They pushed on through clouds of sediment, random passages cutting off to the left and right thick with pooling shadow, strange fluttering growths. Tiny white crabs crept along the walls over the skeletons of generations of their ancestors. They were eyeless, but had slender antennae that looked like soda straws. Now and again, Bell caught a glimpse of a bare section of the tunnel, that odd black quartz-like material it was made from. It was sometimes shiny, sometimes lusterless, but never completely smooth. It had that same texture to it with bumps and knobs and threads like it had been worked on a lathe.

“I’m not getting anything from the habitat,” Murphy said.

Bell tried himself, but there was only static.

“Probably the increasing magnetism,” he said. “And maybe whatever this structure is made of.”

It sounded reasonable. The suits were sending out a homing signal to the habitat so they could be tracked regardless of where they were in the city. Not radio waves, but microwaves. Hopefully Javonivic was still reading those or she’d start to panic.

The tunnel came to an end and opened into some sort of chamber. The lights could barely penetrate the murk and suspended silt. Without a word, Bell led the way in there.

13
LITTLE SARAH

Murphy figured he was some kind of pretender.

Had to be, because he had even fooled himself into believing this place was not getting to him. And that took a special gift, a special talent for self-deception. The place bothered him just like it bothered Bell and the others, but he had talked himself out of it. He told himself, and made himself believe, that there was no danger here. No reason to be afraid, no reason to fear for his life or sanity.

And, goddamn, if it hadn’t almost worked.

Funny how the human mind could totally fool itself. You could convince yourself that fire would not burn you when you touched a hot coal or a live 440 line would not fry your ass if you grabbed it or that in war you would not die in the dirt with your guts shot out. But, sooner or later, he knew, cold, ugly realization dawned and then look out. Because when the self-imposed delusions faded and the blinders were off and that creaking door of true perception was thrown wide, you were going to see things the way they really were.

And suffer for it.

Yes, the self-deception had worked.