She rolled over slowly. The hard ground was cooler where it hadn’t been warmed by her body, and she shivered again.
“Ow!” she exclaimed as she tried to push herself up. She collapsed back to the floor and looked at her hands in the gloom. Her palms were a mess, dried blood coating a number of cuts and abrasions.
She curled her hands to protect her palms from additional abuse and pushed herself to her knees. One of her shoulders protested; she had sprained it sometime during the slide down the hill. Compared to some of her other injuries, the pain, which wouldn’t have been trivial at other times, hardly registered.
Not so her right knee as she stood and took a timid step; that pain was excruciating, and a tear rolled from the corner of her eye. She briefly remembered an explosion of pain as the knee wrenched or hyperextended, or something, during the fall; something was seriously wrong with it.
Balancing on her left foot, she looked around, expecting to see the pile of rocks at the bottom of the slope, but everything was wrong. There was a pile of rocks and dirt, but the forest she was expecting as she looked away from it was instead another rock wall. She wasn’t at the bottom of the cliff; she was somewhere else, inside a 20-foot-wide rock passageway that extended in opposite directions.
What? How did she get into a cave?
Mio looked up the steep slope, which went up about 40 feet, then reached the cave wall. Another 20 feet up the sheer side, a small hole opened to the night sky outside. The larger of Adelaide’s two moons peeked over the edge of the hole, illuminating the area in which she was standing.
She had fallen through the hole and bounced down a pile of rubble created when the cliff face caved in. Mio sighed. Even if she could make it up the pile, of which there was no guarantee in her battered state, there was no way she could climb the last 20 feet to free herself from the cave. She was trapped.
Unable to help herself or hold back the tears, she collapsed onto the floor, sobbing, wrenching her knee again in the process. The pain elicited another round of tears, and she bawled for long minutes until the cool floor chilled her again.
Drained, she rolled to her back, igniting the pain there anew. When she could see again, she looked up at the hole in the ceiling. The moon now filled the hole completely, making it easy to see just how impossible the climb would be.
No one knew she was here; no one would know to look for her. She seemed to remember a voice as she ran from the house, but she doubted whoever it was would come after her. Yelling would serve no purpose; there was no one within miles of the cave.
If she was going to get out, she would have to do it on her own, bad knee and all.
But which way to go? Although the moon illuminated the area around her, the passageway vanished into darkness in both directions. If there were other cave-ins to provide light to aid her journey, they weren’t visible. Wait! If there were other cave-ins, they also might provide another way out!
Energized by the thought, she pulled herself to her feet, temporarily ignoring the pain, but then she realized she didn’t know which way to go. Judging from the direction of the cave-in, the left passage led to the west and the end of the plateau. The plateau extended at least 10 miles to the east; she didn’t think she could make it that far.
What if neither passage extended to the end of the plateau or provided a way out?
She wasn’t going to think about that. The passage had to lead to a way out. It had to. She had never heard of tunnels beneath the plateau, but that didn’t mean anything. Humans hadn’t been on Adelaide that long—maybe in their efforts to eke out a living, there hadn’t been time for anyone to explore the plateau enough to find them.
That had to be it.
Reassured, she hobbled off to the west, staggering along next to the left wall so she could use it for support. The light dimmed the farther she traveled from the cave-in, and within 100 feet she was almost blind, struggling along with her hands on the wall to guide her.
Although she had been able to hear sounds from the outside while she was at the cave-in, the passageway was dark and as quiet as a tomb. Not a tomb! she thought hard to herself, trying to ignore the dark and the walls that seemed to press in on her.
Mio continued for another 20 steps, feeling more and more hemmed in with every step. There was no breeze; the air was still and had the faint smell of disuse and decay. The air almost smelled…dead. No, not dead! Just not used in a while. Or maybe ever. If the tunnels had been carved by water, they had to go somewhere, and they would lead her out, eventually, if she just kept walking and didn’t get too freaked out. But what if the tunnels were the result of some sort of geologic event like a lava tube? Maybe there was no exit!
Her breath came quicker and quicker, and her heart raced. Despite all the positive thinking she could muster, Mio couldn’t avoid the feeling of impending doom. She stopped, her back against the wall, and her chest heaved. She could feel danger nearby. Something in the dark waited to jump out and grab her as she passed. Her head snapped back and forth, trying to find what was hunting her, but she was unable to see it in the pitch black.
Tears flowed from the corners of her eyes. She was going to die down here in the dark, and her father would never know what had happened to her. Her heart hurt. She longed to have her father alongside her; he would have made everything all right.
With a start, she realized she did have her father with her, and her hands raced to her pockets for his memory cube. For a second, she couldn’t find it, and she was terrified she had lost it in the fall, but then her hand found its comforting presence. She pulled it from her pocket, then almost screamed in terror and frustration as she struggled to find the activating stud. Whatever was nearby was closing in on her. She only had moments to live!
She found the stud, and the image of her father sprang to life in the center of the passageway. The hologram didn’t produce much light, but it was enough in the lightless passage. Mio swept the hologram back and forth like a flashlight, looking for what had been creeping up on her, but the corridor was vacant in both directions. Nothing moved, nor was there any evidence of anyone’s passage but her own.
The hologram completed its message and turned off, and Mio’s heart rate accelerated again. She pressed the stud, and the hologram reappeared to wish her well. The hallway remained empty.
Mio took several long breaths while the message continued, periodically spinning the device to project in the opposite direction, hoping to catch whatever was terrifying her in its light. Her heart rate and breathing returned to their normal rates by the end of the cube’s third presentation, and she realized nothing was tracking her; it was all in her head.
This will never work, she thought, a wry half-smile coming to her face as she replayed the hologram. It was so dark she would miss any cross-passageways or exits if they were on the other side of the hallway. She was walking on the wrong side of the passageway; the exterior of the plateau was on the right side. If there was some sort of exit, it would have to be on that side… she needed to walk on the right or she would miss it.
She activated the message one more time and staggered across the passageway. It would be more awkward to walk on this side with her hurt knee but missing an exit in the dark would be far worse.
Mio resumed walking as the hologram disappeared, and darkness returned. The darkness no longer seemed quite so bad. Knowing she could have light whenever she needed strengthened her resolve and gave her the energy to continue.
Right hand tracing the wall as she limped along, Mio hobbled forward a while longer. How long, she didn’t know; time lost its meaning in the dark. All Mio could do was focus on putting one foot in front of the other.
Limping along, her brain in neutral as she strived to keep from dwelling on the continued pain she was in, Mio almost didn’t notice when the surface of the wall changed, and the face of the wall stuck out about six inches. The outcropping was about a foot wide with rounded corners. Mio continued on, only to find another proje
ction about 20 feet farther down the passageway. When she reached the third one, about 20 feet past the second, it finally registered on a conscious level that the formations were strange.
Needing to take a break, she sat down on the floor next to one, careful not to damage her bad knee any further, and activated the memory cube.
Mio gasped; the rock formations weren’t rock. Well, they might have been made of rock, but they were definitely not natural; someone or something had created them. The formations appeared to be some sort of pillars or braces that extended from floor to ceiling, crossed the ceiling, and were supported by other pillars on the other side of the passage.
She reached out to touch a pillar, and her finger wiped away the coating of dust that made it appear the same color as the walls of the corridor; underneath, the rock was black and obviously not natural.
The feeling that she wasn’t alone returned, and she spun the hologram back and forth, looking for anything in the passageway with her, but the corridors remained empty.
She reactivated the hologram and pointed it at the pillar. Judging by the dust, no one had been in the tunnels in a long time. Probably a really long time, she realized. The pillars would have had to be there for years to accumulate that amount of dust. At least tens of years, if not hundreds, but that couldn’t be right—that was longer than humans had been on Adelaide.
She had no idea who had put the pillars in the tunnel, but the fact that someone had excited her; if people had walked the corridors before, they would certainly have had a way out, right?
Mio struggled to her feet and continued walking. The presence of people meant she was going to get out. Unless the previous people were from a group that dwelt beneath the earth. Weren’t there stories from Terra about dwarves or trolls who lived underground? But those were just stories…dwarves and trolls didn’t really exist, did they?
Her mind raced as Mio tried to remember all the stories she had heard about dwarves and trolls. Although they were gruff, she thought the dwarves were at least friendly to humans. Trolls, though…they were bad. Not only bad, but evil and carnivorous; they ate people. As she considered the thought, she found herself using the hologram projector to illuminate the hallway more frequently.
Subconsciously, she knew the projector had a limited number of activations, but she couldn’t help herself. Every time the hologram went out, she could hear trolls moving around, their footfalls echoing her heartbeat in the enclosed space, but when she turned it back on, there was nothing to be seen.
When the hologram began to be noticeably dimmer, she forced herself to go longer and longer between activations to save the battery. When it failed, she was going to be in big trouble. And in the dark. She would definitely be in the dark when it stopped working, and she didn’t think her heart could take another round of the terrors that waited for her when the lights went out. Just having the cube and knowing she could activate it when she wanted kept her going; not having the ability to produce light when she wanted would be…devastating.
* * *
The passage seemed to continue forever, and she had stopped using the hologram altogether. Not only did she not want to burn it out, turning it on and seeing the same passage extending into the darkness for the 100th time was becoming too discouraging. It was better not to see it.
The pillars continued to line the corridor, although the newness of them wore off rapidly. She lapsed into a rhythm. 14 dragging steps, a pillar. Another 14 steps, another pillar. On and on; over and over. She stopped paying attention to the pain in her knee and her thirst, which was becoming a serious issue. It made her want to cry, but she was so dehydrated she wasn’t sure she’d be able to produce any tears.
She sat down to rest, then jerked awake. A noise had awoken her…she was sure of it. She stood up in case she had to run, the cube in her hand so she wouldn’t run into the side of the tunnel and knock herself out.
Drip.
Mio spun at the unfamiliar sound. It was the first noise she had heard in days that she hadn’t made. She listened, straining to hear, but it wasn’t repeated. She started walking again.
Drip.
Now it was behind her. She turned, pointed the memory cube behind her, and activated it. The floor on the opposite side of the corridor was discolored. She hobbled over to it. Drip. A drop of water fell from the ceiling a long way above her. She began counting; at 17, another drip fell, splashing into the small puddle on the floor. It was too small to scoop up with her hands, so she laid down on the floor and slurped it up.
Although there wasn’t much, and she didn’t want to think about what might be growing in it, the water felt wonderful on her parched throat and gave her the energy to continue.
She crossed back to the other side with a smile on her face. If there was one source of water, there might be more. She just needed to listen for them. She began counting the steps between pillars again. 12 steps with her new, energized stride brought her to the next pillar. Another 12 steps, a pillar. Another 12 steps, a pillar. The monotony soon returned, and the passage seemed to go on forever. 14 steps…
She realized the next pillar was missing, and she was still trying to stop her momentum when she walked into the wall. The toe of her boot hit first, slowing her slightly, but the impact of her face into the wall hurt enough to shock her out of the fog she’d fallen back into. Unfortunately, the collision also caused her to drop the memory cube, and she was forced to get down on the floor and crawl around to find it, fearing the whole time that she might have broken it. One of her palms tore open in her haste to find it, adding another hurt to her list of woes.
After a few seconds she had it, and she anxiously pressed the activation stud. Success! The hologram’s dim illumination outlined the wall in front of her, and what had to be a door to the right. She could see its outline in the faint light, the seam where it joined the wall so tight she had missed it when her hand had gone across it. The door was at least twice her height of just over five feet; it was probably closer to 13 or 14 feet. At seven feet wide, it was also broader than a normal door, and it had some sort of mechanical devices running across it in three places. Her hand must have gone just above the lowest one when she passed it in the dark.
Above and to the right of her nose-print in the dust of the wall, a 5-inch square metallic pad projected out two inches. Success! The way out!
She reached up and pushed the pad. It didn’t move, and the door remained shut, but the pad illuminated with a five-by-five grid. Inside each of the boxes was a golden symbol, none of which looked like the letters of any language she had ever seen. “No!” Mio exclaimed, her heart sinking. “Who puts a code on the door out?” Given the number of symbols, if it was a long enough series, she wouldn’t figure it out before she died of thirst.
Maybe it would be easy. She reached up and pushed the upper left button. It glowed dimly in the darkness as the hologram extinguished. Shrugging, she pushed the rest of the buttons on the top row in order. Each glowed when she pushed it, but all of them went out when she pushed the fifth button. The door remained shut.
“Maybe they go backward.” She reversed the pattern. The door stayed shut.
She tried going up, then she tried going down. She tried going left, then right, and then diagonally. None of the patterns appeared to have any effect.
She reached up and pushed the center symbol, then four other buttons at random. Nothing.
Darn it.
She sat down on the floor to think and turned on the hologram projector. It was noticeably dimmer; she wouldn’t have many more uses before it failed. She didn’t have to check her pockets to know she didn’t have any batteries.
She sighed as she looked up at the pad. It didn’t look any differently from below, just further away. The shadow it cast in the weak light reached up to the ceiling alongside a second shadow to its right.
What? Where did that come from? She only had a second or two before she was plunged back into the darkness.
&nb
sp; She stood back up and turned on the projector. It flickered before steadying, and she knew from past experience she’d be lucky to get two more uses out of it. She shined it up the wall; further above and to the right of the first pad, a second, smaller pad projected from the wall. She cocked her head and looked at it. It didn’t have any markings on it, but neither had the larger one until she’d activated it.
The hologram went out. She continued to stare at the place on the wall where the pad was, then reached up with her left hand to push it, but it was out of reach. She stood on her tip toes and was just able to brush the bottom of the pad with the tip of her finger.
She would have to jump, which was going to hurt. A lot.
Mio would also have to use the memory cube again, as there was no way she could jump and push the pad accurately in the dark. Mio considered her options briefly. Pushing the first pad hadn’t done her any good; it had only illuminated another pad she had no idea how to operate. If the smaller pad was similarly encoded, she would be trapped in the tunnel without any source of light beyond the dim illumination of the keys. Trying to jump was going to be difficult. Not only would the lighting be bad, her right hand and leg were her dominant ones, but because of her injuries, she would have to jump with her left leg and press the plate with her left hand.
Was it worth the risk?
Yes, she decided, and she pressed the activation stud on the memory cube before she could change her mind. For a moment, nothing happened, then the hologram flickered on as the last bit of electricity from its batteries trickled into it. Mio took a step back in the flashing light and jumped, but she misjudged her leap and fell short of the pad, landing heavily on her right leg.
Pain exploded the length of her leg, and she squeezed her eyes shut to overcome it. She opened her eyes as her father said his last, few, broken words and jumped again. The light went out as her hand extended toward the pad, and she slapped the wall at what she thought was the top of her leap. Two of her fingers hit the plate, then she landed on her right leg again. She fell to the floor as the bright light of intense pain blossomed behind her closed eyelids, before dimming to a more muted, greenish glow.
The Mutineer's Daughter Page 6