Full vote was decided upon we learned, which meant that all the adults at Kynvet, as well as those of the other settlements, would gather at the port. And the Ahrens, as well as the parents of the other Rovers, welcomed our plan for going to the Butte. I gathered that this time there was divided sentiment over allowing the landing of new ships, and there might be protracted argument. Perhaps some of Lugard's warnings were beginning to make sense to the more suspicious members of the Committee. There were defenses at the port, but how much these had suffered from years of neglect no one really knew. And whether the handful of veterans who had returned could successfully activate them was also a question, not apparently that any move had been made to do this.
We left early in the morning of the third Twelfth Day—the whole of the Rover crew: Dagny and Dinan Norkot, Gytha, Sabian Drax, Emrys Jesom, Ifors Juhlan, Pritha, and Thad, as well as Annet. We carried our field kits since this was to be a real trip into the lava country; the hopper was loaded to the point that we had to make a low flight with many rest runs on the ground. Thus, it was past the ninth hour when we set down at the Butte. Lugard was waiting, sitting at the controls of what had once been a squad troop carrier. He was impatient, but he left the loading of our kits to us, going back to the hold himself for a long moment just before we pulled out. When he returned, the leaves of the door clicked to behind him with so sharp a note that I turned my head just in time to see him slip the metal plate that locked them into the front of his coverall. So, did he fear that there might be visitors during our absence? I did not wonder at his precautions.
It might have been a tight fit in the squad carrier had we all been adults, but the children were reasonably comfortable as Lugard put it into gear and we rumbled out, Annet sharing the driver's seat with him. The rest of us were wedged in against too much jouncing by our kits and bundles already there. I looked among those and in the sling behind his seat for the weapon he had had. But the arm slings were all empty, and if he carried any such, they were hidden.
We all snapped on dark goggles as we crawled deeper into the knife-ridged land under the baking of the sun, which was reflected from the congealed flows. There was a crunched trail ahead twisting and turning upon itself, seeking the best passage. I thought that Lugard must have been this way many times before, though this was the first time he had taken us farther than past the first barriers of the forbidding territory.
Scrapes along outcrops suggested that some of those trips had been made in vehicles larger than the troop carrier in which we now rode or the excavator he had first put into working order, and I wondered what other types of machines he had brought into use. His determination suggested that, though he made his reports in an either-or manner, saying he thought he could find again his ice cave but was not entirely sure, he inwardly was more certain and was set upon proving it.
Now he took us along this very rough road at a pace that was the best a man might dare to hold in such broken terrain, as if there were a set hour for our arrival at the diggings and that it was important we not be late.
As he had earlier explained, and we knew, the lava caves were tubes that one could enter only through the collapse of some roof section. We passed now more than one promising hole. Twice we crossed a "bridge" spanning such a drop. There were bright lichens and a fringing of moss here and there. We had made so many turns in our trail that, had there not been a compass on board, I could not have truly said that the Butte now lay either behind or before us, for there was a deceptiveness to this land that I had never experienced before in the wilds of Beltane—as if the many frozen flows, cones, craters, and the like had been deliberately formed to confuse the eye and sense of direction.
Time was also difficult to judge. Under the heat of the sun in this hot bowl country, it seemed very long since we had left the Butte. Yet when I looked at my watch, I discovered that we had been on our way less than an hour. We had seen no signs of life, but then the constant crunch-crunch made by our own progress would warn away any animals that chose such a waste for their homes or hunting grounds.
We rounded at last a broken cone, which had the height of a steep-sided hill, and saw that the tracks led straight to a gap, above which was the skeleton frame of a derrick. Lugard pulled up beside that opening.
He had a small platform to lower into the hole and suggested that I go down with Thad as the first to embark, while he worked the lift.
I was not a speleologist and took my place somewhat gingerly on that unsteady surface, Thad facing me, our fingers interlaced on the safety cords, a pile of kits and one of Lugard's bundles between our feet. We spun down, and it was a sensation I was glad lasted no longer than it did. The light was dim and not dark; yet the murk arose to engulf us as if we were being swallowed up by some great beast.
It was cooler, a welcome relief from the parching of the sun without. I remembered that air movement underground was slow, and within a few feet of the entrance of any cave the temperature falls to that of the walls. Lugard had suggested we bring overtunics for that very reason, and now, shivering, I could see why.
The platform made several trips, bringing two passengers and kits and supplies on each descent. I wondered at the number of boxes and bundles Lugard sent down, since there were not only those from the troop carrier, but also some from a pile waiting at the mouth of the cave.
At last he swung over and down by himself, not drawing up the platform but using a rope with such ease as showed he had done the same before, while the platform remained on the floor of the cave. I suspected he wanted it so as a means of protection. He had not mentioned any return of the refugee-ship people, but he might be taking precautions against surprise. However, I was also certain he would not have brought the children here had he believed there was any real danger. Only, what is danger? We were to learn the degrees of that without warning.
Once below, Lugard switched on a beamer to reveal the road for us. Caves acted as cold traps in winter. Air settled to the lowest levels there to leave unending frost upon rock surfaces. Lugard was searching for an ice cave, and our path grew colder as we drew away from the entrance.
We had gone only a few paces in when Lugard shot the beamer ray toward the roof. Untidy masses were plastered there against the walls only a handbreadth from the ceiling. We saw restless movement.
"Westerlings!" cried Gytha.
Long-billed avian heads swayed or bobbed up and down. Westerlings they were, in nests of bits of withered stuff and mud. They were night flyers, mainly noted for the action that gave them their name—their flocks flew almost always from east to west when aroused from feeding.
But their nest colony was set close to the door into the open, and we were soon past them in the long bore that was the cave. This descended, not abruptly but at an angle, which did not make walking too difficult. I looked around for some signs that Lugard's machines had been at work here. But there were no tread marks on the floor, no scrapes on the walls.
At his asking we made use of the only aid he seemed to have imported into this stone tunnel—a small, treaded traveling cart, loading it with all the bundles he had brought down. But our packs we backed ourselves. Again I wondered at the reason for the pile of supplies, if supplies these were.
We had journeyed for perhaps an hour when Lugard halted and suggested a rest. He himself pulled the bundles from the cart, piled them against the wall, and turned to face back as if it was now in his mind to return for those we had left. But he never had a chance.
There was a wave of vibration through the walls of the cave, in the solidified layer of lava under our boots, giving one the sickening sensation that the world one had always accepted as solid and secure was that no longer. I heard a shrill scream and saw in the glow of the beamer wide frightened eyes and mouths opening on more cries of alarm. A small body lurched against me, and I instinctively threw out my arm to draw Ifors closer, while his fists balled wads of my coverall and he clung to me as if I were his only hope of protection.
A second shock came, even worse than the first. Lava chunks broke loose, rattling and banging. I cowered, deafened by the sound, while dust arose about us in choking clouds.
"Out—" I saw Annet staggering for the way down which we had come. She pushed before her one of the children and dragged another. A taller figure, which was Lugard, tried to intercept her, but, intentionally or not, she eluded him and wavered on. "Out! This way, children!"
"Get her!" Lugard rounded on me with that order just as a third shock wave hit with force enough to send me crashing against one of the walls, Ifors still clutching me in a hold that could not be easily broken. I saw Lugard go down, while the beamer he must have put on the floor went into a weird dance as if the surface under it were rising and falling in quick, panting breaths. There were more falling chunks, some of them striking the supplies he had just unloaded.
With one hand I fumbled with the buckles of my pack and managed to jerk at it until I was free of its burden. I saw Thad sitting down, a stunned expression on his face.
"After her," Lugard panted. "The entrance—loose rocks—it may cave in—" He was struggling to get to his feet, but the last tremor had caused the bundles to land on top of him, and his lameness was to his disadvantage.
I pried Ifors' hold from my coverall, and the fabric tore as I tried to loose the shocked boy. "Thad! Take Ifors!" With a last rip I held him away from me and pushed him toward Thad, who was getting dazedly to his feet. The others were all there, Gytha, on her knees by the beamer, setting it steady again, Pritha in a small ball beside her, Emrys shaking his head and pawing at his eyes with both hands, Sabian—Only the twins and Annet were gone.
To be caught in a collapse of the roof! I could share Annet's fear, but if she were running straight into danger—and Lugard knew the ways of these burrows best—I could not run, not over this rough flooring, but using my belt torch, I went at the best pace I could manage, back along the trail, calling Annet's name as I hurried.
She had not gone so far that I could not overtake her. But what had halted her was a fall of rock that almost closed the tunnel. Far above we could see a small patch of sky. As I reached her side, she was pressed against the wall, looking up at the freedom out of her reach, the twins in her arms, their faces hidden against her.
"Back! Lugard says it is dangerous here—the roof may come down!" I took a good grip on her arm. She tried to twist away, but my strength was greater than hers, though I could not drag her more than a pace or two back. And I feared a second collapse might crush us before we were beyond that danger point.
"Out—" She tried to pull in the opposite direction, even though the way was blocked. "We have to get the children out!"
"Not that way." I pinned her to the wall with my shoulder, my face only inches from hers as I summoned her to reasoned thinking again. "Lugard says it is dangerous. He knows these caves, and there are other ways in and out—"
However, I wondered at that. If the tackle for the platform had fallen—and surely such shocks had unseated it—then how could we get out, even if the fall choking the tunnel was loose and easy to clear? Someone would have to climb that shaft and see about the lowering ropes. And I knew who, though the thought of it made me sick, as my head for climbing was not good. Best get back to Lugard now and discover if there was another exit, one less demanding.
"Lugard!" Annet almost spat the name at me. "He had no right to bring us here—to endanger the children!"
"I suppose he could foresee this quake?" I demanded. "But we must get back. It is deeper and so safer back there." But that was another bit of reasoning of which I was not sure.
Reluctantly, she started back. I picked up Dagny, whose small body was convulsed with shudders. She was not crying but breathing in gasps, her eyes wide in her small face, clearly so deep in fear that she was hardly conscious of her surroundings. Annet half supported, half led her brother.
We had not yet reached the others when there came another series of tremors. We crouched against the wall, the two children between us, sheltered by our bodies as much as possible. Rocks rolled, not only from overhead, but also down the slope of the cave. It was a miracle that none of them struck us. After a last jar there was again a period of quiet, and a new fear stirred in my mind. Once this had been volcanic country. Could such shocks as the earth had just suffered open some fissure on inner fires and set the cones to blazing again? Annet was so right in her instinctive flight for the surface, and the quicker we were out the better.
"Vere! Annet!" Our names echoed hollowly up the corridor of the cave, the sound distorted and booming.
I got cautiously to my feet, almost fearing that that small movement could bring a return of the tremors, so unsteady had our world suddenly become. "Here!" I answered, my voice hoarse from the dust drying my mouth and throat.
Under my urging Annet got up also. I once more held Dagny while she led the boy, and we took one cautious step after another on the down slope. Thus, we gained the halting place. Lugard sat on the cart, his right leg stretched out before him as he rubbed at it with both hands, working with a grim purpose and determination. He looked up as we came, and I saw a flash of relief in his eyes.
"Aid kit." He did not leave off rubbing his leg to point to where that lay in the tossed bundles and abandoned kits, but rather indicated it with his chin. "Give each of them one of the green tablets—they're in shock."
He must have already so aided the others who needed it, for Ifors sat relaxed with his back against a bale and Pritha drank quietly from a canteen, while Thad was at work straightening out the mess of tangled boxes, Emrys helping him and Sabian standing by. Gytha knelt by Lugard, holding another canteen ready for his use.
Annet crossed to stand directly before him. "How do we get out of here?" she demanded. "The children—"
"Are probably safer right here than on the surface now—" he told her.
"In here?" she shot back incredulously. "With rocks coming down on their heads?"
"It's safer farther on. We'll move now," he said.
"A quake—or quakes such as these—" I knelt beside him to ask my own question in a whisper. "What about renewed volcanic action?"
"Quakes?" Lugard repeated. Then his mouth tightened in a grimace that might have been caused by pain in the limb he nursed. "You poor—" He checked himself and began again. "Those were not quakes."
"No?" Annet squatted on her heels, finding it too difficult to see eye to eye with Lugard since he did not rise. "Then what were they?"
"Distributors."
For a moment I groped in the dark, and I do not think that Annet understood at all. Then the years-old meaning of the term struck home, and I think I gasped. I could have shuddered as deeply as Dagny was still doing against my shoulder.
Distributors—an innocuous name for death and such destruction as Beltane had never seen, though such had made deserts of worlds as peaceful as this one.
"The refugees?" My mind leaped to the only explanation.
"Just so." Lugard paused in his rubbing. Now he flexed his knee slowly and carefully, and he could not conceal a catch of breath when he set foot to floor.
"What do you mean?" Annet's voice rose, and Gytha drew closer. That stopped the work of his labor gang, and they all listened. "Distributors?"
"Bombs." Thad answered before Lugard could. I think that at that moment Lugard was angry with himself for revealing the truth, though it was indeed best that at least we older ones knew who and what we now faced.
"Bombs!" Annet was entirely incredulous now. "Bombs—here on Beltane? Why? Who would do such a thing?"
"The refugees," I told her. "What chance—?" I wanted to ask the rest of that badly but knew better than to blurt it out, though at least Thad, as I could read the expression on his face, was already close behind me in thought. No, it was best not to think now of what might be happening up there and to whom. This was the time to concentrate on those locked in with me and the responsibility I had to the group I had so trustingly led into peril.
I said directly to Lugard, "You knew—or suspected?"
Slowly, he nodded. "I suspected from the first. I was sure last night."
"The com link?"
Again he nodded. And the arm I held about Dagny tightened until she stirred and gave a soft cry, which was part moan. If Lugard had had warning of attack, then he had deliberately brought us here because—
He might have been reading my thoughts. "Because this is the safest place on Beltane—or in Beltane—here and now. I told you we opened passages for shelters here before the war. I've been reopening those. If I had had more time, if those poor benighted fools of the Committee had only believed me—we could all have been unharmed. As it is, we are safe—"
"No!" Annet's hands were at her mouth, smearing the dust across her chin and cheeks. "I don't believe it! Why would they do such a thing? We gave them a home—"
"They may have only wanted a base," Lugard replied. There was a weariness in his voice, as if he had been driving himself to this point and that now, when his worst fears had been realized, he could no longer hold to such determined energy. "Also—perhaps the vote went against the two new ships, and those refugees were prepared to take what was not given."
"Where do we go now?" I broke the silence that followed.
"On." Lugard nodded toward the passage. "There's a shelter base down there."
I expected Annet to protest, but she did not, only got slowly to her feet and went for the aid kit. Lugard held out his hand.
"Give me a boost," he ordered. "We can use the cart for quite a while yet. Then we'll have to pack in."
"These are supplies?"
"Yes."
I helped him up, and he leaned against me for a long second or two before he tried to put his weight on his leg. Apparently, he could do that, and he took a limping step or two onward. But that it cost him more than just effort I deduced by a jerk of muscle beside his mouth on the untreated side of his face.
While Annet tended the twins, we all set about loading the cart, though I thought that before long we would have to dump some of it and let Lugard, and perhaps the twins, ride.
Thad and I shared the pull rope, and Gytha moved forward quickly and took up Lugard's hand to settle it on her shoulder, providing him with a crutch of willing flesh and bone and redoubtable spirit. Annet carried Dagny, who lay against her shoulder with closed eyes as the sedative worked, while Emrys and Sabian between them guided Dinan along, and Ifors stumbled beside the cart, one hand on the lashings that fastened its cargo.
We proceeded with many halts, and at last I persuaded Annet to lay Dagny on the cart. But in turn she took one of the bundles from the top. She did not try to argue any more. However, I thought that she still did not believe Lugard, and she must be raging inside to be out of the caves to prove him wrong.
Twice we crossed mouths of other caves splitting from the road we had chosen, as if the long lava floods had divided. But Lugard always nodded to the main tunnel. He was sweating, the trickles of moisture down his face washing runnels through the dust. Now and then he breathed shallowly through his mouth. But it was I who called the halts, and he never made any complaint when we trudged on again.
My watch told me we had been two hours underground when we made a more lengthy pause and ate. I saw Annet stare down at the food she unwrapped and guessed at her thoughts. High among them must be disbelief that this could be happening, had happened since this morning, when she had set together those rounds of bread with a preserve of irkle fruit—fruit she had stewed herself and stored in the cupboard at Kynvet.
Did Kynvet exist now?
Lugard made only a pretense of eating, though the children were hungry and wolfed down all we gave them. I wondered if we should hold back a portion. How long must we stay in these caverns? Lugard had brought supplies—food, water—but—
And if we went out, what would we face? Suppose the refugees had finished off—though my mind shied from that, and I had to force myself to face a very grim guess—the sector people? Would we fare any better were we to turn up after the initial massacre? Yet Lugard must believe we had a chance for survival or he would never have labored so.
He was fumbling in the front of his tunic, having set aside most of his food untouched. Now he brought out his pipe. Beside me Annet moved and quickly checked. Perhaps she had been about to protest. But if so, she thought better of it.
So in the depths of that cave, with our world reft from us, Lugard played. And the magic he wove settled into us as a reassuring flood of promise. I could feel myself relaxing; my whirling thoughts began to still, and I believed again. In just what I could not have said, but I did believe in the rightness of right and that a man could hope and find in hope truth.
I shall always remember that hour, though I cannot now draw back into mind the song Lugard played. The feeling it left in me I do know, and regret I shall not have it to warm me again, for of all we lost on that day, we had still to face the greatest blow from what men call fate.
It began when Lugard put down his pipe and we awoke out of the spell he had woven to soothe us. There was another sound, and it had nothing to do with music.
Lugard's head went up and he cried out, "Back against the walls!"
We moved as if his shout had been a blaster aimed at us. I hurled Annet, Dinan with her, back and swept up Gytha and Emrys to join them, while across I saw Thad, jerking Ifors and Pritha, stumble toward the opposite wall.
"Dagny!" Annet screamed.
She had been lying asleep on the roll of blankets by the cart, and now she was out of reach—out of ours, but not Lugard's. I saw him lurch forward and his arm crook about the little girl. He swept her back and away from himself. But when he would have followed, his leg gave way under him, and he sprawled on his face, while the glow of the beamer made it all clear. There was a rushing rock slide down the core of the cave, not directly from overhead. And before I could move to pull him free, that slide swept over and about him as might the flood of a river in high spate.