SALT! - Episode One: Shake 'n' Bake

EPISODE 1: Shake'n'Bake

My name is Troper. Surname that is. The first - and a special thanks to the Troper wrinklies for this one - is Stanley. Hi, how're you doin'? And before you answer, don't even think about asking me back, because quite frankly I don't think you've got the patience to sit there, your butt pressing twin craters into your comfy little chair, and listen to my story.
Even if you had, you wouldn't believe me. I know I wouldn't.
Well, I've started down a road I didn't really want to travel, but you look like you could do with laugh at my expense. So here goes…
It all started back along when I was on the Mountain Safety Program in Canada. You'd think mountain rescue would be an exciting job, a challenging role. Demanding. Satisfaction guaranteed. Nothing could be farther from the truth - no, really.
Okay, imagine it. Day in, day out, rescuing brain-dead blowhards who, in all honesty, should never have been sold a set of crampons in the first place. Fly-by-night thrill-seekers who view the conquest of a mountain as just one more thing to brag about over a pitcher of beer.
You can pick up some basic climbing gear from any local hardware store, but what you get for your hard-earned cash is about as effective as trying to open a tin of monkeys using an eighteen century silk-loom - and it makes just about as much sense if you ask me.
Anyhow, it all equates to this; a quick sale for an even quicker buck, leading eventually to yours truly having to embark on a slow, loathsome clamber up some technically insurmountable peak. And all to rescue the foolish daytrippers who fancy themselves as some modern day Hannibal. That's the guy with the elephants, not the dude who eats faces. It's boring, but not without its charms. After all, doesn't every job have its ups and downs? Well, maybe not as literally as this, I suppose.
Anyhow, it all started with a-

‘ROCKSLIDE!’
A slow trickle of snow and tiny rock fragments rained down from the overhanging outcrop, followed by a brief shower of larger boulders. Beneath the shelf, a team of four climbers - their protective clothing standing out bright red against the grey and white rock face - waited out the passing danger.
The slide thinned out and stabilised, and so they moved out once more, one man at a time, until the team of four had roped, pinned, cammed and scaled the steep rock face to the shelter of the next overhang.
‘Okay. We've found them,’ said the leading climber, pulling himself up onto the sloping ledge. ‘About bloody time too’.
He wasted no time in locating a suitable crack in the rock into which he jammed a spring-loaded cam or SLCD; a device common to serious climbers. Consisting of a series of tooth-edged plates pivoting outwards from a sprung axle, any amount of force pulling on the SLCD caused the cams to fan out, expanding the device within the crevice. The greater the force applied, the greater the grip.
The climber gave the SLCD a couple of hard yanks, testing its integrity. With each pull the cams bit down tighter against the crevice walls. It wasn’t going anywhere and that was good. The lives of a four-man team - plus two climbers of unknown whereabouts – were dependant on it.
Taking a coil of rope from his harness he hooked one end to the SLCD using a carabiner clip before walking to the edge of the drop.
‘Watch yourselves, lads,’ he said, before throwing the rope out into empty air. He watched it uncoil as it fell. Not far below, the next climber attached himself to the newly anchored line and began to ascend from beneath the overhang.
Up on top, Cole Jackman stretched his back, feeling it pop. He was beginning to suffer the strain of the climb. The route of ascension hadn’t been the easiest. Whilst the terrain at the foot of the mountain was sparse sloping woodland and jutting crags, the upper south face hung in geologic drape-like furrows jammed with ice and rocks.
Looking down from the ledge, Jackman thought the two massive projections which sloped down on either side of him looked like the splayed legs of a giant. The ledge upon which he stood was little more than a shallow lip buried within a furrow in the rock face, and its position – not to mention the strong updraft - made helicopter access impractical if not downright suicidal.
‘There's a small cave here’ said Jackman, to no-one in particular. He spoke between short, sharp breaths. ‘Goes back some way...by the looks of things.’
A second climber – also the newest member of the team - had now reached the ledge. He dragged himself up and over with surprisingly strong arms for his small size, and rolled over onto his back, drawing small, ragged breaths in time with the rise and fall of his chest.
‘Good.’ He panted. ‘Now put the bloody kettle on.’
Jackman laughed noisily, just as a third voice floated up over the rim of frozen stone.
‘Hey Jonesy! Move over...before I use...your head...as a piton.’
Jackman gestured to the left with a sideways nod of his head. The one called Jones nodded wearily and managed to crawl out of the way just as a hand wrapped in a thermal climbing glove appeared above the ledge and clamped down onto the rope Jackman had anchored earlier.
Presently a face rose above the edge, muscles twitching with the strain. Dirt clinging to sweat painted muddy swathes across its forehead. The owner of that forehead was Miguel Ferrari, the third member of the four-man team. With one final heave, Ferrari hauled his solid form onto the relative safety of the outcrop.
He rose to his feet, sweat dripping off the tip of his nose despite the chill mountain air. He unclipped himself from the rope and walked over to where Jones sat, struggling for breath.
‘This is no time for sitting down, Greenhorn,’ he said. ‘We’ve only just got started.’
He held out his hand, which Jones took, and pulled the smaller man to his feet.
‘I was afraid you were going to say that,’ said Jones.
Ferrari broke into brash laughter like the hee-haw of a mule and clapped Jones hard on the top of his helmet.
‘Ow!’ Jones complained. ‘Will you ever stop doing that?’
‘Maybe someday,’ grinned Ferrari, clocking Jones on the head once again. ‘But only once it gets boring.’
Jackman walked over to the two of them. ‘Knock it off, you guys,’ he said. ‘Miguel, put those idle hands to some use and help Troper with the gear.’
Ferrari grunted and walked back to the edge of the overhang. Jackman clapped Jones hard on the shoulder. The Asian flinched slightly.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ said Jackman. ‘He’s a big pussy cat really. Thinking don’t come easy to men like Ferrari. All that ball-busting clap-trap of his – it’s his way of figuring you out; making sure he can trust you. Trust in your team is as vital as any piece of equipment we have. Distrust in the team is a frayed line. Don’t let him phase you and under no circumstances give him reason to distrust you.’
Jones nodded. ‘You can trust me, Cole. I won’t let anyone down.’
‘I hope not, Ken,’ Jackman smiled. ‘Because down is a long, long way. Come on - let’s go give Miguel a hand already.’
Jones and Jackman joined Ferrari in hauling up their remaining team member and two extra bundles of equipment slung beneath him in a harness.
Stanley Troper scrambled up and over the ridge at some speed due to the three pairs of strong arms doing their thing.
‘Thanks,’ he puffed, ‘So...where are they?’
‘Nearby,’ Jackman replied. ‘They can’t have gone far.’
‘Excuse me, Cole’ Jones interjected, ‘I thought you said you’d found them?’
Jackman shrugged. ‘I found this instead.’
He walked to the mouth of the cave he’d found and scattered the charred remnants of a small, untidily made campfire with his boot. He removed a glove, stooped and touched the back of his hand to the ashes.
‘Stone cold,’ he said, brushing his hand on his jacket and pulling his glove back on.
‘Well, at least we're on the right track.’ Troper was always the glass half-full type, a direct contrast to Cole Jackman's stern demeanour.
‘So where now, Cole? Up? Down? Around?’ said Ferrari. He rubbed his wind-reddened cheeks with his hands. ‘It's getting colder, and I don’t like the looks of them clouds.’
‘Which is why,’ said Jackman, ‘we are going...through.’
Troper, Ferrari and Jones followed Jackman’s gaze into the shadowy throat of the cave.
‘Morlocks’ groaned Ferrari, ‘I hate Morlocks.’
‘What the hell are Morlocks?’ Jones asked Troper.
‘Morlocks...Trogs...Mole-people...just some of Ferrari’s many pet-name for pot-holers,’ Troper explained. ‘Go rent The Time Machine – you’ll work it out.’ He turned on his headlamp and set off after Jackman for a preparatory survey of the gloomy tunnel.
‘Fricking moles’ Ferrari muttered to himself. ‘Mole on my ass, more like.’
‘What’s the matter, Miguel,’ said Jones. ‘Scared of the Morlocks? Want me to hold your hand?’
‘You want me to jam your head in a crack and tie a rappel line around your nuts?’
‘Will you two cut it out?’ Jackman was stood hands on hips in the centre of the cave mouth, watching them. ‘Put a lid on that crap and come on over here! We got idiots to save, remember!’
‘Yes, ma'am!’ Ferrari grumbled, and strolled over towards the cave entrance. Jones followed.
From the light of their powerful headlamps, they could see that the cave narrowed until it was barely a metre wide. From there it went back a further ten metres or so before sloping sharply downwards. After that the light failed to penetrate the gloom, but the impression was that of rough rock walls twisting and turning, curving downwards into the dark heart of the mountain.
Jackman walked to the back and attached three more anchors to the rock wall where the cave ceased to be a cave and instead became a crack. He also attached back-ups in series with each of the anchors using pitons on a short line. You can never be too careful. Then he motioned to Ferrari and Troper to join him.
‘All right. You girls ready?’ said Jackman.
Troper shrugged. Ferrari nodded.
‘Then what are we waiting for.’
Jackman fixed onto an anchor and fed his rope through a belay which he would use to control his descent. Troper and Ferarri did the same.
Jones, having the least climbing experience of the group, did not tie on. He was to stay above with the kit, to check on the lines and anchors, and to man the team’s radio in case any stricken climbers should show up or radio in.
Jackman led Troper and Ferrari down into the inky blackness, seeking purchase with their hands and feet while their lamplight bobbed and danced on the rock face in front of them.
At the foot of the steep gradient was a vertical drop of five feet followed by a sharp turn to the left. Here the cave, having first become a narrow tunnel which followed a seam of hard sedimentary rock, was now no more than a diagonal crack; a deep lopsided 'V' knifing through the rock in a twisting, writhing wound. The steeply-angled walls closed in to join at the bottom.
Jackman grunted in dissatisfaction. Without a decent floor underfoot progress was likely to be slow and difficult.
‘Okay, hold up!’ he said suddenly.
‘What’s wrong?’ Troper enquired from the rear.
Ferrari peered over Jackman's shoulder, following his gaze.
‘Nothings UP, Stan,’ his deep voice reverberated back up the treacherous passage. ‘By the looks of things it's all straight down from now on.’
Troper looked past the broad-shouldered Mexican and shone his torch down into an opening in the floor of the tunnel. There, pinned securely to the wall before the drop-off was an anchor point.
One end of a length of static rope was tied to it. The rest of the line disappeared into the hole below.
‘Bingo,’ said Jackman. ‘We’ve got them.’ He started to fix his own anchor and rope to the rock wall at the edge of the hole.
‘Didn't he say that earlier?’ Ferrari whispered for Troper's ears only.
Troper smiled back, but his smile faded when he shone his torch down into the hole again. Nothing but blackness. But then out of that blackness came a tiny sound, so slight that Troper could have imagined it. He was sure he didn't.
‘Did you hear that?’ he said.
‘Hear what?’ replied Jackman and Ferrari simultaneously.
‘Shhh.’ He waited. There it was again. ‘That.’
‘Sounded like...’ began Ferrari.
‘Like idiots’ said Jackman, and swung himself over the edge. ‘Stanley, stake yourself in and follow me. Miguel, you stay up top and get ready to haul.’
Jackman rappelled down into the dark, the beam from his headlamp dancing erratically around the jagged walls until all Troper could see was a flickering starlet, disappearing and reappearing from around the contours of the vertical shaft. Troper secured his own anchor and lowered himself over the edge.
The shaft opened out into an immense cathedral-like space, so vast and dark that the diffuse beam from his headlamp was all-but consumed by it. As he emerged from an opening in what he soon realised was the cavern’s ceiling, Troper’s impression was that of an ancient geological stadium filled with dripping stalactites and glistening rock formations. His descent was shorter than he anticipated, and he soon touched down on a rubble-strewn plateau in the centre of the subterranean cave.
Troper’s lamp illuminated the prone figure of Jackman, lying on his stomach, looking over the edge.
‘Troper, come and check this out.’
Troped joined him. And wished he hadn’t.
On closer examination what he was stood on was really more of a plate than a plateau; a giant slab perched precariously atop an eerie, alien-looking stalagmite, the biggest Stanley Troper had ever witnessed. For all it seemed, he was standing on the cap of a hundred-foot stone toadstool with nothing but a drop of empty air on all sides.
‘Holy cow. This is some cave.’
‘Yes, but what do you make of that, Stan?’
Troper looked to where Jackson was pointing.
‘It looks like sand.’
‘Sand? Here? In the heart of a mountain? Get real.’
‘Well, what do you think it is?’
‘Sandstone perhaps, except its white.’
‘Well then, maybe it’s exposed glacier?’
‘I don’t think so, not this far south. Anyway, the composition's all wrong. You see there, around the edge of the cave floor and there again at the base of the trunk? It’s piled in drifts like it’s been blown there. Tell me, Stan - do you feel any breeze in here at all?’
Troper had to admit his friend was right. The air was perfectly still. There was also a smell about it that somehow reminded him of the sea.
‘You’re right, Cole. It’s definitely a collection of particles rather than one solid mass. So what is it then?’
‘I dunno. Maybe a deposit of silt left by glacial melt, who knows? Looks odd though, dunnit?’
‘Cole?’
‘Mmm?’
‘I don’t think we’re alone, right now.’
The crunch of feet on loose debris came from behind them. The two spun round, a feat made considerably more difficult when lying on your stomach whilst still tethered to the inside of a mountain.
‘Who’s there?’ growled Jackman.
Two figures fell out from behind a giant fallen boulder and shuffled toward them, shielding their grubby faces from the bright torchlight. Both carried backpacks and a shared bundle of climbing gear.
‘You're lucky we found you,’ said Troper, still a little shaken. ‘Are you two alright?'
‘Shhh! They'll hear you!’ said one, wagging his finger. He was young, head full of bleached dreadlocks, face filthy and tired.
‘Who will hear us?’ said Jackman.
‘The pixies,’ the climber whispered.
His friend stepped forward, nodding in agreement.
His beanie was pulled down to his eyes and he’d smeared grime over his face in a half-assed attempt at camouflage.
‘Lots of pixies!’ he said.
‘Pixies, huh?’ Troper echoed, rolling his eyes. ‘Great! We're not rescuing pot-holers. We’re rescuing pot-heads!’
‘You've got to get us out of here, dude!’ whispered Stoner #2. ‘Before they come back.’
‘Before they come back?’ Jackman repeated, unsure as to whether he had heard it correctly the first time.
Both nodded.
‘Are there anymore of you down here?’ said Troper, looking from one to the other.
The dreaded stoner shook his head, ‘Jus' me an' Carl.’
Carl added: ‘And the-‘
‘Yeah, I got it - the pixies, right?’ Jackman gave Troper a glance and also rolled his eyes.
Carl continued, oblivious. ‘They came out of the light and they had, like, a vaporiser or something. Oh, and a big dog! But they couldn't see us so we hid and Skunk farted a humungous mondo fart that echoed right round the cave, and then they ran off. Then you came-‘
‘I didn't fart!’
‘You did too!’
‘Like hell! I tripped over a rock!’
‘Yeah, you tripped and you farted and they heard it. You know, I think they even smelled it.’
‘Hey, up yours!’
‘Nah, up yours, man!’
‘Needle-dick!’
‘Fart-ass!’
Fartassfartassfartass. The echo bounced around the cavern before disappearing up through the small shaft in the ceiling. A small tremor rumbled through the rock beneath their feet. Dust and small stones fell from above clouding the air.
‘Hey, hey, HEY!’ Jackman hissed, ‘Will you two knock it off! I've had it up to here today with bickerin' idiots!’
He shot a glance towards Troper. ‘Okay, pixies or otherwise, this place just isn’t safe, so whatever happens from now on, NO LOUD NOISES!’
Jackman hissed. ‘Agreed?’
Skunk and Carl nodded.
‘Then let's get you two out of here. Stan, the harnesses?'
‘Got 'em here. Put these on you two - and be sure to do them up tight.’
Skunk took the two tangled bunches of webbing and tossed one to Carl.
Jackman and Troper watched them ensnare themselves hopelessly before taking over, giving the fixtures a final check and cinching the straps tighter still, much to the discomfort of the novice climbers.
‘Right, I think we're ready. You two fit enough to climb, 'cause I'm damned if we're going to carry you? Right, Stan?’
Troper nodded, but he was looking puzzled.
‘Yeah, we're fine, Mr Rescue Man, Sir,’ said Skunk, ‘Just get us the hell out of here before they come back.’
Jackman shook his head. Idiots.
‘Then I'll resume point position, as usual. Stan here will bring up the rear.’
‘As usual,’ Stan added.
Jackman hesitated, wondering what to make of the remark, then continued.
‘Right. We’ll be using our line. Not that convenience-store crap you two were using. You’ll will climb up between Stan and I: Skunk first, then you, Carl. Got it?’
Troper couldn't wait any longer. Curiosity such as his had killed more than just some lousy inquisitive feline, but he just had to ask.
‘Hey Skunk, your friend said they came from the light? What light?’
Skunk reached out and covered Troper's headlamp with his hand. Watching closely, Jackman covered his own.
Sure enough, somewhere beneath the level of the plate and close to the floor of the cavern, a soft white glow was emanating, pulsing.
‘What the frog-crap is that?’ said Jackman, leaning dangerously over the edge. Far below, the white floor rippled with a luminance cast from an unseen source near the bottom of the immense column that supported them.
‘The Light,’ murmured Skunk and Carl, together.
‘No shit.’ said Jackman.
‘Shall I check it out, Cole?’ asked Troper, already unfurling another bundle of rope from his rucksack.
‘Leave it. We've got to get these two back before the weather up above worsens. Let’s head out.’
Jackman started inching his way back up the line, followed by Skunk and then Carl. Troper waited until Carl was well inside the hole in the cavern ceiling before he picked up the rope to climb.
After a moment’s hesitation he looked once again to the softly rippling light. It was almost hypnotic, calling him.
Just a look, he thought to himself as he took his own coil of rope from his belt. Working quickly, he anchored into to the fallen rock. Shaking out what he hoped was enough free rope to get him to the cavern floor, he carefully lowered himself over the edge and pushed off with his legs, allowing the line to feed smoothly through the belay.
The floor below did indeed appear to be layered in deep drifts of sand, but as Jackman had observed it was indeed pure white. However, as Troper descended on his rope to the cavern floor, it was not the stark and silty bedrock which piqued his interest, but the swirling, gelatinous blister that shifted in hues of turquoise and sparkling amber that was the real show-stopper.
The rippling mass was easily twenty feet across, and seemed to be growing on or from the base of the stalagmite that supported the plate from which he had descended.
The surface of the blister shimmered through the visible spectrum (and beyond too, Troper reckoned) and it was this which cast its eerie light into the cavern around him, forcing shadows to spring from the craggy walls and throwing the drifts of white into stark relief.
Which brought his attention once more to the floor.
Tearing his gaze away from the boiling light, Troper removed a glove, stooped and scraped up a handful of the white grains which lay dormant on the floor. The floor was rough to the touch and in places it looked as if the surface had been smashed up, possibly by fallen rocks, although no evidence lay strewn about the cavern. The grains were actually crystals of varying size, and as Troper tried to gently blow away some of the finer granules, some of it blew back into his face.
‘Ah, damn it’ he spat, his eyes stinging and streaming.
He let the rest fall to the floor, dusting his palms. The smell of brine was stronger now. It lingered in his mouth.
The pain subsided soon enough and Troper licked his lips thoughtfully, tasting the residue. He examined the white dust clinging to the skin of his fingers, sniffed at it, hesitated, then licked at the tip of one finger.
His dusty, sweat streaked features changed smoothly from thoughtful experimentation through to distaste, and he spat on the floor, grimacing.
‘Ugh!’ He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Salt? The whole damn cavern is one giant salt lick.’
And what the hell is that thing? he wondered, looking up at the vortex of swimming, pooling colour. Jackman might be able to offer the team answers on local mountain flora, geological strata and maybe even the huge salt deposit here in this very cavern, but this, Troper decided, was beyond even his knowledge. This Jackman had to see for himself.
Troper dug up a small mound of the dust with his boot heel and scooped it inside one of his gloves, shaking the powder down into the fingers.
‘Jackman’s gonna get a kick out of this,’ he said, tucking the glove inside his jacket.
Hoisting himself back up the rope, Troper made his way, hand-over-hand, past the strange, undulating blister, and back towards the plate. There he would rest for just a moment before starting his climb back up towards the small hole high above him in the cavern ceiling.

***
‘Thanks Miguel,’ said Jackman, as a strong tan-skinned arm reached down from beyond the lip and gripped the straps of his harness with one huge hand. ‘Steady. Don't pull too hard, I have idiots beneath me.’
‘No change there then. So you found the stricken climber. Everything okay?’ Ferrari spoke softly.
‘Actually, there are two of them. Stan's right behind them.’
‘Well, they’d better hurry up; I just got a call from Jonesy. The winds whipping up a hefty gale outside, and the temp's plummeting. I think were in for a freeze.’
Jackman heaved himself up over the lip and turned on his heel, and helped Skunk out of the hole.
‘Come on, Carl!’ Jackman called down to the man dangling some thirty feet below him. ‘Put some effort into it.’
He frowned. ‘Where’s Stanley?’
‘Who?’ came the reply.
‘My other climber. I thought he was right behind you.’
There was a pause and the sound of creaking ropes as Carl adjusted himself to see, framed by his dangling legs, the rocky ledge far below.
‘So did I,’ he said. ‘But he ain’t now.’
‘Ah, shit.’ said Jackman. ‘Hurry up, Carl. I gotta go back down there and check he’s all right.’
‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ said Carl, looking up at Skunk as he did so. ‘I sure hope the pixies didn't get him.’
‘Pixies?’ Ferrari shot Jackman a questioning look.
The team leader shook his head. ‘Don't ask,’ he said.

***

Troper walked up the gently sloping plate, gathering up his trailing rope as he went. At the top end of the slope, beyond the fallen boulder, the two ropes dangled from the dim corona of daylight far above in the cavern’s ragged ceiling.
Jackman would be wondering where he was by now, and Troper calculated that between where he stood and the cave mouth was a good twenty minutes of hard ascent. He was not looking forward to the climb at all. After that it was all downhill, straight to the bottom of the mountain, but even that would be not short of exhausting. He groaned, trying not to think about it, and instead focussed his attention on the promise of a large mug of malt chocolate and a soft bed.
The cavern walls flickered with pale light. Minerals twinkled in the rock. Just for a moment Troper thought that the ambient light in the cavern had become stronger. Then just as he was about to dismiss the idea he heard sounds coming from below. Movement. Voices.
Voices?
No, not exactly – but it raised the hairs on the back of his neck nonetheless, and he struggled to bury the thought of Skunk and Carl's hallucinations edging over into reality. Troper dropped his bundle of rope and tiptoed silently back to peer over the edge.
What he saw he could not put into words straight away, because his head flat-out refused to play the word-association game with him. Still, it begged for an expression of disbelief and the best his disengaged mind could come up with at the time was –
‘Holy crap on a stick!’
Troper’s eyes bulged from their sockets, for there below, casting elongated, corrugated silhouettes across the uneven floor, and gazing back at him in bewilderment, were three tiny spindle-limbed figures and a four-legged creature which could only be described as a tiny, malnourished hippopotamus.
The creature bounded forward, scratched at its flanks with one stubby three-toed paw, sniffed the air - and barked.
The cavern tremored as the echo rebounded off crystallised floor to rocky walls and all around the cathedral-like ceiling. The spindly creatures scattered as small fragments of rock fell among them, preceding a large spike of calcite, loosed from the ceiling by the echo, which crashed down onto the floor, breaking up into pillow-sized fragments upon impact.
Troper picked himself up and ran back to the ropes near the top of the sloping capstone.
‘ARRFF-ARRFF! ARRFF-ARRFF!’ the creature barked, excited by the fleeing figure, and the cavern ceiling succumbed to further collapse. Great lumps of stone - some the size of televisions - came crashing down on either side of Troper as he stumbled up the slope. Some took huge bites out of the edge of the plate on their descent to the salt-bed floor. At one point something enormous smashed into the plate where he had been only seconds before and the tremor pitched him onto him stomach.
Winded, Troper chanced a glance over his shoulder, just in time to see a large piece of the plate fall away. Immediately, he felt the entire slab upon which he lay begin to grind and shift beneath him. Troper scrambled to his feet and stumbled the last few metres towards the ropes which dangled from the eye in the ceiling.
Grabbing one, he hurriedly attached it to his harness and proceeded to climb hand over hand (and with excruciating slowness) towards the safety of the tiny squeeze-hole. From beneath him came a terrible noise like the grinding of a set of giant millstones. Troper looked down past the ropes writhing like two exotic sea-snakes, and saw the entire plate rocking on its fulcrum; to and fro, fro and to, before finally and decidedly exiting stage right. With an ear-splitting rumble it slid off its spindle and crashed edge-first into the salt-floor throwing up a cloud of white dust. The other edge remained propped up on the column of rock for a long moment, before listing sideways, and finally holding.

***

Far above, Jackman and Ferrari were have troubles of their own. The narrow V-floored tunnel had also started to collapse, and there was still no sign of Stan Troper.
‘Get us out of here, man!’ yelled Skunk, tugging at his harness, which Ferrari held fast in his big fist.
‘Not yet, we've still a man down there - you remember: the one who helped save your ass!’
Skunk continued to pull, desperate to get away from the dark cave and the even darker look in Ferrari's eyes.
‘Let him go, Miguel,’ yelled Jackman over the growl of the cave-in, ‘Jonesy'll catch him at the mouth!’
Ferrari let go, leaving Skunk to scramble over the rubble, up and away towards the failing daylight.
Carl looked at his departing friend, then at Jackman, then back to the tunnel, which had now swallowed his departing friend.
‘Go on,’ said Jackman.
‘Thanks mister. Seriously,’ he said, and then, cautious eyeing Ferrari, he turned and disappeared up the tunnel as if caught in Skunk’s slipstream.
Jackman returned his attention to the hole in the tunnel floor, and shone his torch down into the darkness.
‘Hey, Miguel, I see him!’ he said. ‘He’s on the rope.’
‘That's great, move over and I'll haul him up.’ said Ferrari.
Jackman shuffled back, letting the big man take up his position. Ferrari flexed his broad shoulders, grasped the rope with two callused hands, and pulled.

***

Troper suddenly found himself being jerked upwards by a couple of feet. He smiled; good old Miguel. Far beneath him the broken plate lay half-propped up on the rubble-strewn floor. The dark, intersecting wedge of rock gave the pale disc of floor a vague Pac-Man shape, complete with an open pill-guzzling mouth. Pac-Man appeared to have devoured Skunk's Pixies for none were to be seen. Nor, Troper was glad to note, was there any sign of that weird dog...hippo...thing.
He relaxed a little, allowing himself to enjoy the jerking upward journey. The searing acid in his arms was already beginning to drain from the recent exertion.
Suddenly, there was a tremendous noise from above - and he plummeted ten feet straight down.

***

‘It's not your fault, Miguel! Come on we have to go!’ Jackman yelled at the big man.
Ferrari picked himself up from where he’d fallen over backwards, and stared, shaking his head at the large section of tunnel which had collapsed, burying beneath it the subterranean chamber’s only known entry – and exit – point. In his hand was the severed end of Troper’s line.
‘He's gone, man. Troper's gone. There's nothing we can do.’ Jackman lay a hand on Ferrari's thick-muscled shoulder, who responded, turning in silence and following his team leader back up the tunnel towards the mouth of the cave.

***

Troper hung there high above the cavern floor, his eyes squinched tight against the painful bite of the harness, and he wondered to himself what the hell Miguel was playing at. He had fallen another twenty feet in three rapid bursts. Something was definitely wrong.
Troper had covered two-thirds of the distance between the collapsing plate and the opening in the ceiling when Ferrari had begun hauling him up, hand-over-hand. The dire situation had been looking up, but now he was dangling half-way back to where he had begun and his groin was burning like a goddam bush-fire.
Troper looked around. Or tried to. A lot of dust had been thrown into the air and the combination of dust and darkness reduced visibility to a metre-and-a-half in any direction except down. Somehow the air was clearer down there. Or at least that strange pulsing light made it seem so.
Much of the dust seemed to be drifting in from right above him where the hole in the ceiling was. Where it used to be. He couldn’t see the corona of light around its edges anymore. That wasn’t a good sign.
He could, however, make out the ghost of something nearby, swaying in and out of the haze. As the dust began to thin out he recognised it as Skunk and Carl's climbing rope. If his own line was giving out, as it seemed to be, he only had two options open to him, and one of those involved a high-speed collision with a solid salty compound.
Shifting his body weight he swung gently back and forth, his line creaking and giving slightly as he did so. Within a few swings Troper's outstretched fingers brushed against the safety line. One more swing would do it.
He heaved his weight on the backswing and threw it forward one more time. His stomach lurched as his rope finally gave out. Gravity applied its terrible laws. Suddenly, thankfully, he felt the other climbers’ rope zipping through his hands. Troper gripped it tight, feeling the friction bite into his palms and fingers, and he bounced painfully on the end of its length, swaying with the inertia above the ragged point of the smashed spire. His own rope fell past him from above, it’s frayed end lashing at the rocks below with an angry serpent’ tongue.
My God! Troper realised. It broke! It broke and I'm still alive!
He swung there for a while, contemplating his good fortune, until he once again began to feel small movements resonate through the line.
Oh no, not again!
Thinking quickly he cast around below him for the nearest high spot to which he could safely fall. The only possible place was the fallen plate which sloped steeply down to the floor; it would be a rapid, grazing descent once he had landed on that, but it was the only way to survive a fall from this height. And even then, if he landed badly...
Troper gently initiated a slow sway, to and fro, in the direction of the felled plate. In a few swings he was almost directly above the high edge. A few more to steel his nerves and then he would drop. But on the back-swing he felt the rope slacken. It was now or never. Troper threw himself forward as the rope let go - but to his horror he overshot the slope, falling past it at an alarming rate. With a sudden jerk, his downward arc became a lateral one, and he found himself on a new path circling the enormous column of rock.
What now? Let me down already!
Looking up, Troper could see that a loop of frayed line had caught upon the column’s broken top. From that sharp, precarious snag it was a short walk to Splattsville. He was still moving, not downward but backward, swinging on a wide circular path around the cavern, just thirty feet above the floor now. The ragged column rushed past him, snagging his jacket, so Troper kicked himself away from it hoping that the next pendulous swing would take him closer to the fallen slope of rock.
The long swing took him out to the farthest reach of the straining rope. Inertia and gravity kissed briefly and Troper started on his return swing – back towards the plate so dubiously propped against that eerie, alien column.
Had he not kicked off from the column on his outward swing, he might have hit his mark and I’d be telling you a different tale. Perhaps one that ended sooner (but not necessarily any better).
Had he not so greatly affected his arc of trajectory with that one push then he would not (for the second time) have overshot his landing. The return swing took him within fifteen feet of the downward sloping slab, before carrying him on past it and around towards the back of column. He realised that he had almost circumnavigated the trunk of decapitated structure – but his thoughts were abruptly cut short.
Still intact, in spite of having the collapsing plate demolish the entire upper third of the column, that strange, glowing blister of light was ahead of him now. The course he was on was taking him directly towards it. Freefalling at the end of a rope, there was nothing Troper could do but brace himself for the impact. He held out his legs, bent at the knees, and held his breath...
Light - bright, white, then golden; a pale blue sky, streaked with cobweb clouds. The impression of a desert flashed past him from below to above. He realised he was falling, and looking upwards he witnessed the drought-cracked sulphur-yellow bedrock rushing to greet him.
Bugger! he thought, and the golden light vanished.

***
Troper awoke with the feeling that a family of badgers had staged a crap-slinging contest in his mouth. His head was sore and his eyes ached. He still held a small segment of brightly-coloured climbing rope in his hands. He was lying on his back, sprawled in the dust of a place he did not recognise from the little he could make out with his bleary, sticky eyes.
Troper became suddenly aware that he was not alone, and turning his head, he could barely make out the dark, wiry shapes, silhouetted against a bright sun, which crowded around looking down at him in silence.
He struggled to pick himself up, but flopped down again onto the warm, sun-baked dirt.
‘Uh – hi,’ he said, coughing up a small puff of dust, and grinning sheepishly, as he spoke. ‘A little help here, maybe?’
One of the shapes stepped forward in an awkward gangly fashion. Troper shielded his eyes against the sun as he tried to make out the hand that was being held out towards him.
Two things struck Troper in a succession so quick it was almost simultaneous; the first thing was that the hand was not being offered in such a manner as to help him up. Furthermore, it was covered in small blue-green scales.
The second thing that struck Stanley Troper was the bolt of lightning which sprang from the end of the device that hand was holding.
After that, there was nothing more for him to contemplate – at least until the darkness had passed.

END OF EPISODE ONE