Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams Read Online Free

caught anyway.”
     
    I put down my spoon, appetite forgotten. There was a new strength in Carnarvon’s eyes that bothered me, left me feeling like an intruder, unwanted. His stare was almost a challenge, defying me to unravel the riddle of the mines on my own.
     
    “Who is the Director?” I asked, pacing my words deliberately.
     
    Perhaps he saw the growing frustration in my eyes, and the anger that lurked behind it. Or he too was tired of his own guessing-game. Either way, he also put down his spoon and finally began to explain, after a fashion.
     
    “The Director lives in the mines,” he said, “or else it’s an integral part of it. Either. We don’t know much about it, except that it can go anywhere, any time it wants to. We don’t even know where it goes between appearances—I’ve never heard of it being seen topside— but we always know when it’s been.”
     
    “’It’?” I asked. “I thought you were talking about someone in particular. Your superior, perhaps.”
     
    “No. One of the early explorers coined the name, for whatever reason, and it’s as good as any other.”
     
    He paused, watching me closely, waiting for a response.
     
    “So what is it? A machine?”
     
    “That’s certainly possible. The mines aren’t human-built. The ROTH made them; the ROTH left them here for us to plunder. Maybe they switched on some sort of security system before they left, and the Director is its enforcer.” He shrugged. “But few people really believe it’s an alien artifact.”
     
    “Then someone must know about it, surely?”
     
    “Just think for a second, before you jump to conclusions. It should be obvious. What if the ROTH didn’t leave? What if they’re still in here, somewhere?”
     
    I stared at him. “Are you suggesting that the Director is an alien?”
     
    “That’s the most popular explanation. More than one ROTH, perhaps. No-one’s seen it and lived. All we know is that it takes people working in the mines—usually the best, most talented. Those it comes for and doesn’t take, it kills.”
     
    “You’re kidding.”
     
    Carnarvon shook his head gravely. “It’s no joke down here. Deeper still, it’s positively morbid. Live in the mines for a while and the fact starts to get to you. You’re always wondering if it’ll come for you, and if you’ll be taken when it does.”
     
    “I never heard any of this before.”
     
    “Of course not. The Mine looks after itself. Hardly anybody who comes this deep leaves again. Those few who do leave hang around the surface for a while, and then go back Down. The Director is all part of the lure and the trap of Barnath, you see. No-one knows where it takes the ones it doesn’t kill.” He picked up his spoon and attacked his breakfast viciously. “That’s why I’m here. The mystery has me hooked.”
     
    “And me? Why am I here?”
     
    “To find your brother, of course.”
     
    “Did the Director take him ?”
     
    Carnarvon paused between mouthfuls. “If you meet it, you can ask it yourself.”
     
    I pushed my bowl aside and sealed my suit.
     
    “Going somewhere?” asked Carnarvon, amused.
     
    “Outside,” I said. “I need to think.”
     
    I shouldered my way through a crowd of miners and headed out into the darkness. The face of the cut was hidden behind a low hill; the only light came from reflected haze and a crooked line of beacons strung across the grey-green dust that served for a floor on the fourth level.
     
    I squatted on my haunches and regarded the empty view for a long while. It was like sitting on the face of a starless moon. I didn’t hear Carnarvon approach.
     
    “Time to go,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Coming?”
     
    I raised my head wearily.
     
    “You say Martin disappeared from the next level?”
     
    “Yes, the fifth. That’s what the records said, anyway.”
     
    “Then I’m coming. At least that far.”
     
    Even through the visor I could see his skeptical