“Or else I’m awake, have limited oxygen left and that means I’m in deep kimchee,” she muttered.
“You’re not in sauerkraut,” an odd, thin voice said.
Tem-aki turned to look behind her and dislodged the arms of the android. As its weight fell away, the haze obscured, again. She’d forgotten about the android, which could account for some of the heaviness, but only some. Tem-aki ground her teeth together. Didn’t the fool machine, which could supposedly translate over a million languages and dialects, understand the concept of colloquialisms?
“You’re in H2O at a depth 43 meters. Your oxygen supply should last 37 hours at the present rate of consumption,” GEA-4 said, as if reading her mind. Tem-aki swallowed the lump of fear and told herself to breathe. “You cannot stay here,” GEA-4 added.
Where did the stupid droid expect her to go? “Which way are Thunder and Raine?”
“I lost my fix on them when the magnetic properties of the portal shifted.”
“I beg your pardon?” Tem-aki willed herself to calm down. “Are you telling me your sensors are dysfunctional?”
“That is a possibility. My systems have suffered significant damage and need repair.”
“Fine, then which way did Thunder and Raine go?” she again demanded.
“Unknown.”
She knew it’d seemed like a long fall, but that was probably a hallucination. “Are you trying to tell me I’m alone?”
“There is one other 11.7 meters away on bearing 278.”
Did the blasted android have a bad sense of humor? “Right. There’s someone else down here. Are they running out of air, too?”
“They are at a higher elevation, so theoretically the individual has an adequate oxygen supply available.”
“So, if I can get to them, I should have a better chance of surviving.”
“Affirmative.”
If she didn’t need the blessed heap of fried wires to help her find bearing 278, she’d dump the infernal machine here and now.
Tem-aki struggled to stand upright. Why hadn’t Thunder warned her they could become separated? If she’d known, she’d have stayed closer to him. It took her seven attempts before she managed to stand up without pressure sending her back down to her knees and creating an ever-increasing particle haze. Eventually, she managed to stand as well as secure the droid so that she could carry it, but now she couldn't even glimpse the rock through the silt. “Okay, which way do I need to go?”
“Toward the school of angels.”
“What?” This was the information she needed to save her life?
“In front and to your right. You should be able to see them.”
All she could see was something silvery darting in the murk near the edge of her vision. With nothing to lose, she took a step in that direction, then another. After forty paces, she still didn’t know why she was trusting directions from a damaged android, which directed her toward mythical beings that supposedly went to something as mundane as a school.
But with no other viable option for survival, GEA-4's 'school of angels' was her best bet.
After what seemed like days, but was less than six hours, according to her chronograph, the rocky, sandy bottom began to sprout vegetation, which gradually got taller and thicker, the blades grasping at her legs.
Suddenly, Tem-aki tripped and fell. She threw her hands forward to break her fall, and landed hard on her knees. Exhausted, she focused on breathing and calming her hammering heart. After several minutes, feeling a bit calmer, she turned to see what had caught her boot.
Something glistened and beckoned against the sandy muck. Pushing GEA-4's arms aside and wriggling back to the thing, Tem-aki dug around it with her hand, excavating what looked like a dark twisted stick with an ornately knotted top. Very peculiar construction, but sturdy and potentially useful as a walking stick. Standing up, she took a tentative swipe at the clinging leaves. As if by magic, their grip on her boots slackened.
The stick was useful.
While it had obviously been manufactured, it could have been made thousands of miles away, so it didn't guarantee there was any land nearby.
Tem-aki sighed. “I thought you said that there was another person 11.7 meters away. Surely I've gone ten times that far.”
“Correct.”
Her hands clenched in rage. “So this person is now behind me?”
“Negative.”
“Well, they are not here.”
“Correct.”
“Well, they obviously were not 11.7 meters away on bearing 278.”
“At present, he or she is 534 meters away on bearing 322.”
“Why did you allow me to move so far off course?”
“You were not the only one in motion.”
Had she ever had such a frustrating conversation, before? “And this is the first time you thought it appropriate to mentioned this?”
GEA-4 did not respond.
Tem-aki tried to control her breathing to calm her temper. “Is it normal to get separated when going through the wormhole?”
“Cannot calculate probability due to limited data.”
“Excuse me?”
“I have only passed through the vortex in question four times. The previous times were stable, which would suggest eighty-percent probability of arriving in the cave atop the peak of Sacred Mountain. We are not there.”
Great, first the infernal machine advised her to follow a school of spirits, now it was telling her that she'd hiked deep into an asteroid and should have come out on top of a mountain.
And she'd been dumb enough to follow the advice.
Tem-aki turned her attention to the area around her. Since she'd been still, the silt in the water around her had begun settling and she realized she was sitting in a strange grassy plain, which had a multitude of odd silvery things darting amidst the leaves. Even more interesting, when she looked up, she thought she could see sunlight glistening on the top of the water. “Are we still under 43 meters of water?”
“Negative. 5.93 meters.”
“Did the wormhole return us to Kalamar?”
“Impossible to determine.”
“Well, what can you determine?”
GEA-4 remained quiet.
If the wormhole had somehow returned them to Kalamar, then no matter how many miles she walked, it was doubtful if she could find the planet's spec of dry land before she ran out of air. Tem-aki looked at the strange waving grass and the odd swimming creatures. Having grown up on Guerreterre, where water was sold by the drop, she had always thought that in nature, it was a scarce commodity, then she'd seen the water-world, Kalamar. Now, she was somewhere unknown and surrounded by the stuff. Tem-aki decided that it was most likely that the Star Bridge had malfunctioned and returned her to Kalamar.
Being surrounded by water made it seem common, but it was also impossible to breathe water, so she had to find a way out.
“Is there any land nearby?”
“Probabilities indicate that the other humanoid is on land.”
“And that would be 534 meters away on bearing 322?”
“Correct.”
Tem-aki considered leaving the infernal droid behind, then changed her mind and readjusted her burden. “If I do not find another person or land in 534 meters, I am dumping you. Understand?” Twenty paces later, she stood in front of a dark, vertical wall, which seemed to keep climbing higher, even when it soared above the water. “Any suggestion on how I'm expected to get over this?”
“Swim.”
The droid was insane to think that anyone on Guerreterre, which had no natural water, knew how to swim, much less could do so carrying a malfunctioning droid. “Other than that?”
“There is a tunnel to your left, but my scanners are not adequate to determine if it would get you to your objective.”
“And that is?” Tem-aki asked, to see what GEA-4 would say.
“The humanoid signal, which has not moved for the past three minutes.”
&nb
sp; “And is on land?”
“At an elevation above water-level.”
Vowing this was the droid's last chance, Tem-aki moved along the sheer, high wall to her left, then found the promised tunnel, which wasn't as big as the old salt mine had been, but fortunately was large enough to stand inside.
Squaring her shoulders, Tem-aki stepped into the unknown.
~0~
Cameron O’ryan knelt in front of the fire pit, which was in the ancient lava tube at the heart of what his faction called their Protected Place. He hummed the song of creating, as he carefully placed dried bits of moss in a cone shape, then added shreds of kindling. As the pyramid grew, he added larger sticks until it resembled the volcano at Fire Island's heart. Finally, he began intoning the proper incantation.
As the first rays of dawn shone through the cracked rock into the area, Cameron lit the fire.
The flame coughed and sputtered before it took hold.
As the strengthening light caressed the designs which had been carved into the walls of the ancient lava tube, he sprinkled sage on the blaze as an offering of respect to the creators.
When the flames reached high enough to meet the rays of morning light coming through the entrance to the Protected Place, he altered the ritual incantation. Now, instead of habitual praises, he murmured petitions for his tribe's health and safety as well as specific pleas for individuals who had been desperate enough to pay for his intervention. Cameron tried to sound sincere in his requests, even when the farmers' pleas for good rains for the crops clashed with petitions for good weather during the Tribe's spring-time equinox festival.
Cameron hoped the creators were wise enough to sort out what was important and ignore frivolous requests.
When the morning rays glinted off the rising smoke, he dropped to his knees, and offered the petitions close friends and family had entrusted to him.
~0~
Tem-aki cautiously walked into the black tunnel, using the twisted stick to verify the solidity of the ground prior to taking each step. After several paces, the gritty sandy bottom began to thin and there was an occasional slick spot, which slowed her even more. Thankfully, after an hour of snail-slow going, the passage began to get lighter. Unfortunately, the water also began to look foggy, so even though it was lighter, it wasn't really easier to see. She vaguely recalled hearing about water's foggy layer phenomena. Unfortunately, she hadn't paid enough attention to something that she doubted she would ever encounter, so couldn’t recall if it was supposed to be a good sign or bad.
What was good was that despite getting slicker and harder to walk on, the passage was moving upward at a steady pace, which meant she was probably getting close to air, and the sooner she got to that, the better.
She took a break to analyze the chemical properties of the cave, which remained consistent with the readings she had taken before entering it. Tem-aki took that as a good omen.
When she looked upward, an odd, flickering light seemed to flash off a layer of water. She reached up to touch it, and circular ripples of light fled from her flight glove. She blinked in surprise.
With no other option, she refocused her attention on walking up the slick incline without falling on her face. Twenty paces later, her helmet began to break through the water. With her objective in sight, her pace quickened, so every step brought her another inch out of the water and toward the strange, flickering light.
Every footstep also made her burden heavier.
Worse, every step closer to the strange shoreline made it easier to see that someone had carved long rectangular depressions into the stone walls, above the high water mark and placed odd groups of rounded and long whitish things in them. Between the condensation inside her helmet and the gloom, it was difficult to get a good look at the jumbled items, but many of them looked suspiciously like bones.
And the closer she got, the more convinced she was that she was approaching some sort of burial ground. Tem-aki gulped, then asked GEA-4, “Where is the human, now?”
“One-hundred feet directly ahead.”
Tem-aki frowned at the blazing fire, which was where the android said the human should be. Still, a living person must have built the fire, right? “Are they alive?”
“Affirmative.”
“Near death?”
“I am unable to determine that.”
Tem-aki sighed and wished she had had time to repair GEA-4's fried circuits.
Moving to the side of the black tunnel, she used her tricorder to analyze the material; the properties were nearly identical to the ones she had gotten before entering the tube. She blinked perspiration out of her eyes and wondered if the temperature was actually hotter or if it was just her imagination.
Hotter?
The fire was not large enough to account for the increasing temperature.
She bit her lip. Her tricorder indicated the presence of carbonization, on a large scale, that usually meant the rock was volcanic. Add heat to that fact and this probably was not a good place to be. Being under water with limited air was bad enough. Being under water that might have a volcanic explosion was a nightmare.
She had to get out of this place.
Backward was not an option and forward had no guarantees, but it was her best choice.
Fighting her fear of entrapment, she moved toward the higher heat readings as quickly as she could, without falling.
By the time she was halfway out of the water, and the water no longer moderated her burden, GEA-4's weight was unbearable. Tem-aki wished she had taken the time to repair GEA-4's ability to walk, because despite the fact that the android was over a foot shorter and much thinner, GEA-4 outweighed her.
Unable to keep moving once her boots were past the tide line, Tem-aki sank to her knees and unhooked the harness. “Is this air breathable?”
“Yes. It is very similar to the air at the market.”
Though that sounded confusing, it also sounded promising. Tem-aki took off her helmet and cautiously sniffed the air. Ew, rotten fish. Fortunately, there was also the scent of wood smoke and something oddly herbal.
Unfortunately, without the haze from the condensation, she confirmed that the white things were in fact humanoid skeletons. She didn't know what to think about expending all her energy to get to a cemetery, but assured herself that the good news was that if there were dead humanoids laid out in hand-hewn crevices, others should still be alive and hopefully they could help her find Thunder and Raine, or maybe just direct her straight to Larwin.
Chapter 4
Cameron knelt on a rough, woven reed mat in front of the fire and tried to focus on the proper tones and phrases for petitioning the creators, but odd sounds, from deep within the tunnels' black unknown depths kept distracting him. At first he thought he heard splashes, so he moved to the side, so he could see around the fire, but he still could not see into the darkness.
So, he knelt on his mat, again and spent several minutes listening, but the only noise was from the gases in the burning wood popping and spitting. Certain that his imagination was playing with him, he began the chants, again.
As his muscles relaxed, a high-pitched voice said something garbled in the depths.
Cameron jumped up, looking for whoever had dared to enter this sacred space. In the gloom, he saw something pale near the water's edge. Squinting, he realized that Saphera was crouched near the waterline. With a sigh, he knelt and began the ritual, again.
Just as his forehead touched the reeds, he felt a rush of air and felt thuds on the ground, as Saphera ran past him, then threw herself onto the dusty ground behind him, as if she was trying to hide her five-hundred-pound bulk behind his one-hundred-eighty-pound form. Dear companion that she was, Saphera had always shown excessive caution, which was why he often joked that 'fear' was the middle of her name. In fact, many snickered and called her a 'frady cat', but this was ridiculous.
She was merely cautious.
A moment later, from the other side of the blaze, he h
eard what sounded like snippets of conversation. At least it sounded like two voices uttering consonants and vowels, but there had not been one intelligible word.
Were the creators testing him because they sensed his doubts?
Testing poor Saphera, because of her timid ways?
Squaring his shoulders, Cameron focused on his duty as mediator between the creators and the faithful and began to pray, only to hear a high-pitched voice rasp, “Yes. It is very similar to the air at the market.” Chills ran down his spine at the high, thin clarity of the voice.
Were the creators speaking to him?
Why couldn't he understand what they were saying?
Unable to focus on his devotions, Cameron sat up, and saw a brief glimpse of something azure, where Saphera had been looking prior to her latest panic attack. Azure was the most sacred color. Why would she run from that? He stared without blinking, the fire's heat making his eyes water, then, he saw the apparition again. Closer this time, and fully out of the water, it knelt in front of the bones of most ancient dracos, as if paying homage.
Heart slamming against his ribs, mouth dry, Cameron forgot to breathe as he watched the miracle.
After the deity set aside its offering to the dead, it almost looked human. Then it made some odd movements and seemed to be taking off its round, crystalline crown.
The flames leaped, blocking his view.
With a gasp, he remembered to breath and then, he cautiously moved to his right, so he could see around the fire. The vision in azure was still there, and with the round hat-thing off, it had the face of a beautiful woman. Deity, really, judging by the golden halo. But it also seemed to have a second face; at least he thought the mangled mess was a face, beneath a mess of horrid, strange dark hair.
Was it part angel? Had it emerged from the underworld because it was a demon?
As he watched, the azure figure separated into two beings, the one tall, with lovely cheekbones and divine golden-reddish curls remained the sacred color, but the smaller one, which appeared to be all shades of lights and darks was pathetically homely and probably injured, since the attractive one needed to assist it to lie down properly.
He silently watched, while the azure one laid the injured one down, then knelt beside it, holding an odd black box, which it slowly moved over the sick one's head. After punching the box a few times, the golden-haired being moved it from the sick one's head, to its torso and lower. As Cameron's gaze followed the movements, he tried to understand what was being done.
Fire Island: Book 3 of The Chatterre Trilody (Chatterre Trilogy) Page 3