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them.
    Watching the radar displays in their hands,
they had an image of the web-like maze of ventilation shafts,
offices, workshops, auditoriums, dining rooms, and bedrooms in the
complex. They had stopped to inspect their copper jumpsuits, probe
their oxygen bottles, and check their guns. Ready to move forward,
they strode like powerless mummies, shuffling in their heavy
shoes.
    Oppressive silence reigned in these spaces,
sucking up and muffling any sound except for the patter of water.
It seemed like someone would invade at any moment. Deprived of
illumination, the spaces in the building looked like dens of skates
and squid. The abandoned submarines especially looked like rotten
barrels, scattered in an old tipping technique.
    The corridors were sometimes stretched and
expanded. At other times, they narrowed–all of it was very much
like a digestive system. Chandeliers of coral, a forgotten alchemy
left in this oblivion, shined from the cave niches.
    Sometimes, the men found themselves in large
canteens that had been filled from end to end with inlaid marble
tables that gleamed like coals. Buried and scattered along them
were silver utensils, hundreds upon hundreds of them. They stood
dark, yet polished, as if they had just been used in a revel.
    They also passed by rail cars that had been
overturned; their composition was rusty or corroded. Most of them
were still filled with small gold coins and red-black beads. Blind
and deformed, these riches had been abandoned in the name of
something bigger.
    As they continued their venture, doorway
after doorway revealed bedrooms that had been barely yawned open.
Like tightlipped mussels their interiors smelled of stale, moldy
basements and had preserved only a sour, tart flavor. Often
countless slivers of sheets had rolled up on the beds, as wet and
cold as snakes.
    The men were not happy about this emptiness.
It seemed to them that at any moment hordes of enemies would
arrive. This feeling only grew as they were accosted by the
acoustics of strident cries.
    The seven men grasped their pneumatic guns,
resting their fingers tighter on the trigger with each atypical
noise. They ventured even deeper, arriving in what looked like a
hatchery for reptilian monsters. The incredible size of the bridal
chambers showed the work of expert miners who had dug with such
subtlety into the continental shelf that the room seemed to be
carved from the very depths of the ocean.
    Great tension radiated from their arms, and
they stiffened at every sound. Frequently, they found themselves
shooting at the rats that were there. They agonized over the fallen
pieces of plaster bas-reliefs, which stood as grim evidence of
claimed hunts, reminding the men that they didn’t know who was the
hunter and who was the prey.
    Soon, the halls more clearly separated
themselves. The small ones that had been for the personal needs of
the many thousands of citizens of Thule gave way to the public
ones—and a necklace of carved stone galleries, markets, training
grounds, gathering squares, and amphitheaters began to rotate
before the admiring gazes of the men.
    In stretches before them clung armories
filled with polished armor, shields, and all kinds of guns arranged
in neat rows. There were rows of shelves filled from top to the
bottom with billions of canned food containers. Fireflies with
flickering clouds of light appeared from behind the counters and
libraries with spiraling and curling staircases went down into the
depths.
    With every new step, they were approached
their goal and the passes became more diagonal. The air became
stuffier and suffocating, reminding this crew of a smelly homeless
animal with its matted fur.
    The narrow galleries located to their left
and right had only been shaped into niches now. Thrown together
into rusted groups, tools spoke of their interrupted work as they
had been digging new sectors in this once great human kingdom.
    Sometimes the holes expanded, leading to
oval halls. These