She took a step forward, and something gritted beneath her boots with a crunch that sounded unnaturally loud. She sneezed, and that sounded frighteningly loud, too. Taking off a glove, Mildred reached down and felt powdery granules, finer than sand, all around her. She was in the central dustbin, the detritus dump of the Anthill. Though the motes irritated her nose and eyes, they had cushioned her fall and probably saved her life.
Walking through the dust was difficult, like striding through snow. She had to lift her feet clear of the layer of grit and place them down carefully, or else a cloud of dust would mushroom up and send her into a paroxysm of coughing and sneezing.
Dabbing at the flow of blood from her forehead with a sleeve, Mildred wetted a forefinger and tested the air currents. She detected a faint movement from her left and began a high-stepping shamble in that direction. She groped through the blackness, both arms extended so she could touch any hidden obstacles.
After a time she became aware of a peculiar click-clack noise. It took her a moment to attribute it to the wooden beads in the plaits of her hair. Normally a small, almost unnoticed sound, the silence of her surroundings was so complete that any noise seemed like a band striking up a fanfare. She consciously tried to quiet her ragged breathing.
Then, far away, Mildred saw a tiny white spark of light. It was very distant, but she headed for it, the crunch of her footfalls sending up ghostly, reverberating echoes.
Long before she thought she had come anywhere near the source of light, she stumbled and saw the spark almost at her feet. It was the pen-flash, lying half-buried in the acres of dust.
Gratefully Mildred picked it up and fanned the light around. As she had expected, she saw nothing but gloom and dust. She continued sifting her way through the powder toward the air current. She walked only for a short time before she felt the flow of air growing stronger. She stopped, right before she walked into a black metal wall. By shining the penlight around and groping with her free hand, she found a metal bracket in a flattened U shape, like a ladder rung. There were several more leading up the face of the wall, beyond the illumination range of her light.
Mildred swung onto the rungs and began to climb, ignoring the fires of pain the effort ignited all over her body . She estimated she had climbed less than twenty feet before the rungs ended at a narrow ledge, maybe two feet wide. She stepped out onto it, flattening her back against the wall, digging the fingers of her free hand into the uneven metal surface. She edged out in the direction of the air current. Affixed to the floor of the ledge, in regularly spaced intervals, were threaded strips of rubber. These helped her gain traction as the ledge angled upward.
The ledge made a sharp turn to the left after a few dozen steps, and its pitch descended steeply. Putting the pen-flash into her mouth, she crabwalked along it, hands gripping the wall tightly. Mildred wondered how deep beneath the mountain she was, and realized she couldn’t hazard even an uneducated guess.
The ledge suddenly widened, opened and led out to a metal railed apron, and she realized with a leap of relief that she had been traversing some sort of maintenance walkway. There was still no sign of anything approximating a door. As she pushed against a wall, something brushed the top of her head.
Craning her neck to look up, she saw a length of heavy, rust-flaked chain, with a handle attached. She couldn’t see what it was anchored to, but she grabbed the handle and tugged gingerly. Nothing happened, so, using both hands, she pulled harder, putting all her weight into it.
Mildred’s effort was rewarded by a loud, shuddery creaking, as of long-disused gears or pivots struggling to turn. Feeble light suddenly appeared, a thread-thin outline tracing a tall rectangular shape in the wall before her. Hand over hand, she hauled on the chain, and a wide, flat slab broke away from the wall with a shower of grit and rust. Grinding, screeching noises accompanied the lowering of the slab as it slowly fell outward. Blinking through the rust flakes swirling around her face, Mildred saw the slab was like the drawbridge of a medieval castle, only this one was made of thick sheets of welded and riveted iron.