Search for the Buried Bomber by Xu Lei

Author:Xu Lei [Lei, Xu]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), Sci-fi
ISBN: 9781611097948
Publisher: AmazonCrossing
Published: 2013-03-18T13:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 32

Air Raid

Ibelieved what the deputy squad leader said. After all, this was something the army drilled nearly every day. As I spent most of my time in the field, I knew little about air-raid sirens. Although there had been mandatory evacuation drills—once or twice a year—back when I was in school, we all knew it was just practice. We followed the teacher and it was a fun diversion. No one was paying attention to the frequency of the siren.

There was not going to be an air raid here. That was beyond doubt. I was much more inclined to believe the alarm had some other function—warning, for example, that prisoners had escaped. The deputy squad leader told me that the early-warning air-raid siren would ring for thirty-six seconds, then stop for twenty-four seconds. It was an advanced alert for when an air raid was still only a possibility. As the planes approached, the siren would speed up, ringing for six seconds, stopping for six seconds.

Hearing the alarm from within the machine facility was enough to make us tremble. We climbed back on top of the dam. Walking into the wind, we made our way back to the point above the searchlight beam. It had changed direction and was now strafing the gigantic open space overhead. In theory, the roof of the abyss could not possibly be more than thirty-six hundred feet up. Indeed, the faint bulge of cliff rock could be seen at the uppermost end of the searchlight, but the area of illumination was too small and I was unable to make out their actual shapes.

There was no sign of any air raid—as if the frantic siren was all a joke. And though the searchlight swept back and forth above the void, there was nothing to see but rocks. After a while, its operator seemed to realize he was wasting his time. We watched as the beam again went level, then tilted down and began to illuminate the lower reaches of the abyss. We couldn't even hear the falling water hit bottom. How could this searchlight possibly illuminate anything that far down? I wondered. But when I crawled to the side of the dam and looked over, though the far end of the searchlight was rather dim, it was nonetheless able to illuminate the very bottom. The abyss was not that deep at all. Then I took a closer look: it was not the bottom being illuminated, but rather a huge sheet of mist that was floating slowly upward. It was as if the beam was shining upon a cluster of clouds in the sky. Although it might sweep back and forth, it could not penetrate their outer layer—like when we were young and we believed a lid must have been placed over the world. The mist was far from still. You could tell, albeit only vaguely, that it was slowly, almost rhythmically roiling and floating ever higher. This strange sight, matched with the immense and extraordinary background, only increased our agitation.

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