A Deepness in the Sky

Up ahead glowed an oval of light. The end of the tunnel. The Team staggered off the ramp onto a field that had been open once, but that was now shielded from the sky by silvery sunblinds. A forest of tent poles stretched off all around them. In places the fall of airsnow had torn the structure, but most of it was intact. In the dim, slatted patches of light, they could see the forms of steam locomotives, rail layers, machine-gun cars, and armored automobiles. Even in the dimness, there was a glint of silver paint in the airsnow. When the New Sun lit, this gear would be ready. While ice steamed and melted, and flowed torrents down the channels that webbed this field, Tiefer combateers would come out of the nearby deepnesses and run for the safety of their vehicles. The waters would be diverted into holding tanks, and the cooling sprays started. There would be a few hours of frantic checking of inventories and mechanical status, a few hours more to repair the failures of two centuries of Dark and the hours of new heat. And then they would be off on whichever rail path their commanders thought led to victory. This was the culmination of generations of scientific research into the nature of the Dark and the New Sun. Intelligence estimated that in many ways it was more advanced than the Crown's own quartermaster science.

Hrunkner gathered them together, so they could all hear him. "I'll bet they'll have forward guards out here within an hour of First Sunlight, but now it's just ours for the taking....Okay, we top off our panniers and split up per plan. Gil, are you up to this?"

Gil Haven had weaved his way down the steps like a drunkard with broken feet. It looked to Sherkaner that his suit failure had extended back to his walking feet. But he straightened at Unnerby's words, and his voice seemed almost normal. "Sergeant, I didn't come all this way to sit an' watch you cobbers. I can handle my part."

And so they had come to the point of it all. They disconnected their audio cables, and each gathered up his appointed explosives and dye-black. They had practiced this often enough. If they double-timed between each action point, if they didn't fall into a drainage ditch and break some legs, if the maps they had memorized were accurate, there would be time to do it all and still not freeze. They moved off in four directions. The explosives they set beneath the sunblinds were scarcely more than hand grenades. They made silent flashes as they went off—and collapsed strategic sections of the canopy. The dye-black mortars followed, completely unimpressive, but working just as all the Materials Research work had predicted they would. The length and breadth of the outreach depot lay in mottled black, awaiting the kiss of the New Sun.

Three hours later they were almost a mile north of the depot. Unnerby had pushed them hard after they left the depot, pushed them to accomplish a final, ancillary goal: survival.

They had almost made it. Almost. Gil Haven was delirious and strangely frantic when they finished at the depot. He tried to leave the depot on his own. "Gotta find a place to dig." He said the words again and again, struggling against Nizhnimor and Unnerby as they tied him back into the row of safety lines.

"That's where we're going now, Gil. Hang on." Unnerby released Haven to Amber, and for a moment Hrunkner and Sherk could hear only each other.

"He's got more spirit than before," said Sherkaner. Haven was bouncing around like a cobber on wooden legs.

"I don't think he can feel the pain anymore." Hrunk's reply was faint but clear. "That's not what worries me. I think he's sliding into Wanderdeep."

Rapture of the Dark. It was the mad panic that took cobbers when the inner core of their minds realized that they were trapped outside. The animal mind took over, driving the victim to find some place, any place, that might serve as a deepness.

"Damn." The word was muffled, chopped as Unnerby broke contact and tried to get them all moving. They were only hours from probable safety. And yet...watching Gil Haven struggle woke primeval reflexes in all of them. Instinct was such a marvelous thing—but if they gave in to it now, it would surely lead them to death.

After two hours, they had barely reached the hills beyond the depot. Twice, Gil had broken free, each time more frantic, to run toward the false promise of the steep defiles alongside their path. Each time, Amber had dragged him back, tried to reason with him. But Gil didn't know where he was anymore, and his thrashing had torn his suit in several places. Parts of him were stiff and frozen.