Read Hominids for Free Online Page A

out from under him, and he came slamming down on his back on the granite floor. The surface was covered with water—lots of water. Where had it come from? Ponter had been drinking from a tube earlier, but Adikor was sure he’d finished it upstairs. And besides, there was much more here than could have fit in a tube; there were buckets of it, spreading out in a wide puddle.
    The water—if that’s what it was—looked clean, clear. Adikor brought his wet palm up to his face, sniffed. No odor.
    A tentative lick.
    No taste at all.
    It was pure, apparently. Pure, clean water.
    Heart pounding, head racing, Adikor went to get some containers to collect it in; it was the only clue he had.
    Where had the water possibly come from?
    And where on Earth had Ponter gone?

Chapter 5
    What the—?
    Absolute blackness.
    And—water! Ponter Boddit’s legs were wet, and—
    And he was sinking, water up to his waist, his chest, the bottom of his jaw.
    Ponter kicked violently.
    His eyes were indeed wide open, but there was nothing—absolutely nothing—to be seen.
    He flailed with his arms while treading water. He gulped in air.
    What had happened? Where could he be?
    One moment he’d been standing in the quantum-computing facility, and the next—
    Darkness—so unrelentingly dark, Ponter thought perhaps he was blind. An explosion could have done that; rock bursts were always a danger this far underground, and—
    And an influx of subterranean water was possible. He swung his arms some more, then stretched out his toes, trying to feel for the bottom, but—
    But there was nothing, nothing at all. Just more water. He could be a handspan from the bottom, or a thousand times that much. He thought about diving down to find out, but in the dark, floating freely, with no light at all, he might lose track of which way was up and not make it back to the surface in time.
    He’d taken in a mouthful of water as he’d felt for the bottom. It was utterly free of taste; he’d have expected a subterranean river to be brackish, but this seemed as pure as meltwater.
    He continued to gulp air. His heart was racing, and—
    And he wanted to swim toward the edge, wherever that—
    A groaning sound, low, deep, from all around him.
    Again, like an animal awakening, like …
    Like something under great stress?
    He finally had enough air in his lungs to manage a shout. “Help!” Ponter called. “Help!”
    The sound echoed weirdly, as if he were in an enclosed space. Could he still be in the computing room? But, if he were, why wasn’t Adikor responding to his calls?
    He couldn’t just stay there. Although he wasn’t exhausted yet, he soon would be. He needed to find a surface to clamber onto, or something in the water with him that he could use as a flotation aid, and—
    The groaning again, louder, more insistent.
    Ponter started to dog paddle. If only there were some light—any light. He swam for what seemed a short distance, and—
    Agony! Ponter banged his head into something hard. He switched back to treading water, his limbs beginning to ache, and he reached out with one hand, fingers splayed, palm forward. Whatever he had hit was hard and warm—not metal or glass, then. And it was absolutely smooth, maybe slightly concave, and—
    Another groan, coming from—
    His heart fluttered; he felt his eyes go wide, but they saw nothing at all in the blackness.
    —coming from the hard wall in front of him.
    He began to swim in the opposite direction, the noise now growing to earsplitting proportions.
    Where was he? Where was he?
    The volume continued to increase. He swam farther and—
    Ouch! That hurt!
    He’d slammed into another hard, smooth wall. These certainly weren’t the walls in the quantum-computing chamber; those were covered with soft sound-deadening fabric.
    Whooooooshhhh!
    Suddenly, the water around Ponter was moving, rushing, roaring, and he was caught up in it, as if he were in a raging river. Ponter took a huge breath, drawing some