Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗

"Give me my leg!" Sarah handed it down to him. He strapped it to his belt. "While I'm away, pack all the food you can find into the canvas bags. The spare lamps and batteries also I'll be back for you inside ten minutes." He began to hyperventilate, holding to his chest the boulder that would weigh them down. He gestured to Sally-Anne and she waded up behind him and put her arms around him under his armpits.

"Take a good breath and play dead," he ordered, and filled his own lungs for the last time. He fell forward with ally-Anne clinging to his back and they dropped together down towards the tomb entrance.

Halfway down Craig heard the click of the valves in her mask, and felt Sally-Anne's chest subside and swell as she breathed, and he tensed for her coughing fit. There wasn't one.

They reached the entrance and he dropped the stone and drew her up to the wall. Gently he disentangled her hands, trying to make his movements calm and unhurried.

He backed into the aperture, holding both her hands, and pulled her in after him. Unencumbered by the oxygen gear he slid through easily.

He heard her hr e again. "Good girlP he applauded th silently. "Good brave girl!" For a moment her gear jammed in the aperture, but he reached forward and freed it, then eased her towards him.

She was through. Thank you, God, she was through.

Now up! They were accelerating, pressure squeaking in his ears. He prodded her sharply in the ribs, and heard the rush of bubbles as she released the expanding oxygen from her lungs.

PeT "Clever girl." He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.

The ascent took so long that he began to fear he had lost his way, and taken a false branch of the tunnel, and then suddenly they broke out through the surface and he pumped for air.

Gasping, he reached across and switched on her lamp.

"You're not good," he panted. "You are simply bloody marvelous!" He towed her to the foot of the ladder and began stripping off her oxygen gear.

"Get up the ladder, out of the water," he grunted. "Here, strap my leg to the rung. I'll be back soonest." He did not waste time on the difficult task of donning the gear while treading water, instead he tucked the canisters under his arm.

He had no stone to weight himself down so he depressed the valve and emptied the oxygen bag. The set was now negatively buoyant starting to pull him under.

He could not use oxygen so he would have to free-dive again. He hung onto a rung of the ladder work while he pumped his lungs with air, and then duck-dived.

At the wall he slid backwards through the opening and pulled the empty set after him. With the bag deflated, it came through readily enough. At the entrance to the grand gallery, he opened the tap of the oxygen cylinder. Gas hissed into the bag, swelling it, and immediately it was buoyant again. It drew Craig rapidly up to the surface of the pool.

Sarah was perched on the edge of the slab, but she had the canvas bags packed and ready.

"Come on!" Craig gasped.

Tupho, I cannot."

"Get your little black arse down here! he rasped hoarsely.

"Here, take the bags, I will stay."

Craig reached up and caught her ankle. He yanked her off the slab, and she splashed into the water and clung to him.

"Do you know what the Shana will do to you?" Roughly he pulled the yoke of the set over her head, and there was another burst of machine-gun fire above them, the ricochets wailing off the upper walls of the gallery.

Craig pressed the mask over her face.

"BreathePhe ordered. She sucked air through the mask.

"Do you see how easy it is?" She nodded.

"Here, hold the mask on your face with both hands.

Breathe slowly and easily. I will carry you lie still. Do not move!" She nodded again. He strapped the canvas bags to his waist and picked up the weight stone. He began hyperventilating.

From above them came the packing report of a grenade launcher something clattered down the gallery and the entire cavern was lit by the fierce blue glare of a phosphorus flare.

With a rock tucked under one arm, and Sarah under the other, Craig ducked below the surface. Halfway down he felt Sarah try to breathe and immediately he knew they were in trouble. She took water, and began choking and wheezing into her mask. Her body convulsed against him, and she began writhing. and struggling. He held her with difficulty; she was surprisingly strong and her hard slim body twisted in his ms.

They reached the entrance to the shaft, and as Craig let the weight fall, their buoyancy altered drastically. Sarah whirled on top of him, and drove her elbow into his face.

The blow stunned him and for a moment he relaxed his grip. She broke away from him, starting to rise rapidly, kicking and windmilling.

He reached up and just managed to grip her ankle.

Anchoring himself on the sill of the entrance, he hauled her down again and in the lamp glow saw that she had torn the mask off her face.

It was snaking wildly about her head on its hose.

He dragged her bodily towards the wall, and she clawed at him and kicked him in the lower belly, but he raised his knees to protect his groin and swung her bodily around.

Holding her from behind, he dragged her to the hole, and she fought him with the maniacal strength of terror and panic. He got her halfway through the wall before the hose caught in a crack in the rock, anchoring them.