Part 22
"The secret base or whatever it is can wait." John decides. "There are innocent civilians in more immediate danger. We can tackle other problems when we come to them."
"I could go on to the base on my own, John." You offer but he shakes his head.
"No, Jay. You're still a little shaky on how to use most of your powers, I think you'd better stick with me for now. TIM, jaunt us to the village, please."
You arrive in a scene more reminiscent of an alien planet than the earth. The sky is a dark brown as the bright sunlight is scattered by the thick ash that clogs the atmosphere. You quickly secure the last couple of catches on you AE suit as the chocking air begins to seep inside the unsealed suit. You can barely see John a meter or so away and if you're standing in a village you have no way of knowing it. The air around you seems almost solid with ash and the nearby buildings are hidden by the acrid cloud.
"Liz has just left." John's voice through your suit's radio startles you. The darkness here is claustrophobic and you'd almost forgotten that you were not alone. "Watch the integrity of your suit, Jay." John continues. "Elizabeth says that some of the ash is burning hot and if an ember settles on your suit for too long it might just cause damage. It shouldn't, of course, but you never know."
"Okay, John." You tell him. "I'll be careful."
"We'd better head in different directions." John decides. "In this mess we're going to have to use our telepathy to feel for people who might be trapped. If the people here don't have any kind of breathing masks we might have to use matter transporters to get them out of here." You feel him looking anxiously at you as you lower your shields slightly in order to better sense the presence of the saps. "Be careful, Jay. If you need help just call me. I'll only be a couple of hundred metres away."
You send him a sense of mental agreement and close your eyes, breathing deeply as you try to feel for the people trapped in the village. After a moment you feel the first tinge of panic.
[Control it.] John warns in the silence of your mind. [Don't let the panic infect you. It's a tool not a sensation.]
The warning is timely and you are able to take another deep breath before setting off to find the people you can feel in the impenetrable gloom.
You don't see the house you're heading for until your outstretched arms encounter its walls. The concrete has been stained black by the volcanic ash and the AE suit transfers a sensation of heat to your hands which suggests that much of that ash must have been still smoldering. You let your mind stretch out, using your telekinetic talents to assess the condition of the building before you enter it. You frown. The building was badly constructed, unsuited for the windswept hillside on which it was built. The rear walls are already bending under the pressure of earth which has crept downhill over the years to build up against the structure. Until now the rigidity of this concrete box has been sufficient to support the weight but now the roof is bowing under a metre's depth of ash that has fallen in just a few hours. The system is profoundly unstable and you don't dare open the door in case even that slight shift in the weight distribution of the supporting walls causes disaster.
You jaunt into a small room lit only by a single candle that has been left burning on a saucer by the fireplace. You squint in the low light and then realise what you're doing and ask TIM to send you an electric torch. A window has shattered as its frame bends out of shape but despite that the air here is less full of dust and ash than that outside the house. In the torch light you can see the shadowy outline of furniture and doorways but no people. You concentrate and find yourself confused again. Down, you think. The trapped people are somewhere below you. You turn the exterior microphones of your suit to maximum and catch the muffled sound of someone apparently chanting not far away.
You follow the sound into a second apparently empty room and then look down, following your instincts. You only see the trapdoor because you're looking for it. The chanting is clearer now and for the first time you can make out the words of muttered prayers in Russian, repeated over and over again. With a nervous look at the roof, liable to fall any second, you pull open the trapdoor and the chanting stops suddenly as you drop into the cramped space below.
The small space is lit by three candles but even so your electric torch causes the people to squint like the light of a new sun. There are two, a man and woman on the first edge of old age and they stare at you in alarm and hope. The cellar is tiny and walled in rough earth, evidently hollowed out after the building was built and in secret. Looking around you see pipes and barrels and vaguely recognise a crude distillery hidden below the house. For the moment though you are not concerned by the legality or otherwise of what happens here only the people and the fact that the cellar will not collapse them if the house collapses or the volcano erupts a second time.
You realise that the old couple are staring at you and remember that dressed as you are in an AE suit you must be an intimidating sight. You crack open your suit and take off the helmet. Already the air in here is thick and all but unbreathable, the scent of burning permeating it. You focus on their weak Sap minds, letting them see the meaning behinds your words.
"You must leave here." You tell them as if they didn't already know. "Why didn't you go with everyone else?"
It's the woman who answers, too scared to worry about where this apparition came from.
"My husband, he is housebound. The others left when the ash began to fall but I thought they were over-cautious and my husband cannot walk down the mountain on a day when the air is clear and bright."
"Let alone in all this." You agree thoughtfully. "So you stayed inside?"
She nods and her husband looks at you with hopeless eyes.
"And when the walls began to creak and the windows shattered we sought refuge below."
"This is no refuge." You say at once. You shake your head, you can see now that you look closely that the man is crippled by an old injury. There is no way he's going to be able to walk out of the village. You're going to have to get them to the others in one of the lower villages.
[TIM, can I have a couple of matter transporters set for Andrew's coordinates, please?] You ask and the call attracts John's attention.
[Jay! That building is going to collapse any moment!] He warns from somewhere outside.
[I know, I know!] You say as you strap matter transporters around the still startled couple and their alarmed faces fade from view. Only then do you jaunt to John's side.
There is a roar of concrete and falling masonry as you emerge from hyperspace and you can see from John's pale face how close you came to being killed in the collapsed building.
[Don't cut it that fine, again!] John snaps angrily.
[I won't.] You promise, a little shaken. [There were a couple of people I had to send down to one of the others.]
[I know.] John sighed. [I've just sent a young woman down with her child myself. I think there might still be a couple of people trapped up here. As far as the woman I found knew the rest of the village started downhill in time to be out of the worst of this. I'm going to teleport down to where she thinks they might be at the base of the mountain and check they're still moving. It would help us to know how many people we're looking for too. Will you be alright up here on your own?]
[Fine.] You tell him quickly. Already you've felt another presence up here and you're walking in that direction as John jaunts.
You manage to find another three people and jaunt them clear in the hour before John contacts you again.
[Another two, Jay.] John sounds tired. He's been busy with the displaced population of this village, persuading them to move faster, helping those who have been injured or exhausted in the long walk down the mountain through stifling ash. [I think we've accounted for all but two in the top village.]
You look around you in frustration, unable now to see your hand in front of your face except where it is outlined by the increasingly fiery red glow above and to one side of you. You can't feel anyone else in the village. You were positive that everyone was already clear.
[I don't feel them, John.] You say tiredly.
[The volcano!] TIM's voice cuts across yours and you can feel that he's talking to all the Tomorrow People. [The eruption is imminent, perhaps a few minutes, no more. You have done all you can. Get clear!]
[Teleport back to the Lab, Jay.] John tells you as TIM's words still ring in your ears. [If you can't feel anyone then I'm afraid they must already be dead.]
Do you:
a) spend another couple of minutes looking?
b) teleport to the Lab?
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