The first step off the beam was the toughest. All his weight came down on his right toe, and he had to dig his fingers in hard to keep his body from being pulled over backward by the pack.
“Balance is a little funny with the weight on my back,” he told the others. “Seems okay, though. I’m going to take it nice and slow.”
He moved methodically along the wall, first hand, then foot, hand then foot. He had to concentrate not just on grip, but on relaxing his hand and arm as he reached out, otherwise he was sure to cramp up. And a cramp was the ticket to a very long fall.
When he reached the corner of the shaft, he paused, one foot braced on either side, and shook out the tension in his fingers. The facing wall was a little more difficult, as he had to pull himself up to take each slightly higher step. When he reached the vent opening, he unslung the pulse rifle and subgun and chucked them into the hole. Then he grabbed hold of the edge and pulled himself inside.
“All right, Shadow Man!” Damm said.
The vent duct ahead of him was dark. Ryan pushed his weapons down the passage. With difficulty in the narrow space, he shrugged out of his pack and kicked it out of the way, after the blasters.
“Go ahead, Captain,” Thrill Bill said. “You’re next.”
The blonde traversed the narrow beam, then crawled around the inside of the shaft. She moved much faster than Ryan had, though not recklessly. She took fewer pauses to shake out her hands. When she reached the vent, Ryan grabbed her weapons, then he grabbed her by the pack straps. As he pulled her in, he had to back up to get her legs inside.
“That was hairy,” she gasped, nose to nose with him. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared.”
“You did good,” he told her. “Real quick, no hesitation.”
“I had no choice,” she said. “I was afraid my arms would give out if I took too long.”
Nara squeezed past him and moved deeper in the passage.
Thrill Bill came around next, then Damm, who moved very slowly. The mercie was drenched with sweat when Ryan lugged him into the vent opening, but he was smiling.
Thrill Bill passed Nara his flashlight, and with her in the lead, they crawled on hands and knees another thirty feet.
“Got a vertical turn in the shaft,” she said over her shoulder.
They paused while she examined it with the light.
“It’s a straight shaft that runs about six feet up,” she said. “It’s got a cap on it. Looks like our exit. I’m going to melt it off.”
Nara rolled to her back and aimed her pulse rifle up the shaft. Green flashed as she sheared off the ventilator cap. She scooted back out of the way as molten drops of metal rained.
“That’s got it,” she said, then rolled back to her knees and stood in the vertical duct. Her boots disappeared as she climbed up and out.
Thrill Bill followed her. Ryan moved forward, then stood in the narrow passage. From the cutaway vent cap, Thrill Bill reached down for his pack and blasters. Then Ryan pulled himself out through the opening.
Overhead there were no stars. The sky was covered by a thick blanket of clouds tinted yellow by the strings of lights on the sides of the huge concrete cones that surrounded them.
“They’re cooling towers,” Nara said, anticipating his question. “Cooling towers for the nuclear power plants.”
Ryan looked around. They stood roughly in the middle of an acre of flat roof. It was like a plateau. Red warning lights glowed in all four corners. Similar lights stretched off into the distance. As he turned, Ryan saw a solid mass of enormous rooftops, all of various heights and shapes. The chaos was unbroken by canyons; the buildings were built against one another. In all directions the city appeared to reach the horizon line. The smell of petrochemicals made him choke.
“How far is it to the Totality Concept complex?” he asked.
“Not too far,” Thrill Bill said, “but it’s too dangerous to try and make the crossing in the dark. We could trip an alarm and have FIVE on our backs in no time.”