It was a double shaft, with space for two elevators, but neither lift was on their level. Sounds of pursuit came from the gallery behind them. Heydrick leaned over and looked down the shaft. A floor below was the open-platform lift. "Jump for the cable," he ordered. "Try to slide down it." "You first," she said. "I'm a sissy." Heydrick jumped and his stomach wrenched with nausea. Then the cable was burning through his hands. His feet stung as they came down solidly on the metal flooring. The girl was right behind him. He found the control lever and jammed it all the way over. The car dropped under them with sickening speed. A blaster beam flamed briefly above them, and the discharge set a chorus of echoes bouncing back and forth in the old mine-shaft. "Hang tight," he shouted. "I don't know how far down this shaft goes. If we hit bottom at this speed, we'll flatten out like saucers." A mushroom of brilliant light expanded above them. The car jerked and grated on the rock walls, then went down in a free fall, the cable trailing slack above them. Down the shaft hurtled the old lift, air whistling eerily round its edges. "They've blasted the cable!" Heydrick cried. "Now we are in for it." He leaped to the brake lever and tugged at it. The bar was rusted fast. Ria tried to help. With their combined weight and effort, the bar gave a little. Inch by inch, it moved. The clamps started taking hold of the side walls and a shriek of protest came from rock and metal. The elevator slowed slightly. Too late. With a grinding rasp of smashed metal, it struck. Ria was hurled clear, but Heydrick was trapped. The metal cable came down, coiling and snapping like a whip. A stiff spiral of it covered Heydrick, pinning him fast to the floor. He wiped a smear of blood from his face and tried vainly to lift the heavy strands. They refused to budge. Ria knelt beside him and tried to shift the coils, but it was no use. "You'd better go," he said roughly. "They'll be down as soon as they can get to the other elevator ... to make sure of us." Ria glared at him. "It's my maternal instinct," she said. "I can't leave you." "You wanted a chance to escape. This is it." Ria seized the broken brake lever and pried up part of the strands. Heydrick worked himself part way out, but the weight was too much for her strength. The bar twisted out of her hands. Down came the full weight again. Heydrick cried out in agony. She moved the bar and lifted again. This time, he crawled free. * * * * * Leaning on her, he was able to stand and walk along the old gallery, but it was a slow business. Deadly slow. Behind them, they could hear the whine of a descending lift. "They're coming," he said. Crouching against an angle of the tunnel, they waited. It was useless to run. Heydrick cut the switch of his radilume and braced the blaster against cold stone. He felt better with the trigger nestling against his trembling finger.