“Shhh… you only imagined it. There are no monsters. There’s never anybody there.”

A foot collided with the dinner tray, left by the kindly commando. Teresa heard a sharp intake of breath. Momma, Teresa thought, as her heart raced and her right hand formed a fist, you had no idea what you were talking about.

“Shhh,” somebody said, not a meter away. “Don’t speak.”

She stared at two white blobs… a pair of eyes, presumably. Teresa swallowed and tried not to let adrenaline rule her. “Wh… who is it?”

A hand settled gently, briefly over her mouth, hushing her without force. “It’s Alex Lustig… Do you want to get out of here?”

Why is it, she wondered, that your eyes never completely dark-adapt while you sleep? Only now, staring into the dimness, did she begin making out the man’s features.

“But… how?”

He smiled. A Cheshire Cat smile. “George slipped me a map. He’s staying with the others. Going to try cooperating with Spivey. You and I, though… we’ve got to leave.”

“Why you?” She asked hoarsely. “You were in pig heaven, last I looked.”

He shrugged. “I’ll explain later, if we make it. Right now there’s a coffee break going on, and we’ve maybe fifteen minutes till I’m missed. You coming?”

Teresa answered with action, flinging off the covers and reaching for her shoes.

The Australian was no longer on watch by her door. Instead, a tall, powerful Maori, with permanent-looking cheek tattoos and battle ribbons on his uniform, stood with his back against the opposite wall, his mouth half open in a pleasant leer. At first Teresa wondered if the Kiwi soldier had been won over to their side. Then she saw his glassy look, like a dazer, high on a self-induced enkephalin rush. Only, a dazer wouldn’t be a commando. Somehow, Lustig must have drugged him.

“Choline inhibitors. He won’t remember a thing,” Alex explained. He led her down silent, rock-walled corridors. Each time they approached a door, he referred to a small box before giving the okay to proceed. At last they arrived at the secret quay, where two small boats bobbed in the still, cool waters of Waitomo’s underground lake.

“Won’t the exits be watched?” she asked. It wouldn’t require human guards — just tiny drones, about the size of a housefly.

“This area was swept a few minutes ago. Anyway, nobody but George knows the route we’ll be taking.”

Teresa wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. But there wasn’t much choice. She climbed into the lead boat and cast off as Alex began hauling at the network of ropes lacing the ceiling overhead. As they neared the big doors, the dock lights shut off, plunging them into darkness. The gates rolled aside with a low rumble. Alex grunted, feeling his way from one guide cable to the next. She heard him softly counting, perhaps reciting a mnemonic.

“Are you sure you know what you’re—”

He cut her off. “If you want to go back, you know the way.”

Teresa shut up. Anyway, soon they were under the false constellations again — those parodies of starlight used by phosphorescent worms to lure their hapless prey. Each vista pretended to show unexplored clusters, galaxies… a promise of infinity.

Perhaps all our modern astronomy is wrong, she pondered, gazing across the ersatz starfields. Maybe the “real” constellations are just like those green dots. No more than lures to bait the unwary.

She shook her head as the ceiling slid slowly past, carrying with it whole implied universes. That was the problem with nightmares, they clung to you, affecting your mood for hours afterwards. Teresa couldn’t afford that now. Nor even settling into “passenger” mode. Action was the proper antidote. She whispered. “Can I help?”

The boat glided smoothly through the water. “Not yet…” Alex panted as he groped for something up ahead, almost tipping them over in the process. Teresa gripped the rocking sides. “Ah. Here it is. George’s special rope. From here we leave the main cave.”

Their craft made a sharp turn, scraping by towers of inky blackness and then embarking under new, unfamiliar skyscapes. A little while later Alex spoke again, now short of breath. “All right. If you take my hand, I’ll help you stand… carefully! Let me guide you to the cable… Got it? Now that there aren’t other ropes about to confuse you, I could use some assistance. Put an elbow on my shoulder to feel my rhythm. Keep to an easy pace at first. Let me know the instant you feel any motion sickness.”

Teresa forbore telling him her entire life had been a battle with vertigo. “Lay on, Macduff,” she whispered with an effort at cheerfulness.

“And damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’ ” he finished the quotation. “We’re off.”

Trying to stand in a swaying boat while dragging on a cable overhead in total darkness — it wasn’t exactly the easiest thing Teresa had ever attempted. She almost fell over the first few times. But leaning against him made it easier. They could brace each other on four legs. Soon they were breathing in the same cadence, gliding across the smooth pond with hardly a sound and only the green sprinkle overhead to give the cave walls outlines.

Soon those walls were closing in again, she could tell. The darkness and silence seemed to accentuate her other senses, and she was acutely aware of every faint drip of condensation, every aroma rising from her clothes and his.

The boat bumped once, twice, and then went aground on a rocky bank. “Okay,” he said. “Carefully, crouch down and help me feel for the bag of supplies.”

Letting go of the rope, they came closer than ever to tipping over. Teresa gasped, clutching him. Together they fell in a heap of arms and legs, gasping — and also laughing with released tension. As they tried to untangle, he grunted. “Ow! Your knee is on my… ah, thank you.” His voice shifted to falsetto. “Thank you very much.” They laughed again, in tearful relief.

“Is this what you were looking for?” she asked, as one hand came upon a nylon bag. She pushed it toward him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Now where’s the zipper? Don’t answer that! Here it is.”

There was something bizarre and really rather funny about all this fumbling in the dark. It made your hands feel thick and uncoordinated, as if smothered in mittens. Still, altogether, this beat languishing in a tiny room, feeling sorry for yourself.

“Here, take these,” he said, apparently trying to hand her something. But in reaching out she wound up jabbing him in the throat. He made exaggerated choking sounds and she giggled nervously. “Oh, stop. Here, let’s do it this way,” she suggested, and ran her ringers from his neck down to his right shoulder. She felt his left hand move to cover hers. Together they followed his sleeve down to his other hand.

Funny, she thought along the way. I had this image of him as being soft, mushy. But he’s solid. Are all Cambridge dons built like this?

With both hands he pressed into hers an object — a pair of goggles. But he didn’t let go quite yet.

“We had to get you out,” he told her in a more serious tone. “We couldn’t let Spivey take you off to jail.”

Teresa felt a lump, knowing she had underestimated her friends.

“He’d have used your jeopardy as one more threat, to coerce George and the others,” Alex finished. “And we decided we just couldn’t allow that.”

Teresa pulled her hand away. Of course. That’s completely right. Have to stay practical about this.

“So you’re dropping me off now and going back?” she asked as she adjusted the elastic headband.

“Of course not. First off, we haven’t got you out yet. And anyway, I’m not staying to be Colonel Spivey’s tool!”

“But… but without you the gazer…”

“Oh, they’ll manage without me, I suppose. If all they want to do is keep the damn thing down there—” He paused and caught his breath. “But I’m not bowing out completely. There’s method to this madness, Captain Tikhana.”