John Christopher - Tripods 99 by The Tripods Omnibus

Author:The Tripods Omnibus [Omnibus, The Tripods]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-12-14T21:36:59+00:00

11

Two Go Home

Down, down, into darkness. The current tugged me, and I went with it, pulling myself through the water in a crude and feeble attempt at swimming. I swam forward as well as down. My hand touched something and, as my shoulder banged painfully against it, I knew I was at the Wall. But still unbroken, with no sign of an opening, and the current still dragging down.

Possibilities and fears crowded in on me. The water might flow out through gratings, which I would be unable to remove. Or there might be more nets, and I would tangle myself in them. The whole enterprise seemed hopeless. There was a pressure of air in my lungs, the beginning of a roaring in my head. I breathed out a little, and drew a small breath of air in. Five minutes, Fritz had said. How long had I been under already? I realized that I had no idea; it might be ten seconds, or ten times that. Panic, the fear of drowning, clutched me, and I wanted to turn and swim back up, against the pull of water, up to the surface where I had left Fritz.

I swam on and down, trying to blank my mind to everything but the need to hold on. If I abandoned things now we .were lost, anyway. And we must not lose. One of us had to get through. Far above me there was a dim green radiance, but darkness was all round and below me, and I was diving deeper into it. I took another shallow breath, to ease my aching lungs. I wondered if I were already past the point of no return. Then there was turbulence, the current breaking up and changing direction. I reached forward, but there was still an impassable solidity. Down, down … An edge, an opening. The tide carried me into it and I realized that now, finally, I was committed. The current was stronger, more closely channelled. I had to go on because there was no hope of getting back. So I swam and was carried along, in utter blackness. I took shallow breaths when I felt I must. Time, as it passed, became more and more immeasurable. There was a sense of having been hours down here, not minutes. Occasionally I bumped my head against the hard surface above me; if I swam down a few feet I could touch the bottom of the conduit. Once my outstretched hand brushed against a side wall, but I was too concerned with getting through to want to establish how wide it might be.

The shallow breaths were no longer enough: I had to breathe more deeply. And this did not help, either. I was breathing in my own exhaled breath. I felt a hammering inside my head. A blackness was growing there, to match the blackness of the water. It was all hopeless, a trap with no way out. I was finished, and so was Fritz, and those we had left behind in the White Mountains-all mankind.

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