Timeline - Michael Crichton [82]
Stern glanced back at the screen, at the jumble of girders in smoke in the transit site. “But what if they try to come back when everybody is gone?”
“Don’t worry,” Gordon said. “That can’t happen. The wreckage will trigger the infrared. The sensors need six feet on all sides, remember? Two meters. They don’t have it. So the sensors won’t let the machines come back. Not until we get all that cleared away.”
“How long will it take to clear it away?”
“First, we have to exchange the air in the cave.”
Gordon took Stern back to the long corridor leading to the main elevator. There were a lot of people in the corridor, all leaving. Their voices echoed in the tunnel.
“Exchange the air in the cave?” Stern said. “That’s a huge volume. How long will that take?”
Gordon said, “In theory, it takes nine hours.”
“In theory?”
“We’ve never had to do it before,” Gordon said. “But we have the capacity, of course. The big fans should cut in any minute.”
A few seconds later, a roaring sound filled the tunnel. Stern felt a blast of wind press his body, tug at his clothes.
“And after they exchange all the air? What then?”
“We rebuild the transit pad and wait for them to come back,” Gordon said. “Just the way we were planning to do.”
“And if they try to come back before you’re ready for them?”
“It’s not a problem, David. The machine will just refuse. It’ll pop them right back to where they were. For the time being.”
“So they’re stranded,” Stern said.
“For the moment,” Gordon said. “Yes. They’re stranded. And there’s nothing we can do about it.”
36:13:17
Chris Hughes ran to the edge of the cliff and threw himself into space, screaming, arms and legs flailing in the sunlight. He saw the Dordogne, two hundred feet below, snaking through the green countryside. It was too far to fall. He knew the river was too shallow. There was no question he would die.
But then he saw the cliff face beneath him was not sheer—there was a protruding shelf of land, twenty feet below, jutting out from the upper rim of the cliff. It was steeply angled bare rock, with a sparse cover of scrubby trees and brush.
He slammed down on the shelf, landing on his side, the impact blasting the air from his lungs. Immediately, he began rolling helplessly toward the edge. He tried to stop the roll, clutching desperately at underbrush, but it was all too weak, and it tore away in his hands. As he tumbled toward the edge, he was aware of the boy reaching for him, but Chris missed his outstretched arms. He continued to roll, his world spinning out of control. Now the boy was behind him, with a horrified look on his face. Chris knew he was going to go over the edge; he was going to fall—
With a grunt, he slammed into a tree. He felt a sharp pain in his stomach, then it streaked through his whole body. For a moment, he did not know where he was; he felt only pain. The world was greenish white. He came back to it slowly.
The tree had broken his descent, but for a moment he still could not breathe at all. The pain was intense. Stars swam before his eyes, then slowly faded, and finally he saw his legs were dangling over the edge of the cliff.
And moving.
Moving downward.
The tree was a spindly pine, and his weight was slowly, slowly bending it over. He felt himself begin to slide along the trunk. He was helpless to stop it. He grabbed at the trunk and held tightly. And it worked: he wasn’t sliding anymore. He pulled himself along the trunk, working his way back to the rock.
Then, to his horror, he saw the roots of the tree begin to break free of the rocky crevices, one by one snapping loose, pale in the sunlight. It was only a matter of time before the entire trunk broke free.
Then he felt a tug at his collar and saw the boy standing above him, hauling him back to his feet. The boy looked exasperated. “Come, now!”
“Jesus,” Chris said. He flopped onto a flat rock, gasping for breath. “Just give me a minute—”
An arrow whined past his ear like a bullet. He felt the wind of its passage. He was stunned by the power of it. Energized