Andromeda Day and the Black Hole (15 page)

“I’m coming,” he said, jogging to catch up.
Together they walked back along the level, distributing food as they went, then
began to climb the steps up to the top mine platform.

At one point, Clios stumbled. “Are you all right?”
Andi asked. For the first time she noticed Clios’s shuffling walk, and the huge
patch of blood on the back of her head.

“One of the guards hit me when I tried to
escape,” Clios said. Her speech was slurred and she looked tired. Her usual
spirit seemed to have deserted her, although her eyes appeared brighter at the
thought of getting out of the place. “I can’t believe you escaped again, Andi.”

“Neither can I.” The voice came from above
them, on the platform. All three of them gasped at the figure that was standing
there, waiting.

It was Sphere.

Without a thought, Deneb fired his rifle. The
shot took the Hoshaen by surprise, catching him in the shoulder, and he fell
backwards onto the platform from the force of the blast. Deneb moved forward
and lowered the rifle to his chest, but Sphere was too quick. He swung his arm
to knock the weapon aside and it skittered along the floor, out of reach. Andi
leaped forward to grab it but it was on the other side of the two men, and the
platform was too narrow for her to pass.

Sphere still had his own weapon, however,
and the two men were now grappling for this. Deneb sat astride the mighty
Hoshaen, one hand on his chest supporting his weight as he swung his other fist
at Sphere’s face. The blow connected, but Sphere then knocked Deneb’s
supporting arm and he collapsed on top of the general. The two of them rolled
on the floor, blue-green blood from Sphere’s wound spraying around them.

It was then that Andi noticed something
that had fallen onto the platform. It was a huge, dark piece of Indigo Quartz—the
chain that had been holding it had broken in the struggle. She walked over to
the pendant and raised her foot above it. “Sphere!” she yelled. The two men
looked over briefly.

Sphere’s eyes widened. “No!” he screamed.

Andi’s eyes gleamed. “This is for Clios’s
parents.” And she brought her heel down onto the beautiful, but delicate
crystal. It shattered easily under the weight of her body, splintering into a
thousand pieces.

“No!” Unfortunately the destruction of the
pendant seemed to bring renewed energy to the Hoshaen. With a final thrust he
threw Deneb off him and struggled to his feet, finding his rifle on the floor. Before
either Andi or Deneb could stop him he had moved behind the injured Clios and
grabbed her around the neck. His rifle barrel dug into her ribs. “Drop it or
she’s dead!” he snarled.

Deneb had snatched up the rifle that Sphere
had knocked out of his hands, and he was pointing it at the couple that stood
by the barrier. He looked over at Andi. There was confusion in his eyes, and
she knew hers must mirror the same.

“Don’t drop it,” Clios yelled. “I’m dead
anyway, Deneb, I know it. Shoot him, and go and take Lydia away from this
place.”

“I mean it.” Sphere dug the barrel of the
weapon into Clios’s body and she cried out in pain. Deneb’s rifle wavered.

“Don’t!” she said again. “Kill him, Deneb!”

“I can’t,” he said. He began to lower his
weapon. “I can’t let him kill you.”

Andi saw the next few moments as if in slow
motion. Whether it was something to do with her computer mind, or whether it
was just the adrenalin racing through her veins that gave her the clarity of
thought, she would never know, but it seemed as if time had slowed down. Her
eyes met Clios’s, and in that instant she read the truth there: once Deneb had
lowered his weapon, Sphere would kill them all. Clios knew it, and she wasn’t
prepared to let that happen.

In one look into Clios’s eyes, Andi read
both an apology and a plea not to let her death be in vain. And then Clios bent
her knees and gave a mighty push with her feet. Sphere’s waist was against the
top of the barrier, but as she transferred her weight he overbalanced. He gave
a startled shriek of alarm, and the rifle went off. Clios’s body bucked, but
the momentum of her push still carried her backwards. Together, she and Sphere
tumbled over the railings.

Andi and Deneb dashed to the barrier. There
was no sign of Clios—her body had fallen into the depths of the mine. Sphere,
however, hung with one hand to the railing, dangling in the darkness.

“Help me,” he pleaded. He looked Andi
directly in the eye. “I know you won’t let me die. You have a good soul—I can
see that, even without my pendant. Please help me, I promise I will let you go
free.”

Andi knelt on the ground, looking past
Sphere into the darkness. She felt confused by the event that had just taken
place. It was as if her brain was refusing to process it. Clios was dead? She
almost wanted to laugh at that preposterous thought. But then she felt the
agony slicing through her body like a laser blade, and she knew it was the
truth.

She stared at the Hoshaen general, who clung
desperately to the railings with one hand. Every cell in her body wanted to
hurt Sphere for what he had done to Clios. But if she allowed him to die,
didn’t that make her as bad as he was? Could she actually take another person’s
life?

Sphere must have seen a hint of doubt in
her gaze, because his eyes lightened. “I knew it,” he said, and there was a
touch of glee in his voice. “I knew you couldn’t just let me die.”

“No, she couldn’t,” Deneb said, looking
down. “But I can.” And he kicked his heavy boots at where Sphere’s fingers held
tightly to the railings. They loosened involuntarily. For a fleeting second
Andi saw the look of surprise, anger, and fear on his face. And then he, too,
plummeted into the mine, his scream echoing around the walls.

Andi stood slowly and then, together with
Deneb, looked over the barrier. She raised an eyebrow at him. “We’d better get
going,” Deneb said matter-of-factly. “They’ll be searching for us.”

Andi’s eyes stung with tears for Clios, but
she clenched her jaw tightly, fighting back any emotion. She would not cry yet.
She would grieve when they were finally out of this dreadful place. “We’ve one
more thing to do,” she said firmly.

Deneb nodded. “Yes I know, rescue Lydia.”

“Okay, two more things.” Andi picked up the
rifle that Sphere had dropped. “Follow me.” She began to walk determinedly
along the tunnel.

Deneb ran to catch her up. “Where are we
going?”

“To the hydroelectric generator unit.”

“The what?”

“The power for this mine.” In her mind she
pictured the plan of the lower levels. She led them along a complicated series
of tunnels and junctions. “I’m not going to let another Ruvalian suffer in this
hell-hole.”

Eventually they found another elevator. This
one had buttons, and she pressed for the bottom level. Deneb looked at her
once, but said nothing. In silence, they listened to the elevator descend.

At the lowest level, there were still more
tunnels, but Andi led them easily to the room where the generator was held. Twice
along the way they met a guard, and both times Deneb knocked him out without a
word.

Eventually they came to the huge control
room. They entered together, seeing two Hoshaen operators at the far end of the
room. Andi shot first, wounding one in the thigh. Deneb followed her lead,
catching the other operator in the shoulder. They ignored the squealing
Hoshaens, stepping over their writhing bodies to the machinery in the center of
the room.

Andi paused for a second. Beneath her feet,
she could feel rather than hear a thundering, and knew that they must be very
close to the river. In the center of the generator she could just see the top
of an enormous water wheel, the paddles moving smoothly.

“What are you going to do?” Deneb was
breathless, whether through fear or excitement Andi wasn’t sure, although she
expected it was the latter.

“Stop the generator. That should open all
the cell doors. The elevators won’t work, so everyone will have to climb up the
shafts to the surface.”

His eyes widened. “What about all the
guards?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed but
actually there aren’t that many, on the lower levels, especially. The prisoners
will easily be able to outnumber them.”

“Some may get killed though, Andi.”

She nodded, looking at the machine. “Civilians
die in war. It is unfortunate, but it is a fact of life.” She smiled humorlessly,
remembering who had said the words. Deneb gave her a strange look, but said
nothing.

The machine was huge and extremely
complicated. She walked around it, looking at all the dials and buttons. How on
earth was she going to do this? There weren’t many symbols on the machine to
give her a clue as to what to press.

One of the operators on the floor
sniggered. “Did you think you could just turn it off with the press of a
button?”

Andi turned slowly and looked at him. Deneb
stared in alarm as she walked over to the Hoshaen, whose leg was bleeding
slowly over the floor. She bent down and looked him in the eye and then took
out the knife that she had tucked into the belt of her trousers.

“You see this,” she said, tapping the blade
on his leg. “This is a small wound. Not a fatal one, really. I missed the main
artery, here,” and she indicated the top of his thigh, “on purpose, otherwise
you’d be dead in a minute. However.” She raised the blade to touch his neck. He
stared at her with wide eyes. “There is another artery just here which can
serve the same purpose. Tell me how to shut this machine down, or I’ll cut it
and leave you to die.”

He swallowed, and the blade pressed against
his throat muscle as he did so. “You’re bluffing,” he said, not sounding too
sure. His eyes flicked to Deneb, who shrugged as if he didn’t know either.

Andi smiled. “Am I?” She pressed a little
harder, and a thin line of blue-green blood appeared.

“I don’t know!” he yelled. “It’s a long
procedure, lots of steps.”

“So what would you do in an emergency?” she
demanded.

“I’d have to follow the book.”

“Where is it?”

“In the drawer over there.”

She walked over to one of the desks on the
far side of the room and began to rifle through the drawers. The Hoshaen stared
at her as she found it and pulled it out. “You must be joking.” He laughed
harshly. “That thing is at least a thousand pages long. There’s no way you
could shut down the generator before someone catches you.”

She ignored him and read the Hoshaen words
on the front. “The Mayheb Generator 1000. We hope that you are pleased with
your purchase. In case of complaint, please contact the office address at the
bottom.” She smiled wryly at Deneb. “Some things don’t change. I wonder if they’d
be any help?”

“Andi!” For the first time Deneb looked
cross. “We really haven’t got the time.”

She ignored him and began to flick through
the pages. When she had turned over the final cover, Deneb said, “So which
section do you need?”

“I don’t,” she said, turning towards the
machine. “I know what to do.” In less than two minutes, she had digested the
contents of the book. Deneb and the Hoshaen operatives stared at her in shocked
silence as she walked up to one of the control panels and began to press buttons.
It took her about a minute to run through the complicated shutdown procedure. As
she finished, there was a hiss and the gauges all dropped, the loud noise of
the generator dulling to a stop. The ventilation fans in the corner slowed to a
halt. The lights, however, remained on.

“Right,” she said, turning to her father. “I’ve
shut down everything except the lights. But I can’t keep the elevators working,
so we’re going to have to climb our way out.” She smiled calmly. “I reckon
we’ve got about two hours to get to the surface.”

“Why, what happens in two hours?”

“I’ve shut down all the pumps that direct
the water here. The level’s going to start rising. It’s going to flood the
mine, Dad.”

Deneb’s eyes widened. “Hey, you’re good.” He
walked over to the machine. “But the guards will know that the generator’s shut
down when they see the elevators not working. What’s to stop them coming in and
starting it up again?”

Andi hadn’t thought of that. “Nothing I
guess.”

“Right.” He looked around the room. Finally
his eyes fell on a small table on which stood piles of boxes. He walked over
and with a sweep of his arm, brushed the boxes onto the floor. Turning the
table over, he banged the table repeatedly on the floor until the legs broke
off.

He brought the now flat piece of metal back
to the machine. Climbing under the railing, he straddled the hole in the floor
through which Andi could see the top paddles of the water wheel, now still. Carefully
he lowered the table through the hole until it was half sticking out. “Hand me
that hammer.”

There was a tool kit on one side of the
room. Andi retrieved the tool he wanted and passed it to him. Using all his
strength, he began to rain repeated blows onto the top of the table. Gradually
it started to bend. He continued until the piece of metal was securely wedged
around the paddle.