"It's barely possible," admitted the miner. "But if it does it's a freak."

  "But possible?"

  "Yes."

  Isobel said, "What's on your mind, Earl? What made you think of that?"

  "Rudi." He turned to meet her eyes. "You said he was smiling as he waited for you. He'd gone ahead and had turned and was holding out his hand as if to give you something."

  "The nugget. It was in his hand."

  "Perhaps it could have been more. He could have planned a surprise of some kind." Pausing he said, quietly, "What if he'd found the nexus?"

  "Rudi? But that's impossible! He would have told me!"

  "He could have been about to when the roof caved in. Why else should he have wanted to hand you a nugget? A find, yes, but what was so special about that? And he was impatient, remember?"

  Too impatient, running ahead, irritated at her tardiness as if he were a small boy eager to display his prize. But if he had found it—if, after all that time he had finally found it—God, why was fate so cruel?

  She said, dully, "No. It isn't possible. He hadn't found it. He would have told me and he'd said nothing."

  For reasons she hadn't mentioned, perhaps. A quarrel, sexual tensions unresolved and corroding their relationship, a clash of personalities, a desire to prove himself or to avoid more of her recriminations at his continued failure. Dumarest glanced at Zalman, seeing the man shrug. Whatever the truth she had buried it so deep as to make it impossible to read.

  Axilia said, "It's a guess, Earl, nothing more. You could even be right but what difference does it make? We can't open up the gully and there's no way of telling where he found the nexus if he found it at all. He'd probably planted the nugget near the entrance or had it with him all the time. We've got to operate on a plan—it's no good just to run wild. You'd better get back to the tunneler, Miles."

  Tocsaw rose from his chair. "The same direction?"

  "Yes." The miner looked at Dumarest. "You agree, Earl?" The bore was nearing completion and to change things now would be to waste previous effort as well as to create discord. Axilia relaxed as he nodded. "Good. That's settled. I'll just take a look around then get some sleep." He yawned, it had been a hard day. "A few hours'll do it then I'll get back to work."

  As he left the table Isobel said, "And you, Earl? Are you coming back to the house?"

  "No."

  "Why not? You could use a bath and a decent bed for a change. Some decent food, too." She recognized the fact that she was pleading and tried logic instead. "It will be the first time since the tunneler arrived. You can't push yourself like a machine."

  And he couldn't afford to live soft while others lived hard or be absent when he should be on watch. Things which, woman-like, she hadn't thought important. She frowned as he explained.

  "I don't see that, Earl. Why should they resent you coming back to the house?"

  "Because they are human. Because they would hate to think they are being exploited. We're operating on shares and when one slacks the rest suffer."

  "And I've been slacking."

  "You own the mine."

  "Which makes no difference, Earl. Tomorrow I'll get to work with the rest."

  Fifteen hours later the bore was complete and Dumarest listened to Zalman's drone as he relayed the depth to Axilia now over two hundred feet below the surface. Beside him Tocsaw hawked and rasped his boot over the dirt mounded all around.

  "A bitch," he said. "That bore's got more twists than a corkscrew. Sven's idea; he wanted to get down fast but we hit high-density rock and the cutters veered. Well, maybe he'll be lucky."

  Dumarest nodded looking at the area around the shaft. The heaped grit should have been sieved to reclaim any nuggets, their density telling the richness of the strata at various depths, but they lacked the necessary equipment. They lacked ventilation blowers, correct lighting, proper shoring, fundamental communications. The workings were a hazard in every conceivable respect—a gamble for desperate men.

  "Two ninety, Sven." Zalman nodded at the response. "How's the going?"

  Dumarest knew the answer. The shaft, twisting, dropping in a near perpendicular fall to level and turn, provided a three-dimensional nightmare. Axilia was covering it as fast as he could, taking sights rather than samples, checking color and not halting to dig out nuggets. If the nexus was found the little lost would count for nothing; if the shaft had been wrongly aimed the gain would be small.

  Tocsaw said, "I'd better check the engine. The chances are we're going to need another bore."

  "Will it stand up to it?"

  "With extra cutters and souped-up gearing it might. I'll get to work on it right away."

  "No vibration," said Dumarest. "Don't make any tests."

  "I know that, Earl. You think I'm stupid or something?" The engineer shrugged. "Sorry, you were just reminding me. Guess I'm too tired to think straight."

  "Then get some rest and tackle the engine afterward. Who knows? We may have hit lucky."

  A hope Dumarest didn't share. As the engineer moved off to the tents he walked over the site. It was oddly deserted, the tents silent, the awning over the table shielding nothing but the benches and board. Three men had vanished during the night, slipping away, drawn by the color in the sky. Now, with Quail and Ocher, only two remained and he guessed they wouldn't stay for long.

  "Earl!" Isobel came toward him. She wore thick miner's clothing and a helmet covered the natural tone of her hair. Dust soiled her cheeks and marred the beauty of her lips. "Looking for me?"

  "No, just checking. Anyone in the shafts?"

  "Not that I know of. Not in the old one and not in number two or three. I've just come from there."

  "Seen Quail? Ocher?"

  "Early this morning. They wanted some charges and—" she broke off at his expression. "Something wrong?"

  "They asked for explosives? You handed them out?"

  "They said you'd sent them to collect." She guessed his concern. "You didn't. Then—Earl!"

  He was already running, heading toward the mouth of shaft number four. The blast came as he reached the entrance.

  It was deep, rumbling, like the impact of a fist on a mighty gong. A roar followed by a gust of heat and a roiling flurry of dusty sand. A fog which drove into his eyes and nose and filled his mouth and lungs with stinging acridity.

  "Earl!" Isobel had joined him. "Here!"

  Dumarest donned the mask she handed to him and plunged into the tunnel. The fog was thicker inside, dirt piled in soft heaps on the floor, a golden glitter in the far gloom where a lantern still burned. He reached it, passed it and heard the cry from beyond.

  "My leg! Dear God, my leg!"

  Ocher was lying on his left side, he left leg buried to the knee beneath a heap of shattered stone. He coughed as Dumarest reached him, staring with wide, shocked eyes. Saliva dribbled from his open mouth to make tracks on the dust covering his chin.

  "Earl?" He lifted a hand as Dumarest knelt beside him. "That you, Earl?"

  "Yes." Dumarest stripped off the mask. "What happened?"

  "Quail had an idea. He wanted to raid the shafts, grab what we could find then move out. He figured to bring down the face with set charges. I guess he must have used too much."

  "Was he alone?"

  "Yes." Ocher made a weak gesture. "He found a place to stay but I was heading toward the open. My leg! God, my leg!"

  "How far down was he?"

  "Quail? At the face. Help me, Earl." His voice rose as Dumarest rose. "You can't leave me here like this!"

  His voice dulled as Dumarest moved down the shaft. The dust was thicker and he replaced the mask, the beam from his lantern showing barely a few feet ahead. A glow which showed an outflung arm, a hand curled as if to grab a departing life. The slab which had crushed Quail had spared his face and in death it wore a mocking smile.

  Beyond him lay nothing but dust and emptiness.

  "Earl!" Ocher reared as Dumarest returned. "Help me!"

  Dumarest examined the rock trapping the limb. It was loose and would cascade if he tried to clear it. Ocher groaned as he gripped him by the shoulders and lifted them from the floor.

  "We'll act together," said Dumarest. "Kick with your right foot. Use it as a lever to drag yourself clear. Now!" He grunted as, heaving, he fought to free the trapped leg. "Help me, damn you!"

  A moment then Ocher screamed from the pain of his trapped leg. "I can't! It hurts! God, it hurts!"

  "Listen!" Dumarest lifted the mask so the man could see his face, his eyes. "This is your last chance. We get that leg clear or I'll have to amputate. Understand?"

  "You'd cut—"

  "That or leave you. The roof could go any second. It's your life, man. Now, move!"

  Again he heaved, Ocher thrusting with his right foot, screaming as, slowly at first then with a rush his trapped leg came clear. Rocks cascaded after them as Dumarest dragged the man to the open air. A local fall, the roof stayed firm, but one which followed and surrounded them with a cloud of dust. When it settled Dumarest learned that Axilia was trapped.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The mouth of the bore was silent, the air holding a peculiar stillness as if in reaction from the recent violence, the people standing about forming a tableau which seemed frozen in time. Dumarest saw the drum, the rope, the glint of the wire attached to it which was now the only connection between them and the scrap of living tissue now entombed over five hundred feet below the surface.

  To Tocsaw he said, "There's no doubt as to the extent of the blockage?"

  "None."

  "No chance of cutting around it?"

  "No. The jar of the explosion brought down the roof for most of the distance. It starts fifty feet from the mouth and my guess is it fills the bore up to where Sven is trapped five hundred and thirty-seven feet down. The rope's caught. We can talk to him but we can't pull him up."

  Isobel said, dully, "It's all my fault. If I hadn't been so stupid as to hand out those charges this would never have happened."

  "Those bastards!" Zalman was bitter. "At least one of them is dead."

  And the other suffering but it made no difference to the man locked in a living tomb. For him time was running out, measured by the air in his tanks, reduced with each breath as the mounting heat gave him a foretaste of hell.

  "There's nothing we can do," said Tocsaw. "It would have been better had he been crushed. This way we've either got to ignore him or listen to him die."

  "Maybe not," said Dumarest. He had been thinking, remembering. A place of dust and emptiness where surely there should have been rock. "Hans, you talked Sven down, I want a diagram of the exact path of the bore— and I mean exact. Miles, get your maps and join me in number four."

  It was as he had left it, the dust settled now, the shaft an irregular hole punched deep into the flank of the hill. One which wended and dipped to form pockets in which gases could collect; carbon dioxide, methane, some ammonia, traces of mineral vapors, an acrid blend which clogged lungs and could kill the unwary. Now all were overlaid by the sharp tang of the recent explosion.

  In the beam of a lantern Dumarest looked at the body of Quail.

  The man was still smiling in the frozen rictus of death, his hand still clenched as if to follow the pattern of his life. A hand which pointed toward the face he had attacked, the wall of rock now shattered and fallen to reveal the natural fissure beyond.

  "A cave!" Isobel echoed her incredulity. "But a cave in this formation is impossible!"

  "A fissure," corrected Dumarest. "A crack. See?"

  He moved the beam of his lantern to reveal close-set walls, a roof which fell to meet the rise of the narrow floor, the cracks which scarred the surface. A flaw in the rock caused by some age-old cataclysm, perhaps the same force which had given birth to the juscar, the stone cracked as if it were glass struck by a hammer.

  "Miles?"

  Tocsaw was at hand. He jumped into the fissure and quested along it like a dog following a scent, using maps and instruments to mark and determine direction and level. Crude tools but they would have to serve. Sonar devices would have been better and far more accurate but they were luxuries they didn't have.

  "Well?"

  "I don't know, Earl. I can't be sure." The engineer studied his maps. "It looks as if this runs toward the bore but it's hard to be certain."

  "Do your best," said Dumarest. It would be a mistake to push and so fluster the man. "But remember Sven's relying on us. We'll have to start in fifteen minutes at the most."

  Time in which he assembled equipment and correlated Zalman's plotted path into the maps. Time in which he spoke to Axilia.

  "Sven?"

  He listened to silence.

  "Sven!"

  "What?" The sound of inhalation. "That you, Earl?" The voice was dull, listless. "I thought you'd all decided to forget me. Couldn't blame you if you had. I talked a man into dying once and would never willingly do it again. The poor bastard went crazy at the end and kept crying and pleading and there was damn all I could do. I was young then. Young. How long has it been?"

  "Not long. We've had to check things out."

  "Seems like eternity. Just lying in the silence, wondering if anyone was at the end of the line. I tried calling a few times but got no answer."

  "We were busy."

  "Sure."

  "I'm here now, Sven. Someone will always be here."

  "There's no need. I won't let it get too bad. A sharp edge, a vein—it'll soon be over."

  "Cut that!" Dumarest made his voice sharp. "I'm coming to get you and I don't want to risk my life rescuing a corpse. If you want to die just give me the word and you'll save us all a lot of effort. Shall I tell Anna you lacked the guts to hold on when I kiss her?"

  "You bastard!"

  "Yes." Dumarest smiled his satisfaction, an angry man was one who wanted to survive. "Just be patient. How are you? What is your position? You free to move or what?"

  "The line's caught and I'm at the end of it. There's maybe twenty feet clear behind me. If I uncouple I can move down to the end of the bore about fifty feet ahead. Beyond that it's blocked. God knows what saved me from being buried, a slab of rock, maybe, which acted as a natural roof. What's your plan?"

  "I'm hoping to cut a way to you from a fissure we found. It was opened by the explosion. It'll take time so don't be impatient."

  "Should I start digging?"

  "Not until I tell you." Dumarest paused then added, "And, Sven—save your air."

  The drill whined, slowed, whined again. In the beam of the lantern dust rose to create thin, whirling plumes of glittering but transitory splendor. A sight he had seen too often and yet would have to see again. The bit vanished into the rock, the chuck hitting, whirling as he reversed the drive and withdrew the cutter. Carefully Dumarest lifted an explosive charge from the sack behind him, inserted it into the hole, rammed it home then blocked the opening with an expanding core.

  "Sven?"

  "Earl?"

  "Yes. Firing. Listen for the sound."

  Dumarest retreated, carrying tools and supplies with him, adding them to those stacked back down the narrow shaft he had cut at one end of the fissure. A rope from his waist carried the wire attaching him electronically to the trapped man. On the surface the others would be monitoring and relaying as they counted the minutes. If Dumarest took too long he would find only a corpse in an airless cavern.

  The charge exploded as he triggered the detonator, expanding gases held, contained and directed to blast a long, narrow opening in the rock. Rubble spilled from it and had to be shoveled away. Dust plumed to fill the air and could be ignored. Like an eel Dumarest wriggled his way along the created opening as he saw another obstruction.

  "Sven? Did you get it?"

  "Just about, Earl. A rumble from my right and a little low."

  "A rumble?" Dumarest frowned. The sound should have been sharp and unmistakable if transmitted through solid rock. A gap of some kind must lie between them. If it was an air space created by another fissure he was in luck. If anything else, in trouble.

  The drill whined again, the charge was set, detonated and again he thrust forward. A push and his hand thrust loose a slab of rock, his head followed, an arm bearing his lantern. In its beam he saw a shelf, a crack, a mass of splintered rock all precariously balanced. An oddity which nature had constructed, rains seeping to dissolve binding minerals, to erode away binding stone.

  "Earl?" Axilia sounded worried. "Another rumble, louder but still not clear."

  "Get your ear against the wall," said Dumarest. "I'm going to start tapping. When I'm loud and clear let me know."

  Another voice, Isobel's, said, "Be careful, Earl. That fissure worried me. It could be this entire region is one of balanced instability. I've known such places before."

  "This is one of them."

  "Then—"

  "I'm close to Sven. Clear the line."

  Rubble fell as Dumarest eased himself through the opening. Behind him, attached by lines were his supplies and he drew them toward him: charges, extra tanks of air, water, tools, power packs—the equipment of an artificial mole. More rubble fell as he lifted them piece by piece to the far side of the area. The roof was so low in places that he had to drop onto his stomach and slide beneath the poised mass of ponderous weight.

  At the far side he paused, sitting with his back against a rock shaped like a pear, the beam of his lantern moving from point to point.

  There? The rock looked solid and should be able to take a small amount of vibration. There? He would have to drill and blast until he reached solid ground. There? The mistake could be fatal.

  "Earl? I've been thinking." Sven sounded determined. "That is crazy. I overheard. If the situation is what Isobel says then you haven't a hope of getting to me."

  "Shut up!"

  "What's that?"

  "Close your mouth and use your ears!" Dumarest swung a short, heavy hammer against a rock. "Well?"

  "Hard and clear." The miner's voice broke a little. "Man, you're close!"