Chapter 21

Crichton

When John Crichton was twelve years old some older kids had dared him to walk through a buried drainage pipe. The pipe was long, barely tall enough to stand up in, and had very little water running through it. It wasn't possible to see from one end to the other, since it curved. By riding his bike along the country road near it, and thanks to a new bike odometer, he had measured it at just over a half mile long.

As a budding scientist he made a quick calculation after measuring his stride. It was just over 1100 steps to cover that distance. Now the thing was the dare was to walk it at night without a flashlight. John wasn't afraid of the dark, so he accepted.

It was really dark in that pipe, he recalled, because it was a cloudy and night and the moon hadn't risen yet. A street lamp illuminated one end and all he had to do was to walk in a line, splashing through the two or three inches of water at the bottom and running his hands along the concrete overhead. No problem, he thought. There was no way he could get lost, and after the stunt he'd be allowed into the tree house the older boys had built.

What he'd not counted on was how damn dark it was in there! Really, really dark, and after the first two hundred steps (he counted them the whole way) he could not see a thing. "As dark as a closet in a submarine with a power failure at the bottom of the ocean," he kept repeating along the route.

The splashing of his booted feet, the scrape of occasional touches of a shoulder or his fingers along the sides of the concrete cylinder, and his panting breath was all there was. He could have been on the far side of the Moon in a cave during a solar eclipse or deep inside the Earth for eyesight would give you no clue at all. Either way there was nothing to see. And after a while, he could hear his pounding heart.

But this time there was also a scrabbling noise as a force tugged on his foot, pulling him feet first. Reflexively he kicked at the thing, and with a squawk it dropped his foot and started muttering curses.

"You are big! Big prize!"

"Wha?" John opened his eyes to darkness, the rich deep darkness of that closet in a submarine at the bottom of the ocean.

"And squirming!" said some unseen creature.

John sensed something swinging down towards his head so he blocked the blow with a forearm and grabbed the pipe or whatever and threw it into the distance. "That's enough of that crap." What'd you hit me with?"

He blinked and rolled over, feeling dirt with pebbles under him along with a pounding headache. "Damn! What in the hell?" he muttered and his voice bounced back to him. He reached to his holster and found it empty. "Great! Just great! Oww, my head!" He probed and found no wounds there but there was a lump. "Where am I?"

"You are my prisoner," said a soft yet firm voice.

"Not very likely Buckwheat," John answered. The memory of that drainage pipe and the long ago dare receded. Focus John, focus, he thought. Lost on an alien world and conked on the head by something and dragged underground. "Great. Super. Best day of my life."

"Aeryn? D'Argo?" A few tentative sweeps with his outstretched hands told him there were plenty of jagged rocks around - ankle breakers about six inches to a foot or more in size. The roughness contrasted with the smooth floor and rounded pebbles under his feet and butt.

"Hello?" he shouted and his voice came back to him in different volumes and timing.

"No one here but us," said the thing.

"Yeah," John said. "And who are you?"

"Constable."

John found that there was a very faint light - so it was a closet in a sub - but not more. He could faintly see a squat figure crouching a few feet away staring at him. "It's a cave!" He rubbed his hands across the rocks about him. "These are breakdown boulders - came from above. But the floor is eroded by water. Hmm. A dry cave then. But water once flowed here," he sniffed and smelling dust, "a longg time ago."

"Yes… long time. No water now."

John leaned forward on his knees and faced the dimly seen animal. "All right little buddy. I know this is all a big mistake. Now what's the big idea of banging me over the head?"

"I arrest."

John relaxed then sprang forward, but the thing lunged away screaming. "Good job, Crichton. How to win friends and influence people." He rubbed his aching head again.

"Little bastard!" he yelled out and heard his voice echo from far distances. This was a big cave, and a scrabbling noise receded under his echoing voice as the constable ran for his life. He quit talking and let the sounds of his voice die out.

"Ok, John, off your ass and find the wall." He stumbled and half-crawled over rocks and broken stones until he found a vertical wall. He turned himself until the wall was under his left hand and sensed the running sounds had come from dead ahead.

"Ok, John. You're deep underground. You have no idea how you got here. Your head is killing you, and you have no light, no food, and no water. And for all you know there are Morlocks down here."

Crichton tripped over a rock, the oppressiveness darkness pressing down on him. "Hoo boy. Why do I suddenly feel like an Eloi down here?" back in that tunnel he thought, just count steps.

He shuffled along counting. "One, two, damn! Big rock… three…"

Notes:

Morlocks = The underground dwellers who raised and ate Eloi in the novel "The Time Machine," H. G. Well's novel from 1895.

Eloi = The idyllic dwellers of the surface in Well's story of the future of mankind.