Jak scowled and shook his head. “No.”
“We can be circumspect, my dear Mr. Lauren. Just a reconnoiter. If we do not like what we see, we are off.”
They worked their way around the edge of the bubble, picking a path of least resistance over the slick planes and treacherous edges of the ceiling’s glassfall.
“Cover badge,” Jak said, as he put his hand over his own.
When Doc did the same, the bubble was plunged into pitch darkness, except for a muted glow of green on the ground about one hundred feet in front of them.
They watched it intently for several minutes.
“Nothing’s moving,” Doc said at last.
Jak uncovered his badge and nodded.
“Are you still there?” Doc called across the rubble.
“Yes, I’m here.”
Doc and Jak closed in on the man’s position. As they did, there was an explosion of scurrying tiny feet. Low dark forms scooted away in all directions. Like shadows, flitting at the corners of Doc’s eyes, the fleeing rats were almost too fast to follow.
They found the man almost completely buried in glass block. His head, his arms and one leg stuck out of a collapse that had come from the wall and ceiling above. A block of at least a hundred pounds straddled his hips and held him down. Doc and Jak shone their badge lights onto his face. The man had no front teeth. There were old bruises on his eyes and cheeks.
“Are you cut anywhere?” Doc asked him. “Once we start lifting off the glass, it could release pressure on a wound and you could bleed to death.”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell. I’ve been pinned here for a long time. My arms and legs are asleep.”
Jak and Doc set aside their axes and working carefully, lifted the glass from his body. His torso and limbs were covered with a myriad of shallow cuts and gashes, but none of them serious.
Freed, the man stood shakily.
“Thank you, thank you,” he said. “I didn’t think anyone would help me. Before you came, others passed by and did nothing. They stood over me and then walked on. They left me to be eaten by stickies or rats. This place is wicked and evil. And it’s full of wicked, evil people.”
“Do you know something of human anatomy?” Doc said. “You used a medical term a moment ago.”
The glass-fall survivor’s eyes lit up and he started to say something, then changed his mind. When he spoke, his words were guarded. “Medicine? Oh, no. Not really. I just pick things up here and there. My name is Huth, by the way.”
After Doc had completed the introductions, he asked, “Where are you from?”
“Out east,” Huth said. “I’ve been wandering on my own for quite a while, now. Never thought I’d end up in a place like this.”
From its shape and cut, the jacket Huth wore looked like the remains of a lab coat. The uniform of a scientist. Doc had very bad associations with coats like that. He glanced at the lapel. Something had been embroidered there, just over the pocket, but the threads had all been picked out.
“How did you come by that jacket?” he said.
“Oh, this? The same place I got the pants and shoes. The garbage dump over in Byram ville. Some poor guy died in these pants. I don’t know the story about the coat. I just picked it out of the rubbish pile before it burned up.”
The story satisfied Doc.
“Is it just you two working on a sledge?” Huth said. “If it is, maybe I could join you. We could combine forces.”
“We already have a third person,” Doc told him. “Why are you working alone?”
“I had some trouble back at the camp. Made some rather unpleasant enemies, I’m afraid.” He indicated the bruises on his face.
“And you did what to deserve that?”
“It was my fault,” Huth said. “There was a misunderstanding and it got blown out of all proportion. I said something to the guards that I shouldn’t have said. A lie to gain their trust. I was just trying to find a way to get out of here, but it didn’t work. In fact, it backfired completely when my fellow laborers took what I’d said for the truth. What about my joining you? The guards allow as many as five people to a cart.”