Free The Great White Space by Basil Copper

Darkness; there was nothing to see but I knew that the sun would eventually arise from that direction.
    I wondered whether Zalor was somewhere out there or if he had fled back in the direction of the ancient City of Zak. I wondered too how he would survive, or whether he had friends among the desert tribes. I smiled grimly to myself in the darkness. People like Zalor always survived. The headman, hastily roused by Scarsdale, had a party searching Nylstrom street by street but I guessed the dwarf would have his plans laid too well and that he would no longer be within the town. And so it proved when dawn eventually came.
    Long before that I stirred to find Van Damm by my side. He joined me in my vigil until the distant rays of yellow light harshly illuminated the black plain of ash before us; the dawn wind sent faint whorls of dust moving uneasily on its surface. We looked in vain for any trace of Zalor.
    Van Damm glanced at me sombrely. His face was haggard in the strange light of that ancient place.
    'A bad business, Plowright,' he said. 'And an ill omen for this enterprise, I fear.'

Seven
    1
    The command tractor shifted and lurched on the Plain of Darkness, the immediate foreground of the windshield filled with whirling dust and cinders. I could see the Black Mountains rising from the raging dustclouds like some monstrous whale-like creature, they were so close. Scarsdale was silent at my side, now peering anxiously ahead, now making abstruse calculations with his slide-rule and mathematical instruments on the chart-table before him.
    I went back to steering on a compass bearing, conscious that in a little more than an hour we should be off the plain and into the foothills of the mountains; Scarsdale had told us that there was some vegetation and we intended to follow up a shallow valley which eventually rose steeply and would take us to our destination. I only hoped the tractors would be robust enough to raise us on to the plateau which would lead us to the cave formations of which the Professor held such high hopes. Once again I marvelled at his tremendous vitality and strength in undertaking such a colossal journey on foot and with such an ill-equipped expedition as the earlier one.
    When the excitement over Zalor's treachery had died away in Nylstrom and all the headman's searches had failed to discover the dwarf within the town, Scarsdale had held a brief council of war. We had decided to press on to the object of our journey as soon as possible. To that end the technicians among us had proceeded with the overhaul of the tractors and Number 4 had been left in the vegetable store, padlocked and under day and night guard. I was set to boiling water for the tanks of the three remaining vehicles, for that would be our biggest lack once we were among the mountains. I also took charge of gathering what fresh vegetables and fruit there was available, which would make a welcome change from the material in our tinned supply.
    From the night of my fight with Zalor, Scarsdale had insisted on breaking out the weapons and we all wore sidearms; some, in addition carried rifles. I found the heavy pistol strapped to my waist in its webbing holster a tremendous nuisance and I had very little idea how to use it so that I felt I should be a greater danger to my companions in an emergency, rather than to any supposed enemy.
    I took a last group of still photographs of our helpful headman and his people; and staged the few cinema shots necessary for this section of the route. I had stayed behind to record the scene as the villagers waved off the three remaining tractors into the unknown distances of the Plain of Darkness and once I had stopped the whirring motor of my machine and carried it and the heavy tripod off across the desert to where Scarsdale had halted to pick me up, I could not help reflecting on the contrast this scene would make with that of the splendour of the departure from Zak; the Plain was doubly sombre in the light of