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PART THREE(3)
~~~~~~~~~~
Seventy-five feet beneath OCley's feet, OLie had just clipped in the
forgeers' filled poke`balls and was giving the two divers hand signals to
explain the situation.
Seconds later, the divers were working on the trip points under the surface,
and Three Dash One and One Dash Two were ready to tele-out.
Having given the partly filled teleport container to Three Dash One to
take with her and aid in what might very well be considered her escape ~ what
with the hairs they would likely be splitting oxygen-wise before the greater
half of them would breathe fresh air again ~ OLie buzzed the OC topside, with
the words, "Tele-out; TC, Three Dash One, One Dash Two: go!"
He held his gaze between these two of his teamers, noting without
actually making direct eye-contact with them, that they were both looking a him
intently.
Steeling himself mentally, he met first one stare and then the other,
with inqueriously upraised eyebrows. ~ It was the young woman who spoke what
was on both of their minds.
"Right now there is nothing I want more than to get out of
here," she confessed, sounding conscience-stricken.
The young man beside her nodded his agreement with her sentiments, and
pressed his superior with the question, "Does that make us cowards,
Sir?"
OLie Three sighed deeply ~ he hated being called upon to judge bravery or
cowardice. But he knew he had a minute or so before they would be teleported,
so he decided to make a reply; Precious oxygen or not, something needed to be
said.
There was a creeping, uncomfortable feeling inching up his spine, a
premonition of disaster that he had never felt before, and which took him a
moment to identify. He wished it had more to do with the fact he was belly deep
in cold water, but he knew with startling clarity that wasn't it. It was a
feeling that said something was about to come down.
Taking this into account, he opted for the 'intimate friends' approach,
rather than the organizationally approved, 'father figure' one.
"What are your real names, and how old are you?" he
asked both of them, in the kind voice of an equal. He was pleased that neither
of them hesitated to answer.
"Everett, aged twenty-four," the
young man said proudly.
The young woman replied, "Penny, aged twenty." She thought for
a moment then asked piercingly, "Why do you ask, Sir?"
OLie Three shook his head with grim amusement. "Because what I have
to say, should not be said to a pair of numbers," he reproved her mildly.
Penny looked surprised for a short second, then smiled tensely at him ~
It took a supreme effort to do so, he was sure.
"No," he continued. "Everett, Penny; You are not cowards.
You are just smart ~ or if you prefer, only human. And...~"
He was interrupted by OCley's voice from the comm. unit. *\"A
private word, OLie Three?"/*
The unit having been re-clipped to his E-belt after his last transmit,
OLie turned from his two crew members quickly, and snatched it up, wondering to
himself at OCley's tone. 'Is it coming down?'
Volume down; unit to his ear, and depression of the 'transmit' bar,
thereby lighting an indicator on OCley's unit, which signaled that the two-way
link was open from his end. He didn't have to say a word to give the same
indication that he was listening.
OCley Two's message of four words came through, tinged with the bitterness
he was feeling, *\"Batten down the hatches."/*
Disbelievingly, in the gesture of a child just finding out that his most
cherished wind-up toy is broken, OLie Three held the comm. unit at half an
arm's length away, and just stared at it for a long moment.
And then, it passed through his mind, that as bad a time as it may be for
it, as cruel a joke as it would be if it were, he would gladly give a limb, if
only it was. But even 'OCley Two the Jerk' wouldn't joke about that, at
a time such as it was ~ quite tense and desperate enough.
Seeing no good reason to make sure OCley knew he understood, OLie turned
back to Everett and Penny, collecting his shell-shocked wits, and finding his
voice in the darkest recesses of his throat. Some of OCley's earlier words were
running through his mind ~ '...rising due to heavy rains in the north...'.
Speaking again to the two young teamers before him, he picked up where he
had left off. "And at twenty and twenty-four, you both are too young to
die in this unholy ruin," he finished quietly.
Her eyes widened, and Penny responded hopefully, "It won't come to
that." She added doubtfully, "Will it, Sir? You're young too."
"No one down here is ripely aged,"
But there was an enveloping curtain of pinkish, rainbow-varied, energy
flash-point, and both of OLie's youngest teamers vanished from before his eyes.
'Perfect timing Rendal,' he thought gratefully. 'I would have hated
to refuse
Where the departed pair had been standing, Two Dash Two was directly visible,
as he approached his superior, wading determinedly through the rising water.
OLie cast a glance at the inert pivot-riggers, and guessed what he wanted.
Turning behind him to a three foot high stand that they had brought along
to set the more delicate equipment on ~ which was itself set upon an eight by
ten / two and a half foot high, stone block island, constructed in the center
of the chamber ~ OLie retrieved three water-proofed mechanisms from it, and
handed them to Two Dash Two, who wasted no time in clipping one to each of the
pivot-rigger's drop-lines.
He returned thirty seconds later, with the PriZm drills, and handed them
to OLie Three, who had mounted the island to get a better angle on the work
stand.
When the drills were loaded securely in their water-tight cases, OLie
passed them to Two Dash Two, and pointed at the passage arch. Then he made the
'stay put' hand gesture. The man nodded uneasily, and OLie watched him turn and
make his way over to the arch. Twenty seconds later, his teamer had disappeared
upwards.
Another minute later, one of the pivot-riggers descended his ex-belay
line, with his hang gear neatly stowed in his chest pouch ~ the other two were
only seconds behind. They each gave OLie Three a thumbs-up sign, and he pointed
at each one of them and then the passage arch ~ in turn ~ 'telling' them to
'stay put', as well.
Only he and the divers remained now, and he could see that they were
finishing the work on Two Dash Two's trip-rig zone.
Between himself and the arch, he noted that someone had set the floater buoy
to bait Zone One. His eyes drifted down to the might-as-well-be-empty work
stand before him. 'It can stay,' he opted. That was an easy decision.
OLie Three had four men in the passage using up valuable oxygen. He could
have just two more teleported out safely, and the sooner the better.
'Probably be good to send up the biggest two,' he determined
logically ~ they needed more oxygen to maintain their body functions.
That definitely put Three Dash Two out, and both of the divers ~ despite
the fact that one of them was brawny ~ because they had breath-control
training.
He selected One Dash One and Two Dash Two ~ with silent apologies to Two
Dash One ~ and opened the comm-link. "Tele-out; One Dash One, Two Dash
Two, go," he informed OCley.
The link closed, he gritted his teeth in frustration. Driving rain up
above meant the topside grubbles were out of action, and he and those men that
remained, were likely doomed to asphyxiation ~ one way or the other. And he
certainly wouldn't have Rendal attempt teleporting anyone else up, unless
things got to the critical point.
'There has got to be an Angle to this situation,' he told himself
sternly. But he knew there didn't have to be. In fact, the situation was
painfully straight-forward.
His hands went to two of the poke`balls on his belt, which contained a
badolphi and a seznak; both water poke`mon that had been brought along for
their usefulness as hydro excavators ~ under ideal conditions. Even down there
it would have been possible for them to do some silt-shifting, but it had been
a question of rising the water table in the chamber to inconvenient ~ even
dangerous ~ levels, from the moment of tele-in. Of course, as things had turned
out, it would have only been a matter of pre-maturity.
He heard the two divers pop to the surface, and he realized with a start,
that the slightly murky waters were up to his knees now ~ And he was standing
on the island!
One of the divers shined his dive light in OLie's general direction, and
he sent both of them up the passage with harried gestures.
With little doubt in his mind that the water was rising at the rate of an
inch or more a minute, and with a wistful glance at the defunct CarDiox unit
repining uselessly on the work stand, OLie Three raised the comm. unit over his
head and abandoned the island, switching on the powerful Lowi-light that hung
from his E-belt.
He sank in the water almost up to his armpits before his feet touched
down on the hewn stone floor, and he made his way to the 'exit' passage
archway, careful to avoid Zone Two and any stones from the ceiling that he
might stumble over.
When he reached the stairs that lead up to and through the passage
archway, he paused a couple of steps up ~ at a point where the water once more
came up to his waist ~ and let OCley know what was up by saying over the
comm-link, "Mission Complete: moving up." OCley would know that 'up'
meant 'into the passage'.
*\"Are the 'gifts' in working order?"/* OLie was dismayed to
hear his Operations Chief ask lightly, in response.
Unwilling to waste the oxygen to reply aloud, he didn't key in, but,
instead, thought to himself sarcastically, 'Well, Sir, assuming the passage
is ever opened, Sir, let me tell you, Sir, I have no problem with you coming
down, Sir, and testing all three to find out...Sir.'
This spiteful thought had run its course before he was really aware of
it, and its disgusted, biting nature, surprised him. 'I must be suffering
from oxygen deprivation,' he realized uncomfortably, and he hustled up five
more stairs, the beam of his flash swinging wildly from the motion of his rapid
movement.
He stopped cold on the seventh step from the bottom of the set, when he
noticed something on the left side of the stairway. He frowned with puzzlement,
and took the Lowi-light in one hand to shine its pin-point beam upon the
left-side surface of the water-line where it met the ninth step of the stairs. The
lack of oxygen was affecting his comprehension, so it took him a moment to
think through the meaning of what had caught his attention.
Just before him, his flash's beam was highlighting little rushes in the
surface of the rising water, along the left hand wall of the passage as one
would ascend ~ as he was intent on doing eventually.
'A current?' he thought dumbly, as he played the beam over the
rushes to the reason for them; There was a five inch wide, drainage groove,
carved into the stairs on the left side of them.
OLie Three's heart rate doubled in the space of a few beats ~ he was
aware of it but wasn't sure what the cause was ~ and his flash's beam drifted
with an instinctive movement of his hand, over to the right side of the
stairway. There was another identical drain groove, on that side, as well.
He shook his head, still not seeing the light of the possibilities. 'So
the water is SUPPOSED to come down this way,' he thought, disappointed at
himself for his inability to pin down the nagging feeling that he was failing
to make an important cerebral leap. 'Big, fat, hairy...~'
Suddenly, his eyes went wide, as the bridging pair of his synapses gave
each other the kiss of life, and he realized what he had been missing.
"Well I'll be brain-damaged," he
breathed amazedly. "There is an Angle!"
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