Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 71 of 150

The seam cut west through the rock. Ben went first with the front rope. Eileen followed with the back rope. The woman moved ahead of them, quick and quiet, her courier animal padding at her heel. The horn on the north track sounded again, closer now. Ben glanced down at the crate and saw what he had been dreading. The oiled-leather patch he had cut from the escape hatch was darkening along one edge. A thin line of hum leaked from the seam under it, no louder than a wasp, but climbing. "It's weeping," Ben said. "The patch is going." Eileen did not slow. "How long." "Minutes. Maybe less. They'll hear it before we clear the slope." The woman stopped at a bend where the rock cupped inward. Water ran down the face in a thin sheet and pooled in a shallow basin at the base. She pointed at the basin. "Put it in." "In the water?" "Water kills the sound. It kills the scent too. Angelina said if the seal fails, you sink it and you wait." Ben thought about the wood swelling, the seams giving, the twelve pieces inside. He thought about six armed men coming down the track with a horn. One risk against the other. "How deep." "To the lid. No more." Eileen was already lowering her end. Ben lowered his. The crate settled into the basin with a dull knock against stone. Water climbed the sides and stopped a finger below the lid. The hum cut out like a hand had closed on it. They crouched behind the rock cup. The horn sounded above them, then again, farther east. Boots crossed the scree overhead. Ben counted six sets. He counted them past. He counted a long silence after. Eileen let her breath out. "They took the south face." Ben put his palm on the wet lid. The wood was cold. No hum. No crack he could hear. He looked at the woman. She had not moved, had not spoken, had not sold the moment. Her courier animal watched the seam behind them. "Tell her it worked," Ben said. "She'll know." They lifted the crate out of the basin. Water sheeted off the sides and ran back into the pool. The oiled-leather patch was soft now, blistered from the soak, but the seam beneath it had swelled tight. The hum stayed gone. Eileen tested the rope. "It'll hold to the next shelter. Not past." "Then we get to the next shelter," Ben said. The woman was already moving west along the seam. Ben took the front rope again. The crate was heavier wet, and the patch would not survive another failure. But the six men were gone the wrong way, and Angelina Cage's third path was still open under his feet. He followed the woman into the rock.