It took a long time to make the trek back to the North Qualm region, and we didn't arrive until well into the second half of the night. Clouds had masked the sky, hiding the moon and stars, and the only light was the flare of the volcanic hills, underlighting the low clouds with a fluctuating red haze. The air was thick with sulphurous smoke.
We left the speeder concealed in a hollow, its position flagged by a marker tag, and headed west around the outreaches of the area, the 'flame hills' as Rhizor called them.
Nocturnal creatures chattered and fluted in the darkness. Something larger and more distant howled. Pressing through the thorn-scrub, we
became aware of the harsh artificial lighting bathing the entire settlement. The volcanoes rumbled.
It took Rhizor a little time to find what he was looking for: a series of small, shallow pools, half-filled with geothermally heated water. The syrupy surfaces of the pools seethed and bubbled, and the site was plagued with insects drawn by the heat. Rhizor splashed cautiously into the largest pool, and worked his way around a massive boulder that was swathed in bright orange lichen. Behind it, masked by thorn and cycad, was a narrow cavity. This, he said, as best as I could understand him, was the route by which he had escaped from the slave-gangs.
We checked weapons and equipment and prepared to enter. I had opened the weapons locker on the cutter and provided us with as much efficient firepower as we could comfortably manage. I had my power-sword, an autopistol in a rig under my coat, and a las-carbine with a lamp pack taped under the muzzle. Other items of equipment filled the pack on my back. Bequin had kept her autopistol, and taken a flat-bladed knife, and she too had a lamp. I'd given Fischig an old but well-maintained heavy stubber, which seemed to please him enormously. He had his Arbites pistol, and a satchel full of spare ammo drums for the stubber. Rhizor had refused a weapon. I was certain he would leave us once we were safely en route anyway.
The cavity allowed us to enter single file. I led the way, with Rhizor behind me, then Bequin, and Fischig brought up the rear. It was damnably hot in the narrow rock passage, and the sulphurous gases forced us to wear our rebreathers. Rhizor had no breather, but tied a swathe of cloth around his nose and mouth. This was the practice the slaves had used when working the mines.
The passage wound back and forth, and climbed for a while as it coiled into the hill. In places, it was so steep we had to climb up the ragged floor of the burrow. Twice we had to remove our equipment packs to ease through constricted sections.
After an hour, I began to feel the oppressive throb of the psychic veil shrouding North Qualm. As we penetrated it, I listened out for the sound of alarms or activity, but none came. Though she didn't know it, Bequin was already doing her job by creating a dead spot that allowed us to press on invisibly. I made sure none of us strayed too far from her aura of influence.
The lava flues were crawling with lifeforms adjusted to existence in the hot, chemical-rich environment: blind, toad-like hunters, transparent beetles, albino molluscs and spiders that looked like they were fashioned from white gold. A fat, pallid centipede as long as my arm spurred its way over the baked rock at one junction.
Every few minutes the earth trembled. Loose rock and dust showered down from the roof, and warm, reeking gases blew back along the winding rock halls.
The passage widened, and showed signs of excavation. Thorn-wood props supported the ceiling, and marker boards with numbers chalked on
them were nailed to every sixth post. Rhizor tried to explain where we were. He did his best, and I was able to ascertain we were in a section of mine that had been worked and then abandoned. He said other things too, but the meaning was beyond me. He led us to the end of one working, a low, propped tunnel, and I shone my light into a cavity that had been dug out of the loose shale and grit. Bequin knelt and brushed grit off the floor with her hand. She exposed old tiles, made of a dull, metallic substance I couldn't identify. The tiles were perfectly fitted, despite the fact that they were irregular octagons. They were strangely unsymmetrical, with some edges overlong. Yet they all fitted almost seamlessly. We could not begin to account for it, and the pattern they made was intensely uncomfortable.
