It was a six-foot drop into blackness so ebon that it made the outer night almost seem bright. Twisting, he crawled a few feet along the horizontal conduit that ran from shaft to building.
Ungo's gruntings drifted down as he wedged his great body through the hole. Then, with a thud, the Jovian, too, had landed. The other five followed, one by one.
"This way!" Jarl whispered. "The tube leads straight to the blower room."
Ghost-silent, they crept through the murk for what seemed miles. Fine dust rose about them in a choking haze, and there was an acrid stink of tanaline and jeol. Tiny bulaks chattered their fright, scampering from the raiders' path. The suction of the Banx unit at the tunnel's other end tugged at hair and tunics in a gusty, whistling gale.
Then, feeling ahead, Jarl touched a screen. He halted; half-turned. "We've made it. We're inside." Twisting, he ran his hand over the tube's side wall till he found the cleaning hatch. His searching fingers touched the bolt. He worked it round.
The hatch swung open on creaking hinges. Knife in hand, Jarl slid out into the blower room, with its looming bulk of Banx unit transmuters and converters and compressors.
A dim rectangle on the right marked the ramp to the floor above.
Cat-footed, flat to the wall, Jarl moved up the incline, the raiders at his heels.
A faint scuff of sound whispered in the stillness. Ahead, out of a cross-corridor, a Martian fala in the blue tunic of a Federation guard moved into view.
Jarl froze, not daring to breathe.