Read Online The Lotus Caves by John Christopher - Free Book Online Page B

really is something funny there and we find it . . . Or even if we find Thurgood’s crawler. We’ll still be in ­trouble, but it may distract them a bit.”
    They argued about it. Marty felt he could not advance what weighed heaviest with him: the increasing longing to be back inside the Bubble, surrounded by the things and people he knew, taking the cabin to school, doing homework even . . . He realized Steve did not share this feeling. As the argument continued, he realized something else—that the people who had shaken their heads over him as obstinate and self-willed had not been all that far off the mark. Since they had palled up, Steve had seemed easygoing, willing to let Marty have the lead in things. There had been the balloons, but that was something Marty had accepted right away. Marty himself had suggested going to First Station, but that too was in line with what Steve wanted. This was the first time they had clashed sharply, and Marty found himself beaten back, bit by bit, by Steve’s implacable determination. In the end, Steve had him maneuvered into a position in which he had either to agree to the new scheme or seem a coward, scared of having offended the authorities and afraid to do anything that would offend them further. So, unwillingly, he agreed.
    â€œWe’ll go up there and have a look. But not hang around, searching, if we don’t find anything. O.K.?”
    Steve nodded. “O.K.”
    He seemed satisfied with his victory, but looked as though he had never been in doubt of it. Marty resented that and showed it. Steve in return was amiable. They worked it out that the co-ordinate point referred to would take seven or eight hours to reach, and he suggested that they should both get a sleep in before setting out. He insisted on Marty taking the bunk while he bedded down on the floor of the cabin.
    But it was some time before Marty got to sleep. At first he was being furious with himself over his own weakness. Later he was thinking of home and feeling miserable.
    Their route lay south of the pass, in higher and more difficult ground than that which they had previously encountered. The crawler needed careful handling and three or four times they went off course and had to backtrack. Driving was an exhausting business and they switched to one-hour shifts; even an hour was tiring. But they were making progress: the red line traced on the map by the navigator slowly lengthened, snaking its way up through the hills, toward the distant mountains. At last, Marty said: “We’re on it, as near as can be. 217-092. See any flowers?”
    It was a torn and savagely splintered land, jagged and angular, much harsher even than the usual moonscape. Steve had had the grip-spikes out continuously for the past half hour and even so the crawler tended to slip and stagger. He halted now, and said: “That could be the cleft he went through just before he saw it, over there on the left. There’s a bank of rock beyond with breaks in it. I’m going to try it anyway.”
    The fissures of which Thurgood had written were not only too narrow to get the crawler through but were also some feet above the floor of the little valley. Steve stopped the crawler again alongside one of them, and they stared out. The break looked across to a wall of rock, a hundred yards or so beyond. There was no sign of movement, no sign of anything but bare stone. Steve said: “I’m getting out to have a look.”
    Marty did not suggest accompanying him; it was routine that one person remained inside the crawler except in an emergency. He watched him go through the lock and then clamber awkwardly up inside the fissure so that he could see what lay on the other side. He stayed there some minutes. When he got back, Marty said: “Well?”
    Steve shook his head. “Nothing. There’s what looks like a small crater on the other side with a long drop beneath it. Nothing