Blind Descent-pigeion 6 Read Online Free PDF Page A

connotations of smooth walls and unhampered passage, was not the right word. The space Anna stared down was more a fantastical corridor, walls and floor and ceiling merging, growing together in rock outcrops and smooth pale beards of liquid stone, separating again, leaving behind delicate towers to reemerge into recesses maybe six feet deep, maybe going into the shadowed heart of the world for a thousand miles.
      A path had been worn down through this cluttered basement of the desert. Orange plastic surveyor's tape marked both sides, the dirt between pounded and tracked. This surprising touch of humanity gave Anna back a morsel of control, and she felt the grip of muscles on the scruff of her neck loosen somewhat.
      The trail wound through enormous blocks of limestone studded with rough grayish-white formations called popcorn, then vanished in darkness beneath a low arch in the rock. Though impressive, and the size a relief to her fear-tightened mind, the cave had no life and no color. In a land devoid of sunlight, color was superfluous. Everywhere the puny beam of her headlamp touched was gray or white or brown. The paucity of light circumscribed the area, making it no larger than the small circle illuminated, creating a sense of fragmentation that was disorienting.
      In the world above, the memory of which was already fading, there were signs and portents, clues that let one know one was alive: breezes, birdsong and crickets, the sound of distant thunder, the smell of sage. Here, the silence was absolute, the only sounds those of their own making. With the manhole closed, the air moved, but much more slowly, and the only smell was the dank odor of ancient rock. In this place unmarked by the rise and fall of the sun, the tides, the seasons, time ceased to have meaning.
      With a thud and a scrabble, Holden Tillman joined her at the commencement of the passage. "Pretty neat, huh?"
      "Neat."
      "This is nothing. Wait till we get in the cave."
      Iverson ducked into sight from beneath the arch. Something in the cast of his features, the set of his shoulders, had changed subtly. The unhitched movement of his joints had tightened up, become smoother. Responsibility wrapped around him, tying up all the loose ends. He radiated competence.
      "Frieda and her team are on what is usually a two-day trek-maybe a day and a half. It'll be at least that hauling her out. Traveling fast, I figure we can get there in seven hours. Maybe a bit less. We've been over this before, but we're going to go over it again. I can make it. Holden can make it. If you don't feel up to it, Anna, now's the time. No loss of face. We leave all testosterone topside. Heroes are a pain in the butt down here."
      "I'm okay with it," Anna said, wondering at the ease with which she kissed off her last chance.
      "If you get too tired, start getting stupid or scaring yourself, let me or Holden know. We'll take a break, eat a bite, swap some stories. Can't leave anybody by 'emselves down here. Hodags'll carry 'em off."
      "Cave spirits," Holden said solemnly. "Mischievous little beggars."
      "Got it," Anna said, relieved she'd never be left alone in the vast gullet of New Mexico with only her own brain for a playmate.
      After a couple hundred yards the passageway came to an abrupt end, the floor dropping unceremoniously away into a pit so deep that light was lost. Water dripping from the ceiling laid a slippery layer over gold-colored stone that poured over the lip into the void. Two stalagmites, just more than knee high, protruded like eyeteeth on either side of the trail. A climbing rope was anchored to one of them, its hefty weave of nylon looking as insubstantial as a spider's web in the formidable throat of limestone.
      "Boulder Falls," Iverson told Anna. "More a pit than anything, but 'Boulder Pit' lacked poetry. The descent is one hundred eighty-five feet. Half of it free fall. Me first-"
      "Me last," Holden finished.
      Iverson hooked up