Metamorphosis - Jean Lorrah [34]
“Coverings for your hands.” He filed away another piece of information as to the level of culture of the Elysians: they had not yet even invented gloves. Little wonder they believed in magic.
They continued doggedly backtracking. While they remained on one level despite clambering over obstacles, at least they were not descending. The caverns closed in on them again-and there was the archway, up ahead. “Thank the gods!” Thelia exclaimed, and hurried toward it. Data kept pace with her, and they moved through together-but not into the chamber where they had made the choice. There was no other archway, only the trail straight ahead of them, leading upward. “This is not-was Data began.
The rest of his sentence was drowned by the slam of a metal door falling behind them, centimeters from their heels. There would be no backtracking from this choice.
“We have but one way to go now,” Thelia said. She started forward-and the ground opened under her feet!
Only the speed of Data’s reflexes enabled him to pull her back as a chasm yawned.
The earth shook with the throbbing crack of tearing rock. They backed against the door, with less than a meter of rock to stand on, the gap growing-Data could jump it, but if it kept growing it would soon be beyond even his ability. “We must get across at once,” he said as he swung Thelia into his arms, crouched-A wall of flame roared up out of the chasm, yellow, then blue-then white!
A firestorm of unbearable heat poured over them.
Data’s back was to a solidly shut door, he was walled off from turning right or left, and before him whitehot flames threw off such heat that Thelia turned from it with a whimper, shielding her face against his shoulder as the odor of her singed hair set off his warning sensors: fire, smoke-death to humans, and heat of such intensity that in seconds it would do irreparable damage to Data himself!
SPEED wAs THEIR only chance. Data said, “Hold your breath!” not breathing himself lest superheated air affect delicate internal components. He wrapped Thelia’s cloak over her head, and leaped through the firestorm. Every microsecond of the passage through the flame registered on Data’s consciousness, warnings first of danger, then damage-He landed running, sensors in discordant uproar. Ignoring them, he sprinted away from the blast-furnace heat until finally the trail turned and he could no longer hear the roaring flames.
The massive temperature differentials turned the caverns into a wind tunnel; sand and small rocks scoured Data as he fell to his knees, still shielding Thelia.
He could not tell the temperature: after blasting his circuitry with messages of destruction, his surface sensors had gone dead. But when he drew in a cautious breath, internal sensors told him the air was 95 tolerable. His automatics set about preserving his systems as the heat his skin had absorbed penetrated into his body.
When the wind died, Data sat up and opened his eyes. Leaving his automatics to restore his own systems, he pulled the scorched cloak away from Thelia. She was unconscious, but alive.
When Data tried to adjust his vision to examine her, he found that it was limited to the human range he had accessed when the light increased. That indicated damage to the sensors that served him as eyes-but at least he could see well enough to tell that Thelia was alive and breathing. Her face, which had been pressed against his chest, was unharmed, just as the front of Data’s body was undamaged where she had shielded him. The backs of her hands were reddened and blistered, for where she had clung to him they had been protected only by the single layer of her cloak. The sleeves of her heavy shirt, though, had put another layer between her arms and the terrible heat; they seemed to have suffered little damage. Her legs and feet were covered by trousers and sturdy boots, and her hair had protected the back of her neck. If her lungs were not scorched, she would recover. Data reached for his tricorder, wondering if the gods would allow it to work for purposes of medical diagnostics-but