The Diving Dames Affair - Leslie Peter - Страница 25

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Around the bend in the passage the girl was waiting. His breath hissed in with surprise as he saw her - but then he realized she had a welcoming smile on her face and he breathed out in a long, slow sigh of relief. She had taken off the white nurse's uniform and now she was dressed in the D.A.M.E.S. green. Her lips were parted in a smile but her eyes, shadowed by a bang of blonde hair, were troubled.

"I thought you were never coming," she whispered. "What happened? I thought you were supposed to be a top agent!"

"I had to wait to make sure the TV was off before I started on the lock," Solo whispered back. "But I don't get it. What gives? Why would you help me escape?"

"I hated my foster parents," the girl murmured. "They used to keep birds in cages. When I was eight I set most of them free. The old man half killed me - and ever since then I've always hated to see anything in captivity. Setting things free is my way of getting even, I guess. I suppose that's why I married Danny."

"Danny?"

"Danny Lerina. Greatest safe man on the Coast. There wasn't a lock made that he couldn't master."

"Wasn't?"

"He was killed on some government job in Korea - but not before he'd taught me most of what he knew. Come to think of it, you're a little like him, you know. Maybe that's why I kind of took a shine to you when I saw you in there."

"Well, thanks," Solo said softly. "But tell me - just what's going on in here? Where is this place? What's happening?... Forgive my interrupting - we can continue the mutual admiration society afterwards, and I think you're pretty, too - but first I'd like to know where I am!"

"Gee, I'm sorry. Of course. Here, put these on." She produced a rolled up dungaree suit from under her arm. "It's not much but it was all I could get in the time. I'll talk while you dress."

"Shouldn't we go somewhere – ah - quieter?"

"What for? We're on C Level down here - just the cells, the stores, some of the minor offices, and the reactor."

"Did you say reactor?"

"Sure. It's only a little one, of course - but since the power station outside the dam's a blind, we have to get power from somewhere, don't we?"

"I – ah - I guess so, yes. What about the offices, though - isn't somebody likely to be in and out of them?"

"At three-thirty in the morning?"

"Oh... I'm sorry. I'd no idea. I thought it was just after lunch time!"

The girl laughed. "No, I suppose you could hardly know, down here," she said. Not that it's much different on B and A, for that matter."

"And what does one find on B and A?"

"Well, living quarters on B, of course. And catering. And the important offices and the Council Chamber. And the radio room and the armory. The barracks and so on. A Level is mainly the pen, of course -"

"The pen?"

"Yes, the pen. For the ship. It has to go somewhere, doesn't it?"

"There's a ship connected with this place - and the ship docks on the top story? Presumably A Level is the upper one?"

"Yes, yes. For the depth. They can't risk her grounding, you know."

"I don't know!" Solo burst out. "Look, just to please me, tell me what's going on here. I assume we're still somewhere near the dam... right? Well, I know about the dam itself, I know about the power station that doesn't work, I know there's about twenty miles of filled up by an artificial lake. I know Getuliana's as much a blind as the hydroelectric scheme and the made-up road that leads from one to the other. But that's all I' know. I don't know what's going on."

"'Well the pen's on the top floor because the whole place is under water and -"

"Under water!"

"Of course. Didn't you know that?... Well, obviously you didn't or you wouldn't look so surprised. Yes, while, they were building the dam they also built this place on the floor of the valley, completely covered in and watertight - and then when it was finished and the water rose it was eventually covered over."

"How do you get in and out?"

"There's a tunnel that leads to it through the mountain. It comes out in the next valley at the estancia. And of course you can get in and out through the pen - though that doesn't do you much good, since the ship only comes back to the same place; there's no other dock in the lake."

"And where do you girls come in? Why the D.A.M.E.S.?"

"We helped resettle the natives from the valley, and -"

"I know that, but why not real D.A.M.E.S. for that matter?"

"I suppose because we had to become members of Thrush - for the secrecy, you know - and they felt we'd be more likely to agree if we had police records. All of us have, you know. I guess they pretended we belonged to this organization just in case any Brazilian officials asked about us - just to keep the thing looking above board. And then again, they preferred West Coast girls because of the swimming."

"The swimming?"

"We all had to be good swimmers and divers - divers especially. To help with the ship in the pen."

"Do you mean to say," Solo asked, the light finally bursting, "that the pen is under water too? It's an underwater dock... the ship is a submarine?"

"But of course, I thought you realized."

"They go to all this trouble to find spurious reasons to construct an artificial lake - just so they can build an underwater dock and play submarines with it? Why?"

The girl told him.

Solo gave a long, low whistle of astonishment. "Look," he said, "I don't know how you think we can get out of this watery fortress -"

"I don't think we can. It's just that I don't like to see people in cells. I told you."

"Sure. Well, never mind that. The point is - in or out, I have to make contact with my boss. You don't have any objection?... I mean, you don't appear to have any particularly strong allegiance to Thrush."

"I couldn't care less. Not if they keep people in cells."

"Sure, sure. It's a thing you have. I know... Now, did I hear you say there was a radio room here? If so, it, seems my best plan would be to try and crash that first and send a message from here, rather than try to escape from the place altogether - which is probably impossible - and make contact from outside. Do you agree?'

"Yes. I think there's only one man left on duty at night. And I don't suppose he'll be too alert at the time - but you watch out. You don't have too much reserve of strength, you know: you've been under heavy sedation for days."

"Just show me where the radio room is," Solo said, "and I'll worry about my strength when we get there. I promise not to kill more than a hundred of them..."

The girl took his arm and led him through a maze of passages, past louvered doors shaking with the vibrations of unseen machinery, past notice boards winking with red pilot lights and green and blue, and up a flight of concrete stairs winding around a shaft housing three elevators. On the level above, the humming of the plant was less obtrusive - though he still found the windowless subterranean atmosphere, with its dry and hygienic air, oppressive in the extreme. Somewhere below them, beneath the massive foundations of the fortress, lay the drenched earth which had until so recently supported the footsteps of simple farmers; somewhere around and above, millions of tons of water pressed remorselessly in upon the walls.

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