguely. The vessel rested now
roughly in the center of the tunnel, and the railroad tracks
had spraddled under its weight. The fuselage bore no iden-