Aphrodite of Luna by John E. Siers

Author:John E. Siers [Siers, John E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: .ISBNincl, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781648559228
Publisher: Theogony Books
Published: 2023-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Back to the World

I’ve made it up two more levels, but I’m still lost. I know there are access points on each level—other than those plates in the floor—where I should be able to walk up a couple of steps and be out in the open on some public concourse. I don’t know how many such points there are, but I suspect they are few and far between. So far, crawling blindly through the UAS, I haven’t found one. I did, however, find two more interlevel stairwells, but they only give access to the UAS. I’m now crawling around under Level Sixteen.

The bad guys are still chasing me. I keep hearing sounds behind me and seeing flashes of light. I thought they would have given up by now—we’ve been crawling through this cramped space for more than an hour—but no, they keep coming. I guess the stakes for them are too high—they can’t afford to let me go.

They are closer now, but I’ve come to a hatch again. I open it, crawl through and… whoa! This is different. I’m on a catwalk next to a large tunnel that slants upward in one direction and downward in the other. The catwalk is almost a meter wide and goes up and down by steps spaced about a meter apart, following the slant of the tunnel. The entire tunnel is lit with the red glow of lights like those in the stairwell.

I’m in the lift!

Okay, this is promising. For sure, I’ll be able to make faster progress, and somewhere there has to be access to a lift station, a hatch that will take me back to the world of the living.

Move faster… yeah, better do that. I hear a shout that is all too close and realize I haven’t closed the hatch behind me. I slam it shut—no point in worrying about noise now—and start up the catwalk. I have to move carefully because I’m still under Luna gravity. The catwalk has a handrail, but a clumsy move could bounce me right over it and onto the tracks.

The lift uses rails and a simple cable system for movement, a system used on inclined railways on Earth for about two centuries. Lunar engineers are practical people; they could have gone for fancy gravity propulsion or something like that, but why? As the old Earth saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The difference is that with modern design and machining, the system can be made very smooth and efficient. The lift rides quietly, smoothly, to the point where passengers don’t need to hang on to a strap or pole while riding. In addition, gravity plates under the floor of each car not only keep them at one standard Earth gee but also dampen any feeling of motion.

Yes, they’re quiet—inside and out. I almost jump out of my skin as a lift car comes sliding by me a few centimeters beyond the guard rail. The cars have few windows because there is nothing to see in the tunnels, but I see the two wide doors in the side as it goes by.

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