A couple minutes later, the mouth of the plant opened and a small object tumbled down into the capsule. Wilson retrieved the light, switched it on, lifted the tear and shone the light down the tunnel, sweeping it around to get an idea of its dimensions. He figured if he crawled, he might barely be able to make his way down the tunnel. The tunnel itself was long enough that the light shone down into darkness.

“I’m going to have to undo the rope,” Wilson said. “It’s not long enough to go all the way down this tunnel.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Schmidt said.

“Being swallowed by a carnivorous plant isn’t a good idea,” Wilson said, undoing the rope. “Compared to that, letting go of the rope is nothing.”

“What if you get lost down there?” Schmidt asked.

“My BrainPal will let you know where I am, and I’ll let you know if I get stuck,” Wilson said. “You’ll be able to tell by the screaming panic in my voice.”

“Okay,” Schmidt said. “Also, I don’t know if this is information that you need to know right now, but I just got a ping from Ambassador Waverly’s assistant. She says the negotiations should wrap up in an hour and then the ambassador will want Tuffy for, and I swear to God this is a quote, ‘a little snuggle time.’”

“Wonderful,” Wilson said. “Well, at least now we know how much time we have.”

“One hour,” Schmidt said. “Happy spelunking. Try not to die.”

“Right,” Wilson said. He knelt at the tear, tore it just enough to shove his body through, put the light between his teeth, got on his hands and knees and started crawling.

The first hundred meters were the easy part; the tunnel was narrow and low, but dry and relatively straight as it descended through the rock. Wilson figured that if he had to guess, he’d venture it was once a lava tube at some point, but at the moment all he really wanted was for the thing not to collapse on him. He wasn’t ordinarily claustrophobic, but he’d also never been dozens of meters down a tube in a rock, either. He thought he was allowed a spot of unease.

After a hundred meters or so, the tube became slightly wider and higher but also more jagged and twisting, and the angle of descent became substantially steeper. Wilson hoped that somewhere along the way the tunnel might become wide enough for him to turn around in; he didn’t like the idea of having to back out ass first, dragging the dog along with him.

“How is it going?” Schmidt asked him.

“Come down here and find out,” Wilson said, around his light. Schmidt demurred.