Pratchett, Terry Strata by Terry Pratchett

Author:Terry Pratchett [Pratchett, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

They flew high and fast over forests flattened by the falling ship. The smoke column was thinning, but now they were within miles of it the sky was all smoke.

Marco aimed directly at it, daring it to contain enemies. Ahead of Kin, his suit glittered like a silver spark against the darkness.

Once inside, Kin was surprised that she could still see. It might have been better if she could not. Between billows was the landscape of hell.

After five minutes inside the smoke Marco spoke.

'I don't understand it,' he said. 'There's no radiation. There shouldn't be. But there's far too much damage. Silver?' Below them a drunken forest burned. Before the shand answered the ground below them disappeared abruptly, as if there had been a cliff.

'I can see nothing in this gloom,' said Silver. 'Can you?'

Marco could. Kung eyes had better night vision. He swore, and slowed his suit. The others did the same, drifting together so that the suits bobbed as in trio in the smoke. Marco was still staring down.

'I don't believe it,' he said softly.

'Let's go down.' 'I'm flying blind,' complained Silver. 'You must direct me so that I don't hit the ground.'

'You won't,' said Marco.

Kin let herself drop, tensing herself for the crash until she came out of the smoke into moonlight.

Shining upwards.

Vertigo gripped like a wrench. She could take space, because everywhere was down and direction lost its meaning. Skimming over a landscape was fine, it was no different than driving an aircar.

But not this. Not hanging legs down over a hole in the world.

The moon was directly below, hovering near infinity at the bottom of a tunnel that went down and down and down . . .

'Five miles deep, wouldn't you agree, Silver?' said Marco in the distance. 'And at least two wide. Are you all right, Kin?'

'Hunh?'

'You're still descending.'

She fumbled dizzily for the suit controls. On a level with her eyes, a quarter of a mile away, was the lip of the hole, striated with bands of rock. Lower -- she forced her eyes to move slowly. More bands, then a line of something metallic.

And a pipe, gushing water. Kin started to laugh hysterically.

'We're fine!' she giggled. 'We don't need to go any further, all we have to do is wait for the repairmen! You know what it's like with plumbers, when you want one they're never--'

'Cease gibbering. Silver, see to her,' snapped Marco. Kin saw his hand poised over his chest panel. Then he dropped, fast. Her eyes started to follow him down before Silver's gloved paw jerked her round. She felt motion, and realised dimly that she was being steered away from the hole.

After a while she heard Marco say, 'There's a pipe thirty metres across. Guess what? The water's pooling about two miles down -- on air. That's why we're not in the middle of a descending hurricane, there's some kind of a gravity base down there. There's going to be one hell of a lake there soon.

'I've gone down forty metres.

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