Progenitor - Michael Jan Friedman [67]
As long as it kept moving it signified that Vigo was moving as well. The last thing any of them wanted to see was slack in the line. And they didn’t see anything of the sort—not until half of the last vine had been claimed by the passageway.
Then the safety line stopped flowing into the water. Ben Zoma glanced at his friend Picard. If they were lucky, Vigo had reached the other side. If not . . .
Suddenly, they heard a shout—a booming cry that could only have come from the powerful throat of a Pandrilite, audible despite the soaring wall of rock that stood between them. The first officer breathed a sigh of relief.
Vigo had made it. It was time for step two.
In recognition of the fact, Simenon came forward and wrapped the end of the vine around his waist. Then Picard and Joseph tied a knot in it and pronounced it secure.
The prearranged signal of the Gnalish’s readiness was a series of three tugs on the end of the vine. Ben Zoma did the honors. A moment later, he saw the line rise off the ground and go taut.
And a moment after that, it tugged Simenon in the direction of the cave mouth. The engineer looked at each of them in turn, his expression uncomfortably like that of a man condemned to death.
“My turn,” he said grimly.
Then, pulled by Vigo, he vanished into the water and left a swirl of current in his wake.
“Leave it to Simenon to get a free ride,” said Ben Zoma, hoping to break the tension.
But no one laughed. They would only do that, he suspected, after they knew their colleague had reached the other side.
They waited for a few seconds, then a few more. If all went well, it wouldn’t be long before they heard from Vigo.
But after what seemed like enough time, the signal still hadn’t come. Ben Zoma and the others looked at each other.
“He’s been down there too long,” said Greyhorse.
The doctor was right. “Someone’s got to go after him,” the first officer said.
And without another thought, he scrambled through the cave mouth and hit the water.
It was cold, shockingly so. But then, its source was probably some mountain lake only half-redeemed from the grasp of winter. Ignoring the temperature, Ben Zoma propelled himself through the gloom with his legs, using his hands to feel his way along the wall beside him.
He couldn’t see Simenon, but he could hear some kind of bubbling up ahead. It got louder and more insistent as he swam forward, telling Ben Zoma that he wasn’t too late.
Simenon was alive. At least, for the moment.
But something had stopped him from getting through the cave chain. And in the now-perfect darkness that surrounded him, Ben Zoma couldn’t tell what it was.
There was only one thing he could do—get hold of Simenon and feel around until he found the problem.
With that in mind, he scissored forward until his hand brushed against one of the Gnalish’s frantically churning legs. Grasping it, he felt the kicking stop—a sign that his comrade was either acknowledging his presence or had run out of air.
Hoping it was the former, Ben Zoma used Simenon like a ladder and pulled himself up to what he imagined was the Gnalish’s face. Then he found Simenon’s shoulder and upper arm and felt for the tautness that would suggest his friend’s hand was stuck.
As it turned out, it wasn’t. In fact, it seized the first officer’s wrist and directed it to where Ben Zoma had come from—toward Simenon’s feet.
By then, the human was starting to feel light-headed. The impulse to breathe, to replenish the supply of oxygen in his lungs, was becoming almost impossible for him to deny. But he put it aside somehow and focused on the task at hand.
Working his way down Simenon’s body again, Ben Zoma felt one leg moving. But not the other one. Finally, he thought.
A moment later, he found the problem. Simenon’s foot was wedged in a crevice. But as long as the vine rope was pulling on him, he wouldn’t be able to get free.
Darting upward, Ben Zoma found the vine and swung his feet