The uproar of the fire was frightful, and the massive grind of tons of wreckage in uneasy balance was ominous. Everyone was forced to shout and yet was fearful of the vibrations. Y'ang-Yeovil bawled the news about Foyle and Sheffield into Dagenham's ear. Dagenham nodded and displayed his deadly smile.
«We'll have to go in,» he shouted.
«Fire suits,» Y'ang-Yeovil shouted.
He disappeared and reappeared with a pair of white Disaster Crew fire suits. At the sight of these, Robin and Jisbella began shouting hysteric objections. The two men ignored them, wriggled into the Inert Isomer armor and inched into the inferno.
Within Old St. Pat's it was as though a monstrous hand had churned a lo jam of wood, stone, and metal. Through every interstice crawled tongues of molten copper, slowly working downward, igniting wood, crumbling ston; shattering glass. Where the copper flowed it merely glowed, but where i poured it spattered dazzling droplets of white hot metal.
Beneath the log jam yawned a black crater where formerly the floor o the cathedral had been. The explosion had split the flagstone asunder, revealing the cellars, subcellars, and vaults deep below the building. These too were filled with a snarl of stones, beams, pipes, wire, the remnants of the Four Mile circus tents; all fitfully lit small fires. Then the first of the cop dripped down into the crater and illuminated it with a brilliant molte splash.
Dagenham pounded Y'ang-Yeovil's shoulder to attract his attention an pointed. Halfway down the crater, in the midst of the tangle, lay the body. Regis Sheffield, drawn and quartered by the explosion. Y'ang-Yeovil pound Dagenham's shoulder and pointed. Almost at the bottom of the crater la Gully Foyle, and as the blazing spatter of molten copper illuminated him they saw him move. The two men at once turned and crawled out of the cathedral for a conference.
«He's alive.»
«How's it possible?»
«I can guess. Did you see the shreds of tent wadded near him? It must have been a freak explosion up at the other end of the cathedral and the tents in between cushioned Foyle. Then he dropped through the floor before anything else could hit him.»
«I'll buy that. We've got to get him out. He's the only man who knows where the PyrE is.»
«Could it still be here. . . unexploded?»
«If it's in the ILI safe, yes. That stuff is inert to anything. Never ruin that now. How are we going to get him out?»
«Well we can't work down from above.»
«Why not?»
«Isn't it obvious? One false step and the whole mess will collapse., «Did you see that copper flowing down?»
«God, yes!»
«Well if we don't get him out in ten minutes, he'll be at the bottom of a pool of molten copper.»
«What can we do?»
«I've got a long shot.»
«What?»
«The cellars of the old RCA buildings across the street are as deep as~ St. Pat's.»
«And?»
'Well go down and try to hole through. Maybe we can pull Foyle out from the bottom.»
A squad broke into the ancient RCA buildings, abandoned and sealed up for two generations. They went down into the cellar arcades, qiimbling museums of the retail stores of centuries past. They located the ancient elevator shafts and dropped through them into the subcellars filled with electric installations, heat plants and refrigeration systems. They went down into the sump cellars, waist deep in water from the streams of prehistoric Manhattan Island, streams that still flowed beneath the streets that covered them.
As they waded through the sump cellars, bearing east-northeast to bring up opposite the St. Pat's vaults, they suddenly discovered that the pitch dark was illuminated by a fiery flickering up ahead. Dagenham shouted and flung himself forward. The explosion that had opened the subcellars of St. Pat's had split the septum between its vaults and those of the RCA buildings. Through a jagged rent in stone and earth they could peer into the bottom of the inferno.
Fifty feet inside was Foyle, trapped in a labyrinth of twisted beams, stones, pipe, metal, and wire. He was illuminated by a roaring glow from above him and fitful flames around him. His clothes were on fire and the tattooing was livid on his face. He moved feebly, like a bewildered animal in a maze.
«My God!» Y'ang-Yeovil exclaimed. «The Burning Man!»
«What?»
«The Burning Man I saw on the Spanish Stairs. Never mind that now. What can we do?»
«Go in, of course.»
A brilliant white gob of copper suddenly oozed down close to Foyle and splashed ten feet below him. It was followed by a second, a third, a slow steady stream. A pool began to form. Dagenham and Y'ang-Yeovil sealed the face plates of their armor and crawled through the break in the septum. After three minutes of agonized struggling they realized that they could not get through the labyrinth to Foyle. It was locked to the outside but not from the inside. Dagenham and Y'ang-Yeovil backed up to confer.
«We can't get to him,» Dagenham shouted, «But he can get out.»
«How? He can't jaunte, obviously, or he wouldn't be there.»
«No, he can climb. Look. He goes left, then up, reverses, makes a him along that beam, slides under it and pushes through that tangle of wire. The wire can't be pushed in, which is why we can't get to him, but it can push out, which is how he can get out. It's a one-way door.»
The pool of molten copper crept up toward Foyle.
«If he doesn't get out soon he'll be roasted alive.»
«We'll have to talk him out . . . Tell him what to do.»
The men began shouting: «Foyle! Foyle! Foyle!»
The Burning Man in the maze continued to move feebly. The downpour of sizzling copper increased.
«Foyle! Turn left. Can you hear me? Foyle! Turn left and climb up. You can get out if you'll listen to me. Turn left and climb up. Then…Foyle!»
«He's not listening. Foyle! Gully Foyle! Can you hear us?»
«Send for Jiz. Maybe he'll listen to her.»
«No, Robin. She'll telesend. He'll have to listen.
«But will she do it? Save him of all people?»
«She'll have to. This is bigger than hatred. It's the biggest damned thing the world's ever encountered. I'll get her.» Y'ang-Yeovil started to crawl out. Dagenham stopped him.
«Wait, Yeo. Look at him. He's flickering.»
«Flickering?»
«Look! He's. . . blinking like a glow-worm. Watch! Now you see him and now you don't.»
The figure of Foyle was appearing, disappearing, and reappearing in rapid succession, like a firefly caught in a flaming trap.
«What's he doing now? What's be trying to do? What's happening?»
He was trying to escape. Like a trapped firefly or some seabird caught in the blazing brazier of a naked beacon fire, he was beating about in a frenzy, a blackened, burning creature, dashing himself against the unknown.
Sound came as sight to him, as light in strange patterns. He saw the sound of his shouted name in vivid rhythms:
FOYLEFOYLEFOYLE
FOYLEFOYLEFOYLE
FOYLEFOYLEPOYLE
FOYLEFOYLEFOYLE
FOYLEFOYLEFOYLE
Motion came as sound to him. He heard the writhing of the flames, he heard the swirls of smoke, he heard the flickering, jeering shadows . . . all speaking deafeningly in strange tongues:
«BURUU GYARR?» the steam asked.
«Asha. Mba, rit-kit-dit-zit m'gid,» the quick shadows answered. «Ohhh. Ahhh. Heee. Teee,» the heat ripples clamored. Even the flames smoldering on his own clothes roared gibberish in his ears. «MANTERCEISTMANN!» they bellowed.
Color was pain to him. . . heat, cold, pressure; sensations of intolerable heights and plunging depths, of tremendous accelerations and crushing compressions:
Touch was taste to him. . . the feel of wood was acrid and chalky in his mouth, metal was salt, stone tasted sour-sweet to the touch of his fingers, and the feel of glass cloyed his palate like over-rich pastry.