The Fallen World

The Moon City - Part 8

     Matthew nodded again. “I couldn’t let you go in without them,” he said wearily. “Just in case.”

     “We’d all better take one, in that case,” said Shaun.

     He took five more of the necklaces from the cabinet and passed them around. Soon, they were all wearing them, glittering in the light of the glowing marble globes, and Jerry looked around at his friends in delight. “My, don’t we all look pretty!” he laughed.

     “Anything else you haven’t told us?” asked Shaun, still grinning.

     “No, nothing else, I promise,” replied Matthew gloomily.

     “Okay, let’s go then,” said Shaun, moving towards the door.

     “Hey, wait a minute,” said Matthew in confusion. “Is that it? Aren’t you going to tell me off or anything?”

     In reply, Diana put her arms around his neck and gave him a great big hug. Tried to, anyway. You can’t give anyone a proper hug when they’re wearing a slennhide breastplate, but she did her best. “Matthew, promise me something,” she said into his left ear. “Don’t ever change. Stay exactly the way you are, always.”

     She then gave him a kiss on the cheek. The young soldier was so surprised that he was literally lost for words, and this time Shaun did burst into laughter, along with everyone else.

     The moment soon passed, though, and Thomas went over to the splintery cabinet to see if he could find any clue as to what the necklaces did, assuming they weren’t just pieces of expensive jewelry. He saw the plaque on one of the doors, almost completely obscured by a crust of green oxide, and tried to rub it away with the sleeve of his robes. It was tough, but when Shaun saw what he was trying to do he came over to help, using the piece of sandpaper he normally used to clean the rust from the metal buckles and fixings of his uniform. Soon they’d removed enough of the encrustation to be able to make out the words underneath.

     “Necklaces of Vacuum Breathing,” read Shaun curiously. “What’s vacuum?”

     “Must be some kind of poison gas if you need magic necklaces to breath it,” replied Thomas. “It must be something they expected to come across quite often if they felt the need to make so many necklaces.”

     “Maybe it seeps up from the centre of Kronos,” suggested Jerry. “You said there was a big crack in the park cavern, Matt?”

     “Yeah,” confirmed Matthew, still giddy with relief at being let off the hook for his attempted larceny. “It went halfway across the ceiling, down the wall and partway across the floor. It was so wide I could see the stars through it, even though we’re so far underground.”

     “Hmm,” said the tiny nome thoughtfully. “Suppose this vacuum stuff is constantly seeping up through pores in the rock. That’s not as crazy as it sounds. Back on Tharia, the trogs sometimes carry canaries around in their tunnels with them, because they’re much more sensitive to poison gas than we are, and if they fall off their perches the trogs clear out in a hurry. Anyway, normally the gas continues to go on up through the ceiling and up to the surface so that it never builds up to dangerous levels, but every so often it might seep up faster than normal so that it builds up faster than it can escape. Maybe it's the same here. Some kind of toxic moon gas. I would imagine that they would wear the necklaces while they found a way to let all the vacuum escape from the contaminated area. That must be what all these steel doors are for as well, they must be airtight. They make sure that if vacuum builds up in one area, it doesn’t spread all through the complex and kill everyone.”

     “Yes!” agreed Thomas in delighted agreement. “And that’s why they’re in pairs as well. It’s so people can go through, one door at a time, while keeping the other door closed to prevent the vacuum from escaping. They’re like the locks on a canal that allow barges to go upstream. These steel doors are locks for air. Airlocks.”