After a few moments of breathless silence, Yaniriin said, "Oh, to be there now! Thariinye and Kh.o.r.n.ya have taken shelter inside the cave but their companion, Maak, has elected to guard their rear. The scanners can just make him out, standing at the entrance to the tunnel while the hairy monsters charge him, their sticks pointing at him! He counters mightily and one of the monsters pulls from his body what seems to be another weapon. He is attempting to remove Mac"s head. What is this? Some small beast it must be the pakaantiyir-like khaat they call Riidkii has flown onto the monster"s head. At any rate, the scanners show Maak has not diminished in height, so he seems to have kept his head. Now Riidkii has fallen and now he is not there oh, neither is Maak. He has lifted the khaat and is carrying him deeper into the tunnel, but the monsters follow. What is this? Our scanners detect a laser. A great explosion! Oh my, the tunnel is collapsing. But only on the monsters. What a relief. We can still see the sensors on Maak and Riidku all the way down the tunnel, going very fast and there are Kh.o.r.n.ya"s sensors, and Thariinye"s. Now they are all back inside the cave and we can no longer see them. You will be relieved to know that the life force sensor for Riidkii improved in strength once Kh.o.r.n.ya met them, so whatever wounds the khaat sustained were healed."
"We are coming within visual range of the flitter now, Yaniriin," Miirl told him.
"Very well then ahhh! Perhaps there will be no need. There was just another explosion; did you get a visual on it? Can you transmit anything closer than what we are currently receiving?"
"Yes, Captain, I am sorry to report that it appears that the entire tunnel has just collapsed but there is movement. There"s our quarry! They have escaped being crushed in the tunnel collapse! Both of them. Oh, by my horn, how ugly they are! Disgusting!"
The crew chief told her, "I"ve just released the net, Vilii Hazaar."
"Excellent, chief, stand by. We"re coming into tractor range now. There they are, clear as the horn on your head, Yaniriin. They are shaking their manes and have begun to toss the rocks from the tunnel"s entrance aside, as if they are desperate to reach Kh.o.r.n.ya and her team. They are in range..."
"Deploy tractor beam when ready, Miirl," Yaniriin said.
"Got them!" Miirl said as the two huge s.h.a.ggy figures were jerked off their feet along with the boulders they held in their hands and pulled horizontally through the air until they were pulled into the steel cargo net, which closed around them and their rocks.
"Excellent! Haul them aboard and return to the ship so that we may properly incarcerate and perhaps interrogate them, should they be sentient. See if you can pick up their speech patterns, if they have any intelligible ones, on your LAANYEs."
"But what about Kh.o.r.n.ya"s team, Yaniriin?" Miirl asked. "They are buried!"
"Other shuttles are on their way." After another silence, he resumed speaking. "Nadhari Kando has sent to MOO for earth-moving and digging machinery to be brought by Linyaari crews to the surface of the planet. The Council has given permission for Captain Jonas Becker, the great friend of Lady Kh.o.r.n.ya, to bring his salvage ship Condor to the surface as well."
"Is that not highly irregular?"
"He has been on our planet before. He was the one who rescued Aari the Survivor. Also, the valiant Riidkii and Maak are crew members aboard his ship."
"Ahhh, well, the Council"s decision is understandable then. We are now loading the monsters oh, oh, quickly, the masks. The smell of them is not to be believed, Yaniriin. Have your crew don masks before opening the air locks when we come aboard. And have sufficient personnel standing by to purify the air as soon as possible"
"That"s affirmative, Miirl."
The shuttle flew back to the mother ship with Liriili and the captives. Meanwhile, the other two shuttles Yaniriin had dispatched earlier landed near the tunnel.
Before the crew from the first shuttle could disembark, the other shuttle immediately vanished crew, ship, and all right in front of their horrified eyes.
The miner"s lanterns did not cast enough light to see very far, but Acorna knew at once that although She and her companions were not yet above ground, they were out of the cave. Wherever they were, it was s.p.a.cious, and the air was, if not especially fragrant or heady, oxygen rich and clean without the need for horn purification. And the floor was smoothly surfaced, laid out by sentient hands.
Nevertheless, the s.p.a.ce smelled slightly musty and felt derelict.
h.e.l.lo-o!" she called, "Aari, Maati, Neeva? Are any of you here?" She found she was expecting not an answer but an echo. She got neither. Her voice sank into the darkness in the same way the sound of her footfalls and those of her companions died on contact with the pavement.
However, since she had no actual idea where she was, continuing this journey seemed as good a way as any to begin searching tor the lost ones, since she also had no idea where they were. She sent out mental feelers, but could not honestly say that there was any response to them.The beam of her light and Mac"s stopped a few feet from their faces, where a mound of earth sloped upward, extending past the boundaries of the light. In three places it bore deep, even gouges about four feet long and a half a foot deep.
"Kh.o.r.n.ya, look, we are at the base of a mountain!" Thariinye said. "And it is indented just as the wall was down below. Fortunately, the incline is less perpendicular." "I suppose we"d better climb it, then?" "Why?" Thariinye asked.
Mac and Acorna said in unison, "Because it is there!" Mac had uploaded the same books she"d read aboard Becker"s ship, one of which included the famous words spoken by George Leigh Mallory, when asked why he wished to climb a mountain called Everest on Old Terra.
Acorna remembered the words because they sounded very much like the things Becker had quoted his adoptive father, Theophilus, as saying. The saying also reminded her of her own adoptive fathers, Calum, Gill, and Rafik, and she felt a surge of longing to see them.
Would she ever again see any of the people she loved, those who had disappeared, or those from whom she had now become separated?
But then, realistically, a person could ask herself that question every time she took a s.p.a.ce voyage anywhere or any time she stepped away from the people she cared for, even momentarily.
She sighed and began the climb. As mountains went, it was more of a foothill. In fact, she had been in s.p.a.ceports with taller gantries. In fact, she realized, as her feet met flat, even flooring once more at the top of the climb "This isn"t a mountain. It"s another staircase. The cavern must have been the bas.e.m.e.nt level of some great structure maybe it"s where the Ancestral Hosts and Ancestors lived when they first came here. Though this level doesn"t seem to have access to the outdoors, the upper levels must have. The Ancestors would need that."
As she climbed, she realized that the sounds of their breathing were gradually being augmented by another, more subtle sound. She stopped, holding her breath, and motioned for the others to do the same.
Hiss. Slap slap. A receding susurration as soft as the sound of a silken gown moving across skin.
"I think that"s the sound of the sea," she said.
"What sea?" Thariinye asked, his face tense in the light of her lamp as he strained to hear. "The seas were all destroyed by the Khleevi. No, it"s probably some giant carnivorous mutant cave rat dragging its tail back and forth on the floor as it comes to eat us."
"Why, Thariinye!" Acorna said, smiling at his grim joke.
"What?"
"How colorful," she said.
"I heard what you were thinking!" he chided. "You -were thinking I didn"t know he had that much imagination." And you"re right, I don"t have. Never have had. But the way things have been going since we arrived, it doesn"t take much to realize that any strange sound can hardly be something normal and pleasant. It must surely be some new disaster."
RK had been flitting merrily in and out of the light of their lanterns, chasing his own shadow. Suddenly he gave a small "Yow!" Light appeared from nowhere, blinding them as it pierced their dark-accustomed eyes, flooding them with a painful brilliance.
"What?" Thariinye yelled, his nerves well and truly on edge by now.
Acorna"s eyes readjusted, and she saw the cat sitting by a long -white wall, patting it with his paw, blinking at it rapidly with eyes that were all iris, the thin slit of pupil undetectable at this distance. "There doesn"t seem to be anyone here but us, but I believe we"ve found civilization," she said.
The light was not actually as bright as it had seemed at first.
It would have been called "atmospheric" in certain upscale eating establishments. Because of the wall-wide area it covered, it sufficed to illuminate the corridor, but did not provide enough light that one could see colors clearly.
Still, it showed that they stood in the corridor of a building at least the size of Uncle Hafiz"s grand ballroom in his princ.i.p.al palace, or the s.p.a.ceport on Maganos Moonbase, or one of the Amalgamated Mining Corporation office buildings she had visited with Calum, Gill, and Rafik. On the street side of the corridor, the central-most of several portals still stood, supported by two ornate columns. Four other portals, had broken and allowed the wide awnings above the doors to collapse into them.
"I don"t believe anyone is here," Thariinye whispered.
"No, but the illumination system in the walls still works," Acorna said, struggling for a normal tone herself. "At least that one did. If there are others that also work, we should be able to find our way around here pretty well." She walked over to the wall opposite the one RK had touched and laid her hand upon it. It brightened the light in the corridor, and revealed more clearly that there were five additional arched doorways on the inner wall. All of these still contained sets of double doors carved with characters similar to those in the glyphs in the cavern.
Making his eyes wide and gesturing with his brows toward the nearest inner door, Thariinye indicated that he didn"t see why Acorna didn"t try it.
She gave a little huff of impatience and pushed the nearest door, which slowly creaked open at her touch.
"I believe I have some lubricant in my left ankle which could take care of that problem," Mac offered in a sensibly normal voice
"I"d hang on to it. I doubt you have enough for every door in here," Thariinye told him, his voice still subdued.
(Afraid the giant carnivorous mutant cave rats will hear you?) Acorna teased. (Because they"re a little late. We were in the cave for many hours already and they didn"t even show a tail tip.)
(It"s lucky we had RK with us is all I have to say.) Thariinye answered.
The psychic byplay concealed the trepidation they all felt on entering the ancient room. The light from the corridor penetrated the interior for no more than the sweep of a ball gown"s skirt. Acorna backed up, took a deep breath, stuck out her hand, and the wall she touched responded by lighting one side of the room.