Tunnels 03, Freefall by Roderick Gordon & Brian Williams

Author:Roderick Gordon & Brian Williams [Gordon, Roderick & Williams, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-10-28T16:07:51+00:00

* * * * *

"Well, the explosion's completely plugged it up," Martha said as she returned down the passage to Chester and Elliott. She looked at the girl who was sitting cross-legged on her stretcher, chewing on a piece of biltong made from dried spider-monkey meat, and sipping from a canteen.

"Sorry," Elliott said, flicking her eyebrows apologetically. "I couldn't see any other way out."

"No, you did the right thing," Martha assured her. "If it was a toss-up between who got us first -- the Brights or a Limiter -- I'd already put my money on the Limiter. He wasn't going to let us get away with our lives."

"That bloody Rebecca twin we had with us," Chester growled, them made a pah sound. "I just knew she was lying through her teeth, but Will didn't want to know. The Styx are all foul liars, with no exceptions!"

Martha cleared her throat, and Chester slowly turned to Elliott as he remembered what she had revealed back in the cavern. He shifted awkwardly where he sat. "Er... no offense meant," he mumbled at her.

Elliott had stopped chewing and was staring at the boy. "Topsoil scum," she said through her tight lips. Chester's eyes opened wide with surprise, until she suddenly burst into laughter. "Only kidding, Chester! My father may have been one of them, but I hate them as much as you do."

Chester swallowed, trying to summon a smile, but still looking a little shaken.

"My mother served in the Garrison in the Styx compound, where they met," Elliott explained. "When she found she was with child, she moved as far away as she could in the West Cavern. To say it was a difficult situation would be putting it lightly -- she would have been Banished and he executed if anyone had discovered their secret. So he didn't have an awful lot to do with me while I was growing up, but he did come and visit us whenever he could. Then, when I was nine years old, the visits suddenly stopped. Word was he went missing in action -- on some Topsoil operation."

"But don't you feel a bit funny about it?" Chester ventured. "I mean, you speak Styx, you're half Styx, and yet you've fought and... and you've killed them, haven't you?"

"No, look, I'm a Colonist through and through, like my mother. She brought me up as one, and I saw how the Styx treated my people. I loathe them as much as anyone else," she answered.

"So why did you leave the Colony?" Martha asked.

"Somehow, someone found out who my father was and tried to hold it over my mother. I don't know who -- she wouldn't say, but she was going mad with worry. So I thought if I went, it would stop."

"Did it?" Martha said.

"I don't know," Elliott said, her voice sad. "I haven't had any contact with her since I left."

There was a silence which Martha ended. "We can't hang about here. We're deep in spider country."

"But what about Will?" Chester asked, frowning.

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