Bolts by Alexander Key Page A

you!” he called. “I don’t know who you are, but we’re in a pickle. How deep does this hole go?”
    The critter refused to answer.
    Bolts pushed on, then stopped abruptly at a fork in the passage. On his right was only blackness and strange smells his sniffer didn’t care for. But in the dimness on his left he made out a pair of shrewd, beady eyes in a sharp-pointed face. The eyes were studying him intently.
    â€œBy Joe,” Bolts muttered, “ain’t you a fox critter?”
    â€œI admit to nothing,” replied the fox critter. “Especially to a metal doglike thing that ticks and talks. Explain yourself.”
    â€œAin’t got time to explain,” Bolts told him. “Can’t you hear the racket outside?”
    â€œI’m unpleasantly aware of it—and it doesn’t inspire me with confidence in you. What’s going on?”
    â€œThat’s Major Mangler and his men, and they’re hard after me,” Bolts said hurriedly. “When they find they can’t dig me out, they’re aiming to blow me out. We gotta scram—if there’s a deeper place to scram to. What’s over on your side?”

    â€œBats and darkness. And all of it unhealthy.”
    Bolts shivered. “How ’bout this other direction?”
    â€œThe same, only more of it.”
    â€œThat don’t sound so good.”
    â€œIt isn’t at all good, except that it’s deeper. Being the greater of two evils, I’d hardly recommend it—but since the situation is desperate, I’d suggest you take it.”
    â€œAfter you,” Bolts said nervously. “And we’d better hurry—time’s running out on us.”
    â€œCan you see in the dark?” inquired the fox critter.
    â€œI—I’m supposed to have special night sight,” Bolts admitted.
    â€œThen what are you waiting for?”
    â€œB-but I’m kinda inexperienced in places like this,” poor Bolts protested. “Why don’t you go first, and let me follow?”
    â€œOh, but that would be most unwise. Beyond this point there is utter and complete darkness. In such a place, good vision should always lead, and good advice should always follow. It makes for safety as well as speed.”
    Bolts would have preferred to have his good advice ahead of him, but at that moment Major Mangler—who had decided that picks and shovels were useless—set off his first blast. The explosion rocked the hole and sent Bolts tumbling into the blackness.
    Bolts slid over a hundred feet downward, mainly on his sniffer, before he fetched up with a mighty jolt against a rock. If his sniffer hadn’t been made of the very best stainless steel—as was most of him, in fact—his sniffing days would have been over. Even so, he was so badly shaken that he skipped several ticks before his jangled circuits cleared.
    â€œKeep going!” the fox critter urged. “It’s caved in behind us! Do you want the next blast to bury us?”
    Bolts went slipping and sliding on downward. Several hundred feet later he reached a level spot and stood blinking his eye lights unhappily. Going back was forever impossible—but going forward seemed quite unthinkable.
    His night vision showed a monstrous cavern opening ahead. The place curved away in all directions into the darkest dark imaginable. It took no imagination whatever to fill the impenetrable black distance with the most horrible of dangers.
    Bolts rotated his sniffer, then wished he hadn’t. “What’s that I smell?” he asked fearfully.
    â€œI’d advise you not to question it,” replied the fox critter, staying carefully behind him.
    â€œB-but it smells dangerous! I gotta know what it is.”
    â€œYou asked for it, brother. Didn’t you ever face the Terrible Unknown before? It has the most dangerous of all smells.”
    â€œUlp! I’ll confess I ain’t been around