Tunnels 03, Freefall by Roderick Gordon, Brian Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

then asked the question out loud.
    "Tell me what I should do, Tam?" This time there was no response from his imagination, but Will knew instinctively what his uncle would have done in the same situation. And Will had to be practical, just like him, even if it was the last thing he felt like doing. "check if there's anything we need," Will mumbled, and without disturbing Cal's body he began to search it. He found the boy's penknife, a bag of peanuts and some spare luminescent orbs. In one of the pockets he discovered an unopened but misshapen bar of Caramac. It was clear from the way it had melted that the boy had been carrying it around with him for some time.
    "My favorite! Cal, you were holding out on me!" Will said, grinning through his grief.
    He tucked the bar away in his jacket pocket and, not wanting to turn the body over, he cut the strap to the water bladder that was over Cal's shoulder, and re-knotted it again so he would be able to carry it. Then he unbuckled the shoulder straps of Cal's rucksack and removed it. As he lifted it to one side, he noticed there were holes in it. Many small holes were punched into the canvas and, as he touched one of these, he realized with a start that his hands were covered in a sticky darkness. It was Cal's blood. He quickly rubbed them on his trousers. That did it -- there was no way he was going to search the rest of the body.
    He remained with Cal for some time, simply staring at him. Every so often pieces of rock would come whistling down the middle of the Pore in a hail, or a sudden flurry of water in shape-shifting showers would flash past, sparkling like earthbound stars. Except for these occasional interruptions, all was so quiet and still there on the edge of the fungus.
    Then came a sodden thump from somewhere behind him on the shelf. The whole ledge seemed to flex and judder, and the net shook beneath him. "What the hell was that? A rock? Will exclaimed, looking nervously around. He quickly concluded that an object with some mass must have slammed into the surface of the fungus, the shock of the impact rippling through the whole shelf. It was enough to get him moving again -- this was no place to hang about for long. There and then, he made up his mind what he should do next. He braced himself by grabbing hold of the netting with his hands, and he used his feet to maneuver Cal over to he very edge of the frame.
    Peering down into the Pore, Will shivered as he imagined himself falling into it. Then he glanced at Cal's body. "You never did like heights, did you?" he whispered.
    He took a deep breath and shouted, "Goodbye, Cal!" With a hard shove from both feet, he propelled his brother's body over the edge of the frame. He watched as it shot across into the Pore, hardly losing any height as it went. Like a burial in deep space, it was slowly rolling over and over in the low gravity, the rope trailing around it. It only began to tip downwards when it was some distance away. Then its trajectory dipped and it was falling and falling, and Will watched as it became a tiny dot, which was finally swallowed by the murky darkness below.
    "Goodbye, Cal," Will shouted once more, his voice also lost in the immensity of the Pore, with barely an echo from the other side. Bartleby wailed a high pitiful wail, as if he knew that his master was on his way to his final resting place.
    Filled with the bleakest feelings of despair and loss, Will turned and began to clamber over the net to return to the fungal ledge, tugging the rucksack behind him. All of a sudden he froze absolutely still.
    He closed his eyes, and pressed his hand to his forehead, as if he was experiencing a stabbing pain. But it wasn't that sort of pain.
    "No, shut up," he gasped. "Don't!"
    Something in his head was telling him that he should follow after his brother, telling him that he too should jump. At first he thought it was his intense guilt over Cal's untimely death -- his guilt that he might have saved Cal if he had