Read Online Blake’s 7: Warship by Peter Anghelides - Free Book Online

were unreadable behind his frosted goggles. ‘I must have loosened the thing.’
    ‘Keep telling yourself that,’ said Cally.
    There was an ominous cracking sound as the ice at their feet crumbled.
    ‘Quickly,’ she told him. ‘We must get inside.’
    As she was closer, Cally swiftly clambered into the dark opening. She could see nothing beyond the hatch. Cally tested with her numbed feet for a firm surface. There seemed to be a hard, flat platform just inside, so she manoeuvred carefully until her whole body was through the hatchway.
    She helped Blake through, and they stood together on a small landing. It was a metal square, at the side of which the looped handles of a ladder led down into darkness. The storm sounds were already starting to recede.
    ‘Blake? Are you all right?’
    He had climbed in behind her. ‘I’m fine.’ She could hear him struggling with something. ‘Switch your torch on. I’m just pulling the hatch shut.’
    Cally had a torch positioned in the hood of her suit. She switched it on, and a sharp cone of light spilled out into the dark chamber.
    Above her, the storm sounds ceased abruptly as Blake pulled the metal hatch shut with a resounding clang. The echo spoke of depths beyond the platform on which they now stood. In the comparative quiet, the sound of air moving was like half-heard whispers from an unseen group of people. But she and Blake were alone in the darkness.
    Blake exhaled a huge breath. She wasn’t sure if it was the effort, or simple relief to be out of the gale. ‘You should be more careful,’ Cally warned him. You could have reopened your wound.’
    ‘I think I’d prefer that to plunging into icy water.’ He clutched for a hand-hold as his feet slipped from under him.
    ‘Steady, Blake.’ She angled her torch to show where they were standing. Although the platform was made of corrugated metal, the storm had washed enough icy water over the lip of the hatch to make the surface treacherous. ‘You wouldn’t want to slip over the edge.’
    Where it wasn’t covered in slush, the platform showed as heavily oxidised metal. There was no rust, but there were rock fragments and dust. The only marks that disturbed this powdery covering were their footprints. No-one else had been here for a very long time. The platform and the ladder suggested it had been designed by humans – or at the very least, designed for humans.
    Blake tugged his hood down, and took off his goggles. Cally fumbled to remove her own goggles, hampered by the thick gloves and lack of feeling in her fingers. The goggles caught on the edge of her suit and jiggled out of her grasp. They bounced once on the platform, and then dropped over the edge.
    Cally groaned in annoyance. She stood looking angrily in the direction they had vanished, as though that might make them reappear. Some seconds later, she heard the distant clatter as the goggles finally hit a lower surface.
    ‘Wow,’ said Blake. ‘That’s some drop.’ He nodded towards the ladder behind Cally. ‘How deep d’you reckon it is?’
    Cally removed her gloves to adjust her torch. The cone of light splayed out wide to illuminate the whole platform. She edged towards the ladder, took a hold of the guide rail, and peered down cautiously.
    It was a narrow shaft, dropping vertically straight through the rock in a roughly hewn passage. The ladder was thin, with no guide rails beyond the first half-dozen rungs. Far below, perhaps forty metres down, Cally thought she could make out another metal platform. She relayed this information to Blake, before swinging her legs out onto the ladder and beginning her descent.
    Above her, she could hear Blake preparing to follow. ‘Hey, wait for me!’
    Initially, Cally carefully tested each step. The platform above her had shown little sign of deterioration, but she didn’t trust that every rung in the ladder was sound, nor that any one of them might not be treacherously covered in dust from a rock fall. Not even