DODI GET A ROPE

1563 4D

Tendon pain woke Andrew. He couldn’t see Martin. Near the door to the liftway tunnel, Ezzar and Grendel talked with the bone-cap girl. Andrew sat up. “Where’s my brother?”

“He said he’d go look for an air source,” Ezzar snapped over her shoulder.

A slight movement near him, and Andrew started. The little girl darted away. “Jan? Janny?” She stopped about twenty feet away near a small knot of older girls. She looked back, and pain and joy wrestled in him. He sputtered, “It’s Daddy. See?” Your daughter’s dead. You want her back so bad. He held out his hands and wiggled his fingers, the way he had always done with Janny. She’ll cock her head and stick her finger in her mouth now.

The little girl stood and stared at him for an unending heartbeat. She wore a ragged smock, with long wire necklaces layered over it. The necklaces shone red in the flame light. From each strand of wire dangled what looked to Andrew like long dried hairless tails. The little girl’s hair stuck out straight from knots tied all over her head. She began to raise one hand. One of the older girls next to her seized the hand and turned her away. As Andrew climbed to his feet, the children scattered, and she vanished.

As he stood desolate, Martin returned. “I think I’ve found something,” he said quietly to Andrew, “and I see why the children couldn’t use it. But I think we can, and we can all get out. As long as we have some cable or rope.” He walked over to Ezzar and Grendel. Andrew followed.

“We’ve got a possibility,” Martin began. “I found another shaft, a square one, where the fresh air comes down. But there’s no stair.”

“What good is it?” Ezzar said. “Why waste our time?”

The bone-cap girl spoke. “I know what he’s talking about. It’s too wide for us to climb inside it.”

“Right,” said Martin, “but someone Grendel‘s size could use the opposing walls. The rest of us aren’t tall enough to do it.” He faced the girl. “Do you have any rope or cable or heavy wire, something to take a man’s weight?”

“No,” the girl said. “But why don’t you send the big one up to get it?”

“No,” Ezzar responded, “One of you go with him. Who’s your best at finding things?” The children gathered now around them, passing silent messages along. A girl stepped forward, about seven years old, a few shades darker than an andro, and very thin. Her eyes widened and narrowed disconcertingly as she looked at the adults. She wore a tattered coverall, and a tempweave shawl that covered long ratty braids.

“Dodi get a rope,” she sang. Grendel reached out to her and she shrank back.

“Dodi, ride Grendel, go up an out,” the bone-cap girl explained, patting his arm. Grendel smiled a little, bending down.

“O-kay, Mama Bonesy,” Dodi warbled. She leaped on Grendel‘s back and clung as he stood up, her legs straddling his neck. “Gren-do you do me nice, you see? You do me bad, Dodi chop you bloody.” She slithered to the floor again.

“Gren-do do Dodi nice,” Grendel said. He did not smile.

They all followed Grendel as he limped to the airshaft opening, where a strong, cool, fresh breeze nearly blew out their torch. He ducked into the shaft entrance, a three-foot-high hutch-shaped opening, and put his feet against the opposite wall. Using his arm strength, he levered himself out and around until he was suspended in the shaft, feet pressed against one wall, and back pressed against the opposite one. Dodi slithered in and sat on his legs, looking him in the face, her thin legs dangling.

“Make a knot in the rope every foot or so,” the bone-cap girl said to Grendel. He nodded, and began moving up, inch by inch, Dodi bouncing back and forth as he stepped each leg up and then raised his body with his shoulders and arms. He winced with each increase in pressure on his bad leg.

The others took turns peering up at him, but could see nothing in the blackness. The sweet smell of his sweat rode the cool air down to them as they listened to the scrape, breathe, scrape, and gasp of his ascent. The long silence that followed came as a relief.

Andrew was looking up the shaft when the end of an einstrand rope nearly hit him in the face. “How far up is it?” he called.

Grendel‘s deep voice came to him as if a foot away, making him jump. “About fifty feet. Rope’s about twice that.”

Ezzar turned to the bone-cap girl. “Can they all climb this?”

“All but the littlest. You’ll have to carry them up for us.” The girl turned to the mass of children behind them. “Get you bindo now.” The children melted away into the flickering shadows.