Gasping at the effort—how long since he had eaten?—he staggered back from the opening then back up the stairs into the chamber of the elders. Now that his nostrils had been stimulated by the clean air the smell of corruption was violently repelling; but he held his breath and ran to the gap in the tumbled rock about the archway, and squeezed his way into the area of subsidiary vaults.
Without the pump in operation, the air could not circulate to this point, but he hoped to drag some of his companions down to the torn filter and revive them—then, with their help, bring the others.
It would be all right. They would be saved, as planned. He regretted the loss of the elders. But no matter. They were but the rulers. He and the others were the chemists, the scientists, the engineers. New elderships could be created when they had become settled again, and could rebuild their civilization.
He went to Zina's slab first. She would not be as much help as some of the others, but Zina and he were too close for him to delay her revival any longer. Life was not worth having without Zina. He carried her out of the vault, through the gap and thick miasma of corruption, then down into the pump chamber. Leaving her lying on her back, with the breeze ruffling her hair about her face, Rik went back up for the next person.
Three exhausting trips later, he sat among the bodies of his friends, listening with joy to their returning quiver of breath and life. Zina was the first to open her eyes. She seemed startled to find she was no longer on the slab, and then joyous when her glance fell upon his eager face.
"We've done it!" she sighed. "We came through!" She tried to sit up, then lay down heavily. "Rik—I'm so weak...."
"We need food, all of us," he said. "I'm weak myself." He arose from his crouch at her side and stared down the tunnel to the outer world. "I don't know what it's like out there," he said. "There may be no food at all. If the War was as devastating as predicted, it may be barren rock, burning sun and overall death."
"How long—?" Zina began, and then her eyes fell upon the time-rotted hulk of the pump and she stopped, her face going pale. "As long as that!" she whispered. "Oh, Rik! Do you think—?"
"I'll know when I've looked," he said. Their eyes met for a long, silent moment, then he turned and started up the tunnel.
Three hundred strides brought him to the barrier, the thinly perforated shield of rock that had been left intact to hide the location of the vaults from their enemies. Rik put his shoulder to the shell. It cracked and fell away as he'd thought it would, with weather and erosion having weakened it for centuries. Bright yellow moonlight lay all about the land outside. Incredibly fine sand was everywhere, but a smell of fresh water and green growing things was mingled with the night air. The region had not been desert when the vaults were constructed. The War had left its mark of devastation here, Rik saw, looking in vain for a trace of the magnificent towered city that had once been just beyond this spot.