The banging stopped and I was in free fall. I clung tight, bent my knees and braced my feet against the bars—and waited for the inevitable impact. There was the twisting interuniversely feeling and a red glow appeared suddenly below, grew brighter. I was falling into a furnace!

Panic possessed me. My heart began to beat like a triphammer and I knew this was the end. A mound of blackness suddenly slammed into the cage with almost deadly impact.

There would have been no almost with that deadly if the broken rock had not heaped itself into a conical pile.

Pain burst hard upon my body as the cage hit the piled rock at an angle, bounced and slithered down. More pain in my side as a rock point stabbed in between the bars. Clattering and banging, sliding, finally thudding to a stop. —

I had to move, but I couldn’t. The next load of rock would fall on top of me, crushing and entombing me. If I didn’t get out now I never would.

With trembling fingers I pulled at the lock bar of the door. It would not move, had been bent inwards by the impact. Panic helped. I grabbed it with both hands, pulled and twisted with all my strength. Heard the roar of falling stone above me.

Pulled it free. Threw the door open and crawled out. Clambered across the broken surface as lumps of rock rolled by around me. One bounced off my leg, felling me. I crawled on. Until I noticed that the boulders were now moving out from under me, carrying me forward. There was just enough ruddy light to see that a wide, moving belt was carrying the rock—and me—to an unknown destination. Not a good one I was sure. Stumbling and falling I made my way to the edge, dropped off it onto the solid ground.

“Berkk!” I shouted. Where was he?

He was not being carried off with the crushed rock that I could see. But perhaps he had landed and bounced in a different direction, had gone down the pyramid of broken stone at a different place?

I was staggering, not walking. My leg still numb, a sharp pain in my side when I moved. Falling and climbing to my feet again and going on.

When I fell next time I grabbed a bar instead of stone to lever myself to my feet.

Bar?

I pulled and tore at the rocks over the half—buried cage until I uncovered his face. Still and pale. Dead? I had no time to stop and find out because the rocks around the cage were churning and beginning to move. I hurled lumps of stone aside until I uncovered the gate that I had closed such a very long time ago. By pure chance it was on top. If it had not been he would have gone on to certain death because I did not have the strength to turn it over.

In fact, I hadn’t even the strength to pull him out once I had grabbed the gate open.

I had my hands under his shoulders, pulling. Nothing happened. He was too heavy, too tightly wedged. I exerted all my strength once again—and he still didn’t move. I had to let go or we would both be in the rock crusher.

Then I felt him stir.

“Berkk, you miserable bastard!” I screamed into his ear. ‘Push with your feet. Try. Or you have had it. Push!”

In the end he did. I kept pulling as he pushed against the imprisoning bars—until he tumbled out of the cage and fell on top of me. After that we crawled, on all fours, because that was all we were able to do. Across the lacerating rock surface until we were free of it. Went on until we had stumbled over the last of the boulders. Collapsed onto the ground.

Under the reddish glow his blood looked black and there was a lot of it on his pale, filthy face. His clothing was torn, his skin cut and abraded. But he was alive. We both were.

“Do I look as bad as you do?” I asked, my voice grating and rough with dust, ending in a coughing fit. “Worse,” was all he managed to say.

I looked up at the pyramid of rock down which we had tumbled, as high as a mountain it seemed. By all rights we should have been dead. But it was done. We were out.

“Let us not do that again,” I said with some feeling.

“We won’t have to. Because we did it! We’re away from the mine and we’re never going back.”

Chapter 20

I gently touched my ribs and yelped. “Sore, maybe broken—but there is nothing we can do about it now. And you?”

Berkk had climbed slowly to his feet and was hobbling painfully. “The same, I guess. I hurt from all that banging about. I panicked, didn’t I?”

“It can happen to anyone.”

“It didn’t happen to you. You got me into the cage and into the pit—and got yourself into it as well.”

“Let’s say that I have had more experience at this kind of thing—so don’t let it bother you. Most important is what do we do next?”

“Whatever you say we should do. You saved my life and I owe you—”

“But you saved mine when you tripped the thug who was trying to brain me. So we are even. Right?”

“Right. But you still decide what we should do now. Maybe I made the rebar cages, but it was you who made the plan work. What’s next?”

I looked around. “Find out where we are, and try to do it without being seen. I have had more than enough excitement for one day.”

We walked beside the moving belt, trying to look ahead into the red—lit darkness. A distant rumbling grew louder as we went. We passed one of the glowing pits that provided the feeble illumination and I looked into it. It was filled with a liquid, maybe water, and the glow was coming from the bottom. I dropped in a piece of rock. It splashed nicely then slowly vanished from sight as it went under. Another mystery, but not one of any great importance at the moment.

“Lights ahead,” Berkk said, and so there were. White for a change—and they were on our side of the rumbling, moving belt.

“Wrong side,” I said. “I would prefer to be in the dark when investigating. Think you can climb over this thing?”

“Lead the way.”

It was easy enough once we had clambered, slowly and painfully, up onto the belt, since it wasn’t moving very fast. We slipped and stumbled over the broken stone, jumped painfully down on the other side. Walked alongside it as we came closer to the lights, the rumbling getting louder all the time. We bent over as we walked, hiding in the shadows. Trying not to stumble over the bits of rock that had fallen from the belt. Reached the end of the belt and looked out.

It was about what I had expected. Seen one rock crusher you have seen them all. The belt ended and the crushed rock fell from the end into a wide hopper. Below this a series of paired metal rollers, each set above the other, crushed the rock into ever—smaller pieces. Undoubtedly ending up as the fine dust that I had seen dumped onto the sorting—tables. The rollers were set into a steel frame that vanished out of sight into an immense pit below. Spotlights were set into the pit walls to illuminate the scene. We bent over, then crawled the last bit and peered over the edge. Berkk pointed.

“Steps. Looks like they go all the way to the bottom.”

I nodded agreement, leaning out so I could see. “Landings at various levels to service the machine. And what looks like a control area at the very bottom.”

“See anyone?”

“No—but we are still going to be very careful. I’ll take a look down the stairs—”

“No way! You move, I move. We’re in this together.”

He was correct, of course. There was no point in splitting up at this time.

“All right—but I go first. Stay behind and cover my back. Ready?”

“No,” he admitted with a rueful grin. “And I doubt if I ever will be. But it’s not going to get any better. So I guess that I’m as ready as I am ever going to be.”

He was learning fast. I moved over against the wall and started down. When I reached the first landing I waved him after me, then stayed in the shadows of a great discarded and cracked roller. When he had joined me I pointed at the thick dust on the stairs. “Notice anything?” I shouted over the clattering roar of the rock crushers.