A long, wounded roar echoed in the smoke-filled air and Connor stared, shaken. His ears were ringing painfully before he saw Barley rolling on the ground, groaning. The lieutenant had been wounded by the point-blank blast. His flak jacket was smoking, flaming with embers.
Instantly Thor rose and turned, wordlessly moving to the lieutenant to beat out the flames with his bare hands. Dazed, Connor wiped a hand across his forehead, found a bloody smear. He ignored it.
It seemed incredible that Thor had not been killed, though he had stood only forty feet from the explosion. And then, after the Norseman finished beating out the flames on Barley's flak jacket, he turned stoically to Connor.
Unsteadily Connor focused on the deep cut across Thor's brow, blood streaming. He saw that the bearskin cloak was also smoldering, blackened by flames, and other cuts laced the giant's face, neck, and hands. Thor's face glistened, black with blood, but he revealed no pain.
Connor blinked at the sight and then he caught something infinitely stoic and composed within his friend as if Thor were enduring this and knew somehow that he would endure far, far more before this was over. And his heart was set like the heart of a mountain to endure, to endure to the end.
Two hundred feet below them, on the opposite wall of the gorge, they could almost see the Dragon's titanic image, clinging desperately to the rock. It was trying to climb the cliff. Then there arose a raging cry, a scream that ascended from the darkness and congealed around the bridge as if to capture them with fear.
Grimly Thor broke open the M-79 and slid another grenade into the launcher. He snapped it shut, gazing sternly into the darkness below them. He looked like he would never retreat another step.
Barley staggered to his knees. Shocked by the blast, he seemed to be on the verge of collapsing. He gasped, “Nothing can kill that thing! It's climbing! It's climbing out of the gorge! Frank was right, he was right. It can't die.”
“It will die,” Thor said, lifting the wounded lieutenant to his feet. “It will die even if I have to choke it with my bones.”
“Come on.” Connor backed up from the edge. “That thing is tracking us by heat. Like a pit viper or something. We've got to lay some tracks around this part of the cave to confuse it. To slow it down. Then we'll make a run for the Housing Cavern.”
Thor scowled. “Do you have a plan?”
Angry and heated, Connor shook his head. “That thing has got to be weakening, Thor. So it's going to have to feed again. But it's already eaten everybody down here but us.” He focused on Barley. “Where do they keep the food for that thing?”
“In a freezer near G-2.”
Connor knew the section. “Can you get to the freezer and blow it? Can you destroy this thing's food supply?”
“Yeah,” Barley nodded, staring narrowly. “Do you think destroying the food supply will kill it?”
“Well, it's going to starve it,” Connor replied, glancing again into the gorge. “And if it's starving, then it's going to be weaker than it is right now. We'll have an advantage.”
Thor was before him. “What is your plan, my friend?”
With a frown Connor turned away. “Starve it. Burn it. Kill it any way I can.” He hesitated, gathering. “All right, this is what we're going to do. Thor and I are going to lay a ton of tracks on this side of the gorge to confuse it. Barley, you get down to G-2 and blow the freezer. Make sure there's nothing left for that thing to eat. Then meet us in the corridor that leads to the Housing Cavern in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes! No more!”
“And then?” Thor asked.
“And then we'll take this thing apart,” Connor rasped, standing straight.
* * *
Frank tried to close his mind to the sounds of pain that surrounded him. Jordan was crying, hungry and thirsty, and Beth was trying to give him some apple juice and bread. Chesterton was stalking back and forth across the floor, regaining a remarkable level of nervous strength. But he was worried, anxious, disturbed. He tried to raise Barley again and again on the A-unit, but received nothing. Nothing but static.
Sitting at a computer terminal, Frank accessed GEO.
He typed: HOW MUCH TIME BEFORE DETONATION?
Response: FOUR HOURS, ELEVEN MINUTES.
Frank leaned back, wiping his face. Mind racing, he knew what he had to do. He had to find a path, any path at all, to access GEO's Logic Core. If he could only circumvent the lockout, he knew he stood a chance. A slim chance, to be sure. But still a chance. And yet with the initiation of the countdown, GEO had closed all paths to the Core. He couldn't use normal channels to reach it. He couldn't use a terminal or even voice control.
He continued to stare at the screen.