Reconception: The Fall Read Online Free PDF Page B

door it would close. There
would be no exchange of gases with the outside. Even so, the
atmosphere was filled with anticipation and good fellowship, as
friends and neighbors said goodbye to the pair of intrepid
explorers. Evie said later that her hand was shaken so many times
she thought it would fall off. Finally, the formalities were over,
and the door opened. Garret drove through, and the door closed
behind them.
    Sitting in the silence of the tunnel leading to the
outside, they smiled at how reminiscent it was of that other
smaller tunnel, the secret one. "You know what the best part of all
this will be Garret?" Evie asked. "When we come back, we'll be able
to talk about it. We'll be able to tell them what it's like and how
it feels and ... ." He squeezed her hand and put the machine in
gear.
    It was an odd looking vehicle that exited through
the airlock at the other end of the tunnel, covered with wires,
solar panels and curious looking tubes and valves. It was very big,
with room enough for both of them to stretch out and sleep, and a
cargo area in the back that held fifty-two cubic feet of dried food
concentrates.
    It rolled ponderously along the gravel path and
slowly picked up speed. Evie's eyes were all but glued to the glass
as she watched the scenery go past. After a while she said, "Oh
stop for a minute Garret, this is almost as bad as being down
under. I want to go outside."
    "So do I," he said, "and we will, but first we have
to get this food to Southeast."
    "You're right, of course," she said, and sat back to
enjoy the uncommon experience of riding, letting her mind drift.
“Garret,” she wondered aloud, “do you think they’d survive if we
released them?”
    “Our babies? I think most of them would. The plant
will support them for at least six months, and then they should be
strong enough to…”
    “But what if there are predators?”
    “Evie, didn’t we already say that it’s a numbers
game?”
    “I know. But now, being out here, I’m beginning to
think we’re crazy. It’s too cruel.”
    “Well, that’s why we tabled the project, isn’t it? Or
one of the reasons anyway.”
    Evie nodded, and closed her eyes, grateful that
Garret could always be counted on to provide the right answer.
    Twenty minutes later, Garret gently removed the map
from her sleep-numbed fingers and stopped the van to check his
directions. The road was not exactly where it was supposed to be.
To get to the interstate they knew they'd have to go a good fifty
miles over some pretty rough landscape. They'd only gone ten and it
was turning out to be a lot rougher than anyone had imagined.
    The area where he parked was a rocky hillside, the
slope barren but for a few trees; the slabs of concrete that had
been the road were jutting up at odd angles. Ahead of him he saw
that the road ended, and began again, two feet higher up. Getting
through was not going to be easy. Not for the first time, he
wondered if it wouldn't have been better to take two men on this
job. But there was no stopping Evie. He just hoped she'd measure up
to helping him move a few boulders.
    He reached over and shook her gently, answering her
questioning look with a turn of his head toward the windshield.
    "Whew!" she said, "That's a tough one."
    "We'll have to go around it."
    "How?"
    "Guess we'll have to get out and see," he said
roguishly.
    Exiting through the airlock to the outside was as
awesome an experience as it had ever been. Garret always wanted to
pull in a deep breath in some kind of ancient ritual, but he
didn't. Instead, he swallowed the sudden lump that always came to
his throat and walked to the edge of the road. The ground fell away
at an alarming rate here, and he knew that that was not the way
around the obstacle. On the other side of the road was a steep
hill. They'd have to go further back. Evie, he noticed, was way
ahead of him, already backtracking the way they'd come. About fifty
feet back she called out to him. He ran to catch up and saw