Part 84 (1/2)

He gasped for air and immediately pain shot down his throat into his chest and his eyes burned and smarted so that he could barely see.

”Tear gas,” he realized. The Shana were ga.s.sing the cavern.

Craig saw Tungata was in the water, crouched waistdeep behind the slab of rock. He had torn a strip from his s.h.i.+rt, wet it and bound it over his mouth and nose, but his eyes were red and running with tears.

”The whole cavern is swarming with troopers,” he told Craig, his voice m.u.f.fled by the wet cloth, and he stopped as a stentorian disembodied voice echoed down the gallery, its English distorted by an electronic megaphone.

”If you surrender immediately, you will not be harmed.” As if to punctuate this announcement, there was the ”Pock” of a grenade-launcher and another tear-gas canister came flying down the gallery, bouncing off the limestone floor likea football, belching out white clouds of the irritant gas.

”They are down the staircase already, I couldn't stop them.” Tungata bobbed up from behind the edge of the slab and fired a short burst up the gallery. His bullets cracked and whined from the rock, and then the AK went silent and he ducked down.

”The last magazine,” he grunted and dropped the empty rifle into the water. He groped for the pistol on his belt.

”Come on, Sam,” Craig gasped. ”There is a way through beyond this pool.”

”I can't swim.” Tungata was checking the pistol, slapping the magazine into the b.u.t.t and jerking back the slide to load.

”I got Sarah through.” Craig was trying to breathe through the searing clouds of gas. ”I'll get you through.” Tungata looked up at him.

”Trust me, Sam.”

”Sarah is safe?”

”I promise you, she is.” Tungata hesitated, fighting his fear of the waters.

”You can't let them take you,” Craig told him. ”You owe it to Sarah and to your people.” Perhaps Craig had discovered the only appeal that would move him. Tungata pushed the pistol back into his belt.

”Tell me what to do,” he said.

it was impossible to hyperventilate in the gas-laden atmosphere.

”Get what air you can, and hold it. Hold it, force yourself not to breathe again,” Craig wheezed. The tear gas was ripping his lungs all he could feel the cold and deadly spread of lethargy like liquid in his veins. It was going to be a long, hard road home.

down. ”Fresh air!” There was ”Here!” Tungata pulled him still a pocket of clean air trapped below the angle of the slab. Craig drank it in greedily.

He took Tungata's hands and placed them on the canvas belt. ”Hold on! I he ordered, and when Tungata nodded, he pulled one last long breath, and they ducked under together. They went down fast.

When they reached the wall there was no bulky oxygen set to enc.u.mber them, and Craig pulled Tungata through with what remained of his strength. But he was slowing and weakening drastically, once again losing the urge to breathe, a symptom of anoxia, of oxygen starvation.

They were through the wall, but he could not think what to do next. He was confused and disorientated, his brain playing tricks with him. He found he was iggling weakly, precious air bubbling out between his lips. The glow of the lamp turned a marvelous emerald green, and then split into prisms of rainbow light. It was beautiful, and he examined it drunkenly, starting to roll onto his back. It was so peaceful and beautiful, just like that fall into oblivion after an injection of pentathol. The air trickled out of his mouth and the bubbles were bright as precious stones. He watched them rise upwards.

”Upwards!” he thought groggily. ”Got to go up!” and he kicked lazily, pus.h.i.+ng weakly upwards.

Immediately there was a powerful heave on his waist belt and he saw Tungata's legs driving like the pistons of a steam locomotive in the lamplight. He watched them with the weighty concentration of a drunkard, but slowly they faded out into blackness. His last thought was, ”If this is dying, then it's better than its publicity,” and he let himself go into it with a weary fatalism.

He woke to pain, and he tried to force himself back into that comforting womb darkness of death, but there were hands bullying and pommelling him, and the rough barked timber rungs of the ladder cutting into his flesh.

Then he was aware that his lungs burned and his eyes felt as though they were swimming in concentrated acid. His nerve ends flared up, so that he could feel every aching muscle and the sting of every scratch and abrasion on his skin.

Then he heard the voice. He tried to shut it out.