She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her body. She felt a wave of dizziness, and wondered how much blood she had lost. She began to climb straight up, standing first on the back of the driver’s seat, grabbing for the nearest biology table. She pulled herself upward, until she could reach a handle mounted in the wall. The trailer swayed beneath her.
From the handle, she managed to grab the refrigerator door, putting her fingers through a wire shelf She tested it, it held, and she gave it her full weight. She raised her leg, until she got her shoe into the refrigerator itself Then she swung her body still higher, until she was standing up and could reach the handle to the oven.
It was like mountain climbing through a damn kitchen, she thought.
Soon she was alongside Malcolm. Lightning flashed again, and she saw his battered face. He groaned. She crawled over to him, trying to see how badly he was hurt.
“Ian,” she said.
His eyes were closed. “Sorry.”
“Never mind.”
“I got you into this.”
“Ian. Can you move? Are you okay?”
He groaned. “My leg.”
“Ian. We have to do something.”
From the clearing above them, she heard the tyrannosaurs roaring. It seemed to her that they had been roaring her whole life. The trailer lurched and swung; her legs slid out of the refrigerator and she was hanging free in space from the oven door. The far end of the trailer was some twenty feet below.
The oven handle wouldn’t hold her weight, she knew. Not for long.
Harding swung her legs, kicking wildly, finally touched something solid. She felt with her feet, then stepped down. Looking back, she saw she was standing on the side of the stainless-steel sink. She moved her foot and the faucet turned on, soaking her feet.
The tyrannosaurs roared, pounding hard. The trailer moved farther out into space, swinging.
“Ian. There’s not much time. We have to do something.”
He raised his head, stared at her with blank eyes. Lightning flashed again. His lips moved, “Power,” he said.
“What about it?”
“Power is off.”
She didn’t know what he was talking about. Of course the power was off. Then she remembered: he had turned it off earlier. When the tyrannosaurs were approaching. The light had bothered them before, maybe it would bother them again.
“You want me to turn the power on?”
His head nodded fractionally. “Yes. Turn it on.”
“How, Ian?” She looked around in the darkness.
“There’s a panel.”
“Where?”
He didn’t answer her. She reached out, shook his shoulder. “Ian: where is the panel?”
He pointed downward.
She looked down, saw the loose wires from the panel. “I can’t. It’s broken.”
“Up…”
She could hardly hear him. Vaguely, she remembered that there was another control panel just inside the second trailer. If she could get in, she might be able to turn the power on. “Okay, Ian,” she said “I’ll do it.”
She moved on, going higher. The floor of the trailer was now thirty feet below her. The tyrannosaurs roared, and kicked again. She swung in space. She moved on.
She intended to go through the accordion passage into the second trailer, but as she came closer to the top, she saw that it was not possible. In the harsh flare of lightning she saw the accordion passage was twisted tightly shut.
She was trapped in the first trailer.
She heard the tyrannosaurs bellowing, and slamming the second trailer above. “Ian!”
She looked down. He wasn’t moving.
Hanging there, she realized with a sick feeling that she was defeated. Another kick, another two kicks, and it would be all over. They would fall. There was nothing they could do. There was no time left. She was hanging suspended in blackness, the power was out, and there was nothing –
Or was there? She heard an electrical hum, not far away in the darkness. Was there a panel Lip here, at this end of the trailer? Did they design it to have panels at both ends?
Hanging near the top of the trailer, her shoulders and forearms burning with strain, she looked around for a second power panel. She was up near the far end. If there was a panel, it should be nearby. But where? In the glare of lightning, she looked over one shoulder, then the other.