Badwater

44

It seemed to have grown darker. Our headlamps were dying. Faces were dimming. My senses were going. Arms numb, hands dead. Ears plugged. I heard Milt’s mewling like he was far away, buried. I heard Walter’s voice like he was talking through dirt. Words filtered up. Right. Wrong. Justice. Prison.

Hap watched Walter, intent. No cartoon eyes. No wise-up smile.

I cast about in my woolly mind for pleas, rebuttals, anything — because for those heartbreaking minutes it really did seem that Hap wanted to listen.

But in the end he did not take Walter’s counsel.

It was not going to be ALARA.

Hap opened his belt pouch and brought out a handheld remote. He punched the buttons and the dusty light bulbs overhead flickered on. He threaded the ribbed hose through the clamp so that its mouth fed down into the cart. Milt’s eyes followed the hose from the cart back uptunnel to the shaft. He appeared to understand. His eyes — animal-in-quicksand eyes — flicked in desperation to Hap. “New-hire form said she’s Roy’s sister.”

“Forms can be altered.”

“Then no way I’d know she’s yours.”

“That your philosophy, Milt? Ignorance? Sure ticked off Roy.”

“But if she’s your sister…” Milt cast about. “Why’d Roy care?”

“Roy was already unhappy with you, Milt, about that cesium-source prank. Thought you were covering up so nobody’d be arrested — because that would shine the spotlight on your management history.”

Milt’s scalp leaked sweat.

“Since we’re clearing things up, Milt, here’s another FYI–I’m the one who planted that source under Roy’s pillow. Needed a recruit. Somebody who’d share my outrage against you. By gum, Roy did. Real helpful, until he went wacko.” Hap sighed. “Murphy’s Law.”

I blurted, “That’s why Roy turned against you? The prank?”

“Nope — he never found out. Like I told you earlier, he turned against me when I joined up with y’all, thinking I might sell him out. And then he got touchy about you, Cassie. Thought I was ‘courting’ you. Said I wasn’t worthy.”

I went sick. Roy’s moist eyes. Roy’s yearning smile.

“Hap,” Milt said, “I’m sorry about your sister.”

“Been carrying my sister’s ring for two years, Milt. Always in my pocket, hidden away. It was my own private connection to Sheila. My own private declaration of war against you.” Hap fingered the ring. “Time to go public.”

“But Sheila wasn’t my fault.”

Hap unwound the red cord from the brake handle.

“Wait,” Walter said.

Hap cocked his head.

“You told us it’s about money,” Walter said. “You dump the beads now, you lose your bargaining chips.”

“Bargaining’s over. Deadline’s come and gone.”

I said, “Try them again.”

Hap smiled. “They’re still gonna pay. Spotlight’s going to shine real bright on CTC’s indulgence of Mister Radwaste. Money would’ve been icing on the cake, but I’m here for the cake.” He gave Milt a long look.

Milt whispered, “Please.”

“We’re gonna mosey on out now, Milt. My guests ain’t wearing protective clothing.” Hap turned his back, urging Walter and me forward with the subgun. We set off downtunnel. Behind us, the screaming started. At the tunnel mouth we hugged the wall while Hap unlocked the gate. He swung it wide and we emerged into the day as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

It was raining again.

Hap turned us to face back into the tunnel. We got a raw tunnel vision of the frantic figure in the rusting red cart. Hap worked the remote. I imagined I saw the keypad on the shaft turn from red to green. I imagined the chute gate opening, allowing the load in the shaft to flow down into the hopper, and thence into the black ribbed hose.

And then I did not have to imagine. I saw the hose ribs expand to accommodate the bulge, like dinner passing through a snake. I saw the spew of resins begin, into the cart. Milt tried to jackknife over the edge but he had no leverage. His attention shifted downward, toward his feet. I imaged they were already covered. He cried out. Animal in quicksand. Hap yanked the red cord and I saw the brake handle move, and the cart wheels began to roll, and my fears switched from Milt’s fate back to our own.

Hap said, “Let’s get out of the way.”

He herded us along the narrow ledge that hugged the hillside to a wide spot, like a roadside turnout. We watched from there.

The fickle rain had stopped. Sun shafted through black clouds.

The ore cart nosed out of the tunnel, trailing the uncoiling hose. Milt rode like a flagpole in front. Pinned by the rising tide of beads, immobile. Hap began to whistle — heigh-ho heigh-ho — but he only whistled one bar before he let it die. The cart rolled onto the elevated track that bridged the steep drop-off. It came to a stop against wood blocks bolted to the rails. The front wheels hit a lever that pulled the pin on the dumping mechanism, and the side gate opened to release its load. The load spilled into the ore chute, which angled down to the ore-processing mill below. But this load was resin beads, not ore. Milt slowly lost his footing and joined the flow of beads and, like a log at a waterfall, he went over the side and down the chute, disappearing into the mill. And still the beads flowed. We watched for agonizing minutes while the hose spewed beads into the cart and the cart dumped beads into the chute, down into the mill. And when the flow turned to a trickle and then to a stop, I guessed the stockpile in the shaft had been emptied. And the mill down below us was full.

Hap said, “Down we go.”

We started down the switchbacked path we had climbed hours ago with Oliver and Dearing. We crept, boots sticking in the fast-drying mud. But it was not the poor footing that unnerved me — it was the mill, slumping halfway down the hillside like its old frame could not contain its new load. We descended to the final switchback before our trail ended below, in the valley. I turned to look across the fall line to the butt end of the mill. It seemed about to burst.

If it burst, the beads would run free down the mountainside.

Hap opened his belt bag and withdrew a putty disk with a wired metal stub at its center. He brought out a spool of red-sheathed wire. He used the multi-tool knife on his belt to strip the insulation off the end and then he spliced it to the stub wires. He said “wait here” and then in afterthought, “you move, I shoot.” He caught me staring at the facepiece on top of his head. “Mind’s somewhere else.” His eyes were turned inward, deep-diving cavepool eyes. He pulled down the mask, connected the regulator, raised the hood. He started off, traversing the fall line toward the mill.

He turned to look at us once, unclipping the subgun from his shoulder harness, holding it at the ready.

I looked beyond him — where Walter was looking — to the mine camp with its tumbledown shacks, and across the valley to the canyon wall that rose to the far ridge where we had come in. I asked, “What’s the range of an MP-five?”

“Maybe a football field.” Walter shrugged, at the impossibility of reaching the end zone.

I focused on the near view. Hap had reached the mill. He hurried, shouldering the gun sling, slapping the putty against the mill’s butt-end, and then he retraced his steps, unrolling wire from his belt bag. By the time he reached us he had the wired detonator in hand. It looked like a garage door opener. He depressed the button. There was a concussive jolt from the mill, and then it yawned open.

Gravity finished the job.

I wished for veils of rain to shield us from the sight of the spew from the mill. Resins ran free, carpeting down the slope. It was only at the end of the resin-fall that the mill disgorged Milt, who seemed to have momentarily jammed the works, but then the beads like ball bearings greased his way and carried him along with the avalanche.

The avalanche threw off a dust cloud — golden resin fines going aerosol.

Walter bowed his head. I did not and so I witnessed the recapture of the resins in the stone reservoir at the bottom of the hill. Some ran wide, some stopped short, some spilled over the concrete lip, but when the final bead had come to rest, the reservoir was topped.

Milt lay on his back, legs half buried.

I watched the poisonous cloud settle over the reservoir, powdering Milt. His right hand lifted, then fell. I held my breath. Unlike Hap — still masked, still breathing canned air — Walter and I were without protection. I worried about that poisonous brew down there, about those unshielded gammas. We were a good long distance and I’d learned by heart the inverse square law — radiation intensity decreases as the inverse square of the distance from a point source — but I nevertheless edged behind Hap, putting him between me and that point source. He did not appear to notice. His attention was riveted on the scene below.

Walter whispered, “Keep your head.”

I turned to ask why.

He jutted his chin. “Above that pile of rock…”

I lifted my face.

“Don’t look.”

But I already had.