"Right-o."

Having been checked out by a fresh pair of eyes, Oscar began rope-walking over the rift. Suspended at four points along the line, his body was nearly horizontal, spine toward the center of the earth. As always in a traverse, there was an element of sag. It made the operation of the ascenders inefficient, and progress was measured in inches. As the line began to angle, rising steeply toward the Wormhole, the slack was taken up. After a few strangled kicks to get the cams to lock down, Oscar climbed like a pro, covering the last thirty feet in as many seconds. The rig was a work of art; not so much slack that he was head-down at the bottom, but enough so that he was standing upright when he reached the hole.

In the scattering light, Anna could see his skinny arms weaving some sort of magic near the top of the traverse, where his shoulders blocked her view.

"That's the tricky part alluded to earlier," Holden said. Anna was startled at the nearness of his voice. She could feel his breath against her cheek. In their absorption, they'd knelt shoulder to shoulder on the edge of their limestone block like a couple of White Rock fairies in a troglodyte nightmare.

"What's he doing?" The words gusted out, and Anna realized she'd been holding her breath.

"There's no place to be, and the Wormhole's so tight it's sort of pay-as-you-go. He's changing ropes. Hooking onto the rebelay. He'll let himself loose a little bit at a time as he gets that part of himself into the hole. The hard bit is feeling for the Gibbs down at your feet. Sort of like tying your shoelaces when you're halfway down a python's throat."

Iverson squirmed a moment more, Anna and Holden so entranced they forgot to talk. Then it was as if the rock swallowed his head. It was gone, and only the body remained, twitching with remembered life. The shoulders were next, melting seamlessly into the cliff, the pathetic stick legs kicking in short convulsive movements. Hips vanished, and Anna and Holden's lights played over a pair of size-thirteen boots flipping feebly. The image was ludicrous, but Anna didn't feel like laughing. Hands reappeared, only the hands, gloved and bulky. With no a.s.sistance from a corporeal body, they fussed and fluttered and danced like a cartoon drawn by an artist on acid.

"Removing the foot ascenders," Holden said. "Last link."

Abruptly, the hands were sucked back into the limestone. The boots followed. All that remained to indicate that any life-form had ever existed was the gentle swaying of the rope.

"He's good," Holden said admiringly. "The man is good. He could thread himself through all four stomachs of a cow and never even give her the hiccups."

Anna eased back from the edge of the rock and rearranged legs grown stiff from too long without movement. "Me next," she said, and was pleased at how normal her voice sounded.

"Not yet. Oscar will holler when he's ready. There's no room to turn around in the Wormhole. He's got to crawl on up a little ways. There's a chimney. He'll go up, spin himself about, then come back down so he can get the gear and pull you in. One of you guys will do the same for me.

"The creepy-crawly part of the hole's fifty feet or so." Holden answered Anna's unasked question. "Then it opens right up. Big stuff like we've been doing."

Anna nodded. She'd not wanted to ask, but the Wormhole was eating away at her hard-won control. Fifty feet; she measured it out in her mind. Frieda's backyard in Mesa Verde was fenced to keep her dog, Taco, from wandering. The posts were eight feet apart. Anna had helped replace four of them at the beginning of the summer. Fifty feet: six pestholes. She could swim that far underwater. Sprint that far in high heels and panty hose. Fifty feet. Nothing to it.

"All set." The words reverberated across the chasm, and Anna and Tillman trained their lights on the orifice that had swallowed Oscar. A disembodied hand waved to them from the solid fortress that was their destination.

"Now you next," Holden said. "Have fun." He smiled and she smiled back, glad to know him, glad to have him with her. Holden Tillman's smile was better than a bottle of Xanax.

Anna was always careful with climbing gear. This time her attention to detail was obsessive. The contortionist movements required to hook ascenders with half her body bobbing over a crevice she couldn't see the bottom of required that each movement be thought through before it was attempted. She was glad the ranger from Rocky Mountains who had taught her to climb had insisted she practice everything one-handed, and by touch, not sight. Tillman trained his lamp on her hands and watched.

"Looks good," he said when she had finished. "See you on the other side."

Anna nodded and pulled herself hand-over-hand along the rope till she could begin to kick in with her rope-walkers. For a brief eternity she floundered like a fish in a net. Because the Gibbs wouldn't lock regardless of how she angled her feet in an attempt to get the cams to catch, she was muscling her way along, using the strength of her arms and shoulders. Bad form, and something she couldn't maintain for any length of time. Exertion made the line sway. Coupled with the wild dancing of shadows every time she moved her head, it was dizzying. Adrenaline, already high, rose to poisonous levels.

Closing her eyes, she forced herself to relax, let the rope and metal take the weight. After a steadying breath, she began again her crippled walk, this time with more success. The rope inclined, tension increased, the cams locked and unlocked fluidly. Much to her amazement, she found she was enjoying herself. Deep in the bedrock of the Southwest, and she was probably as high as she'd ever climbed. She laughed aloud and hoped Holden wouldn't mistake it for hysteria.

The ascent was over too soon. Head against the wall, feet over the rift, she dead-ended. By craning her neck she could look back far enough to see the opening she was supposed to get into. It was nothing snort of miraculous that Iverson had managed it without aid. She felt utterly helpless.

"Oscar?"

"Right here." An ungloved hand, looking sublimely human, came out several inches above her face and the fingers waggled cheerfully. "Put your arms over your head like you're diving."

It took a minor act of will, but Anna got both hands off the traverse line and did as she was instructed. Fingers locked around her wrists, and she was drawn into the Wormhole. Stone brushed against her left shoulder and her face was no more than two inches from the rock above. The dragging pulled her helmet over her eyes. Newly blind, her first sense that the environment had changed was the warm sweet smell of sweat mixed liberally with cotton and dust. An unseen hand tipped her hat back so she could see. Rock had been replaced by a maroon tee-shirt with pink lettering so close to her face she couldn't read it. She was less than an inch below Iverson's chest. The s.p.a.ce was closing in. Her lungs squeezed and her throat constricted. An image of fighting like a maddened cat, clawing back out to fall into the abyss, ripped through her mind.

Now's not a good time, she warned herself. "What next?" she asked, needing to move.

"Is your rear end in?"

"Feels like it."

"Okay. There's s.p.a.ce to your right. You're going to have to stretch over, reach down, and let loose your foot ascenders."

Anna bent to the right at her waist. She tried to bring her knee up but cracked it painfully against the rock. Second try and she could feel the ascender on her boot. After a moment of fumbling she pulled the quick-release pin securing the cam and plucked the line out. "Got it," she said.

"Left is harder, but you're short and flexible," Iverson said encouragingly.

Anna grunted and pretzeled farther over in the slot that sandwiched her in. The left proved easier. Small blessings. She'd take what she could get. "I'm loose."

"Get your body as straight as you can," Iverson told her. She squirmed her bones into a line. Every movement was dogged by difficulty. Clothing and gear caught and dragged. Her hard hat pulled, choking then blinding her. Fear built. She began to count in her head to drown out the distant buzz of panic, a sound like a swarm of angry bees.

"Okay. Good. Grab my knees and pull yourself the rest of the way in."

Anna worked her arms back over her head and felt the warmth of Oscar's thighs. Hooking her fingers behind his knees, she dragged herself toward them.

"Watch your light!"

She stopped just before she rammed his groin with the apparatus. "Caving is not conducive to human dignity," she grumbled.

"Nope. Just to long and meaningful relationships," Oscar said, and Anna laughed to let him know she appreciated the effort. "You're home free. Take off your helmet and push it ahead. Keep going till you come out in a place that looks like it's made of cheese. Wait for us there."

Inching along like a worm, Anna oozed between Oscar's legs. The pa.s.sage opened enough so she could roll over onto her stomach, then closed down again so tight she had to turn her head sideways to make any progress. The bees whined, the noise threatening sanity.

She scratched ahead with her toes. Tugged forward with fingertips and stomach muscles. Humped along like a caterpillar, ignoring the rake of stone knives down her shoulder blades. Each foot achieved was a goal to be celebrated. When she thought she couldn't take any more she was granted a reprieve. The Wormhole bored out of the wall into a large room, and she spewed gratefully to the floor.

Oscar Iverson's choice of metaphor had been apt. As if she had entered a mouse's dream of paradise, Anna had arrived into what looked like a giant piece of Swiss cheese. Uniformly pale round pa.s.sages twisted away in all directions. Without moving she could count twelve openings, some as small as the Wormhole, some big enough to walk through upright. The place was a three-dimensional maze, confusing and disorienting. But it was bigger than a bread box, and Anna contented herself with that.

In less than twenty minutes the men joined her. "Eight thirty," Iverson said, looking at his watch. "We're way slow. Everybody okay to pick up the pace?" Too tired to speak, Anna nodded. Packs were redistributed, and they resumed travel. Again Oscar set a brutal pace. Anna worked until there was no room for thought, for observation, no room even for fear. Holden's promise held true; there were no more creepy crawly bits and only a handful of places they had to chimney or stoop-walk. The earth's interior was so riddled with airs.p.a.ce it was a wonder great tracts of the Trans-Pecos didn't collapse periodically.

Wonders flashed past in a sweating stream, caught in light fragments like views from a rain-streaked train window. Falls of liquid stone the color of old bra.s.s emptied into a lake so clear that the bottom, thirty feet down, looked no farther away than Anna's toes. There was no way around it, and the three of them stripped naked lest their filthy clothes sully water kept pure for millennia. Clothing was put in zipper-lock plastic bags to keep it dry. For the climb back out of the water filled room, they donned rubber beach shoes so they would not scar the perfect surface of the flowstone, tumbling in a waterless fall frozen in place for all time.

After the lake, they dressed and laced on their boots for Razor Blade Run. Aragonite bushes, white and as freeform as coral, bloomed in the utter stillness. The slightest touch by a pa.s.sing caver was enough to snap the delicate crystals. Tunnels of these fragile, razor-sharp feathers were eased through with aching slowness and a constant mantra of "be careful. Look out. Big one. Take it slow . . ." from Iverson.

"Watch those big feet. Laymon says Oscar walks like an elephant on a pogo stick . . ." from Holden.

Anna's legs carried her. Hands grasped rope. She poured water down her throat. Miracles pa.s.sed by.

By the time they arrived in Tinker's h.e.l.l, where Frieda lay, it was after two in the morning. Anna hadn't slowed the cavers down. She hadn't gotten hurt. And she hadn't gone nuts. All in all, a successful day.

Tinker's, where the survey team was camped, was an immense chamber; Shea Stadium could have been tucked inside with room left over for a taxi stand. Anna, Holden, and Iverson entered through a jumbled corridor devoid of decorations and uniformly dirt-colored. The pa.s.sage emerged halfway between the floor and the ceiling of Tinker's, spilling onto a high balcony guarded by a natural parapet of stone. Oscar was astraddle this wall drinking water when Anna came into Tinker's h.e.l.l.

Every muscle in her body melted with fatigue. Aches and pains would come with rest. For the moment she felt only warm and liquid, her mind as pliant as her limbs. With a poorly concealed grunt of exhaustion, she dumped her pack and dragged herself up beside him.

Sixty feet below, in the immense room, was a scene of rampant destruction. Breakdown littered the floor; blocks of limestone, some the size of houses, lay one on top of the other like the building blocks of a spoiled giant flung across his nursery. Amid this majestic rubble were cones and pillars of gold and burnt umber, stalact.i.tes and stalagmites that had been growing for countless ages and now lay broken and scattered.

"Jesus," Anna said. "Earthquake?"

"Who knows? I've never seen anything like it. But the breaks are old, old, old. Whatever happened, happened a long time ago."

Holden joined them, his light weaving in with theirs as they looked at the magnificent ruin.

"Yup," Holden said after a few minutes' study. "It looks like a bomb hit a tinker's cart. Have you spotted the camp yet?"

From his pack Iverson dug a secondary light source, a powerful six cell flashlight, and played the beam over the jagged floor. Near the end of the great room, on a flat place tucked up near the left-hand wall, his light picked out the litter of humanity. Looking pathetically small and fragile in the confusion of elemental stone, six people lay in sleeping bags. The wrinkled forms were soft and shapeless, like larvae on a deserted patch of beach. The necessities of human existence- packs, stoves, water, and food-were piled neatly at one end of the clearing. The group had been there four days, one since Frieda was hurt. The camp appeared clean and well organized.

"Another twenty minutes and vacation's over," Iverson said.

They donned packs and started the tedious climb down to the cavern floor. This time Holden Tillman led.

Underground operations had officially commenced.

By the time they neared the camp, Anna was so tired she was stumbling. It was as if her brain, recognizing that the end was in sight, had quit holding her muscles together. The only workable mode of travel across Tinker's h.e.l.l was boulder-hopping. At each leap, she found herself keeping her center of gravity closer to the ground. When Dr. Peter McCarty came from the camp to meet them, she was traveling on all fours, the wolfman reverting to type.

McCarty and Tillman exchanged greetings, and introductions were muttered. Anna dredged up a nod. A handshake was beyond her. She was even too far gone to protest when McCarty took her pack to carry it the last ten yards. At that point she doubted she'd have put up much of a fight if he'd offered to carry her.

Even with the stamp of the cave on him and five days from a showerhead, Peter McCarty was a handsome man. Not matinee-idol pretty-Anna would have found that off-putting-but with enough flaws to keep his face interesting. His lips were chiseled but a little too thin, his jaw strong but with a crude boxiness at the angle of the bones. His voice was light but pleasant, with an adenoidal quality to it as if he suffered from a slight head cold. His curling brown hair was thinning at the hairline. Anna guessed his age to be forty, or near enough-it didn't matter.

He and Holden fell into a close, whispered conversation, needing to share information but not wanting to disturb the sleepers. They'd forgotten to douse their helmet lights, and feeling mildly righteous, Anna switched hers off and leached from them as she staggered in last and folded onto the floor. She was too tired even to sleep without being told to and sat lumpishly staring at them as they conversed in tones too low for her to make sense of.

At length, Holden broke away and came over to where she waited, beyond patience and nearly in a state of catatonia.

"Frieda?" she asked.

"No better, no worse."

"Good news," Anna said. With a wound to the head, it was. Deterioration of levels of consciousness or motor control augured evil, usually swelling or bleeding in the skull that, unchecked, would create deadly pressure.

Holden nodded. "Peter is putting her on a hundred percent oxygen with a non-rebreather. He's got things well in hand. He separated Frieda from the others to give her a little quiet and privacy. He wants you to bed down over near her. Don't talk to her, he said. Let her sleep. Just be there in case she wakes up."

"Got it."

Holden pointed out the rec.u.mbent form that was Frieda Dierkz. In his shielded light, Anna could see the leg, an air-splint from foot to mid-thigh. Dr. McCarty was fitting the non-rebreather oxygen mask over the woman's face. Frieda was fighting his attempts to help her, moving her head from side to side and moaning in such a way that Anna was overcome with an irrational fury toward her tormentor.

Biting back words she was bound to regret, she knelt in the dirt near her friend's head and laid her hand on her brow. "It's me, Anna," she said softly. "I got here as fast as I could. You couldn't have hurt yourself in the Bahamas or Paris, could you? It had to be here. You are such a pain in the b.u.t.t, Frieda."

"Interesting bedside manner," McCarty said dryly.

Frieda stopped fighting. The tension went out of her muscles, and her breathing evened out.

"Ooh. Hey," the doctor said. "Maybe I'll have to give it a try."

Anna laughed. "Where are you from?" she asked on impulse.

"St. Paul, Minnesota." She couldn't have said why, but it didn't surprise her. "I'm glad you showed up," McCarty said wearily. "Let's go with the nasal cannula at six liters. I don't want her getting agitated again."

Anna handed him the appropriate tubing and, when he had it in place, turned the flow to six liters per minute. He watched her carefully. She didn't bother telling him she was an EMT. Doctors seemed to make a point of being aggressively unimpressed by that tidbit of information.

McCarty took his patient's pulse one last time, then turned his light on Anna's face. She didn't like being diagnosed, and busied herself with her pack. "Sleep," he prescribed. "Do you need something to help you?"

Too tired to laugh at him, she managed a "No thanks," and was rewarded by his departure.

She didn't pull out her s.p.a.ce blanket or take off her boots. Laying her head on the unkind lumps in her sidepack, she was instantly asleep.

So deep was her unconsciousness that when she was awakened she didn't know if minutes or days had pa.s.sed. For a horrifying moment she didn't know where she was; then, with no decrease in the horror, she did. Such was the suffocating blackness, Anna was blind, deaf, and dumb with it. Black filled her lungs, and she couldn't get enough air. Fighting the drawstrings of her pack, she felt for and found the little blue Maglite. Clicking it on, she carved a s.p.a.ce big enough that she could breathe. The pounding of her heart racketed in her ears, and she had to go to the john desperately; a mere Baggie seemed inadequate to the task.

Breathing evenly, she quieted her heartbeat to a dull thunder. Through it she heard the noise that had pulled her from sleep: her name, a sound so insubstantial it could have been the whisper of a ghost. "Anna . . ." and an exhalation.

On elbows and knees, she crawled over to Frieda. "I'm here," she said.

"Anna . . ." again, and something about a lake with marble clouds, and Taco throwing up on her good shoes.

Shading the light, Anna studied her friend's face. The skin was flushed on forehead and cheeks but white and drawn around the lips. Automatically she checked Frieda's pupils. Equal and reactive. No battle signs showed behind the ears. No fluids leaked from ears or nostrils, and the flesh around her eyes was not discolored. McCarty would have looked at all this, Anna reminded herself; still, she checked.

Frieda's gaze skimmed across her face and wandered to the impossible darkness above. "Thirsty," she said. Anna fed her sips of water, scared to lift her head lest there was a neck injury, scared of choking her to death if she didn't.

"Stay with me, Frieda. I came all this way. Don't leave me now," Anna pleaded. "I'm not leaving you."

Frieda's hand closed convulsively on Anna's tee-shirt, bunching the fabric tight around her ribs. "It wasn't an accident," she said clearly.

"What? What wasn't an accident?" Anna demanded.

"Lily pads ruined," she whispered, and Anna could see that reason had fled.

"Frieda," she begged, but the woman's eyes closed. Anna resisted a cruel urge to shake her.

Not an accident.

Marble clouds, dog vomit, and lily pads: Frieda was delirious. It didn't take Freud to figure that out. But there'd been a moment's clarity. And a reason Frieda had asked for a friend, a noncaver friend from outside.

Anna sat back, traced her finger of light over the feet of her companions. "G.o.d, but this sucks," she muttered. Curling herself around Frieda like a Viking's dog on his master's funeral ship, Anna laid her head down once more. If anyone wanted to get to Dierkz, they would have to tread on some part of Anna's anatomy to do it. It was all she could do till morning.

Morning was two days away.

4.

The next time Anna was dragged from sleep, the effect was not so jarring. People were on the move. A lantern pushed back the dark walls until the camp seemed almost s.p.a.cious. Voices softened the sepulchral stillness, and there was the smell of coffee. The odor was weak, the brew undoubtedly instant, but it was enough to stir Anna's sluggish mind.

Lying motionless, she watched the wakening camp. This far from the sun, all was shrouded. Shadows claimed more than light, and light cloaked as often as it revealed. Focus flickered, changeable as candle flames, as a lamp caught one plane, then another, lopping off a nose with moving shadow, sparking an eye bright as opal. Colors were fired and quenched, leaving comet trails on the retina as they pa.s.sed. Beams sought out sudden horizons at varying distances, and the cavern appeared to be expanding and contracting; an uncertain and secretive world, more hidden than would ever be told.