Dragonstar Destiny Read Online Free PDF Page B

keep moving.
    Besides, this cave virtually invited exploration—and he was here, after all, to discover the source of the radiation. Too bad he didn’t have the necessary gear ... but he did have a small flashlight on his belt.
    He unclipped it and turned it on.
    The small cone of light played over moistly gleaming rock , over stalactites and stalagmites in the distance, over a narrow path that dived down into further darkness like a gullet into the ground.
    The pained roar which echoed through the narrow cave reminded him that a pair of gullets waited for him outside.
    He decided to use this opportunity to explore.
    After checking to make sure all of him was in order, and he didn’t have any wounds he was unaware of, he did just that, cautiously moving down the steady incline. He was quite aware there might be other creatures down here—but this was far better than sitting and listening to the growls of the thing that had killed Alexandra. wrapped up in his grief and fear. Besides, he was here to explore, to discover the nature of the radiation. He didn’t have the equipment, but he did have his own superior observational abilities and intelligence. That would do for now.
    That beast, thought Linden as he carefully navigated his way down the incline. That beast was quite remarkable. They’d seen nothing like it ... Was it an older mutation ... was it born that way? Or was it like the others—had it been a normal allosaurus affected by the changes in the Dragonstar’s interior so that it grew new limbs, grew that extra head? God knew that something was going on ... something, for example, that had rendered a whole portion of the saurian populace into bloodthirsty savages who had killed and eaten that science fiction writer.
    If he could be the one to discover this secret of the Dragonstar ... If he alone knew what was going on in the depths of the machinery that ringed this cylindrical ancient world, then that secret might help him get back to Earth. And that secret might be used for the benefit of the Third World Confederation.
    All these thoughts buzzed in his head as he descended, working hard to keep from thinking about Alexandra in those awful jaws.
    Then, below him, he heard a buzzing sound.
    It was more a subliminal bass hum than a buzz, actually ... and Linden could feel it in his feet, beginning to travel up his legs like an attenuated shiver.
    Oh yes ... by God, there was something down here.
    It gave him a spooky feeling .. . a feeling of the numinous. If he left everything up to his natural instincts, he knew he would turn tail, go back up to the mouth of this tunnel, and just wait until the two-headed allosaur was gone. But Timothy Linden had above all a strong training and a strong sense of duty ... to say nothing of his natural scientific curiosity.
    So after only a short pause to strengthen his resolve, he continued downward.
    The walls at this point began to widen, and the stalagmites and stalactites on the floors and the ceilings began to disappear, creating more the resemblance of an esophagus.
    And then, Linden no longer needed his small flashlight. Faintly at first, and then more strongly as he descended, the walls began to glow.
    He switched off his light as the tunnel angled abruptly and he walked into greater luminescence.
    He realized then that the tunnel was no longer of rock.
    It was of metal. A dull grey metal that at first could easily be mistaken for stone, but metal nonetheless. The light emanated from strips in the walls and it shone softly, perhaps even gloomily.
    This continued on for some meters. Then, up ahead, it steeply angled down. Linden progressed cautiously, unable to make out what lay ahead because of all the angling and uniformity.
    Then suddenly the floor slipped from underneath him. With a yelp, he fell and began to slide down an abruptly steeper angle, feet-first.
    It seemed as if he slid for only a short time, but he wasn’t sure, he was so involved in trying to stop