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It was time to find a way out.
I considered the kid. Was it better to keep her moving to stay warm, or to let her huddle? My files told me smaller bodies burned more energy to generate internal heat.
I decided conservation was the best choice for her.
"Me look," I told her. "You stay. Keep warm."
I circled the perimeter of the silo, examining each arch in turn. The wall was made of the same roughly cut blocks I'd seen before and the white material filling the arches was consistently smooth and unmarred. More than likely it was deeper than my laser would cut before running out of charge. I tried the knife blade, set to micro-edge. It left a thin, shallow groove. We'd be dead from cold before it cut through.
The third arch from the ramp showed signs of mortar decay along its left side. The stone was darker there, suggesting damp was breaking down the mortar. There was a chance I could work that stone out of the stack, but the ones above would not topple with the arch blocked.
Completing the circuit revealed nothing with better potential.
I walked to the deathpit. It was about seven meters across. The bodies were stacked higher in the center, and tapered lower toward the rim. By the stretched and distorted positions of the remains, it appeared the Endar pitched them in, then leveled them out, which explained the poles with the grimy hooks we'd found earlier.
Going to the wall, I picked one up and carried it back to the edge of the pit. Along the rim the bones and rags lay around fifty centimeters below the floor level.
The hole in the previous chamber, where Duff recaptured Saura and me, had howled with airflow. This one was silent. The dust inside rose thickly upward, however. That meant air was flowing into this place from somewhere below. With no visible vents in the walls, a screen set in the bottom or sides of the pit remained the most likely scenario.
I raised the pole vertically and dropped it down the side of the hole, planning to see how far it would go. The moment my hands cleared the stone lip they plunged into an icy current of slow-rising air.
Cursing, I released the pole and stepped back.
The air was definitely pulling from somewhere inside the pit. I looked up. Heavy, ragged crusts of accumulated dust flapped at the edge of the hole above.
I had already eliminated that direction as a means of escape. Even if we climbed up there, which we couldn't, we would have to cope with passing through the mechanicals that drew the air out of the chamber. It would take too long. We would never survive the temperature of the air rising inside the pit.
Clenching my teeth, I grasped the pole and resumed my effort to work it down the side. The thing stopped where the base of the attached hook fell level with the lip of the hole. Either it was catching on a rim down there, or I had found the bottom. I pulled and tugged until I worked the pole out at an angle to clear any lip and tried to move it downward again. My chips told me it stopped at the same depth.
Interesting, but not much help.
My arms and hands felt frozen. I withdrew the pole, taking a step to the side and tilting it the last meter to get my hands clear of the updraft. The tip raked up, lifting bones and fabric farther along the side as it came free.
A cloud of dust surged up in front of me like a ghostly spirit. I swore and stumbled backward, causing the shaft to jam farther out into the remains. It sent a bigger cloud swirling toward the opening above. Jerking the pole clear, I vented my frustration while I rubbed my numbed hands together.
Something along the edge of the pit, where the pole stirred the dust, caught my eye. Shivering, I returned to the edge and crouched to have a closer look.
The stone pattern an arm's length below the rim was different from the stonework above it. The layer of dust on the bones in front of it was also noticeably lighter. I picked up the pole and, standing further along the edge to keep my hands out of the updraft, went to work with the hooked end, raking away the debris piled in front of the space. Before long, I uncovered an approximately sixty-centimeter wide rectangular opening. I worked down to reveal a forty-centimeter depth.
Moving around the pit, I searched for other areas where the dust was lighter. I found four more places, spaced at intervals coordinating with the arches, but the spot furthest from the ramp was curiously missing that detail. I focused there, stirring up a storm of dust so heavy I had to wait for it to settle before I could see the vent in the wall.
No air stirred the debris piled in front of it.
Was it intentionally obstructed by the Endar, or by something else?
The thought of a Makima, thrown in this place while still alive and attempting an unsuccessful escape out the opening sent chills running over me despite the sweat I had worked up while moving the bones.
Sweating in this situation was bad, but I couldn't stop work now. Something blocked that vent.
I took the pole and, moving around the perimeter so I could hit the opening at an angle. Rammed the end in. It struck something solid.
Hands shaking with desperation, I slammed harder, trying to break the clog. A few gray chips flipped out. I kept ramming. When I stopped to catch my breath, I saw a thin stream of dust rippling upward in a tight swirl.
I had broken through.
Time to move over and attack the situation head-on. I pulled out the blue tube and converted it to a chisel-form as I walked over to stand above the vent. The thought of reaching back into the cold, streaming air of the pit made me mentally cringe. I took up the pole and used the hooked end to pull some cloth, along with an assortment of bones that clung to it, from the pit. Ripping the dusty fabric into strips, I wrapped it around my hands to give them some insulation.
"Thanks," I muttered to the bones before shoving them back over the edge.
Oh, shit! My mind shrieked as I thrust my arms back into the cold of the pit.
The opening was too far down. I pulled back, huffing to fight the cold. If I wanted to get to the vent, I needed to extend my reach. Cursing a steady stream of obscenities, I wrapped more cloth around my head, leaving an opening for my eyes and nostrils. Then I got down on my belly and put my ribs on the rim. Plunging my head and arms into the freezing air, I reached down.
Gray, semi-transparent bits flew out as I hacked with the chisel, creating little poufs as they struck the dust. The blockage was not made of the same material as the white stuff in the arches, and, since it only clogged the opening, it seemed reasonable to think something other than the Endar had put it there.
Within a few moments, warm air rushed over my fingers.
The air streamed out into the pit, sending powder swirling upward.
I sat up, pulled my head and arms out of the cold, and stared at the column of dust. My heart and my brain raced. If the air was warm, we could crawl out through it—provided the vent did not narrow to a bottleneck or form some other odd configuration.
Was I willing to risk it? I looked over at the kid huddled beneath the ramp.
If that were Saura, she'd be the first one in the hole, all the while carping about how slow I moved. This, however, was different. The High Jerak had threatened Liri's people. She might be afraid of what would happen to them if she came with me. I knew firsthand how that worked: Fear for Anthy and the other children's safety had kept me under the control of the slavers for years.
People who did that sort of thing to little kids should be kicked into an event horizon.
I could not let that fear doom her, too.
If the other vents were warm, there would be no reason for me to continue clearing this one. Not to mention the fact something had already laid a claim on it. I traversed the circumference, braving the plunge into the current on each of the other five openings.
They all blew freezing air.
So, we had to confront whatever created the obstruction in the sixth vent if we wanted to escape this silo of death.
Trying to squelch images of a writhing battle with some slithery monster, I walked back, swung my legs over the edge, and cautiously put my weight on the bones piled in front of the opening. They slipped and compressed, but held firm.
Keeping my body tilted over the floor in case they suddenly gave way beneath me, I stood.
Solid.
Squatting, I converted the chisel to the knife with the micro-edge activated. It sliced through the remaining blockage as if cutting soft cheese, which further encouraged me to believe the stuff was organic in nature, put there by something other than the Endar. When I got it half-cleared, I set the laser ring to illuminate and peered inside. Other than the chipped debris in the opening, it was the same stone construction as most everything else in this place. Three meters forward, the channel slanted slightly downward.
The flow of warm air felt like heaven on my face.
The vent was large enough to crawl through and I was willing to accept 'somewhere else' over 'here', so I hurriedly finished clearing the opening.
As I got to my feet and straightened, I almost bumped my head on the kid's shins. She was standing at the edge of the pit, her little face drawn with stress.
I scrambled out. "Is okay. Me find way go out." I pulled my camo bag free, grabbed one of the two remaining stim tabs, and dropped it on my tongue.
Liri's eyes strayed to the pit. Cruel as it seemed, its ghoulish contents were my best argument for her to follow me into the vent. She would need every bit of motivation she could summon to get out of this place.
I gave her another moment then snapped my fingers to draw her attention back. "Must go now," I said. "Air is warm," I added, throwing in a bonus as I climbed back down into the freezing air of the pit.
An uneasy feeling suddenly ran over me. Something was wrong.
It was the stim tab taking effect, I reasoned as I squatted down in front of the opening.
Wrong.
There was no air coming from the vent. It was blocked again.