A void had sucked away the lower half of the chamber. A ragged cut ran around the edge of what used to be the floor. Noxious fumes assaulted his nose. He crawled to the edge of the tube. The remaining chamber floor sloped outward until breaking off about two meters from the wall. Raw diamonds littered what remained of the floor and sparkled in his headlamp. Lava dust formed a whitish cloud that drifted down into the gaping hole.

​

He squeezed hands full of rock. The sharp lava bit into his palms and he hurled it into the darkness. His temples pounded, and he dropped his head on his fists and tried to make sense of the disaster. Anyone who had been in the chamber before the blast would now be gone. He followed the broken floor as it narrowed against the chamber wall as it reached the three o’clock tube with Eyrún and Darwin. At that point, a large section of the chamber ceiling above the tube had collapsed, blocking the tube. Beneath it, the chamber floor had fallen away and was scarcely wide enough for a rat as it circled toward the Iceland tube.

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“Eyrún! Darwin!” he yelled. “Anybody!” Silence. Jón and Pétur were gone. He tried to scrub the memory of the floor breaking up and the horror on Jón’s face. Staring straight across at the Iceland tube, he saw the floor extend into the chamber about the same two-meter distance as the Scotland tube. The orange reflectors on the ATV warned of its presence. He kept following the remaining floor clockwise past the Iceland opening. A few meters farther around, the floor ended. There was no way around to the Iceland tube. He was trapped on this side.

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The ten o’clock tube where Stevie and Zac had gone was not blocked and he could get to it. A wider section of floor remained between him and the opening. He brought his vision closer. There was a body on the floor just this side of the tube opening. Pétur! He was on his back, right foot over the edge, bent at the knee. He groaned and twisted his body as Ian’s light hit him in the face.

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“Don’t move!” yelled Ian. He stood and gripped the tube wall. The floor varied between one and two meters wide, and he probed the remaining floor with his left foot. It held. He stamped down, still holding the wall. Solid. The floor was eighteen centimeters thick, but was riddled with cracks.

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“Don’t move, Pétur. I’m coming over to help you.” He got down on hands and knees and moved to Pétur. The floor creaked. He stopped and lay flat to distribute his weight.