Impossible Dreamers

Chapter 13 (twil-ir): Drilling

Pritch looked up at the tall structure. In truth, he knew very little about how it worked, or what it was doing. He knew about flying machines, not how to make deep holes in the ground. It was the others who knew about that. But it seemed to be working. It was certainly making a lot of noise. Deafening, in fact. Which meant it must be doing something.

Pritch didn't like being here. There were stories about this place. About strange creatures who appeared from nowhere, then disappeared as soon as you saw them. He didn't believe the stories, but even so, the place made him nervous. Every now and then it seemed as if there was movement, just outside his field of vision. As a scientist, he knew this was just a reaction to the stories. There was nothing there, really. If such creatures existed, and if they were human, Tyro's Guardians would have found them by now. They would have been brought into Bartyronian society, working for the good of Tyro. Just as well that they didn't exist really. He tried to suppress that thought, but then realised that it was very unlikely that thought scanners would operate in an area like this, so there was no need to worry.

Would this project succeed? Most of the people Pritch had asked, people who knew about what was under the rocks, and how volcanoes worked, said that it wouldn't. It was too hot under there, these top scientists said. You would have to dig too deep. What's more, you would need all of the water in the Bartyronis, and a lot more than that, to have even a little effect, for a short time. But there was a small group, a tiny group, who said: 'Maybe. Maybe you could do something. That Grabble mountain wasn't quite like other volcanoes. It had been throwing out all that smoke for such a long time that maybe it was on its way out anyway. Maybe, if we went as deep as we could go, and used a lot of water, though not as much as the first lot had said, it would have quite an effect. It might be worth a try.' But even then, they didn't think it was really very likely that it could work.

Normally, Pritch would have listened to what the first lot said, and left it at that. They were the ones that really should be listened to. They were the ones that everyone said really knew about this stuff.

But if Pritch had listened to them, that would just mean he would have to do nothing. Because there was no other solution to his problem that he could think of. And if he did nothing, Tyro's birthday would arrive, and no flying machine would be able to cross the Grabble mountains. What's more, it would be a waste of time working on the machines he had already designed – making them so much bigger, able to carry the large number of people that Sleech had now demanded, and all the equipment, all the weapons, all the scientific instruments that were needed. Why was all that stuff needed? Everybody knew that there was nobody there on the other side of that pile of rocks. It looked like Tyro just wanted to be able to tell himself that he had control of every bit of land, every plant and animal on the planet, and because of that, Pritch had to spend his time on impossible tasks.

Even though success was unlikely, Pritch had no alternative but to try this. So he had gone to Sleech and told him that getting the flying machine across would be possible, but only with a lot of stuff being used.

'What sort of stuff?' Sleech had asked.

Pritch had already decided that the one thing he couldn't say was that this venture might fail. He had told Sleech that he now had a plan that would enable the flying machines to cross the mountain. No point in explaining that there was a risk involved.

'I'll need to drill a big hole, Himester,' Pritch said.

'I see. Do you plan to tunnel under this mountain?'

Pritch hadn't thought of this, and for a moment, wondered whether it might be a good idea. People could build tunnels, and this would be a way of getting through. But then he realised that this was not really a practical, or even a possible solution. The rock under the volcano would be unbearably hot, and any machines sent down there would be destroyed. They might even melt. And in the tunnel, how would you know you were going in the right direction? You would have to have someone at the other end, digging holes to guide the tunnellers, but since it wasn't possible to get to the other end, that couldn't happen. You might build a tunnel, and when you came out, find you were on the same side of the mountain that you began on. That would be terrible. He pulled himself away from these thoughts, and back to the requests he was going to make to Sleech.