Extreme Difference by D. B. Reynolds-Moreton Read Free Book Online Page B

very happy.’
    Sandy gave him a withering look, and asked him to bring along the bar they had used the day before, and something to hit it with.
    On the way down to the gas generating cavern, Sandy pointed out the sections of passageway which had been cut out, as opposed to being naturally worn by water, or whatever nature had used to form them.
    ‘If you look quickly, you’d not notice the difference, so why would anyone go to the trouble of trying to make ’em look natural?’ Sandy asked a perplexed Ben, who just shrugged his shoulders and grunted in reply.
    ‘It seems to me,’ he continued, ‘that someone is trying to make us believe in something other than what is really going on, and that’s what I want to find out.’
    ‘But why?’ asked a worried sounding Ben. ‘You can’t do anything about it, things are as they have always been, and if we alter them, we may not survive. There’s only just enough food, water is strictly rationed,...’ before he could continue his list of excuses not to interfere, Sandy interrupted him with,
    ‘Not now it isn’t, with the water cave.’
    After a quick check around the darker corners of the cavern to make sure Jez was absent, Sandy went over to the two digester tanks in the middle of the cavern.
    ‘The first thing I want to do is reduce, and then cut off the gas supply.’
    ‘You can’t do that!’ exclaimed a startled Ben, ‘you’ll plunge us all into darkness and we’ll never get out of this maze of tunnels.’
    ‘Don’t be so bloody silly, I’ll reduce the flow first, and if the lamps don’t dim down a little, then we’ll know there must be another supply coming in somewhere.’
    Ben was terrified at the prospect, but did not have the courage to physically restrain Sandy as he rummaged about in the tangle of pipes connecting the two big tanks and the subsidiary cylinders comprising the gas generating plant.
    ‘It looks as if these two valves control the flow of gas from each tank, sending it eventually up to the main delivery pipes up there,’ he said, indicating a pair of tubes which snaked along the ceiling of the cavern, to later disappear into the wall adjoining the next cave.
    ‘I’ll turn this one off a little,’ he said to a trembling Ben, ‘and see what happens.’
    Nothing did, so he turned it off fully, and then the other valve was shut down. Still the little gas lamps on the wall of the cavern flickered, sending ghostly shadows dancing around the walls as the two of them moved about. Sandy looked for the extra supply inlet he was so sure existed.
    ‘Well, so far the lamps haven’t gone out, and the gas supply from the tanks is off. That proves my point, there is another supply feeding the lamps, so why do you think that is, eh?’
    Ben had stopped shaking as he realized Sandy had been right all along, but what did it imply? 
    ‘OK Sandy, you’ve convinced me that the digesters are not supplying the gas, but does it really matter where the gas comes from? We seem to be getting it from somewhere and we’ve never run out, as far as I can remember.’
    ‘But that is the point,’ Sandy retorted impatiently, ‘don’t you see? If the digesters are not producing our gas, then they have been set up to fool us into thinking we are keeping the supply going ourselves, when in fact what we are doing is just a waste of time, and producing nothing, except perhaps some compost for the growing bins. Someone doesn't want us to realize that this whole place has been set up to house us, hence all this subterfuge. Anyway, I still want to know just where these pipes really go.’
    ‘You’ll need something to stand on if you are going to reach where they go into the wall.’ said a chastened Ben.
    They both hunted around in the gloom of the big cavern, Sandy finally falling over a box-like thing in a dark corner and uttering a rude expletive in the process.
    ‘Must be what he sits on when he’s not twiddling the gas controls.’ Ben offered, feeling