began the slow advance over the stacks of shaky rubble toward the opening in the wall ahead. She had gone perhaps half the distance when the floor beneath her seemed to shift a little differently with her weight. She glanced down at the angular rocks beneath her and hesitated, unsure what she was seeing.
Between the piles of rock was something strange—an optical illusion. She stopped and stared a long moment, moving her head one way, then another, studying the images. Looking through the space between several of the rocks was like looking through a View-Master—three-dimensional. She thought she glimpsed the tip of a stalagmite. With an electric flash of insight, she realized she was not seeing an illusion, but looking through to another chamber below her, and she was held up only by a jumble of rocks plugging a hole.
“Oh, shit,” she said out loud.
She moved a hand to her shoulder to turn on her walkie-talkie. The rocks shifted again.
“Mike,” she said, “I’m in trouble.”
“I’m not far behind you. What’s the problem?”
“I’m on top of some breakdown that has plugged an opening to a lower level. There’s no floor under me.”
“Okay. Don’t move. Let me get you in sight.”
Mike was one of the geologists who worked in her museum, and he was the best caving partner she’d ever had. Diane heard the scraping and heavy breathing as he crawled through the slit. So much adrenaline was pumping through her system it was hard not to take flight. She tried to stay completely still, though her heart was pounding so hard that she felt like it could shake the stones all by itself. Just shifting her weight to access her walkie-talkie had made the rocks beneath her move, grinding against each other as they labored under her weight.
If she stretched out on the rocks, would that even out the pressure her body was exerting on them? It might, but moving into a prone position might also be enough to cause the rocks to fall. Diane’s gaze darted around, looking for the edges of the hole, hoping the entire floor of the tunnel wasn’t false. Couldn’t be, her mind told her. The rocks couldn’t be suspended in a large hole. The logic gave her a moment of relief.
Suddenly with the next breath, the rocks fell from beneath her. Diane hurled her weight toward the closest wall and grabbed for the rim of the opening. Her fingers clenched the lip of the hole as her backpack fell to the end of its tether, snatching at the joints in her shoulders, jerking at her grip. She held on to the ledge. Her body, weighted by her backpack, swung above the black void.
Her arms ached after just seconds of hanging. Her gaze searched the rock for a better place to grip, but luck had been with the first hold her hands had found. There was none better.
“Hold on.” She heard Mike’s hammer pounding somewhere behind her, driving an anchor bolt into the rock.
Diane wanted to tell him to hurry. She knew he was working as fast as he could, but her hands were cramping and each breath was a struggle, her ribs stretched tight by the weight of her hanging body. She tried not to think about falling. Jerky flashes of her headlamps reflected fleeting glimpses of the cavern floor below. It would be a twenty-foot drop or more—not necessarily far enough to kill, but far enough to break more than a few bones.
Don’t think about that. Think about holding on.
She heard Mike working with the rope, tying it off.
“Hurry,” she whispered.
“Almost there,” he said.
She must have whispered louder than she thought.
The backpack felt as if it were filled with lead. She felt her grip slipping. If she fell and landed on her feet, she’d break her legs, but her skeleton could still absorb most of the shock of the fall. Still, spine and hip injury would be almost inevitable.
Don’t think about falling, she rebuked herself. Think about hanging on to this damn rock.
“I can’t reach you,” said Mike. “I’m going to toss you the rope. Grab it. You’ll swing back this way, so hold on tight.”
She leaned her head back slightly so that the rope fell between her face and her arms. Diane didn’t hesitate; she grabbed the rope with one hand, then the other. As soon as she released her grip, her body swung across the opening. The rope caught on the rim of the hole beneath the anchor, sending her under the