“My girl’s a corker, she’s a New Yorker,

I buy her everything to keep her in style,

She got a pair of hips

Just like two battleships,

Oh boy, that’s how my money goes.

My girl’s a dilly, she comes from Philly,

I buy her everything to keep her in style,

She’s got a pair of eyes

Just like two pizza pies,

Oh boy, that’s how—”

Gasher reached out, seized Jake’s ears as if they were jug-handles, and yanked him to a stop. “There’s a hole right ahead of yer,” he said. “With a voice like yours, squint, it’d be doin the world a mercy to letcher fall in, so it would, but Tick-Tock wouldn’t approve at all, so I reckon ye’re safe for a little longer.” Gasher’s hands left Jake’s ears, which burned like fire, and fastened on the back of his shirt. “Now lean forward until you feel the ladder on the t’other side. And mind you don’t slip and drag us both down!”

Jake leaned cautiously forward, hands outstretched, terrified of falling into a pit he couldn’t see. As he groped for the ladder, he became aware of warm air—clean and almost fragrant—whooshing past his face, and a faint blush of rose-colored light from beneath him. His fingers touched a steel rung and closed over it. The bite-wounds on his left hand broke open again, and he felt warm blood running across his palm.

“Got it?” Gasher asked.

“Yes.”

“Then climb down! What are you waitin for, gods damn it!” Gasher let go of his shirt, and Jake could imagine him drawing his foot back, meaning to hurry him along with a kick in the ass. Jake stepped across the faintly glimmering gap and began to descend the ladder, using his hurt hand as little as possible. This time the rungs were clear of moss and oil, and hardly rusted at all. The shaft was very long and as Jake went down, hurrying to keep Gasher from stepping on his hands with his thick-soled boots, he found himself remembering a movie he’d once seen on TV—Journey to the Center of the Earth.

The throb of machinery grew louder and the rosy glow grew stronger. The machines still didn’t sound right, but his ears told him these were in better shape than the ones above. And when he finally reached the bottom, he found the floor was dry. The new horizontal shaft was square, about six feet high, and sleeved with riveted stainless steel. It stretched away for as far as Jake could see in both directions, straight as a string. He knew instinctively, without even thinking about it, that this tunnel (which had to be at least seventy feet under Lud) also followed the path of the Beam. And somewhere up ahead—Jake was sure of this, although he couldn’t have said why—the train they had come looking for lay directly above it.

Narrow ventilation grilles ran along the sides of the walls just below the shaft’s ceiling; it was from these that the clean, dry air was flowing. Moss dangled from some of them in blue-gray beards, but most were still clear. Below every other grille was a yellow arrow with a symbol that looked a bit like a lower-case t. The arrows pointed in the direction Jake and Gasher were heading.