There was a second or two of stunned silence; then every person in the
dining hall began to shout at once, crowding forward around Justin, Robert, my
family and myself. In the sudden crush of bodies I pulled my wife and children
close to me, fearful that they would be trampled underfoot.

Justin deposited Robert in a chair, and then he spun around, raising his
arms and his voice both. "Everyone, please, back off!" he yelled,
above the babble of voices. "Let's give him some air, all right?"

Reluctantly the crowd backed away, and the shouts died down to a sullen
murmur. As they did, and as Robert fought to bring his wheezing under control,
Justin caught hold of Timothy's arm and pulled him close. He bent down and
spoke quietly into my son's ear. "I want you to run to the
guardroom," he said. "Philip should be on duty at the main entrance.
I need him here now."

For a second Timothy stared up at our leader utterly without comprehension;
then he shook himself hard. "Yes, sir!" he said. He wormed his way
through the milling throng and took off running, through the dining hall door
and out into the hall. I nodded to myself in absent approval.

Meanwhile Ages had moved forward to examine Robert's torn and bleeding arm.
"Cynthia!" he called, and my daughter darted forward. Ages grasped
her shoulder. "I need some warm water, soap, and several clean
towels," he told her urgently.

Cynthia reacted rather better than her brother had; after all, it wasn't her
best friend who was sitting there injured. She nodded sharply. "Right
away," she said, and she scurried off toward the kitchen.

Robert had caught his breath by then, more or less, though tears were still
flowing freely down his cheeks, making dark tracks in his dusty fur. Justin
knelt down before him, his hands on the younger rat's shoulders. "Can you
tell us exactly what happened, son?" he asked.

Robert appeared somewhat dazed; he scanned the crowd with restless eyes.
"Where--where's my mother?" he asked.

I glanced around; but Alice was nowhere to be seen. "She's probably at
the school," Justin told him. "We'll find her for you, I promise. But
first we have to know what happened."

Robert looked up at him, and nodded. "Yes," he said. "Yes,
you're right." He swallowed. "We started work early this
morning," he said. "Most of the crew was outside, up in the rocks.
They were setting up equipment: cranes, blocks and tackle...that sort of
thing."

Justin nodded. "I understand. Go on."

Robert took another deep, shuddering breath. Meanwhile Cynthia had returned.
She was lugging a large iron kettle full of water, and there were several white
towels draped over her shoulders. As she set down the kettle she pulled from
her pocket a new, still-wrapped bar of hand soap. "All they had," she
murmured. "Except for dish-washing liquid."

"That's fine, my dear," Ages told her. "Stay with me, please.
I may need your help." He soaked one of the towels, wrung it out, and
soaped it lightly; and then, taking Robert's arm into his hands, began to
carefully wash away the dirt and blood. It must have hurt; but Robert appeared
not to notice. He went on:

"I was working inside with Sullivan and his crew, taking down the
sluices. Dad came up to check the cracks, make sure they weren't getting any
bigger. And then..." he trailed off, his voice choked off in horror.
"It...went. A big chunk of the north section. We heard a cracking, groaning
noise...and then it all went. Sullivan and some others were on the far side of
the break. I was on the near side. Dad...Dad was right in the middle. It...didn't
fall cleanly The roof came down, and the walls...I got out of the way just in
time." He peered down at his arm. "Almost. The blockage on the south
side isn't solid; there are gaps big enough to see through. I could tell that
the corridor on the north side is blocked too. Sullivan and his crew must be
trapped over there. The equipment fell too, with the collapse. Maybe some of
the workers too. I couldn't tell. The gap was too small; I couldn't get through
to help. I just...ran."

"You did the right thing," Justin assured him. He looked up,
scanning the room impatiently. "Where's Philip--?" he muttered.

At that moment Timothy entered the dining hall, closely followed by a tall
grey-furred rat in a blue tunic. Not Philip, though, but Mark. He pulled up
short beside Justin, and saluted. "Philip ordered me to report to
you," he said. "He and Brutus are already heading out to the
scene."

Justin shook his head. "Always anticipating orders," he said, but
whether in amusement or irritation I couldn't tell. "How did he
know?"

"It was a little hard to miss," Mark told him. "We all heard
the crash, and saw the dust. Ralph's crew is heading up there too, and my
brother is rounding up the rest of the Guard."

Justin nodded. "All right," he said. He glanced down.
"Ages?"

"He'll be all right," Ages said. He had cleaned Robert's wound by
then, and wrapped the arm with a clean towel in lieu of bandages. "It
needs suturing, but it can wait for a while if need be."

"It may have to," Justin said grimly. He paused for a few seconds,
gathering his thoughts. Then he looked around. "Mark, I want you, Timothy
and Martin to go up to the fourth level from inside. Don't take any chances,
but we need to know if it's stable up there. Go."

Beside me, I felt Elizabeth stir uneasily; but she said nothing. She and I
watched as Mark and our sons hurried out of the hall.

"Ages," Justin went on, "I'll need you outside. I don't doubt
we'll have more injured."

Ages nodded sharply, and glanced at Cynthia. "I'll need you too, my
dear. It appears you'll have to learn those emergency procedures on the
job."

My youngest daughter nodded grimly. "I'm with you." Together they
departed.

"Teresa," Justin said. He glanced down quickly at her cast.
"I want you to go find Alice, and tell her what's happened. And
then...uh..." he paused.

"I can help them get the infirmary ready," my older daughter said
quietly.

Justin grinned tightly and nodded. "Good. Go." He straightened up
then and looked around. He raised his voice "The rest of you...what I'd like
you all to do for now is stay here! I don't believe there's any further
danger--my guess is that everything that's going to fall has already done so.
But we need to keep the hallways clear. If we need any more manpower, we'll
send for you. All right?"

There was a lot of grumbling, but no overt signs of mutiny. Justin turned to
Elizabeth. "Would you please stay here, and do what you can to keep them
calm?"

She nodded. "I will," she said. "If I can keep myself
calm," she added grimly.

"What about me?" Robert asked.

"You, young man," Justin said firmly, "are going
straight to the infirmary and stay there. Clear?"

Robert gazed up at him in anguish, and for a second I thought he would
argue; but then he sighed and nodded. "Clear."

Justin clapped me on the back. "Jonathan," he said, "you're
with me. Come on!"

...And he took off running, leaving me to keep up with him as best I could. As
we ran I realized: if I had ever wondered, even for an instant, why the Rats of
NIMH elected him as their leader...that question had just been fully and
permanently answered.

The scene, when we finally reached it, was at once better and worse than I'd
imagined.

The autumn morning was crisp and somewhat chilly, almost windless, and with
a thin glowing mist clinging to the ground and the treetops. Much too nice a
day for a disaster, I thought darkly. But in truth we'd been extremely
fortunate: if this had happened during the previous week's pounding rainstorm...

I'd seldom seen Justin move as fast as he did that day. He ran full-tilt
down the corridor--thereby breaking the law, but I don't imagine anyone would
have complained--through the main entrance, and, without pausing, turned right,
dashing north through the dry grass along the base of the first-level ridge.
Somehow or other I managed to keep up with him--but to do so I had to abandon
my dignity and drop to all fours. I could not remember the last time I had done
so.

We heard the babble of voices, and saw the swirling, rapidly-dissipating
cloud of dust, long before we reached the scene. We rounded a corner...and Justin
stopped short, so quickly that I banged my head against the backs of his knees.
He scarcely noticed. I straightened up, absently brushing the dirt from my
hands on my tunic, leaving long dusty streaks on the dark-green fabric. No
matter: dirty clothes would soon be the very least of my worries.

Of course not all of the fourth level had collapsed--that truly would
have been a disaster, one that would have broken windows all over the community
and probably blocked our main entrance too. What had fallen was only a
small fraction: the very section, perhaps four feet wide, which had suffered
the most from seepage during the storm. But even so, it was a terrifyingly
large amount of rock that had come down.

For a few seconds Justin and I stood staring, aghast. What we saw before us
was a rather atypical part of the community, a place where the outer walls,
rather than rising in a series of stairsteps, formed an almost sheer face some
five feet wide. Sharply-angled and deeply inset, it might almost have been
described as a ramp or chute. A dark stain spread down its face: the mud that
Arthur's sluices had drained away, this past week or more. Inside, I knew, the
corridors of the first three levels jogged abruptly inward at that point, and
there were no outer rooms built there at all. The portion of the fourth level
that had fallen had been perched at the very top of that chute, almost
overhanging it. Arthur had counted on those facts--those accidents of geology
and construction--to limit the damage, should the collapse occur before he and
his crew could intervene. He had been at best partially correct.

It appeared that the unstable rock had indeed fallen as one virtually-solid
mass--but rather than simply slide to the bottom, as Arthur had hoped, it had
begun to tumble instead, breaking up and broadcasting boulders--some of them
twice the size of a rat--far and wide. Some had bounded even as far as the
wheat-fields, plowing out furrows perpendicular to those that Ralph had so
laboriously created. Had I been sitting this morning in the same place where
Justin had found me the previous day, I would have ended up a mashed mouse.

The majority of the rock, though, did indeed lie in a single broken pile at
the bottom of the chute. Scars on the rock-face above showed where it had
bounced on the way down, and far above I could just see the fresh, ugly, ragged-edged
gash where it had all begun. The entire section of corridor where Justin,
Arthur, Sullivan and I had stood, not more than eight hours before, was gone:
outer walls, floor, and ceiling alike. Only the inner wall, where Arthur had
crouched down to examine the crack, was still there; and it was now open to the
sky.

Finally Justin shook himself, and laid his hand on my shoulder. Together we
moved forward. As we did, I saw that the ground all around us was littered not
only with boulders, but with chucks of shattered wood and lengths of broken and
frayed rope as well. Obviously the remains of Arthur's cranes, with which he'd
hoped to slowly dissemble the unstable section. The slide had brought them down
too. But--more importantly--had they taken any of Arthur's workers with them?
We could not immediately tell.

There were already more than two dozen rats crowded around the vicinity of
the wreckage. A quick glance around, as Justin and I drew near, showed them to
be of three distinct groups. The first and largest was that of Ralph's farmers;
some of them were quite naked except for their plow-harnesses, so quickly had
they responded to the emergency. The second was Philip's Guards, five of those
it seemed. And the third was Arthur's construction workers. Of that last group,
no more than five or six were vertical; they seemed dazed, almost
shell-shocked. The rest, almost a dozen, were lying flat on the ground in two
rows. Above, a mixed group of Guards and farmers was laboriously descending the
steep, switchbacked trail on the chute's right side, helping--in some cases carrying--more
of Arthur's troops down to safety.

Crouched down near the double line, moving slowly from victim to victim, was
a familiar tall figure dressed in blue and white: Philip. At Justin's hail the
Captain of the Guard stood and crossed over to us, coming to attention and
saluting as he did. "Report," Justin said crisply.

Looking at the two of them, standing face to face, I was once again struck
by how similar they were--except that Philip was marginally taller, and much
more muscular, the result of many hours in the gym. If I hadn't known better, I
might almost have thought that they were brothers--or even father and son.
Philip's tunic and fur were streaked with dust, and his expression was grim.
"It's bad," he said. "But not as bad as it might have
been." He nodded over his shoulder. "So far the casualties are
light--mostly the result of Arthur's cranes tearing themselves loose. We've got
a number of lacerations--some of them are going to need suturing. Also a fair
number of bruises, sprains and torn muscles. A few broken bones also. No
fatalities."

"Thank God," Justin said--a sentiment which I echoed quietly.
"Ages is on his way out, with more help," he went on. "I'd like
you to work with him, organizing the evacuation to the infirmary."

Philip nodded. "Understood," he said. He paused. "We do still
have a few people trapped--Sullivan and four members of his maintenance
crew." He pointed up and to the left. "They're on the north side of
the break. Apparently they're all okay, but for the moment they're stuck.
There's no outlet to the lower levels on that end of the fourth-floor tunnel.
Brutus is up there now, with my first lieutenant and a couple of Arthur's crew
who are still ambulatory. They're trying to salvage enough of the equipment so
they can clear the blockage without triggering another big slide."

Justin nodded. "As long as Sullivan and the others are all right where
they are," he said, "I think it'll be best to get all these people
out of harm's way first. Just in case."

Philip nodded. "Agreed."

"Philip," I put in, "where's Arthur?"

"Arthur is...missing," Philip said flatly. He glanced back over his
shoulder again, at the big, broken mass of rock some four or five feet away.
"We're afraid...he might be underneath that."

Justin and I looked at him aghast, but he simply shook his head mournfully.
"We don't know for certain," he went on. "But he was last seen
standing right in the middle of the tunnel, just before it collapsed." He
paused. "And if he is underneath all that..."

He didn't need to go on. If Arthur had indeed tumbled down the chute in the
midst of that mass of rock...then he was dead. As simple as that.

"I want it dug out," Justin said in strangled tones. "As soon
as possible. Get everyone you can on it. If there's even a chance..."

A chance to recover what's left of his body, is what Philip might
have said; but he saw the look in our leader's eye, and he desisted. "Yes,
sir," he said. "Right away."

Justin touched my shoulder again. "Come on," he said.

"Where to?"

He pointed. "Up there," he said, and I sighed. I'd been afraid he
was going to say that...

The climb up the chute's right edge was long, but not as difficult as I'd
feared. Not half as bad as what I'd had to put up with every day during nine
months at NIMH. On the way, hauling ourselves up the steeply-angled slope with
hands and feet both, Justin and I paused several times, moving aside as the
remainder of the casualties were brought down. There were still no fatalities,
it seemed; nor any truly life-threatening injuries. We'd been fortunate indeed;
but if Arthur....that, however, was a line of thought which I didn't care to
pursue. Once or twice I dared to look down, and what I saw heartened me: the
remainder of the Guard had arrived, along with Ages and Cynthia; the injured
were being loaded onto stretchers and taken inside. Very shortly the area below
the collapse would be clear.

Vertically speaking, it was about an eight-foot climb, though the actual
distance we traversed was likely much more, so twisting was the trail. At the
top we found a smooth stone platform, some two feet deep and quite broad: the
roof, if you will, of the fourth level. The platform was almost flat, angled
just slightly to the east, and its surface was extensively spiderwebbed with
cracks, ranging from hair-fine to as wide as my hand. Some of the larger ones
had been filled, and quite recently too, with what appeared to be concrete.
Behind the shelf, a sheer, smooth, knife-edged ridge climbed toward the sky.

There were four rats standing on the shelf, three males and a female. One of
the males I would have recognized half a mile away: Brutus. Today he was
dressed for guard duty. Of the other two males, one was more familiar to me
than the other: Thomas, Philip's first lieutenant. He was a slim, wiry and
somewhat fussy individual, the absolute diametric opposite of his commanding
officer. The other male--a broad-shouldered, brown-furred young rat wearing a
dirty, ragged white shirt and a dusty black vest--was less familiar to me;
clearly, though, he was one of Arthur's workers. What was his name--? Tucker,
that was it.

The female rat I recognized instantly--and as I saw her, I felt my heart
sink. Exceptionally large and strong even for one of our females, she had
light-grey fur and large, expressive dark eyes. She wore a stained, torn green
tunic and a beige sweater; her right arm hung in a makeshift sling around her
neck. Her name was Mary, and she was Arthur's youngest daughter; Robert's older
sister. Behind her on the platform lay a pitiful collection of random junk, the
remains of Arthur's equipment: coils of frayed rope and broken, splintered
wooden planks and beams mostly. To my inexpert eye at least, it appeared all but
useless.

As Justin and I pulled ourselves up onto the shelf, the four of them turned
toward us, and Thomas--as was always his habit--came to attention and saluted.
Justin looked them over and smiled faintly. "Who's in charge?" he
asked.

They exchanged a glance, and then Mary stepped forward. "I think...I
am," she said.

Justin gazed at her with deep sympathy, and nodded. Looking closer, I saw
the dark, damp streaks running down her cheeks: obviously she had been crying,
and recently too. She knew. "I think you are," Justin agreed.
"What's the situation?"

She paused for a moment, clearly centering herself as well as collecting her
thoughts, and while she did I took a quick look around. Up close, the scene
was--if anything--even more appalling than it had appeared from below. It was
as if some giant creature, or some huge machine, had scooped out a handful of
rock and thrown it down to the valley floor. A little below me and to my right,
as I faced the collapse, was the inner wall of the fourth-level corridor; it
had broken off absolutely flush at the bottom, and no trace of the floor was
left. I looked at that and shuddered, remembering standing there just hours
ago. The roof, though, had not broken away quite so cleanly: there was a
ragged, narrow shelf remaining, averaging about half an inch wide, and
extremely treacherous-looking. Above that the ridge climbed sheer, six feet
high or more.

The break itself was more than four feet wide, and--as Robert had
indicated--the sides had not broken away cleanly. Not at all. The tunnel's
ceiling had partially collapsed on both ends, north and south, blocking the
passage all but completely. Almost directly beneath my feet, there at the south
side of the break, the corridor was plugged by a nearly-solid mass of broken
rock and rubble; clearly, it was going nowhere any time soon. Across the break,
though, the situation was very different. The corridor on the north side was
blocked as well...but in that case, a broad slab of the roof had fallen almost
intact, and lay at a steep angle across the mouth of the hallway like a
trapdoor. The slab was wedged in at the bottom, right at the very lip of the
break, and it gave the impression of being extremely unsteady: as if almost
anything, even a good hard sneeze, would suffice to send it sliding down into
the valley below. A glance down showed that the evacuation was still
continuing; silently I urged them to hurry.

Finally Mary began to speak, her voice flat and held tightly in control.
"We were lucky," she said. "There was nobody standing directly
on top of that section when it started to go. If there had been..." she
shook her head, and then she pointed across the break. "Sullivan and four
of his maintenance team are on the other side. We've been able to make contact
with them--they're basically all right. But for now they're trapped."

Justin shaded his eyes and peered across, frowning. "It doesn't look
like it would take much to get that slab moving..."

"It wouldn't," she agreed. "In fact we've been holding our
breath up here, praying that it won't go until it's clear below. But
that's not really the problem."

"What is?" Justin asked.

"Getting them down once the tunnel is clear," Mary said. She
pointed again, and I immediately saw what she meant. The broad, flat shelf on
which we stood did not continue across the break; or--more accurately,
perhaps--what there was of that shelf was the very slab that blocked the
tunnel, and was in extreme danger of falling. Behind that slab, though, the
ridge curved around like a cupped hand, not climbable except with specialized
equipment. Nor was there any convenient trail down that side of the chute--just
a sheer drop to the valley below. Except for a very narrow, shallow shelf,
there was nowhere for Sullivan and his team to go.

As the six of us stood contemplating this, I suddenly heard a small, muffled
voice...which seemed to issue from somewhere beneath my feet. "Hello! Is
anybody out there?"

I dropped to my stomach and edged as close as I dared to the mass of rock
that blocked the tunnel. I peered down...and through a small, dark chink between
two big boulders, I caught a glimpse of something shiny. Sunlight glinting off
a pair of glasses, perhaps? "Timothy!" I called. "Is that you,
son?"

"Dad?" he said. "Yeah, it's me! What's going on up
there?"

"We're trying to figure out how to get to Sullivan!" I said.
"What's happening in there?"

"Is Justin with you?"

"Yes!"

"Tell him it's secure in here," Timothy said. "There's rocks
all over the place, and wood, but the ceiling is solid, and it looks like it's
not going anywhere!"

"Good!" I said. I paused. "Listen, Tim--there's another job I
need you to do. All right?"

"Just name it!" he said.

"I need you to find Philip. He'll probably be somewhere between the
main entrance and the infirmary. Tell him not to start digging through the
wreckage yet. He needs to make sure that the area below the collapse is kept
entirely clear of people until further notice. Understood? It looks like we're
going to have to drop some more rock!"

"Got it!" he said, and the glasses vanished. It would be a long
trip, from the fourth level down to the first...but running was my younger son's
favorite aerobic exercise, and he could keep it up all day if necessary.

Justin nodded in approval as I stood and dusted myself off. "Good
thinking," he said. "No sense endangering anyone else." He
looked around. "All right--anybody got any ideas?"

Tucker cleared his throat. "Could we get to them from the other side?
Climb up into the rocks and over the ridge?"

Thomas shook his head. "No," he said. "Not in a reasonable
time, at any rate. I've been up there--those crags are terrible. You could
wander around up there for days, trying to find a way across." He paused.
"Could we extend some kind of plank bridge?"

Mary snorted. "Across four feet?" she scoffed. "Not a chance.
It's impossible for us to cantilever anything that far without braces
underneath. Anything strong enough would be far too heavy. And it would take
hours to assemble the materials anyway."

For a long moment there was silence. Justin stood deep in thought, stroking
his whiskers absently...then, abruptly, he grasped Mary's uninjured arm and
pointed. "What's that?"

All of us turned to gaze across the gap, following Justin's finger. What we
saw was a tiny light spot on the lower part of the ridge, not more than an inch
or two above and to the right of the collapsed slab. A spot that seemed somehow
to flutter in the breeze.

Finally Mary said, "That's one of the eyebolts my father
installed," she said. "He used them to secure the equipment."
She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "There's another one back
there," she went on; and it was true: this one, though, was anchored not
into the ridge, but into the flat platform itself, two feet or so behind us.
"Looks like that one's still got an inch or so of rope attached."

"Then it must still be solid," Justin said. "If the rope
broke rather than the bolt pulling out."

Mary nodded. "I'd say so." She peered up at him. "So?"

Justin smiled slowly. "So," he said, "I think I've got an
idea."

Halfway across the break, with my bare furry chest pressed against the rough
stone wall and nothing beneath my dangling tail except an eight-foot drop, I
paused to wonder: how did I let them talk me into this? Unfortunately that
question was simple enough to answer: they hadn't. In point of fact I'd
talked myself into it--because there was no other alternative.

"The first thing we need to do," Justin had said, pointing across
the gap, "is to get a line from here to that eyebolt."

Mary nodded slowly, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "You're
right," she said. "But how? Last time I looked, none of us had
learned how to fly."

"We don't need to," Justin countered. He stepped closer to the
inner wall and crouched down, pointing. The rest of us gathered around. As I
mentioned, when the fourth level roof pulled way from the wall, it did not do
so cleanly. There remained an extremely narrow, ragged-edged shelf...and now that
I came to look more closely, it did indeed seem to extend all the way across
the gap, wider in some places and narrower--very much narrower--in others.

Mary took Justin's meaning at once, of course, as did we all; and she shook
her head emphatically. "No way," she said. "It's too
narrow."

I looked at that shelf...and then I heard someone speak, just a few quiet
words. Nothing odd about that; what was odd, was that the words seemed
to emanate from myself. "It's not to narrow for me."

The five of them--even Brutus--looked at me sharply. Justin's eyes narrowed.
"You're probably right," he confirmed. He paused and cleared his
throat. "But...does that mean you're volunteering?" he asked finally.

I looked up at him and shrugged. "We don't have much choice, do
we?" I asked. "Sullivan and his crew can't wait forever--I doubt whether
they've got any water over there, for one thing."

Justin peered into my eyes for a moment; and then he nodded. "All
right," he said quietly. "Let's get to work."

...And the rest, as they say, was history. We rummaged around in the pile of
junk and came up with two good lengths of cord, light but strong, and
fortunately still sound; and a few other necessities as well. While Mary,
Justin and the others checked the line I stepped over to the shelf for another
look...and as I looked, I made a decision. The wall behind was rough and jagged;
there were far too many places for sleeves or belts or arm-holes to get
caught--a distraction I did not need. And so, ignoring the
slightly-chilly breeze as best I could, I quickly stripped off my clothing,
folded it, and laid it neatly aside. I'd be a little thinner that way too,
without all that cloth--thin enough, hopefully.

They rigged me up a kind of harness, the best approximation we could make of
rock-climber's gear: lengths of rope that encircled my waist and my upper legs,
and crisscrossed over my chest and shoulders. To the front of that, to a loop
directly over my sternum, they fastened one end of the longer rope. The other
line, a loose coil of perhaps two feet or so, I draped over my left shoulder
and around my torso, like a bandoleer. And then--before I could talk myself out
of it--I made my way over to the shelf.

Before I could begin, Justin stopped me, his hands on my shoulders. He
looked down at me seriously. "I'm the one who'll have to tell Elizabeth if
anything goes wrong," he said. "So just...be careful, all right?"

I nodded soberly and shook his hand. "Bet on it," I told him. I
paused for a moment, pondering whether it would be better to face the wall or
put my back to it. You could argue it either way, and in fact I did
argue it both ways, again and again for a period of thirty seconds or so. But I
was just stalling, and I knew it. With my face to the wall, then, pressed as
tight against the rock as I could, I sidled slowly out onto the shelf. I told
myself that my footing would be more secure this way...and maybe I believed it,
too. As I began, my feet were almost entirely on the shelf ...but as I got toward
the center, that little strip of rock would become much narrower. Before long
I'd be up on my tiptoes. And if even that was inadequate...

When rock-climbing, it's usually a good idea to belay yourself to the most
solid object available. And in this case, that object was Brutus. As I moved
slowly along, my hands feeling for holds and my toes scraping along the
rock-wall, across on the shelf the big rat stood with the other end of the rope
wrapped around his waist, slowly paying it out as I went. It was reassuring, to
glance over and see his dark, attentive eyes upon me...but only to a point. The
farther I went, the worse the situation became: because if I fell, I would not
fall straight down. The rope would bend my fall sharply to my right, so that I
would fetch up hard against the wall of the chute. The more rope between him
and me, the harder that impact would be. If we'd had the equipment, I would
have been placing pitons or expansion bolts in the wall as I went, and clipping
my safety line to them. But needless to say, we did not.

Very soon the process became painful, and soon after that torturous. My
calves were not used to it, for one thing, and it didn't take long for them to
make their complaints known. My fingertips were being scraped raw too, as they
scrabbled for holds; and the breeze was gradually becoming a wind; funneling up
the chute, it was chilly enough to make me regret my decision to remove my
clothing. Unfortunately it was a little too late to back out now.

I was a little more than halfway across when it happened; when backing out
became a literal impossibility. The shelf beneath my feet had been gradually
narrowing, so that by now nothing more than my toes had solid purchase, and it
was almost entirely the grip of my hands on the wall which kept me from
falling. I took yet another cautious side-step to the left...and the rock
crumbled beneath my foot.

How I saved myself I still don't know. There was a cry of alarm from the
onlookers on the shelf, but I scarcely heard it. Somehow I managed to find
purchase for my right foot, and pushing off from there I jumped sharply to the
left, even as several inches of the shelf crumbled and fell from beneath me. If
my hands had not immediately found holds--which I grabbed with all the
desperation of a drowning man clutching a log--I would have fallen. As it was I
lay against the rock-face for the better part of a minute, trembling violently,
before I dared to look.

What I saw wasn't pretty. A gap of almost four inches had opened up between
me and my friends, the ragged shelf crumbling back virtually flush with the
wall. There was no way I could cross it; now I truly was committed--or should
have been. The only way back lay ahead.

A glance over at the shelf showed the others staring at me in white-faced
horror. I managed to pry my right hand--now more like a claw--away from the
rock long enough to give them a reassuring wave. And then I continued. From
there on, fortunately, the shelf got progressively wider.

In all, I suppose, the traverse took no more than about ten minutes--though
I'd left my watch with my tunic. On the left side of the break, at the ragged
edge of the tilted slab, the shelf widened out just a trifle, into a flat
platform wide enough for me to comfortably stand on; and there I more or less
collapsed, my knees buckling underneath me. Panting hard I crouched there, my
head in my hands, waiting for my heart to stop pounding....Unfortunately it was a
very short rest, before Justin's voice drifted across the gap: "Jonathan!
Are you all right?"

Reluctantly I straightened up and turned. For just a second I considered
telling him that I was dying, just to see what he would do...but we didn't have
time for such foolishness. I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted back,
"I'm fine!" Standing on the brink next to Brutus, Justin didn't look
quite convinced; but he waved back nonetheless.

And as for me...well, getting across the gap was much less than half the
battle, and time was wasting. I got back to work; but before I did, I spared a
few seconds for a look around.

Directly in front of me now was the slab that blocked the north end of the
corridor. Up close, it was an even more alarming-looking object than it had
been at a distance. It was something like a foot and a half long and almost two
feet wide, and its surface was extensively cracked. It was perched at about a
thirty degree angle, and its upper end, which lay on the same level as my feet,
had pulled away almost a full inch from the ridge, leaving an ugly, ragged
fissure. Exactly what was keeping the slab from sliding I don't know; its lower
edge rested right on the very lip of the gap. Old man friction, I guess--but
having fought the slab to a stalemate, he was now engaged in a hopeless
rear-guard action with the force of gravity. I felt reasonably safe, though:
even if the slab did go, the platform on which I stood should remain virtually
unaffected. It says here.

I turned then to the eyebolt, which was fastened to the rock almost--but
fortunately not quite--above my head. It appeared to be some kind of an
expansion bolt, and it had been driven securely into a narrow crack in the
vertical rock-face. It did indeed still have a length of rope attached to it,
raggedly broken about an inch below the bolt, presumably by the weight of
Arthur's collapsing equipment. The bolt itself appeared not to have moved even
a fraction of an inch: it ought to be plenty strong for what we had in mind. If
it had not been; if it had been on the verge of falling out...but that was not a
thought I cared to pursue either.

First I removed the dangling rope, getting it out of my way. The knot was
too hard and tight to untie, so I gnawed through it; I am, after all, a rodent.
I pitched the little scrap away and watched as it drifted slowly downward. Then
I uncoiled the line from around my shoulder and torso and shook it out. I
fastened one end to the eyebolt, and the other to the makeshift harness across
my chest (a harness which, by this time, was beginning to chafe quite
uncomfortably, but which I had no thought of removing.) And with that, I
finally had something which could meaningfully be called a safety line. I took
a big loop of the other cord--the one which still extended across the gap to
Brutus--and slipped it through the eyebolt as well, tying it back upon itself.
Then I untied the end of that rope from my harness. Without its dead weight
dangling from me, I immediately felt both safer and more comfortable.

I turned then and dropped to my stomach at the very edge of the slab.
Beneath me, there was a narrow triangular gap where the slab met the shelf, and
into that black space I cautiously stuck my head. "Sullivan!" I
shouted. "Hello! Can you hear me?"

The response was immediate, if slightly muffled: obviously that gap--as I'd
hoped--did indeed extend all the way into the corridor below.
"Jonathan!" Sullivan called. "Is that you?"

"Yes, it's me!" I told him. "Are you all right?"

I heard shuffling footsteps as he edged a little closer. "Mostly,"
he said. "I think Suzanne has a fractured wrist. But the rest of us just
have a few scrapes and bruises. What's going on?"

"We're working on a way to get you out of here," I told him.
"But first we need to figure out some way to shift this slab."

"I think I can help you there," Sullivan said. "We've got a
lot of scrap lumber, and we've been able to put together a kind of lever. It
shouldn't take more than a couple good heaves to get the slab moving."

"Doubtless true," I said, glancing down. "But can you do it
safely?"

There was a pause, then Sullivan said, "Define 'safely.'"

"Point taken," I said. I hesitated. "All right. That's
probably the best way--none of the rest of us have any better ideas. Don't do
anything yet, though--let us get the rest of the equipment rigged. I'll let you
know."

"Roger Wilco!" Sullivan said cheerfully.

I pulled myself to my feet and looked around critically. The lower lip of
the slab lay well below me, and as I said, once it started moving it ought to
just politely slide. I saw no reason why it should affect our rig. And if I
wanted to be out of the vicinity before the slab went--which I most certainly
did--we would have to finish that rig first. I stepped back over to the
eyebolt, and I bellowed across the gap: "Ready!"

What we were beginning now was without a doubt the most difficult part of
the operation--and the trickiest as well, depending as it did almost entirely
on my strength. There was no way the others could help me; they could do little
more than watch and hope. If my arms failed me, if I lost my grip...then we were
all in deep trouble.

At the end of the line I had carried across with me, Justin and the others
sent over a large wooden pulley (or, more accurately, a "block")
which had been salvaged from Arthur's equipment. The line that extended across
the gap was fastened to the block's fixed end; looped over the wheel was another
length of line, both ends of which were held, and slowly paid out, by Brutus.
For me it was not a matter of simply pulling, not as such; that would have been
beyond my strength. Rather, it was a matter of taking up some slack through the
eyebolt, then belaying the line back upon itself; then taking up a little more
slack, and so on, and on. It took almost half an hour in all, and long before I
finished my arms and shoulders were screaming their protests. (Thank God,
though, for all those pull-ups I'd been doing in the gym!) Finally I hoisted
the block up onto my shoulder, and, passing a length of the line five or six
times through both its eye and the eyebolt, I tied it off firmly. Then I turned
and waved across the break. "All secure!" I yelled.

At that point there was little for me to do except to sit down and watch,
resting my aching arms. Above my head the wheel began to turn slowly, creaking,
as the line was pulled through it. As I watched a discontinuity slowly
approached a change in color as well as thickness, and finally I stood again,
as a neat, compact knot passed through the pulley: the knot where the somewhat
thin line, identical to that which I'd carried across, had been neatly spliced
to a length of much heavier, stronger rope. I helped the knot through the
pulley, and then I watched it recede into the distance again, pulled back
toward the other side of the break.

And that was all there was to it, almost. Justin and the others had rigged
another block to the eyebolt in the platform behind them; and passing the
heavier rope through its wheel, they spliced the ends together neatly, and then
took up the slack in the line that held the block to the eyebolt, pulling the
entire system more or less taut. What we ended up with bore an almost ludicrous
resemblance to a clothesline; but in fact it was the way across--the only
way across--for Sullivan and his crew. And for me too, of course. Even as I
watched, Justin and the others rigged to the lower line a device known as a
"bosun's chair": nothing more or less than a short wooden plank
fastened to a Y-shaped arrangement of ropes.

And at long last, with all that accomplished, there was nothing left to do
but to drop the slab, a process which I had no desire to watch close-up. Even
as Brutus cranked the chair toward me, I lay down on my stomach again and
shouted through the gap: "We're almost ready! Give me about five minutes
to get clear, and then go for it!"

"Understood!" Sullivan called. He paused. "Jonathan?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you!"

There was such open relief in his voice, that I had to smile, even though he
couldn't see me. "You're welcome! See you on the other side!"

By this time the bosun's chair was in position, and I began to haul myself
up into it...when abruptly I paused, one leg halfway across the plank. Frowning,
I looked around. Even now I don't really know why. It's most tempting to say
that I had heard something; some tiny sound barely on the edge of hearing, but
enough to make my (admittedly) extra-large ears flick around in confusion, seeking
its source. But is that truly possible, given the creaking of the ropes and the
hissing of the wind through the ridges above me? I don't know. All I know is
that something stopped me.

I dropped to the shelf again, leaving the chair swinging back and forth
behind me, and I leaned down into the gap. "Sullivan! Wait! Don't do
anything yet!"

"What's wrong?" he called.

"I'm not sure!" I said. "Just don't do anything till I tell
you, all right?"

"All right," he said dubiously.

Scarcely knowing myself what I was doing, I stepped over to the edge of the
tilted slab, dubiously eyeing the wide crack where it had pulled away from the
ridge. There was only one way across...but would the weight of a mouse be enough
to set it sliding? I could only hope not. I took a deep breath and ran, as
quickly and lightly as I could, across the upper half of the slab, my feet
scarcely touching the rock. Fortunately, the weight of a mouse was not
enough. Not quite, anyway. On the other side I dropped to my stomach and peered
down.

On that side of the slab there was another dark triangular gap, if anything
a little wider than it twin across the way. I leaned over and stuck my head
into the gloom. "Is someone...down there?" I asked.

For a second all was silence...then I heard a long, low moan. Was it the same
sound I had heard just a few seconds before? I'll never know for certain, but
logically it must have been. "Help me," a voice whispered.
"Please help me."

The gap was big enough for me to crawl through--only just. I started to do
so...and was suddenly brought up short: I had run out of slack in my safety line.
I hesitated a second...then I untied the line and set it aside. And then I
cautiously wormed my way through, head first. I hung by my hands for a second,
and then let myself drop. I landed lightly on my feet and spun around.

I found myself in a small and very dimly-lit space, roofed over by the
tilted slab. Directly in front of me, no more than a foot away, was a solid
wall, which had apparently been partially crushed by the collapse of the roof.
A second wall--obviously, the outer wall--lay directly behind my back; and
there was yet a third, about a foot and a half to my left. At its highest
point, the roof of this space was no more than two or three inches above my
head, and it tapered drastically to my left. The floor was littered all over
with rocks, ranging from sharp fragments to head-sized boulders. And in the
very center lay a larger, lumpy object. An object that moved slightly as my
feet struck the floor.

Instantly I dropped to my knees, and my groping hands encountered cloth and
fur. "Arthur?" I asked. "Arthur, is that you?"

The voice was faint and pain-soaked, almost inaudible. "Yes," he
said. "Yes, it's me. Is that you, Jonathan?" In the semi-darkness I
saw the sudden flash of his smile. "It must be--I'd know those spots
anywhere."

I moved my hands carefully down the length of his body. The Chief Engineer
lay on his right side, partially curled up, his head facing the tilted slab. My
eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness now, and I saw that his clothing
was torn and dirty, his fur full of dust. "My God!" I said.
"Arthur! It is you! Are you--are you all right?"

"No," he said succinctly. "I'm not." He shifted slightly
and groaned again, a sound of pain that cut straight to my heart. "I can't
get up. It's either a fractured right hip or pelvis--or maybe both. And I'm
pretty well battered all over."

"How did you get here?"

"I really don't know," he said. He paused. "All of a sudden
everything was falling all around me," he went on slowly, remembering.
"I saw this space open up--and I jumped for it. I almost made it. A big
boulder hit me in the side and spun me around. The next thing I knew, I thought
I was hearing your voice--I guess I really was--and I called out for help. I
was afraid no one would hear me..."

I looked around, and I finally understood where we were. The fourth level
was not only a corridor, of course: it was also rooms, as yet unused, and
windowless. The place where I now found myself was the partially-collapsed
remains of one of those rooms--a piece which, unfortunately, did not include a
doorway into the corridor. I patted Arthur's shoulder reassuringly. "We're
going to get you out of here, my friend," I promised him. "Just hold
on a little longer, all right?"

He smiled again. "I don't have much choice do I?"

I stood then, and picked my way back to the gap. It was a rather high jump
for a mouse, but my outstretched hands managed to catch the edge, and I hauled
myself back out into the sunlight. Perched on the edge of the slab I cupped my
hands and bellowed, "Justin! I've found Arthur!"

Across the gap, Justin nearly tumbled over the edge. "You've what?"
he shouted back.

"I've found Arthur! He's alive, but he's hurt! We're going to need
medical help up here!"

Justin turned and spoke a few words to Thomas--words which, needless to say,
I couldn't hear. Their meaning wasn't hard to guess, though, as the First
Lieutenant of the Guard took off down the trail full-speed. "Can you get
him out?" Justin yelled.

I turned and looked back. That was indeed the problem. The little gap
through which I'd wormed was scarcely big enough for a mouse. Certainly it was
far too small for a rat; especially one as large as Arthur; and most especially
one as badly injured as he was. The remains of the room where he lay had no
door, no egress at all into the corridor. Could we create one? I
wondered. Sullivan and his crew had tools, it seemed; could they batter a
doorway in the dividing wall? No, I decided, almost instantly. We
start pounding on that wall, and all we'll do is knock the slab loose.

The slab... It was the key to the entire situation, the obstruction
which held no less than six people captive. It wasn't hard to guess what
Sullivan and his crew intended to do: use their lever to get the thing moving,
and then run like hell for the deep recesses of the corridor while it dropped.
But Arthur, trapped and helpless, had no such option. And the thing lay no more
than a few inches above him. But if we're right, I reminded myself
firmly, it ought to just slide right off. "No!" I shouted.
"We're going to have to get rid of the slab before we can get him out!
There's no other way!"

Without even waiting for acknowledgment, I dropped back through the gap and
made my way across the little room, past Arthur to the inner wall. It had been
partially crushed, as I said, reduced virtually to rubble not far above my
head, and a number of wide cracks zigzagged across its surface. Hopefully some
of them went through to the other side. Pressing my mouth against the widest
crack I could find, I shouted, "Sullivan! Can you hear me?"

This time the reply was even more muffled; but it was understandable, and
that was enough. "Jonathan? Did I just hear you say you've found
Arthur?"

"Yes I have!" I yelled. "Listen, Sullivan, you're going to
have to go ahead and drop the slab! There's nothing else we can do!"

There was a long pause, and I was on the verge of repeating myself, when
"Are you sure?" he asked reluctantly.

"Yes!" I insisted. "Yes, I'm sure."

"All right! Get ready!"

Once again I dropped to my knees beside Arthur. "This is going to be
interesting," I told him, with a jocularity that I didn't feel. "But
if we're lucky we'll live through it."

"It's not too late for you to get clear," Arthur said.

"I know it isn't," I told him simply. "But I'm not going
to."

He reached up and found my hand. "Thank you, Jonathan," he said.
"Even if we don't live through it...thank you."

Through the intervening wall I heard the thump, as Sullivan and his crew
jammed their lever against the slab's bottom edge. I heard their grunts of
effort, and the creak of the wood; I heard the ominous grinding as the slab
began to shift...and I felt the patter of small stones and dust down upon us. At
the last instant, as the grinding quickened to a sliding rush, I crouched down,
covering Arthur's head and shoulders with my body, my own head buried in my
arms. Several rocks fell sharply upon my bare back, and the room rumbled and
shook...and then bright sunshine washed over us, and it was all over. Almost.

In the open air I scrambled to my feet...a little too soon. I heard the shout
behind me, "Jonathan, look out!" and I spun--just in time to see a
chunk of rock about the size of my own torso detach itself from high on the
ruined inner wall and bounce toward me. I tried to duck...but it was too late.
The rock struck me a glancing blow in the upper left arm and knocked me over
backwards. I felt as well as heard the sharp pop in my shoulder, and the
wave of pain that followed literally paralyzed me. And then I was sliding
helplessly toward the brink of an eight-foot drop.

At the last instant a hand closed on my right ankle and arrested my motion.
And hanging there face down, more than halfway over the edge, I was just in
time to see the end of the drama. Our friend the slab had indeed fallen
cleanly, sliding free as if on rollers...but halfway down the chute it caught on
some obstruction, and with a booming roar it began to tumble end for end,
shedding rocks. On impact it exploded, showering boulders and dust far and
wide...but fortunately the area had been long since cleared. I turned my head as
a choking cloud of debris swept upwards. And then a pair of strong arms closed
around my waist and pulled me back from the brink. Cradling my dangling,
suddenly-useless left arm I turned over, to see Sullivan, his face streaked
with dust and grime, peering down at me in concern. "Jonathan?" he
asked. "Are you all right?"

Art by LordDirk

Looking up at him, I pondered that question. "I think," I told him
seriously, "I'm going to have to get back to you on that one." And
then I passed out.