“Well, Bunny, he read this and he said there shouldn’t be a hole that deep because most of the stuff that blows out of a meteor hole falls right back in. Bunny said if there was this big hole, something besides a meteor did it, and before we settled here, maybe we ought to find out who or what it was. Well, we didn’t have time for that, but Bunny wouldn’t shut up about it. One night after we’d been here a while, Mooly and Bone, they got aggravated at him calling them stupid for not finding out what made the hole, and one night they beat him up so bad he died.”
Ashes barked laughter. “Bunny was right, dead right, it turned out. When those Timmys and their friends took us to the pond, we saw all kinds of things carrying gravel out of that hole and smoothing down the sides. They’d cut them a twisty road back and forth, too, so they could get to the bottom.”
“Can we get to the bottom?”
“Oh, we could probl’y get down there all right, they probl’y wouldn’t care, but it’d be a waste of time. It’s so deep, standing up on that ridge, you can’t see the bottom.”
“Webwings saw the bottom. He said those Questioner’s people was there.”
“Webwings only flew to the pond, and that’s in the other crater, the shallow one. See, when the meteor fell, it broke the wall between the two, so you got this crater shaped like an eight, and back and forth around the top half you’ve got this road that goes down to the pond, then you go through the gap to the other crater, and you wind back and forth down to the bottom of that.”
“You been there lately?” asked Bane.
Ashes shrugged, shaking his head. “No reason to go. Web flies down to the pond sometimes, partway, anyhow. He says it’s real busy down there, lots of critters coming and going. Up until now, I figure, with all that busy going on, no reason for me to get in the middle of it.”
“Where’s … where’s your old friends? The ones that stayed there.”
“Oh, some of ‘em in the raggedy edge, up there. See, that’s all volcanic up there, full of gas bubble caves. Nice and smooth and round inside, good shelter. That’s where old Pete put himself, into a long chain of bubble caves, about halfway down to the pond. Some of the others, they’re between here and there. Hughy Huge, he’s along the road we’re coming to. And Roger the Rock, he’s some way ahead.”
“How much longer to get there?”
“Not so far, now. Down at the bottom of this hill we come to the road. From here on, we can go right straight there.”
“Who built the road?” Bane asked. “Timmys?”
“Damfino,” grunted Ashes. “I suppose it’s Timmys or some of the bigger things. Stands to reason they had to have someplace to put all that gravel they dug outta that hole, and roads use up a lot of gravel. When they captured us and carried us in that time, it wasn’t on any road, but when we came away from there, we climbed up to the rim and there it was. Some of our folks, they’ll be along it, too. You keep an eye out.”
Bane kept an eye out. His frustration and confusion had risen as the day had worn on. His own plan of escape, to capture the shuttle, now seemed to him the only sensible thing to do, if he could get away from Ashes. But then, he thought, of course he could get away from Ashes because Ashes had told him how. Ashes wouldn’t die, not the way people did, but he could be killed. And if Ashes could put them up to killing their mother, then there couldn’t be anything wrong with killing their father, could there? It’d be no trick at all.
Bane did not mention this to Dyre. He hadn’t decided yet whether he needed to involve Dyre.
They came to the road just before dark, a level, straight, hard-packed and gravel-surfaced highway on which six horses could have ridden abreast. It cut through forests and hills, across valleys, leading onward and upward like the flight of an arrow to the ragged line of mountain Ashes had pointed out earlier. Ashes went only a little way along it before leaving it, dismounting, and leading his horse away. Following his example, Dyre stopped by the road, unsaddling his horse and dropping his pack.