CHAPTER 24

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The Salvage Expedition

That night, no one asked many questions of Lina and Doon, seeing how exhausted they were. But the next morning, the town leaders gathered at the doctor’s house, along with Doon and his father, and they wanted information. Mary asked the question that was on everyone’s mind: “Doon,” she said, “you went into your old city, you say. Did you actually find useful things there? Food? Things we might use for trade?”

“Yes,” said Doon. “There’s enough to help us through the winter. I’m sure there is. And there’s also—” He glanced at Lina, who met his eyes with an almost unnoticeable smile. “I mean, there’s a lot. We have to go and bring things back.”

“Why should we believe you?” Ben Barlow said. “You’ve caused a great deal of trouble already, and this jaunt out into the wilderness might just be more of the same.”

Doon’s father gave Ben a hard look. “Why shouldn’t you believe him?” he said. “Has he not proved himself reliable in the past?”

“He has, Ben,” said Mary. “I think we can trust what he says.”

Wilmer pulled nervously at his ear. “Didn’t you say people are living there?”

“Yes,” said Doon. “But I think they’ll be gone very soon.”

“If we can bring back enough to ease our troubles,” said Mary, “we should go.”

So it was decided. Many people volunteered for the expedition, curious to see this underground city they’d heard about, and preparations commenced. Everyone pitched in. The candlemakers worked overtime, trucks and wagons were oiled and repaired, every spare sack and barrel and crate was found, tools and ropes and food supplies were gathered. The plan was to leave in a week, if the weather held.

On the second day of that week, after they’d spent a day sleeping and resting and eating, Doon and Lina met in an attic room in the Pioneer Hotel, a place that must once have been used for storing old furniture and cleaning supplies. It was a dusty, musty place, with cobwebs hanging from the rafters, but it had a window that looked out across the field in front of the hotel toward the river and let in a strong light they could see by. Their plan was to study, in secret, the diamond that Doon had brought back. They wanted to show it to no one until they knew what it was.

They discovered one thing right away. At the base of the diamond, within the circle of its gold collar, was a ridged hollow that looked like a socket for a light bulb, and indeed, when Doon found a bulb and screwed it in, it fit perfectly. But it didn’t light up. He tried moving something near the socket that looked like a switch; but still nothing happened. Was this because the bulb was burned out? Or because the switch didn’t work? Or what? But in any case, they could see that you could put in a light bulb, stand the diamond on its top, and if the bulb lit up, you’d have a kind of lamp.

They puzzled through the book of eight pages for clues. Lina sat on the floor by the window with the book on her lap, the dusty sunlight coming over her shoulder. Doon sat next to her with the diamond, which shimmered as the light hit it but stubbornly kept its secret.

“I don’t see anything in the book that we haven’t already gone over,” Lina said. “There’s just this, on the page at the end. It looks like it really is the last page of the book—I mean, there aren’t any ripped edges after it. There’s a half sentence at the top, I guess continued from the page before, which isn’t there. It says, ‘. . . celestial source, perfectly pure, and for human purposes, infinite.’ ”

“What does ‘celestial’ mean, I wonder?” said Doon. “And ‘infinite’?” He scrutinized the diamond’s underside again, holding it up into the light so he could see. Besides the socket for the bulb and the switch, there were wires within the diamond’s collar that looked as if they could be uncoiled. Carefully, he pulled them out, but he couldn’t tell what he was supposed to do with them. He tucked them back in again.

He felt unbearably frustrated. This beautiful, strange object, which seemed to be a light, left by the Builders for the people of Ember—he held it in his hands but couldn’t make it work. In Ember, lights worked by electricity, and electricity was right there in the walls of the houses. You put a plug into a socket, and the electricity came through. But this light had no plug, unless there was one that Trogg had lost, and even if there had been, there was nothing here in Sparks to plug it into. So how did the diamond get its power?

They found the answer a short time later. They didn’t know at first why they’d found it—all they knew was that the light suddenly worked. But in the next few days, as they did one experiment after another and casually asked Ms. Buloware, the schoolteacher, for some word definitions, they began to understand. And once they understood, they made their plan.

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During that week, Torren was in a state of unbearable excitement. Thrilling and mysterious things were going on all around him, and at last he was part of it, not left out. Or at least not completely left out. He’d helped to rescue Lina and Doon, and he would be going on the expedition. Sometimes, though, he had the feeling there were things he wasn’t being told. Lina had the look of someone with a secret, a happy one: she hummed a lot, and often when Torren was talking to her, she didn’t pay attention, as if she was thinking about something else.

Doon and his father came up to the doctor’s house one day. While Doon’s father was having his hand treated by the doctor, Doon and Lina went into a corner and talked together in whispery voices. Torren tried to lurk around nearby and overhear them, but Lina shooed him away. After that, Doon wanted to see Torren’s treasures, so Torren got them out of the trunk where he kept them and lined them up—the airplane, the elephant, the remote, the box of light bulbs. “They’re great,” Doon said. He tapped the box of light bulbs. “How many are in here?”

“Forty-eight,” said Torren proudly. “Well, no, forty-seven, because you took one for your generator.”

“That’s right,” Doon said. “You’re lucky to have them. Someday, they might come in handy.”

At last the day of departure arrived. The morning dawned chilly but clear. All those who would be making the trip gathered in the plaza. They swarmed around, toting empty bags and boxes to bring things back in, loading them onto four trucks, hitching up oxen, and all the time calling out to each other in loud or anxious or excited voices. Ben Barlow strode around making sure that the only people going were good walkers, since there wouldn’t be room for anyone to ride on the trucks on the way back (except for Doon, because of his injured ankle). Mary Waters reminded people to follow the lead of those from Ember, who knew where they were going, and Wilmer Dent fussed with the buttons on his coat, looking nervous.

“Where’s Doon?” Torren asked Lina.

“He’s coming,” she said, but she looked a little worried, scanning the crowd and not finding him, and very relieved, when at the last minute he came into the plaza, red in the face from hurrying, still limping a little, and carrying a bulky pack on his back.

Mary gave the order. “Let’s go!” she cried, and with squeaks and rattles from the trucks and the bawling of the oxen, the caravan headed up the north road, around the far edge of the squash field, and up into the hills.

They traveled all day, and at nightfall they reached a sheltered valley where they made camp for the night. Another day of travel, and by the evening of the next day, they’d arrived at the cave entrance. The last of the sunlight came at a slant, throwing shadows eastward across the grass. The caravan halted, and everyone gathered around and stared at the arched opening in the wall of the mountainside. It didn’t look very big or grand, not like the entrance to a city.

“That’s where we came out of Ember,” Doon shouted to them, standing up on the lead wagon. “And up around there”—he pointed to the right—“is where we go in.”

But they’d need to spend another night in the open first and go down into the city in the morning. The trucks were lined up to make a barrier against the wind, and people scattered out across the hillside to break the low, dead branches from trees for their fires. Soon orange flames leapt in the darkness like waving hands.

Torren lay awake a long time that night. He was thinking that this was how it would be to be a roamer, except you’d be out here all alone in the wilderness and you’d have to make your own fire. And how would you sleep if you had to keep watch against wolves? It seemed hard. Maybe he’d decide to be something else.

Next morning, the wind was finally down and the air was a little warmer. Everyone rose early, eager to get started, just as the last stars were fading from the sky. But there were things to do before the descent into the city. People needed to eat, and they needed to get organized; and Lina and Doon had to put into action—or try to—the plan they’d kept secret from everyone. Now that they were here, about to make all this happen, Lina felt a fluttering in her stomach, and Doon realized that his heart was thumping a little faster.

While everyone was eating breakfast, Doon turned to Lina. “Let’s go,” he said quietly. He picked up his backpack, and he and Lina walked together behind the wagons and headed for the grove of trees.