It was strange, the things you discovered you'd gotten by heart. 'Clover's old eyes flitted from one face to another. And as the animals outside looked from pig to man, and man to pig, and pig to man again, it seemed that some strange thing was happening. It was impossible to say which was which.'
Jesus, Gard, cut it out!
Here came the hose at last, a seventy-footer from the volunteer fire department. It was of course meant to spray water, not suck it up, but a vacuum pump had neatly reversed its function.
Enders paid it out jerkily. The end swung back and forth, sometimes striking the hull of the ship. Each time this happened there was a cludding sound that was dull yet curiously penetrating. Gardener didn't like it and quickly came to anticipate each clud.
Christ, I wish he hadn't got that thing swinging.
Clud ... clud ... clud. Why can't it just clink? Why does it have to keep making that other sound, like dirt being shoveled on top of a coffin?
Clud ... clud ... clud.
Christ, I should have jumped when I had the chance. Just stepped off that fucking breakwater at Arcadia Beach. July 4th, wasn't it? Shit, I could have been a Yankee Doodle Deader.
Well, go on, then. When you go back to the house tonight, gobble all the Valium in the medicine cabinet. Kill yourself if you haven't got the guts to either see this thing through or put a stop to it. The good people of Haven will probably throw a party over your body. You think they want you here? If there wasn't some of the Old, Unimproved Bobbi still around, I think you'd be gone already. If she wasn't standing between you and them ...
Clud ... clud ... clud.
Was Bobbi still standing between him and the rest of Haven? Yeah. But if she died, how long would it be before he himself was scrubbed from the equation?
Not long, buddy. Not long at all. Like maybe fifteen minutes.
Clud ... clud ... cl
Wincing, teeth set against that dull dead sound, Gard leaped up and caught the brass nozzle of the hose before it could rap against the side of the ship again. He pulled it down, knelt over the hole, and craned his head up at Enders's small face.
'Start the pump!' he yelled.
'. . . what? . . .'
Jesus wept, Gardener thought.
'Start the motherfucking pump!' he shrieked, and this time he felt, actually felt his head fall apart in two ragged pieces. He closed his eyes.
'. . . oh ... kay . . .'
When he looked up, Enders was gone.
Gardener plunged the end of the hose into the glory-hole he had cut out from rock that morning. The water began to bubble slowly, almost contemplatively. It was frigid at first, but his hands quickly became numb. Although the trench he was in was only forty feet deep, they had removed a whole hillside in the process of cutting a base level, with the result that the place where Gardener now crouched had probably been, until late June, ninety feet under the earth. Measuring the freeboard surface of the ship would have given an exact figure, but Gardener didn't give a shit. The simple fact was that they seemed to have nearly reached the aquifer -spongy rock filled with water. Apparently the bottom half or two thirds of the ship was floating in a large underground lake.
His hands were now so numb they had forgotten what they were.
'Come on, asshole,' he muttered.
As if in answer, the hose began to vibrate and wriggle. He couldn't hear the pump's motor from here, but he didn't have to. As the water-level in the glory-hole dropped, Gardener was able to see his reddened, dripping hands again. He watched as the water-level continued to drop.
If we hit the aquifer, it's going to slow us down.
Yeah. We might lose a whole day while they figure out some sort of superpump. There might be a delay, but nothing's going to stop them, Gard. Don't you know that?
The hose began to emit the sound of a giant soda straw in a giant Coke glass. The glory-hole was empty.
'Turn it off!' he shouted. Enders just went on looking down at him. Gardener sighed and yanked hard on the hose. Enders looked startled, then made a thumb-and-forefinger circle at Gardener. He disappeared. A few seconds later the hose stopped vibrating. Then it began to rise as Enders wound it up.
Gardener made sure that the end of it was