Exile to Hell

They reached another landing, another door, another inverted arrow on the wall, but they kept walking down. At the next landing, the door wasn’t made of wood, but of steel. It was a heavy bulkhead framed within a recessed niche in a double-baffled wall. The door bore the emblazoned warning Only Overproject Excalibur Personnel Beyond This Point! Must Have MAJIC-A Clearance To Proceed! Deadly Force Is Authorized! And imprinted below that, was the ubiquitous red triangle with black vertical lines.

“I’m sick of seeing that,” murmured Kane.

Brigid put the Syne over the keypad and initialized it. The device overrode the lock’s microprocessors, and with a squeak of rust and a hiss of pneumatics, the bulkhead slid into its slots between the double frame.

Semidarkness met their eyes, though there wasn’t much to see. They faced a narrow, uncarpeted passageway, long and low ceilinged. A dim glow filtered from its far end. Cool air fanned their faces, and they heard a rhythmic drone of turbines and generators. A faint chemical odor hung in the air.

They moved on toward the light. Brigid turned out her flashlight. Kane’s and Grant’s combat senses were on full alert. The mechanical throb grew louder. The end of the passageway was blocked by a turnstile device, obviously meant as a checkpoint nearly two centuries ago. The metal prongs were rusted into position, so they were forced to clamber over the time-frozen barrier.

The passageway took on a downward slope, and was lighted by dim red bulbs strung from a cable on the low ceiling. The floor changed from bare concrete to metal plates ridged and flaking with rust. Here and there, the walls were smeared with illegible graffiti. The only phrases Kane was able to decipher were painted in swirls of orange paint. One read They’re He-re! and the other was simply E.T. Go Home!

The passage ended abruptly at a door made of glass. It bore a sign stating, Biohazard Beyond This Point! Entry Forbidden To Personnel Not Wearing Anticontaminant Clothing!

Beyond the door was a small booth. From hooks on the wall hung a dozen one-piece coveralls. Hoods with transparent Plexiglas faceplates were attached to them. Kane pushed open the door, and the generator throb grew considerably louder.

Grant touched one of the coveralls with the barrel of his blaster. “Should we put ’em on?”

Kane shook his head. “We’d have to take off the armor. Besides, if we can’t get back to the gateway in the next hour and thirty-two minutes, it doesn’t much matter what kind of bugs we catch. And if we do get back, more than likely Lakesh can shoot us up with boosters and bug chasers.”

“That’s one way of approaching the problem,” Brigid said skeptically.

“You can put one on if you’d like.”

“Thanks, anyway. I’ll share the risk with my partners.”

Kane wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic, and he didn’t request elaboration. He crossed the booth, pushed open the opposite door and stepped out onto a steel-railed balcony. Thirty feet below was a broad mezzanine, illuminated by crackling red light that played along the lines and ceramic pylons of a voltage-converter system.

In the center of the mezzanine, thick power cables sprouted from sockets in the concrete floor and snaked toward a strangely shaped generator. It was at least twelve feet tall, and looked like a pair of solid black cubes, the smaller balanced atop the larger. The top cube rotated slowly, producing a rhythmic drone of sound. An odd smell, like ozone blended with antiseptic, pervaded the air.

“That doesn’t look like a nuclear engine to me,” said Brigid.

“How many have you seen?” Kane asked.

“Dozensschematics, at least. There’s no mention of that monstrosity in Lakesh’s floor plan.”

Surveying the structures below, Grant commented, “Nobody around. Their security is for shit.”

“I’d rather not have blastermen to contend with,” Kane remarked. “Not if I can help it.”

Suddenly he held up his hand in warning. Far below, two figures emerged from behind the base of the generator. Both of them carried toolboxes. Despite the shapeless coveralls they wore, there was no mistaking their slender, compact physiques.

Kane drew in a sharp breath and took a backward step, then stood and watched motionless as they walked away out of the mezzanine. He was struck by their lithe, graceful motions. Like the intruder in the Mesa Verde slaghole, there was something bizarrely beautiful in the way they moved.

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