To the Hollow World

by johnnedwill

There was the hollow sound of rocks falling on metal and the sickening noise of steel being torn. The Mechanical Mole lurched, then fell. Professor Conrad had barely enough time to shout a warning to his fellow subterranean explorers: "Brace! Brace! We're going to - !"

Captain James Dare - his lightning reflexes always ready and primed - grabbed hold of a brass handle attached to one of the Mole's ribs and held on tight. Augusta Conrad had not unbuckled the harness that kept her in her seat. Even so, she was surprised by the suddenness of the Mole's change in attitude. She cried out, her limbs flailing upwards. "My God!"

Charlie fared the worst of the four. He had been on his way back from the Mole's galley, bearing a tray loaded with mugs of tea and slices of tinned Dundee cake, when the Mechanical Mole had begun its precipitous descent. As a result, the young man found himself flung at great velocity towards the deckhead above. He cried out in panic, then in pain as his head stuck a steel stanchion.

For a moment, each of the four felt their stomachs lift into their mouths, such was the speed at which the Mechanical Mole dropped. Professor Conrad had just enough presence of mind to glance at the dials of the densitometer and to call out, "Ground coming up!" However, instead of the sudden jarring of an abruptly terminated fall, there was a gentler deceleration followed by a sensation very much like -

"Bobbing?" Captain Dare released his grip on the handle that had saved him from injury. Then, steadying himself against the rolling motion of the Mechanical Mole, he stumbled towards the co-pilot's seat.

Charlie groaned extracted himself from the remains of the tea service. It felt to him as if there was a goose egg throbbing away on the back of his head. "Did you say 'bobbing', sir? Like we were some kind of blooming' cork?"

"I did indeed, Charlie my boy. Most curious, no?"

"That doesn't make sense." Augusta unhooked her harness of canvas straps and buckles. "This thing isn't meant to float. It's too dense for that."

"Exactly so, my dear." Professor Conrad replied. "Certainly it is too dense to float on water."

"But maybe not too dense to float on something else?" James Dare sat down in the chair next to the professor. He glanced at the array of dials on the console before him. One in particular caught his attention: the dial that was connected to the thermocouples on the hull of the Mechanical Mole. "Our outer temperature looks a bit high, professor."

Conrad dismissed this revelation with a wave of his hand. "I was expecting that. After all, we have been burrowing through miles of solid rock. Granite is a most excellent insulator."

"Perhaps, professor. But," Dare tapped on the dial that was the focus of his attention. "But it looks to me like things are getting hotter."

"Hotter? How on Earth could that be?"

Augusta spoke up from her position behind the two men. "Perhaps, father, you should open the vision shutters so we can take a look?"

"A capital idea, my dear!" Professor Conrad exclaimed. He twisted a control on his panel. There was the hum of an electric motor, and the armour plate that had protected the vision blocks during the Mole's underground voyage moved aside. A hellish red light flooded the cabin, and both Captain Dare and Professor Conrad raised their arms to protect their eyes from the glare. "Now that is interesting." The professor dropped his arm and leaned forward to peer through the thick quartz-glass porthole.

"Interesting?" James likewise dropped his arm and looked through the porthole.

"We appear to be floating on a lake of molten rock." The professor sat back in his seat and steepled his hands just below his chin, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Now how on Earth could that have happened?"

"Not on Earth - in Earth." A smile played across the savant's lips. "It's quite simple really. It looks like in our descent we have encountered an interstitial void."

Charlie pushed forward so he was between the professor and Captain Dare. He craned his neck to try and catch a glimpse of the world outside. To his simple mind, the scene that lay beyond the vision port reminded him of a colour print of Hell - one that had haunted him since he had been a boy. It was his aunt that had showed him the image. Her lurid descriptions of devils, demons and the torments of the damned sprung to the forefront of his mind. He crossed himself reflexively. "Is it my imagination, or is it starting to get hot in here?"

Professor Conrad leaned to his right to look at the temperature dials. "Well, the air temperature outside our hull is probably too high for the optimal function of the cooling system. We will just have to sweat it out until we can get somewhere cooler."

"But won't we melt before we can get out of here?"

"Melt?" The professor snorted in derision. "Things may get a little uncomfortable in here, but human beings do not just melt."

"No, sir. I didn't mean us." Charlie extended a hand and gingerly brushed his fingers against the bulkhead closest to him. "I meant won't this thing melt?"

Conrad and Dare looked at each other. Then the professor coughed. "Augusta, my dear?"

The young woman looked attentively at her parent. "Yes, father?"

"I need you to help me with some calculations, if you would be so kind?"

"Of course."

Professor Conrad got up from his seat and, with his daughter, proceeded to the rear of the cabin. As the two began to work on their formulae, Dare slid across into the chair recently vacated by the professor. Charlie sat down next to him.

"What do you reckon then, sir?" Charlie asked.

James Dare peered through the porthole. "Well, until the good professor figures something out, I would say that we are going wherever this lave flow is taking us."

"Don't suppose it would do any good if I was to get out and push?"

Dare tapped on the temperature gauge. "I think you might find it a tad warm out there."

Charlie sniffed at this, then turned his attention to the vision port. It was difficult to make out any features in the strange landscape that surrounded them. The infernal glow of the molten rock cast a fiery hue over everything, turning the walls of the great cavern about them scarlet and orange. Only the grossest of details could be made out. Even then, flaws in the quartz glass blocks that filled the portholes skewed everything and outlined shapes in false rainbows. But there was something out there that tickled Charlie's inquisitiveness.

"Sir?"

"What is it, Charlie?" Captain Dare glanced across at his comrade.

"Do you see that outcrop of rock there? The one that looks like an arrowhead?"

Dare put his face close to the glass of the porthole and narrows his eyes to protect them against the fiery glare. Off to one side, jutting out into the lave stream on which the Mechanical Mole was floating, was a patch of darker-coloured rock. "Just off to our left?" he asked.

"That's the one, sir. Can you see what looks like something moving on it?"

"Moving?" The captain was incredulous. "Noting could be alive -." He stopped. As his eyes became used to the heat and light that came through the bulk of the porthole, he could make out spider-like shadows against the glow. at first he had assumed that these were optical illusions, caused by the hellish conditions outside, and so had ignored them. However, the more that he stared at these strange, angular things, the more he was convinced that there was something in what Charlie was saying. "By thunder, man! Yes! There must be ... ." Dare tried to separate one form from another. "There must be a half-dozen of those things out there. And it looks like they are following us!"

"Exactly what I thought, sir."

"You've got sharp eyes, Charlie. Sharper than mine, at any rate."

Charlie smiled at this praise from his superior officer. "Reckon we should tell Professor Conrad, sir?"

"Indeed we should. Keep an eye on whatever it is that's out there, will you Charlie? They might be dangerous."

"Probably right devils, sir. Don't worry. I'll holler if those chaps out there do anything even slightly rum."

James Dare made his way to the rear of the cabin, where Professor Conrad and his daughter were poring over sheets of paper covers in equations and figures. Augusta waved a slide rule at the intrepid explorer. "James! We've just worked out what's going on. If the hull thermocouples are reading correctly, then we have another hour to get out of this lava."

"Add on another ninety minutes or so if we can get onto something solid," Conrad added. "But we do ned to get out of this vid before the integrity of the hull is compromised and we are unable to tunnel."

Suddenly, it felt hot inside the cabin. Dare wiped the sleeve of his shirt across his forehead, bringing it back with dark streaks of perspiration on the cotton. "Well." He smiled bravely. "Charlie has spotted what look like solid rock masses in the lava. If we can get the Mole onto open of them, then we should be able to escape this inferno -."

"Good!" the professor interrupted. "If our locomotive drive train has not been damaged, then we can engage the flap wheels and make some headway. The lava should be viscous enough that we can force our way against whatever current there is."

"Are you sure, professor?"

"Yes. Most sure."

"How - ?"

Augusta smiled at Dare. "The viscosity? We calculated it from our motion. The bobbing," she clarified.

"Of course," Dare replied, still not entirely sure as to how the pair had resolved the situation, but more than willing to accept Augusta's reasoning. "But there may be a problem. We - Charlie and I, that is - think there is something alive out there."

"Preposterous!" Professor Conrad exclaimed. "Nothing can live at these temperatures. It would be a toss-up between exploding as all the water in your body cells was converted into steam, or being reduced to a heap of carbonaceous ashes."

"Nevertheless, professor. There is something out there. Something that is moving."

Professor Conrad considered this revelation. "Well," he said after a minute or two. "it does not alter our circumstances a single jot. Unless we make haste to depart from this place, we shall end our days here."

"Then shall we try for one of those islands?" Dare asked.

"We have no alternative. We cannot tunnel our way through this lava. If there is anything living on out there, let us hope that have sufficient a sense of self-preservation to avoid us."

Conrad and Dare took up their positions at the controls of the Mechanical Mole. "Please start the motors," the professor ordered.

"Aye," Dare responded, then grasped the controls. From underneath the decking came a loud hum. "Motors on, professor." He paused to listen. "They sound a bit off, though."

"Not surprising. As I said before, the cooling system will have been compromised. Well, we shall just have to vent the heat into the cabin." Conrad adjusted the controls on the panel in front of him. "Engage clutch to locomotive drive train."

The hum of the electric motors changed pitch, becoming more of a low throb. The cabin of the Mechanical Mole shuddered, and through the portholes Professor Conrad saw the scene outside shift. "We're underway. I shall direct you towards one of the promontories."

Conrad issued his instructions. Dare - a consummate soldier - obeyed the professor's commands, and soon the Mole was crawling across solid rock. The temperature in the cabin, which had risen to the point that Captain Dare had even thought about loosening his collar, began to drop. The professor checked the temperature gauges. "Just as I predicted. It is cool enough on these rocks for the refrigeration coils to work properly. We shall have time to start digging. But I haven't seen any sign of your fantastic creatures, Captain Dare. None at all."

Dare shrugged. "Perhaps we were mistaken. They may well have been heat mirages."

"That is the most likely explanation. Occam's Razor, sir." The professor wagged a finger at Dare. "Occam's Razor always applies."

There was a thump from the roof of the cabin, accompanied by scraping noises as if someone - or something - was dragging monstrous claws down the flanks of the Mole. Augusta started, surprised at the sudden racket. Charlie looked nervously about him, his knuckles clenched and white.

"Then again," Dare said calmly, "maybe Mr Occam's blade cuts the other way."