Code 61 - Donald Harstad [167]
I followed my own advice, which would enable me to have one eye that had begun to adapt to the dark while I used the other one to follow the beam around our area.
It helped get our bearings, and it also gave us some sense of the size of the place.
We were standing in a chamber about thirty feet high, by about sixty feet square. There was an enormous pillar just to our left, that seemed the same size as our chamber. Past it, my light reflected off the far wall of an adjacent chamber and pillar. That was about 180 feet, and it appeared to just keep going on and on, although the light was damned faint that far off.
Ahead of us was a similar arrangement, and to our right, the pillar-chamber sequence seemed to continue for as far as the beam would reach.
“Big place,” I said, quietly.
“Goes for several miles,” whispered Byng, “north and south. Only about three chambers deep, though. Maybe four, I hear. In places.”
We were in an older part, for sure. The walls and ceiling were covered with little troughs and gouges, made by hand-wielded picks.
I put my hand over the light, letting a small beam escape. I found that, while I could see fairly well out of the eye I'd closed, the red-yellow afterglow in the other eye was very bothersome. Not such a good idea, after all. The darkness was just too complete.
It was still very quiet, and I was beginning to wonder if the elevator had broken, leaving Borman and Sally stuck on top. Even as I was wondering about it, the electric motor started up.
“Sally and Borman,” said Byng.
The four of us assembled, and I came up with a plan. I decided to move toward the light, and see what we found.
“Quite a plan,” whispered Byng, his amusement evident in his voice.
“This isn't exactly D-Day,” I said.
“What's that smell?” whispered Byng.
“What smell?” I really didn't smell anything out of the ordinary at all.
“Reminds me of an Italian restaurant,” said Byng.
“Ah,” I said softly. “That's Sally.”
“What?”
“I've got some fuckin' garlic,” she hissed. “All right?”
Byng cleared his throat. “Yeah. Sure.”
We moved toward the light, and the symphonic music got increasingly louder as we went. The lighted chamber turned out to be at right angles to the right of the one directly ahead of us. Maybe I just hadn't understood what Toby meant.
We crept along one of the enormous pillars, attempting to stay in the dark as long as we could. We paused, squatting or kneeling down, at the entrance to the lighted chamber.
Two overhead fluorescent units, of the type you'd find in a home workshop, suspended about twenty feet off the floor, lighted that entire chamber. The light was dim, but not as bad as it could have been, given the vast area they were lighting. It was certainly good enough to let us see the furnishings.
Along the walls were large, predominantly reddish, Oriental-style carpets, hanging from lengths of iron pipe that were wired into rings about fifteen feet off the floor. The hangings were around all three sides of the chamber that were visible to us, and it looked to me as if they were hung across the entrances to other chambers on all three sides.
The floor was covered with new wooden planking that peaked out from under more carpeting that covered most of the floor area of the chamber. The ceiling was formed from transparent plastic drop cloth that was suspended from the iron pipe that supported the wall hangings.
“Lot of carpet, there,” said Sally.
There certainly was. Lots of planking, too.
On the floor were several overstuffed chairs, in two clusters, between which was set a long dining table complete with chairs and a large china cabinet that stood against a wall. The chamber was divided by an enormous breakfront, a good thirty feet long and about eight feet high. Hanging carpets at each end made it an effective wall, splitting the chamber in two.
“That's where that went,” murmured Byng.
“What?”
“That long thing. That was in that hotel, the Larabee, that was torn down about ten years ago.