Transformation Space - Marianne de Pierres [73]
Thales opened his mouth to ask where they were going, but he shut it again. The woman was nothing if not decisive. Like Fariss.
‘Hold hands,’ she ordered. She grasped Thales’s fingers, her own cool and dry against his. He reached out for Fariss, and she engulfed his hand with her huge grip. The woman inched into the dark shrubbery along the side of the house.
They stopped and started a few times, bumping into each other. Branches brushed their legs, and the ground became uneven.
Finally, she stopped and let go of Thales’s hand to kneel down in front of a large shadowy object.
Thales could hear rather than see her push the bushes aside from it: the soft crack of the breaking twigs, her even softer cursing. And then faint scraping noises as she turned some type of pump handle.
Fariss was still holding his hand. Her grip tightened when lights flooded the yard. She pulled Thales down into the cover of the bushes in the time it took him to comprehend what had happened.
Voices drifted around the side to them, clear and curt. ‘We’ve not seen your runaways here, Politic.’ The voice sounded honest and anxious – an older man.
The woman had done the right thing by not taking them into the house.
‘Stand aside while we inspect your yard,’ said the robe in reply.
‘Mind the garden,’ said the homeowner. ‘We supply the Sophos offices with lilies. Wouldn’t do to damage them.’
‘Where’s your wife?’ asked the robe, ignoring the man’s warning.
‘She’s at work. Won’t be home till the dinner’s cleaned up.’
‘Work?’
‘The Mount Clement clinic.’
‘Scrubber?’
The man didn’t answer immediately. ‘Galley supervisor,’ he said eventually.
Thales felt a tug on his arm, then the woman’s mouth close to his ear. ‘Get … down … in here.’ Her words were so faint he barely heard them.
He pulled his hand from Fariss’s and reached forward. The soil crumbled away and he felt a smooth edge of catoplasma.
‘Hurry,’ she whispered again.
Thales contorted his body round and slipped his legs over the edge as the Robes left the veranda. His feet dangled for a moment before connecting with a ledge, and beneath it another ledge – a rough stairway of some kind built into the catoplasma, leading to an underground chamber.
He climbed down as quickly as he could, not wanting Fariss to be left in the open. Within moments, her large feet were following him. As soon as her head was below the catoplasma lip, the opening closed, and they lost all light.
They both landed in a tumble on the dry floor. Neither of them spoke as they disentangled their limbs from each other and listened.
Silence from above.
‘OK, hon?’ whispered Fariss eventually.
Her concern had its usual anaesthetising effect. Somehow, it meant more to him than any of Rene’s slightly patronising attentions ever had.
‘What is this?’ she asked.
‘Underground water tank, I think,’ he said. ‘All the houses had them in my hometown as well. They pipe the catoplasma into the ground and blow it out so it forms a bubble. It sets hard, and then they siphon rainwater in.’
‘They safe?’
‘I’ve never been inside one before.’ He thought about it for a moment; remembered his father making him wait a distance from the house when theirs had been installed. ‘I suppose so. The problem is the displacement. When they expand the catoplasma they run other pipes to suck the soil out. Usually the catoplasma moulds to the terrain. But sometimes there’s a fault or a subsidence, and the whole thing shifts. I’ve heard of them cracking under significant uneven pressure.’
‘Significant pressure, eh? Let’s hope we don’t get none of that.’
‘What do we do now?’
Fariss reached for him and pulled him against her. ‘Wait, I’d say. At least for a while.’
He moved closer and relaxed against her hard body. She smelled sweaty and stale, and wonderful.
Her hands slipped