Deep Quarry by Stith John E

Author:Stith, John E. [Stith, John E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Mystery, Humor, Big Dumb Object, Noir
Goodreads: 30297566
Publisher: ReAnimus Press
Published: 1989-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

IV. Don’t Hold Your Breath

On the sixth day, I was waiting as they dug the tunnel deeper. It probably wouldn’t have taken so long if it hadn’t been for the jurisdictional disputes among the fourteen or so unions. I had temporarily abandoned my investigation of Harry Gatlon’s background; the happenings here at the dig were occupying too much of my thought, and the information search had seemed futile anyway.

I sat in the shade of the tunnel mouth, waiting for word from farther in that they had reached the goal. The tunnel itself was circular. Far inside the butte, an enormous traveling tunnel–borer swept debris toward the outside along a big conveyer belt as the borer moved slowly forward. Dr. Fenton evidently had a few friends in the mining business who owed him a few favors.

A large round hose fed fresh air into the deepest part of the tunnel so the stale air slowly traveled out past me as I sat. A smaller set of hoses carried the tunnel sealer compounds to the borer so it could cast an interior pipe, which protected against a tunnel cave–in.

Finally, one of the workers told me the cutting crew had decided they were close enough to proceed more carefully. I left the tunnel for a while, and workers rode the borer all the way out so the crew doing the detail work could start.

Several more hours passed.

“The crew should be getting close now,” Kate said from behind me. I hadn’t heard her come up. “You want to go in with me?” Her clothes today appeared to be made of slightly heavier fabric than her usual attire.

I looked into the dimly lit tunnel and said, “Why not?”

The air seemed to grow slightly cooler as we walked. “Are you excited?” I asked her.

“Of course. This may turn out to be the high point of my career.” She tucked her hair behind her ears.

“So it might be all downhill from here? Never again will you have the opportunity you do now?”

“Not everyone can time it so the best moment in a career comes thirty days before retirement. It can be nice to sit back once in a while and think about your accomplishments. If your big moment came just before you died, you’d never get to cherish the feeling.”

I thought about it in silence as we walked several more meters. “Maybe I’d think differently about it if it weren’t true that in my line of work the closer you come to that ultimate case, the closer you come to your ultimate reward in the sky.”

Kate considered that. “I feel sorry for you if you don’t get any enjoyment when you think back over your accomplishments. Maybe that’s partly why I picked archaeology; I don’t just live for the present and the future. Maybe you’re really a Derjon who got mixed up at the hospital when your parents picked you up.”

“Don’t you think my parents would have noticed? And besides, I do get a sense of pride when I think back to my best moments.

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