Read Online Earth Cult by Trevor Hoyle - Free Book Online

the sluggish humid layer out of the valley and there was a perceptible chill as the colder mountain air tumbled down from the peaks.
    As he was coming out of the bathroom Frank met Spencer Tutt on the landing; he was carrying a pile of sheets, blankets and towels. The young man nodded a greeting and said in his lazy drawl, ‘We got the power back on, so you’ll be able to eat breakfast. That were a daddy, weren’t it?’
    Frank agreed that it had been quite a storm. He said, ‘You get them pretty often, I believe.’
    â€˜That we do. An’ they’re gettin’ to be worse, I can tell you. The one last night was the worst yet.’ He regarded Frank fora moment, his eyes set close together above the prominent sunburned beak of his nose. ‘Looks like them scine-tists over at the Project reaped what they sowed. An’ it seems like nobody’s gonna lift a finger.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜The old Telluride working was flooded last night. Three or four men still down there, trapped by the floodwater. They put out a call for volunteers but there ain’t nobody exactly rushin’ to help.’ He shrugged slightly, the wide rake of his bony shoulders stretching the material of his shirt. He turned away.
    â€˜Isn’t there a rescue team in the area?’
    â€˜Oh yeah,’ said Spencer Tutt over his shoulder. ‘And we’re it.’
    â€˜Do you mean nobody’s willing to help them?’ Frank said.
    He found it hard to believe that the townspeople could be so filled with the desire for revenge that it overcame everything else. But it seemed he had seriously underestimated the depth of bitterness and ill-feeling.
    He said, ‘Is the road to the Project still open?’
    â€˜Far as I know. Bin no reports that the bridge is down, anyways.’
    Frank stared after the young man’s lean angular back; he was shocked and momentarily at a loss. His first positive thought was to wonder if the engineers on the Deep Hole Project had the facilities to mount a rescue operation … it was logical to assume they would in case just such an emergency as this arose. But had they been trained in underground search and rescue? What was required was a team of men with specialized training and knowledge who knew the local strata and were experienced in locating miners buried under rockfalls or cut off by underground streams. In the absence of such expert help the chances of reaching the trapped scientists were negligible.
    It took almost an hour to get to the Project: the road above the bridge spanning Eagle River had been washed away in places and there had already been some attemptsmade at clearing the rubble and making the road passable. Tyre tracks indicated that a number of vehicles had passed to and fro and Frank wondered if the scientists had been able to summon outside help.
    But when he arrived it soon became evident that they hadn’t. Professor Friedmann might have been a first-rate theorist in the field of neutrino astronomy but his grasp of practical matters – particularly when it came to organizing an underground rescue operation – was far too tentative and unsure, lacking the knowledge and ability to deploy men in the most effective manner.
    There were two or three small groups standing around the compound, rather lost and aimless it seemed, and Professor Friedmann was talking with the Senior Engineer, a burly man wearing a bright yellow safety-helmet, the two of them standing at a trestle-table spread with maps and charts. Dr Leach wasn’t to be seen, Frank noted, and he wondered if he was one of the men trapped underground.
    Professor Friedmann had a look in his eyes that could only be described as controlled panic. He nodded brusquely as Frank came up, tapping a ruler on the table in a rapid nervous tattoo, not really listening as the Senior Engineer explained the layout of the ventilation and water-drainage systems in